:f 
 
 
HISTOET OP ETHICS 
 WITHIN OEGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 
 
 BY 
 
 THOMAS CUMING HALL, D.D. 
 
 PROFESSOR OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS IN UNION THEOLOGICAL SEMINARY. 
 
 AUTHOR OF "the SOCIAL MEANING OF MODERN RELIGIOUS 
 
 MOVEMENTS IN ENGLAND," "THE MESSAGES OF JESUS 
 
 ACCORDING TO THE SYNOPTISTS," ETC. 
 
 NEW YORK 
 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 1910 
 
/■-/ 1 
 
 mmL 
 
 Copyright, 1910, bt 
 CHARLES SCRIBNER'S SONS 
 
 Published September, 1910 
 
In 9pemottam 
 
 TO THE LOVING MEMORY OF 
 
 eiorneltuo SuEler Sutler 
 
 TO WHOM THE AUTHOR'S HEART WAS KNIT 
 IN TENDEREST TIES OF LIFE-LONG FRIEND- 
 SHIP, AND BY WHOSE LOVE HIS LIFE WAS 
 ALWAYS QUICKENED AND REFRESHED — THIS 
 BOOK IS MOST AFFECTIONATELY DEDICATED 
 
 May, /g/o 
 
 04108 
 
PREFACE 
 
 In sending out this history, which has been the labor of several 
 years, the author turns back in memory to the many who have 
 aided him. It is impossible to thank all those by name to whom 
 the author is deeply indebted. But a special word of thanks 
 is due to my friend and colleague Dr. Marvin R. Vincent, who 
 has read the whole volume in proof, and out of his ripe and 
 broad scholarship offered many invaluable suggestions and cor- 
 rections. Professor Charles A. Briggs made most helpful sug- 
 gestions in the inception of the work, both as regards system 
 and method. Indeed to each and all of my colleagues I return 
 heartfelt thanks for most valuable suggestions and inspirations 
 as I worked in a field that, of necessity, trenched on all the 
 theological disciplines. To those in charge of the libraries 
 which I have used I wish also to return thanks for uniform 
 kindness and courtesy. Whether in Berlin or Oxford, in New 
 York or London, I have found everywhere most self-sacrificing 
 eagerness to aid me in getting the books I needed. But a special 
 word of thanks I owe to Professor and Geheimrat Dr. Pietsch- 
 mann of Gottingen for unnumbered signs of special interest in 
 this volume, and great courtesy in granting me special facilities 
 in the splendid library he so ably directs. 
 
 This book, if properly done, should prove exceedingly valua- 
 ble, but as to whether it is well done others ueside the author 
 must judge. He can only claim that he has gone directly and 
 critically to the sources, and sought at first hand to understand 
 the work of those whom he reviews. He has sought to estimate 
 the ethical progress of the past as objectively and fairly as possi- 
 ble. That blunders have been made, that errors have crept in, 
 that partial views have been taken is inevitable. For all cor- 
 
viii PREFACE 
 
 rections the author will be frankly grateful, and should the book 
 find favor he will try to embody any such corrections in future 
 editions. 
 
 One main purpose has sustained the writer throughout much 
 weary plodding, and that was to understand and help others 
 understand the essential message of Our Lord and Master 
 Jesus Christ. One of the painful truths brought home to us 
 by any study of history is the fact that the simplicity of Jesus' 
 teachings has been obscured and overlaid by intruding ele- 
 ments. The simple things for which the Master stood, and 
 which can be tried out in life we have deemed "impracti- 
 cable," because "you can't change human nature." So eccle- 
 siastical tradition has substituted theologies which cannot be 
 tested in life, for ethics which may be. It has demanded 
 belief in doubtfully true speculative and intellectual proposi- 
 tions, and called such assent "faith," where the Master de- 
 manded loving and trustful acceptance of simple canons of 
 conduct, and identified such acceptance with loyalty to his 
 purpose. The study of the history of ethics may lead, it is to 
 be hoped, a chosen band to really resolutely insist upon putting 
 in the foreground what Jesus put in the foreground, and rele- 
 gating even true traditions to the background if they are of 
 secondary importance for his purpose. We must as good 
 Protestants complete the work of the Reformation and strip 
 from historical organized Christianity the encumbering grave- 
 clothes in which her life has been stifled. With good heart and 
 hope the author puts forth his history of ethics within organ- 
 ized Christianity, knowing well that the prayers of the ages are 
 yet to be answered and God's kingdom will come and his will 
 will be done on earth even as in heaven. 
 
 700 Park Ave., New York, 
 May, 1910. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 PAGE 
 
 Introduction 3 
 
 CHAPTEK 
 
 I. The Preparation for Christianity ... . lo 
 
 Note of Introduction lo 
 
 I. The Grecian (Classic) Contribution .... n 
 
 II. The Hellenistic Preparation i8 
 
 III. The Roman Preparation 3° 
 
 IV. The Old Testament Preparation . ... 32 
 
 II. New Testament Ethics 48 
 
 Introduction 48 
 
 I. The Ethics of Jesus 49 
 
 II. The Ethics of Paul 69 
 
 III. The Ethics of the Johannine Interpretation 
 
 of Jesus 87 
 
 IV. The Ethics of the Other Canonical Writings 93 
 
 III. The Ethics of the Early Church 105 
 
 Introduction 105 
 
 I. The Ethics of Unorganized Christianity . . . no 
 
 II. The Struggle for Individualization .... 124 
 
 III. The Intellectual Formulation of Christianity 143 
 
 IV. The Ethics of Ecclesiastical Organization . . 167 
 
 V. The Ethical Forces of Christianity . . . . 177 
 
 iz 
 
X CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER I'ACE 
 
 IV. The Old Catholic or Bishop's Church and Its 
 
 Ethics 187 
 
 Note of Introduction 187 
 
 I. Athanasius and Monasticism 193 
 
 II. The Message of the Great Preachers . . . 202 
 
 III. The Monastery and Asceticism 215 
 
 IV. The Bishop's Church and Culture . . . . 221 
 
 V. The Bishop's Church and the Cult and Its 
 
 Ethics 231 
 
 VI. The Church and Her Theology 235 
 
 VII. The Ethics of the Councils 251 
 
 V. The Militant Papacy and Its Ethics 258 
 
 I. The Separation of the East from the West . . 258 
 
 II. The Relation of Church and State .... 261 
 
 III. The Missionary Movement and the Mon- 
 
 astery 269 
 
 VI. Scholasticism and Its Ethics 282 
 
 I. The Ethics of Scholasticism 282 
 
 II. Constructive Scholasticism 294 
 
 III. Critical Scholasticism 333 
 
 IV. Mystical Scholasticism 341 
 
 VII. The English Reformation and Its Ethics . . . 365 
 
 Note of General Introduction 365 
 
 I. The Ethics of the Forerunners of the Reforma- 
 
 tion— Wyclif, the Lollards, Tyndale, 
 
 Hooper 378 
 
 II. The Ethics of the Lollards 386 
 
 III. The Ethics of Puritanism — Thomas (\irt- 
 
 wright, Travis, John Knox 396 
 
CONTENTS xi 
 
 CHAFTEK ^^'^^ 
 
 IV. The Ethics of Anglo-Catholicism 410 
 
 V. The Ethics of Independency 424 
 
 VI. The Ethics of Philosophical Protestantism . 438 
 
 VIII. The Continental Reformation and Its Ethics . 468 
 
 I. The Ethics of Luther 468 
 
 II. The Ethics of Melanchthon 496 
 
 III. The Anabaptist Movement and Its Ethics . 505 
 
 IV. The Ethics of the Reformed Churches ... 509 
 
 V. The Ethics of John Calvin 518 
 
 VI. The Ethics of the Creeds of the Continental 
 
 Reformation 533 
 
 VII. The Epigones of the Sixteenth and Seven- 
 
 teenth Centuries 535 
 
 VIII. The New Protestant Casuistry 540 
 
 IX. The Ethics of Pietism in the Continental 
 
 Churches 544 
 
 X. The Ethics of Post-Tridentine Roman Ca- 
 
 tholicism 554 
 
 XI. The Ethics of Philosophical Protestantism on 
 
 the Continent 5^3 
 
 IX. The Merging of Churchly with Philosophical 
 
 Ethics — A Summary 576 
 
 Introductory Note 57^ 
 
 Index 599 
 
HISTORY OF ETHICS WITHIN 
 ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 
 
v<t<- 
 
 /r "^^ Of THE 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 OF 
 
 HISTORY OF ETHICS WITHIN 
 ORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 I. However difficult it may be to define scientifically the 
 great historic force in the world's history which men call Chris- 
 tianity, one note it has which separates it from all kindred 
 movements: it is linked in the traditions of all its professed 
 followers with the message of the man Jesus Christ. 
 
 This Jesus appears, however, in history, primarily as a new 
 inspiration and vital force. We have no detailed and exhaustive 
 account of his activity and no exact summary of his actual doc- 
 trine. For a biography of him we must depend upon the 
 imperfect memories of loving interpreters, whose materials are 
 given in such a way as to preclude accurate chronological rear- 
 rangement. At best such reordering is hypothetical, however 
 attractive. Honest and devout men and women gave their ex- 
 planations of what Jesus had taught, and interpreted him to the 
 eager numbers who, after his death, became his followers. These 
 questions they answered with a large freedom, so that it is now 
 often quite impossible to say how far we have the words of Jesus 
 and how far the commentary of the disciple.^ In some cases, 
 as in the case of Paul, the claim was advanced for inward 
 spiritual authority to speak in the name of Jesus even after his 
 death. 
 
 Yet, in spite of the meagre records, the significance of this life 
 has been simply overwhelming. No matter what men may yet 
 
 ' Cf. especially the discourses of John's Gospel. For the literature that deals 
 with the question whether Jesus was an historical personage at all, see under 
 the heading, "The Ethics of Jesus," the literature there noticed, p. 49. 
 
 3 
 
4 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 believe of Jesus, he has left immeasurable results for all the 
 succeeding ages. This life is connected with a great upward 
 movement. The religious feelings of men received new in- 
 spiration and direction. The standards of human conduct and 
 judgment were purified and changed. That life still exercises 
 its wonderful power, and is still the centre of a great, though 
 incomplete, movement aiming at divine perfection. It is the 
 ethics of this movement in its various phases that we set gup 
 selves to study. 
 
 Jesus did not, as far as we can see, give himself distinctly to 
 the organization of a new community, or to the reconstruction of 
 society, or to the development of a new religious philosophy. 
 As has well been said, "He (Jesus) gathered about him a little 
 circle of disciples. With them he ate and drank, and during his 
 short activity they constantly accompanied him. They saw 
 how he associated with men and heard what he said to them. 
 He did not teach, he worked and felt before their eyes and in- 
 spired them to so work and feel. He did not consciously place 
 his person in the foreground, he did not talk about the signifi- 
 cance of his life and sufferings. In fact, however, the impression 
 of his person went far beyond his teaching. He was more than 
 a prophet: in Him the Word was made flesh." * 
 
 The influence of that person continues to be felt. No com- 
 munal life can ever now escape that influence, and no philosophy 
 can fail to take account of the teachings which rose up at once 
 in response to that great personality. 
 
 It is true that no community has completely embodied the 
 inspirations of Jesus, and that all so-called Christian systems 
 of thought exhibit manifest weaknesses. So that a history of 
 the ethics of our common Christianity is a history of approaches 
 to a goal. Indeed this is the greatness of Jesus that his name 
 is linked with a divine ideal so high that no church and no state 
 can claim, with any pretence to truth, to have really incorpo- 
 rated that ideal. 
 
 ' Wellhauscn, J.: " Israelitische und judische Geschichte," 4th ed., Berlin, 
 1901, p. 388. 
 
INTRODUCTION S 
 
 If we simply seek to isolate the philosophic and ethical 
 postulates of Jesus and his early disciples, and thus identify 
 Christianity with these, we might well ask with Ziegler,* "Are we 
 still Christian?" But this very question implies the common 
 misconception of the significance of Jesus and Christianity 
 which makes Ziegler's history often utterly misleading in spite 
 of its attractiveness and ability. This misconception is, alas, 
 all too common on the part of both friend and foe. Jesus did 
 not bring primarily either a new philosophy or a new ethics. 
 He brought a new ideal of life. And the transforming power of 
 that ideal is no longer a matter of humble faith, but of historic 
 experience. Indeed the history of the ethics of Christianity is 
 the history of the influence of that great personality and the 
 ideals which he brought, upon the most diverse philosophies and 
 the most widely differing social structures. 
 
 II. Two fields of inquiry open up before us. On the one 
 hand, the history of the ethics of Christianity might lead us to 
 an attempted history of the morality of communities calling 
 themselves Christian. Or, on the other hand, we might concern 
 ourselves wholly with the theoretical approach to the definition 
 of certain norms of conduct as distinctively Christian. It is this 
 latter field to which we must turn; but at the same time realizing 
 that the unfolding ideals of the Christian life are not matters of 
 pure thought, but are born of the experience of the Christian 
 thinker struggling to incarnate his ideals. It would be fortunate 
 if we could always use the words "morality" and "ethics" to 
 cover, the one the more especially objective and the other the 
 theoretical aspects of our field, in some such way as Otto Ritschl - 
 has suggested, but unfortunately that is not yet possible. Theo- 
 ries of conduct are not the product of our morality any more 
 than morality is the product of pure theory. Theory and 
 practice go hand in hand. To weigh these several factors is 
 
 * Ziegler, Theobald: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik," 2d ed., Strasburg, 
 1892, p. 593. 
 
 'Ritschl, Otto: " Wissenschaftliche Ethik und moralische Gesetzgebung," 
 Tubingen, 1903, p. 11. 
 
 i 
 
6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 not always possible. To ignore either of them is fatal to all 
 sound thought. We can no more separate permanently theories 
 of ethics from the practice of morality than we can separate, 
 save in thought, the mind from the body. 
 
 The history of the objective morality of historic communities 
 is exceedingly difficult, and belongs more particularly to the field 
 of the history of civilization. It is with the ethical theory and 
 the ethical ideals we have in these pages to concern ourselves. 
 
 HI. A very serious question is raised for the historian of 
 the ethics of Christianity by the confessedly relative character 
 of all Protestant moral standards. Any thorough-going Protes- 
 tantism must surrender all claim to the possession of a body of 
 infallible rules of conduct whose explication is simply a matter 
 of sincerity and shrewd candor. The actual rules of conduct 
 must grow out of experience. What is right and what is wrong 
 cannot be resolved into a matter of enactment, and legally 
 formulated. Where, then, it may be asked, is there any differ- 
 ence between philosophical or speculative ethics and a modem 
 Protestant-Christian ethics ? To this the only possible reply is 
 that we maintain the reality of the Christian experience, and 
 that out of Christian experience we may expect a body of conduct 
 distinctly bearing the marks of its origin. No speculative system 
 of ethics can therefore satisfy the Christian heart and conscience, 
 when it takes no account of what to the Christian believer is the 
 supreme reality of his experience. The Christian has seen God 
 in Christ Jesus, and from thenceforth Jesus has for him the 
 value of God. His experience of forgiveness of sin is attested 
 by the outcome in appropriate conduct and in his fellowship 
 with a brotherhood in forgiveness. The basis for a Christian 
 ethics is therefore the forgiven life working itself out in a trans- 
 formation of all ideals, a revaluation of all values, to accept the 
 challenge of our fiercest critic, Friedrich Nietzsche. And the 
 goal is distinctly set forth in the revelation of God in all human 
 life. There is, therefore, no complete system of Christian 
 ethics, nor can there be any such until human experience is 
 completely under the sway of the Christian ideal. At the same 
 
INTRODUCTION 7 
 
 time we hope to show that there are steady approaches to the 
 ideal set before us as a formal principle, and that our task is 
 the history of these approaches. 
 
