Providence is to be honored by a grateful recognition of the part Rome performed in human advancement. Perpetual peace is the hypothesis of absolute immobility. But as progress is necessitated on the part of imperfect creatures in their perpetual approach towards perfection, war will be certain sometimes, and may always be profitable. War is the bloody exchange of ideas, shocks incident to the car of improvement. The truth which was victorious and absolute yesterday, becomes relatively false to-day, and will need to be conquered by a greater and more enduring truth to-morrow. That, in turn, will have to retreat before some superior good, and thus only can consummate excellence be attained. Great leaders, whether martial or mental, are but embodied ideas, actuating and transforming the ages; and every thing about them, even their death, is but a phenomenon of universal life. Platea and Salamis, Arbela and Pharsalia, were the great steps of democracy toward universal mastership. Victory always remains with the new spirit; and freedom, like truth, never can become old; they are in God, and thereby the final battle and widest conquest must eventually be secured. Not one great campaign was ever lost to humanity, nor ever will be. Every historical nation has had specific seed given it to sow, from the harvest of which succeeding nations have derived strength to cultivate a rougher, but richer, field. The scenery changes with each act performed, but the plot goes steadily on. God is making the tour of the world, and every new phase of civilization is an additional proof of a divinely identical plan.
The first great element of humanity which received a full development was beauty, the nearest in space, and most like in character, to Eden. The next was force, that which was most requisite to take up and carry forward the materials of after growth, and this was unfolded in a position the most central and adapted to its comprehensive design. The third element was science; the discriminating, purifying, enlarging, and consolidating power destined to bear the precious aggregation of lapsed cycles upon the immense stage whereon should be unfolded an amelioration the most complete, through the richest benefits both human and divine. It was not possible for these to have a simultaneous development, but were vouchsafed in their proper order, that they might best insure the highest result. An epoch is the period required by a given principle for its matured growth, and will be displaced by its successor through some form of revolution. When the commission assigned a timely idea is performed, it will be superseded because the advent of its superior has come; but the antiquated ever wars against the necessity of removal, and sees not that progressive destiny has rendered it obsolete. Hence the need of constraint, sometimes through arguments, and sometimes through arms. But in every instance, the successor adds completeness to what went before, and all the diversity of epochs and arms conduce to but one and the same end. Wait the rising of the next curtain, if you would better understand the wisdom of the transpiring plot. If one asks why this or that nation came into the world, answer by noting what there was to do, what idea to represent, and what means to be employed. We have seen what Greece existed for, and there is no more mystery as to the mission of Rome. We give an explanation of her wars, but have no apology to offer in their behalf.
The evening of Greek philosophy threw a few beautiful rays over the dark and tempestuous domain of the Augustan age. Its early lessons taught the Roman generals to appreciate the mental treasures which lay upon the track of their remote campaigns, and mitigated the savageness of war with the amenities of moral excellence. The classical tour of Æmilius, and the more refined pursuits of Africanus, were greatly superior to the coarseness of the earlier Anitius and the ignorant Mummius. Still more enlightened was the age and its heroes, when Sylla enjoyed at Athens the refined conversation of Atticus, his political opponent, and bore about with him the inestimable writings of Aristotle. At the brief epoch of culmination, Cæsar, from the remotest provinces, corresponded with Cicero on philosophical topics; and Pompey, when he had accepted the submission of both the East and the West, lowered his fasces in reverence of the wisdom of Posidosius.
Cato deprecated the introduction of Greek philosophy into his country, because he foresaw that in learning to dispute upon all things, the Romans would end by believing in nothing. The result verified the foreboding. Though repeatedly banished from the metropolis, the degenerate philosophers triumphed over the resistance of laws, the wisdom of the senate, and the destinies of the eternal city. A few dreamers, armed with scepticism, accomplished what the world's entire force was unable to achieve; they conquered with opinions the superb Republic which had subjugated earth with arms, thus adding another fact confirmatory of the general truth, that all the empires which history has recognized as established by time and prudence, sophists have overthrown. When a false maxim becomes a ruling principle in popular opinion, the logic of nations, mightier than cannon, bears a fearful force for evil, as otherwise it is the most powerful agent of good. An individual may be made to recoil before conclusions, communities never. A fatal charm more potent than the horror of self-destruction entices them, and even in perishing they obey a general law, the inflexible rectitude of which can never be exhausted, whether applied to error or truth, and by virtue of which the upright are preserved until their goodness has been most widely and enduringly diffused. As every doctrine is composed necessarily of truth or error, usually a mixture of both, there is an influence for good or evil wrought upon the minds wherein it is received. But while falsehood may in some ages and places so accumulate as to work ruin to a degree, the mightier truth is in reserve which in due time will readjust the balance, and augment the good. False religion presided over the cradle of ancient nations, and false philosophy attended them to the tomb; nevertheless, each succeeding birth and death was a fresh ascent toward fairer realms and brighter hopes. The civilization of Rome was exceedingly imperfect. Much expense was employed to entertain the populace, but there was little virtue in their instruction. From all quarters of the known world crowds gathered in their theatres; literature and art flourished after a fashion, and extreme courtesy for a while added attractions to an effeminate and voluptuous philosophy. The people yielded to the blandishments so congenial to gross tastes, and their history celebrates a period of happiness such as Romans could enjoy, that characteristic felicity which began under the Triumvirate, and with Nero found a fitting end.
