Bust of Socrates.
History and character of Socrates—Account of his death—Prosecution of John Huss and Jerome of Prague—Attempt to re–establish prelacy in Scotland—Brown—Guthrie—Reformation in England—Account of Rowland Taylor.
By strictly adhering to our intention of bringing down Greek history to the close of the Peloponnesian war, we should exclude from this volume an event which in all ages has commanded an unusual sympathy—the execution of the philosopher Socrates on the false charge of blaspheming the recognised divinities, and corrupting the young citizens of his country. But as the life and actions of this remarkable man belong almost entirely to the period included in this volume, though his death did not occur until the year B.C. 399, five years after the capture of Athens, it seems proper to give some account of him here.
Socrates was the son of Sophroniscus, a sculptor, and himself gained a livelihood by working at his father’s profession. But he devoted himself at an early age to the study of philosophy, and by the extreme simplicity and frugality of his habits was enabled to give up a very large portion of his time to that pursuit. In youth he diligently sought instruction, as far as his means permitted, from the best teachers of those branches of education which were in repute. How soon he gained notoriety as a public teacher himself, is not determined: but he must have been known before the ‘Clouds’ of Aristophanes, in which he is a leading character, was acted, B.C. 423. His conduct, however, was very different from that of the professed teachers for pay, who, at the time of which we speak, were numerous, and if successful, wealthy and influential. He gave no regular lectures in stated periods and places, he required no money from those who attended upon him, and indeed accepted no reward, either from those who heard him in public or those with whom he familiarly associated: private instruction, as a paid teacher, he refused to give, though his conversation was habitually directed to the objects of his public teaching. According to Xenophon,[179] he was always in public; in the morning he was found in frequented walks, or in the gymnasia or places of public exercise; he visited the agora, whenever it was likely to be fullest; he was seen in the evening, where–ever he was likely to meet with the greatest number of persons. Instead of saying that he gave no regular lectures, it would be more correct to say that he never lectured at all: his usual course was to entrap the person upon whom he chose to exercise his dialectic powers, into a conversation, in its outset probably of the most commonplace and unalarming description; and then, by a series of skilfully contrived questions, to lead him, if a pretender to knowledge, to expose his presumption, and ignorance of what he professed to know; or he would take a person confessedly ignorant of the things to be discussed, and lead him step by step in a succession of questions, until he obtained out of the respondent’s mouth the result at which he, the interrogator, wished to arrive.
It would be out of place to enter here upon the discussion of the abstruse question, how far and in what respects Socrates ought to be considered as the founder of a new school of philosophy.[180] Indeed to ascertain exactly what he did teach, is not now possible. Our knowledge of him is derived almost exclusively from two of his pupils, Plato and Xenophon; for all his instructions were oral; he wrote nothing. Now the memoirs (Memorabilia) of Xenophon exhibit “not the whole character of Socrates, but only that part of it which belonged to the sphere of the affections and of social life, and which bore upon the charges brought against him.”[181] In respect of the more extensive and abstruse writings of Plato, it is to be said, that though we may be satisfied that his Socrates, as a whole, is a faithful portrait, yet it is hardly possible to determine exactly what belongs to the master, and what has been deduced from, and engrafted on the doctrines of the master by the scholar. For what Plato teaches, he teaches under the name of Socrates: he advances nothing as his own, and on his own authority.[182] It is easy however, and sufficient for our present purpose, to state the grounds upon which Socrates has commanded the undying love and admiration, not of the learned only, but of all good men. There is a well–known passage of Cicero, which says, “that Socrates first drew down philosophy from heaven, and settled it in cities, and even introduced it into our homes, and made it inquire of life, and morals, and good and bad things.”[183] It is to be understood from this, not that Socrates was the first moral teacher, but that whereas earlier philosophers had directed their attention chiefly to physical and theological questions of the most unfathomable kind, such as the nature, form, and essence of divinity, the nature of matter, the origin and constitution of the universe, &c.; his instructions, on the contrary, were chiefly directed towards explaining the duties of life, and the principles on which the conduct of men in their social relations ought to be regulated. Nor is it impossible that Cicero’s phrase may have been suggested, in some degree, by the novel style of language and illustration which Socrates used, of which we shall presently speak more at length. To physical studies, Socrates, like his predecessors, had once been deeply addicted. Failing to arrive at any certain conclusions, he ceased to apply himself to such pursuits, and bent his own and his pupils’ attention to questions more nearly connected with our social and moral duties; holding, probably, not that these abstruse inquiries were pernicious, or unworthy the attention of a philosopher, but that they ought to be postponed until the understanding was enlightened upon things bearing directly upon the duties and business of life.[184] Against those who doubted or denied the existence of a God, he maintained most ably that existence, and the incorporeal and immortal nature of the soul. In his disputes with the sophists[185] and sceptics, he availed himself of a readiness and dexterity in argument superior to their own; and drawing them by an artful series of questions into inconsistencies and absurdities, exposed at once their arrogance and the falseness of their views. He stated and enforced a system of morality and religion purer and loftier than that of the Pythagoreans (the purest sect of antecedent philosophers); but unlike them, he was accessible to all, clear in all his statements, as far as possible, and ready to explain what was not understood. Ever earnest in recommending temperance, benevolence, piety, justice, and showing that man’s happiness and dignity are determined by his mind and not his fortunes, by virtue and wisdom, not by wealth and rank, his own life was the best example of his precepts. His honesty as a public functionary, we have seen tested in the prosecution of the Athenian generals after the battle of Arginusæ: his private conduct was no less exemplary. Barefooted and poorly clad, he associated with the rich and gay as with the needy, in the same spirit of cheerful goodwill: his advice and instructions were given to all without fee or reward, for his spirit was rigidly independent, and if he possessed little, he wanted less.
Such is a sketch of Socrates, as he is commonly drawn in history, and known to those who are not read in the Greek language. We have endeavoured not to exaggerate his merits; nor must it be attributed to a desire to detract from them, if we proceed to describe the social Socrates in a light which may surprise, and probably startle, many.[186] The portrait of the philosopher is, indeed, too generally known to permit them to ascribe to him that elevated cast of countenance which we associate in our minds with a character such as that just drawn: but they have most likely regarded him as sedate, dignified, and decorous in his manners and conduct. The picture, as we have it from his contemporaries, does not exactly accord with such a notion. A full conviction that what is good is in its nature unalterable, and therefore cannot consist in anything perishable, had led him to esteem what are commonly thought the advantages of life, such as health, riches, pleasure, power, unfit to be the chief objects of our desires, or motives of our actions; and he showed this in his own person by an extreme neglect of the usual luxuries, and even comforts of life. And he was fortunate, inasmuch as his self–denying principles were backed by a robust constitution; so that he was enabled, when serving as a soldier at the siege of Potidæa, to bear an unusual severity of cold with an indifference which his fellow–soldiers attributed to the desire of displaying his own hardihood at their expense. He went barefoot, even in winter; he used the same clothing, winter and summer; he eschewed the favourite Athenian luxury of unguents, and seldom indulged in that other favourite luxury, the bath.
