In revenge for the victories of the Christians, the pagans accused them of committing the grossest immoralities. For many centuries the early Christian congregations met under circumstances of great difficulty, in secret hiding-places, in catacombs. Their religious rites were performed mysteriously. Lights were often extinguished to foil the object of spies and informers. These peculiarities served as the pretext for many obvious calumnies. It was commonly believed, even by men of the calibre of Tacitus, that the Christian rites bore strong resemblances to those rites of Isis which, at an early period of Roman history, had created such alarm and horror at Rome. Nor were these calumnies confined to the heathen. In the third and fourth centuries, when sectarian rivalries menaced the destruction of the Church, similar accusations were freely bandied. That they were wholly unfounded in every case seems difficult to believe, in the face of the clear statements of such writers as Epiphanes. What the precise doctrines of the various sects called Adamites, Cainites, Nicolaites, and some subdivisions of Gnostics, may have been, it were perhaps superfluous now to inquire; but it seems not unreasonable to suppose that, in some instances, men of depraved instincts may have availed themselves of the cloak of Christianity to conceal the gratification of sensual habits; or, on the other hand, that minds in a state of religious exaltation may have stumbled upon impurities in the search for the state of nature. In comparatively late times we have seen, in America as well as Savoy, a few persons of weak minds give way to religious enthusiasm in a manner that warred with public decency. Similar aberrations may have been more frequent during the seething era which preceded the establishment of Christianity, and prostitution, in some shape or other, may have again become a religious rite in certain deluded or knavish sects. Nor was it unnatural, unjust though it certainly was, for the heathen to charge Christianity at large with the vices of those of its followers who worshiped in a state of nudity, and accompanied prayer with promiscuous intercourse.[156]
Even in the bosom of the true Church practices would break out from time to time which jarred sadly with the moral theory of the Apostles. Many persons of both sexes, under the influence of religious enthusiasm, sought relief for their troubled souls in solitude, and unwisely attempted to mortify the flesh by practices which too often sharpened the appetites. One only needs to read the eloquent effusions of St. Jerome to become satisfied that the course of life adopted by many early Christian recluses, of both sexes, must have led unwittingly to moral aberrations. Young men and young women, devoting themselves to a life of seclusion in the woods, living like wild beasts, without clothing and without shame, would naturally revive the system of religious prostitution in a more or less modified shape. On the other hand, in many parts of Europe, Christian churches thought it not unsafe to accept the legacies of the heathen religions in the shapes of idols, forms, and ceremonies. Saints succeeded to the honors of gods; dances in honor of Venus became dances in honor of the Virgin; statues which were originally intended to represent heathen deities were saved from destruction by being adopted as fair representations of Christian saints. Until very recent times there existed, in various parts of Europe, statues of Priapus, under the name of some saint, retaining the indecency of the idol, and associated with the belief of some simple women that the image possessed the power assigned it in mythology. In processions, during the third and fourth centuries, sacred virgins were seen to wear round their necks the obscene symbol of the old worship, and in places the holy bread retained the shape of the Roman coliphia and siligines. St. John Chrysostom complains that in places he designates, women were baptized in a state of nature, without even being permitted to veil their sex.[157] A majority of Christian teachers, unwilling to deprive the masses of a superstitious convenience afforded them by paganism, allowed them to pray to certain saints not only for fertility, but for the removal of impotence from husbands and lovers.[158]
To these immoral features must be added occasional instances of looseness in conventual life. The preamble of various edicts in France and elsewhere leaves no room to doubt that, in several instances, immoral persons had assumed the religious garb, and collected themselves together in religious communities for the purpose of gratifying sensuality.
These were the aids Christianity afforded to prostitution in its various forms. They are a mere trifle in comparison with the obstacles it threw in its way. Independently of the effect produced by the moral teaching of St. Paul and the Apostles, the rising power of the Church was vigorously exerted to modify the legislation both of the Eastern and Western empires on the subject of sexual depravities.