 IV. Strangely enough, the history of Christian ethics has had 
 no adequate treatment by an English-writing student. The two 
 volumes by F. D. Maurice on "Moral and Metaphysical 
 Philosophy," although abounding in learning and suggestion, 
 are too diffuse and too unhistorical in method to be of the highest 
 value as history. The historical volume of Wuttke's " Christian 
 Ethics" is translated from the German into English (Edinburgh, 
 1873; New York, 1875), but the original is defective in method 
 and the translation is harsh. The translation (Clark's Foreign 
 Theological Library) of Luthardt's "History of Christian 
 Ethics," in two volumes, is well done, but Luthardt's pronounced 
 Lutheran dogmaticism gives the whole history a bias that robs 
 an otherwise valuable work of its greatest usefulness. In 
 Germany the history of Christian ethics has always received 
 more attention than with us. Staiidlin's (C. F.) "Geschichte 
 der Sittenlehre Jesus" (4 vols., 1 799-1823) is indeed out of date, 
 but contains a great mass of material from which all subsequent 
 historians have borrowed. The same may be said of Marhein- 
 ecke's (Ph.) "Allgemeine Geschichte der christlichen Moral in 
 der deutschen Reformation vorangehenden Zeiten" (Sulzbach, 
 1806). Nor is the volume of Wuttke, already mentioned as 
 translated, of much present value. A. Neander's "Vorlesung- 
 en liber Geschichte der christlichen Ethik, herausgegeben von 
 David Erdmann" (Berlin, 1864) marks a distinct advance in 
 historical method. And W. M. L. de Wette's "Lehrbuch der 
 christlichen Sittenlehre" (Berlin, 1833) has much material, 
 treated, however, from the distinctly philosophical stand-point 
 of de Wette. The most recent works, apart from Luthardt's 
 volumes, already mentioned as being translated, are Bestmann's 
 "Geschichte der christHchen Sitte (2 vols., 1880-1885), which is 
 full of most valuable detailed research, but is lacking in central 
 organizing view-points. Gass's "Geschichte der christlichen 
 Ethik" (3 vols., 1881-1887), which remain beyond doubt the 
 most valuable modern history, is especially good in the treatment 
 
8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 of the Middle Ages and the early history. Ziegler's " Geschichte 
 der christlichen Ethik " (2d ed., 1892) fails to always bring out the 
 fundamental meaning of Christianity, and is often too lacking 
 in sympathy with the movements described to do them full 
 justice. At the same time the book has high merit, and is 
 always brilliant if often hasty in judgment and somewhat 
 superficial in its estimates, and leaves upon the theological 
 specialist the impression that a competent authority in another 
 field felt he had to fill out his work by dealing with a subject 
 for which he had no special qualification. Apart from histories 
 of distinctly Christian ethics, there are sketches of the history of 
 ethics as a speculative science of marked value. Among these 
 is the admirable little sketch by Sidgwick, "Outlines of the 
 History of Ethics for English Readers" (4th ed., 1896). In 
 Wundt's "Ethik" there is also a brief but interesting history of 
 ethics. In 1845, Fr. Ehrenfeuchter published his "Entwickel- 
 ungsgeschichte der Menschheit, besonders in ethischer Bezie- 
 hung" (Heidelberg), and it is a great pity that more work along 
 the lines he then laid down, but with the greater abundance of 
 accurate references to savage life now accessible, is not being 
 attempted. Emil Feuerlein's " Die philosophische Sittenlehre in 
 ihren geschichtlichen Hauptformen" (2 vols., Tubingen, 1856- 
 1859) contains valuable historical material. The most notable 
 historical work along the ethical line has been done by Jodl 
 (Friedr.), whose "Geschichte der Ethik der neueren Philoso- 
 phic" (2 vols., Stuttgart, 1882-1889, and a new ed. of vol. I in 
 1906) is by all means the fullest and most satisfactory exposition 
 known to the writer. But the chapter on "Christian Ethics" 
 is sadly wanting. Karl Kostlin has written on the " Geschichte 
 der Ethik des klassischen Alterthums" (vol. I., "Die griechische 
 Ethik bis Plato," 1887). Upon this Luthardt has also written 
 in his "Die antike Ethik in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung" 
 (Leipsic, 1887). An older work by C. Mciners, "Allgemeine 
 kritische Geschichte der Ethik (alteren und neueren) oder 
 Lebenswissenschaft" (Gottingen, 1800-1801, 2 vols.), has 
 largely lost its value. Martineau's "Types of Ethical Theory" 
 (2d ed., 1886) is largely valuable for its brilliant though too 
 
INTRODUCTION 9 
 
 ornate style. The analysis of the historic systems is lacking in 
 historical objectivity and their classification cumbersome and 
 defective. Some historical examination is found in the pages of 
 James Mackintosh's "Dissertation upon the Progress of Ethical 
 Knowledge" (edited by Whewell, 3d. ed., Edinburgh, 1862), but 
 on the whole it is not now serviceable. 
 
 V. The field is so vast that it is impossible to attempt even 
 a fairly complete bibliography of the primary and secondary 
 sources. The range covers the fields of philosophy, dogmatics, 
 and general history. Indeed, some of the most useful ethical 
 literature carries no real indication of its character in the as- 
 signed purpose of the book. For the early canonical period we 
 have only the canon itself, and for the early church we must 
 depend upon literature given up in the main to polemic or 
 dogmatic exposition. Even the Old Catholic or Bishop's 
 church was so insistent upon doctrine as the basis of life, that 
 formal ethics has but a secondary place. The ethics of the 
 militant church, educating the north of Europe and intrenching 
 itself in the places of political power, is to be found mingled with 
 canon law and with ecclesiastical institutionalism. Even when 
 the scholastic period is reached it is still the dogmatic and 
 cosmological interest that dominates, and the ethics of an Anselm 
 or Dun Scotus must be reconstructed by the historian from 
 materials gathered for dogmatic exposition. It is therefore im- 
 possible in such a history to do more than gather from the litera- 
 ture such typical forms as may illustrate the steady progress of 
 the Christian conception of God in Christ Jesus and the region 
 of thought about conduct. After the critiques of Kant we find 
 ethics no longer possible as an authoritative system. From his 
 day on, philosophical ethics and the ethics of organized Chris- 
 tianity cannot be separated, and the content of ethics is based 
 both within and without organized Christianity upon experience. 
 Hence, as we shall see, our history really terminates with the new 
 Protestantism made necessary by the critical philosophy, and the 
 last chapter of our book is therefore only a summary of the 
 situation thus produced. 
 
CHAPTER I 
 THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Note of Introduction. — I. The Grecian (Classic) Contribution — II. The 
 Hellenistic Preparation — III. The Roman Preparation — IV. The 
 Old Testament Preparation: Propheticism; The Early and Later 
 Priestly Development; The Deuteronomic Synthesis; The Contribu- 
 tion of Hellenized Judaism. 
 
 NOTE OF INTRODUCTION 
 
 That the ethics of Christianity represent a synthesis into 
 which elements entered from the most various quarters can no 
 longer be seriously denied. A certain type of Judaism had 
 succeeded in keeping itself relatively untouched by the changes 
 going on in thought all about it. So that the early New Testa- 
 ment literature, although written in Greek, is yet thoroughly 
 Jewish in thought and fundamental feeling. At the same time 
 even within the period of the New Testament writings — say 45 
 to 125 — the whole world was profoundly affected by elements 
 that appear in the pages of the later writings of the canon, and 
 we cannot understand the canonical writings without some 
 understanding of the ranges of thought amid which they had 
 their origin. In the beginning the Christian church had its 
 following from among the most extreme types of Jewish thought 
 and feeling, namely, the zealots of Galilee and the middle class 
 thinking of Jerusalem. It was Paul who introduced it to the 
 larger world of aristocratic Judaism and the cultivated circles of 
 Hellenism. In this Hellenism Christianity found too much 
 that was congenial to pass it by. We must then rapidly review 
 the various elements that alTected Christianity, and deal with 
 them as they affected her. These elements were classic Greek 
 speculation, the Hellenized world of thought, the Roman Empire, 
 and more particularly the Old Testament in its various phases. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY ii 
 
 I. THE GRECIAN (CLASSIC) CONTRIBUTION 
 
 Strictly speaking, it was Hellenism rather than the classic 
 Greek philosophy (Democritus, Plato, Aristotle) that supplied 
 the intellectual forms for the use of early Christianity. The 
 unorganized character of the Jewish intellectual and artistic life 
 made it inevitable that the early church should seek elsewhere 
 than in the Old Testament for the means of systematic expres- 
 sion of her life and purpose. Judaism itself felt the lack and 
 turned in the same way to Greece for help. Josephus and Philo 
 show how inevitably the thoughtful turned to the classic models. 
 
 The books of the Old Testament could supply content and 
 inspiration for the apologetic preaching of the early church, but 
 for dialectic and rhetorical method, for training in systematic 
 and logical thinking, the early defenders of the faith had to look 
 to the Greek and Roman schools. 
 
 It is impossible at this point to do more than very briefly 
 point to some of the main elements of that classic thought which 
 at once gave form to the ethical thinking of the early church. 
 
 Plato rather than Aristotle has been chiefly influential in most 
 periods of the church's life. Even when, as in the Middle Ages, 
 
 Literature. — Schmidt, L. : "Die Ethik der alten Griechen"; 2 vols.; 
 Berlin, 1882. — Zeller, Eduard: "Die Philosophie der Griechen"; 5 vols, (in 
 various editions); Leipsic, 1889-1903. — Windelband, W. : "Lehrbuch der 
 Geschichte der Philosophie"; i vol., 4th ed., Tubingen, 1907; pp. 20-218; 
 English translation, New York, 1901; pp. 23-262. — Grote, George: "History 
 of Greece"; 10 vols.; London, 1888 (especially vol. VIII). — Weber, A.: "His- 
 tory of Philosophy"; translated by Thilly; New York, Scribner's, 1903; pp. 
 17-53. — Ueberweg-Heinze: " Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophie"; loth 
 ed.; 4 vols.; Berlin, 1901-1906 (especially full citations of literature). — 
 Ziegler, Theobald: "Die Ethik der Griechen und Romer"; Bonn, 1881 (vol. I 
 of his "Geschichte der Ethik). — Kostlin, Karl: "Die Ethik des klassischen 
 Altertums (i. Die griechische Ethik bis Plato)"; Leipsic, 1887 ("Geschichte 
 der Ethik," vol. I).— Luthardt, C. E.: "Die antike Ethik in ihrer geschicht- 
 lichen Entwickelung"; Leipsic, 1887. — Rohde, Erwin: "Psyche, Seelenkult und 
 Unsterblichkeitsglaube der Griechen"; 2 vols.; 4th ed.; Tubingen, 1907. — 
 MahafiFy, J. P.: "History of Classical Greek Literature"; 3 vols.; 2d ed.; 
 London, 1883, 1889. — Jowett, B.: "Dialogues of Plato," with notes; 5 vols.; 
 3d ed.; New York and London, 1892. — Schaubach, E.: "Das Verhaltniss der 
 
12 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Aristotle was the avowed master of all minds, the religious char- 
 acter of the Platonic philosophy was indirectly, in mysticism, in 
 devotional books, and in a thousand phrases and terms of 
 thought, even more influential than the Organum. Of course 
 Plato's works were only very uncritically known. Some of his 
 leading doctrines are to this day confounded with conceptions 
 entirely strange to his thinking. He was used to support an 
 intellectual dogmatism that would have been wholly opposed 
 to his artistic longing for intellectual freedom. And yet a dog- 
 matic teaching church found in the Socratic identification of 
 wisdom with goodness and knowledge with salvation, as Plato 
 developed it, a great source of strength and comfort. The 
 church came revealing, and, "If a man know all good and evil, 
 and how they exist, and have existed, and will be brought forth, 
 would he not be complete and wanting in no virtue, whether 
 justice or self-control or holiness? He would possess them all, 
 and he would know those (situations) which were dangerous 
 and which were not, and would guard against them whether they 
 were supernatural or natural." * The Platonic thinking lent 
 itself to an appeal to supernatural enlightenment. The "de- 
 mon" or "spirit" (Satfioviov) of Socrates was itself an expression 
 of highest ethical faith. "You have heard me speak of an 
 
 Moral des classischen Alterthums zur christlichen in Theologische Studien und 
 Kritiken"; 1851; vol. XXIV, pp. 59-121.— Neander, A.: "Ueber das Verhalt- 
 nissder hcllenischen Ethik zur christlichen"; pp. 140-214; in his " Wissenschaft- 
 liche Abhandlungen"; edited by J. L. Jacobi; Berlin, 1851.— Caird, E.: "The 
 Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers" (Gifford Lectures, 1900-1901, 
 1901-1902; 2 vols.; Glasgow, 1904. — Hatch, Edwin: " The Organization of the 
 Early Christian Churches" (Bampton Lectures, 1880); London, 1881; and 
 "The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church"; 
 edited by A. M. Fairbairn; 2d ed.; London, 1891 (Hibbert Lectures, 1888). — 
 Friedliindcr, L. : "Darstcllungen aus der .Sittengeschichtc Roms in dcr Zeit von 
 August bis zumAusgangdcrAntonine"; 7th ed.; Leipsic, 1901. — Siebeck, Herm.: 
 "Plato's Lehre von der Materie," in his "Untersuchungen"; 2d ed.; Freiburg, 
 1888. — Harnack, A.: "Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte"; vol. I.; 2d ed.; 
 Introduction; Freiburg, i. B., 1888; English translation. 
 
 ' Laches 199 L. The translations here and elsewhere are in the main those 
 of Jowett, with only a few departures for special reasons in favor of a more literal 
 even if more clumsy rendering. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 13 
 
 oracle or sign which comes to me, and is the divinity which 
 Meletus ridicules in the accusation. This sign I have had ever 
 since I was a child," says Socrates. "The sign is a voice which 
 comes to me, and always forbids me to do something which I 
 was going to do, but never commands to me do anything." * 
 
 The development of this conception of an immediate intui- 
 tional inhibition by Plato into the doctrine of immediate vision 
 and ethical insight is most interesting, and gives at once room for 
 a religious interpretation of common ethical experience.^ The 
 cult and the mystery have more in common with Plato than with 
 Aristotle, and the religiously ethical character of the speculative 
 insight becomes more and more prominent in his teaching.^ 
 So that we may say that the ethics of Christianity has been pro- 
 foundly and directly influenced by several elements in Plato's 
 philosophy. The Platonic doctrine of the immaterial immortal 
 character of the soul, with its contact on the one side with the 
 Eternal and unchanging Being in the vision of ideas, and on the 
 other with the changing life of action and suffering, is wholly 
 foreign to the ranges of thought out of which Christianity came, 
 but was at once in crude outline accepted, and remains to-day 
 as the basis of nearly all Christian eschatology. Any one has 
 only to try and fit the early Christian teaching of the resurrection 
 of the body, which was the fundamental postulate of the Jewish 
 eschatology, into the Platonic framework to see how distinctly 
 the conception of the soul as it is taught in the Phaedrus differed 
 from the Jewish faith. But as. between the two notions it is 
 Plato that has triumphed. Although, again, it must oe re- 
 membered that Plato's doctrine has also received serious modifi- 
 cations. Ethically Plato's doctrine of the soul laid emphasis 
 upon the immediate and individual judgment at death. Com- 
 munal and national judgment, such as Prophetism and the 
 
 • Apology 31. Cf. also Xenophon Memor. IV, 8 and I, 4, 15, and the 
 Phaedrus 246 ff. 
 