The same eccentricity displayed itself in other parts of his conduct. While serving in the camp before Potidæa, he is said to have stood motionless for a day, from sunrise to sunrise, engaged in meditation. The peculiarity of his personal appearance[187] was well qualified to attract notice, and set off his singular habits: and some of his habits seem better suited to his personal appearance than to his real character; for in his conversation (as it is reported by Plato), he assumed a licence which has given birth to imputations against him, at variance with the purity of morals which he inculcated, and which the concurrent testimony of his followers and biographers asserts that he practised. His favourite associates were the young, among whom he was most likely to gain converts to his own opinions, and accordingly he mixed without scruple in their festivities, and even in their intemperance; though wine was never seen to affect him, and that not from abstinence in his potations. The banquet of Plato, in which Socrates, Alcibiades, Aristophanes, and others are the speakers, ends with a description of the festivities being broken up late at night, by the irruption of a party of drunken revellers, “after which things were no longer carried on regularly, but everybody was compelled to drink a great quantity of wine. On this (said Aristodemus, the relater) several of the party went away, but he himself fell asleep, and slept very abundantly, for the nights were then long. But on awaking towards daybreak, the cocks then crowing, he saw that the other guests were either gone or asleep, and that Agathon, Socrates, and Aristophanes were the only persons awake, and were drinking to the right hand out of a great bowl. Now Socrates was lecturing them: and the rest of his discourse, Aristodemus said he did not remember, for being asleep, he had not been present at the beginning. But the sum of it was, that Socrates compelled them to confess that it was the province of the same man to know how to compose comedy and tragedy, and that he who was by art a tragic poet was a comic poet also. And having been forced to assent to these things, and that without very clearly understanding them, Aristodemus said they fell asleep; and first Aristophanes went to sleep, and then, as the day broke, Agathon. And Socrates, having sent them to sleep, got up and departed; and going to the Lyceum, washed himself, as at other times, and spent the whole day there, and so in the evening went home to rest.”[188]
This is not exactly the sort of scene in which the great teacher of moral philosophy would be expected to figure; but according to the best notions we can form it is a characteristic one, whether drawn literally from the life, or freely coloured by Plato, who, it may be safely concluded, would not have invented such manners for a master whom he loved and venerated. This freedom of speech and life, combined with his personal peculiarities and uncouth and eccentric habits, led Alcibiades to compare him to the Sileni, in the workshops of statuaries, rude figures which, on being opened, showed that they contained inside precious images of the gods.[189] Such a man lay open to a large share of ridicule, and in the earlier part of his vocation as a public instructor, a plentiful share of ridicule was bestowed on him by Aristophanes in his celebrated comedy of the Clouds. At the same time he was not a person to be rashly attacked; and those who were most hostile to him, and to whom he was most hostile, especially the sophists, were for the most part roughly handled, when they ventured to engage with him in a contest of wits. Few of his followers seem to have been really attached to him; but those, to their honour and his, remained faithful and attached both to his person and memory in no common degree. But many frequented his society for a time with eagerness, to enjoy his subtlety of discourse, to be amused by the eminent discomfiture which he usually inflicted on those who ventured publicly to oppose him, and to profit by the novel style of reasoning introduced by him, which, if a powerful instrument of truth when used honestly, was not less adapted, when used skilfully and unscrupulously, to throw all the notions of a commonplace understanding into inextricable confusion. It was probably the latter motive which induced many men eminent in after–life to rank themselves, as we are told, among his pupils; especially three who are recorded to have frequented his society, Alcibiades, Theramenes, and Critias; for we can hardly suppose, from their known characters, that these men, none of them of fair political fame, however attracted by the talents, and studious to derive intellectual benefit from the society of Socrates, were in any degree influenced by the true philosophy which, under this singular coat of eccentricity, he sought to recommend. And as Socrates does not seem to have been beloved in general, even by those who sought his company, so among the citizens at large he obtained none of that gratitude which a life devoted without reward to the public service should seem likely to inspire, except that those who volunteer their services notoriously get small thanks for their pains; especially when those services are directed to enlighten ignorance, or remove prejudice. Nor were his habits calculated to conciliate favour. His self–denial and frugality of life seemed like a tacit reproach to the idle and luxurious, numerous everywhere, and more than commonly numerous at Athens. Again, the dedication of his life to gratuitous teaching, as he conducted it, was one of the most unpopular things about him. If he had given lectures at stated periods to those who chose to hear him, he might have been endured, but his life seems to have been a never–ending lecture, which is wearisome to all people. Even at the banquet he would interrupt the song and dance, the favourite amusements of the Athenians,[190] in favour of the argumentative conversations which he loved above all things: and whether at the banquet or elsewhere, stranger or acquaintance, every person who came across him was liable to be made subject to his moral dissecting knife, in a way which few would very patiently submit to. “You seem to me, O Lysimachus,” says Nicias, in Plato’s Laches, “not to be aware that whosoever may be closely connected with Socrates in argument, as if by birth, and may be attracted to him in disputation, is compelled, though the conversation may begin concerning something quite different, not to leave off, being led round and round by him in discourse, before he falls into giving an account of himself, both how he now lives, and how he has lived in past time; and that when he is thus engaged, Socrates will not let him go before he has scrutinized all these things well and fairly. Now I am used to him, and know that I must go through all this at his hands; and that I shall do so on this occasion. For I rejoice, O Lysimachus, in the company of this man, and think it no bad thing to be reminded of what we have done, or are doing, amiss.”[191]
Not less remarkable than his appearance, and well suited to it, was the language in which these familiar inquiries of Socrates were usually clothed. Constant intercourse with all classes, high and low, had given him a store of familiar illustrations, often more forcible than elegant, derived from the habits and experience of artificers, whose peculiar terms of art he loved to introduce in a style which must have contrasted oddly with the pompous language of the sophists. Alcibiades thus characterizes his style in the banquet of Plato: “A man so unlike all others as Socrates, both for himself and for his manner of conversation, one could hardly find by inquiry, either of those now living nor of old times; unless one were to liken him, as I have said, to no man indeed, but to the Silenuses and Satyrs, both him and his speech. And, in truth, I omitted this in what I said before, that his speech is very like to the figures of Silenus when opened. For if a person should wish to hear the speeches of Socrates, they would appear at first quite ridiculous; in such terms and words are they clothed outwardly, as if it were in the hide of a saucy satyr. For he talks of asses and their burdens, and of braziers, and leather–cutters, and tanners, and always seems to say the same things through the same medium; so that an unwise or unexperienced man would laugh at his words. But he who sees them open, and gets at their inside, will find, first, that they alone, of all discourses, have meaning within them; then that they are most divine, and contain most images of virtue in themselves; and reach to the greatest extent, or rather to everything, which he who wishes to be good and honourable ought to regard.”[192] Now the bulk of those who came into contact with Socrates were unwise or inexperienced; therefore they laughed at him, as Alcibiades said they would; but it is quite as probable that a large portion, especially of those who were entrapped into the sort of cross–examination above described, became angry, or, to use a familiar expression, were bored. We may fairly conjecture that Socrates had the reputation of being the greatest bore of his day;[193] and this in the laughter–loving town of Athens, would have been quite enough to neutralize all notion of gratitude for his persevering attempts to teach his countrymen that they knew little or nothing, instead of everything, as they flattered themselves, or at least everything worth knowing.
