III. The four divisions of the Quadrivium were grouped together as the mathematical arts; and six years were allotted to their study. 1. In geometry the discipline did not include the learning of theorems and problems as set forth in the Elements of Euclid, but merely an acquaintance with the definitions and with the ordinary plane and solid figures.[897] The teaching in this section, however, was mainly of geography.[898] It was asserted doubtfully that the earth was a globe and that there was an inferior hemisphere of which nothing certain could be predicated.[899]
2. Arithmetic was not practised methodically by the setting of sums to be worked out by the pupils, but consisted chiefly in demonstrating the more obvious properties of numbers, such as odd, even, prime, perfect, etc., together with many fanciful absurdities.[900] Operations with figures were indicated verbally in a disconnected manner; multiplication tables to be learnt by heart had not been invented; the higher rules and decimal fractions were unknown.
3. Systematic astronomy at this period and for long after, as is well known, was conceived of on false principles which, whilst admitting of the correct solution of some problems, such as the prediction of eclipses, left the vastness of the universe and its physical constitution totally unapprehended. All the heavenly bodies were regarded as mathematically, if not teleologically disposed about the earth, to which as a centre even the fixed stars, at varying and immeasurable distances as they are, were constrained fantastically by a revolving sphere of crystal.[901] The reasoning, however, by which these views were upheld was not sufficiently convincing to gain universal acceptance; and the outlines of the science communicated to students generally received some modifications from the minds of individual teachers.[902] Much of the course was taken up with treating of the constellations and the zodiac, not without a tincture of astrology, and some primitive observations on meteorology were included.[903]
4. Music as known to us is virtually a modern creation; and that of the Greeks would doubtless impress us as a wild and disorderly performance, adapted only to the ears of some semi-barbaric people of the East. Their most extended scale did not range beyond eighteen notes;[904] in order to obtain variety their only resource was a shift of key, that is, a change of pitch, or the adoption of a different mode, that is, of a gamut in which the semitones assumed novel positions; and their harmony was restricted to the consonance of octaves. Time was not measured according to the modern method, but there was a rhythm fixed in relation to the various metres of poetic verse. Their usual instruments were the pipe or flute, the lyre, a simple form of organ,[905] and, of course, the human voice. Practically, therefore, their music consisted of melody of a declamatory or recitatival type, to which a peculiar character was sometimes given by the use of quarter tones; and choral singing was purely symphonic. But the vibrational numbers of the scale had been discovered by Pythagoras when making experiments with strings; and each of the eighteen notes and fifteen modes had received a descriptive name. Hence the limited scope of the art did not prevent the theory of music from ultimately becoming elaborated with a complexity not unworthy of the native subtlety of the Greeks.[906] In practice the musical training of pupils consisted in their learning to sing to the lyre.[907]
Such in brief were the component parts of a liberal education, with which, however, under the name of philosophy, it was considered essential that a complement of ethical teaching should be conjoined. This complement was digested into three branches, under which were discussed the duty of the individual to himself, to the household, and to the community at large or to the state.[908]
IV. It now remains for us to glance at the more protracted training of those who had resolved to devote their lives to some particular sphere of activity. Aspirants for the position of professor of the liberal arts, or who wished to utilize their acquirements in a political career, would continue and extend their studies on the lines above indicated; but those who intended to follow the professions of law or physic, or engage in practice of art proper, had to direct their energies into new channels.
1. As the administration of the Empire was almost monopolized by the members of the legal profession, it may be inferred that the throng of youths intent on becoming lawyers fully equalled in number the students of every other calling. Hence we find that not only were schools of law established in every city of importance, notably Constantinople, Alexandria, and Caesarea, but that a provincial town of minor rank obtained a unique celebrity through the teaching of jurisprudence. Berytus, on the Syrian coast, in the province of Phoenicia, with an academic history of several centuries[909] at this date, had attained to that position; and was habitually spoken of as the “mother” and “nurse of the laws.”[910] Four jurists of eminence, double the number allotted to any other school, under the title of Antecessors, lectured in the auditorium;[911] and a progressive course of study was arranged to extend over five years. In each successive year the candidate assumed a distinctive designation which marked his seniority or denoted the branch of law on which he was engaged.[912] Before the sixth century the legal archives of the Empire had been swollen to such proportions that it had become an almost impossible task to thread the maze of their innumerable enactments. During the lapse of a thousand years the constitutions of the emperors had been engrafted on the legislation of the Republic, and the complexity of the resultant growth was capable of bewildering the most acute of legal minds. On three occasions, beginning from the time of Constantine, attempts had been made to separate and classify the effective laws;[913] and the Code of Theodosius II, published in 438, the only official one, was at present in force. But this work, executed in a narrow spirit of piety which decreed that only the enactments of Christian emperors should be included, was universally recognized as both redundant and insufficient. A still wider entanglement existed in the literature which had accumulated around the interpretation and application of the statutes; during the administration of justice a myriad of perplexing points had arisen to exercise the keenest forensic judgement in order to arrive at equitable decisions; and it was estimated that two thousand treatises, emanating from nearly forty authors, contained in scattered passages matter essential to a correct apprehension of the principles and practice of the law.[914] Such was the arduous prospect before a legal student who desired to win a position of repute in his profession.[915]
