Natural History of Enthusiasm

by Isaac Taylor

But again: in abatement of the chagrin which a well-instructed Christian must feel in first opening the remains of ecclesiastical literature, it must be remembered, that these works offer a very defective image of the state of religion at the era of their production; that is to say, of religion in its recesses, which are truly the homes of Christianity. Those who write are by no means always those among the ministers of religion whom it would be judicious to select as the best samples of the spirit of their times. Moreover, it is the taste of a following age that has determined which among the writers of the preceding period should be transmitted to posterity; and in many instances, it is manifest, that a depraved preference has given literary canonization to authors whose ambition was much rather to shine as masters of a florid eloquence, than to feed the flock of Christ. It was therefore an egregious error to suppose that the spiritual character of the Church lies broadly on the surface of its extant literature: on the contrary, charity may easily find large room for pleasing conjectures relative to obscure piety, of which no traces are to be found on the pages of saints and bishops. The record of the spiritual church is "on high,"—not in the tomes that make our libraries proud.

These, and other considerations, which will present themselves to a candid and intelligent mind, cannot but remove much of the embarrassment and disrelish that are likely to attend a first converse with ancient divinity. And the pious reader will proceed with heartfelt satisfaction to collect evidence of the fact, which some modern sophists have so much labored to obscure, that the rudiments, at least, of revealed religion, as now understood by the mass of Christians, were then firmly held by the body of the Church. And he will rejoice also to meet with not less satisfactory proofs of the energy and intenseness of practical Christianity among a large number of those who made profession of the name.

Nevertheless, after every fair allowance has been made, and every indulgence given to diversity of circumstance, and after the errors and disgraces of our own times have been placed in counterpoise to those of the ancient church, there will remain glaring indications of a deep-seated corruption of religious sentiment, leaving hardly a single feeling proper to the Christian life in its purity and simplicity. It is not heresy, it is not the denial of the principal scriptural doctrines, that is to be charged on the ancient church; the body of divinity held its integrity. Nor is it the want of heroic virtue that we lament. But a transmutation of the objects of the devout affections into objects of imaginative delectation had taken place, had rendered the piety of a numerous class purely fictitious, had tinged, more or less, with idealism, the religious sentiments of all but a few, and had opened the way by which entered at length, the dense and fatal delusions of a superstition so gross as hardly to retain a redeeming quality.

Not a few of the Christians of the third century, and multitudes in the fourth and fifth, especially among the recluses, having lost the forcible and genuine feeling of guilt and danger, proper to those who confess themselves transgressors of the divine law, and in consequence become blind to the real purport of the Gospel, fixed their gaze upon the ideal splendors of Christianity, were smitten with the phase it presents, of beauty, of sublimity, of infinitude, of intellectual elevation, were charmed with its supposed doctrine of abstraction from mundane agitations; and found within the sphere of its revelations unfathomable depths, where vague meditation might plunge and plunge with endless descents. Fascinated, deluded, and still blinded more by the deepening shades of error, they forgot almost entirely the emotions of a true repentance, and of a cordial faith, and of a cheerful obedience; and in the rugged path of gratuitous afflictions, and unnatural mortifications, pursued a spectral resemblance of piety, unsubstantial and cold as the mists of night.

While hundreds were fatally infatuated by this enthusiastic religion, the piety of thousands was more or less impaired by their mere admiration of it; and very few altogether escaped the sickening infection which its presence spread through the church. A volume might soon be filled with proofs of this assertion, drawn exclusively from the writings of those of the fathers who retained most of the vigor of native good sense, and who held nearest to the purity of Christian doctrine. The works of Chrysostom would afford abundant illustration of this sort. Let his Epistle to the Monks be singled out, which contains many admirable instructions and exhortations on the subject of prayer; and which, with much propriety, recommends the practice of ejaculatory supplication. Nevertheless, there is scarcely a passage quoted from the Scriptures in this piece that is not distorted from its obvious and simple meaning, in such a manner as would best comport with the practices and notions of the ascetic life. If the meaning put by Chrysostom upon the texts he adduces be the true one, then must a large part of the inspired writings be deemed altogether useless to those who have not abjured the duties of common life. Or if such persons may still be permitted to enjoy their part in the Scriptures, not less than the monks, then must we suppose a double sense throughout the Bible. In fact the notion of a double sense flowed inevitably from the monkish institution, and wrought immense mischief in the church.

