Christianity: Its Evidences, Its Origin, Its Morality, Its History

by Annie Besant

The doctrine of the Church in these primitive times was as confused as its morality was impure. In the first century (during which we really know nothing of the Christian Church), Dr. Mosheim, in dealing with "divisions and heresies," points to the false teachers mentioned in the New Testament, and the rise of the Gnostic heresy. Gnosticism (from [Greek: gnosis] knowledge), a system compounded of Christianity and Oriental philosophy, long divided the Church with the doctrines known as orthodox. The Gnostics believed in the existence of the two opposing principles of good and evil, the latter being by many considered as the creator of the world. They held that from the Supreme God emanated a number of Æons—generally put at thirty; (see throughout "Irenæus Against Heresies")—and some maintained that one of these, Christ, descended on the man Jesus at his baptism, and left him again just before his passion; others that Jesus had not a real, but only an apparent, body of flesh. The Gnostic philosophy had many forms and many interdivisions; but most of the "heresies" of the first centuries were branches of this one tree: it rose into prominence, it is said, about the time of Adrian, and among its early leaders were Marcion, Basilides, and Valentinus. In addition to the various Gnostic theories, there was a deep mark of division between the Jewish and the Gentile Christians; the former developed into the sects, of Nazarenes and Ebionites, but were naturally never very powerful in the Church. In the second century, as the Christians become more visible, their dissensions are also more clearly marked; and it is important to observe that there is no period in the history of Christianity wherein those who laid claim to the name "Christian" were agreed amongst themselves as to what Christianity was. Gnosticism we see now divided into two main branches, Asiatic and Egyptian. The Asiatic believed that, in addition to the two principles of good and evil, there was a third being, a mixture of both, the Demiurgus, the creator, whose son Jesus was; they maintained that the body of Jesus was only apparent; they enforced the severest discipline against the body, which was evil, in that it was material; and marriage, flesh, and wine were forbidden. The Elcesaites were a judaising branch of this Asiatic Gnosticism; Saturninus of Antioch, Ardo of Syria, and Marcion of Pontus headed the movement, and after them Lucan, Severus, Blastes, Apelles, and Bardesanes formed new sects. Tatian (see ante, pp. [259], [260]) had many followers called Tatianists, and in connection with him and his doctrines we hear of the Eucratites, Hydroparastates (the water-drinkers), and Apotactites. The Eucratites appear to have been in existence before Tatian professed Gnosticism, but he so increased their influence as to be sometimes regarded as their founder. The Egyptian Gnostics were less ascetic, and mostly favoured the idea that Jesus had a real body on which the Æon descended and joined himself thereunto. They regarded him as born naturally of Joseph and Mary. Basilides, and Valentinus headed the Egyptians, and then we have as sub-divisions the Carpocratians, Ptolemaites, Secundians, Heracleonites, Marcosians, Adamites, Cainites, Sethites, Florinians, Ophites, Artemonites, and Hermogenists; in addition to these we have the Monarchians or Patripassians, who maintained that there was but one God, and that the Father suffered (whence this name) in the person of Christ. This long list may be closed with the Montanists, a sect joined by Tertullian (see his account of the orthodox after he became a Montanist, ante, p. [225]); they held that Montanes, their founder, was the Paraclete promised by Christ, missioned to complete the Christian code; he forbade second marriages, the reception into the Church of those who had been excommunicated for grievous sin, and inculcated the sternest asceticism. He opposed all learning as anti-Christian, a doctrine which was rapidly spreading among Christians, and which seems, indeed, to have been an integral part of the religion from its very beginning (Matt. xi. 25, 1 Cor. i. 26, 27). In the third century the heretic camp received a new light in the person of Manes, or Manichæus, a Persian magus; he appears to have been a man of great learning, a physician, an astronomer, a philosopher. He taught the old Persian creed tinctured with Christianity, Christ being identical with Mithras (see ante, p. [362]), and having come upon earth in an apparent body only to deliver mankind. Manes was the paraclete sent to complete his teaching; the body was evil, and only by long struggle and mortification could man be delivered from it, and reach final blessedness. Those who desired to lead the highest life, the elect, abstained from flesh, eggs, milk, fish, wine, and all intoxicating drink, and remained in the strictest celibacy; they were to live on bread, herbs, pulse, and melons, and deny themselves every comfort and every gratification (see pp. 80-82). The Hieracites in Egypt were closely allied with the Manichæans. The Novatians differed from the orthodox only in their refusal to receive again into the Church any who had committed grievous crimes, or who had lapsed during persecution. The Arabians denied the immortality of the soul, maintaining that it died with the body, and that body and soul together would be revivified by God. The controversies on the persons of the Godhead now increased in intensity. Noctus of Smyrna maintained the doctrine of the Patripassians, that God was one and indivisible, and suffered to redeem mankind; Sabellius also taught that God was one, but that Jesus was a man, to whom was united a "certain energy only, proceeding from the Supreme Parent" (p. 83). He also denied the separate personality of the Holy Ghost. Paul of Samosata, Bishop of Antioch, taught a cognate doctrine, and founded the sect of the Paulians or Paulianists, and was consequently degraded from his office. Thus we see that the history of the Church, before it came to power, is a mass of quarrels and divisions, varied by ignorance and licentiousness. If we exclude Origen, whose writings contain much that is valuable, the works produced by Christian writers in these centuries might be thrown into the sea, and the world would be none the poorer for the loss.