2. As Berytus had become famous for its law school, so Alexandria, and even some centuries earlier, had gained a noted pre-eminence as a centre of medical education;[916] but with respect to the course of study and the methods of instruction no details have come down to us. We have seen that the regulations for the establishment of the auditorium at Constantinople did not provide for a chair of physic, whence it may be inferred that it was left entirely to those who had attained to the position of senior or arch-physician to organize the teaching and training of pupils. The public medical officers, who attended the poor at their own homes or in the nosocomia or hospitals existing at this date,[917] would doubtless have excellent opportunities for forming classes and rendering students familiar with the aspect and treatment of disease. The medical and surgical science of antiquity had come to a standstill by the end of the second century, when the indefatigable Galen composed his great repertory of the knowledge of his own times. That knowledge comprised almost all the details of macroscopic anatomy, but had advanced but a little way towards solving the physiological problems as to the working of the vital machine. The gross absurdities of the preceding centuries had, however, been finally disposed of, such as that fluids passed down the windpipe into the lungs,[918] or that the arteries contained air.[919] Ordinary operations were performed freely; and the surgeon was conscious that it was more creditable to save a limb than to amputate it.[920] Three centuries before the Christian era Theophrastus had laid the foundations of systematic botany, as had his master Aristotle those of zoology and comparative anatomy.[921] The resources of therapeutics were extensive and varied, but the action of drugs was not well understood. Remedies were compounded not only from the vegetable kingdom, but also with animal substances[922] to an extent which seems likely to be equalled by the more precise medication with the principles of living tissues gaining ground at the present day. Knowledge of minerals, however, was too deficient for such bodies to take a prominent place in pharmacology.[923]
3. The arts of Greece, after having flourished in perfection from the time of Pericles to that of Alexander in the various departments of architecture, sculpture, painting, and literature, remained dormant for some centuries until the establishment of universal peace under the dominion of Rome provided a new theatre for their exercise. Fostered in the Augustan age by the indolence and luxury of the Imperial city, which offered the prospect of fortune to every artist of ambition and talent, they were communicated to the Latins, who strove earnestly to imitate and equal their masters. The exotic art bloomed on the foreign soil to which it had been transplanted; and the Italians, if they never displayed creative genius or originality of conception, at least learned to reproduce with consummate skill and novelty of investment the emanations of Hellenic inspiration. But the elements of permanency were wanting to such factitious aptitudes, as they were in fact to the fabric of the Empire itself; and the wave of political stability was closely followed in its rise and fall by the advance or decline of the arts. After the reign of Augustus the tide of prosperity ebbed for about half a century until it reached its lowest level during the Civil Wars which heralded the settlement of Vespasian on the throne. It rose again, and for more than fifty years maintained an active flow during the reigns of Trajan and Hadrian, subsequent to which its course is marked by a gently descending line, under the benign rule of the Antonines, until it sinks somewhat abruptly in the temporary dissolution of the Empire, which preceded the triumph of Severus. Thenceforward, but two centuries from its foundation,[924] the sovereignty of Rome entered on shoals and quicksands, calamity succeeded calamity, and a position of stable equilibrium was never afterwards regained; but in the vicissitudes of fortune before the final catastrophe, an illusive glow appeared to signalize more than once a return of the supremacy of the Caesars.[925]
By the time of Constantine the neglect and degradation of art had become so pronounced that artists could scarcely be found competent to execute, even in an inferior style, any monumental record of the events of the age; or for the construction of the public buildings so lavishly planned by that monarch in his attempted renovation of the Empire.[926] To meet the difficulty he promulgated decrees, which were kept in force and multiplied by his successors, with the view of stimulating his subjects to devote themselves to arts and the allied handicrafts. Immunity from all civil burdens was guaranteed; and salaries, with the free occupation of suitable premises in public places, were offered to those who would undertake to teach.[927] These measures undoubtedly tended to the elevation of taste and the maintenance of civilization, although they could not infuse a new genius into the people of a decadent age.
At the opening of the sixth century Constantinople was the focus of civilization not only in the East, but also with respect to those western countries which had until lately been united as members of the same political system. The suzerainty of the eastern Emperor was still tacitly allowed, or, at least, upheld; and the prestige of his capital was felt actively throughout the ruder West as a refining influence which only waned after the period of the Renaissance. The main characteristic of art at this epoch is an unskilled imitation of ancient models; and the conventional style regarded as typically Byzantine, which at one time prevailed so widely in Europe, was not to become apparent for many centuries to come.[928] But by the fifth century certain modifications of design, betraying the infiltration of Oriental tastes, also began to be observable.[929]
a. Architecture at Constantinople remained essentially Greek, or, at least, Graeco-Roman; and the constant demand for new buildings, especially churches, ordained that it should still be zealously studied. In the provinces, however, particularly on the Asiatic side, some transitional examples would have enabled an observer to forecast already an era of cupolar construction.[930]
b. On the other hand, statuary almost threatened to become a lost art. The devotion to athletic contests, which prevailed among the Greeks, caused them to lay great stress on physical culture; and at the public games, as well as in the preparatory gymnasia, they were constantly familiarized with the aspect of the human figure undraped in every phase of action and repose.[931] The eye of the artist thus acquired a precision which enabled him to execute works in marble with a perfection unapproached in any later age. To the anthropomorphic spirit of polytheism it was necessary that the images of the gods should be multiplied in temples and even in public places; and the Greeks essayed to express the ideal beauty of their divinities under those corporeal forms which appeared most exquisite to the human senses. Received as being of both sexes and as fulfilling the conception of faultless excellence in a variety of spheres, a boundless field lay open before the artist in which to represent them according to their diverse attributes of sovereignty, of intellect, or of grace.[932] But the traditions of Hebrew monotheism sternly forbid any material presentation of the Deity, and sculpture in the round was almost abolished at the advent of Christianity. In one minor department, however, that of ivory carving, a school of artists was constantly exercised in order to provide the annual batch of consular diptychs, which it was customary to distribute throughout the provinces every new year.[933] On each set of these plates, figured in low relief, appeared generally duplicate likenesses of the consul of the day, clad in his state robes and surrounded by subsidiary designs. The style of these productions, perfunctorily executed it may be, suggests that the average artist of the period was incapable of portraiture or of tracing correctly the lines of any living form.[934]