 = Cf. Windelband, W.: "Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophic," 4th ed., 
 Tubingen, 1907, p. loi; English translation, New York, 1901, p. 123. 
 
 ' Cf. Phaedrus, 250. 
 
14 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Apocalyptic books had proclaimed, gives way, even in the New 
 Testament, to individual and immediate decision/ The trans- 
 position of the emphasis from the national and communal to the 
 individual responsibility for guilt cannot, of course, be traced 
 entirely to Plato, but his doctrine of the immortal soul lent itself 
 in a peculiar way to the new personal ethics of the Christian 
 community. 
 
 The Platonic teaching of the idea was directly connected with 
 his ethical interest. Indeed its development was designed to 
 secure a permanent and unchanging foundation for conduct amid 
 the confessedly changing circumstances of the sensible existence.' 
 
 The idea (IBda) has with Plato a twofold function, whose 
 connection it is not always easy to trace. On the one hand it is 
 the unchanging essence, the eternal type of the temporal and 
 the changing including in this the psychical and non-corporeal.' 
 On the other hand the idea is conceived of as possessing a 
 dynamic character, so that the idea of the "good" is not only 
 the type of goodness, but is the creator of all good things in so 
 far as they are good.* Plato's ideas are not simply spirit as over 
 against material things. The distinction is not, as in the later 
 and corrupted thought, that of body and soul. The idea ex- 
 presses the highest being apart from all body, a reality only 
 known in conception, giving unity to the manifold. 
 
 Both these conceptions appear again and again in the ethical 
 constructions of Christianity and in all shades of comprehension. 
 More particularly in the orthodox thought of God do we find 
 attempts to express the incommunicable nature of his transcen- 
 dental holiness in terms that recall Plato's teaching, and in the 
 "Logos" doctrine the Platonic idea as a dynamic force appears 
 in all shades of Hellenistic and Neoplatonic corruption. 
 
 ' Cf. Luke i6 : 19-31 and 23 : 43; cf. the "Republic," book X. 
 
 ^ Cf. Wundt: "Ethik," 1886, p. 239, and VVindelband: "Lehrbuch der 
 Geschichtc der Philosophic," 4th ed., 1907, p. 95. English translation, New 
 York, 1901, p. 118. 
 
 * Phxfio, 78-80; Farm., 135; " Republic," VT, 507-510; Tima>us, 28 (placed 
 on the lips of Tiinaeus). 
 
 * Phado, 97-101; "Republic," VI, S°l ff- 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 15 
 
 We shall also have occasion to notice the distinctly metaphysi- 
 cal interest that attaches itself to the relative monotheism of 
 Plato as contrasted with the purely ethical interest of Old 
 Testament monotheism. Here again it is hard to escape the 
 conviction that Plato has outweighed the prophets. The way 
 in which as, for instance, in the Timaeus, the metaphysical and 
 ethical interests are linked with cosmological speculations,* 
 suggests the method of all early Christian theology. The cos- 
 mogony of Genesis has little or no metaphysical interest. Its 
 message is religious and ethical. For Plato the metaphysical 
 was in the last analysis the only guarantee of the ethical. The 
 value of God is that he is the foundation for all being, includ- 
 ing of course as chiefly important the ethical verities. This 
 intellectualism is fundamental to classical Greek ethics.^ It has 
 most profoundly influenced all Christian thought. Our estimate 
 of this influence may be that of Professor Harnack ' or that of 
 Professor Pfleiderer,* but the facts are quite beyond dispute. 
 The origin of metaphysical monotheism is to be sought, not in 
 the prophets or even in Paul, much less in Jesus, but in Plato. 
 
 On another field Platonic teaching has mingled with the ethics 
 of the Old Testament and given a distinct color to the doctrines 
 of Christianity. This is the important region of human guilt. 
 The estimate of matter as changing, and in itself lower and 
 evil and something to be escaped from, is wholly foreign to the 
 older Jewish thought, whose God creates all things and all 
 very good.^ A despondent view of life appears, however, very 
 plainly in Plato,' and very soon began to deeply mark the think- 
 ing of Christianity in the Hellenic world. Even in Paul we see 
 the shadows of a despondent estimate of human life falling on 
 
 • Timaeus, 30-48. 
 
 "^Cf. Interesting discussion of "Motives" by Schmidt: "Ethik der alten 
 Griechen," Berlin, 1881, vol. I, pp. 156-165 and 253-256. 
 ' Cf. "Dogmengeschichte," 2d ed., 1888, vol. I, pp. loi-iio. 
 *Cf. "Die Entwicklung des Christentums," 1907, p. 7. 
 
 • Genesis i : 31. 
 
 • C/. Phaedo, 66, 67, with the further development in Philo's "DeMundi 
 officio," §§ 57-60. 
 
i6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 his pages, although he had probably no direct knowledge of the 
 sources whence they came. 
 
 In the later stages of Plato's philosophy these elements of 
 world-flight and asceticism seem even more pronounced.' He 
 was perhaps influenced by his own political failures.^ He 
 himself regarded the "Republic" as only a council of perfec- 
 tion, and Plato had so low an estimate of Athens that he was 
 himself strongly under the conviction that Athens at least could 
 never really learn.' The life of philosophy was to be a life of 
 retirement and contemplation far from the ' phenomenal confu- 
 sions of the market and the street. In fact the philosopher of the 
 " Republic" is very nearly the picture of the statesman and monk 
 of the great Papal state at its best. It is impossible to overlook 
 the influence exercised by Plato upon the whole conception 
 of life born of the monastic ideal. In conjunction with the 
 oriental and Egyptian notes, which appear also in Plato and are 
 more and more apparent in Neoplatonism, we find the temper 
 of the age from which Christianity sprang despondent as it looks 
 out on human nature, and the doctrine of total depravity has its 
 roots far more in Hellenistic than in Semitic soil.* In the teach- 
 ing of Plato not only was the body a limitation upon pure 
 knowledge, but even the psychic process so far as it dealt with 
 particulars. Mystic salvation in its escape from particulars into 
 the immediate revelation of the vision exactly corresponds to one 
 phase of Plato's hope. So that more than once we face an 
 estimate of life with its manifoldness that calls itself Christian, 
 but whose real roots are in the soil of Greece. 
 " On the formal side of the ethical thinking of the church, both 
 Aristotle and Plato exercised a great and beneficent influence. 
 All attempts to classify the virtues and to reduce to systematic 
 form the moral life and its demands go back at once to either 
 
 ' Cf. Timaeus, 69-71. 
 
 *C/. Stcinhart, Karl: "Platon's Leben," Leipsic, 1873. 
 •Apology 31, 32. 
 
 ' C/. Schultz, H.: " Alttcstamentliche Theologie," 5th ed., pp. 493-5IX 
 English translation, 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1892; vol. II, p. 24i-28a 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 17 
 
 Plato or Aristotle or to both.* . In the early chapters Aristotle 
 cannot always be distinctly traced, and again it is Plato with 
 his fourfold division of the virtues^ that dominates the early 
 thought. In the attempt, indeed, to fit the ethical ideals of 
 Christianity into these classic forms violence has often to be 
 done either to the contents or to the forms. Indeed it is in 
 following up this effort that the strong contrast between the 
 classic and the Christian ideals comes into view.' At the same 
 time it was from Greek and Roman models that early Christian- 
 ity learnt what it knew of systematic co-ordinated thinking, 
 and the strength of its teaching was due in large measure to 
 contact with the flower of Greek culture in the works of Plato 
 and Aristotle. 
 
 However much we may regret the confusions that arose and 
 that still persist between the classic and the Christian interests, 
 we should never cease to be grateful for the intellectual schooling 
 given the early church by contact with Grecian dialectics. 
 
 The ethics of Plato were developed in the midst of a society 
 commonly called democratic, but which was in truth a small 
 slave-holding and highly aristocratically governed community. 
 Plato himself belonged to the most highly privileged class in 
 the state. This state itself was rapidly going to pieces under the 
 burden of these privileged classes and under the strain of ex- 
 ternal political complications. This decay was patent to all the 
 thoughtful elements in the community. The " Republic " of Plato 
 and the " Laws," so far as they are from his hand, represent an 
 earnest and wonderfully inspiring attempt to suggest a new 
 social construction to arrest the decay. On its purely formal 
 side the work of Plato had enormous influence upon the social 
 dreaming of Augustine, and through him moulded, in larger 
 measure than is perhaps generally recognized, the great Priest- 
 
 ' As in Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 2 ffoipla or Wisdom, dvdpla or Courage, ffu4>poaivij or Temperance, Self-con- 
 trol, and SiKaiofftivfj or Justice. 
 
 ^ Cf. Schaubach: " Das Verhaltniss der Moral des klassischen Alterthums zur 
 christlichen Theologie. Theologische Studien und Kritiken," 1851, pp. 59-121. 
 
i8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 state of the Middle Ages. Plato was, however, far from 
 democratic in either his temper or his hope. At the same time 
 he wished for an aristocracy of the noblest and an aristocracy 
 trained for its work of self-sacrifice and duty by sacrifice and 
 service. The Roman Catholic hierarchy was a bold attempt on 
 a large and most impressive scale to realize this ideal. The 
 relative success of the experiment was due to the fact that it was 
 linked with that religious enthusiasm which Plato sought to 
 infuse into Athenian life.^ And the history of the attempt goes 
 far to justify the real insight of the great philosopher. 
 
 At the same time the weaknesses of Plato's ideals were bom 
 of the very social organization he wished to redeem. The 
 aristocratic type of thought and feeling so prominent in the 
 small, closely organized Greek cities reappears in the priestly 
 reconstruction of the Middle Ages, and did so in part, at least, 
 under the influence of the Platonic conceptions carried over by 
 Augustine. The "Republic" reflects the caste spirit which 
 played such havoc with the political and religious ideals of the 
 Old Catholic church, and which, amid all semblance of democ- 
 racy, even to this day give to the ethics of the Roman Commun- 
 ion an aristocratic character. 
 
 II. THE HELLENISTIC PREPARATION 
 
 The Grecian life that is most plainly reflected in our earliest 
 Christian sources is not that of either the Ionic or Attic periods, 
 but that which since Droysen has been called Hellenism.^ 
 
 Literature (in addition to list on page 7/. and of the standard histories of 
 Greece). — Droysen, J. G.: "Geschichte des Hellcnismus"; 2d ed.; 3 vols.; 
 Gotha, 1877-1878.— MahafTy, J. P.: "The Silver Age of the Greek World"; 
 Chicago, 1906. — Hatch, Edwin: "The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages 
 upon the Christian Church"; 3d ed.; by A. M. Fairbairn (Hibbert Lectures for 
 1888) ; London, 1891. — Zeller, E.: "Die Philosophie der Gricchen"; vol. III., 
 
 ' Cf. Windelband, W.: "Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie," 4th ed., 
 1907, p. 105. English translation, "History of Philosophy," New York, 1901, 
 p. 127. 
 
 * Droysen, J. G.: "Geschichte des Hellcnismus," 3 vols., Gotha, 1877. 
 See Von Wilamowitz-Mocllendorff: "Gricchische Literatur des Altertums" 
 (Kultur der Gegcnwart, I, viii, 1907), p. 84. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 19 
 
 Greece became the world's teacher when her culture was scat- 
 tered over all known lands and was forced upon the unwilling 
 Orient by the conquests of Macedonia. Aristotle was Alexan- 
 der's teacher, but the pupil had greater insight into the actual 
 possibilities of empire than even his teacher. He saw that a 
 really world-wide empire could not be built upon the basis of 
 the intellectual aristocracy of the Greek city.* According to 
 Plutarch, Aristotle advised Alexander to treat the Greeks as 
 friends and relations and the barbarians as plants and animals.^ 
 It was quite as impossible to build empire on such organization 
 as Athens possessed as it would have been to build up a kingdom 
 in the Middle Ages on the basis of the free city. Athens had in 
 309 B. C. a population of 21,000 free citizens, 10,000 "strangers " 
 (^eW), free but not citizens, and 400,000 slaves.* The result 
 of such a city organization was the intense particularism and 
 the haughty patrician pride which marked the free cities of 
 the Middle Ages. Such a spirit is as far removed from democ- 
 racy as the east is from the west. The intellectual conquest of 
 the world was effected only when this organization was broken 
 down, and Grecian culture like Jewish religion had become 
 relatively homeless. Moreover, this conquest was effected, like 
 
 part i; Leipsic, 1903. — Rohde, E.: "Kleine Schriften"; Tubingen, 1902 
 (especially "Die Religion der Griechen"); in 2d vol., pp. 335-336. — Siebeck, H. : 
 "Untersuchungen zur Philosophie der Griechen"; 2d ed.; Freiburg, 1888. — 
 Wendland, P.: "Christentum und Hellenismus in ihren litterarischen Bezie- 
 hungen"; Leipsic, 1902; and "Die hellenistisch-romische Kultur in ihren 
 Beziehungen zu Judentum und Christentum"; Tubingen, 1907. — v. Wilamo- 
 witz-Moellendorff: "Geschichte der griechischen Literatur (in der Kultur der 
 Gegenwart"); Teil I, Abteilung VIII, pp. 3-238; 2d ed.; Berlin, 1907. — 
 Cumont, Fr. : "Les Religions orientales dans le paganisme romain"; Paris, 
 1906. — Deissmann, G. A.: "Licht vom Osten"; 2d ed.; Tiibingen, 1909. 
 
 ' Droysen, vol. II, pp. 15-17. 
 
 * Aristot. apud Plut. de fort. Alexander i, 6. See also Aristotle, " Politics," 
 I, I, quoted by Droysen. 
 
 ' Boeckh's " Staatshaushaltung der Athener," 4 Biicher mit Inschriften, 
 Berlin (ist ed., 1817; 3d ed., by Max Fraenkel, 1886), vol. I, p. 38, based 
 on disputed census figures, which, however, Droysen accepts as accurate. Cf. 
 vol. I, § III, p. 429 of ist ed., 1836. (Translated by Sir G. C. Lewis, London. 
 2 vols., 1828, 2d ed., 1842. Translated by A. Lamb, Boston, 1857, 2 vols.) 
 
20 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 the political conquests of Alexander, by skilful use of the forces 
 of the antagonists. The result was that with Alexander began 
 that cosmopolitanism which fitted Greek thought to the condi- 
 tions out of which came the still greater world-empire of Rome. 
 Indeed the history of Hellenism stretches on into the intellectual 
 life of Rome under the Caesars. Cicero founded an empire of 
 thought which was based on Hellenism, and which contested 
 with the Caesars for the dominion over men's minds,* and men 
 sought in it consolation for lost national freedom. The histo- 
 rians before Droysen have underestimated the achievements of 
 this period, when science and speculation became the possession 
 of an enlarging world. Alexander founded over seventy cities 
 or trading colonies, and thus Hellenism became the mother of the 
 modem city-development and taught Rome a lesson in the 
 organization of an awakening world. 
 