CENTURY IV.

Constantine attained undisputed and sole authority A.D. 324, and in the year 325 he summoned the first general council, that of Nicea, or Nice, which condemned the errors of Arius, and declared Christ to be of the same substance as the Father. This council has given its name to the "Nicene Creed," although that creed, as now recited, differs somewhat from the creed issued at Nice, and received its present form at the Council of Constantinople, A.D. 381. During the reign of Constantine, the Church grew swiftly in power and influence, a growth much aided by the penal laws passed against Paganism. The moment Christianity was able to seize the sword, it wielded it remorselessly, and cut its way to supremacy in the Roman world. Bribes and penalties shared together in the work of conversion. "The hopes of wealth and honours, the example of an emperor, his exhortations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities, which signalised a forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their temples, were distinguished by municipal privileges and rewarded with popular donatives; and the new capital of the East gloried in the singular advantage that Constantinople was never profaned by the worship of idols. As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes. The salvation of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be true, that, in one year, twelve thousand men were baptised at Rome, besides a proportionable number of women and children; and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of gold, had been promised by the emperor to every convert" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. ii. pp. 472, 473). With Constantine began the ruinous system of dowering the Church with State funds. The emperor directed the treasurers of the province of Carthage to pay over to the bishop of that district £18,000 sterling, and to honour his further drafts. Constantine also gave his subjects permission to bequeath their fortunes to the Church, and scattered public money among the bishops with a lavish hand. The three sons of Constantine followed in his steps, "continuing to abrogate and efface the ancient superstitions of the Romans, and other idolatrous nations, and to accelerate the progress of the Christian religion throughout the empire. This zeal was no doubt, laudable; its end was excellent; but, in the means used to accomplish it, there were many things worthy of blame" (p. 88). Julian succeded to part of the empire in A.D. 360, and to sole authority in A.D. 361. He was educated as a Christian, but reverted to philosophic Paganism, and during his short reign he revoked the special privileges granted to Christianity, and placed all creeds on the most perfect civil equality. Julian's dislike of Christianity, and his philosophic writings directed against it, have gained for him, from Christian writers, the title of "the Apostate." The emperors who succeeded were, however, all Christian, and used their best endeavours to destroy Paganism. Christianity spread apace; "multitudes were drawn into the profession of Christianity, not by the power of conviction and argument, but by the prospect of gain, and the fear of punishment" (p. 102). "The zeal and diligence with which Constantine and his successors exerted themselves in the cause of Christianity, and in extending the limits of the Church, prevent our surprise at the number of barbarous and uncivilised nations, which received the Gospel" (p. 90); and Dr. Mosheim admits that: "There is no doubt but that the victories of Constantine the Great, the fear of punishment, and the desire of pleasing this mighty conqueror and his imperial successors, were the weighty arguments that moved whole nations, as well as particular persons, to embrace Christianity" (p. 91). Fraud, as well as force and favour, lent its aid to the progress of "the Gospel." We hear of the "imprudent methods employed to allure the different nations to embrace the Gospel" (p. 98): "disgraceful" would be a fitter term whereby to designate them, for Dr. Mosheim speaks of "the endless frauds of those odious impostors, who were so far destitute of all principles, as to enrich themselves by the ignorance and errors of the people. Rumours were artfully spread abroad of prodigies and miracles to be seen in certain places (a trick often practised by the heathen priests), and the