c. Less unfortunate with reference to religion were the pictorial arts at this date. The decoration of churches, in brilliant colour and appropriate iconography, was gradually carried to a degree of elaboration which has never since been surpassed. The intrinsic nature of popular devotion insensibly established the convention that images in the flat did not contravene the divine prohibitions; and ecclesiastical prejudice yielded to expediency. On the iconostasis and around the walls of the sacred edifice, in proximity to the worshippers, Christ, the Virgin, the Apostles, and the Saints, with many a scene of Gospel history, were depicted in glowing tints on a blue or a golden ground. On every available space of the ceiling similar subjects, but of larger dimensions, were executed in a brilliant glass mosaic, and the mass of colour overhead completed the gorgeous effect of the interior.[935] Accordantly it was considered that reverence for the holy scriptures was fittingly shown by the reproduction of copies in the most costly form; and hence the painting of manuscripts in miniature revived and endured as one of the staple industries of the age. But in all these cases defective drawing and perspective are often painfully conspicuous, and a meretricious display of colour seems to be regarded by the artist as the highest expression of his skill.[936]
d. By the end of the fifth century we are on the verge of that new era in literature, introduced by the Byzantines, when to make a transcript of some previous writer was to become an author.[937] In other branches of art from time to time some obvious merit becomes visible on the surface, but in the domain of poetry, during nearly fourteen centuries previous to the fall of the Empire, a single name only, that of Claudian, survives to remind us that both Greeks and Latins once possessed the faculty of expressing themselves in verse with nobility of thought and felicity of diction. Poetasters existed in abundance, but without exception their compositions exemplify the futility of striving after an object which in that age had resolved itself into the unattainable. The usefulness of prose as a medium of information, however low may be its literary level, often compensates us for lack of talent in an author; and the bald chronicler, who plagiarized his predecessors in the same field and presented their work as his own, is sometimes as welcome to the investigator as a writer of more ambitious aims. In these barren centuries, however, history and theology are occasionally illustrated by some work of original power.
In the foregoing paragraphs I have dealt with education in relation only to the male sex, and it remains for me to say a few words respecting the mental training of the female. In keeping with the rule as to their social seclusion, the instruction of girls was conducted in the privacy of the family circle. There they received, in addition to the usual rudiments, a certain tincture of polite learning, which implied the methodical reading of Homer and a limited acquaintance with some of the other Greek poets and the dramatists.[938] Music, as being an elegant accomplishment, was also taught to them.[939] They were not, however, debarred from extending the scope of their studies, and instances of learned ladies are not altogether wanting to this age, for example, the Empress Athenais or Eudocia[940] and the celebrated Hypatia.[941]
A glance at the slight structure of knowledge, the leading lines of which I have just lightly traced, may enable the modern reader to appreciate the conditions of intellectual life among the ancients, and to perceive within how narrow an area was confined the exercise of their reasoning faculties. Viewed in comparison with the vast body of contemporary science, all the information acquired by the Greeks must appear as an inconsiderable residue scarcely capable of conveying a perceptible tinge to the whole mass. For fully eighteen hundred years, from the age of Aristotle to that of Columbus and Copernicus, no advance was made in the elucidation of natural phenomena or even towards exploring the surface of the globe. The same globe has been surveyed and delineated in its widest extent by the industry of our cartographers, has been seamed with a labyrinth of railways for the conveyance of substance, and invested in a network of wire for the transmission of thought. In the universe of suns our solar system appears to us as a minute and isolated disc, the earth a speck within that disc; to the ancients the revelations of telescopic astronomy were undreamt of, and the world they inhabited (all but a tithe of which was concealed from them, and whose form they only mistily realized) seemed to them to be the heart of the universe, of which the rest of the celestial bodies were assumed to be merely subordinate appendages. Geological investigation has penetrated the past history of the earth through a million of centuries to those primeval times when meteorological conditions first favoured the existence of organic life; the people of antiquity were blinded by unfounded legends which antedated the origin of things to a few thousand years before their own age. Spectroscopic observation has assimilated the composition of the most distant stars to that of our own planet. Chemical analysis has achieved the dissolution of the numberless varieties of matter presented to our notice, and proved them to arise merely from diverse combinations of a few simple elements; and electrical research has almost visually approached that primordial substance in which is conceived to exist the ultimate unity of all things.[942] Synthetical chemistry has acquired the skill to control the inherent affinities of nature, and to compel her energies to the production of myriads of hitherto unknown compounds.[943] By the aid of the microscope we can survey the activities of those otherwise invisible protoplasmic cells which lie at the foundation of every vital process; and the possibility is foreshadowed that, in the alliance of biology and chemistry, we may one day succeed in crossing the bridge which links the organic to the inorganic world and command the beginnings of life.[944] In all these departments of objective knowledge the speculations and researches of the Greek philosophers had not even broken the ground. For these primitive observers, without history and without science, the world was a thing of yesterday, a novel appearance of which almost anything might be affirmed or denied. Magnetism was known merely as an interesting property of the lodestone; electricity, as yet unnamed, had barely arrested attention as a peculiarity of amber, when excited by friction, to attract light substances. Nor had the mechanical arts been developed so as to admit of any practical application and stimulate the industries of civilization. Although automatic toys were sometimes constructed with considerable ingenuity,[945] the simplest labour-saving machine was as yet uninvented.[946] In the early centuries of our era knowledge had become stagnant, and further progress was not conceived of. One half of the world lived on frivolity; the individuality of the other half was sunk in metaphysical illusion. The people of this age contemplated nature without comprehending her operations; her forces were displayed before their eyes, but it never entered into their heads to master them and make them subservient to the needs of human life; they moved within a narrow cage unconscious of the barriers which confined them, without a thought of emerging to the freedom of the beyond; and an ordinary citizen of the present day is in the possession of information which would surprise and instruct the greatest sage of ancient Greece.