 Ihis cosmopolitanism was not gained without sacrifice. 
 Greece lost her liberty, and the world of Hellenism is over- 
 shadowed by the greatness of this loss. The unity of her 
 thought gave way to a unity based on a synthesis of many 
 elements, and at every point the student of Hellenic art or litera- 
 ture marks concessions to the synthetic character of the whole 
 movement. Into this synthesis enter three elements that have 
 especial bearing upon the ethics of Christianity. It is a period of 
 philosophic adaptation that is often rather conglomerate than 
 an organized philosophic whole. During this time is born a 
 popular religious philosophy with many elements drawn from 
 oriental cults, and it is during this era that an oriental mysticism 
 brings forth its full fruit, and is itself ennobled and purified by 
 Hellenistic thought. This philosophic synthesis involved all 
 possible combinations drawn from the teachings of the Academy, 
 the Peripatetics, the Stoa, and from Epicurus as well as from the 
 scepticism of the Middle Academy and the mysticism of Neo- 
 platonism. The Stoicism which conquered Rome and became 
 the religion of Epictetus, Seneca, and Marcus Aurelius, was 
 
 ' Cf. Cicero's own statement of his ambition in "De Divinatione," liber II, 
 
 5§ I. 2. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 21 
 
 mingled with the popular teaching of the Cynics * and the 
 scepticism of Carneades. Panaetius the Rhodian^ (112 B. C.) 
 Stoic rejected astrological prophecies, and the Middle Academy 
 permanently influenced the stoic doctrine of causation.' Into 
 this synthesis entered also elements drawn from oriental 
 dualism with its fundamentally pessimistic outlook upon life. 
 Thus we find already in Hellenism the struggle between a 
 metaphysical monotheism and an ethical dualism which torments 
 Christian thinking to this day.* This dualism marked the Stoi- 
 cism which became the religion of the intelligent and which un- 
 dermined the vulgar polytheism, not by attacking it as did the 
 Epicureans, but by explaining it away. 
 
 The drift of this synthesis was toward pantheistic monothe- 
 ism. Rohde has, indeed, vigorously denied that the Greek mind 
 had a tendency to monotheism,^ but in the intellectual struggles 
 of the various schools metaphysical speculation led inevitably to 
 monism. Indeed it became only a matter of the degree of culture 
 in the various individuals how they combined this metaphysical 
 monotheism with the popular polytheism. It was Stoicism that 
 most skilfully wove together the ethical with the philosophical 
 and religious interests, and thus became, as we shall see, even in 
 Christian history, a substitute for an ethics based on the inspira- 
 tions of the New Testament. In spite of its wide hold on 
 cultivated minds. Epicureanism was from the beginning un- 
 sympathetic to Christian feeling. It was more distinctly anti- 
 religious in the sense of conscious insistence upon mental illu- 
 mination as over against vulgar religious forms.* Whereas 
 Christian feeling at its best never placed the emphasis upon in- 
 
 * C/. Wendland, P.: "Die hellenistisch-romische Kultur." Tubingen, pp. 
 
 39-5°- 
 
 ^ See Cicero's "De Divinatione," Liber II, § 42. 
 
 ' C/. Windelband: "Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie." Tubingen, 
 1907, pp. 163-173. English translation, New York, 1901, pp. 197-209. 
 
 * Cf. Windelband: " Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie." Tubingen, 
 1907, p. 158. English translation, New York, 1901, p. 190. 
 
 *"Kleine Schriften," vol. II, p. 320. 
 
 * Cf. Windelband: "Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie," 4th ed., 
 1907, pp. 141, 142. English translation, New York, 1901, pp. 170, 171. 
 
22 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 tellectual illumination. It was also more readily misunderstood 
 in its hedonism. For although it was in essence no more 
 hedonistic than Stoicism, yet its definition of pleasure was more 
 openly sensuous and more deliberately aesthetic than was com- 
 patible with the sterner puritanism of early Christianity. Its 
 very attempt to rescue human responsibility by detaching con- 
 duct from a central power was not fitted to appeal to the aroused 
 religious hope.' 
 
 The Cynic-Stoic movement appealed most directly to the life 
 that needed hope, consolation, and direction as, under the storms 
 of war, old institutions, old faiths, and old altars went down. 
 
 At the same time this very factor in the history of stoic ethics 
 accounts in part for the extreme individualism that often limited 
 its influence. Both Cynic and Stoic placed the individual in the 
 centre of ethical interest. No considerations of either state or 
 religious community could interfere with individual enlightened 
 man doing that which advanced his own peace. Virtue was the 
 satisfaction of the individual soul's longing for happiness. 
 Cynicism went often the full length,^ but Stoicism also, like 
 Epicureanism, had ever "happiness" conceived of as the peace 
 of the individual in the foreground. 
 
 It is not accurate to say that it was Christianity that discovered 
 the individual. Individualism came with cosmopolitanism; and 
 Stoicism rather than Christianity formulated it for all ages. 
 But, on the other hand, Hellenistic Stoicism was distinctly 
 aristocratic — and not even the popular preaching of the Cynics 
 ever raised Hellenistic thought to the point of ascribing to every 
 individual as such inherent value. The "wise" were those who 
 fought their way into subjection of the world by trained indiffer- 
 ence to the lower delights. But this way was only open to the 
 few. Literary Stoicism as we know it retained to the last this 
 aristocratic character, even in the Christian edition of it by 
 
 ' Q". Schmidt, L.: "Die Ethik der alten Griechen," vol. I, pp. 287, 288. 
 Where, however, he warns against the superficial treatment of Epicurus's doctrine 
 in the classic passages "Diogenes Laertius," 10, 133, and "Cicero de Fato," 
 9, 18; 10, 23, and " De Natura Deorum," i, 25, 69. 
 
 ' C/. Schmidt, L.: "Die Ethik der alten Griechen," vol. II, pp. 448-451. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 23 
 
 Ambrose of Milgji. The slave Epictetus, whose teaching 
 savors less than the others of this intellectual aristocracy, yet ad- 
 dressed himself to the ruling caste as we see from his complaints 
 of the luxury and idleness of his hearers/ In Panaetius, in 
 Cicero, in Marcus Aurelius, and Seneca the ethics are those of 
 men separated deliberately from the crowd, seeking consolation 
 amidst the disappointments in life in the consciousness of lonely 
 victory over the world. So that a distinctly pharisaic element 
 enters easily into its spirit. 
 
 At the same time literary Stoicism did not constitute the whole 
 of the movement. It could not have had as a philosophy any 
 great influence over the average life. Literary Stoicism reveals 
 almost no contact with the moral difificulties and struggles of the 
 small trader or the petty agriculturist, who after all formed the 
 great bulk of the population. There was, however, a popular as 
 well as a literary Stoicism, and to understand its influence we 
 must go to the Stoic-Cynic propaganda in sermon and tract, 
 and must remember how wide was the scope of Greek ed- 
 ucation.^ 
 
 This popular Stoicism was a combination made from elements 
 taken from all the schools of Grecian thought, and such a combi- 
 nation was made the more easily because, marked as were the 
 differences in the metaphysical constructions, they had on the 
 ethical field distinct characteristics common to them all. They 
 were all hedonistic. The resolute attainment of the highest/ 
 happiness was the goal for the Academy and the Stoa, for the\ 
 Epicurean and the Lyceum. They were all highly individualis- 
 tic. The communal interests of Plato and Aristotle wellnigh 
 disappear as the Greek city-state gave way to oriental empire. 
 They were all deeply intellectualistic. Any redemption must 
 come with knowledge, and however differently this knowledge 
 was conceived, whether as magic illumination or scientific', 
 insight, it was the sine qua non of all ethical living. They all 
 
 ' Epictetus: "Enchiridion," cap. I, 6. 
 
 * Cf. Wendland, P., in loc. cit., and Ussing, J. L. : "Erziehung und Jugend- 
 unterricht bei den Griechen und Romern," new ed., Berlin, 1885. 
 
24 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 saw in proud resistance to evil the mark of the ethical life 
 (ciTapa^ia).^ 
 ] It is easy both to overestimate and underestimate the ethics 
 of this popular Stoicism. Its weakness was primarily that it 
 taught resignation in the midst of evils where resignation is not 
 in place. Its goal was individual extrication rather than a 
 kingdom of righteous conditions. Its conception of law was 
 high, but was legal and mechanical, and like all attempts to 
 build an ethics upon pantheism, its code was rigid and cold, 
 lacking alike in contact with the longings of the heart and the 
 hopes of the mind. It gave the world seekers after God, but 
 inspired to resignation rather than transforming faith, and 
 rather drew men out of the world than flung them upon the 
 world for its transformation. 
 
 Into this popular Stoicism came also other than intellectual 
 elements. Wilamowitz has pointed out ^ that the Hellenistic 
 period was one of scientific triumph, compared to which the time 
 of the Roman emperors was one of decay. No less must we 
 insist that it was a time of great moral uplift and religious 
 revival. 
 
 As in all religious revivals, many strange elements entered into 
 the movement. The very force and freshness of religious inspira- 
 tion resents intellectual analysis, and so is apt to admit uncriti- 
 cally the most foreign elements.^ 
 
 The fierce invective of Christian apology has blinded men too 
 easily to the real good in the age. Hatch says: "It is ques- 
 tionable whether the average morality of civilized ages has 
 largely varied . . . and it is probable on a priori grounds and 
 from the nature of the evidence which remains, that there was in 
 ancient Rome, as there is in modern London, a preponderating 
 mass of those who loved their children and their homes, who were 
 
 ' Cy. Windelband: "Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophie," 4th ed., 
 1907, p. 136. English translation, New York, 1901, p. 165. 
 
 ' "Die griechische Literatur dcs Altertums" (" Kultur der Gegenwart," I, viii), 
 2d ed., 1907, p. 84. 
 
 * C/. Cumont, F. : "Les religions orientales," 1906, pp. 197-235. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 25 
 
 good neighbors and faithful friends." ^ This revived ethical and 
 religious interest sought satisfaction in the strange and ancient 
 cults of the Orient. 
 
 Philosophy had to become a teaching of redemption, and in 
 making the change from the cool seclusion of the schools to 
 the heats of the street, oriental mystic rites and the authority 
 of hoary antiquity had no small part in the transformation. 
 Even in " men like Seneca, Epictetus, and Marcus Aurelius the 
 Stoic teaching had become completely a philosophy of redemp- 
 tion." ^ Much more do we find the Hellenistic-Roman world 
 overrun by all sorts of religions proclaiming redemption. 
 
 The age was, of course, a curious mingling of gross supersti- 
 tion and highly modern types of thought.' But the age sought 
 redemption. The immediate experience of evil, of a world 
 to be overcome, of misery and dissatisfaction, called for ex- 
 planation and relief. The simplest explanation is that matter 
 is evil and spirit is good. This never was a Greek conception. 
 But the religions to which it gave birth soon affected Greek 
 thought. 
 
 Into the Hellenistic world had come in early days the foreign 
 ungrecian cult of Dionysus, with its dances, mystery, ecstasy, 
 its uplift to divine life even if only in the single moment of rapt 
 enthusiasm. Thrace also gave the Orphic cult with its mystic 
 redemption, and in their inception, like all mysticism when pure 
 and logical, these cults were non-ethical. The redemption was 
 conceived of as physical and psychical uplift into the very being 
 of God. But these were only forerunners of the mystic cults 
 that made the Hellenistic world a strange conglomerate of 
 Grecian philosophy and oriental religion. The great advance 
 was the ethical transformation of these cults, and then ennobling 
 
 ' Hatch, Edwin: "The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the 
 Christian Church," 3d ed., London, 1891, pp. 139, 140. C/. also Friedlander, 
 "Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms, vol. Ill, pp. 676/"., c/. sth ed. 
 
 ^ Windelband: "Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Philosophic," 4th ed., 1907, 
 p. 176. English translation, New York, 1901, p. 213. 
 
 ' Cf. the scepticism of the Middle Academy, and the modern spirit of the 
 second part of Cicero's "De Divinatione," Liber II, §§ 3, 4, 5, 59, etc. 
 
26 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 of them by making them schools for self-restraint and entrances 
 into the life of avowed fidelity to duty/ The Greek mind could 
 not be content with a non-intellectual transformation of life. 
 The Stoicism of the Hellenistic period clung to the overcoming 
 of the world by knowledge, but added to it the asceticism char- 
 acteristic of oriental dualism. Yet even the asceticism of 
 Hellenism had an intellectual character. One of the most 
 valuable lessons it taught as a preparation for the higher ethics 
 of Christianity was the intellectual honesty which insisted upon 
 rationalizing even the rites and mysteries given primarily on 
 authority (Neoplatonism). 
 
 The longing for immortality fixed upon these rites and mys- 
 teries and united with them the philosophical speculations of the 
 earlier period.' It was this period which formulated and in- 
 trenched in human thought many of the most lasting conceptions 
 of immortality, last judgments, and heaven and hell.^ 
 
 From Persia came the cult that, profoundly modified, no doubt, 
 by its contact with Hellenism, was yet as the Mithras cult to give 
 the Roman soldier his religion,* and many rites and superstitions 
 to the Christian church (see page 190). 
 
 It was, perhaps, the fundamental weakness of Greek and 
 Roman paganism that its mythology, and its physical and meta- 
 physical character hindered the development of a religion essen- 
 
 ' CJ. Rohde: "Die Religion der Griechen," p. 334, vol. II, of " Kleine Schrif- 
 ten," 1902. 
 
 * Cy. Rohde, Erwin: "Psyche; Seelenkult und Unsterblichkeitsglaube der 
 Griechen," 4th ed., 2 vols., Tubingen, 1907. 
 
 ' In Plato's description of last judgment in the " Republic," book X, 614-621 
 (Steph. ed.). 
 
 *C/. Cumont, Fr.: "Texte et Monuments figures relatifs aux Myst^res de 
 Mithra." BruxcUes, 1896, 1899, 2 vols, (especially the introduction). Also 
 Cumont's article in Roscher's " Lexikon der griechischen und romischen My- 
 thologie," vol. 2 (1894-1897), and his " Religions Orientalcs," Paris, 1907 (in 
 " Annales du Mus6e Guimet "). Lajarde, " Recherches sur le cult public et les 
 myst^res de Mithra en Orient et en Occident," 1867. Donsbach, "Die raum- 
 liche Verbreitung und zeitliche Bcgrcnzung dcs Mithrasdienstes im romischen 
 Reich," BrQnn, 1897. See a condensed account in Dill, S.: "Roman Society 
 from Nero to Marcus Aurelius," London, 1904, pp. 547-626. Dieterich, A.: 
 "Eine Mithrasliturgie," Leipsic, 1903. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 27 
 
 tially ethical in character/ by constantly putting the emphasis on 
 other factors. How could cults that culminated in the worship 
 of the Emperor give to the national life a religion primarily 
 ethical ? The mystery became, however, a rite of purification 
 whos% origin indeed was magic separation of the divine from 
 the human and whose purification was thought of as physical. 
 But as it is seen in the Hellenistic-Roman world it has an ethical 
 character. And that feature of it seems to have undergone a 
 rapid and wholesome development. Especially the Mithras 
 cult seems to have placed the emphasis upon a really ethical 
 purification, and so become an ethical religion of high value in the 
 Hellenistic-Roman world, Cumont thinks Renan's judgment 
 extreme, that if the triumph of Christianity had not come the 
 world would have been "Mithradized." ^ At all events, it is 
 certain that the cult centred about a struggle for the higher life 
 by virtuous living and brave purification of the soul from baser 
 elements. That in the later Roman world it was a serious, 
 perhaps the most serious, rival which Christianity had is certain, 
 and it was in so many ways so like Christianity that, oblivious to 
 the fact that it was much older than the Christian church, the 
 Christian apologists regarded it as a base imitation by the help 
 of the devil.' This cult was only one of the forms under which 
 the Orient influenced both the outward rite and the inward life 
 of the period.'* The real groundwork of orientalism, as thus 
 seen, is dualistic, and as Rohde says, "the unmutilated (un- 
 entstellte) pantheism of the Stoic . . . knows no mystic and no 
 
 ' Cf. Tzschirner, H. G.: "Der Fall des Heidenthums," ed. by C. W. Niedner, 
 1829, pp. 13-164. Bollinger: "Heidenthum und Judenthum, Vorhalle zur 
 Geschichte des Christenthums," Regensburg, 1857. Schiirer, E.: "Geschichte 
 des jiidischen Volkes," 3 vols., 1901, 1898. For full literature, see vol. Ill (1898), 
 p. 109. English translation. 
 