design of these reports was to draw the populace, in multitudes, to these places, and to impose upon their credulity ... Nor was this all; certain tombs were falsely given out for the sepulchres of saints and confessors. The list of the saints was augmented by fictitious names, and even robbers were converted into martyrs. Some buried the bones of dead men in certain retired places, and then affirmed that they were divinely admonished, by a dream, that the body of some friend of God lay there. Many, especially of the monks, travelled through the different provinces; and not only sold, with most frontless impudence, their fictitious relics, but also deceived the eyes of the multitude with ludicrous combats with evil spirits or genii. A whole volume would be requisite to contain an enumeration of the various frauds which artful knaves practised, with success, to delude the ignorant, when true religion was almost entirely superseded by horrid superstition" (p. 98). When to all these weapons we add the forgeries everywhere circulated (see ante, pp. [240-243]), we can understand how rapidly Christianity spread, and how "the faithful" were rendered pliable to those whose interests lay in deceiving them. During this century flourished some of the greatest fathers of the Church, pre-eminent among whom we note Ambrose, of Milan, Augustine, of Hippo, and the great ecclesiastical doctor, Jerome. Already, in this century, we find clear traces of the supremacy of the bishop of Rome, and "when a new pontiff was to be elected by the suffrages of the presbyters and the people, the city of Rome was generally agitated with dissensions, tumults, and cabals, whose consequences were often deplorable and fatal" (p. 94). By a decree of the Council of Constantinople, the bishop of that city was given precedence next after the Roman prelate, and the jealousy which arose between the bishops of the two imperial cities fomented the disputes which ended, finally, in the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches. Of the officers of the Church in this century we read that: "The bishops, on the one hand, contended with each other, in the most scandalous manner, concerning the extent of their respective jurisdictions, while, on the other, they trampled upon the rights of the people, violated the privileges of the inferior ministers, and imitated, in their conduct, and in their manner of living, the arrogance, voluptuousness, and luxury of magistrates and princes" (pp. 95, 96).

In this century is the first instance of the burning alive of a heretic, and it was Spain who lighted that first pile. Theodosius, of all the emperors of this age, was the bitterest persecutor of the heretic sects. "The orthodox emperor considered every heretic as a rebel against the supreme powers of heaven and of earth; and each of those powers might exercise their peculiar jurisdiction over the soul and body of the guilty.... In the space of fifteen years [A.D. 380-394], he promulgated at least fifteen severe edicts against the heretics; more especially against those who rejected the doctrine of the Trinity; and to deprive them of every hope of escape, he sternly enacted, that if any laws or rescripts should be alleged in their favour, the judges should consider them as the illegal productions either of fraud or forgery.... The heretical teachers ... were exposed to the heavy penalties of exile and confiscation, if they presumed to preach the doctrine, or to practise the rites of their accursed sects.... Their religious meetings, whether public or secret, by day or by night, in cities or in the country, were equally proscribed by the edicts of Theodosius: and the building or ground, which had been used for that illegal purpose, was forfeited to the imperial domain. It was supposed, that the error of the heretics could proceed only from the obstinate temper of their minds; and that such a temper was a fit object of censure and punishment.... The sectaries were gradually disqualified for the possession of honourable or lucrative employments; and Theodosius was satisfied with his own justice, when he decreed, that as the Eunonians distinguished the nature of the Son from that of the Father, they should be incapable of making their wills, or of receiving any advantages from testamentary donations" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iii. pp. 412, 413).

