A A s on OUT ^^^^^ m ^ 7 8 6 8 9 7 9 GIONAL LIBRAI W FACILITY WMmi GIFT OF SEELEY W. MUDD GEORGE I. COCHRAN MEYER ELSASSER DR. JOHN R. HAYNES WILLIAM L. HONNOLD JAMES R. MARTIN MRS. JOSEPH F. SARTORI to the UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA SOUTHERN BRANCH This book is DUE on the last date stamped below NOV 1 j iJJ TJAN 8 1958 148 £S8$3i Coxe- Tpr.t-iti i1-.-H of Christian history Southern Branch of the University of California Los Angeles m Form L I A) c/z^Api 9rt4r£jL. f tgjnr, oi V v Oty /l €^c 'Batotom lecture*!, 1886 INSTITUTES OF Christian History &u Kntrotmctton TO HISTORIC READING AND STUDY By A. CLEVELAND COXE BISHOP OF WESTERN NEW YORK I do but prompt the age to quit their clogs. — Milton CHICAGO A. C. McCLURG AND COMPANY 1887 85080 Copyright, By A. Cleveland Coxe, A.D. 1887. K, 3 ; TO SIBYL AUGUSTA, Wife of Henry Porter Baldwin, Sometime Governor of the State of Michigan, and subsequently a Senator of the United States. Madam, It was your happy privilege to associate yourself with your distinguished husband in the endowment of the Baldwin Lectures, following the example of illustrious women in the Mother Church and furnishing an example which I trust will be imitated by Christian wome?i in America in time to come. I count it a great honour to have received the first appointment as Baldwin Lecturer under ,the judicious provisions of the foundation. Sitjfer me to inscribe these first-fruits of the project to you, as a tribute to yourself and to my beloved friend, " the Governor" as his fellow citizens still delight to call him, even now when he has withdrawn himself from public life. The far-seeing and gifted prelate who presides over the diocese of Michigan has ettdeared himself to the Church at large by the establishment of the Hobart Guild at the seat of the State University, for the promotio7i of Christian work in that seat of learning. And greatly is he to be con- gratulated upon the sympathy and co-operation with which you and Governor Baldwin have so promptly and so ejfi- JV DEDICA TION. ciently sustained his effort. Without lay helpers what can an Ainerican bishop do? And where innumerable works for developing and sustaining Christianity in the Republic ought to be set on foot vigorously and without delay, how good it is that there are not wanting some to lend the elo- quence of their practical beneficence to the appeals of their fatliers in God ! May you and your husband, even in this life, enjoy great recompense in seeing the rich results which are sure to spring from your good works. In the better life to come, what blessed promises of God's Word assure you, through the Redeemer's merits, of rewards unspeakable and full of glory / Let me remain, dear madam, Your faithful and grateful friend, LEA COTE, Rhinebeck-on-Hudson, September, 1887. A. CLEVELAND COXE, Bishop of Western New York. T PREFACE. HE foundation of the " Hobart Guild," and therewith of the "Baldwin Lectures," in the University of Michigan, has directed the attention of the Church to a new and wise policy with reference to our State schools and colleges. The instrument which fully expounds this move- Xj' ment will be found in another page of this book. 1 We owe these foundations to the enlightened wis- dom and foresight of the Right Reverend prelate, M who, with such great advantage to the Church at jrf large, now presides over the Diocese of Michigan. But he would hardly forgive me should I neglect to add, that in the munificence of Governor Bald- win and his accomplished wife he has found that sort of encouragement and help without which the ablest and most zealous bishop is impotent to effect what his heart and head may prompt him to propose as due alike to the Republic and to the Church of Christ. 1 See " Deed of Trust," p. 299. VI PREFACE. This book would have been more promptly issued from the press, had not many important practical questions demanded prudent delays in a publication designed to be the first of a series. Such a series must be uniform in size and appear- ance; and what should be the form and cost? The choice of a publisher to whom, probably, many future volumes must be intrusted in the progress of the successive annual courses, and many subordinate considerations, were also to be decided. It was our deliberate conclusion, that a judicious medium between cost and cheapness must be accepted to secure the widest possible circulation for the series; and we trust the " make- up " of this book will be regarded as justifying a conclusion of great practical importance. A Western University, it was also thought, should not look eastward for a publishing house, while the great book business and admirable publish- ing facilities of Chicago invited us to the great midland metropolis. Those who listened to the Lectures last autumn will find a rearrangement of some of the lectures, and some transpositions of material. This grows out of the fact, that, in the arrangement of the course, the more important matters were grouped, less logically, with reference to the evenings of the week most free from other work in the University, PREFACE. vii and hence most likely to secure the larger audi- ences. I have also taken the liberty, even at the sacrifice of material which seemed on the whole less important, to enlarge upon some points which I was forced to slight in oral lecturing. In this I was partly guided by kind inquiries and sugges- tions of friends who attended the entire course. I must be allowed to express my sense of obligation to the President and Professors of the University, who afforded me so much encouragement, and by whose influence, no doubt, I was able to secure, for so many evenings, one of the largest, and, including the youth whom I considered so inter- esting a class in themselves, one of the most intel- ligent and inspiring auditories, which it was ever my happiness to address. A. C. C. LEA COTE, Rhinebeck-on-Hudson, September 10, 1887. CONTENTS. 10. 1 1. LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY. PAGE i. Truth 9 2. Humanity 9 3. History and its Study 10 4. The Use of Lectures 12 5. The Heritage of the Ages 13 6. Christian History 14 7. The Pivot 15 8. Empirical History 16 9. Conventional Ideas 17 An Underestimated Epoch 18 The Ruts of Habit • .19 12. Another Example 21 13. Tokens of a New Era 22 14. A Brilliant Work that just misses a Prize ... 24 15. Scientific History 25 16. The Mother of Theology 25 17. Institutes 26 18. Truth, Old and New 28 19. Catholicity 29 20. A Comparison 3 1 21. Bacon and his Idols ........ 3 1 22. Dates of Anchorage 33 23. The Great Epochs 34 24. A Practical Plan 35 25. The Survey 37 26. A Practical Use of Historic Science 3 8 X CONTENTS. LECTURE II. THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 1. Antioch 40 2. A Contrast 41 3. An Inquiry . 42 4. The Portraiture of Antioch 42 5. The Populace . 45 6. The Jewish Element ....... 47 7. The Church in Antioch 48 8. The Exceptional Apostolate 49 9. Apostolic Institutions ....... 50 10. Apostolic Fathers. — Ignatius . .... 52 11. Justin Martyr 53 12. The Persecutions . 55 13. Polycarp . 55 14. Primitive Schools. — Alexandria 57 15. Many Doctors. — Athanasius 58 16. The Punic School. — Tertullian and Cyprian . . 59 17. Arnobius and Lactantius ....... 61 18. Maxims of Lactantius . 62 19. Harmony of Theologians . 62 20. The Roman Diocese 63 21. Irenaeus, — his Place in the West ..... 64 22. Roman Receptivity 66 23. The Nascent Patriarchate 67 24. Hippolytus 69 25. Caius and Novatian 70 26. The Gallicans 71 27. Chronic Persecutions 71 28. Growth of the Church 73 29. Conversion of the Empire -74 30. Caesars conquered by Martyrs 75 LECTURE III. THE SYNODICAL PERIOD. 1. The Conversion of Constantine 77 2. Reserve and Moderation 78 CONTENTS. XI 3. The Celibate 78 4. Other Immediate Results ...... 79 5. Disadvantages 82 6. Lasting Results 83 7. Primitive Councils S3 8. A Nursing Father 85 9. The Temporal Bishopric 86 10. A General Council 87 11. Nicaea .88 12. The Opening 89 13. Significant Facts 91 14. Results of the Council 92 15. The Paschal Letters 93 16. The Patriarchates 95 17. The Great Councils 96 18. The Second Council 97 19. The Council of Ephesus 98 20. The Fourth Council 99 21. Chalcedon 100 22. Eutyches 102 23. Leo, Patriarch of Old Rome 102 24. Immutable Catholicity 104 25. Two Supplementary Councils 105 26. Ratifications 106 27. The Final Judgment 107 28. Who are Catholics 108 LECTURE IV. THE CREATION OF A "WESTERN EMPIRE. The Breaking up of Old Rome no in . 112 113 . 114 115 . 116 116 . 117 119 2. The Goths, Vandals, and Huns 3. Retrospect .... 4. Minor Councils 5. Irene 6. A Counter Council 7. The Rule of Faith . 8. The Maxim of Vincent . 9. The Council of Frankfort 10. Alcuin Xll CONTENTS. n. 12. *3- 14. IS- 16. 17- 18. 19. 20. 21. 22. 23- 24. 25- 26. 27. 28. 29. 3°- Universities, and their Origin 119 The Caroline Books 121 The Degeneracy of the East 123 Mohammed 124 Successes of Mohammed 125 Isnik and Dan 126 Frankfort once more 127 The Blessed Results 128 Charlemagne 129 Christmas Day, A. D. Soo 130 What it meant 13 1 Widely Different Effects 132 The Holy Roman Empire 133 Insulation of England 134 Distinctions T 35 Formation of the Paparchy 136 Conditions Precedent 138 My Position !39 Nicholas and the Decretals 14° An Illustration 143 LECTURE V. THE MIDDLE AGES. 1 . Dark Ages .... 