 * "On peut dire que, si le Christianisme edt dte arrete dans sa croissance par 
 quelque maladie mortelle, le monde eut ^te mithriaste," Renan, "Marc-AurHe, 
 et la fin du monde antique," 3d ed., Paris, 1882, p. 579. 
 
 ' TertuUian, "De Corona," 15. "De Praescriptione Hseret," 40. "Justin 
 Martyr Apol.," i, 66. 
 
 * For an eloquent presentation of the influence, see Cumont's "Les religions 
 orientales," pp. 1-23 and 237-254. 
 
28 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 redemption/ but such contradictions exist in every age, and 
 have never seriously hindered the most striking combinations. 
 So in the Hellenistic-Roman world pantheism and dualism play 
 each a part and live in relative peace with each other. Com- 
 promises of the most startling character were common.*- So 
 that in the popular religious cults differences, even of a far- 
 reaching character, if only confined to the philosophical ground- 
 work, exerted little divisive force. 
 
 It is most unfortunate that we have so little trustworthy 
 information about these religions of the humble. The evidence 
 of extensive guild and trade combinations under the guise of 
 religious associations, and of the economic character of many of 
 these cults is overwhelming. One need not go as far as Osborne 
 Ward in his utterly uncritical treatment,' yet the proletarian 
 character of these religious mysteries explains on the one hand 
 the few remains of any literary character, and on the other the 
 tremendous hold they exercised upon the starved imagination of 
 the poor. 
 
 For the wealthy and intelligent class Stoicism became "a 
 religion raised upon the ruins of popular polytheism," * and for 
 the humble and unlearned the oriental cult or the Hellenic 
 mystery furnished food for the religious and ethical life, the 
 ethical elements being largely borrowed from philosophy.' 
 
 In a later chapter (page 129) we shall have occasion to deal 
 more fully with Neoplatonism in connection with the struggle 
 in the church against Gnosticism. It will be sufficient here to 
 
 » " Kleine Schriften," vol. II, p. 335. 
 
 ' Cicero says: "And the habits of reverence for, and the discipline and rights 
 of, the augurs, and the authority of the college, are still retained for the sake of 
 their influence on the minds of the common people." " De Divinatione," Lib. 
 n, § 33. Mueller's ed., IV, vol. II, p. 222. 
 
 ' Ward, C. Osborne: "The Ancient Lowly," 2 vols., reprint by Kerr, Chicago, 
 1907. 
 
 * Quotation from the admirable sketch in Weber's "History of Philosophy," 
 pp. 140-148 of the English translation, New York, 1903. 
 
 •It is only fitting to call attention to the work of Dcissmann, of Berlin, upon 
 the relation of inscriptions to the life of the lowly. In his " Licht vom Osten," 
 1909. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 29 
 
 point out the history of those elements that so seriously affected 
 pagan thinking, and which most definitely marked its ethics in 
 the teachings of Neoplatonism. 
 
 Plato, as we have seen (page 13), never completely separated 
 between soul and body in the sense common to early Christianity.; 
 The relation also of Plato to matter, although touched by the 
 Pythagoreanism that influenced his later thought, never really 
 leaves the Greek ground. 
 
 Neopythagoreanism, however, fully taught the distinctively 
 oriental dualism of mind and matter, and insisted upon the 
 essential evil of the vXv as over against the principle of spirit 
 as good.* In this attitude toward matter Stoicism itself was 
 influenced by the oriental intrusion and the optimism of the 
 older Stoics in the matter of the attainment of the ideal gave way 
 in the later Stoicism to the despondent view of the inherent evil 
 of all men because still in the body.^ The attitude toward 
 matter became in Neopythagoreanism and Neoplatonism that 
 of hostility as the seat of evil, and redemption was almost 
 grossly conceived of as separation of soul and body; but in con- 
 nection with the doctrine of the transmigration of souls, mere 
 death was not redemption. The psyche had to be trained for 
 its non-material life.' In various degrees this training was 
 thought of ethically or physically. And thus there grew up 
 those Neoplatonic systems which deeply impressed even into 
 our own day the Christian church's teaching with regard to soul 
 and body. 
 
 ' Cf. interesting discussion of Plato as mystic in Wundt, Max: "Geschichte 
 der griechischen Ethik," pp. 450-494, and especially 454-462, Leipsic, 1908. 
 
 ' Windelband: " Geschichte der Philosophic," 1907, p. 192 and note. English 
 translation, New York, 1901, p. 231 and note 2. 
 
 * The beautiful work of Rohde in this field has already been often quoted and 
 used. 
 
30 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 III. THE ROMAN PREPARATION 
 
 It is impossible to separate between the Roman world of 
 thought and that of Hellenism so far as these worlds are intellect- 
 ual systems. Rome simply accepted the teaching of Greece and 
 from the point of view of thought added little or nothing. 
 
 At the same time the adaptation of Hellenistic cosmopolitan- 
 ism to the needs of a proud world-imperialism could not leave the 
 systems of ethics founded upon this cosmopolitanism untouched. 
 Cicero's "De Officiis " may be little more than a translation from 
 the Greek, but the actual ethics of Cicero show plainly, even in 
 the confusions, how the world of imperial ambitions amidst which 
 he lived deeply influenced his ethical thinking. It was not un- 
 natural that Cicero should give, through Ambrose's adaptation, 
 an ethics to the young ecclesiastical empire. 
 
 The Roman contribution to the ethics of Christianity was 
 therefore rather in giving the preparation for a world-wide 
 claim and in bridging the gulf between law and ethics. 
 
 In Roman life the "munia" or duties of citizenship lay at the 
 basis of the whole ethical development.^ The ethics were pro- 
 nouncedly communal, and morals were organized life. If this 
 led easily to legalism and externalism, it also gave fibre and 
 strength to the whole social structure, and as the early church 
 became the heir to Rome's imperial inheritance, she also took 
 over a good share of Rome's legal ethics and her overestimate 
 of external conformity to a given order.^ Rome spared the 
 
 Literature. — Mommsen, Theodor: "Romische Geschichte" (especially 
 vol. I). — Cicero, M. T. : Complete works; edited by Miiller; Leipsic, 1905 (espe- 
 cially 4th section, vols. I, II, and III). — Dill, S.: "Roman Society from the Time 
 of Nero to Marcus Aurelius"; London, 1905. — Juvenal: "The Satires." — 
 Renan, Ernest: "Marc-Aurdle et la fin du monde antique"; 3d ed.; Paris, 
 1882. — Ferrero, G.: "The Rise and Decline of the Roman Empire"; 5 vols.; 
 English translation by Zimmern; New York, 1907-1909. — v. Jhering, R.: "Der 
 Gcist des romischen Rechts auf den verschiedencn Stufen seiner Entwickclung"; 
 Leipsic, 1891; 5th cd. 
 
 ' Kuhn, Emil: "Die stiitische und biirgerliche Verfassung des romischen 
 
 Reichs bis auf die Zeiten Justinians," Leipsic, 1864, 1865, 2 vols., part i, pp. 7 jf. 
 
 ' Cy. Mommsen, Theodor: "Romische Geschichte," vol. V, pp. 570-576. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 31 
 
 internal legal arrangements of conquered states as much as was 
 possible. But the process by which she reduced to fundamental 
 uniformity the various provinces was an exhibition of consum- 
 mate instinctive governing power/ This process, however, in- 
 volved changes in her own constitution and life. Her religion 
 suffered most drearily under the constantly increasing complica- 
 tion of her superstitions,^ and became more and more distinct 
 from her ethics and social order. 
 
 Upon the ethics of ecclesiastical Christianity, however, Rome 
 left the stamp of her institutionalism. To this day duty to the 
 organization, and the obligation of conformity even against 
 the personal judgment, is at once an institutional and political 
 strength and a religious and ethical weakness of the commun- 
 ion which still bears the name of Rome. 
 
 The ethics underlying Roman law was never Christian and 
 remains substantially Stoic up to its very last formulation in the 
 code of Napoleon. Even when it passes for Christian law it 
 soon appears to the really Christian student that he is dealing 
 with the exalted conceptions of Stoicism, but not with the Sermon 
 on the Mount.^ The eclecticism characteristic of all Roman 
 thought, and particularly of Cicero, enabled the later Roman 
 men to take up Christian elements into their thinking, and thus 
 to make a body of conceptions, often really hostile to Christian 
 thinking, seemingly acceptable. No one could be more pro- 
 nouncedly pagan than was Cicero, but Ambrose's edition of his 
 ethics passes for Christian into our own age. 
 
 And on the side of Rome's organization the influence upon 
 Christian ethics was simply overwhelming. The Roman 
 Catholic church became the heir of Rome's imperial policy and 
 imperial ideals. Rome ruled by a judicious assertion of author- 
 ity, stern and relentless where her sway seemed in any way in- 
 volved, with the largest and most amazing concessions to in- 
 
 ' Cy. Marquardt, 1.: "Romische Staatsverwaltung," ad ed., vol. I, pp. 
 
 497-567- 
 
 * C/. Marquardt, I.: "Romische Staatsverwaltung," 2d ed. (revised by 
 Georg Wissowa), Leipsic, 1881-1885, vol. Ill, pp. 1-480. 
 
 * C/. von Jhering: "Geist des Romischen Rechts," vol. I. 
 
32 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 dividual differences where her authority was taken for granted. 
 This has marked the temper of historical Christianity ever since, 
 and even in modern Protestantism (as in the state churches of 
 England and Germany) still gives the model for imitation, often 
 unconsciously. 
 
 Nor is it a matter of indifference that Rome supplied the 
 sacred language in which Christian ecclesiasticism was to do its 
 thinking. More than once in the course of our history we shall 
 have occasion to mark the fact that the use of Latin has a distinct 
 and interesting influence upon the development of the ethics of 
 Christianity. 
 
 IV. THE OLD TESTAMENT PREPARATION 
 
 What gives the ethics of the Old Testament its peculiar char- 
 acter and universal significance is not simply its " desire to keep 
 the flame of a pure service of God alight," * nor yet its monothe- 
 ism, but its linking its ethics with its conception of God, and 
 making the communal life the field for the exhibition of the 
 qualities of the God the community worshipped. 
 
 Just so soon as God was conceived of as final righteousness, 
 even if the type of that righteousness was often poor and low. 
 
 Literature. — See the literature given in Driver, S. R.: "An Introduction to 
 the Literature of the Old Testament"; 8th ed., 1909. — Smith, H. P.: "Old 
 Testament History"; New York, 1903 (see literature in the Preface). — Wade, 
 G. W.: "Old Testament History"; London, 1901; pp. x-xii. — Kent, C. F.: 
 "The Student's Old Testament"; New York; 4 vols, so far published, 1904, 
 1905, 1907, 1910; classified bibliography in appendices to each volume. — Well- 
 hausen, Julius: "Israelitische und jiidische Geschichte"; Berlin, 1901. — ■ 
 Winckler, Hugo: "Geschichte Israels"; Berlin, 1895-1900; 2 vols. — Cornill, 
 C. H.: "Der Israelitische Prophetismus"; five lectures; Strasburg, 1900. — 
 The articles in Cheyne's "Encyclopaedia Biblica" and Hastings's "Bible Dic- 
 tionary," as well as the standard commentaries on the various books, good lists 
 of which are given by Kent in the volumes mentioned. A good introduction to 
 modern Bible study is Briggs, C. A.: "General Introduction to the Study of 
 Holy Scripture"; New York, 1899. — Schultz, H.: " Alttestamentliche Theolo- 
 gie"; 5th ed.; Tubingen, 1896; English translation, Edinburgh, 1S92; 2 vols. — 
 Duff, A.: "The Theology and Ethics of the Hebrews"; New York, 1902. 
 
 ' Curtius: "Gesammeltc Reden," Berlin, 1882, vol. H, pp. 2 and 9, quoted 
 by Zieglcr: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik," 2d cd., Strasburg, 1892, p. 14. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY S3 
 
 and the demand was made that the community should show its 
 fidehty to its divinity by conforming to that type of righteousness, 
 the way was at last open for a boundlessly fruitful ethical 
 development. 
 
 In all religions God is linked to his people by some bond. In 
 Judaism at last this bond was interpreted in terms of the ethical 
 life and in prophetism at its best in terms exclusively ethical.^ 
 Thus at last the communal life was given not merely a political 
 or legal, but an ethical content, and it was more and more clearly 
 realized that the communal life was conditioned upon fulfilling 
 righteousness. On the lowest plane this righteousness might be 
 thought of as simply ritual correctness, a type of magic cleanness, 
 but this never held the whole field of even the most priestly 
 Jewish vision. It might be true that a ritual development gave 
 a certain character to the ethics of Israel, but it never wholly 
 dominated them. 
 
 The ethical development cannot be traced as a simple matter 
 of chronology, for the documents only permit of tentative recon- 
 structions of the history, and these reconstructions show that 
 various developments were going on side by side. 
 
 Two main lines of development may be called the prophetic 
 and the priestly. The school of the Deuteronomists sought to 
 make a synthesis of these two main types, and later the Greek 
 influence gave a still further " wisdom " type. In all the develop- 
 ments, even in the "wisdom" documents, may be traced the 
 slow ethical acquirements gained in the long process from the 
 nomadic pastoral life of the early border tribes to the commercial 
 trading life of the diaspora. The virtues of a gracious primitive 
 hospitality and the shrewd thrift of a later commercial period 
 jostle one another in the latest writings of the Greek period.^ 
 The nation became, in part at least, a trading community. 
 Tradition ascribed the transition period to the reign of Solomon, 
 but the semi-nomadic "shepherds," like Amos of Tekoa, who 
 
 ' Micah 6 : i-8; Amos 5 : 1-27; Ezekiel 18 • 1-9. 
 * Proverbs 3 : 27 and 22 : 7. 
 
34 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 travelled up and down the trade routes with their flocks and 
 herds, may have long before Solomon's traditional date become 
 Oriental merchants as one still sees them in the bazaars of Cairo 
 and Constantinople. 
 
 In the valleys of Palestine there persisted memories of all 
 the economic stages through which the tribes of Israel passed. 
 Shepherds watched their flocks and drove them from pasture 
 to pasture as in the days of Jacob and Abraham. The vine 
 dresser and small peasant farmers clustered about the foot- 
 hills and made the richer soil of the valley yield up its fruit. The 
 fisherman plied his trade on the inland lakes, while a more 
 prosperous "diaspora" bound together Rome, Alexandria, and 
 the cities of Asia Minor in an elaborate and most profitable 
 system of money exchange. 
 
 The impress of all these economic phases is upon the religion 
 and morals of that Judaism whose chief records are the canon- 
 ical books. 
 
 Prophetism. — The Ethics of Prophetism in the seventh and 
 eighth centuries before Christ mark the turning-point in the 
 history of Israel. Material prosperity seems to have come in 
 the life of the northern kingdom.^ Probably the developed 
 trade routes and the relative safety of both northern and southern 
 kingdoms as vassal states, playing off Egypt against the great 
 rising northern powers, gave commerce and industry large 
 rewards. Luxury became rife. Now to the stern, hardy semi- 
 nomadic prophetism of the desert, represented by such faithful 
 followers of Jehovah, or Jahwe, as Amos, the shepherd-merchant, 
 this self-indulgence, and conformity to the religious cults of more 
 advanced peoples amidst the pleasure-seeking of the town was a 
 direct betrayal of the national God. If criticism be right in its 
 conjectural excisions,^ the message of the older prophets was 
 almost wholly a demand to return to the relative simplicity of 
 
 * Amos 6 : i-6; Hosea 12 : 7-8. 
 
