Yet even in her apostatized condition the Catholic church did much for the amelioration of society. At the commencement of the fourth century of the Christian era, a cloud of more than Cimmerian darkness overshadowed western Europe. It was then occupied by wandering savages. The period embraced in the next thousand years greatly improved its condition. It was during this period that the population were organized into families, communities and cities. Those centuries found it full of bondmen—they left it without a slave. Where there had been trackless forests, there were now farms, orchards and villages. Instead of bloody chieftains drinking out of their enemies' skulls, there were parish priests teaching the masses the crude beginning of religious thought. Instead of gladiatorial combats, which characterized ancient Roman civilization, there were thoughtful men gravely pondering the problems of free agency and moral responsibility.
Enveloped as she was by the evils of the times, the Catholic church gave rise to many improvements. She taught the doctrine of an ultimate accountability for personal deeds, of which the ancient inhabitants of Europe had very indistinct perceptions. Under her direction the brotherhood of man was taught as it had never been before, and was illustrated, not merely by individual acts of charity, the memory of which is soon forgotten, but also by the establishment of permanent institutions, such as hospitals, alms-houses, schools and asylums for the relief of the afflicted, for the spread of knowledge and the succoring of the oppressed. Many of her high dignitaries, and even popes, were men who had risen from the humbler ranks of society. These men, true to their instincts, were often the champions of right against might. In an age of tyranny, the very organization of the church was essentially republican. It thus paved the way for modern representative governments, and prepared the minds of men for their introduction.
Still it was not over nations and communities that Rome showed her chief power, but in her control of domestic and individual interests. History presents no record like hers. Her pontiffs in the quiet halls of the Vatican could equally take in a hemisphere at a glance or examine the private character of any individual. Was there a rebellion in Spain? Her agents informed her of it. Was there an obscure philosopher in Germany writing down the results of his investigations? She also knew it. While she restrained the power and tyranny of kings by her influence, she also relieved the hungry beggar or wandering minstrel at the monastery gate. In all Europe there was not a man too obscure, too insignificant or too desolate for her. Surrounded by her solemnities every one received his name at her altar, her bells chimed at his marriage and her knell tolled at his funeral. By her confessionals she extorted from him the secrets of his life, and by her penances she punished him for his faults. In the hour of sickness and trouble her servants sought him out, teaching him to place his trust in God, and strengthening him for the trials of life by the example of the good and faithful of former days. And when at length his lifeless body had become an offense, even to his friends, she received it into her consecrated ground, there to rest till the resurrection morning. She raised woman from nearly the condition of a slave and made her the equal and fit companion of man; and in turn, received a recompense by a firm friend in every home. In an age of bloodshed and plunder she lifted up her hand in defense of the weak, and made her sanctuaries a refuge for the despairing and oppressed.
But here arose the difficulty. The so-called Christian church by apostasy had lost the key of revelation. Her decisions depended not upon the voice of inspiration but upon the musty parchments of the past. Claiming to be the church of God, she regarded her decisions as infallible and irrevocable, her teachings as beyond question. Her ideas were crystalized; her philosophy, if indeed it was worthy of that name, was stationary, as must be the case with all systems reposing on a final revelation of God. In the domain of the Catholic church during the space of a thousand years, namely from the time of the apostles to the eleventh century, not a book had been written, not a painting executed, nor statue sculptured of sufficient merit to rescue the name of the author from oblivion. Throughout the length and breadth of Europe there fell a dark cloud of intellectual stagnation, an invisible atmosphere of oppression ready to break down morally and physically whatever opposed its weight; except where a few feeble rays of light were kept flickering by the efforts of Jewish and Mahometan scholars. She at once disclosed her human and denied her divine origin by attempting to force fixed laws on society in the presence of higher truths and advancing civilization.