2. Maitland's Elucidation . 3. A Glance at the East 4. The Decretals in Operation . 5. How it looked in English Eyes 6. The Latin Churches 7. Gallicanism .... 8. St. Bernard .... 9. The Patristic Period 10. The Scholastics n. Relations with Modern Thought 12. The Crusades 13. Barbarism .... 14. Expiry of the Dark Ages 15. The Cinque-Cento M5 146 146 148 ISI 151 152 154 156 157 153 159 161 162 164 CONTENTS. xiil 1 6. The Medici 166 17. Gothic Architecture 167 18. The New Christian Architecture 169 19. Navigation 170 20. Printing 11 21. Great Movements 172 22.. The Fall of Constantinople 174 23. Light out of Darkness 175 LECTURE VI. THE CHURCH OF OUR FOREFATHERS. 1. Identity and Continuity 177 2. Origin of the Church in Britain 178 3. Periods ... ....... 179 4. The Primitive Period ....... 179 5. Groans of the Britons . 180 6. Conversion of the English 181 7. The Early English 182 8. Consequences ......... 183 9. Relations to the Apostolic See 183 10. A Discovery 1S4 11. The Other Side of the Case 185 12. A Conference . 186 13. And Another 1S6 14. Iona and its Missions 1S8 15. Counsels of Unity 189 16. The Mission of Theodore 190 17. Perilous Innovations . 191 18. Compromises 192 19. What its First Archbishop had made of the Anglican Church ......... 193 20. The Venerable Bede 194 21. First English Missions 194 22. The Later Period . 195 23. Alfred, the Head of our Race 196 24. Taking our Bearings 197 25. The Anglo-Norman Period 19S 26. The New Episcopics ab Extra 199 XIV CONTENTS. 27. The Foreign Archbishops 200 28. The Great Lanfranc ........ 201 29. Old Landmarks 201 30. An Anglican Primate 202 31. Cypriote Autonomy 204 32. Anglican Liberties asserted 205 33. The Great Anselm 206 34. Intrusion of Legates 207 35. Where we stand 209 LECTURE VII. THE ELEMENTS OF RESTORATION. 1. The Transition yet Incomplete 211 2. The Plantagenets . . . . . . . . 212 3. The Submission 214 4. Two Forces 215 5. Three Classes involved . 216 6. Innocent III. . 217 7. The Ebb of the Normans 218 8. Archbishop Langton 219 9. England a Fief of Rome ....... 221 10. Magna Charta ........ 222 11. Henry the Third 222 12. Two Edwards ........ 224 13. The Third Edward 225 14. Spiritual Progress 227 15. Oxford Men 229 16. Greathead 230 17. Wiclif 231 18. The English Language ....... 231 16. The Popes of Avignon ....... 232 20. Wiclif's Antecedents ....... 233 21. The Good Parliament 234 22. The First Citation 235 23. The Second Citation ....... 235 24. Lambeth 236 25. The Friars 237 26. Wiclif's Death and Character 239 CONTENTS. XV 27. An Estimate of Wiclif's Work 241 28. Mistakes 2 4* 29. The Good Things 243 30. A Period of Delays 244 31. Our Great Benefactors 245 32. The Epoch of Wolsey 246 33. Restored Rights 2 4§ 34. Who did this ? 249 35. Another Step 2 5* 36. How it looked in France 251 37. The Sequel 2 5 2 38. The Bloody Queen 253 39. The Martyrs 254 LECTURE VIII. A CATHOLIC VIEW OF CHRISTENDOM. The Accession of Elizabeth 256 The Marian Schism 256 The Restored Autonomy 258 4. The Articles 259 Their Catholic Core 261 6. The Formation of the Trentine Church .... 261 7. Retrospect 264 8. The Mistake of Gerson 265 School Grudges 267 Pisa 268 Sigismund visits England 269 12. The English Embassy to Constance .... 270 13. Huss as a Reformer 270 14. Constance 2 7 I 15. The Martyrs of Constance 2 7 2 16. The Infamy of Constance 2 73 17. One Vote and the Consequences 274 18. The Council of Basle 2 7S Two Points set Right 2 76 Political Protestantism 2 7° Reflections 2 7 8 9- TO. II. 19 20 21 22. Recent Reaction 2S1 XVI CONTENTS. 23. The Contrast 282 24. The Fall of the Papal Throne 284 25. Survey of Christendom 285 26. Nicene Constitutions Imperishable 286 27. Practical Unities 288 28. The Parable of Patmos 289 29. Perils of the Republic 291 30. The Constructive Forces of the American Church . . 293 31. An Appeal to Youth 295 32. Conclusion 296 General Note. — Deed of Trust .... 299 Miscellaneous Notes 303 INSTITUTES CHRISTIAN HISTORY. LECTURE I. INTRODUCTORY. i. TRUTH. TRUTH, like her divine Author, is despised and rejected of men. Bleeding between male- factors, it sheds out of its great heart streams of mercy for mankind. It often seems wounded be- yond all hope of resurrection; but, as one has happily said, " Not always shall Christ hang be- tween two thieves ; there shall yet be a resurrec- tion for crucified Truth." 2. HUMANITY. In a day like ours, when millions whom Chris- tianity has lifted out of Paganism, and blessed at least with civilization and mental enlightenment, recognize no obligations to the source of human welfare, it is ignoble indeed to belong to a herd of the ungrateful and unbelieving. Yet, while we IO INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. come out from among them and separate ourselves from their corrupt society, let us reflect, as our Master has taught us, that " they know not what they do." Let us treat humanity, even in its most offensive forms of degradation, with veneration and with tenderness. Christ has bought it with His blood, and clothed its ulcers with the imperial purple of His cross. How dear mankind should be to those who glory in that sign ! In a materialized generation, let us rebuke with no scornful words, but by a pure example and by practical love, those who persecute what we adore, — " shooting out their arrows, even bitter words." Let us bear our testimony to the eternal verities which must soon vindicate themselves. While, all around us, the people of the epoch live to eat and drink, and, above all, to be amused, — to trifle and chase but- terflies, — to quarrel about sordid things and dis- quiet themselves with low and transient interests of the earth, — let us live like sons of God and heirs of immortality. Let us assert the lofty mission of witnesses for truth ; let us tenderly expostulate with the multitudes who are rebels to the dictates of experience, and blind alike to the lessons of history and the sunlight of revelation. 3. HISTORY AND ITS STUDY. If history be "philosophy teaching by example," who does not see that it is the noblest study to which we can devote ourselves? It is the study of humanity, illustrated by innumerable specimens, and enriched by the lives and teachings of the INTRO D UC TOR Y. 1 1 masters of human thought in all ages. Let us be- ware, however, of mistaking for history the fables which often claim the title. Let us feel the vital importance of discovering historic truth. Let us reflect that in every investigation we have been furnished with a guide to the real and the un- feigned in the only perfect history, — that of which it is written, " Thy word is truth." I hesitate not to say, that, in the search of historic truth, he who begins not with the inspired narratives has no edu- cation that prepares him for his task. It is the blessed prerogative of faith in God to gather from His word the great secret of history, as something directed by Providence, always at unity with itself, proceeding from one Author and tending to one result. He who stupidly deals with events as if they were a random product of undirected human caprices and of men's undisciplined instincts, may be an annalist, a chronologist, a collector of details, but he cannot be, in the highest sense, a genuine historian. The lofty intelligence, akin to military genius, which marshals, combines, analyzes, and co-ordinates facts, showing their mutual relations, and their bearings on human progress and on the revealed plans of the Most High, is essential to the philosophic historian. Not less is something of the same kind essential to the student of history, — to us, young gentlemen, who are mere recipients, economizing the lives and labours of the world's benefactors, in order that we in turn may not be wholly wanting in our life-work and in our ap- pointed place among men. 12 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. 