One important event of this century must not be omitted, the dispersion of the great Alexandrine library, collected by the Ptolemies. In the siege of Alexandria by Julius Cæsar, the Philadelphian library in the museum, containing some 400,000 volumes, had been burned; but there still remained the "daughter library" in the Serapion, containing about 300,000 books. During the episcopate of Theophilus, predecessor of Cyril, a riot took place between the Christians and the Pagans, and the latter "held the Serapion as their head-quarters. Such were the disorder and bloodshed that the emperor had to interfere. He despatched a rescript to Alexandria, enjoining the bishop, Theophilus, to destroy the Serapion; and the great library, which had been collected by the Ptolemies, and had escaped the fire of Julius Cæsar, was by that fanatic dispersed" ("Conflict of Religion and Science," p. 54), A.D. 389. To Christian bigotry it is that we owe the loss of these rich treasures of antiquity.

Heresies grew and strengthened during this fourth century. Chief leader in the heretic camp was Arius, a presbyter of Alexandria; he asserted that the Son, although begotten of the Father before the creation of aught else, was not "of the same substance" as the Father, but only "of like substance;" a vast number of the Christians embraced his definition, and thus began the long struggle between the Arians and the Catholics. Arius also "took the ground that there was a time when, from the very nature of sonship, the Son did not exist, and a time at which he commenced to be, asserting that it is the necessary condition of the filial relation that a father must be older than his son. But this assertion evidently denied the co-eternity of the three persons of the Trinity; it suggested a subordination or inequality among them, and indeed implied a time when the Trinity did not exist. Hereupon the bishop, who had been the successful competitor against Arius [for the episcopate], displayed his rhetorical powers in public debates on the question, and, the strife spreading, the Jews and Pagans, who formed a very large portion of the population of Alexandria, amused themselves with theatrical representations of the contest on the stage—the point of their burlesques being the equality of age of the Father and his Son" (Ibid, p. 53). Gibbon quotes an amusing passage to show how widely spread was the interest in the subject debated between the rival parties: "This city is full of mechanics and slaves, who are all of them profound theologians, and preach in the shops and in the streets. If you desire a man to change a piece of silver, he informs you wherein the Son differs from the Father; if you ask the price of a loaf, you are told, by way of reply, that the Son is inferior to the Father; and if you inquire whether the bath is ready, the answer is, that the Son was made out of nothing" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iii. p. 402). Arius maintained that "the Logos was a dependent and spontaneous production, created from nothing by the will of the Father. The Son, by whom all things were made, had been begotten before all worlds, and the longest of the astronomical periods could be compared only as a fleeting moment to the extent of his duration; yet this duration was not infinite, and there had been a time which preceded the ineffable generation of the Logos.... He governed the universe in obedience to the will of his Father and Monarch" (Ibid, pp. 18,19). The "Nicene creed" of the Prayer-book consists of the creed promulgated by the Council of Nice, with the anathema at the end omitted, and with the addition of some phrases joined to it at the Council at