The increase of knowledge in the nineteenth century has stripped every shred of supernaturalism from our conception of popular religions. The studies and inventions of modern science have illuminated every corner of the universe; and our discovery of the origins has cleared the greatest stumbling-block from the path of philosophy and removed the last prop which sustained the fabric of organized superstition. The world will one day have to face the truth about religion; and it may then become necessary to restrain by legal enactment those who would draw away the masses to some old historical, or to some new-born superstition.[947]
In primitive times the curiosity and impatience of mankind demanded an immediate explanation of the activities of nature; and by a simple analogy they soon conceived the existence of a demiurge or maker of worlds who, in his loftier sphere, disposed of the materials of the universe by methods comparable to those of their own constructive operations.[948] Or, perchance, by even less speculative reasoning they were led to accept the phenomenal world as the result of a perpetual generation and growth which accorded closely with their everyday experience of nature; whilst a divinity of some kind seemed to lurk in every obscurity and all visible objects to be instinct with a life and intelligence of their own.[949] In either case they believed themselves to be in the presence of beings of superior attributes whom it was desirable or necessary to conciliate by some form of address adapted to gain their favour or to avert their enmity. Hence worship, the parent of some system of ritual likely to become more elaborate in the lapse of time; and the ultimate establishment of a priestly caste who would soon profess to an intercourse with the unseen not vouchsafed to ordinary mortals. Gradually the first vague notions of a celestial hierarchy grew more realistic by imaginative or expedient accretions; and in a later age the sense of a less ignorant community would not be revolted by incredible details as to the personal intervention of divinities in the history of their progenitors when such events were relegated to a dimly realized past. But, although a belief in revelation as seen through the mists of antiquity prevails readily at all times among the unthinking masses, a spirit of scepticism and inquiry arises with the advent of civilization and increases concurrently with the vigour of its growth. Then the national mythology is submitted to the test of a dispassionate logic, and its crude constituents become more and more rejected by the sagacity of a cultured class. They, however, always hitherto an inconsiderable minority, feel constrained to an indulgence more or less qualified of the superstitions of the vulgar for fear of disturbing the political harmony of the state.
The early Greek philosophers awoke into life to find themselves endowed with vast intelligence in a world of which they knew nothing. No record of the past, no forecast of the future disturbed the serenity of their intellectual horizon. In a more aesthetic environment they renewed the impulse to interpret nature with a finer sense of congruity than was possessed by their rude ancestors, but their methods were identical, and they believed they could advance beyond the bounds of experience by the exercise of a vivid imagination. The coarse myths of polytheism were thrust aside, and the void was filled with fantastic cosmogonies, some of which included, whilst others dispensed with, the agency of a Deity.[950] The truth and finality of such speculations was shortly assumed, and schools of philosophy, representing every variety of doctrine, were formed, except that in which it was foreseen that knowledge would be attained only by the long and laborious path of experimental investigation. But whilst disciples were attracted to different sects by the personal influence of a teacher, by the novelty of his tenets, or by their own mental bias, the general sense of the community remained unconvinced; and the independent thinkers of the next generation perceived the futility of inquiries which evolved nothing coherent and revealed no new facts. Scientific research, for the deliberate striving after deeper insight ranked as such in the unpractised mind of the period, was discredited, and an impression that the limits of human knowledge had already been reached began to prevail universally. A reign of scepticism was inaugurated, the evidence of the senses in respect even of the most patent facts was doubted, and the study of nature was virtually abandoned.[951] Then philosophy became synonymous with ethics, but by ethics was understood merely the rule of expediency in public life, a subject which was debated with much sophistry. The inspiration of Socrates impelled him to combat this tendency, to search earnestly after truth, and to inculcate an elevated sense of duty. His mind was pervaded by an intense philanthropy which affected his associates so profoundly that his teaching did not lose its influence for centuries after his death. From the time of Socrates the fruits of experience began to be gathered, and new schools of philosophy were organized on the sounder basis of divulging to their votaries how to make the best use of their lives. The views entertained on this question were as various as the divergences of human temperament, and adapted to countenance the serious or the frivolous proclivities of mankind.[952] A theological or cosmical theory was a usual part of the equipment of these schools, but in outward demeanour they conformed, more or less strictly, with the religion of the state. The intellectual movement among the Greeks culminated after about two centuries of activity in the career of Aristotle, who undertook to sift, to harmonize, and to codify all the knowledge of his age.[953] A great work had been accomplished; all that wild outgrowth with which savage intellection is wont to encumber the domain of reason had been swept away, and the ground had been subjected to an orderly, though unproductive planting. The conception that nature would yield a harvest as the reward of rational study had been awakened, but the efforts lapsed because the method had yet to be discovered of fertilizing the vacant soil.[954]