4. THE USE OF LECTURES. He who outlines truth in the form of popular lectures has, indeed, the distasteful prospect of pro- ducing only momentary impressions. In spite of this, my effort shall find encouragement in the fact that I address myself to youth, — to young men of liberal pursuits and zealous to be directed to the sources of real knowledge and sound principle. To the growing mind that thirsts for information supported by evidence, the lecturer who brings truths that will bear investigation has a cheering mission. History gives us many examples of dis- ciples, fired by earnest teachers, who long outlived their masters and greatly surpassed them. A word, an expression, a turn of thought, may quicken in some young brain impulses which shall give direc- tion to all the future labours of a noble and suc- cessful life. Long after I am dead and forgotten, some of you may live to say with effect what I can only enforce with earnest conviction. After the chas- tisements which a foolish age is bringing upon itself, you may live to be welcomed by a wiser generation. You will find your appointed task at another epoch. In your faces I seem to salute the twentieth century. As for us who must soon pass away, Morituri vos salutamus ! The future belongs to you. Prepare yourselves to be its masters. But be sure you cannot be such save as you accept the lessons of human experience from the venerable past. Under the idea of pro- gress, our times are chasing a mere will-o'-the-wisp ; INTRODUCTOR Y. I 3 a light engendered from decay, " that leads to be- wilder and dazzles to blind." True progress always takes up the winnowed harvests of the ages, and scatters the seed of all that must be food for the ages to come. Instead of having " no past at your back," the youth of this Republic start with the manifold treasures of all time, of all arts and sci- ences, of all that man has done, warned by the failures and mistakes of old countries and of un- practical theorists. You are here in America to build up a nation by the maxims of tried wisdom, and to establish its institutions upon the rock of God's word. 5. THE HERITAGE OF THE AGES. You are heirs of the ages ; and it shall be my endeavour to make you great collectors of its les- sons, its morals, its warnings. Under my own ob- servation, a few shells given to a boy, by a friend who encouraged him to add to the little stock of smooth and many-coloured toys, created for the boy his life employment, made him a naturalist, and enabled him to amass from all the seas and oceans of the globe a museum of conchology, and to classify and expound his treasures as a philoso- pher. So I have known others to be made bota- nists, or enthusiasts in geology or chemistry, or passionate collectors of gems and coins. All such scientific pursuits are ennobling. Even the "dried beetle with a pin stuck through him " may be full of instruction to a careful observer; and under the microscope what miracles of creative wisdom are 14 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. unfolded to the student of an insect's eye or wing! But I claim for the student of historic truth a nobler sphere, and the faculty of bringing together a sublimer collection for ends unspeakably more practical and beneficial to the world. You collect portraits and pictures out of every age and clime, and furnish the chambers of your imagination with all that is most beautiful and precious in the results of human life. The philosopher whose department is biography and history makes his mind — " A mansion for all lovely forms, His memory to be a dwelling-place For all sweet sounds and harmonies." The whole world is a mine for his research, and all times are the fields of his exploration. From the Pyramids to the Catacombs ; from the ruins of Egypt or Assyria to the mysterious remains of the Aztecs ; under the arches and monuments of an- cient Rome ; amid the more splendid relics of Greek art and munificent ostentation ; and passing thence to the wealth of the Rhineland, of the Louvre or the British Museum, — everywhere among men, he finds his material, his work, and his elevated enjoy- ments as well. The master of historic truth is the master of contemporaneous thought, in proportion as he instructs his age or contends with it. To such ennobling pursuits I now invite you. 6. CHRISTIAN HISTORY. You know the difference between "anatomy" and " comparative anatomy" in the schools of the sureeon. The latter is a science which extracts INTRODUCTOR Y. 15 auxiliary knowledge from the bones and muscles of brutes, while the anatomist par excellence deals with the physical frame of man. In calling your attention to Christian history, I remind you that the history of Pagans and Barbarians is but com- parative history, — a useful auxiliary merely. But the history of Christendom is the history of man as very man, the image of his Maker. Christian history is the history of civilization ; Christianity alone is the civilizer of the human animal. At best, the race beyond its pale exhibits only here and there a specimen of true manhood. It is only as enlightened from the manger of Bethlehem and the cross of Calvary that the race ceases to be savage. Reflect that Christianity is as old as the world. Among the patriarchs and under Moses it worked only in element. " Ye are the light of the world," said the Master to the Galilean fishermen; and so it has proved. Not where the Gospel is merely named, but in proportion as it penetrates the life of a nation, this is realized. It needs no elaborate argument. One scorns to argue that sunlight makes the day. Look at mankind, look at the nations. The character of the true woman is the influence that refines, and where is the true woman, the wife, the mother, the home, apart from Chris- tianity? In a word, Christianity is civilization. 7- THE PIVOT. The world's history turns, as on a pivot, upon the Mount of Olives, and upon the great mission, 1 6 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. " Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel." The Old Testament shows us how all preceding history was its prelude, and every succeeding generation establishes the fundamental truth, that the people and nation that will not be taught of Christ must perish. Adequate ideas of the world's history can be gained, if this be true, by him only who surveys the world from this standpoint. 8. EMPIRICAL HISTORY. It is a curious thing in literature, that popular historians have been to so great an extent inspired I by an unnatural enthusiasm against the Gospel. Such a perverted genius as that of Gibbon has unfortunately controlled the fancies of others, and our libraries are filled with elaborate distortions of historic fact, one book begotten of another, and all conveying the most confused and inade- quate ideas of the world's progress. What a splendid opportunity was lost by Gibbon, when he resolved to leave out from his narrative the story of the apostles and martyrs, ignoring the unquestionable base of all he undertook to tell !' The stubborn facts could not be overlooked ; but, as far as possible, he gropes on with Paganism under the Antonines, without reference to realities which he only reaches in his fifteenth chapter, and of which he then condescends to take notice as " a very essential part of the history of the Roman Empire." Ah, indeed ! Hamlet a very interesting part of the drama ! The entire chapter reflects disgrace upon its author, alike by its place INTRO D UCTOR V. j j in his ponderous work, and by the spirit with which he struggles to assign the origin and pro- gress of the Gospel to every cause but the true one, — to every auxiliary influence, forgetting those which are primary and fundamental. It is as if an historian of the United States of America should begin with the great exhibition of industries which took place in Philadelphia at our late Cen- tennial Celebration of Independence, and then, after a volume about the activity and enterprise of the American people, should devote a chapter to prove that Washington and his contemporaries deserved a retrospective glance, as having in a remarkable manner fallen in with times and cir- cumstances and mingled some wisdom and more mistake in their influences upon succeeding times and manners. 9. CONVENTIONAL IDEAS. A better class of historians, such as Robertson, and Ranke, and Dean Milman, have been unable to divest themselves of conventional ideas and habits in their valuable works. They adhere to traditional notions and misleading phrases, even where they demonstrate the fallacy of such forms of thought and speech. Thus, while they tell us about the exploded Decretals, and other fables of the mediaeval period, they still adopt the old raiment of language which puzzles the student. They speak of Roman pontificates, as if there had been such things in the days of Clement or Hip- polytus, and give us tables of " the Popes " begin- 1 8 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. ning with St. Peter ! In the very same pages they demonstrate that St. Peter was never at Rome except to be beheaded, and that it is about as sensible to call Sylvester a Pope as it would be to date the Empire from the first consulate, to speak of the " Emperor Cincinnatus," or to paint him at his plough in imperial purple. 10. AN UNDERESTIMATED EPOCH. The transfer of the Roman capital to Byzan- tium, for example,, is evidence of overwhelming significance, as to the workings of Christianity be- fore Constantine, as to the predominance of the East in its origin and progress for three centu- ries, and as to the leavening influences in Roman politics, which, in spite of Diocletian and the per- secutors before him, had made such an astounding revolution possible, if not inevitable. Christianity had made no assault upon the Caesars ; but the upsetting of their throne upon the seven hills, and the removal of their capital to the Thracian Bos- porus, was a mere index of what it had been doing while it fought with the rabble of Olym- pus and mocked the shameful superstitions of mythology. Yet this most consummate of all the changes and revolutions in history has been well- nigh overlooked, or only treated as a curious in- cident. Like the Chinese, who survey the universe each one from his own habitation as its focus, our historians have thought and written as Occidentals. They have not condescended to observe that the original seat of Christianity was the Orient; that INTRODUCTORY. 