Against this man, after he had continued in this singular mode of life at least twenty–four years (for the date of the Clouds informs us that he had obtained some notoriety before the year B.C. 423, in which that comedy was acted), a criminal accusation was brought, B.C. 399, to the following effect:—“Socrates does amiss, not recognizing the gods which the state recognizes, and introducing other new divine natures, and he does amiss in that he corrupts the young.” The originator of the charge was an obscure person named Melitus, (Schleiermacher reads Meletus,) a poet, and a bad one; but he was joined by Lycon, an orator,[194] and Anytus, a man of wealth and consideration in Athens. The cause of that enmity which led to this prosecution is nowhere clearly explained. Mr. Mitford and Mr. Mitchell, who both entertain a sort of horror for democracy, attribute his condemnation to his known dislike of that form of government. With this statement, as a matter of belief, we have no ground of quarrel; if stated as a matter of fact, we know of no direct authority to support it.[195] In the apology of Plato, Socrates says, that his three accusers attacked him, “Melitus being my enemy on account of the poets, but Anytus on account of the artificers and politicians, and Lycon on account of the orators.”[196] This passage would rather suggest the notion of private enmity, which is in some degree confirmed by another passage in the apology of Xenophon, where Socrates refers the dislike of Anytus, to a comment made on his style of bringing up his son.[197] The causes of hatred ascribed to Melitus and Lycon must be explained,—the one by Socrates’ avowed contempt for the fictions of poets; the other to his equally avowed abhorrence of that system of instruction practised by the sophists; of which one, and that the most popular branch, was the teaching oratory as an art, by which any person could be enabled to speak on any subject, however ignorant concerning the real merits of it. This desire to remove Socrates existing, whatever its origin, it could not be gratified without finding some plausible ground to go upon. Nothing could be objected to his actions; as a soldier he had distinguished himself for bravery; as a public officer he had shown inflexible integrity, when the infamous vote was passed for putting to death the generals who won the battle of Arginusæ;[198] and on another occasion, as a citizen, he had refused, when ordered to apprehend Leon of Salamis,[199] at the hazard of life, to perform an act contrary to the laws. The real or alleged character of his philosophy and teaching then was the only handle against him. Of this, we have already said enough in the beginning of this chapter to show that it was difficult to find just ground of complaint against it. But to invent false charges is never difficult; and those which came readiest to hand were the same, to a certain extent, as Aristophanes, in ignorance or wantonness, had long before brought against him. “What,” he says in the Apology, “do my accusers say? It is this, ‘Socrates acts wickedly, and with criminal curiosity investigates things under the earth, and in the heavens. He also makes the worse to be the better argument, and he teaches these things to others.’ Such is the accusation; for things of this kind you also have yourselves seen in the comedy of Aristophanes: for there one Socrates is carried about, who affirms that he walks upon the air, and idly asserts many other trifles of this nature; of which things however I neither know much nor little.”[200] If we are to take this literally, it involves the charge of not believing in any gods at all, for such is the character of Socrates as given in the Clouds; a charge the falsity of which is amply proved both by Xenophon and Plato in their respective apologies. The charge of introducing new deities refers to the dæmon, or divine nature, by which Socrates professed to be guided in his conduct from a child, and which manifested itself by an internal voice, which never suggested anything, but very frequently warned him from that which he was about to do. False, however, as the charge against him was in all respects, Socrates appears to have felt that his condemnation was certain, and to have taken no pains either to avert it or to escape. The orator Lysias is said to have composed a laboured speech which he offered to the philosopher to be used as his defence, but he declined it. His trial came on before the court of Heliæa, the most numerous tribunal in Athens, in which a body of judges sat, fluctuating in number, but usually consisting of several hundreds, chosen by lot from among the body of the citizens. It was not therefore to a bench of judges such as we are used to see them, bred to the law, and presumed at least to be dispassionate and unprejudiced, but to a popular assembly, that he had to plead. Nevertheless, he abstained studiously from every means of working on the passions, even to the usual method of supplication and moving pity by the introduction of his weeping family. Such appeals he thought unbecoming his own character, or the gravity of a court of justice, in which the question of the guilt or innocence of a prisoner ought alone to be regarded. Judgment, as he expected, was pronounced against him, though only by a majority of three. By the Athenian law, the guilt of an accused person being affirmed by the judges, a second question arose concerning the amount of his punishment. The accuser, in his charge, stated the penalty which he proposed to inflict; the prisoner had the privilege of speaking in mitigation of judgment, and naming that which he considered adequate to the offence. Socrates, at this stage of his trial, still preserved the same high tone.[201] If, he said, I am to estimate my own punishment, it must be according to my merits; and as these are great, I deserve that reward which is suited to a poor man who has been your benefactor, namely, a public maintenance in the Prytaneium.[202] Death, he said, he did not fear, not knowing whether it were a change for the better or the worse. Imprisonment and exile he esteemed worse than death, and being persuaded of his own innocence, he would never be party to a sentence of evil on himself. To a fine, if he had money to pay it, he had no objection, since the loss of the money would leave him no worse off than before; and he was able to pay a mina of silver (about 4l. English), he would assess his punishment at that sum: or rather, at thirty minæ, as Plato and three other of his disciples expressed a wish to become his sureties to that amount.
This was not a line of conduct likely to excite pity, and sentence of death was passed by a larger majority than before. He again addressed a short speech to his judges, in which he tells them, that for the sake of cutting off a little from his life, already verging on the grave, they had incurred and brought on the city a lasting reproach, and that he might have escaped, if he would have condescended to use supplications and lamentations. Of his mode of defence, however, he repented not, seeing that he had rather die, having so spoken, than live by the use of unworthy methods; and that to escape death was far less difficult than to avoid baseness. He concluded by an address to the judges, who had voted for his acquittal, stating the grounds of his hopes that death would be a change for the better; the first of which is, that the dæmon had never opposed or checked his intended line of conduct during the whole of these proceedings, nor in his speeches had it ever stopped him from saying anything that he meant to say, as it was used often to do in conversation: from which he inferred, that his invisible guide had approved of all that he did, and that therefore a good thing was about to happen to him. Death, he said, was either insensibility, or a migration of the soul: in the former case, as compared with life, he esteemed it a change for the better; in the latter, if the general belief was true, what greater good could there be than to meet and enjoy the society of the great men of antiquity? Urging, therefore, these just judges to look confidently towards death, and to believe that to a good man, dead or alive, no real harm can happen; he concludes, “It is time that we should depart, I to die, you to live; but which of us to the better thing, is known to the Divinity alone.”