The conception of social ethics or of mutual obligation among the members of a community appears to have been one of those influences which presided at the birth of civilization, and to have attained theoretical perfection far back in the prehistoric past; whilst the perpetual conflict between duty and individual advantage has always inhibited altruism from being accepted as an invariable guide to conduct without the artificial support of penal law. In Homer and Hesiod we find almost every rule for living uprightly adequately expressed. A man should honour his parents, love and be generous to his friends, be a good neighbour, and succour strangers and suppliants. He should be truthful, honest, continent, and industrious; and should consider sloth to be a disgrace.[955] In the next age Hellenic refinement could add little more than fuller expression to these simple precepts. But from Pythagoras to Socrates, from Aristotle to Cicero, from Seneca to Marcus Aurelius, a constant emission of ethical doctrine was maintained. Amid the wealth of disquisition, innumerable striking aphorisms might be selected, but only a few such can be recorded here: We should scan the actions of each day before resigning ourselves to sleep;[956] We have contracted with the government under which we live to submit ourselves to its laws, even should they condemn us to death unjustly;[957] We should pity the man who inflicts an injury more than him who suffers it, for the one is harmed only in his body, the other in his more precious soul;[958] Do not unto others what it angers you to suffer yourself;[959] Even should we be able to conceal our conduct from gods and men, we are not the less bound to act uprightly;[960] The judge, as well as the criminal, is on his trial that he may deliver just decisions;[961] Do not revile the malefactor, but commiserate him as one who knows not right from wrong;[962] Blame none, for men only do evil involuntarily.[963] By the first century slaves had begun to be considered in a more humane light; and masters were enjoined to look on them as humble friends, as brothers with whom it was no disgrace to sit at meat.[964] The iniquity of the gladiatorial shows was beginning to be felt in the time of Cicero,[965] and they were denounced in no measured terms by Seneca.[966] Such exhibitions had never been proper to the Greek communities and, when an attempt was made to introduce them at Athens in the second century, the cynic philosopher Demonax restrained his fellow citizens by declaring that before doing so they should first demolish the altar of Pity.[967] The exposure of new-born infants was one of the besetting sins of antiquity, and the practice was universal among the Latins and Greeks.[968] The inhumanity of it was, however, perceived early in our era; yet not until the reign of Severus do we find a legal pronouncement against it.[969] Constantine discountenanced it, but no comprehensive enactment for its suppression was promulgated till the end of the fourth century.[970] Charity towards the needy was a recognized duty from the earliest times, and Homer voices the general sentiment when he writes that strangers and the poor are to be treated as emissaries from the gods.[971] At Athens, in its palmy days, an allowance was made to indigent citizens;[972] and the lavish system of outdoor relief denoted by the trite phrase, Panem et circenses, as introduced by the Caesars, threatened to pauperize the urban population of the Empire.[973] The origin of charitable asylums is not well ascertained, but there is evidence that in the first century at least the foundation of such institutions was already being promoted by the rulers of the state.[974] The Roman Empire entered the Christian era equipped with a civilization scarcely at all inferior to that of the present day in relation to art, literature, and social ethics, but a sustaining principle, which could endow the splendid fabric with quality of permanency, was wanting. It was vulnerable within and without; and two powerful enemies, superstition and the barbarian, were awaiting the opportune moment to prey upon it. The dissolution commenced within; ignorance of natural science allowed the first to work havoc in its vital parts; the barbarian assaulted the infected mass from without, and the ruin became complete.
The political unification of the most civilized portion of the globe was begun by the conquests of Alexander and completed by those of Rome. Sociological homogeneity was attendant on centralization of government. From Britain to North Africa and from Spain to Asia Minor thought flowed through the same channels. Rome and Greece dominated the world between them; while the former assumed the physical control of the nations, the latter held their mental faculties in subjection. Progressively, however, influences began to permeate the Empire which were foreign to both Latins and Hellenes. East and west confronted each other on the Asiatic frontier; Egyptians and Jews were commingled with the Latin and Greek races in the great mart of Alexandria. Oriental mysticism became rife, and gods of every nationality were received into the bosom of Rome.[975] In the first century of the Christian era the times were ripe for new religious beliefs. By the expansion of the Roman dominions the classes had become cosmopolitan, and a wide experience of men and manners had dissipated the rustic simplicity of the Republic. The society of the Empire was enlightened by the speculations of Greek philosophy; it became versed in metaphysical discussion, and soon conceived an irreverence for the divinities of a ruder age.[976] Everywhere the same level of mental apprehension was ultimately reached. Then the inanity of earthly existence began to be acutely felt. The thoughtful looked through the void and saw nowhere for the mind to rest. Zeal for public distinction had been suppressed by military despotism, and the pride which animates the strenuous virtues of a rising commonwealth was extinct. Levity pervaded the aimless crowd who lived only for the diversion of the hour. Nature had been interrogated repeatedly with an invariably negative result; her secret, if she possessed one, seemed to be impenetrable and destined to remain for ever unknown. No discovery in science had opened up the vista of a path which led through inexhaustible fields of knowledge. The psychical unrest longed for new ideals and was willing to be appeased by the slightest semblance of a revelation. Religion-making became a craft which was followed by more than one practitioner in all the chief cities of the Empire. A host of charlatans arose and made many victims by pretending to theurgic powers.[977] Agitated by vague impulses the social units drifted with indeterminable currents, for more than a century before the heterogeneous elements which were in commotion showed a tendency to group themselves under any concrete forms. At length the appearances of a settlement became visible, and three distinct forms emerged successively from the previously existing chaos, each of which claimed to have sounded the abysmal depths and to have brought to the surface the inestimable balm which was to salve the bruised souls of humanity. But they beheld each other with horror and contempt, and a contest was initiated between them on the theatre of the Empire for the spiritual dominion of mankind.