19 its triumph was the triumph of Greek thought over the less intellectual Latin races; that this truth was the magnet that drew the Empire east- ward, that diminished the influence and dignity of old Rome, and that dictated to it from the CEcumenical Synods, — all Eastern in geography, all Greek in language — in their idiomatic expres- sion of dogma. How comes it, when to state these admitted facts is to prove the conclusions to which I point you, — how comes it that all our popular histories, and most of those which aim to be scientific, chronicle these truths indeed, and then go on to ignore them? They treat of Chris- tianity as if it were generated in Italy, and as if its first doctors and missionaries had been com- missioned from the Vatican, in the same pages that enable us to prove the essentially Grecian origin and character of the Church. 11. THE RUTS OF HABIT. The human mind is slow to turn out of the ruts of habit; it prefers the beaten way, even when it makes them plod in a thoroughfare imprinted only by the hoofs of asses. A noteworthy example presents itself in the condescension of transcendent genius to the trammels of conventional expression. Milton flourished more than a century after the true theory of the universe had been taught by the presbyter Copernicus; he had himself con- versed with Galileo, who crowned the system of Copernicus with the glory of irrefragable demon- stration. Milton understood the heliocentric struc- 20 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. ture of the solar system, and the rotations of the earth, diurnal and annual. Now it is most curious, that, although his great poem would have gained immensely by adopting this philosophy, and placing Uriel in a central sun, he yet stuck to the conven- tional ideas of the poets, and so commensurately degraded the ground plan of his immortal epic. The critical student of that scheme may recall the explorations of Lucifer, as he passed through Chaos and at last discovered our universe, enclosed in a spherical shell and pendent from the resplen- dent gates of Heaven. When he gained the sur- face of this shell, and looked down upon the stellar worlds enclosed within, how admirably it would have suited the poet's purpose to have conducted him to our solar system, by a discovery of its real nature, — the glorious sun illuminating the planets, and our earth, with its little moon, in its true relations with all the rest. But no : even the gigantic genius of Milton must fall into the dull routine of untruthful science, and disfigure his work with the rubbish of the outworn Ptolemaic theory ; that incomparable monument of the genius and plausibility with which mankind can embellish what is false, and make " the worse appear the better reason." Take a specimen of the conse- quences: — " They pass the planets seven, and pass the fix'd, And that crystalline sphere whose balance weighs The trepidation talk'd, and that first moved." Here is neither rhyme nor reason; but it illus- trates my point, namely, the disposition even of noble minds to adopt the idols of the market- INTROD UCTOR V. 2 I place, to express themselves in phrases of vulgar thought, and to sacrifice truth to popular ignorance for momentary convenience. 1 12. ANOTHER EXAMPLE. Take a notable example. Canon Hussey in his valuable work, "The Rise of the Papal Power," demonstrates that this enormous system was the product of multiplied abuses, beginning with harm- less incidents and accidents, and growing by slow accretions into the arrogant claims of the Middle Ages. A schoolboy's snowball becomes an ava- lanche, in like manner, when it falls from his hand and rolls down the mountain. It was not the ava- lanche, however, while it was the plaything. Yet this learned author confounds his own plan of tracing the "Rise of the Papal Power," by talking of the " supremacy " (which was never universally admitted or enforced even in the Roman com- munion until our own times) as if it existed from the fourth century. He confounds it with the "primacy"; and while he shows that the whole fabric grew out of a harmless function conferred only for the West by a provincial council, and probably by an abuse of that, he yet speaks of " the supremacy " as if it had been born at this council, where, as he proves clearly enough, such a thing was not even conceived. 2 Going back of this, however, he calls good Sylvester " Pope Sylvester " ; whereas if he was a Pope in the Nicene age, there was no "Rise of the Papal i See Note A. 2 See Note B. 22 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. Power." Why do men go on proving by facts what they seem to refute in words? If a scholar undertakes to show how and when Bishops of Rome became " Popes," why does he confound his pupil by calling them " popes " ages before a pope was dreamed of? To recur to my illus- tration : all this misleads and mystifies, as when the Ptolemaic system is adopted in practice, while the Copernican verities are theoretically proved. 13. TOKENS OF A NEW ERA. There are gratifying tokens of an approaching era of investigation, and of historiography based on demonstrated truth and fact. Several recent writers have just fallen short of making themselves leaders in this coming era of scientific history. In a mere sentence Milman records a fact, which, had he seen its importance, would have led him to construct his history of Latin Christianity on fresh and original bases. Such work would have im- mortalized him. I refer to his brief but all impor- tant statement that the local Roman church was for three hundred years a mere colony of Greek Christianity, and that the Church's roots and ma- trices were wholly Oriental. 1 Dean Stanley en- larges on this in his " Eastern Church," but just misses the bearings of his facts. Had he based his attractive work upon them, it would have risen to the rank of a grand epoch-maker, a genuine work of genius. Take, for example, the passage I will cite, and observe how it revolutionizes con- 1 See Note C. INTRO D UCTOR Y. 23 ventional ideas of the antiquity of the Paparchy, or of Rome as the " mother of churches." He says : — " The Greek Church reminds us of the time when the tongue, not of Rome, but of Greece, was the sacred lan- guage of Christendom. It was a striking remark of the Emperor Napoleon, that the introduction of Christianity itself was, in a certain sense, the triumph of Greece over Rome ; the last and most signal instance of the maxim of Horace, Grcecia capta ferum victorem cepit. The early Roman church was but a colony of Greek Christians or Grecized Jews. The earliest Fathers of the Western Church wrote in Greek. The early popes were not Ital- ians, but Greeks. The name of pope is not Latin, but Greek, the common and now despised name of every pastor in the Eastern Church. . . . She isthemot/ier, and Rome the daughter. It is her privilege to claim a direct continuity of speech with the earliest times ; to boast of reading the whole code of Scripture, Old as well as New, in the language in which it was read and spoken by the Apostles. The humblest peasant who reads his Septua- gint or Greek Testament in his own mother tongue on the hills of Bceotia may proudly feel that he has access to the original oracles of divine truth which pope and car- dinal reach by a barbarous and imperfect translation ; that he has a key of knowledge which in the West is only to be found in the hands of the learned classes." 1 All this is true, but the author fails to see what it carries with it. E pur si muove, said Galileo ; but if that was true, the whole system of the uni- verse was to be reformed, as it existed in the schools and in the inveterate habits of human thought. " The East is the mother, and Rome the 1 See Note D. 24 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. daughter," says the Dean ; but if this be true, the entire structure of scholastic theology, the Papar- chy, and the Council of Trent, are swept away with the fallacy that assumes the reverse. Dean Stanley's work should have proceeded on this fun- damental fact of history, and his history of the East should have been illustrated in its true rela- tions to the original constitutions of Christendom. 14. A BRILLIANT WORK THAT JUST MISSES A PRIZE. But the saddest specimen of collapse is the frame- work of a book which would have revolutionized Western thought about one of the grandest of his- torical themes, had it been true to the very facts which it proceeds to make evident. I refer to Bryce's " Holy Roman Empire," a most valuable work, and one which betokens the coming era, but only as a foggy morning is often the harbinger of a brilliant day. How could the writer have missed the opportunity of identifying the rise of the " Holy Roman Empire " with the formation of the Paparchy, which never existed till Charlemagne had created the possibility of a new oecumenical theory for the Church by creating a new CEcume- iie, or Imperial basis, for its development. Bryce fails to economize this truth. It is a pity that so good a monograph must be written over again. Its faults are as glaring as its merits are great; and that is saying much in a single phrase. 1 1 See Note E. INTRODUCTOR Y. 15. SCIENTIFIC HISTORY. 