Greece developed individuality of the finest type, and Rome created a social compact on the grandest scale; but it was reserved for a yet further step in westward civilization to blend these two elements, personal independence and social loyalty, under the auspices of liberty governed by law. Neither the Greeks nor Romans had a separate term for institution, that truest exponent of modern society. But this grand conservative and redeeming power in due time appeared, when there arose, amidst the ruins of exhausted imperialism, a society both young and ardent, united in a firm and fruitful faith, inwardly gifted with preternatural power, and endowed with an unlimited capacity for external expansion. This was Christianity, the blessed philosophy of God on earth. The necessity of replying to heathen adversaries, and the desire of defining and enforcing the Christian doctrines, gradually led to the formation of a species of philosophy peculiar to Christianity, and which successively assumed different aspects, with respect to its principles and object. The spirit of Grecian philosophy thus transferred into the writings of the early fathers, in after times proved the material germ of original speculations. Justin Martyr, Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, Arnobius, and Lactantius, first employed philosophy as an auxiliary to assist in winning over the more cultivated classes to the Christian religion. Subsequently it was turned to the refutation of heresies, and lastly applied to the elucidation and formal statement of the prevailing creed.
Most distinguished of his age was Aurelius Augustinus, born A.D. 354, at Tagaste in Africa. After having studied the scholastic philosophy, and became an ardent disciple of the Manicheans, he was converted to the orthodox faith under the preaching of Ambrose, at Milan, A.D. 387, and eighteen years after was made bishop of Hippo. The religious philosophy of this great writer became the pivot of dogmatical science in the West, and has swayed the destinies of millions of minds from the time Justinian closed the classic schools, and the Gothic king Theodoric put Boethius, the last of the ancient philosophers, to death. Augustin, who ended the Augustan age of philosophy, while yet far from the great centre of the succeeding age, now sleeps at Pavia, in the very bosom of its domain. Such is the grand truth of universal history; all living greatness, and even the remains of the dead, move only toward the West.
CHAPTER V.
RELIGION.
The radical imperfection of paganism in the Periclean age consisted in the fact that all the sublime attributes of intellect but served to ennoble man in his present being. The strength of the moral affections, the perfection of beauty, the love of truth, and all that which for the Christian is to survive the grave and be immortally augmented when separate from earth, to them had little or no object beyond this life. To direct and enjoy the present was his chief concern, and in his view the universe was created only to this end. The god of day pursued his ceaseless round to cheer his waking toil, and the chaste queen of night watched over his repose. The universal Jove came down from Olympus to inspire him; Minerva protected him with her awful shield of wisdom; the graceful goddess of Love placed her shrine in his heart; and super-human beings, captivated with his superior charms, sought on earth a loveliness not to be found in heaven. Even the fates were subordinate to his welfare, and all existences centred round his destiny; so that, were he destroyed, all things would dissolve like an empty pageant, and heaven, earth, and hell, with all their denizens, would cease to be.
In the Augustan age the condition of paganism was still worse. When Rome rose, and steadily advanced to the attainment of universal empire, the religions of all the separate states subjugated were intimately interwoven with her political law, and that was concentrated in the metropolis, whither the religions, like all other spoils, were compelled to follow. Rent from their native soil, these religions, like so many automatons, were doubly senseless and impotent. The worship of Isis had a meaning in Egypt, it being a reverence for the powers of nature; in Rome it became an idolatry which signified only a sign and evidence of the victorious eagle of the city. The more beautiful and significant myths of Greece were equally perverted or stupidly ignored. Mythologies the most diverse and conflicting were brought together only to contend with and neutralize each other. There was but one power left that seemed real, the emperor. Temples were erected to his honor, oaths were taken in his name, sacrifices were offered before him, and his statues alone offered an asylum. There was no state religion, but power and religion were identical. Man sacrificing to man sank to the lowest degradation of spiritual vassalage. Inspiring sentiment and religious fervor were extinguished, leaving nothing more attractive or exalting on national shrines than the deification of power, the apotheosis of might. But when Rome had destroyed the various nationalities of the world, there was yet a susceptibility in the human heart which she could not annihilate—something through which men might hold communion with each other—a bond beyond the mere relation of a citizen to his state. The auspicious hour had come, in the midst of utter desolation, when humanity began deeply to feel this, and it was the first dawn of a glorious day. Christianity arose and called upon men as moral beings, to the humblest of whom its founder lowered himself. The apsis of the basilica contained an Augusteum, where the statues of the Cæsars were divinely worshiped; but these were to be exchanged for holier symbols and a higher truth.