I. In the year 28 A.D., the fifteenth of the reign of Tiberius, Pontius Pilate was governor of Judaea, the subordinate officer of Aelius Lamia, the Imperial legate of Syria.[978] At that point of time a man, previously unknown among the Jews, assumed the rôle of a public teacher of religion and ethics and devoted himself to an itinerant mission throughout the cities and districts of Palestine. He seemed to be about thirty years old and it was soon realized that he was a certain Jesus who had hitherto worked as a carpenter, his father’s trade, in his native village of Nazareth. He preached a reformation of manners among the people generally, and rebuked with a penetrating bitterness the pride and hypocrisy of the chief men of his own race. At the outset of his career he summoned to his assistance twelve men of the same humble rank as himself and enjoined them to follow his example. He did not confine himself to hortatory discourses, but proved on numerous occasions that he had the gift of working miracles. At his command the sick were healed and even the dead returned to life. Those who were possessed with devils he immediately released from their baleful thraldom.[979] The laws of nature appeared to be subject to his will and were reversed whenever he thought fit to exert his power over them. Finally he declared himself to be the Messiah or Christ, a more than mortal being whom the Jews expected to rescue them from their political abasement and raise them to a position of national supremacy. Israel as a body rejected his claims with scorn and derision; his ministry of peace afforded no prospect of the rehabilitation they aspired to.[980] He met them in the temple at Jerusalem and they demanded of him a sign that he was an emissary sent from heaven. In reply he assailed them with vituperation and hurried from the precincts. Amongst his own following he explained himself; his design had been entirely misconceived; he was the son of Jehovah and his kingdom was not of this world. He had been sent to reconcile his own nation to his father, the ruler of the universe, whom they had offended by their moral laxity and corruption. He would shortly depart from the earth, but he would soon return with all the powers of heaven to judge the inhabitants of this lower sphere. Then the just would be received into a state of bliss without end, whilst the wicked should be consigned to everlasting torment. He persisted in his didactic work, which tended to make the chief priests and elders odious in the eyes of the people, until they determined to compass his destruction. Ultimately he was seized and brought before the Roman governor as a mover of sedition, but Pilate was unconcerned and wished to release him. His accusers insisted, he yielded and, after suffering every indignity, Jesus was crucified between two thieves on mount Calvary during the Paschal festival of A.D. 29, under the consulship of the two Gemini.[981] But his disciples had been forewarned by their master that his death in the guise of a malefactor was preordained as an atonement to effect the redemption of the world from sin. Had it been otherwise legions of angels would descend to discomfort his impious antagonists. At the same time he predicted that he would rise from the dead on the third day after the burial of his body. This promise was fulfilled, his sepulchre was found empty, and Jesus appeared again to his disciples. He discoursed with them for forty days, constituted them apostles to preach his Gospel not only to the Jews, but also to the Gentiles, and in their presence ascended into the heavens until the clouds received him out of their sight.
Such was the astounding relation elicited with some difficulty from a sect of new religionists called Christians, who, as early as the reign of Nero, were sufficiently numerous at Rome to have incurred the hatred of the populace through their austere disposition and their stern abjuration of the national gods.[982] In the year 64 the city was devastated by an appalling conflagration of which the insensate emperor was himself accused, but he shifted the odium to the already discredited recusants, and condemned many of them to perish in the flames by a peculiarly atrocious method.[983] Nevertheless the Christians maintained their ground and thirty years later were regarded with hostility by the tyrant Domitian as a body of proselytizing Jews in the capital.[984] At the dawn of the second century the younger Pliny found them so numerous in his province of Bithynia as almost to have subverted the established religion. In great concern he wrote to the Emperor Trajan questioning whether he should proceed to extremities in his efforts to suppress them. This epistle is extant, and through it some details were first made public as to their tenets and mode of worship. Before daybreak on a certain day they met and recited an address to Christ as to a god; bound themselves by oath to commit no crime against society, and partook together of a common meal. The cultured Roman, imbued with literature and philosophy, estimated the Christian belief as a depraved and extravagant superstition, the eradication of which was dictated by state policy, but his master counselled him to disregard it unless popular animosity should in particular instances compel him to drag its devotees from their obscurity.[985] The Christian missionaries pursued their labours unremittingly and were especially active among the proletariat, from whom during the first centuries their converts were almost exclusively drawn.[986] Throughout the length and breadth of the Empire they persistently undermined the existing order of things by teaching doctrines which were at variance with the received conception of Roman citizenship. Not only did they revile the pagan deities, whom they classed as demons instead of gods, and shun their festivals,[987] but they evinced an utter aversion for military service.[988] The polytheists were incensed at the pretensions of a deity who would not share the theocracy, but claimed to oust all other divinities from their seats and occupy the celestial throne alone,[989] whilst statesmen became alarmed at the prospect of political defection, and began to second the vulgar prejudice by systematic efforts at exterminating the spreading sect. The benignant Marcus Aurelius was induced to believe that the Christians were a danger to the state and he issued a decree (c. 177) that they should be sought out and put to death unless willing to abandon their faith.[990] This was the first decided persecution, but, although many perished, it proved ineffective, as no means available were strong enough to extinguish the flames of fanaticism. On the contrary, those who stood firm before the tribunals and were allowed to escape with their lives ranked afterwards as “Confessors,” a title more glorious in the eyes of their fellows than any temporal dignity; whilst constancy to the death became the essential qualification of Martyrs or witnesses to the truth, Saints who were admitted forthwith among the heavenly host as mediators between God and man.[991] As soon as the repressive measures were relaxed all the weaker brethren, who had abjured in the face of danger, prayed for readmission to the conventicles, and were usually received after the infliction of a term of penance. Once and again during the next century and a half widespread persecution was had recourse to by Decius and by Diocletian, but the Christians throve and prospered in the intervals despite of fitful and local hostility.[992] The memorable battle of the Milvian bridge in 312 proved to be a turning-point in the history of Rome and of Christianity; and the state religion of the ancient world was involved in the fall of the dissolute Maxentius. The victorious Constantine, as sole Emperor of the West, immediately concerted a measure with his colleague of the East, Licinius, for the establishment of religious toleration throughout their dominions.[993] Thenceforward Christianity was free to expand in obedience to the charge she had received at her origin and to apply herself to the task of supplanting every other belief.