 2 Cf. articles in "Encyclopedia Biblica" (Cheyne) and in Hastings's "Bible 
 Dictionary," on Amos, Micah, Hosca, and Isaiah. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 35 
 
 the older semi-nomadic period. The virtues praised and the 
 vices denounced are those in the foreground of a relatively simple 
 pastoral life. The new trading life, with its oppression of the 
 debtor class, its private ownership of land and speculation in its 
 increasing values, its violence and robbery under legal forms, 
 with corruption of courts and perversion of justice, seemed to 
 the nomad shepherd utterly abhorrent and destructive. As he 
 sweeps the political horizon, made familiar to him, no doubt, as 
 he travelled with his flocks and herds from north to south and 
 south to north, he sees Damascus, Gaza, Ammon, and Moab 
 judged for cruelty, slave-hunting, slaughter of women and 
 children, sacrilege, and commercial greed; and realizes that 
 these are more and more becoming the sins of the Hebrew 
 tribes as they fall heirs to the life of the valleys. 
 
 The remedy, however, is only a return to the simpler life. 
 Moreover, the semi-nomadic prophetism never could evolve 
 elaborate stated places of worship or complicated sacrificial 
 ritual.^ The emphasis was put upon the strong righteousness of 
 Jahwe, the firm protection of the poor and the oppressed.^ 
 Commercial competition is the great destroyer of tribal and 
 family bonds built up on the simple communism of the family 
 group. Amos therefore fiercely denounces what, to him, was 
 destructive of all the values he set store by. 
 
 The negative denunciatory message of Amos is, however, 
 supplemented by the utterances of the priestly Hosea, whose 
 view of life is softer and more constructive. Jahwe is pictured 
 as the forgiving husband, and one of the most fruitful religio- 
 ethical conceptions of history is thus introduced. The relations 
 of the nation to God as the Father of the nation is further 
 expanded in the Isaian anthology, for Jahwe is thought of as at 
 least the prospective Father of all nations.^ The prophetic con- 
 ception of righteousness is high, and the communal life is the 
 proper field for the moral man to prove his loyalty to Jahwe. 
 The ritual elements are not wholly ignored, but they are dis- 
 tinctly put in the secondary place. ^ And "to do justly and love 
 
 * Amos 5 : 21-27. ^ Amos 8 : i-io. ^ Isaiah 56 : i-8. * Micah 6 : 8. 
 
36 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 mercy and to walk humbly with God" forms the ethical content 
 of loyalty to Jahwe. 
 
 Moreover, Jahwe is a redeeming God * and to become the 
 Redeemer of the whole earth.^ This redemption is ethical in 
 character.^ God is the one God of righteousness and other 
 gods are either nothing or are evil. To worship them is the sin 
 of adultery, for the relationship between Jahwe and his people is 
 thought of again in terms of the marriage relationship. This in- 
 volved a constant idealization of the ''covenant" between God 
 and his people. Even the legal elements that inhere in the con- 
 ception of a covenant are swallowed up in the deeper thought of 
 love as the very being of that covenant, and mutual loyalty as its 
 chiefest crown. Thus the foundation was laid for a fairer eth- 
 ical temple. The prophetic movement had, naturally, various 
 levels, and its upward movement was not a steady onward 
 progress. The prophets of the second temple period (Haggai 
 and Zechariah, about 521) are far more concerned with the 
 outward and visible signs of the nation's allegiance than with the 
 inner quality of the service. Nor are we to define too sharply the 
 prophetic movement. It stretched from the eighth century 
 up to John the Baptist, in various degrees protesting against 
 types of declension and disloyalty, and in various ways pro- 
 claiming a return to an idealized simple worship of Jahwe, often 
 linked with longings for the old nomadism (Essenes, John the 
 Baptist in the wilderness), and identifying its ideals with a past 
 impossible to recall. But the glory of Israel is its prophetism; 
 from the early prophets of action (Elijah, Nahum, Micah) who 
 left no writing, to John the Baptist, a long succession of noble 
 spirits strove for a splendid ethical monotheism and a theocratic 
 democracy. Other and weaker elements mingled with this 
 teaching, but these things alone lift the prophetic writings and 
 services of Old Testament history up amid God's pro\idential 
 care of the race as his chiefest gifts to our ethical and religious 
 life. 
 
 ' Micah 6:4. ^ Isaian anthology. 
 
 ' Isaiah 62 : 1-5 and many passages. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 37 
 
 The Early and Later Priestly Development. — As prophetism 
 bore to the end the marks of its nomadic origin, so both the early 
 and later priestly developments reveal constantly their close con- 
 nection with sacred places which grew in stability and importance 
 as the population became greater and more settled. That this 
 transition period from nomadism to semi-agrarian conditions 
 has always been linked with a great leader and law-giver called 
 Moses is a presumption in favor of his historical character, 
 although with the present data we may despair of defining 
 exactly either his real place in the history or even of meeting 
 all the objections and difficulties critical study has suggested. 
 Yet it seems impossible not to believe that the whole period 
 was dominated by one of those great constructive minds whose 
 memory remains as a priceless treasure to his nation and the 
 world. 
 
 It is impossible to separate clearly the priestly elements of 
 Israel's history from the prophetic. Yet the emphasis was so 
 different that, from time to time, the ideals did sharply conflict. 
 Nor was the priesthood any more at constant peace with the 
 growing monarchy than prophetism. At the same time they 
 had more in common with each other. Prophetism was not in 
 its nature institutional; both the monarchy and the priesthood 
 were. Prophetism was essentially radical, and even under the 
 guise of a return to primitive piety it was essentially an unfolding 
 of new and higher ethical ideals. Neither a monarchy nor a 
 priesthood can escape conservatism. Indeed that is for both a 
 large part of their social function. Prophetism was often critical 
 and denunciatory to the point of destructiveness. The prophets' 
 words were "too heaiy, the land could not bear them." The 
 monarchy and priesthood stood for things as they substantially 
 were, and wished only to purge the nation from the grosser 
 sins. 
 
 The legal development has an exceedingly early origin. The 
 first "ten words" (Exodus 34) have already agricultural addi- 
 tions to what was possibly in the beginning a purely pastoral 
 
38 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 and nomadic code/ and the association of the name of Moses 
 with the earliest codes as well as the carrying on of the codifica- 
 tion by legal fiction in his name points to a beginning of a written 
 law when first the people began to settle down about sacred 
 places like Bethel and Gilgal and to make them centres of 
 political life. 
 
 The legal development as such does not rise to very great 
 ethical heights. The recently discovered code of Hammurabi 
 reflects a more homogeneous social condition and a more con- 
 sistent legal aim. The old primitive lex talionis was firmly 
 imbedded and never overcome. Polygamy and divorce were 
 contemplated as constant social factors. Slavery is retained, but 
 in a merciful form, and the ceremonial and external forms are 
 hopelessly mingled with the moral and the inward. Even gross 
 superstitions (Leviticus i6 : 8-10) are sanctioned, and through- 
 
 ' Exodus 34 : 14-28. 
 
 I 
 Make no covenant with the inhabitants of the land. 
 
 II 
 
 Thou shalt worship no other Gods. 
 
 Ill 
 Thou shalt make thee no moulten Gods. ^?1"? ''^■^- 
 
 IV 
 Thou shalt keep the feast of unleavened bread. 
 
 V 
 All the first-born are mine. 
 
 VI 
 
 All the first-born of thy sons shalt thou redeem. 
 
 VII 
 
 On the seventh day thou shalt rest. 
 
 VIII 
 Three times a year thou shalt appear before Jahwe. 
 
 IX 
 
 Thou shalt not ofier the blood with unleavened bread. 
 
 X 
 Thou shalt not seethe a kid in its mother's milk. 
 
 [This is simply leaving out the agricultural words, some of which seem on 
 their face to be later additions.] 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 39 
 
 out a utilitarian and superficial view of the nature of rewards 
 and punishments appears. The whole ethics ranges within the 
 present life, and even threatens that life by its mass of minute 
 regulation, some of which had once sanitary justification but 
 much of which had become merely meaningless routine. 
 
 Yet, making all these concessions, it must be recognized that it 
 was a great step forward when the rude and often fanatical 
 nomad entered upon an ordered social state with its own legal 
 character. It is at least open to question whether the legislation 
 in its final form was ever more than a priestly dream and ideal 
 bom during the later exilic days; but whether this be so or not, 
 the evidences multiply that the laws of Leviticus were never the 
 actual working laws of a Jewish state. They bore the marks 
 of an increasingly centralized worship and a narrowing life. 
 Yet while this is true, at the same time really lofty conceptions of 
 Jahwe as a righteous God are never absent. Law conserves 
 and crystallizes the ethical gains of communal experience and 
 aids in carrying them over into new social organizations. An 
 examination of the primitive Hebrew law-giving reveals the 
 tribal communism in which the care of the poor and feeble is as 
 natural as the care of members of a family one of the other. 
 The commercial trading spirit was endangering, evidently, this 
 community of feeling (Micah and early Isaiah), and the legal 
 development faithfully attempted to stem this tide. The for- 
 bidding of all interest in such a social state was, of course, im- 
 possible of exact enforcement; but it was attempted, and the 
 laws of mortgage and debt collection, if unpractical and unen- 
 forceable in a trading community, yet showed the survival of 
 ideals borrowed from the past. 
 
 In one important respect the Torah began to have deep 
 ethical significance. Amid a corrupt and corrupting civilization 
 settled the little bands of pious Jews, who came trickling back 
 from Babylon and Egypt that they might once more worship 
 Jahwe on the sacred soil. To guard themselves and their chil- 
 dren from the depravity and vice of the mixed populations amid 
 which they lived, the "Holy Community" fenced the life of the 
 
40 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 individual and family by ceremonial regulations resulting in, 
 and intended to result in, the isolation and seclusion of the 
 religious Jew. That this later priestly development was a 
 hardening and formalizing process none can deny, but it is 
 equally impossible to blind ourselves to the fact that the process 
 alone, so far as we can see, saved for us the Old Testament 
 writings, and a community built upon the foundation of ethical 
 monotheism. Far from thinking of the Jew as naturally exclu- 
 sive and prone to separation, the tendency seems to have been 
 altogether on the other side. Only the severest ceremonial disci- 
 pline and the most fanatical faith could save the Jew to his 
 mission as he became a trader and a wanderer upon the face 
 of the earth. The ethical significance of this ceremonial ex- 
 clusiveness was simply tremendous. It resulted in a constant 
 sifting process. Thousands of Jews in all ages have rationalized 
 their faith and have as promptly been lost to Judaism. From the 
 Christian point of view this may not be a great misfortune now, 
 it would have been a world-calamity if the Jewish community 
 as such had thus been lost, as the northern kingdom was lost, 
 before its achievements on the religious and ethical fields had 
 become the property of humanity. The preservation of these 
 ethical conquests are not due to the nation as such, but to the 
 Holy Community, the " Brotherhood of the Synagogue," whose 
 faith and zeal kept the Torah from being lost amid the wrecks 
 of the national life, as the waves of Assyrian, Neo-Babylonian, 
 Persian, and Greek conquest overflowed the world. This 
 Brotherhood of the Synagogue kept its character only by the in- 
 creasing attention to the externals of the legal system. How 
 really dear that law became to the devout heart may be seen in 
 the 119th Psalm and the hymns of the second temple. Its 
 significance as the only real preservative of the faith and morals 
 of the community was an experience to which generation after 
 generation of scribes could bear their witness. The ethics of 
 the priestly set of documents, like its theology, is abstract and 
 stiff, legal and external. The way of thinking is hard and 
 narrow, yet it is exceedingly doubtful whether we would know 
 
OP / 
 
 THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 41 
 
 anything about a prophetic ethics had it not been conserved 
 for us in the midst of this very legalism. 
 
 The Deuteronomic Synthesis. — The prophetic and priestly 
 emphasis were happily never wholly separated, and early in 
 the history of the nation arose a school of legal interpretation 
 seeking to combine the ethical and religious quality of propheti- 
 cism while conserving the Mosaic ceremonial and the ritual 
 devoutly believed to have had its origin at Sinai. The lofty 
 ethical and religious character of the Deuteronomic writers ^ is 
 seen not only in the book from which is taken the name for the 
 school, but also in the prophetic interpretation of the history. 
 The priestly interpretation overemphasizes the element of 
 ritual correctness, the Deuteronornic writers find the essence of 
 the relationship between God and his people in the loving 
 righteousness which constitutes God's character (Deut. 11 : 13- 
 26 and many other passages). The monotheism is exclusive and 
 even stern (Deut. 12 : 2-4), the ritual demands are heavy and 
 exacting, the place of ceremonial is large and burdensome, yet 
 the emphasis is not on these things. These regulations, in fact, 
 fit naturally into the life of obedience to moral regulation and 
 religious exaltation. 
 
 This type of thinking must not be confined to one revival 
 period under Josiah. It is to be found all down the history, 
 and the teachings of Jesus may be called the natural flowering of 
 this synthetic process. The theme of the Deuteronomic school 
 is the loving redemption of Jahwe, and the literature breathes the 
 atmosphere of confident faith, even while it threatens wrong- 
 doing and scourges all declension from the national religion. 
 The appeal is throughout to Moses as the great prophet as well 
 as law-giver, and the separation in the tradition between Moses 
 the prophet and Aaron the priest gives great force to the ethical 
 interpretation of the ritual law. The national significance of a 
 pure worship and a high morality form the constant burden of 
 the Deuteronomic school (Deut. 32 : 1-43; Judges 2 : 11-23; 
 
 ' Among these are to be counted editors of historic books as Judges, Samuel, 
 and Kings. 
 
42 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 and many other passages). With the priestly writers these 
 Deuteronomic writers see in the following after "strange" gods 
 a principal cause of Israel's discomfiture, 
 
 A centralized worship and elaborate sacrificial life is, more- 
 over, equally with the priestly interpretation of the history, 
 thrown back into a time when we see from the documents the 
 school has itself preserved for us that the worship was scattered 
 among many "high places" without any sense of wrong-doing 
 on the part of the most developed religious life, and when every 
 head of a family was by that fact a priest and offered sacrifices 
 freely/ Happily the older traditions were already regarded as 
 sacred, and seem little altered, and the school of writers in the 
 Deuteronomic spirit content themselves with homiletic and 
 ethical interpretation. These ethical advances are constantly 
 along the line of spiritualized worship and social righteousness 
 and humanity. 
 
 The ethics are sometimes crudely eudaemonistic, but the eudcc- 
 monism is of national character and therefore of a far loftier 
 type than sometimes appears in the lower ranges of the nation's 
 thought. Jahwe is always represented in the twofold aspect 
 as a loving redeemer to a faithful and repentant Israel, and a 
 stern judge and avenger when Israel wanders from the path of 
 true worship and moral purity. Indeed the highest rhetoric of 
 the school is expended in enforcing these two conceptions 
 (Deut. 27 and 28, etc., etc.), and the picture of God as a God of 
 vital righteousness and loving grace is of epoch-making beauty 
 in the religious literature of the world. 
 