Death usually followed close upon condemnation: but the death of Socrates was delayed by an Athenian usage of great antiquity, said to have been instituted in commemoration of the deliverance of Attica by Theseus from the tyranny of Minos. Every year the sacred ship in which Theseus had sailed to Crete, was despatched with offerings to the sacred island of Delos; and in the interim between its departure and return no criminals were ever put to death. Socrates was condemned the evening before its departure, and consequently he was respited until its return—a period of thirty days. During this time his friends had access to him; and the dialogues of Plato, entitled Criton and Phædon, purport to be the substance of conversations held by him towards the close of this time. If he had been willing to escape, the gaoler was bribed and the means of escape prepared; but this was a breach of the laws which he refused to countenance, and he still thought, as he had said in his speech, exile to be worse than death. On the last day of his life, when his friends were admitted at sunrise, they found him with his wife and one child. These where soon dismissed, lest their lamentations should disturb his last interview with his friends and pupils: and he commenced a conversation which speedily turned on the immortality of the soul, the arguments for which, as they could best be developed by one of the acutest of human intellects, without the assistance of revelation, are summed up in that celebrated dialogue, the Phædon, which professes to relate all the events of this last day of the philosopher’s life. It concludes as follows:—
“When he had thus spoken, ‘Be it so, Socrates,’ said Criton; ‘but what orders do you leave to these who are present, or to myself, either respecting your children, or anything else, in the execution of which we should most gratify you?’ ‘What I always do say, Criton (he replied), nothing new: that if you pay due attention to yourselves, do what you will, you will always do what is acceptable to myself, to my family, and to your ownselves, though you should not now promise me anything. But if you neglect yourselves, and are unwilling to live following the track, as it were, of what I have said both now and heretofore, you will do nothing the more, though you should now promise many things, and that with earnestness.’ ‘We shall take care therefore,’ said Criton, ‘so to act. But how would you be buried?’ ‘Just as you please (said he), if you can but catch me, and I do not elude your pursuit.’ And at the same time gently laughing, and addressing himselfto us, ‘I cannot persuade Criton,’ he said, ‘my friends, that I am that Socrates who now disputes with you, and methodizes every part of the discourse; but he thinks that I am he whom he will shortly behold dead, and asks how I ought to be buried. But all that long discourse which some time since I addressed to you, in which I asserted that after I had drunk the poison I should no longer remain with you, but should depart to certain felicities of the blessed, this I seem to have declared to him in vain, though it was undertaken to console both you and myself. Be surety, therefore, for me to Criton, to the reverse of that, for which he became surety for me to the judges; for he was my bail that I should remain; but be you my bail that I shall not remain when I die, but shall depart hence, that Criton may bear it the more easily, and may not be afflicted when he sees my body burnt or buried as if I were suffering some dreadful misfortune; and that he may not say at my interment, that Socrates is laid out, or carried out, or is buried. For be well assured of this, my friend Criton, that when we speak amiss, we are not only blameable as to our expressions, but likewise do some evil to our souls. But it is fit to be of good heart, and to say that my body will be buried, and to bury it in such manner as may be most pleasing to yourself, and as you may esteem it most agreeable to our laws.’”
When he had thus spoken, he arose, and went into another room, that he might wash himself, and Criton followed him: but he ordered us to wait for him. We waited therefore accordingly, discoursing over, and reviewing among ourselves what had been said; and sometimes speaking about his death, how great a calamity it would be to us; and sincerely thinking that we, like those who are deprived of their fathers, should pass the rest of our life in the condition of orphans. But when he had washed himself, his sons were brought to him (for he had two little ones, and one older), and the women belonging to his family likewise came in to him: but when he had spoken to them before Criton, and had left them such injunctions as he thought proper, he ordered the boys and women to depart, and he himself returned to us. And it was now near the setting of the sun; for he had been away in the inner room for a long time. But when he came in from bathing he sat down, and did not speak much afterwards: for then the servant of the Eleven[203] came in, and standing near him, “I do not perceive that in you, Socrates,” said he, “which I have taken notice of in others; I mean that they are angry with me, and curse me, when, being compelled by the magistrates. I announce to them that they must drink the poison. But, on the contrary, I have found you to the present time to be the most generous, mild, and best of all the men that ever came into this place; and therefore I am well convinced that you are not angry with me, but with the authors of your present condition, for you know who they are. Now, therefore (for you know what I came to tell you), farewell; and endeavour to bear this necessity as easily as possible.” And at the same time, bursting into tears, and turning himself away, he departed. But Socrates, looking after him, said, “And thou, too, farewell; and we shall take care to act as you advise.” And at the same time, turning to us, “How courteous,” he said, “is the behaviour of that man! During the whole time of my abode here, he has visited me, and often conversed with me, and proved himself to be the best of men; and now how generously he weeps on my account! But let us obey him, Criton, and let some one bring the poison, if it is bruised; and if not, let the man whose business it is, bruise it.” “But, Socrates,” said Criton, “I think that the sun still hangs over the mountains, and is not set yet. And at the same time I have known others who have drunk the poison very late, after it was announced to them; who have supped and drunk abundantly. Therefore, do not be in such haste, for there is yet time enough.” Socrates replied, “Such men, Criton, act fitly in the manner which you have described, for they think to derive some advantage by so doing; and I also with propriety shall not act in this manner. For I do not think I shall gain anything by drinking it later, except becoming ridiculous to myself through desiring to live, and being sparing of life, when nothing of it any longer remains. Go, therefore,” said he, “be persuaded, and comply with my request.”