The acceptance of all religions is pressed by an appeal to the supernatural sub-structure on which they profess to be based; and this claim is substantiated by the presentment of some miraculous circumstances from which they are asserted to have derived their birth. Evidential obscurity has always been the soul of such pretensions; and the truth of the most improbable occurrences has been resolutely maintained because assured witnesses could not be produced in order to prove a negative. But the time for historical discussion or sifting of evidence in relation to such matters has long gone by; and in the twentieth century the philosopher is enabled without examination to dismiss with a smile the mere suggestion that such events have occurred.[994] That any narrative, which in its essential statements consists largely of the marvellous, should be rejected as false in its entirety has almost risen to the dignity of a canon of historical criticism. The principle, however, has often been unduly strained in its application; and no judicious investigator would refuse to allow that a slender thread of fact may sometimes be extricated from a mass of incredible legend. The awe-inspiring life of Jesus emanates from authors of unascertainable date and repute. No neutral scribe, no adverse critic, has furnished us with any personal impressions of his career bearing the intrinsic marks of truth and simplicity. Nor can it be affirmed that any character fairly discernible on the stage of history ever knew an apostle. The Twelve who are credited with having disseminated the faith of the Gospel from east to west lie buried in a more than prehistoric obscurity, the writings ascribed to them doubted, denied, or clearly disproved.[995] It can scarcely be a matter of surprise, therefore, if some serious scholars of modern times have committed themselves to an absolute denial that the nominal founder of Christianity has had any real existence.[996] Yet the cause of mysticism was well served by the impenetrable cloud which hung over the mundane activity of Jesus. No common inquiry enabled the diligent adversaries of Christianity to strip the veil from the idealized figure, and expose its features to the gaze of vulgar observation. The philosophic critic was reduced to mere expressions of incredulity; and the despair of historians became the firmest pillar of belief in the church.[997]
II. In an idle hour Plato applied himself to shadowing forth a theological doctrine which should account for the origin and guidance of the objective universe.[998] A supreme god, the One or the Good,[999] at a certain moment conceived a creative design and fashioned the material world out of pre-existing elements.[1000] This task completed, he created intellect and soul; and by combining the two together produced living intelligence.[1001] He was now provided with all the requisite ingredients for peopling the world he had made; and his next step was to form a primal race of spiritual beings or daemons whom he endowed with immortality. From these by generation issued the whole progeny of gods worshipped by the Greeks, for whom their pedigrees and actions were recorded by Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod. Among the divine existences were also to be reckoned the stars. At this stage the creative work of the One came to an end. He addressed the daemons and said: “You have observed my method of procedure when engaged in moulding yourselves. Follow my example and set about the production of mortal natures to inhabit the air, the water, and the earth.” They obeyed his behests, and the whole animal kingdom was the result of their labours. But the grosser matter with which mortal souls are weighed down is the essence of evil, and the just man will, therefore, desire to escape from the body in order to be free from its impure passions.[1002] For the Creator had appointed that each soul should be associated with a particular star, to whose blissful abode it might return as the reward of a life well spent on earth. The unrighteous soul, however, must first be chastened by an ordeal of transmigration through descending grades of lower animal natures, the least abased being that of a woman.
This cosmological phantasy of Plato was destined, after lying dormant for more than five centuries, to breathe a new spirit into the almost inanimate body of polytheism. The higher social caste, still adhering languidly to the old belief, counted among them many elevated minds devoted to the traditions of the past, who apprehended with dismay the dissolution of all they prized in the ebbing tide of Paganism. The effete superstition could only be sustained by some process of depuration capable of reconciling it with the more refined perceptions of the age. The required influence was at hand. From Alexandria, where an international fusion of philosophies and religions had been in progress almost since the foundation of the city, a new dispensation proceeded before the middle of the third century. In that capital, the Greek was penetrated by the spirit of Oriental mysticism, and the Jew was fascinated by the intellectual ascendancy of the schools of Athens. The ancient rivalry of sects had almost died out, and a later generation of inquirers adopted freely whatever they could assimilate from various systems of philosophy.[1003] After passing tentatively through several stages from the first years of our era, a theological doctrine under the name of Platonism was elaborated by the Egyptian, Plotinus,[1004] with sufficient completeness to be presented to the devout polytheist as a rule of life. In general conception, the new faith did not differ essentially from the scheme advanced by the founder of the Academy, but, with its deficiencies supplied from exotic sources, it was propounded solemnly as a theosophy which revealed the whole purport of human existence. As a practical religion, this revival, Neoplatonism by name, enjoined a purity of life which should free the soul from defilement by contact with the world, and allow it to coalesce with the divine potential whence it had emanated.[1005] The crowning allurement of the system was that this blissful conjunction might be attained by the fervid votary even during life. Those who had subjugated all their natural, and, therefore, evil passions, might rise by contemplation to an ecstatic union with the Deity, the transcendant One; or, to express it irreverently in modern language, might acquire the faculty of passing into a hypnotic trance.[1006] As soon as Plotinus had perfected his invention, he proceeded to Rome (c. 244), with the view of professing his doctrine to the mystically inclined on the most extended theatre in the Empire. Here his success was very considerable, and he gained numerous adherents, especially as he conceded that all forms of Pagan worship availed as a real approach to the Deity and enshrined germs of truth derived from some primitive revelation. He became influential at Court and was about to organize a Utopian community on the lines of Plato’s ideal republic under the auspices of Gallienus when the fall of that Emperor frustrated his design.
