The emperor Julian was ambitious of establishing the old polytheism on the ruins of Christianity; and, without doubt, Diocletian was resolved at all hazards to extirpate the new creed. But the cause of truth was strong, and its strength received imperial protection in the triumph of Constantine. Under his auspices, a new metropolis arose on the site of antique Byzantium, and soon left eclipsed the ancient capital of the world. Thus the old pagan traditions were annihilated, and its prestige, so vivid and powerful in the imagination of all nations, was no more. The empire underwent a new division, and Constantine commenced a modification of the superseded institutions, which, under the law of continuous change, have lasted until our time. Fatal heresies arose during the fourth and fifth centuries, which caused much Christian activity to be wasted on purely theological subjects; still the church exercised the most pre-eminent influence, presenting the spectacle of a boundless and universal activity in intellectual labors, and in the progressive development, and advancement of civilization. Many, doubtless, like Celsus, were bold to say, "He must be void of understanding who can believe that Greeks and barbarians, in Asia, Europe, and Lybia, all nations to the ends of the earth, can unite in the reception of one and the same religious doctrine." But such happily was proved to be the fact. Such was the design of Jehovah, in that faith given to change all existing polities, Jewish as well as Gentile, into nations and states, governed by a law founded upon justice and charity; and taking its highest inspirations from the love of God, as the common Father of mankind, declared, in the words of its great Founder, that "the field is the world."
The Roman bore little noblenesss of soul in life, and found corresponding gloom at its end. Brutus, whose patriotism was darkened by despair, and who died a suicide, exclaimed, "O, virtue! thou art but a name." In reviewing the moral condition of the ancients, we find something to admire, but much to condemn. All things that illustrate their religious views and customs, go not only to exemplify the apostolic declaration, "the world by wisdom knew not God," but equally attest the same writer's description of the vices common to the heathen world. Frivolity and mirth generally prevailed, but true happiness was unknown. A tone of sadness dwelt deepest in the popular heart, as appears not only in the choral odes of tragedy, but even in their comic writings; a sadness inseparable from the condition of gifted minds, conscious of present evils, ignorant of future bliss, and having no other resource than that insane philosophy, "Let us eat and drink, for to-morrow we die." Gleams of divine Providence lay amid the gloomy abodes of polytheism; the great truth of future retribution was suggested in the poetic follies of Tartarus and Elysium. A few torn wreaths from the wreck of Paradise seem to have floated to the Italian shores, elegant to suggest, but impotent to save.
Many of the classic legends indicate a remote and universal consciousness of the natural and perpetual course of all civilizing powers. When Ulysses set sail from the isle of Circe, with tears he launched his dark vessel upon the sea, and, after sailing all day with a favorable wind, he arrived at sunset at the boundaries of the "deep flowing Oceanus," and the city of the Cimmerians, whose darkness is never dispelled. He there evokes the dead; then sails from outer ocean back into the sea, and when he returns to the Circean isle, whose site had been so clearly fixed in the West, he finds the gates of morning and of Aurora. In Læstrygonia, beyond the western horizon, were placed the herds of the sun, and the gardens of the Hesperides adjoined Eurythia, ruddy with the setting ray. There lived the aged Cronus, the three-bodied giant of the West, guarding his oxen, or the years sunk beneath the wave. But Hercules, in the character of Greek devotion, warring against Phœnician superstition, slays the dog Orthos, and the gloomy herdsman Eurythion, and brings back the lost kine to Argos. Under the guidance of Minerva, or divine wisdom presiding over nature, he is enabled to wield his arms of light against the prince of darkness; but these labors have ever to be repeated, that the apples and the dog may be carefully restored by Minerva to their original and rightful places. These mythological fables are interesting, so far as they indicate the glimmerings of great events, but they also remind us of dark and desperate national characteristics. The Romans, especially, like the favorite deity, Bacchus, were terrible in war, but voluptuous and cruel in peace. Their demi-god, Hercules, who turned rivers from their courses, withdrew the dead from the world of shades, and struck terror into the powers of Orcus, was yet the slave of his appetites, and the dupe of his mistress. Mental imbecility was in him, as in his worshipers, the concomitant of extreme physical force. It was from no love of humanity that Cæsar led his warriors into Britain; and yet the circumstance of that conquest at exactly that time, affected the whole civilization of what is now earth's leading race. It is thus that every successive improvement rises, phœnix-like, from the ashes of the past.
In all ages, the most thoughtful have regarded religion as the unique foundation of duties, as, in turn, duties are the unique bond of society. Public conscience has never been obliterated, however much it has often been obscured. The legislators of antiquity were not in a condition well to understand the nature and relations of highest divinity, but such revelations as were in their possession they employed to consolidate the social edifice, by placing religion in the family, and in the state, as a part of the domestic constitution and general government. In a manner, they caused the laws of heaven to descend and become attached to all the events of human life, and every variety of civil compacts. They even submitted inanimate objects, as woods, waters, and the boundary-stones of their patrimonies, to celestial supervision; and, it would seem, strove to multiply their gods to an infinite extent, prompted by that instinctive consciousness which every where links the finite creature to his eternal Creator. "Let one attempt to build a city in the air," said Plutarch, "rather than expect to found and long preserve a state from which the gods are driven." Instructed by all preceding experience, and universal tradition, ancient wisdom comprehended thoroughly that there was no national perpetuity save as religion contributed that divine force, foreign to the works of men, and indispensable to the creation of durable institutions. Aristotle recognized in this the common law, and Cicero declared it to be the source of all obligations, the base, support, and main regulator, of states constituted according to nature, and under the direction of supreme intelligence. Plato taught that in every Republic, the first endeavor should be to establish true religion, and to place the welfare of all youth under executive protection. When this was least regarded at Rome, as under the first Cæsars, all the bonds of society were at once loosened, and the empire subsequently suffered complete dissolution under the blows of those barbaric nations who were sent of God to overthrow an atheistic people, and prepare the way for a diviner faith. It is a sad prudence which, to obtain a few minutes of false peace, would sacrifice the future of faith and the life of society.
Jesus Christ changed neither religion, nor laws, nor duties; but by developing and consummating the primitive law in his own person, and through his disciples, he elevated a religious society into a body politic, the first perfect commonwealth, wherein he designed that all families should ultimately become one family, governed by his own legislation alone, himself their only chief.
LEO X.:
OR,
THE AGE OF SCIENTIFIC INVENTION.
PROLOGUE OF MOTTOES.
"The entire succession of men, through the whole course of ages, must be regarded as one man, always living and incessantly learning."—Blaise Pascal.