Then Criton hearing this, gave a sign to the boy that stood near him; and the boy departing, and having stayed for some time, came back with the person that was to administer the poison, who brought it pounded in a cup. And Socrates, looking at the man, said, “Well, my friend (for you are knowing in these matters), what is to be done?” “Nothing (he said) but, after you have drunk it, to walk about, until a heaviness takes place in your legs, and then to lie down: this is the manner in which you have to act.” And at the same time he extended the cup to Socrates. And Socrates taking it—and indeed, Echecrates—with great cheerfulness, neither trembling, nor suffering any change for the worse in his colour or countenance, but as he was used to do, looking up sternly[204] at the man. “What say you,” he said, “as to making a libation from this potion? may I do it or not?” “We only bruise as much, Socrates,” he said, “as we think sufficient for the purpose.” “I understand you,” he said; “but it is both lawful and proper to pray to the gods that my departure from hence thither may be prosperous: which I entreat them to grant may be the case.” And so saying, he stopped, and drank the poison very readily and pleasantly. And thus far indeed the greater part of us were tolerably well able to refrain from weeping: but when we saw him drinking, and that he had drunk it, we could no longer restrain our tears. And from me indeed, in spite of my efforts, they flowed, and not drop by drop;[205] so that wrapping myself in my mantle, I bewailed myself, not indeed for his misfortune, but for my own, considering what a companion I should be deprived of. But Criton, who was not able to restrain his tears, was compelled to rise before me. And Apollodorus, who during the whole time prior to this had not ceased from weeping, then wept aloud with great bitterness, so that he infected all who were present except Socrates. But Socrates, upon seeing this, exclaimed, “What are you doing, you strange men! In truth, I principally sent away the women lest they should produce a disturbance of this kind; for I have heard that it is proper to die among well–omened sounds.[206] Be quiet, therefore, and maintain your fortitude.” And when we heard this, we were ashamed, and restrained our tears. But he, when he found during his walking about that his legs became heavy, and had told us so, laid himself down on his back. For the man had told him to do so. And at the same time he who gave him the poison, touching him at intervals, examined his feet and legs. And then pressing very hard on his foot, he asked him if he felt it. But Socrates answered that he did not. And after this he pressed his thighs, and thus, going upwards, he showed us that he was cold and stiff. And Socrates also touched himself, and said that when the poison reached his heart he should then depart. But now the lower part of his body was almost cold; when uncovering himself (for he was covered), he said (and these were his last words), “Criton, we owe a cock to Æsculapius. Discharge this debt therefore for me, and do not neglect it.” “It shall be done,” said Criton; “but consider whether you have any other commands.” To this inquiry of Criton he made no reply; but shortly after moved himself, and the man uncovered him. And Socrates fixed his eyes; which, when Criton perceived, he closed his mouth and eyes. “This, Echecrates, was the end of our companion; a man, as it appears to me, the best of those whom we were acquainted with at that time, and besides this, the most prudent and just.”[207]
Such is the narration which Cicero professed himself unable to read without tears. Its celebrity and beauty will, we hope, be received as a sufficient excuse for giving this version of a passage which, as a whole, is little known in an English dress; for we must confess, that while history, both ancient and modern, abounds in events analogous in the nature of their interest to the death of Socrates, we find none which, strictly speaking, can be regarded as parallels to it. This arises in part from our hardly knowing whether to refer his prosecution and condemnation to private hatred; or to the enmity of the sophists, and the powerful party which supported them; or to the genuine zeal of religious bigotry; or to a political fear that the doctrines taught by Socrates were calculated to breed up a set of men in too little respect for the democracy. All these causes have been assigned; and whatever the motive which influenced his accusers, all may have had their influence on the judges who condemned him, as well as that unworthy pride which is expressly mentioned by Xenophon[208] as having prevented the acquittal of his master. Whether therefore we seek our instances among civil or religious persecutions, we shall scarcely find anything strictly analogous to the death of Socrates; and as we have said, it is here introduced more for the beauty of the narrative than for the sake of comparison. To that beauty, and to the talents of the historian, Socrates and his resignation owe no small share of their extraordinary celebrity. It is well remarked by Mitford, that though “the magnanimity of Socrates surely deserves admiration, yet it is not that in which he has most outshone other men. The circumstances of Lord Russell’s fate were far more trying. Socrates, as we may reasonably suppose, would have borne Lord Russell’s trial: but with Bishop Burnet for his eulogist, instead of Plato and Xenophon, he would not have had his present splendid fame.”[209]
The power of meeting an inevitable death with firmness and composure, is so far from being uncommon, that our interest in examples of it might be supposed to be deadened by their frequent occurrence. It is to be found, the outward show of it at least, in all stations, from the martyr for religion or patriotism, down to the humble and profligate sufferer who forfeits his life as a convicted felon. The fancied gaiety of Captain Macheath is as true to nature as the cheerfulness of Sir Thomas More; and the iron resolution of the murderer Thurtell enabled him to face death as composedly as Charles I. or Algernon Sidney. Still we do read with eagerness and admiration of More’s cheerful jocularity on the scaffold, of the holy resignation of Latimer, and the high–souled, yet tender and womanly deportment of Lady Jane Grey. The subject seems to possess an interest not easily exhausted. Historians therefore have seldom thought the last hours of great men unworthy of notice: and the constancy and dying professions of those who have laid down their lives for their political or religious opinions, have always been eagerly treasured up by friends and followers, as evidences both of the sincerity and truth of their belief. Yet such evidence is doubtful even in respect of the former, and null in respect of the latter; for there never perhaps was a cause important enough to challenge persecution, which did not find persons ready to suffer martyrdom for its sake.
In selecting the examples which occupy the rest of this chapter, it has been endeavoured to take such as, relating to important and spirit–stirring seasons, are yet likely not to be familiar in their details to all our readers. We do not profess that they will bear a close comparison with the prosecution of Socrates; on the contrary, we may here again express our belief that nothing can be found analogous either to the character or the history of that extraordinary man. Nor shall we attempt to make out a resemblance where no real one exists. The design of this work will be sufficiently fulfilled, if the following passages of history shall appear interesting: the lessons which they convey cannot be otherwise than profitable. The first and third refer to persecutions purely religious in their character; the second refers to what, under the appearance of a religious persecution, was in fact quite as much a plot against civil liberty.
The first embraces a short sketch of the history and death of two among the most eminent of the early Reformers, John Huss, and Jerome of Prague. John Huss, or rather John of Hussinetz (for he derived his name, according to a common usage of that time, from the place of his birth), was a Bohemian priest, educated at the University of Prague. His talents, and the simplicity and severity of his life, raised him through subordinate stations to the high office of Rector of the University. By some means, the nature of which is not quite clear, the opinions and works of our venerable Wiclif, the first translator of the Bible into the English tongue, were conveyed into Bohemia towards the close of the fourteenth century. They struck deep root in that soil: a circumstance to be attributed in no small degree to the effect produced by Wiclif’s character and doctrines upon the mind of Huss; who conceived so deep a veneration for his preceptor, that in his sermons to the people in the chapel of Bethlehem (a chapel endowed by a pious citizen of Prague, to enable two preachers to address the lower orders in the Bohemian tongue), he is said often to have addressed his earnest vows to Heaven, that “whensoever he should be removed from this life, he might be admitted to the same regions where the soul of Wiclif resided; since he doubted not that he was a good and holy man, and worthy of a habitation in heaven.”