The fathers did not uniformly proscribe prostitution. Saint Augustin said, “Suppress prostitution, and capricious lusts will overthrow society.”[159] Jerome recognized prostitution, and argued that, as Mary Magdalene had been saved, so might any prostitute who repented.[160] The canons of the apostles excluded from the ministry all persons who were convicted of having commerce with prostitutes, and excommunicated those who were guilty of rape, but they passed no general sentence on prostitutes.[161] But the apostolic constitution branded as sinful any sexual intercourse quæ non adhibetur ad generationem filiorum sed tota ad voluptatem spectat.[162] The same principle is asserted in various passages of the work; wine being denounced as a provocation to impurity, and the faithful are warned against the society of lewd persons (scortatores). The Council of Elvira pronounced the penalty of excommunication against bawds and prostitutes, but it expressly commanded priests to receive at the communion-table prostitutes who had married Christians.[163] St. Augustin conceived that no church should admit prostitutes to the altar till they had abandoned the calling.[164] A similar doctrine was expressed by the Council of Toledo. At a later period, as we advance in mediæval history, we find the councils recognizing prostitution, and prostitutes as a class. In 1431, at the Council of Basle, a holy father presented a paper on the subject of prostitution, in which it was implied to be the only safeguard of good morals. A century later, the Council of Milan took especial pains to identify prostitutes as a class. They were to wear a distinctive dress, with no ornaments of gold, silver, or silk; to reside in places expressly designated by the bishops, at a distance from cathedrals; to avoid taverns and hostelries. The execution of the decree was intrusted to the bishops and the civil magistrates.[165]
The vectigal or tax paid by all persons subsisting by prostitution was exacted by the emperors, from Caligula to Theodosius. It was usually collected every five years. Zosimus accuses Constantine of having enlarged and remodeled the tax, but apparently without foundation. The early Christians made it a subject of reproach to the emperors.[166] In consequence of their assaults, Theodosius abandoned that portion of the law which laid a tax on bawds, leaving the tax on prostitutes. The latter was levied as rigorously as ever. A contemporary writer describes the imperial agents hunting for prostitutes in taverns and houses of prostitution, and forcing them to purchase, by payment of the tax, the right of pursuing their calling.[167] At length, in the fifth century, prostitution and the tax on prostitutes, or chrysarguron, were formally abolished by the Emperor Anastasius I., and the records and rolls of the collectors burned. It is said that some time afterward, the emperor gave out that he had repented of what he had done, and desired to see the chrysarguron re-established. The announcement gave great joy to the debauchees, and numbers of persons prepared to avail themselves of the re-enactment of the law. The emperor let it be known that he desired to have matters placed, so far as could be, on their old footing, and would therefore desire to collect as many as possible of the old rolls and records. They were gathered together at all parts, and laid at the imperial feet. Notice was then given to the people to meet at the circus on a given day; when they were all assembled, the whole collection of documents was burned, amid the frantic applause of the populace.[168]
It has been asserted, however, that the chrysarguron was revived subsequently, and was levied under Justinian. That legislator altered the old Roman laws regarding prostitution, and relieved prostitutes from the ineffaceable ban of infamy which the republican jurisprudence had laid on them. He permitted the marriage of citizens with prostitutes, and encouraged it by his example. His own wife, the Empress Theodora, had been a ballet-dancer and a prostitute. When she attained the imperial dignity, her first thought was of her old companions. She built a magnificent palace-prison on the south shore of the Bosphorus, and in one night caused five hundred prostitutes in Constantinople to be seized and conveyed thither. They were kindly treated; their every wish was gratified; but no man entered their asylum. The experiment was a complete failure. Most of the girls committed suicide in their despair, and the remainder soon died of ennui and vexation.
Theodosius had laid heavy penalties on brothel-keepers;[169] Justinian reiterated them, and increased their weight. The seizure and prostitution of a girl he punished with death. He who connived at the prostitution of females was to be expelled from the city where he lived, and any person harboring him was to be fined one hundred gold pieces. Whatever legislation could effect to uproot the system of procurers and public prostitution, Justinian did;[170] but his laws contain no trace of any harsh policy toward prostitutes. Those unfortunate creatures he regarded with an indulgent humanity, which, for the sake of human nature, one may perhaps ascribe to the kindly sympathy of the empress.