Constantinople, and the insertion of the Filioque. At the Council of Nice, Arius was condemned and banished, to the triumph of his great opponent, Athanasius; but he was recalled in A.D. 330, obtained the banishment of Athanasius in A.D. 335, and died suddenly, under very suspicious circumstances, in A.D. 336. Throughout this century the struggle proceeded furiously, each party in turn getting the upper hand, as the emperor of the time inclined towards Catholicism or towards Arianism, and each persecuting the adherents of the other. Among Arian subdivisions we find Semi-Arians, Eusebians, Aetians, Eunomians, Acasians, Psathyrians, etc. Then we have the Apollinarians, who maintained that Christ had no human soul, the divinity supplying its place; the Marcellians, who taught that a divine emanation descended on Christ. Allied to the Manichæan heresy were the Priscillians, the Saccophori, the Solitaries, and many others; and, in addition, the Messalians or Euchites, the Luciferians, the Origenists, the Antidicomarianites, and the Collyridians. A quarrel about the consecration of a bishop gave rise to fierce struggles not connected with the doctrine, so much as with the discipline of the Church. The Bishops of Numidia were angered by not having been called to the consecration of Cæcilianus Bishop of Carthage, and, assembling together, they elected and consecrated a rival bishop to that see, and declared Cæcilianus incompetent for the episcopal office. Donatus, Bishop of Casa Nigra, was the foremost of these Numidian malcontents, and from him the sect of Donatists took its name; they denied the orders of those ordained by Cæcilianus, and hence the validity of the Sacraments administered by them. Excommunicated themselves, "they boldly excommunicated the rest of mankind who had embraced the impious party of Cæcilianus, and of the traditors, from whom he derived his pretended ordination. They asserted with confidence, and almost with exultation, that the apostolical succession was interrupted, that all the bishops of Europe and Asia were infected by the contagion of guilt and schism, and that the prerogatives of the Catholic Church were confined to the chosen portion of the African believers, who alone had preserved inviolate the integrity of their faith and discipline. This rigid theory was supported by the most uncharitable conduct. Whenever they acquired a proselyte, even from the distant provinces of the east, they carefully repeated the sacred rites of baptism and ordination; as they rejected the validity of those which he had already received from the hands of heretics or of schismatics" (Gibbon's "Decline and Fall," vol. iii. pp. 5, 6). A number of Donatists, known as Circumcelliones, "maintained their cause by the force of arms, and overrunning all Africa, filled that province with slaughter and rapine, and committed the most enormous acts of perfidy and cruelty against the followers of Caecilianus" (p. 109). To complete the darkly terrible picture of the Church in the fourth century, we need only note the various orders of fanatical monks, filthy in their habits, densely ignorant, hopelessly superstitious, amongst whom may be numbered the travelling mendicants called Sarabaites. "Many of the Coenobites were chargeable with vicious and scandalous practices. This order, however, was not so universally corrupt as that of the Sarabaites, who were, for the most part, profligates of the most abandoned kind" (p. 102). The pen wearies over the list of scandals of these early Christian ages; we can but sketch the outline here; let the student fill the picture in, and he will find even blacker shades needed to darken it enough.

CENTURY V.