 Note. — Literary criticism has not finished the work of histor- 
 ical analysis, and many positions now accepted generally may 
 yet be given up; but one point has been gained for all schools 
 and for all time. We see in the Old Testament the gradual 
 revelation of God in thq midst of human conditions, and realize 
 that the revelation is constantly conditioned by the human life 
 in which God reveals himself. The difficulty of exact historical 
 
 ' Judges 6 : 1 1-22, etc., etc. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 43 
 
 reconstruction may be admitted. Many most attractive hypothe- 
 ses may yet have to be altered or rejected. A reasonable 
 agnosticism is a wholesome historical grace. It may be quite 
 vain to attempt, for instance, to separate Isaiah into a first, a 
 second, and a third writer, because probably we are dealing with 
 the songs of a special religious and literary movement, with a 
 common inspiration, but extending over a long period of time 
 from the monarchy of Hezekiah to the joyful return of little 
 bands of wanderers under Persian protection. So also the 
 Deuteronomic "writer" is more likely a particular school of 
 thought, again having a distinct historic origin in the religious 
 movement of Josiah's time, but extending its literary activity, 
 particularly its editorial work, far down into the exilic period. 
 The sharp lines of the fashionable reconstruction may have to 
 be softened, but the main oudines are fairly assured, and for 
 religious and practical purposes we have now an outline of the 
 Old Testament history far more fruitful than the impossible 
 traditional and uncritical misunderstanding. It remains as a 
 thing greatly to be desired that the devotional literature of the 
 Old Testament, especially the Psalms, be made to give up their 
 contribution to the wonderful ethical advances of the " Brother- 
 hood of the Synagogue" from which that literature, no doubt, 
 sprang. 
 
 The Contribution of Hellenized Judaism. — The power of the 
 Jew to assimilate and be assimilated is generally underestimated 
 because of the exclusive character of those who resist the process. 
 Thousands of Jews must have been lost amid the civilization of 
 Babylon. Egypt swallowed up, no doubt, many more, and all 
 down history the capacity of the Jew for adaptation to foreign 
 life and foreign thought has been just as remarkable as the 
 persistence of that minority which conserves the exclusive life 
 and thought. The Jew no more succeeded in withstanding the 
 influence of Greek culture than he has withstood the various 
 types of European culture. Educated Judaism evidently 
 sought to withstand the inroads of foreign thought by interpreta- 
 
44 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 tions in the spirit of ethical monotheism of the materials given 
 from without. Thus both the priestly and the prophetic cos- 
 mogonies may best be understood as an apologetic reinterpreta- 
 tion of a Babylonian or some older cosmogony which had in it 
 and behind it the dangers of an attractive but religiously de- 
 structive polytheism. 
 
 So also the literary activity of Judaism flung itself upon the 
 reproduction of a history that would inspire the world with 
 respect, and properly represent their ideals to the nations. 
 Along exactly this line we have the "wisdom literature" and 
 the works of Philo and Josephus. The moment we comprehend 
 the aims of Philo and Josephus we see that in their day and in 
 their own way they were trying honestly and sincerely to do 
 what the priestly and prophetic writers had done in their time. 
 There is no need to suppose intentional twisting or accommodation 
 on the part of any of the writers, at the same time the trustworthy 
 character of the history and the philosophical interpretation is 
 effected by the undoubted attitude of special pleading. 
 
 From the time of the Exile on we have a distinct ethical de- 
 velopment which culminates in the New Testament. In that 
 process all stages of resistance to foreign ideals and all kinds of 
 skilful compromise may be traced. From Persia came the 
 development of a crude dualism. Satan relieved Jahwe, as 
 Wellhausen remarks, of many of the unethical characteristics 
 still clinging to the old desert war-god. At the same time the 
 monism of Judaism was too firmly rooted to give way wholly to 
 dualism. The Exile had indeed raised many questions which 
 the teachers of the period of the second temple had failed to 
 answer. Dualism was a simple answer to some of these 
 doubts, but it, too, seriously challenged the fundamental faith 
 of the Holy Community to be really accepted in all its conse- 
 quences. 
 
 The most serious question that pressed for an answer was, 
 "Why do the righteous suffer?" This doubt could no longer 
 be ignored, and the ethical thought in the canonical books of this 
 period largely centres about various answers to this searching 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 45 
 
 question. Of course from the priestly and organization point of 
 view the obvious although superficial answer was that a temple 
 to Jahwe had not yet been built and that the ritual obligations 
 had never yet been fully met (Zechariah, Haggai). The most 
 serious and thorough discussion was that of Job. In its original 
 form, however, the conclusion was too agnostic and unsatis- 
 factory for the average mind, and so we have the closing chapter 
 and perhaps the speeches of Elihu added as a contribution to the 
 solution of the problem. 
 
 The most hopeful and religiously influential answer was that 
 of the closing period of the anthology of Isaiah, where the final 
 purpose of all suffering is found in the glory of a new heaven 
 and new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness. 
 
 In none of the answers does a future life play a large part. 
 But in Isaiah, as in Daniel, there dawns the hope of a new era, in 
 which all religious and ethical aspirations will be met and satis- 
 fied by the revelation of Jahwe in a community of peace and 
 happiness. In this new communal life all the awful doubts and 
 difficulties raised by the failures and sufferings of the Holy 
 Community were to be set at rest forever. 
 
 The firmer and higher the faith in Jahwe was, by so much 
 greater and more terrible seemed the desertion of the little 
 company of the faithful. The tragedy of the situation was in the 
 fact that Jahwe was not only thought of as almighty ruler, but 
 as loving father.* A m.erely almighty ruler could do what he 
 liked. But a loving father in covenant relation with his children 
 cannot be unethical. And even though the conception of father- 
 hood is oriental, and hence deeply tinged by despotism,^ never- 
 theless the relationship is not simply that of creator and crea- 
 tion, but of love and affection. 
 
 Hence it happened that the more loving and intimate the 
 relation between Jahwe and Israel was conceived of as existing, 
 by so much the more was the poor heart of the faithful follower 
 torn; and the stranger and more inexplicable becomes the op- 
 pression and the defeat of the chosen child. 
 
 ' Isaiah 63 : i6; 64 : 8. Jeremiah 31:9. * Isaiah 64 : 8. 
 
46 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The vision of a redemption was thus more and more thrust 
 into the foreground. It was no new thought. The traditions 
 of a fiight from Egypt still haunted the imaginations of Israel. 
 The redemption was to come in catastrophic world-changes. 
 The fall of Babylon, and wreck of the Persian supremacy were 
 basal images upon which the Jewish apocalyptical literature 
 fastened, and in Daniel, the Book of Enoch, etc., we have the 
 developed solution of the nation's pain in great judgments and 
 future deliverances so dramatic and so overwhelming that room 
 for doubt as regards either the power or the righteousness of 
 Jahwe could have no place. 
 
 Yet this solution could not meet all needs. The rather crude 
 ethics of this literature and its failure along the lines of any 
 unifying philosophy gave rise to a rationalization more thorough- 
 going. The ''wisdom" of the later Jewish writings was the 
 starting-point. The method of procedure was, however, to 
 remove God as such from the scene of the temporary trial 
 and disaster, and to fill up the place thus made vacant by lesser 
 and intermediary beings. Thus Philo and the Alexandrian 
 Jews translated Plato's teaching. Wisdom becomes the Logos 
 mediating in creation and providence between a transcendent 
 God and the created world. Man is sharply divided into body 
 and soul, and the metaphysical dualism of Platonic thought is 
 religiously developed and exploited. Into Philo's synthesis 
 come all the elements of world-flight, contemplative life,^ de- 
 spondency, a doctrine of a final judgment and exaltation of the 
 transcendent which mark Plato's later period.^ Combined with 
 this is the distinctly Jewish hope of a great consummation and a 
 final vision of God. This is reached not by asceticism, but in 
 prophetic ecstasy. 
 
 The final form of government is the theocratic democracy 
 borrowed from the Old Testament prophets.^ The main em- 
 phasis is upon God as the final good and knowledge of God as 
 
 ' This quite apart from the writing which can scarcely be defended as by 
 Philo: "Dc vita contcmplativa." Cf. "Legis Allegor," II, § i8. 
 * Contra Zieglcr. ' Not from Stoics as Zeller argues. 
 
THE PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIANITY 47 
 
 the goal of all life. Philo uses many phrases in an Old Testa- 
 ment sense, which he has borrowed from Greek philosophy, but 
 which lead to misinterpretation of Philo, if his Jewish use of 
 them is forgotten. His ethics is distinctly Hebrew rather than 
 Greek, democratic rather than aristocratic, and this in spite of 
 the hierarchy which he took over from the Platonic speculation. 
 
 Note. — In the somewhat dreary rationalization of the Old 
 Testament by Philo some things stand out clearly as character- 
 istic probably of Judaism over wide sweeps, and not especially 
 Alexandrian. First the real aim is to express Judaism in Greek 
 phrases rather than to hellenize Judaism. Secondly, the chief 
 interest always remains religious and ethical. Thirdly, the 
 dominant character of certain Greek positions made it seem 
 inevitable to find some harmony if the Old Testament was to be 
 still retained. Hence, just as misguided Christian apologetics 
 has always attempted to make the Old Testament teach the 
 latest lesson of science, so the Jewish apologist rewrote his 
 history to conform to what seemed assured historical data. As 
 Josephus in the time of Roman supremacy, or the prophetic 
 historian in the time of Babylonian ascendancy, so the Jewish 
 philosopher Philo in Alexandria sought in the day of Greek 
 philosophical dominance to rewrite his nation's wisdom in the 
 language of the day.^ 
 
 ' Side lights on this process may be gained in R. H. Charles's admirable 
 "Critical History of the Doctrine of the Future Life in Israel, in Judaism, and in 
 Christianity." The Jowett Lectures, 1898-1899. CJ. also Professor Deiss- 
 mann's "Licht vom Osten," already mentioned. 
 
CHAPTER II 
 
 NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 
 
 Introduction. — I. The Ethics of Jesus — II. The Ethics of Paul — III. The 
 Johannine Interpretation — IV. The Ethics of the other Canonical 
 Writers: Hebrews; James; The Revelation to John; The Ecclesi- 
 astical Literature. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 The unity of life is a postulate of our faith, but its understand- 
 ing demands our breaking it up into many elements and 
 viewing it from many standing places. The canonical interpre- 
 tations of Jesus cannot be forced into any mechanical and 
 absolute harmony, and to rightly weigh the ethical teachings of 
 the canonical books we must reckon with the distinct differences 
 in interest and outlook on the world manifest to the candid 
 student of the New Testament writings. 
 
 Jesus has become historically the central figure ' in the struggle 
 of humanity upward to the redeemed life. The "Christian 
 Era" has become the important factor in the life-history of India, 
 China, Japan, and the far-off island-continents then unknown. 
 
 ' The critical question as to the historical character of Jesus and Paul has 
 produced a large literature. After a survey of its arguments the writer is more 
 convinced than ever of the historicity of Jesus and Paul, but for the ethical 
 student it is suflBcient to say that no single fact is indispensable to the ideal which 
 has power over us. The main works on the negative side are: Robertson, 
 John M.: "Pagan Christs" (studies in comparative hierolog}-), London, 1903; 
 Robertson, John M.: "Christianity and Mythology, London, 1900; Drews, 
 Arthur: "Die Christus mythe," Jena, 1909; Burnouf, Emile: "La Science des 
 Religions," 4th ed., 1885 (English translation by J. Liebe, London, 1888); Kalt- 
 hofif. A.: "Das Christus-Problem," 2d ed., Leipsic, 1903; Kalthoff, A.: "Was 
 wissen wir von Jesus?" Berlin, 1904; Smith, Wm. B.: "Der vorchristliche 
 Jesus," Giessen, 1906; Jensen, P.: "Moses, Jesus, Paulus, drei Varianten des 
 babylonischen Gottmenschen Gilgamesch," Frankfort-on-Main, 1909. 
 
 48 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 49 
 
 This place in history no theological changes, no readjustment 
 of values can now disturb. Whatever civilizations may come 
 after ours, they can only come on the basis of that which 
 rose on the wrecks of Grecian culture and Roman imperialism. 
 The churchly reconstruction of life, the Christianized barbarism 
 of the north, the entire reinterpretation of the ideals of existence, 
 date from the life, death, and teachings of a lonely figure whose 
 scattered phrases are given us in the pages of the New Testament. 
 What were the ethics of Jesus, is a serious question. In various 
 degrees the interpretations of those teachings drift apart from 
 one another and from the original central instruction. 
 
 The world-forces that culminate in the churchly society of the 
 Middle Ages may be variously estimated and judged. For some 
 the light went out when the cross rose above the palaces of 
 Rome and Constantinople. But all must admit that the triumph 
 of that cross was the outcome of the profound impression made 
 in the midst of men by a Jewish peasant workman in the course 
 of a public life extending over hardly more than three years at the 
 most. The reasons for the rapid rise of the churchly society 
 that called itself Christian do not belong here; we have, however, 
 to enter upon the work of discovering the ideals and hopes which, 
 centring about Jesus, gave us the canonical books, the ecclesias- 
 tical societies east and west, and the modern civilization we 
 call by courtesy Christian. 
 
 I, THE ETHICS OF JESUS 
 
 Our one interest is to ask the question : What was the organiz- 
 ing ethical ideal of Jesus, as a man, working, struggling, and 
 teaching ? What did he actually proclaim as the ethical ideal 
 upon which he would have men organize all life ? 
 
 Literature. — Briggs, Charles A.: "The Ethical Teaching of Jesus"; New 
 York, 1904. — Weiss, Bernhard: "Lehrbuch der biblischen Theologie"; Berlin, 
 7th ed., 1903; translation of 3d ed., Edinburgh, 1882; 2 vols. — Wette, Wilhelm 
 M. de: "Biblische Dogmatik des Alt, und Neuen Testaments"; 3d ed.; Ber- 
 lin, 1831. — Neander, Augustus: "Geschichte der Pflanzung und Leitung der 
 christlichen Kirche durch die Apostel"; 5th ed.; 1862; translated by J. S. 
 
50 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 We have not now to do with the unfolding of these ideals, 
 however legitimate such inferential unfolding may be, either 
 in any personal interpretation of Jesus or in historical Christian- 
 ity. With the outcome of his teaching, however inevitable, we 
 are not immediately concerned. We wish simply to know, 
 what did Jesus the Galilean rabbi teach as the ethical foundation 
 of human life? 
 
 At the very beginning of our inquiry we must remember the 
 distinctly Jewish character of all we know of Jesus Christ. The 
 Jewish mmd dealt with concrete problems and with things 
 here on earth. The dualism of good and evil was forced upon 
 him. But his faith in God compelled him to believe that that 
 dualism was only temporary. God was sure to at last disclose 
 himself as not only triumphant over all evil, but as ruler of this 
 world and all its fortunes. 
 