25 Now the new era of scientific history will be created just as soon as some able and original genius shall be raised up to apply, in historiogra- phy, the principles which our age has inexora- bly demanded in other scientific work. The law of such a movement is simply that of sweeping away demonstrated falsehood and fable, and of proceeding at every step upon the rock founda- tion of fact. If the East gave to Christianity its historic form and shape, its creed and doctrine, its whole cast and visible outline before the world, why not proceed accordingly? Yes, why not? A thousand myths disappear from the Western mind when once these truths are worked out and made manifest. No more haggling about the popes of controvertists. The entire Papal theory per- ishes as soon as we find where Rome stood at first, and how absolutely inconsiderable was her place in the early founding and teaching of churches. 16. THE MOTHER OF THEOLOGY. He who examines the true history of the ages before Constantine is forced to find in Alexandria all with which popes and schoolmen have credited old Rome. After Antioch, the see of St. Mark was the nurse, if not the mother, of the churches, and if not their mistress, yet their schoolmaster. 1 It formed their mind and speech. Latin Christianity itself rose out of Alexandria, the head and brain 1 See Note F. 26 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. of original Christendom. It was formed in Africa and in Carthage, not in Rome. Entire indepen- dence of Rome was steadily maintained under the founders of Latin theology, — Tertullian, Minu- cius Felix, Cyprian, Lactantius, Arnobius, and Augustine. Rome had no voice, in her own tongue, till the heretic Novatian first spoke in her and for her. From Clement to Hippolytus, and later, her few writers thought in Greek, wrote in Greek, and submitted their work to the maternal churches of the East, as filial and loyal sons. To exhibit these facts is to dismiss the whole system of the Latin schools, based on unhistoric myths and fables, all as baseless as the " Donation of Constantine," and all as recent in their fabrication. 17. INSTITUTES. In presenting these Institutes, then, to my young pupils in this University, I undertake to proceed upon a rigidly scientific plan, of which I have tried to explain the scientific grounds. I adopt the old word institutes to signify elementary instructions. They present, in outline, certain predominant fea- tures of history, which will guide to just conclu- sions in the further studies to which they introduce the learner. And now let me fortify my positions by citing the language of a man of science, who speaks for other purposes and with a different in- tent, upon the very matter which underlies my plan. He, too, gives token of the new era as at hand. 1 Could any one have expected from the 1 See Note G. JNTR OD UC TOR Y. 2 7 apologist of Huxley and Darwin such a tribute to primitive Christianity as John Fiskc has given us in the following passages? He says: — " It is interesting to observe the characteristics of the idea of God as conceived by the three great Fathers of the Greek Church, Clement of Alexandria, Origen, and Athanasius. The philosophy of these profound and vigor- ous thinkers was, in large measure, derived from the Stoics," etc. " The views of Clement's disciple, Origen, are much like those of his master. Athanasius ventured much fur- ther into the bewildering regions of metaphysics. Yet in his doctrine of the Trinity ... he proceeded upon the lines which Clement had marked out." " It is instructive to note how closely Athanasius ap- proaches the confines of modern scientific thought, simply through his fundamental conception of God as the in- dwelling life of the universe." Now, without pausing to correct some possible misconceptions of this great matter, I ask you to observe the phenomenon of this mind struggling out of " modern thought " towards what modern thought has affected to ignore, and finding himself met where he stands by these ancient Fathers of Christendom. Two reflections suggest themselves as pertinent to my subject: (1) It is to primitive Christianity that modern science must recur to find its " guide, philosopher, and friend " ; and (2) It is to the East, and to Alexandria as the fountain- head, that the inquirer into the origin of Christian thought and dogma must have recourse. 28 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. 18. TRUTH, OLD AND NEW. Another suggestion, I trust, will arrest the atten- tion of all who hear me. In guiding your thoughts towards primitive antiquity, I am preparing you for a wise and healthful investigation of recent re- search and discovery in scientific matters. How often you hear of these old Fathers as mere fos- sils ; and of the Church of Christ as behind the age. Listen again to John Fiske, as he works his way through philosophy to Theism. 1 He says : — " One has only to adopt the higher Theism of Clement and Athanasius, and the alleged antagonism between sci- ence and theology, by which so many hearts have been saddened, so many minds darkened, vanishes forever." And now mark what he says of the dawn of Christianity, in the period illuminated by the Sep- tuagint, and also what he adds of Ante-Nicene Christianity in Alexandria: — "The intellectual atmosphere of Alexandria for two centuries before and three centuries after the time of Christ was more modern than anything that followed, down to the days of Bacon and Descartes. . . . The system of Christian Theism was the work of some of the loftiest minds that have ever appeared on the earth." Staking off these five centuries accordingly, during which the thought of Christendom was formed under Clement and his forerunners, reflect that between the two centuries of preparation for Christ and the three that ushered in the Great 1 See Note H. INTRODUCTORY. 29 Council of Nicaea, our ultimate limit, stands the noble figure of Apollos, — " eloquent and mighty in the Scriptures," — a monument of the Gospel in its power to unite the Jew and the Greek, and not less of the Church, to speak from her ancient throne to the hearts and minds of thinking men in our own distracted times. 19. CATHOLICITY. Here observe a most important point. The centuries which a disinterested thinker has thus characterized, without a thought of aiding the position of the Christian, are precisely those to which the great Anglican doctors have appealed in their noble work of restoration. For the Angli- can reformers were restorers rather; they brought back the primitive simplicity and the unadulterated catholicity of Nicaea, — the catholicity which is covered by its own appeal to " ancient usages," and by the formula of the Nicaeno-Constantino- politan Creed. Of course there can be no other. For there cannot be two catholic churches nor two catholic theologies.* But in this country and in England two antagonist systems claim to be catholic; which is most harmonious with the catholicity of Nicaea? If it be true that the first three centuries were in spirit, not mediczval, but modem, the answer is apparent. If they corre- spond with Bacon and Descartes rather than with Aristotle and the Schoolmen, then the Anglican reformation is vindicated. The " Syllabus," which refuses all commerce with modern thought, shows 30 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. itself equally at war with Christian antiquity. The present venerable pontiff, a scholar and a most respectable character in all his personal qualities, has accepted the Syllabus of his unlettered prede- cessor, which denounces all that freemen hold dear, while, to give his thinking subjects something to do, he commands them to study St. Thomas Aquinas. That is, they must revert to the Middle Ages for all the thinking they are allowed to exer- cise. Precisely so. He rules out the masculine thought of genuine antiquity as modern. He thus convicts his theology of its mediaeval origin, while we appeal primarily to the primitive Fathers, — to Clement of Alexandria, and to Athanasius, not undervaluing Aquinas so far as he agrees with antiquity. It is not difficult, then, to decide where catholicity is to be found, if the apostolic ages and the primitive Fathers supply the criterion. Ours is the old religion, because it is identified with the oldest. We appeal to the Holy Scriptures inter- preted by the whole undivided Church at Nicaea. 1 Leo XIII. appeals to Aquinas 2 and to the systems of a divided Christendom, — to the West and to the twelfth century with those that followed, down to the Trent Council. And this was a council of the West only, and of the sixteenth century, com- posed chiefly of Italians, and engineered by the Jesuits, who had just been created, and whose conduct excited the indignant remonstrances of all the abler theologians there assembled. Which, then, is the catholic system, — ours or theirs? 3 i A. D. 325. 2 a. D. 1274. 3 See Note I. INTRODUCTOR Y. 20. A COMPARISON. 