Where then, O Rome, were your Brutus', your Cincinnatus', your Catos, your Marcus Aurelius', your Julians? The fact was, so far from being able to produce such examples of heroic virtue, your sons had nearly ceased to deserve the name of men; and as Machiavel truly observes, the doctrines of your new religion, teaching only passive courage and suffering, had subdued the Roman spirit, and fitted you for subjection and slavery. All manly dignity, all strength of mind, and all the virtues had forsaken your sons, and you had become the nucleus of theological absurdity—of all that is worthless, vicious, and unnatural. Your handling of arms to prevent barbarian invasion had ceased, and they were used alone to cut each others throats about the supernatural phantoms of your fraudful priests; witness your Emperor Honorius, who was most holily employed at Ravenna "in punishing Manicheans, Donatists, Priscillianists, and heretics of every denomination, whilst the Goths marched without opposition to Rome." Again, when the Heruli, the Goths, the Vandals, and the Huns, invaded the empire, what steps were taken by the two emperors to withstand their attack, and resist the torrent of invasion? None at all; these superstitious fools in purple, aided by their priests and monks, were settling the difference between Omoosis and Omousis; and, probably, the different degrees of efficacy in concomitant, versatile, and sufficient grace. With these heavenly matters upon their hands, how could these holy men find time to resist the invasion of their country? Suppose for a moment, that by one of the Christian miracles, the great Caius Julius had started up amongst these degenerate reptiles, and witnessed their ridiculous fooleries, would he have believed that he was among Romans? What would he have said of Saint Anthony's preaching to the fishes with such "spiritual efficacy," that a huge cod looks at the preacher with a face of sanctified beatitude; whilst a beautiful salmon turns up his eyes to heaven, imploring divine light and grace?
When such shameful and degrading absurdities had thus sunk the Romans, and the contagion of the new superstition had so thoroughly and incurably vitiated the minds of all ranks, that all firmness and nobility of character were extinct amongst them; and the change was rapidly leading to the downfall of that vast empire,—dastards and mental recreants in nature, they were marked by the northern nations as an easy prey to the first invader. Little or no symptom of such a decline had appeared until after the gods of the Christians had gained the countenance of the Emperor Constantine, who did not destroy, but made a change in the worship of the Gentile gods, under whom, it was supposed, the empire had attained the highest pitch of glory and power. Yet even this Constantine, so far as regarded himself, was ever as ready to pay his respect to Jupiter, Apollo, and Venus, as to Jehovah, Christ, and the Virgin Mary,* having wit enough to perceive that the latter were mere copies of the former.
* He died more a Pagan than a Christian; and all the change
that he in reality effected was to amalgamate, or unite the
two superstitions. This is proved in the fact that, under a
change of names and forms, nearly the whole of the heathen
mythos was adopted and continued.
In order to conceal as much as possible the fact, that the adoption of the Christian superstition was the principal cause of the downfall of Roman greatness, it has been assumed by church historians and others, that a very considerable decline had visibly taken place during the hundred and seventy years that elapsed between the reign of Adrian and that of Constantine; but this assumption appears to be fallacious. It is true that the integrity of the empire was sometimes endangered during that period, from the despotism falling into unworthy and profligate hands; but at the time when Constantine possessed himself of it, the extent of territory seems to have been undiminished at any point; for it still included the provinces east of the Euphrates (lost by the sons of this emperor), and towards the west, northern Africa, Gaul, Spain, and Britain; so that the real "decline and fall," commenced with the adoption of Christianity.* If the subversion of this immense empire had been the only political effect of this freshly compounded system of theology, the cause of humanity might not have suffered; but it is a most lamentable truth that all the ancient learning of the east was involved in that destruction; for we know from historic facts which are indisputable, that the priests, and tyrants acting in league with them, took special care, as far as it lay in their power, to destroy every root and branch of natural science; but more particularly the writings of those philosophers who exposed the immoral and wicked rites and secrets of the new sect, and its origin amongst the lowest and vilest of the populace.** As one proof amongst a hundred of the persecution of such learned Gentiles as exposed the profligacy of the first Christians, we quote part of the decree of the Emperor Theodosius, as follows:—"We decree that all writings whatever, which Porphyry, or anyone else, hath written against the Christian religion, in the possession of whomsoever they may be found, shall be committed to the fire." (See the original Latin, quoted by Lardner.) Thus the Emperors soon found that, with the connivance and subserviency of the priests, the new superstition was much better calculated than the old for the purposes of tyranny; and that the one thing needful was to suppress all Pagan learning—to foster and diffuse the gloom of ignorance, as the only element in which their nefarious schemes for the subjugation of the human mind could prosper.
