And now that Judaism had been utterly crushed, Paganism again and again wrestled with Christianity, and put forth all its force.It strove to rival the new faith by ritual splendour and orgiastic rites, and ‘the extreme sensuality of superstition.[T22] It strove to put forth Pythagoras, or Socrates, or Apollonius of Tyana as parallels to Christ; and Stoicism and Neo-Platonism as substitutes for the truths of the Gospel. It kindled its expiring lamps with ‘sparks from the incorruptible fountain of wisdom,’ and turned its back on the Sun of Righteousness, from which they were derived. It tried all that sneers and banter could do in the writings of the Pseudo-Lucian, and all the power and passion of argument in the books of Porphyry, Hierocles, and Celsus. Waging deadly war against all who called themselves Christians, it tried to burn them at its stakes, to crucify them on its countless gibbets, to devour them by its herds of wild beasts, at least to daunt them by its horrible tortures. On every field Christians met and conquered them with the two sacred and invincible weapons of martyrdom and innocence. The Church escaped from and soared out of their reach on ‘the two great wings of pureness and kindness,’ and so ‘by the unresistable might of weakness shook the world.’ The Christians refuted the arguments urged against them; they turned the edge of the jeers; they exposed the feebleness of the philosophers who wrote to denounce them. Meekly enduring the tortures devised against them ‘they stood safe’ (as said their martyr Cyprian); ‘stronger than their conquerors, the beaten and lacerated members conquered the beating and lacerating hooks.’ These obscure Sectaries—barbarians, Orientals, Jews, slaves, artisans—fought against the indignant world, and won. And when they had won, and in proportion as they won, they ennobled and purified the world. Wrestling with the pagan curse of corruption they made pure the homes, and the conversation, and the amusements, and the literature, and the inmost hearts of all who faithfully accepted the truths they preached. Wrestling with the curse of cruelty they suppressed infanticide, they sanctified compassion, they put down the cruel and ghastly scenes of human slaughter in the amphitheatre, they made the wretched and the sick and the outcast their special care, ‘they encircled the brow of sorrow with the aureole of sanctity.’ Wrestling with the curses of slavery and selfish exclusiveness they taught the inalienable rights of humanity, they confronted tyranny, they inspired nations with the spirit of liberty, they flung over the oppressed a shield of adamant, they taught that all men are the children of God. Intellectually, socially, politically, in national life and in individual life, in art and in literature, Christianity has inspired all that the world has seen of best and noblest, and still offers to the soul of every man the purest hope, the divinest comfort, the loftiest aspirations. To talk of ‘the crimes of Christianity’ is a preposterous paradox. There is not one evil thought that can be thought, not one evil deed that can be done, which is not utterly alien from its true spirit. Crimes, indeed, without number have been committed in its name. Kings, and priests, and peoples have misinterpreted its documents, forged its commissions, falsified the image and superscription of its current coins, while ‘swarms of vile creatures have made it an inexhaustible prey.’ But ‘it has lived through all, and has suffered that which would have been tenfold death to aught less than Divine.’ And even yet, after nearly nineteen centuries have sped since its Dawn began, and its Sun of Righteousness arose with healing in His wings, this faith alone sets before mankind the Divine Example of a Perfect and a Sinless Man, and alone offers the sure promises of pardon and of peace. All the best wisdom of the world lies in the brief Book of its New Covenant, and all the hopes of the world lie centred in the faithful acceptance of its Law and of its Life.
Footnotes
[1] — [Note 1].—Palace of the Cæsars. (See Lanciani’s Ancient Rome in the light of Modern Discoveries, pp. 107-133.)—For Notes see section following Footnotes. [2] — [Note 2].—Lollia Paulina’s jewels. [3] — [Note 3].—Agrippina’s talking thrush. [4] — [Note 4].—Nero’s Genealogy. [5] — [Note 5].—Agrippina’s white nightingale. [6] — [Note 6].—The Bacchanalians. [7] — [Note 7].—Nero’s poetry. [8] — ‘Sub terris tonuisse putes.’ [9] — Pliny, N. H. vii. 6. [10] — [Note 8]. [11] — [Note 9]. [12] — See Nisard: Poëtes de la Décadence, i. 91. [13] — Mart. iv. 59. [14] — [Note 10]. [15] — [Note 11]. [16] — A slave who carried boys’ books to school. [17] — [Note 12].—Slaves. [18] — [Note 13].—Onokoites. [19] — [Note 14].—Lines of Cleanthes. [20] — [Note 15].—Ancient wall-scribblings. [21] — For these and similar passages of Seneca, see Epp. 31, 41, 73; De Benef., i. 6; &c. [22] — 1 Thess. iv. 1-8. [23] — 1 Thess. v. 1-11. [24] — [Note 16].—Cyzicene room. [25] — Plat. Politicus, § 16; comp. Phædo, § 78. [26] — [Note 17].—The unconscious prophecies of heathendom. [27] — [Note 18]. [28] — Juv. Sat. iii. 60-65. [29] — Sparteoli, ‘bucket-men,’ was the slang term for the police, perhaps from the spartum, or rope-basket covered with pitch, in which they carried water as firemen. [30] — [Note 19].—Arrest of Onesimus. [31] — Equuleus was an instrument of torture. [32] — Salaputium, ‘hop-o’-my-thumb.’ [33] — To offer the ears to be touched was a sign of willingness to give witness. See Hor. Sat. ix. 77; and for the reason of the custom, Pliny, N. H. xi. 103. [34] — Ὀνήσιμος, ‘profitable.’ St. Paul plays on the meaning of the name in Philemon, 10, 11. [35] — Cic. Pro Flacco, 27: ‘Phrygium plagis solere fieri meliorem.’ [36] — [Note 20].—Agrippas. [37] — [Note 21].—Ancient dancing. [38] —
‘De Pantomimo.
‘Pugnat, ludit, amat, bacchatur, vertitur, astat,
Illustrat verum, cuncta decore replet;
Tot linguæ, tot membra viro: mirabilis ars est
Quæ facit articulos, ore silente, loqui.’
‘Stoicus occidit Baream, delator amicum,
Discipulumque senex, ripa nutritus in illa