The first great conflict was in reference to geography—the shape and surface of the earth. When science disclosed the fact that the earth was round, there was a great commotion, and so much the more since it was by Mahometan scholars that the discovery had been made. It was asked, "Can any good thing come out of Nazareth?" In other words, "Is it possible for vile Mahometans to understand and teach such a truth when it is not yet known to the assumed church of God?" At once the war-spirit became fierce and hot. The great writer Eusebius treated the doctrine with contempt. Lactantius asks, "Is there any one so senseless, as to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their heads? That the crops and trees grow downwards? That the rains, snow and hail fall upward to the earth?" (For further particulars see Whewel's Hist. Induct. Sciences, Vol. I, page 196.) At this stage of the controversy, Cosmas Indicopleustes, by direction of the Catholic church, undertook to give a description of the earth. According to Cosmas, the universe is in the form of an immense box, twice as broad as it is high and twice as long as it is broad. At the bottom of this box lies the earth, surrounded by four great seas or oceans. At the outer edges of these seas, rise immense walls, which support the vault of heaven, even as the walls of a house support the roof; and thus walls and vault shut in the earth and all the heavenly bodies. This vast box he divides into two compartments or stories. In the lower one men were said to live, and sun, moon and stars to move. The upper one was said to be the abode of God and angels, whose principal work was to push and pull the sun and planets to and fro, and to open the windows of heaven, and thus regulate the quantity of rain.
The ignorance or impudence of Cosmas can only be partially imagined, when we recollect that he supported his theory by reference to the Bible, and quoted Genesis i, 6; Job xxvi, 11; Psalms cxlviii, 4; Isaiah xl, 22. All the sublime poetry and beautiful imagery of these texts were thus debased to give credence to the wild vagaries of this ignorant man.
Space will not permit us to follow this contest in all its phases: suffice it to say that so late as the fourteenth century Cecco d' Ascoli was burned alive for asserting his belief in the rotundity of the earth. (See Neander's History of the Christian Church, Vol. II, page 63.) The student of history will also remember how Columbus at the great council of Salamanca was overwhelmed by texts of scripture wrested from their rightful meaning. It was only after the successful navigation of the earth, by Magellan's ship, the San Vittoria, that Rome ceased to persecute the adherents of this doctrine. In all this contest Rome's dogmas only resulted in injury to herself. The authority of the scriptures was not in the end weakened, but rather strengthened; but to thinking men, Rome's claim of divine right to interpret the scriptures was of little value. Rome had been "weighed in the balances and found wanting."
It was therefore in a scientific not less than a religious point of view that many leading minds looked with favor toward that great religious, movement known as the Reformation.
While Luther, Calvin and Zwingle were busy denouncing the corruptions of the Romish church, the forces were preparing for the second great conflict between science and so-called religion, namely, that concerning the motion of the earth. Copernicus lived at the same time as Luther, and died two years before him. His was as brave a life as ever lived in story. For thirty-six years, at the very time the Protestant struggle was raging, he was working at that immortal book, De Revolutionibus Orbum, in which he so clearly demonstrates the motion of the earth, and the revolution of the planets around the sun. But he dared not print it for many years. If he published it at Rome, it would fall into the hands of the Inquisition; if he caused it to be printed in Germany, there were the Protestant leaders no less hostile; if he sent it to Switzerland, there stood Calvin and Zwingle ready to burn it. At length the work was ready for the press. By the entreaty of the Romish Cardinal Schomberg, and with many apologies, Copernicus ventured to publish it. He was now old and feeble. Patiently he waited at death's door to see a printed copy. At length the long looked-for copy arrived, he saw it, composed himself and died, 1543.
Seven years after the death of Copernicus, was born that strange mortal, Giordano Bruno. For teaching the rotation of the earth he had to flee to Switzerland. But Calvin held power there and Bruno was soon obliged to leave. Driven in succession from England, France and Germany, and, like Noah's dove, finding no rest for the sole of his foot, he at length ventured to return to Italy. He was arrested in Venice, and after eight years of solitary confinement, was burned at Rome, February 16, 1600. When the atrocious sentence was passed upon him, he nobly replied, "Perhaps it is with greater fear that ye pass this sentence upon me than I receive it."