31 Note, also, that there can no more be two catholic churches in Christendom, than there can be two universal physical systems in the same universe. But the " Roman Catholic " scheme of catholicity accepts only the Western churches, and excludes the more ancient churches of the East, while ours includes just what the Nicene Creed includes; that is to say, all the Greek and Latin churches, and all other churches which preserve an apostolic episcopate and the Nicene faith. We recognize the Latin churches as part of the Catholic Church ; " the Roman Catholic Church is a fiction, derived from the " Holy Roman Empire," which called itself the cccumcne, and hence con- sidered its established church oecumenical. Ana- lyze this artificial system and you find it made up of ancient national churches which are all catholic in organic form, but orthodox just so far as they adhere to the primitive theology, and no further. With all her blemishes and failings, the Anglican Church is ready to be judged by this rule, and it is a rule which utterly destroys all claims of catho- licity for those Latins who adhere to the modern Council of Trent, and the yet more modern — nay, the recent — additions of Pius IX., which reduce their creed to a thing of yesterday. 1 21. BACON AND HIS IDOLS. How comes it that many gifted men fail to see when once 1 See Note J. what is so evident when once set in the light of 32 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. facts and of common sense? I have spoken of the ruts of habit ; let me refer to Bacon's forcible postulates concerning " Idols." That great inciter of all genuine "modern thought" threw down the idols of the Schoolmen which dominated in the realms of physical science; but even to our own times their idols have largely stultified the domain of theology and corrupted historic truth. He was himself an illustration of the sway of idols over the human intellect, for he remained a slave to the Ptolemaic astronomy, in spite of his emanci- pation from so much that clouded and fettered intellect in his times. He calls these idols, images, or, as we should name them, illusions, " the deepest fallacies of the human mind ; " and he adds, " They do not deceive in particulars, as do other fallacies, which cloud and ensnare the judgment, . . . but they are imposed upon the understanding (i) by the general nature of the human race, or (2) by the particular nature of every several man, or (3) by words, or communicative nature." To ex- pose, in some degree, the influence of a corrupt use of words in producing the confusions of historical authors and of popular thought is part of my plan. For the idols of the market-place, which still main- tain themselves in our day are almost ineradicable and supremely mischievous. Words as under- stood in the streets and used by the vulgar, when adopted by the learned in all their ambiguity, are instruments for distilling nightshade alike inebriat- ing and fatal to intelligence. 1 1 See Note K. INTRODUCTORY. 22. DATES OF ANCHORAGE. 33 Such idols have too long neutralized the pene- trating and generative sunlight of historic truth, as icebergs and fogs hinder the advance of spring. Let me present an outline of the points to be illustrated in these Lectures, which will be an effort to confute idols. For I pursue a practical plan, and am willing to let historic facts speak for themselves. But to be felt in all their force, let them be presented with method. What Ruskin 1 has called " dates of anchorage " are essential to the student of history, who would grasp and retain great facts and epochs, on which others turn as upon pivots or hinges. Geography and chronol- ogy are the eyes of historical science. Skeleton maps must be hung up before the mental eyesight, and they must be bordered with cardinal dates of the world's annals, — the epoch-marking dates, that is, or those which have created eras in history. An epoch is a point of time; an era is a period developed from it, as a line is generated in ge- ometry. He who seizes these pivots, hinges, or " dates of anchorage," becomes master of the art. Minor dates and epochs marshal themselves natu- rally about these heights of command, which afford the soldier a masterly survey of fields where he may meet an enemy. Take, for illustration, some notable examples. The most convenient and sharp-cut date in Christian history is that of Charlemagne's creation of the Latin Empire ; he was crowned, or virtually 1 See Note L. 3 34 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. crowned himself, on Christmas day, A. D. 800. No- body can forget such a date as this ; and you ob- serve that it divides modern history very equally, if we confine ancient history, as we should, to the periods before the Light of the World appeared. And note its commanding character : it marks the era of Western history, as distinct from that of the East. It is the index of Latin Christianity left to itself; severed from its parent stem ; developing into something alien to catholicity; creating the Paparchy; involving the Latin churches in func- tional schism ; defiling them with novelties ; dark- ening their atmosphere with the mists of fable ; disfiguring the worship of God with idolatries ; inventing new theologies, and condemning the West to centuries of ignorance and superstition, not inappropriately called the " Dark Ages." Not that Charlemagne promoted this directly or inten- tionally. The reverse is eminently true. But his policy created the Paparchy, which had no exist- ence before his time, nor while he lived ; and to the Paparchy, based on the imposture of the De- cretals, we owe the Dark Ages, which include the whole period from A. D. 900 to 1400. The Middle Ages include this period, and stretch from the eighth century to the sixteenth, from the imperial crowning of Charlemagne to the birth of Charles- Quint. 23. THE GREAT EPOCHS. Observe other " dates of anchorage," in dealing with Western history, to which we shall be neces- sarily limited in these Lectures when once we INTRO D UCTOR Y. 35 touch the era of Charlemagne. After the nativity of our Divine Lord, the great epoch of Constan- tine and the Council of Nice (A. I). 325) marks the close of the martyr ages and the subjection of the Caesars to the cross. The period which closes with Charlemagne is that of Catholic unity, under the Synodical Constitutions. From Charlemagne to Charles-Quint, we have seven hundred years of Western schism, the Paparchy and the inferior epochs of Imperial and Papal strifes, the Crusades and the Scholastics. From A. D. 1500, the epoch of Charles the Fifth, we date the increase of learn- ing, the struggles for popular freedom, the Con- tinental Reformers, the Anglican Restoration, and the creation of the " Roman Catholic Church," — which, as such, is a modern organization, more recent than Lutheranism itself. 24. A PRACTICAL PLAN. In establishing this reformed syllabus of histori- cal science, my scheme is less bold than at first sight might appear. It pretends to no original dis- coveries as to matters of fact : every point on which the scheme depends has been proved, elucidated, overwhelmingly established, by learned writers, — as well among those who have retained communion with Rome, like Erasmus, Bossuet, and the Jansen- ists, as by the Continental Reformed and the grand old Caroline theologians of England. My only innovations are found in accepting the demonstra- tions of these authorities, and constructing a har- monious system accordingly, giving facts their 36 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. place, enforcing their value, and calling things by their right names. For example, the unparalleled imposture of the Decretals is admitted by Jesuits and Gallicans ; they are laughed out of court by the Ultramontanes themselves. 1 Yet these " idols of the market-place " impose on Protestants gener- ally. For they go on calling things by the fabulous terms and phrases which the Decretals created. They ignore the East and the constitutions of Cath- olicity, and give to the parvenu system of Trent the old Nicene title of " the Catholic Church." They speak of the Roman pontiffs as " successors of St. Peter"; they dishonour the apostle's memory, by speaking of the criminal throne of the Vatican as the " chair of St. Peter " ; they surrender his- tory to the fabulists, by making the early Bishops of Rome into a succession of " Popes," created by Christ himself, and they confound the canoni- cal "primacy," conferred by the Councils of Nice and Constantinople, with an usurped "supremacy," which, had it existed, would have made the action of all councils equally superfluous and imperti- nent. 2 Modern " Protestantism " clings to its name all the more stoutly because it has ceased to protest. It believes in God with all its heart, but, after all, feels very charitably about the Devil. It glorifies Martin Luther, but cannot but think he went a little too far when he burnt the Pope's bull. It adopts Galileo's conviction that the earth moves, but would not wholly censure the Roman court for putting him to torture and making him abjure it as heresy. In short, it always holds with 1 See Note M. 2 See Note N. INTRODUCTORY. 37 the hare, but prefers to run with the hounds, espe- cially if it be in a question of politics. It accepts the Messiah, and feels the force of Ecce homo ! but its sympathies are always with poor Pilate, except when even Pilate ceased to be a politician, and said, " What I have written I have written." 