[210] Already eminent for his philosophical attainments, Huss had obtained another kind of celebrity, so early as the year 1405, by these sermons, in which he inveighed powerfully against the extortions and corruptions by which the papal hierarchy had disfigured the purity of Christian faith. He continued to preach, unchecked, till the year 1409, when the Archbishop of Prague commenced open war on the new doctrines, by ordering all members of the university who possessed Wiclif’s writings to bring them in, that those which were found to be heretical might be publicly burnt. Two hundred volumes are said to have been thus destroyed. Huss, and other members of the university, appealed to the Pope; but, as might have been expected, their cause took an unfavourable turn, and the Archbishop was empowered to suppress the doctrines of Wiclif within his diocese. Huss, however, with his friend, pupil, and fellow–sufferer, Jerome of Prague, master of theology in the university, continued to preach: and the people followed them, in spite of the combination and determined opposition of the clergy in general. Huss was in consequence summoned to appear at Rome. He refused to place himself in the power of the Pope, but sent three deputies to plead his cause. The deputies were insulted and maltreated, and he himself was declared guilty of contumacy, and excommunicated. Against this censure he published a formal protest, in which, after reciting authorities to justify the step which he was taking, narrating his excommunication, and explaining the injustice and informality of the proceedings under which he was condemned, he concludes, “It is therefore manifest that, none of these conditions being fulfilled in my case, I am acquitted before God of the crime of contumacy, and am unbound by a pretended and frivolous excommunication. I, John Huss, present this appeal to Jesus Christ, my master and just judge, who knows and protects the just cause of every one.”[211]
He continued accordingly to preach at Prague till early in the year 1413, when the Archbishop interposed, and Huss retired, apparently to the place of his birth. But he continued to write, and his doctrines were readily received by the Bohemians, though zealously opposed by the great body of the clergy. On the meeting of the Council of Constance, in 1414, Huss was called before it, to declare and to defend his opinions. He had disobeyed the summons of the Pope, but he recognised the authority of the church in its general council, and obeyed its call with alacrity. It seems to have been his earnest desire to explain the grounds of his faith, and to confess his error, if he could be convinced of error, in those points wherein he differed from the received doctrines of the church. With this view, before he went to Constance, he appeared before a synod of the clergy held at Prague, with the express view of declaring and supporting his peculiar tenets: and when permission to do so was refused, he affixed placards in places of public resort, in which he expressed his intention of appearing at Constance, and invited all who had any complaint to make against him to appear in support of it.[212]
The charges against Huss may be reduced to two heads (unless indeed they should rather be considered as one): that he was a follower of Wiclif, and that he was infected with the “leprosy of the Vaudois.” The opinions contained under the latter charge are thus enumerated (with the exception of a few particulars), from Æneas Sylvius,[213] by Mr. Waddington; it being premised that, of those thus imputed to him, Huss expressly disavowed many. “The most important of them were these:—that the Pope is on a level with other bishops; that all priests are equal, except in regard to personal merit; that souls, on quitting their bodies, are immediately condemned to eternal punishment, or exalted to everlasting happiness; that the fire of purgatory has no existence; that prayers for the dead are a vain device, the invention of sacerdotal avarice; that the images of God and the saints should be destroyed; that the orders of mendicants were invented by evil spirits; that the clergy ought to be poor, subsisting on eleemosynary contributions; that it is free to all men to preach the word of God; that any one guilty of mortal sin is thereby disqualified for any dignity, secular or ecclesiastical; that confirmation and extreme unction are not among the holy rites of the church; that auricular confession is unprofitable, since confession to God is sufficient for pardon; that the use of cemeteries is without reasonable foundation, and inculcated for the sake of profit; that the world itself is the temple of the omnipotent God, and that those only derogate from his majesty who build churches, monasteries, or oratories; that the sacerdotal vestments, the ornaments of the altars, the cups and other sacred utensils, are of no more than vulgar estimation; that the suffrages of the saints who reign with Christ in heaven are unprofitable and vainly invoked; that there is no holiday excepting Sunday; that the festivals of the saints should by no means be observed; and that the fasts established by the church are equally destitute of divine authority.” Of these doctrines, whether truly or falsely imputed to Huss, many were of a nature to excite the anger of a corrupt and avaricious priesthood; and he is said to have added another still more calculated to prejudice the minds of his judges against him: he maintained that tithes were strictly eleemosynary, and that it was free for the owner of the land to withhold or pay them according to the measure of his charity. He also maintained the right of the laity to participate in the sacramental cup. It appears from a short treatise, written in the year 1413, and exposed to public view at the chapel of Bethlehem, entitled ‘Six Errors,’ that he denied to the priesthood the power of granting remission of punishment and absolution from sin; that he condemned the doctrine, that obedience is due to a superior in all things; that he maintained that an unjust excommunication was not binding on the person against whom it was levelled; and that he condemned as heretical the simoniacal offences against canon law, of which he accused a large portion of the clergy. He also in his sermons condemned as useless prayers for the souls of the dead, though it appears in the same sermon that he believed in purgatory; and rebuked the avarice of the priests, by whom the practice of exacting large presents, as the price of ransoming souls from purgatory by their masses, had been invented.[214]
The readiness of Huss to face the Council is not to be ascribed to ignorance of the risk which he was about to incur. He addressed a letter to one of his friends, with a request indorsed, that it might not be opened, except in case of his death: it contained a species of confession. He also wrote an exhortation to his Bohemian congregation, in which he urges them to remain constant in the doctrine which he had faithfully preached to them; expresses his belief, that he should meet with more enemies at the council than Christ had at Jerusalem; prays for health and strength to maintain the truth to the last, resolved to suffer any extremes, rather than betray the Gospel from any cowardice; requests the prayers of his friends in his behalf; and speaks very doubtfully of his return, expressing his willingness to die in God’s cause.[215] Yet if good faith were necessarily inherent in high rank, he had no reason to fear. The Emperor Sigismond gave him a safe conduct, pledging himself, and enjoining his subjects, to facilitate and secure the safe passage of Huss to and fro: and Pope John XXIII. professed, “though John Huss should murder my own brother, I would use the whole of my power to preserve him from every injury, during all the time of his residence at Constance.” He arrived in that city in November, 1414. But the first proceedings of the Council showed that anything rather than an impartial hearing was intended. Huss was committed to close custody, and denied the privilege of being heard by an advocate, though he lay sick in prison; on the ground that the canon law allowed no one to undertake the defence of persons suspected of heresy. Meanwhile, he was harassed with private interrogatories, and denied a public audience before the assembled Council. This right he demanded with urgency; and the interference of the Emperor Sigismond, who seems to have felt in this instance what was due to one who was placed under his protection, procured it for him. Early in June, 1415, the Council was convened, to hear the charges against him, and his defence. The first charge was read, and he began to reply: but when he appealed to Scripture, as the authority on which his doctrines were founded, his voice was overwhelmed with clamour. He ceased: but when he again attempted to speak, the clamour was renewed; and the assembly adjourned in confusion to June 7, on which day the Emperor was requested to preside in person. His presence secured more decency of proceeding. The charges brought against Huss were based chiefly on his supposed adherence to the doctrines of Wiclif (concerning the truth of which it was needless to dispute, since they had already been condemned by the Council, May 4, 1415), and on his opinion as to the administration of the Eucharist. The arguments which he was permitted to adduce were received, as before, with shouts of derision, and the assembly adjourned to the following day. It happened, and the coincidence was calculated to make a deep impression on the minds of those who inclined to his doctrines, that on that day an eclipse of the sun took place, which was total at Prague, and nearly total at Constance.
