Demop. If instead of prophesying with undisguised pleasure the downfall of Christianity, you would only consider how infinitely indebted European humanity is to it, and to the religion which, after the lapse of some time, followed Christianity from its old home in the East! Europe received from it a drift which had hitherto been unknown to it—it learnt the fundamental truth that life cannot be an end-in-itself, but that the true end of our existence lies beyond it. The Greeks and Romans had placed this end absolutely in life itself, so that, in this sense, they may most certainly be called blind heathens. Correspondingly, all their virtues consist in what is serviceable to the public, in what is useful; and Aristotle says quite naïvely, "Those virtues must necessarily be the greatest which are the most useful to others" (ἀναγκη δε μεγιστας εἰναι ἀρετας τας τοις ἀλλοις χρησιμωτατας, Rhetor. I. c. 9). This is why the ancients considered love for one's country the greatest virtue, although it is a very doubtful one, as it is made up of narrowness, prejudice, vanity, and an enlightened self-interest. Preceding the passage that has just been quoted, Aristotle enumerates all the virtues in order to explain them individually. They are Justice, Courage, Moderation, Magnificence (μεγαλοπρεπεια), Magnanimity, Liberality, Gentleness, Reasonableness, and Wisdom. How different from the Christian virtues! Even Plato, without comparison the most transcendental philosopher of pre-Christian antiquity, knows no higher virtue than Justice; he alone recommends it unconditionally and for its own sake, while all the other philosophers make a happy life—vita beata—the aim of all virtue; and it is acquired through the medium of moral behaviour. Christianity released European humanity from its superficial and crude absorption in an ephemeral, uncertain, and hollow existence.
... coelumque tueri
Jussit, et erectos ad sidera tollere vultus.
Accordingly, Christianity does not only preach Justice, but the Love of Mankind, Compassion, Charity, Reconciliation, Love of one's Enemies, Patience, Humility, Renunciation, Faith, and Hope. Indeed, it went even further: it taught that the world was of evil and that we needed deliverance; consequently it preached contempt of the world, self-denial, chastity, the giving up of one's own will, that is to say, turning away from life and its phantom-like pleasures; it taught further the healing power of suffering, and that an instrument of torture is the symbol of Christianity, I willingly admit that this serious and only correct view of life had spread in other forms throughout Asia thousands of years previously, independently of Christianity as it is still; but this view of life was a new and tremendous revelation to European humanity. For it is well known that the population of Europe consists of Asiatic races who, driven out from their own country, wandered away, and by degrees hit upon Europe: on their long wanderings they lost the original religion of their homes, and with it the correct view of life; and this is why they formed in another climate religions for themselves which were somewhat crude; especially the worship of Odin, the Druidic and the Greek religions, the metaphysical contents of which were small and shallow. Meanwhile there developed among the Greeks a quite special, one might say an instinctive, sense of beauty, possessed by them alone of all the nations of the earth that have ever existed—a peculiar, fine, and correct sense of beauty, so that in the mouths of their poets and in the hands of their artists, their mythology took an exceptionally beautiful and delightful form. On the other hand, the earnest, true, and profound import of life was lost to the Greeks and Romans; they lived like big children until Christianity came and brought them back to the serious side of life.
Phil. And to form an idea of the result we need only compare antiquity with the Middle Age that followed—that is, the time of Pericles with the fourteenth century. It is difficult to believe that we have the same kind of beings before us. There, the finest development of humanity, excellent constitutional regulations, wise laws, cleverly distributed offices, rationally ordered freedom, all the arts, as well as poetry and philosophy, at their best; the creation of works which after thousands of years have never been equalled and are almost works of a higher order of beings, whom we can never approach; life embellished by the noblest fellowship, as is portrayed in the Banquet of Xenophon. And now look at this side, if you can. Look at the time when the Church had imprisoned the minds, and violence the bodies of men, whereby knights and priests could lay the whole weight of life on the common beast of burden—the third estate. There you have club-law, feudalism, and fanaticism in close alliance, and in their train shocking uncertainty and darkness of mind, a corresponding intolerance, discord of faiths, religious wars, crusades, persecution of heretics and inquisitions; as the form of fellowship, chivalry, an amalgam of savagery and foolishness, with its pedantic system of absurd affectations, its degrading superstitions, and apish veneration for women; the survival of which is gallantry, deservedly requited by the arrogance of women; it affords to all Asiatics continual material for laughter, in which the Greeks would have joined. In the golden Middle Age the matter went as far as a formal and methodical service of women and enjoined deeds of heroism, cours d'amour, bombastic Troubadour songs and so forth, although it is to be observed that these last absurdities, which have an intellectual side, were principally at home in France; while among the material phlegmatic Germans the knights distinguished themselves more by drinking and robbing. Drinking and hoarding their castles with plunder were the occupations of their lives; and certainly there was no want of stupid love-songs in the courts. What has changed the scene so? Migration and Christianity.