25. THE SURVEY. On the principles I have thus illustrated, and exposing the illusions I have mentioned to a searching comparison with facts, I invite you, then, to survey with me the outlines of Christian history, in its majestic sweep through the ages which we owe to the light of the Gospel. This survey will prepare you for many departments of study, and will give you a delight in the ennobling researches to which it is an introduction. Open your eyes, young men, and if you would know the world you have so lately entered, ask how it came to be what you see it, and then trace its progress up- ward through the ages before you, till your fa- miliarity with past times gives you mastery over your own. The lives of the world's benefactors will inspire your life career. The fatal mistakes and failures so sadly marking the pages of biogra- phy will warn you off from shoals and quicksands which have proved so fatal to your predecessors. You will be philosophers from the start ; the ex- periments of others will make your career a suc- cess. You will go " from strength to strength," and age itself will find you invested with immortal youth in the prospect of eternity. a 8 38 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. 26. A PRACTICAL USE OF HISTORIC SCIENCE. When you begin your travels, my beloved young friends, recall " the dates of anchorage " to which I have endeavored to introduce you. On the Via Sacra of old Rome, take your stand beneath the Arch of Titus: it marks 1 the close of the genera- tion which crucified the Son of God, and verifies his prediction of the consequent downfall of Je- rusalem and the dispersion of the Jews. Turn then to the stupendous Coliseum, which, reared in large measure by the captive Jews, was the scene of the martyrdom of Ignatius, and stands an im- perishable memorial of the ages of heroic suffering which saw the Church in conflict with the princes of this world. Hard by rises the Arch of Constan- tine, — a memorial of the Nicene age, and of the triumph of the cross over Paganism. The Column of Phocas, on the other hand, beyond the Arch of Titus and under the Capitol, marks the decline of the Synodical Period, and reminds us of two clouds, not bigger than a man's hand, that became visible just at that epoch: one was the cloud of Is- lam in the East, and the other that of a Papacy in the West. Cross the Alps and stand beneath the cathedral domes of Aix-la-Chapelle; under your feet is the sepulchre of Charlemagne, with whom the Middle Ages began, and there was crowned Charles the Fifth, his successor with whom the Middle Ages expired. Last of all you reach Paris, and survey that arch of vanity which lifts its ma- jestic bulk on the crown of the Champs Elysees. 1 A. D. 70. INTRO D UCTOR Y. 39 It stands for the close of the eighteenth century and the extinction of " the Holy Roman Empire," so called. It marks the end of just one thousand years between Charlemagne and Napoleon. These are the landmarks of these Institutes ; they indi- cate our " dates of anchorage." Blind must he be, and dull beyond comparison, who sees not in the precision of these periods, in the characters and the events that created them, and even in these monuments which Providence has allowed proud men to rear, and which Providence only has pre- served, tokens of an overruling Hand in history, which the wise and true of heart must recognize and understand. LECTURE II. THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. I. ANTIOCH. T HE disciples were called Christians first at Antioch, says St. Luke. Justly have the antecedents of St. Paul been noted as providen- tially shaping him into the vessel of election for mankind: not sufficiently have the specialties of Antioch been regarded as forming that marvel- lous capital to be the cradle of the infant Church. Strange indeed that so dissolute a city should become the source of human regeneration, but even in this paradox we discover a divine plan. The good physician attacks disease at its seat, and pestilence must be stayed at its source. Our Lord had promised that his disciples should do greater works than his own ; and surely, when the Church, in all her virgin glory, rose up in Antioch and issued from its port bearing the new life to a world " lying in the Evil One," there was a greater miracle than when Lazarus obeyed the command of Jesus, and came forth from his dank grave, a putrid corpse made whole. Here was a dead man revived : but from Antioch began the resurrection of nations that lay festering in moral darkness, THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 41 bound with grave-clothes, smelling to heaven with corruption, and powerless to help themselves as the dry bones in Ezekiel's valley of vision. Antioch itself was the epitome of such a world. 2. A CONTRAST. The Augustan age had glorified Rome with mar- bles for its bricks, and with the golden lyres of poets for its legions of iron, yet left it more de- based than ever before. Horace had just died, and Herod was rivalling Augustus in his Roman extravagance by making the very pavement of Antioch of solid marble, when the Galilean maiden sang her Magnificat in obscure and despised Naz- areth, and gave the first hymn of Redemption to those who looked for the Messiah. Nazareth and Antioch ! behold the contrast. But note the meek virgin in her cot, and all the powers of the world in their forts and palaces : hear her sweet song, the first strain of Christian poesy, the germ of liturgies and prayers for evangelized tribes and peoples of the earth, and contrast it with the fran- tic rites of the bacchanal, the sensual orgies, the licentious dances, and the reeking wickedness of that city on the Orontes, which was so absolute a type of all that stretched away from its port to Greece and Italy, to the barbarians of Germany and Gaul, and to the ancient seats of our own race in Jutland and Britain. Truly hath God chosen " the weak things of the world to confound the mighty," and, as we shall soon observe, " things which are despised hath God chosen, yea and 42 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. things wh that are." things which are not, to bring to naught things 3. AN INQUIRY. But why was Antioch rather than Jerusalem made the capital of the new empire of Messiah? Among other reasons this will afford an answer : the Prince of Peace came not to the Jews only. " In Him shall the Gentiles trust," was the promise He has so richly fulfilled. Now Antioch was " a mart of nations " ; it was, in type, Gentilism itself. Jerusalem could not be made the metropolis of Catholicity; it was the stronghold of Judaism. The rod of the new power was to " go forth from Jerusalem." To have kept it there would have been to fortify and perpetuate those intense preju- dices of the Circumcision, which in the case of St. Paul himself were the most formidable of all ob- stacles to his work. " New bottles for new wine." He who had broken down the Jewish wall of sepa- ration, and made the new temple walls to unite Jew and Gentile in Himself as the corner-stone, brought both walls together in Antioch. It was " the fool- ishness of God, wiser than men," to economize the moral rubbish of the Seleucid capital, as he took a hill of refuse from the Jebusites when he created Zion the stronghold of the typical Church. 4. THE PORTRAITURE OF ANTIOCH. The unhappy genius of Renan has so ably de- picted this ancient Paris, borrowing his colours THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 43 from the modern one which inflames his imagina- tion and has debased his pen, that it would be folly for me not to adopt the vivid picture with which he has anticipated the tasks of all who would hereafter undertake to describe it. I shall there- fore freely translate his brilliant rhetoric, amplify- ing or abridging it as may best suit my purpose, but making it my own by the very injury I must inflict on such splendid work by my attempt to infuse its spirit into English words. According to Renan, 1 the metropolis of the Ori- ent was a city of more than five hundred thou- sand souls. Before its recent extension Paris itself was hardly larger. Its site was one of the most picturesque of the whole earth, made of the space between the Orontes and the slopes of Silpius. Unrivalled were the beauty and the abundance of its waters. Nature had fortified it as by a master- piece of military art, surrounded as it was by lofty rocks, which crowned it with a radiating circlet of peaks. Thence were afforded surprising perspec- tives : one beheld within the walls hills not less than seven hundred feet high, great rocks bristling with spires, precipices, inaccessible caves, torrents and cascades rushing into deep ravines, where de- licious gardens nestled. Here were dense thickets of myrtles, of flowering box, of laurels and ever- greens, of which the verdure was most tender, and rocks embroidered with pinks, hyacinths, and cycla- mens, which gave their savage summits the effect of hanging gardens. Such was the Antioch of Libanius, of Julian, of Chrysostom. 