Plotinus died in 270, leaving many disciples to continue the work of his school, the foremost of whom was Porphyry, known as a keen assailant of Christianity.[1007] To him succeeded the Syrian, Iamblichus, a contemporary of Constantine, who gave the final form to Neoplatonism and adapted it for widest acceptance. The religion of Plotinus was an ineffable creed which avowedly excluded vulgar participation, and was addressed only to cultured aspirants;[1008] but a descent was made by his successors who, with the object of amplifying their influence, embraced gradually all the crass superstitions of the multitude. A mystical signification was read into the sacred books of the Greeks, as the poems of Orpheus, Homer, and Hesiod may appropriately be termed, by an allegorical interpretation of every phrase or incident in the text. All trivial circumstances or immoral pictures were thus disclosed to be fraught with spiritual or ethical meaning for the pious reader.[1009] The endless procession of invisible beings with which Eastern fancy had peopled space, angels, demons, archons, and demigods, were accepted by the latter school and associated to the theocracy as mediators who could be summoned and suborned to human purposes by magic rites, incantations, and sacrifices.[1010] By the time this stage had been reached, Neoplatonism appeared to be fully equipped for satisfying the occult proclivities of all classes, and asserting its right to become the prevailing religion of the state.
III. The most distinctive and irrepressible theological principle which entered Western civilization from the East, was the dualistic conception of nature inherent in the old Babylonian religions. The seers of that ancient people could not resolve the problem as to the providential government of the world, without postulating a perpetual strife between two opposed powers, who were engaged in determining the course of events. The spectacle of suffering humanity enforced the belief that a potent spirit of evil shared the control of the existing order of things to an equal extent with the benign Deity from whom all blessings flowed. The eastern provinces of the Empire became saturated with these views, and the prime mover in diffusing them was said to be that Simon Magus who, although he makes but a brief and insignificant appearance in Gospel history, occupies a very considerable space in extra-biblical literature.[1011] Under the name of Gnostics, recipients of a special enlightenment or gnosis, his reputed progeny swarmed about the early Christian Church, whose presence seemed to rouse them into vitality; for, in the doctrine of redemption by Jesus, they found, as they imagined, the key to much that was unexplained in their own system.[1012] Diversity in the apprehension of detail was an innate characteristic of the Gnostic brood; whence it followed that they became apparent in small sects only, computed at some scores, and, though numerous, never attained the weight of union as a religious body. Gradually they were dissolved by the preponderance of the Catholic Church, which absorbed their members and proscribed their peculiar tenets.[1013]
There was, however, one form of dualism which arose beyond the borders of the Empire, and, from its centre in Persia, spread with great rapidity eastwards to the frontiers of China, and westwards as far as the Atlantic ocean. This international faith, for such it became in less than a century, was called Manichaeism from its founder Mani, of whom little certain is known; but he was probably a native of Ecbatana, the Median capital.[1014] As the prophet of a new dispensation, Mani belongs to the second class of makers of religion, that is, he did not claim to be himself a god, but only an apostle commissioned by the Deity. His life extended to upwards of sixty years, and he was countenanced by more than one of the Sassanian kings. At length, however, he fell a victim to the jealousy of the Magi, the exponents of the established belief of Zarathushtra, at whose instigation he was crucified and flayed by Bahram I. In the system of Mani the fundamental conception is the antithesis of light and darkness, by which the opposition between good and evil is vividly denoted; and the present world originates in the accident of a war breaking out between the respective powers. Satan, the Prince of Darkness, discovers by chance the kingdom of light, the existence of which was previously unknown to him, and, with his army of demons, makes an incursion into it. The God of Light, sustained by his pure spirits, engages and defeats him, but during the campaign a commingling has occurred of elements of the two realms. The contest now resolves into the efforts of the Deity to regain, and of Satan to retain, the portions of light which were lost in the darkness. The first step is the formation by the former of this world, but the latter creates man as a secure receptacle for the light he had acquired. Hence this creature is animated by two souls, an evil one as well as a soul of light; and Satan enslaves him by exciting his bad passions.[1015] The process of restoring the light goes on continually, and the sun and moon are great reservoirs into which it is poured by the active agents of the superior Deity. The human race is placed in possession of the clue to paradise by having this gnosis imparted to it. A rigid asceticism must be practised according to prescribed rules. There were, however, two ranks of Manichaeans, the Elect and the Auditors. The earnest votaries joined the first, and on them celibacy and a vegetarian diet were imposed. Membership of the second was adapted to the masses, from whom only moderate abstinence was required. They ministered religiously to the Elect, whom they thus enlisted as redeemers on their behalf, so that with the addition of a term of purgatory after death, they also became fitted for paradise. Mani utilized some of the ideas of Christianity in order to connect his religion practically with mankind, but his transferences are rather imitations than acceptances of anything really Christian. Thus he acknowledged a Jesus Christ, who abides in the son, as the “primal man” or first-born of the Deity.[1016] He had visited the earth as a prophet, and from him Mani had received his apostolic mission, whence he usurped the title of the Paraclete, whose advent was promised in the Gospels. He also instructed twelve disciples to preach his doctrine. The success and prevalence of Manichaeism was at one time very great, for it arose as the revivifying force of more than one aspect of dualism in the East and West. It fostered the time-honoured traditions of the inhabitants of the Euphrates valley, and drew to itself the disintegrating coteries of Gnostics within the Roman Empire. A Manichaean popedom was established, which had its seat for several centuries in Babylon. As early as 287 Diocletian denounced the propagation of the religion as a capital offence, on the grounds that the “execrable customs and cruel laws” of the Persians might thereby gain a footing among his “mild and peaceful” subjects.[1017]