Modern writers of a certain class have expatiated with disproportionate amplification upon the open and flagrant corruptions which, as it is alleged, followed as a natural consequence from the secular aggrandizement of the clergy, when a voice from the heavens of political power said to the church, "Come up hither." No doubt an enhancement and expansion of pride, ambition, luxuriousness, and every mundane passion, took place at Rome, at Constantinople, at Alexandria, at Antioch, and elsewhere, when emperors, instead of oppressing, or barely tolerating the doctrine of Christ, bowed obsequiously to his ministers. But the very same evils, far from being called into existence by the breath of imperial favor, had reached a bold height even while the martyrs were still bleeding. And moreover, how offensive or injurious soever these scandals might be, either before or after the epoch of the political triumph of the cross, they did but scathe the exterior of Christianity. In every age the vices, always duly blazoned, of secular churchmen, have stained its surface. But when there has been warmth and purity within, the mischief occasioned by such evils has scarcely been more than that of giving point to the railleries of men who would still have scoffed, though not a bishop had been arrogant, nor a presbyter licentious.

Christianity had lost its simplicity and glory in the hands of its most devoted friends long before the alliance between the church and the world had taken place. The copious history of this internal perversion would afford a worthy subject of diligent inquiry; and though materials for a complete explication of the process of corruption are not in existence, enough remains to invite and reward the necessary labor.

The enthusiasm of the ancient Church presents itself under several distinct forms, among which the following may be mentioned as the most conspicuous:—the enthusiasm of voluntary martyrdom; that of miraculous pretension; that of prophetical interpretation, or millenarianism; that of the mystical exposition of Scripture; and that of monachism. Of these, the last, whether or not it was truly the parent of the other kinds, includes them all as parts of itself; for whatever perversions of Christianity were chargeable upon the sentiments and practices of the general church, the same belonged by eminence to the recluses. A review of the principles and the ingredients of this system will better accord with the limits and design of this essay, than an extended examination of facts under the several heads just named.

A strict equity has by no means always been observed by protestant writers in their criminations of the Romish Church. With the view of aggravating the just and necessary indignation of mankind against the mother of corruption, it has been usual to lay open the concealments of the monastery; and with materials before him so various and so copious, even the dullest writer might cheaply be entertaining, eloquent, and vigorous. Meantime it is not duly considered, or not fairly stated, that the reprobation passes back, in full force, to an age much more remote than that of the supremacy of Rome. The bishops of Rome did but avail themselves of the aid of a system which had reached a full maturity without their fostering care; a system which had been sanctioned and cherished, almost without an exception, by every father of the church, eastern and western; which had come down in its elements even from the primitive age, and which had won for itself a suffrage so general, if not universal, that he must have possessed an extraordinary measure of wisdom, courage, and influence, who should have ventured beyond a cautious and moderated censure of its more obvious abuses.

Every essential principle, almost every adjunct, and almost every vice of the monkery of the tenth or twelfth century, may be detected in that of the fourth: or if an earlier period were named, proof would not be wanting to make the allegation defensible. But if it be affirmed, or if it could be proved, that the actual amount of hypocrisy and corruption usually sheltered beneath the roof of the monastery, was greater in the later than in the earlier age, it should as a counterpoise be stated, that in the later period the religious houses contained almost all the piety and learning that anywhere existed: while in the former there was certainly as much piety without as within these seclusions; and much more of learning. The monkery of the middle ages, moreover, stands partially excused by the dense ignorance of the times; while that of the ancient Church is condemned by the surrounding light, both of human and divine knowledge. The very establishments which redeem the age of Roger Bacon from oblivion and contempt, do but blot the times of Gregory Nazianzen.