His audience was renewed on the following day. Of the opinions imputed to him, he rejected some, and admitted others; and those which he did admit, he defended temperately and reasonably. The hearing being closed, he was required by the Council to retract his errors. It does not appear that any distinction was made between those which he admitted and those which he denied: the Council assumed, that he held certain opinions, and he was called to recant them in the gross, or to seal his adherence to them by martyrdom. His reply bears testimony to the purity of his motives and to the humility of his temper. “As to the opinions imputed to me, which I have never held, those I cannot retract; as to those which I do indeed profess, I am ready to retract them, when I shall be better instructed by the Council.” The Emperor, who had taken an active part in persuading him to save himself by submission,[216] now avowed his opinion, that “among the errors of Huss, which had been in part proved, and in part confessed, there was not one which did not deserve the penal flames;” and “that the temporal sword ought instantly to be drawn, for the chastisement of his disciples, to the end that the branches of the tree might perish, together with its root.” The Council was not slow to inflict the penalty thus recommended. Huss was remanded to prison: his constancy was severely tried by a month’s imprisonment, in which every means of persuasion and solicitation were used to induce him to retract, and live. But he continued calm and resolved, in a strain of mind equally removed from pride and stubbornness, and from laxity and indifference, replying to those who urged him to abjure his belief, that “he was prepared to afford an example in himself of that enduring patience which he had so frequently preached to others, and which he relied on the grace of God to grant him.” He retained this temper to the end; and in this he may serve as a pattern or a rebuke to many persons, who, though zealous for the truth, have shown in the character of martyrs as much of bigotry and intolerance as their persecutors; and this temper was shown nowhere more beautifully than in one of his last trials, “if indeed (we quote from Mr. Waddington) we can so designate the upright counsel of a faithful and virtuous friend, for such was the circumstance which completed and crowned the history of his imprisonment; and it should be everywhere recorded, for the honour of human nature. A Bohemian nobleman, named John of Chlum, had attended Huss, whose disciple he was, through all his perils and persecutions, and had exerted throughout the whole affair every method that he could learn or devise to save him. At length, when every hope was lost, and he was about to separate from the martyr for the last time, he addressed him in these terms: ‘My dear master, I am unlettered, and consequently unfit to counsel one so enlightened as you. Nevertheless, if you are secretly conscious of any one of those errors which have been publicly imputed to you, I do entreat you not to feel any shame in retracting it; but if, on the contrary, you are convinced of your innocence, I am so far from advising you to say anything against your conscience, that I exhort you rather to endure every form of torture, than to renounce anything which you hold to be true.’ John Huss replied with tears, that God was his witness, how ready he had ever been, and still was, to retract on oath, and with his whole heart, from the moment he should be convicted of any error, by evidence from the Holy Scripture.”[217] He confirmed this assertion in a letter, written on the eve of his execution, to the Senate of Prague, warning them that he had retracted and abjured nothing, but was ready to abjure and express his detestation of every proposition extracted from his books which could be proved contrary to Scripture.
Thus passed the month between his trial and his execution, not in struggles to avoid, but in preparation to meet his fate. “God,” he said, “in his wisdom, has reasons for thus prolonging my life.” On the 15th of July, he was brought before the Council for the last time. He listened on his knees while his sentence was read; and though it was endeavoured to prevent him from speaking, he asserted from time to time the falsehood of some of the charges brought against him. That of obstinacy, for instance, he repelled hardily. “This,” he said, “I deny boldly. I always have, and do still desire to be better instructed by Scripture; and assert, that I am so zealous for the truth, that if by one word I could overthrow the errors of all heretics, there is no peril which I would not face for that end.” Against the condemnation of his books he protested, because hitherto no errors had been shown to exist in them, and because, being chiefly written in Bohemian, or translated into languages understood by few of the members, the Council could not read, nor understand, nor, by consequence, legitimately condemn them. At the close of the sentence, he called God to witness his innocence, and offered a prayer that his judges and accusers might find pardon. Nothing then remained but to proceed to his degradation; and it may not be irrelevant to give a short account of the forms used in this ceremony, childish as they may appear. Certain bishops, appointed to perform this office, caused Huss to be robed in his full sacerdotal vestments, and a cup to be placed in his hand, as if he were going to perform mass. As they put upon him a long white robe, named the aube, he said, “Our Saviour was clothed, in mockery, in a white robe, when sent by Herod before Pilate:” and he made similar reflections as the other ensigns of the sacred functions were successively put upon him. Being thus dressed, the bishops again exhorted him to recant; but turning to the people, he declared in a loud voice, that he never would offend and seduce the faithful by a declaration so full of hypocrisy and impiety, and thus publicly protested his innocence. Then the bishops took from him the chalice, reciting the words, “O cursed Judas, who having forsaken the counsel of peace, hast entered into that of the Jews, we take away this cup, &c.,” according to the common formula for degrading a priest. On this, Huss said aloud, that through the mercy of God, he hoped that day to drink of that cup in his kingdom. The bishops then took away his sacerdotal garments, one after the other, pronouncing some malediction at the removal of each. When they came to obliterate the tonsure, the mark of priesthood, a ludicrous question arose, whether scissors or razors should be used; and after a warm debate, it was decided in favour of the former. His hair was closely cropped, a pyramidal paper cap, an ell high, painted with figures of devils, and inscribed “Heresiarch,” was put on his head; and thus attired, the prelates charitably consigned his soul to the infernal devils.[218] Divested thus of the sacred character of priesthood, he was delivered over to the secular power, represented by the Emperor, under whose safe–conduct he had repaired to Constance, and who had yet openly given his voice for causing the heretic to expiate his errors by the torments of fire. The Emperor charged the Elector Palatine with the duty of seeing the penalties of the law inflicted: and it is said, that a succeeding elector, the descendant in the fourth generation of the person thus employed, who was a favourer of the Reformation, and dying childless, witnessed the extinction of his line, was wont to attribute that misfortune to the anger of Heaven, punishing in the fourth generation the bigoted and cruel eagerness with which his ancestor had executed the unholy task intrusted to him on this occasion.
Huss was immediately conducted to the stake, and suffered his agonizing death with unshaken firmness. It is told by an old writer of his life, that the people said, hearing the fervency of his address to God, “We do not know what this man has done before; but now, we hear him offer up excellent prayers.” His ashes were carefully collected and cast into the Rhine, lest they should serve to keep up the affection of his friends: but the precaution was vain, for we are told[219] that the very earth of the spot on which he was burnt was collected as a sacred relic, and carried into Bohemia by his disciples.
Before the fate of Huss was determined, the Council had wreaked a tardy vengeance on his forerunner and preceptor Wiclif, whose body was ordered “to be taken from the ground, and thrown far away from the burial of any church.” After the lapse of thirteen years, the empty insult was most effectually executed, by disinterring and burning the reformer’s body, and casting the ashes into a neighbouring brook. The often quoted words of Fuller on this occasion may be equally well applied to the good man whose history has just been related:—“The brook did convey his ashes into Avon; Avon into Severn; Severn into the narrow seas; they into the main ocean. And thus the ashes of Wiclif are the emblem of his doctrine, which now is dispersed all the world over.”
