[93] We here take occasion to observe that, while final appeals to our sacred Scriptures to determine any sociological question—whether of slavery, polygamy, war, or of dietetics—cannot be too strongly deprecated, a candid and impartial inquirer, nevertheless, will gladly recognise traces of a consciousness of the unspiritual nature of the sacrificial altar and shambles. He will gladly recognise that if—as might be expected in so various a collection of sacred writings produced by different minds in different ages—frequent sanction of the materialist mode of living may be urged on the one side; on the other hand, the inspiration of the more exalted minds is in accord with the practice of the true spiritual life. Cf. Gen. i., 29, 30; Isaiah i., 11–17, and xi., 9 Ps. l., 9–14; Ps. lxxxi., 14–17; Ps. civ., 14, 15; Prov. xxiii., 2, 3, 20, 21; Prov. xxvii., 25–27: Prov. xxx., 8, 22; Prov. xxxi., 4; Eccl. vi., 7; Matt. vi. 31; 1 Cor. viii., 13, and ix., 25; Rom. viii., 5–8, 12, 13; Phil. iii., 19, and iv., 8; James ii., 13, 4, and iv., 1–3; 1 Pet. ii., 11. Perhaps, next to the alleged authority of Gen. ix. (noticed and refuted by Tertullian, as already quoted), the trance-vision of St. Peter is most often urged by the bibliolaters (or those who revere the letter rather than the true inspiration of the Sacred Books) as a triumphant proof of biblical sanction of materialism. Yet, unless, indeed, literalism is to over-ride the most ordinary rules of common sense, as well as of criticism, all that can be extracted from the “Vision” (in which were presented to the sleeper “all manner of four-footed beasts of the earth, and wild beasts and creeping things,” which it will hardly be contented he was expected to eat) is the fact of a mental illumination, by which the Jewish Apostle recognises the folly of his countrymen in arrogating to themselves the exclusive privileges of the “Chosen People.” Besides, as has already been pointed out, the earliest traditions concur in representing St. Peter as always a strict abstinent, insomuch that he is stated to have celebrated the “Eucharist” with nothing but bread and salt.—Clement Hom., xiv., 1.
[94] Homily, lxix. on Mat. xxii., 1–14.
[95] The male sex, according to our ideas, might have been more properly apostrophised; and St. Chrysostom may seem, in this passage and elsewhere, to be somewhat partial in his invective. Candour, indeed, forces us to remark that the “Golden-mouthed,” in common with many others of the Fathers, and with the Greek and Eastern world in general, depreciated the qualities, both moral and mental, of the feminine sex. That the weaker are what the stronger choose to make them, is an obvious truth generally ignored in all ages and countries—by modern satirists and other writers, as well as by a Simonides or Solomon. The partial severity of the Archbishop of Constantinople, it is proper to add, may be justified, in some measure, by the contemporary history of the Court of Byzantium, where the beautiful and licentious empress Eudoxia ruled supreme.
[96] St. Chrysostom seems to have derived this forcible appeal from Seneca. Compare the remarks of the latter, Ep. cx.: “At, mehercule, ista solicite scrutata varieque condita, cum subierint ventrem, una atque cadem fæditas occupabit. Vis ciborum voluptatem contemnere? Exitum specta.”
[97] The Homilies of St. John Chrysostom, Archbishop of Constantinople, Translated by Members of the English Church. Parker, Oxford. See Hom. vii. on Phil. ii. for a forcible representation of the inferiority, in many points, of our own to other species.
[98] For example, we may refer to the fact of trials of “criminal” dogs, and other non-human beings, with all the formalities of ordinary courts of justice, and in the gravest manner recorded by credible witnesses. The convicted “felons” were actually hanged with all the circumstances of human executions. Instances of such trials are recorded even so late as the sixteenth century.
[99] His biographer, Marinus, writes in terms of the highest admiration of his virtues as well as of his genius, and of the perfection to which he had attained by his unmaterialistic diet and manner of living. He seems to have had a remarkably cosmopolitan mind, since he regarded with equal respect the best parts of all the then existing religious systems; and he is said even to have paid solemn honours to all the most illustrious, or rather most meritorious, of his philosophic predecessors. That his intellect, sublime and exalted as it was, had contracted the taint of superstition must excite our regret, though scarcely our wonder, in the absence of the light of modern science; nor can there be any difficulty in perceiving how the miracles and celestial apparitions—which form a sort of halo around the great teachers—originated, viz., in the natural enthusiasm of his zealous but uncritical disciples. One of his principal works is On the Theology of Plato, in six books. Another of his productions was a Commentary on the Works and Days of Hesiod. Both are extant. He died at an advanced age in 485, having hastened his end by excessive asceticism.
[100] Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, xl. This testimony of the great historian to the merits of the last of the New-Platonists is all the more weighty as coming from an authority notoriously the most unimpassioned and unenthusiastic, perhaps, of all writers. Compare his remarkable expression of personal feeling—guardedly stated as it is—upon the question of kreophagy in his chapter on the history and manners of the Tartar nations (chap. xxvi).
[101] Trattato della Vita Sobria, 1548.
[102] Sævior armis Luxuria. We may be tempted to ask ourselves whether we are reading denunciations of the gluttony and profusion of the sixteenth century or contemporary reports of public dinners in our own country, e.g., of the Lord Mayor’s annual dinner. The vast amount of slaughter of all kinds of victims to supply the various dishes of one of these exhibitions of national gluttony can be adequately described only by the use of the Homeric word hecatomb—slaughter of hundreds.