Demop. It is a good thing you reminded me of it. Migration was the source of the evil, and Christianity the dam on which it broke. Christianity was the means of controlling and taming those raw, wild hordes who were washed in by the flood of migration. The savage man must first of all learn to kneel, to venerate, and to obey; it is only after that, that he can be civilised. This was done in Ireland by St. Patrick, in Germany by Winifred the Saxon, who was a genuine Boniface. It was migration of nations, this last movement of Asiatic races towards Europe, followed only by their fruitless attempts under Attila, Gengis Khan, and Timur, and, as a comic after-piece, by the gipsies: it was migration of nations which swept away the humanity of the ancients. Christianity was the very principle which worked against this savagery, just as later, through the whole of the Middle Age, the Church and its hierarchy were extremely necessary to place a limit to the savagery and barbarism of those lords of violence, the princes and knights: it was the ice-breaker of this mighty flood. Still, the general aim of Christianity is not so much to make this life pleasant as to make us worthy of a better. It looks beyond this span of time, this fleeting dream, in order to lead us to eternal salvation. Its tendency is ethical in the highest sense of the word, a tendency which had hitherto been unknown in Europe; as I have already pointed out to you by comparing the morality and religion of the ancients with those of Christianity.
Phil. That is right so far as theory is concerned; but look at the practice. In comparison with the Christian centuries that followed, the ancient world was undoubtedly less cruel than the Middle Age, with its deaths by frightful torture, its countless burnings at the stake; further, the ancients were very patient, thought very highly of justice, and frequently sacrificed themselves for their country, showed traits of magnanimity of every kind, and such genuine humanity, that, up to the present time, an acquaintance with their doings and thoughts is called the study of Humanity. Religious wars, massacres, crusades, inquisitions, as well as other persecutions, the extermination of the original inhabitants of America and the introduction of African slaves in their place, were the fruits of Christianity, and among the ancients one cannot find anything analogous to this, anything to counterpoise it; for the slaves of the ancients, the familia, the vernae, were a satisfied race and faithfully devoted to their masters, and as widely distinct from the miserable negroes of the sugar plantations, which are a disgrace to humanity, as they were in colour. The censurable toleration of pederasty, for which one chiefly reproaches the morality of the ancients, is a trifle compared with the Christian horrors I have cited, and is not so rare among people of to-day as it appears to be. Can you then, taking everything into consideration, maintain that humanity has really become morally better by Christianity?
Demop. If the result has not everywhere corresponded with the purity and accuracy of the doctrine, it may be because this doctrine has been too noble, too sublime for humanity, and its aim set too high: to be sure, it was much easier to comply with heathen morality or with the Mohammedan. It is precisely what is most elevated that is the most open to abuse and deception—abusus optimi pessimus; and therefore those lofty doctrines have sometimes served as a pretext for the most disgraceful transactions and veritable crimes. The downfall of the ancient institutions, as well as of the arts and sciences of the old world, is, as has been said, to be ascribed to the invasion of foreign barbarians. Accordingly, it was inevitable that ignorance and savagery got the upper hand; with the result that violence and fraud usurped their dominion, and knights and priests became a burden to mankind. This is partly to be explained by the fact that the new religion taught the lesson of eternal and not temporal welfare, that simplicity of heart was preferable to intellectual knowledge, and it was averse to all worldly pleasures which are served by the arts and sciences. However, in so far as they could be made serviceable to religion they were promoted, and so flourished to a certain extent.
Phil. In a very narrow sphere. The sciences were suspicious companions, and as such were placed under restrictions; while fond ignorance, that element so necessary to the doctrines of faith, was carefully nourished.
Demop. And yet what humanity had hitherto acquired in the shape of knowledge, and handed down in the works of the ancients, was saved from ruin by the clergy, especially by those in the monasteries. What would have happened if Christianity had not come in just before the migration of nations?
Phil. It would really be an extremely useful inquiry if some one, with the greatest frankness and impartiality, tried to weigh exactly and accurately the advantages and disadvantages derived from religions. To do this, it would be necessary to have a much greater amount of historical and psychological data than either of us has at our command. Academies might make it a subject for a prize essay.