Jerome of Prague has been already mentioned as the most distinguished among Huss’s followers, and his coadjutor in preaching. He also was summoned to Constance in the spring of 1415, before Huss had suffered martyrdom; and it was probably in consequence of witnessing his companion’s sufferings that he was induced to retract, to condemn in the strongest terms, as blasphemous and seditious, the tenets which in his heart he still continued to hold, and to profess his entire adherence to all the doctrines of the Roman church. Fortunately he was not left to endure through life the reproaches of conscience; for the continued enmity and mistaken persecution of his adversaries conferred a benefit on him which they were far from intending. He was still retained in confinement, and harassed with fresh charges, though his retractation had been ample and complete: for there were many who thought that hostility to the hierarchy could not be expiated except by blood. At last he obtained a public audience before the Council, on the 23rd of May, 1416; when he recalled his former recantation, confessing that it had been dictated only by the fear of a painful death. There is a close coincidence between the history of Jerome, and that of the father of our English church, Cranmer, who suffered a similar death in the following century. Both swerved through the influence of fear from the path of duty: both were punished for their weakness by being treacherously deprived of that temporal advantage which was the price of their apostacy; and, being recalled by that mistaken malice to their duty, both redeemed their virtue, and have obtained eternal honour in exchange for a short and shameful breathing–time on earth. Poggio the Florentine, who was a witness of the whole course of Jerome’s trial, has left a long and interesting account of it in a letter to Leonardo Aretino, from which it appears that his sympathy had been strongly excited by the constancy of the sufferer. Though connected with the highest dignitaries of the church, he writes in such a strain of admiration, that his friend thought it necessary to warn him of the danger which he might incur by speaking of a condemned heretic in such terms. The letter will be found entirely translated in Mr. Shepherd’s Life of Poggio Bracciolini, from which the following description of Jerome’s final sufferings is extracted:—“No stoic ever suffered death with such constancy of mind; when he arrived at the place of execution he stripped himself of his garments, and knelt down before the stake, to which he was soon after tied with ropes and a chain. Then great pieces of wood, intermixed with straw, where piled as high as his breast. When fire was set to the pile, he began to sing a hymn, which was scarcely interrupted by the smoke and flame. I must not omit a striking circumstance, which shows the firmness of his mind. When the executioner was going to apply the fire behind him, in order that he might not see it, he said, Come this way, and kindle it in my sight; for if I had been afraid of it, I should never have come to this place. Thus perished a man in every respect exemplary, except in the erroneousness of his faith. I was a witness of his end, and observed every particular of its process. He may have been heretical in his notions, and obstinate in persevering in them: but he certainly died like a philosopher. I have rehearsed a long story; as I wish to employ my leisure in relating a transaction which far surpasses the events of ancient history. For neither did Mutius suffer his hand to be burnt so patiently as Jerome endured the burning of his whole body; nor did Socrates drink the hemlock as cheerfully as Jerome submitted to the fire.”
If it were really hoped to purge the dross of heresy from Bohemia by this fiery ordeal, the result is another lesson to prove the inutility of combating opinion by violence. The nobility considered the breach of the Emperor’s safe–conduct as an insult to the kingdom of Bohemia: the commons, prepared for rebellion against the spiritual dominion of Rome, and inflamed by the fate of their loved and venerated teachers, broke into acts of violence. Fresh measures of provocation on each side soon led to extremities; a crusade was proclaimed against Bohemia by Pope Martin V., and headed by the Emperor Sigismond; and the quarrel was thus fairly committed to the arbitration of the sword. Enthusiasm made up for the apparent inequality of force: the insurgents assumed the name of Taborites, named the mountain on which they pitched their tents Tabor, and stigmatized their neighbours by the names of the idolatrous nations from whom the Israelites won the Holy Land. They often defeated the armies of the church, and maintained their ground so firmly, that in 1433 the Council of Basle endeavoured to invite their leaders to a conference. This attempt at pacification failed; but it taught the Catholics how to avail themselves of the religious differences which distracted these enthusiastic men: and in 1436, the church and the Emperor gained the final ascendency, more by civil discord than by the sword. But in the fifteenth century, a numerous party in Bohemia preserved the faith for which Huss and Jerome had suffered, and their fathers had fought; and received with joy the ampler reformation preached by Luther.
The second subject which we have proposed to notice belongs to a period of much interest in British history, that of the fruitless attempt of Charles II. to re–impose episcopacy upon the Scottish nation. Few spectacles are more elevating and more improving than the patient endurance of evil for conscience’ sake even in an individual; and it is still more impressive, where a multitude are actuated by common feelings and a common principle. Such was the case with the persecuted body of the Scottish Presbyterian recusants; and if there be any to whom the questions, whether a written ritual or extemporaneous prayer should be used, whether the Episcopal or Presbyterian form of church government should prevail, appear insufficient grounds of dispute to justify a civil war, it is to be remembered that in this case the aggression was entirely on the side of the government; that Charles II. had more than once taken the Covenant, the mere refusal to abjure which was now thought worthy of death; that the rebels, if that name be applicable to them, sought nothing more than liberty to serve God after their own consciences; and further, that the arbitrary violence which would have annulled the established church of Scotland, to substitute another which the bulk of the nation hated, was only one of that series of mistaken and criminal measures which led to the expulsion of the House of Stuart from the throne. Upwards of three hundred ministers were driven from their livings in one day, to derive a scanty maintenance from their poor but zealous hearers: but these men neither offered resistance, nor preached rebellion, until they were debarred from performing their pastoral office. And even when they and their followers did take arms, it was originally in self–defence, to protect meetings for the peaceable purpose of divine worship, held in the wildest recesses of the trackless hills, from the fury of a most licentious soldiery, which even that strict concealment could not mitigate or elude. That the better cause was disgraced by some extravagances and crimes, and that it gave rise in some to a morose and gloomy spirit of fanaticism, will not surprise any who have considered the effect of persecution, which, the very converse of mercy, is twice cursed in its operation, a curse on him who inflicts, as on him who suffers. Driven to assemble in moss and mountain, girt with their swords, and prepared to defend life and faith by the strong hand, it is no wonder if these men turned in preference to the warlike pages of the sacred records, and in tone, and conduct, and phraseology imitated the martial leaders and reformers of Judæa, rather than the milder teachers of the religion which it was their boast to hold fast in its utmost purity. Continually occupied by the thought of death, engaged in a constant struggle to subdue their natural fears and affections into the resolution to serve the Lord after what they deemed the only true faith, and to abide in him to the uttermost, it is no wonder that Cameron, Cargill, Peden, and other zealous preachers, whose rude and stern eloquence roused the Scottish peasant to the indurance of martyrdom, in many instances lost sight of reason in enthusiasm, and in some, themselves or their followers, committed acts which rendered them justly amenable to legal punishment.[220] It forms, however, no part of our subject to enter into a defence of their conduct or doctrine. The lofty spirit of resignation in which they met their fate is the only point in their history which admits of comparison with the subject–matter of this chapter: and in this respect, the Athenian philosopher had no advantage over the humblest of these unlettered peasants. The stories of their resignation, nay of their exultation in the hour of trial, have been preserved by tradition; and their scattered graves in the wild moorlands of Southern Scotland are still regarded with veneration and affection. May it be long before a feeling dies away, so well calculated to keep alive a hatred of oppression, and a strong sense of the importance of religion!