* The tide of prosperity and greatness followed the Romans,
so long as they were reared under the moral and heroic
virtues of the old religion, until the new superstition
arose like a blighting meteor, shedding its baleful
influence over the empire; and by its pernicious dogmas and
emasculating tendency, gradually reduced the most warlike
nation in the world to contempt and vassalage.
** The Emperor Julian, in a discourse to the Christians,
told them that "It was enough for you at first to seduce a
few servants—a few beggars, such as Cornelius and Sergius.
But let me be regarded as the most impudent of impostors, if
among those who embraced your feet under Tiberius and
Claudius, there was a single man of birth or merit." Julian
here alludes to the Jewish sect of Galileans, who had not
assumed the name of Christians under Tiberius and Claudius.
In latter times history vouches for the horrible persecutions and bloody wars, which this fresh version of Christianity occasioned throughout Europe and part of Asia, for more than thirteen hundred years, viz., from the reign of Constantine till towards the latter end of the sixteenth century, when some glimmerings of science began to dispel the gloom of ignorance, and to weaken that priestly and aristocratic despotism, which even to this day has not been entirely shaken off by any European nation.
A celebrated philosopher,* when speaking of the above period, makes the following observations:—If, says he, God deigned to make himself a man, and a Jew, and to die in Palestine by an infamous punishment, to expiate the crimes of mankind, and to banish sin from the earth, there ought to have been no longer any sin or crime amongst men, whereas religious crimes seem only to have commenced since the time when that event is said to have happened: and the Christians, by their holy massacres and burnings, have shown themselves more abominable monsters than all the sectaries of the other religions put together.**
* Freret.
** The Jews may be regarded as an exception; for their
history displays the most memorable examples of the evils
arising from superstition and fanaticism; from these arose
the numerous revolutions, the horrid and bloody wars; and at
last their total destruction as a petty dependent nation,
owing to their submission to priests, and their unbounded
credulity. From the roguish deceptions of their tribe of
priests alone, they became, beyond all contradiction, the
most despicable people that ever existed. Their barbarous
ignorance was easily played upon by Levitical commissions
from heaven.
In proof of this, witness the gibbets, the wheels, the massacres, and the horrible burnings at the stake of nearly a hundred thousand human beings in a single province—the massacres and devastations of nine mad crusades of Christians against unoffending Turks, during nearly two hundred years; in which many millions of human beings perished—the massacres of the Anabaptists—the massacres of the Lutherans and Papists, from the Rhine to the extremities of the north—the massacres, in Ireland, England, and Scotland, in the time of Charles I., who was himself massacred—the massacres ordered by Henry VIII. and his daughter Mary—the massacres of St. Bartholomew in France; and forty years more of other massacres between the time of Francis I. and the entry of Henry IV. into Paris;—the massacres of the inquisition, which are more execrable still, as being judicially committed;—to say nothing of the innumerable schisms and twenty wars of popes against popes—bishops against bishops—the poisonings, assassinations—the cruel rapines of more than a dozen of popes, who far exceeded a Nero or a Caligula in every species of crime and wickedness;—the massacre of twelve millions of the inhabitants of the new world, executed CRUCIFIX IN HAND and all for the honor and glory of the Jewish deity and his son!! This is without reckoning all the massacres committed in the same names, precedently to any of the above. Finding no end to this dismal catalogue of theological enormities, this philosopher shortly observes, that such a hideous and almost uninterrupted chain of religious wars, for fourteen centuries, never subsisted but among Christians; and that none of all the numerous nations called heathen ever spilt a drop of human blood on the score of theological arguments.
* Under the banners and sanction of the exterminating god of
Moses and of Joshua, "the Spaniards did not treat the
inhabitants of the New World as human beings, because they
were not Christians. All sense of remorse was stifled; and
those unfeeling men, whom Europe had disgorged from her
bosom, were abandoned without control to their insatiable
thirst for gold and for blood."