1 See Note O. 44 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. Here the imperial legate of Syria kept his court. The Seleucid kings raised it from nothing, and like the growth of a single night, to a lofty pitch of splendour, but the Roman occupation had glori- fied it even more. The Seleucids had indeed set the example of decorating cities with theatrical effect, multiplying baths, basilicas, aqueducts, and temples. The streets, more symmetrical and regu- lar than elsewhere, were bordered with colonnades, and at their intersections adorned with statues. Antiochus Epiphanes had carried through the city, stretching three miles from end to end, a superb Corso, ornamented by columns, in four rows, which made covered galleries on both sides, with the broad avenue between. But, besides its huge constructions of public utility, Antioch was dis- tinguished above other Syrian cities by its pos- session of masterpieces of Greek art, — admirable statues, and delicate specimens of classic taste, of which at this epoch the refined perfections could no longer be imitated. Into this region of the Orontes, the Macedonians, transplanted by Seleu- cus Nicator from Antigonia, had brought the wor- ship and the territorial names of their own land, lasting memorials of their attachment to Paeonia and Pieria, and to "the fair humanities" adored at Castaly and in the Vale of Tempe. Thus the Greek myths gained a new creation and new seats of worship in Syria. Phoebus and the Muses were part of the population of the city, — in mute mar- ble, it is true, but seeming to live and breathe, as in fact they inspired the surrounding masses of flesh and blood. As a retreat from the bustling market, THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES 45 Daphne opened to its inhabitants an enchanting grove where the most charming fictions of the Greek poets were brought to the minds of the Orientals. Here the wretched Julian was destined long afterwards to make a last desperate effort to heal the death-wound of idolatry. The spot was a practical plagiarism; counterfeiting a plan of the nomadic tribes, who originally brought names to Berecyntia, Ida, and Olympus. Altogether, the fables of outworn heathenism made up for the place a religion hardly more serious than the Met- amorphoses of Ovid. Girdled by the river, Mount Casius lifted to the skies altars and idols, the graver relics of indigenous superstition. This spot was doomed to retain its hold on local enthusiasm when surrounding idols should give way before the Light, and to smoke with the last faint whiffs of incense that symbolized expiring Paganism. In short, the Syrian frivolity, Babylonian quackery, and all the impostures of Asia, muddled and confused at this meeting-point of two worlds, had made of Antioch a sewer of infamies. It was the metropolis of Lies. 5. THE POPULACE. The Syrian tongue was yet to be heard among its aborigines, infesting its faubourgs and forming the suburban population of a vast vicinity. By a law of Seleucus, all resident aliens were made citi- zens, and by intermarriages with Greeks his capi- tal at the close of three centuries and a half was the place of all the world in which the human race seemed most effectually hybridized. The consc- 46 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. quent debasement of minds was frightful. In such a process, divers races lead downward to a com- mon estate of moral putrefaction. Hardly do we find a parallel corruption in the basest of those Levantine marts, which we see given over to ideas the most base and selfish, and tied hand and foot by the intrigues of tyranny. It was an incredible jum- ble of buffoons and quacks, drolls and tricksters, wonder-workers, sorcerers, and juggling priests, — a bazaar of races and ballet-dances, pomps and pro- cessions, Saturnalian feasts and Bacchanalian orgies, of luxury and lust unbridled, of fanatical outrages and superstitions the most pestilent, — in a word, of all the follies of the Oriental world. Obsequious to servility and then again basely ungrateful, at times cowards and then impudently rebellious, the population was thoroughly a specimen of hordes enslaved to Csesarism, with no name to preserve or lose, without family character, without nationality, without country. Its grand Corso was a circus, through which flowed all day long the foul tides of a brute populace, light, volatile, always ready for an outbreak, sometimes clever enough, how- ever, to be absorbed by diversions of music, by harlequins and their farces, by ambiguities, jokes, and impertinences of every sort. Cicero affects to credit them with a literary spirit, but it was a mere literature of spurious rhetoricians. The pub- lic shows were curious. The entire spectacle was made palatable to such a crowd by exhibitions of nudity ; naked girls sharing in all the performances, with a mere fillet on their shameless foreheads. St. Chrysostom has denounced their favorite Mai- THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 47 ouma, where troops of prostitutes showed them- selves swimming in nakedness, with wanton display, in vast reservoirs filled with crystal waters. It was an inebriation of debauch, a revcry of Sarda- napalus, where all manner of indecencies, the worse for a certain simulation of refinement, were tum- bled together pell-mell, in voluptuous contempt of ordinary pretences to propriety. Such was the Antioch which Juvenal, perhaps justly, accuses as the source of Roman degeneracy, — of those abom- inations which he deplores; which St. Paul, on widely different grounds, bewails, and to which, with inimitable condensation, he administers his scathing rebuke. Yes, indeed, says the satirist, 1 " The Syrian Orontes, at last, makes the Tiber the mouth of its vomit ; Here comes, with its flutes and its strings, a jargon of tongues with all evils." " The valley of the Orontes," says Renan, " open- ing to the west, gives the neighbouring lake an out- let to the sea; or, to be more exact, enables the city to communicate with the vast world beyond, where the Mediterranean lies embedded, and where, through all the ages, it has afforded to the sur- rounding nations a neutral highway, and a bond of federal unity as well." 6. THE JEWISH ELEMENT. To approach my subject, and to illustrate the de- cisive fact which fitted Antioch to become, through the Mediterranean, the starting-point for Christian 1 See Note P. 48 INSTITUTES OF CHRISTIAN HISTORY. missions, I must strictly translate from Renan, and borrow his condensed and most suggestive para- graph about the Jews. "They were among the most numerous of those colo- nies which the liberal policy of the Seleucids attracted to their metropolis. Their immigration started with Seleucus Nicator's grant of equal privileges with the Greeks. They had an ethnarch of their own, but not less were their rela- tions very intimate with their Gentile co-citizens. Here, as at Alexandria, it is true, these relations were occasion- ally interrupted by strifes and mutual aggressions ; but, on the other hand, they afforded a base for proselyting, which the Jews knew how to make very lively. More and more was polytheism proving itself unsatisfactory to all reflect- ing minds, and Greek philosophy in common with Juda- ism was attractive to those incapable of resting in the empty pomps of an effete mythology. The number of Jewish proselytes was considerable. Nicolas, a proselyte of Antioch, was enrolled among the seven deacons. Here were the germs of a harvest, which waited only for the day-beams of grace to blossom and bring forth fruits more beautiful than mankind had ever seen before." 1 One recognizes here the hand of God in the mission and work of Alexander: Antioch, with its Jewish colony and its traffic with the West through Asia Minor and Greece, as well as Alexandria with its library and its schools, had been fashioned beforehand for the Evangelists and Apostles. 7. THE CHURCH IN ANTIOCH. In the spring of A. D. 43, just ten years after the Light of the World had been despised and rejected 1 See Note Q. THE APOSTOLIC FATHERS AND NEXT AGES. 49 of men, all things were ready for a fresh outpour- ing of the Spirit. Barnabas found Saul at Tarsus, and brought him from his native shores to this An- tioch, where the little church was sheltered, in its obscurity and feebleness, in a poor quarter under the hill Stavrin, and near a gate which sustains the Christian tradition by its time-honoured name of St. Paul's gate. It was " in Singon Street hard by the Pantheon." Among the believers here, fulfilling their local mission against such frightful odds of evil in the very citadel of Satan, imagine the effect of the appearance of these twins, Bar- nabas and Saul : the one with those massive and majestic traits which led the heathen to suppose him Zeus ; the other with that light and active motion and electrifying voice which the same rustic idolaters could only identify with Hermes. They came to make the lily of gospel purity spring forth and shed its fragrance over the world out of a dunghill of pollution. 8. THE EXCEPTIONAL APOSTOLATE. The exceptional addition to the choir of original Apostles of these twain, born out of due time, de- serves a passing note of explanation. St. Paul was created an Apostle by Christ himself in person ; Barnabas, by Christ, through his Vicar, the Holy Ghost. To confer their " Mission " and attest their apostleship to the churches was yet a logical neces- sity; but had even this been done by other apos- tles, they might seem to have been commissioned, if not " by men," yet at least " through men " ; 4 5