This century sees the destruction of the Roman Empire of the West, and the rise into importance of the great Gothic monarchies. The Christian emperors of the East put down paganism with a strong hand, conferring state offices on Christians only, and forbidding pagan ceremonies [unless under Christian names]. The sons of Constantine had pronounced the penalty of death and confiscation against any who sacrificed to the old gods; and Theodosius, in A.D. 390, had forbidden, under heavy penalties, all pagan rites. This work of repression was rigorously carried on. Clovis, king of the Franks, embraced Christianity, finding its profession "of great use to him, both in confirming and enlarging his empire" (p. 117); and many of the barbarous tribes were "converted to the faith" by means of pretended miracles, "pious frauds ... very commonly practised in Gaul and in Spain at this time, in order to captivate, with more facility, the minds of a rude and barbarous people, who were scarcely susceptible of a rational conviction" (pp. 117, 118). The supremacy of the see of Rome advanced with rapid strides during this century. The people depending, in their superstitious ignorance, on the clergy, and the clergy on the bishops, it became the interest of the savage kings to be on friendly terms with the latter, and to increase their influence; and as the bishops, in their turn, leant upon the central authority of Rome, the power of the pontiff rapidly increased. This power was still further augmented by the struggles for supremacy among the Eastern bishops, for by favouring sometimes one and sometimes another, he fostered the habit of looking to Rome for aid. In the East, five "patriarchs" were raised over the rest of the bishops, the Patriarch of Constantinople standing at their head. Thus, East and West drifted ever more apart. Mosheim speaks of "the ambitious quarrels and the bitter animosities that rose among the patriarchs themselves, and which produced the most bloody wars, and the most detestable and horrid crimes. The Patriarch of Constantinople distinguished himself in these odious contests. Elated with the favour and proximity of the Imperial Court, he cast a haughty eye on all sides, where any objects were to be found on which he might exercise his lordly ambition. On the one hand, he reduced under his jurisdiction the Patriarchs of Alexandria and Antioch, as prelates only of the second order; and on the other, he invaded the diocese of the Roman Pontiff, and spoiled him of several provinces. The two former prelates, though they struggled with vehemence and raised considerable tumults by their opposition, yet they struggled ineffectually, both for want of strength, and likewise on account of a variety of unfavourable circumstances. But the Roman Pontiff, far superior to them in wealth and power, contended also with more vigour and obstinacy; and, in his turn, gave a deadly wound to the usurped supremacy of the Byzantine Patriarch. The attentive inquirer into the affairs of the Church, from this period, will find, in the events now mentioned, the principal source of those most scandalous and deplorable dissensions which divided first the Eastern Church into various sects, and afterwards separated it entirely from that of the West. He will find that these ignominious schisms flowed chiefly from the unchristian contentions for dominion and supremacy which reigned among those who set themselves up for the fathers and defenders of the Church" (p. 123).

Learning during this century fell lower and lower, in spite of the schools established and fostered by the emperors, and while knowledge diminished, vice increased. "The vices of the clergy were now carried to the most enormous lengths; and all the writers of this century, whose probity and virtue render them worthy of credit, are unanimous in their accounts of the luxury, arrogance, avarice, and voluptuousness of the sacerdotal orders. The bishops, particularly those of the first rank, created various delegates or ministers, who managed for them the affairs of their dioceses, and a sort of courts were gradually formed, where these pompous ecclesiastics gave audience, and received the homage of a cringing multitude" (p. 123). Superstition performed its maddest freak in the Stylites, men "who stood motionless on the tops of pillars;" the original maniac being one Simon, a Syrian, who actually spent thirty-seven years of his life on pillars, the last of which was forty cubits high. Another of the same class spent sixty-eight years in this useful manner (see pp. 128, 129, and note). The Agapae were abolished, and auricular confession was established, during this century.

Among the bishops of this century, one name deserves an immortality of infamy. It is that of Cyril, Bishop of Alexandria. Under his rule took place the terrible murder of Hypatia, that pure and beautiful Platonic teacher, who was dragged by a fanatic mob, headed by Peter the Reader, into the great church of Alexandria, and tortured to death on the steps of the high altar. Cyril's "hold upon the audiences of the giddy city [Alexandria] was, however, much weakened by Hypatia, the daughter of Theon, the mathematician, who not only distinguished herself by her expositions of the doctrines of Plato and Aristotle, but also by her comments on the writings of Apollonius and other geometers. Each day, before her academy, stood a long train of chariots; her lecture-room was crowded with the wealth and fashion of Alexandria.... Hypatia and Cyril! Philosophy and bigotry. They cannot exist together. So Cyril felt, and on that feeling he acted. As Hypatia repaired to her academy, she was assaulted by Cyril's mob—a mob of many monks. Stripped naked in the street, she was dragged into a church, and there killed by the club of Peter the Reader [A.D. 415]. The corpse was cut to pieces, the flesh was scraped from the bones with shells, and the remnants cast into a fire. For this frightful crime Cyril was never called to account. It seemed to be admitted that the end sanctified the means" (Draper's "Conflict between Religion and Science," p. 55).