 Ryland, revised by Edw. Robinson, New York, 1865. — Toy, C. H.: "Judaism 
 and Christianity"; Boston, 1890. — Rogge, Christian: "Der irdische Besitz im 
 neuen Testament"; Gottingen, 1897. — Cone, Orello: "Rich and Poor in the 
 New Testament"; New York, 1902. — Stevens, G. B.: "The Theology of the 
 New Testament"; New York, 1899 (International Theological Library). — 
 Beyschlag, W. : "Neutestamentliche Theologie"; 2d ed.; Halle, 1896; 2 vols.; 
 also an English translation by Neil Buchanan, New York, 2d ed., 1895; in 
 2 vols. — Holtzmann, H. J.: "Lehrbuch der neutestamentlichen Tneologie"; 
 Freiburg, 1897; 2 vols. — Pfleiderer, Otto: "Das Urchristentum, seine Schriften 
 und Lehren"; 2d ed.; Berlin, 1902. — Wernle, Paul: "Die Anfiinge unserer 
 Religion"; 2d ed.; Tubingen, 1904; also an English translation by G. A. 
 Bienemann, New York; Putnam, 1903-1904; in 2 vols. — Gould, E. P.: "The 
 Biblical Theology of the New Testament"; New York, 1900. — Wendt, H. H.: 
 "Die Lehre Jesu"; 2d ed.; Gottingen, 1901; also an English translation by 
 John Wilson, New York, 1892; 2 vols. — Mathews, Shailcr: "The Social 
 Teaching of Jesus"; New York, 1897. — Peabody, F. G.: "Jesus Christ and the 
 Social Question"; New York, 1901. — Weiss, Johannes: "Die Predigt Jesu 
 vom Reich Gottes"; 2d ed.; Gottingen, 1900. — Liitgert, W.: "Das Reich 
 Gottes nach den synoptischcn Evangelien"; Gutersloh, 1895. — Bousset, W.: 
 "Jesu Predigt in ihrem Gegensatz zum Judentum"; Gottingen, 1892. — 
 Jiilicher, Adolf: "Die Gleichnisreden Jesu"; Tubingen, 1899; 2 vols. — 
 Weinel, H.: "Die Gleichnisse Jesu"; 2d ed.; Leipsic, 1904. — Jacoby, Her. 
 mann: "Neutestamentliche Ethik"; Konigsberg, 1899. — Weiss, Johannes: 
 "The Ethics of Jesus in Hastings's Bible Dictionary of Christ and the Gospels"; 
 New York and Edinburgh, 1906; vol. I.; pp. 543-547. — Rau, Albrecht: "Die 
 Ethik Jesu"; Giessen, 1899. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 51 
 
 Later interpretations of Jesus introduce elements we must 
 gravely suspect as foreign to the thought and world of Jesus. 
 We want to know simply and solely, so far as our materials enable 
 us to know it, what did Jesus himself believe and teach ? 
 
 In consequence of our aim we must exclude the interpretation 
 of Jesus by Paul. Without in the least questioning the high 
 value of this interpretation, or in any way doubting that it is 
 a legitimate development of the spiritual meaning of Jesus for 
 human life, we must clearly understand that Paul did not him- 
 self pretend to base his teaching on the historical Jesus. For 
 him the risen Christ and a living present revelation formed the 
 foundation of his "gospel." Even if all the sayings gathered 
 by Resch from Paul's writing as possible fragments of the teach- 
 ings of Jesus are to be so considered, the ethical significance of 
 actual quotations from the words of Jesus remains small and 
 inconsiderable.^ 
 
 In like manner we must exclude the Fourth Gospel. It also 
 is a wonderful interpretation of the heart and spirit of Jesus. 
 Yet at the present state of our scholarship it is quite impossible 
 to separate finally between the elements that embody objective 
 accounts of Jesus as teacher and worker and the subjective 
 elements so prominent in the discourses. We may believe in 
 many such elements. Even the history of the synoptic Gospels 
 may have to be corrected from pages of the Fourth Gospel,^ 
 yet it would be both uncandid and unwise to treat the Fourth 
 Gospel as a whole as though it were an objective history of the 
 life and sayings of Jesus. In fact its religious value is not in 
 that direction. 
 
 We are reduced, then, to the three first Gospels. Here again 
 elements must be treated with extreme care. Earnest and intel- 
 lectually sincere scholarship can hardly now accept the "ec- 
 clesia" passages in Matthew (16 : 18 and 18 : 17) as undoubted 
 
 ' C/. "Agrapha," by Alfred Resch, 1889, in "Texte und Untersuchungen," 
 vol. V, 1889. 
 
 2 C/. "Das Johannes Evangelium," H. H. Wendt, Gottingen, 1900, pp. 45. 
 
 233- 
 
52 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 reports of the words of Jesus. The best working hypothesis 
 proposed as a solution of the synoptic problem accepts as a 
 basis two documents, one of which is Mark almost as we have 
 the Gospel, and the other a collection of "sayings" of Jesus. 
 Luke and Matthew have woven these two together, mingling, 
 however, material peculiar to themselves, and rearranging the 
 "sayings," although keeping the order of Mark almost exactly. 
 The additions of Matthew and Luke must then be treated 
 cautiously, and upon the narrative of Mark, and the "sayings" 
 as found in both Matthew and Luke, we must be content to 
 base our first impression of Jesus as an ethical teacher. Side 
 lights we may gain from later sources. The interpretation of 
 Jesus of every age has had its own peculiar religious value; at 
 the same time objective historical study cannot afford to confuse 
 its conclusions with such interpretations no matter how valuable 
 or how sound. 
 
 In order to measure Jesus as an ethical teacher and to grasp 
 surely the organized ideals that underlay his ethics, we must 
 form some idea of the environment in which he taught and the 
 style of his teaching. Although literary Rabbinism is for the 
 most part much later than Jesus,* yet Rabbinism as a system 
 of religious instruction and as a religious tendency existed long 
 before him. Just as the Platonic ethics were profoundly in- 
 fluenced by the opposition to the Sophists, so the ethics of Jesus 
 grew up in opposition to and yet deeply influenced by the Rab- 
 binical ideals. 
 
 The style of Jesus bears witness to the influence upon him of 
 the eschatological teaching of his day. Yet deeper still was the 
 influence of the literature, sacred in the eyes of his religious 
 world, in which he found an ethical basis for his opposition to 
 the legalism and formality under which the religious and ethical 
 life of his time groaned. The ethical precepts of that literature 
 were largely contained in the wisdom (QDH) literature, and that 
 type of ethical teaching finds its place in the original sayings of 
 Jesus. We possess, it is true, only Greek renderings of the 
 
 ' CJ. Enry. Brit., American Reprint, art. "Mishnah," XVI, 527. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 53 
 
 northern Galilean dialect in which Jesus probably spoke and 
 taught. But it requires only a little care and attention to mark 
 under the Greek dress the literary character of the original saying. 
 Now no one in ordinary life would interpret poetry and proverb 
 by the same rules we apply in the construction of legal documents 
 or philosophical lore. Instinctively we are guided by the style 
 of the saying to the method of its interpretation. The same 
 thing is true of the teachings of Jesus. We must pass on the 
 character of the particular saying, and in our interpretation we 
 must be guided by the feeling for the literary class to which it 
 belongs. 
 
 Three great literary types influenced deeply the thought and 
 style of Jesus. The exalted religious style of the prophetical 
 poetry finds frequent reflection in his longer sayings; the sorite- 
 what artificial epigram of the wisdom literature has also its 
 counterpart; and the eschatological dreaming and vivid word 
 painting of the latter Jewish period has its corresponding imagery 
 in his latter work.^ 
 
 In considering, then, the ethical scheme of Jesus, we must take 
 into consideration the purpose and inspiration of each saying. 
 It is of great importance to discover how far he was deliberately 
 standing upon the ethical ground he found prepared in the past 
 history of his people, and how far he was transcending or con- 
 sciously opposing the conclusions of his religious and ethical 
 environment. 
 
 Jesus' ethics, like the ethics of Spinoza, was intensely " God- 
 conscious." When he uses the term " Abba" he implies no such 
 distinction as the Greek gives us between "Our" father and 
 "my" father; this is reflected in Luke's version of the Lord's 
 Prayer.^ For him God was all in all and absolutely sovereign.' 
 The heaven is his throne, the earth his foot-stool; he marks 
 the sparrow's fall* and numbers the hairs on our head; he 
 clothes the lily of the field,' and his will was to be done on earth 
 
 * Examples Matt, ii : 20-30; Mark 10 : 27; and Matt. 24. 
 
 2 Luke 11:2. irdrep. ' Matt. 5 : 35. 
 
 * Matt. 10 : 29. * Matt. 6 : 28. 
 
54 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 as completely as it is thought of being done in heaven.* Unity 
 with the purpose 0} God rather than love to God is the basis of the 
 thought of Jesus. In the original Mark Gospel the only mention 
 of love to God is in a quotation from Deuteronomy.^ This im- 
 pression of Jesus' teaching is well represented in the late litera- 
 ture, as in the prayer of Jesus in the 17th of John. The ethical 
 ideal of Jesus was "to do the will of God." ' To love God was 
 self-understood. The impression made by the original teaching 
 of Jesus is that ethics was thelemic (to coin a much-needed word 
 from TO OeXrjfjLa) rather than emotional or intellectual. God 
 was accepted as intellectually apprehended. Love to God pro- 
 ceeded from right relation to him, rather than forming the basis 
 for those relations. The basis of life and the world was the 
 will of God. He who worked with this will had all things made 
 possible to him.* Faith was this acceptance of God and his 
 will as the ultimate basis of all life. Later Greek speculation 
 sought to interpret this ethical sense of unity with God into a 
 unique metaphysical relationship. Perhaps the beginning of the 
 process is seen in the Fourth Gospel, but it certainly is not justi- 
 fied by Jesus' own words, nor does the essentially Jewish think- 
 ing of Paul give it any foundation. The consciousness of a 
 unique relationship to God was ethical and not metaphysical.^ 
 As the later Gospel put it: "His meat and drink was to do the 
 will of him that sent him and to finish his work." • 
 
 Moreover, the conception of this divine will was spiritual as 
 well as ethical. The differentiation of God as an ethical God 
 from the conceptions of him as simply a triumphant national 
 war-hero had gone far during the captivity and in the later 
 prophetic literature of the Old Testament. At the same time, 
 the popular mind had no more grasped the difference then than 
 it has now; and even the religious world of Jesus' time was 
 caught in lower and false notions of the national relationship to 
 Jahwe.' Jesus carried on the work of the later prophets in 
 
 'Matt. 6:10. => Mark 12: 30. 'Mark 3: 35. 
 
 *Mark ii : 22-24. * Mark 12 : 1-9. •John 4 : 34. 
 
 ' C/. John the Baptist's message, Matt. 3 : 9, where these notions are condemned. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 55 
 
 emphasizing the ethical rather than the national relationship to 
 God. But he went further than the prophets in making this the 
 sole basis of relationship/ 
 
 As Schultz points out: ^ "That in the olden days more value 
 was placed upon the blameless carrying out of the religious popu- 
 lar customs; and that the prophets on this account had un- 
 wearyingly to emphasize the fact that the great principles of 
 morality formed the fundamentals of righteousness, we see in all 
 the older prophets." Yet even in the prophets the basis of any 
 possible morality was the fulfilment of ritual requirements; 
 just as to-day many fairly intellectual Protestants cannot think 
 any man a really "good" or "godly" man who does not keep 
 one day in the week for observances they prize, or who cannot 
 repeat "formulae" they think ritually necessary. The failure 
 is, of course, in the conception of God as ethical. Jesus had so 
 completely seen God as ethical that for him ritual requirement 
 took its normal place as expedient and helpful, or hurtful and a 
 hindrance in accordance with the changing requirements of 
 man's life.^ 
 
 The vast ethical advance thus described was due to Jesus' 
 conception of the kind of righteousness God required and the 
 character of the holiness ascribed to God. The perfection of 
 God * is not based on simple power, but upon an essential right- 
 eousness. Jesus drew the logical ethical consequence of the 
 vision of God as given in Exodus 34 : 6 and developed more 
 fully by the Deuteronomist; but in doing so realized that attach- 
 ment to custom and ritual was accidental and not essential. 
 His saying, " Destroy the temple and in three days I will build 
 it again," was naturally misunderstood by even his friends. 
 He expressed there his sense of the true relationship between the 
 inward and the outward. For him the temple was but an out- 
 
 * Matt. 5 : 20; 7 : 21-22. 
 
 2 "Alttestamentliche Theologie," XXI, p. 293, 2d ed., or English translation, 
 vol. II, p. 923. 
 
 * Mark 2 : 25-28, "David and show-bread and Sabbath made for man," and 
 in Mark 7 : 15, "That which proceedeth out of a man that defileth." 
 
 * Matt. 5 : 48. 
 
56 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ward expression that would in an indefinitely short period be 
 easily rebuilt, if the essential ethical unity with God was not 
 destroyed. It was in this sense also that he felt his presence 
 made many otherwise perhaps useful ritual requirements, such 
 as fasting, washing, etc.,^ unnecessary for his disciples so long 
 as he was with them. 
 
 The assumption by Jesus of an absolutely ethical God he 
 never established by argument, nor would he have claimed for 
 it originality. He would have, indeed did point back to Deuter- 
 onomy and the Psalms as setting it forth. What was original 
 in his teaching was the separating that conception from national 
 and ritual entanglements and making it the sole foundation upon 
 which he built up his moral system. 
 
 Jesus assumed in consequence of his consciousness of God as 
 righteousness, and as demanding from us only righteousness, 
 the freedom and moral personality of every human being. The 
 centurion reveals a faith not found in Israel.^ Yet the life of 
 Jesus was too short and the material actually from his lips too 
 scanty to assert that he either fully realized or fully exploited 
 the logic of this position. The universalism of Luke may be as 
 late a product as that of Paul; both are, however, legitimate 
 outcomes of Jesus' conception of an ethical God as over against 
 a national and unethical thought of him. The parables of Luke 
 are certainly genuine, and that of the Good Samaritan reflects 
 the logic that broke down so largely (for of course other ele- 
 ments entered into the case) the national boundaries of the 
 proclamation of Jesus. 
 
 The definite "Good news" that Jesus proclaimed had, then, 
 as presuppositions a sovereign ethical God in some moral rela- 
 tionship to man, and logically to all men. That relationship 
 Jesus taught his disciples to describe with the term "Abba," or 
 father. The will of God which was for Jesus the moral founda- 
 tion of life, was the will of a just and kindly father.' The 
 
 ' Mark 2 : 18; Matt. 9 : 14. ^ Luke 7 : 9. 
 
 ' Parable of Prodigal Son. Luke 15 : 11-32; Matt. 6 : 8, " Your Father know- 
 eth what things ye have need of"; Matt. 7 : 1 1, " Ye being evil — good gifts," etc. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 57 
 
 fatherhood of God in relation to the nation of Israel was a 
 fairly familiar figure, although probably the false terror before 
 Jahwe as judge which made his name unpronounceable (mn'») 
 also prevented the full content of even this prophetical phrase 
 being realized. The good news that men were in personal 
 relationship with God, independently of the nation's sins, and 
 that personal repentance could establish relationships that even 
 national judgments could not shake, was new religious teaching 
 and exalted the conception of manhood at once. This teaching 
 was in close connection with God^s Kingdom as proclaimed by 
 Jesus. What was this Kingdom? 
 
 Johannes Weiss, of Marburg, has given the most recent and 
 the most careful answer to this important question,* and his 
 answer has found wide acceptance among the younger New 
 Testament scholars.^ In accordance with Dalman's theory, 
 he asserts that the idea of Jesus is wholly eschatological. For 
 Jesus the reign of God is always ("stets") an eschatological 
 quantity about which a "presence" can only be alleged in so 
 far as it is a fact that the "end" is already in process of be- 
 ginning." ^ This is not the place to critically analyze the 
 positions taken; sufficient it is to say that so far as the method 
 0} introduction of this "reign of God" * is concerned, this school 
 is undoubtedly right. Although Jesus distinctly denies any 
 knowledge of the time of the coming of the kingdom,^ he un- 
 doubtedly expected it sharply, swiftly, and with catastrophe, and 
 as an "eschatological quantity." But it is one-sided criticism 
 of his words to fix attention solely on the method of the Kingdom's 
 ultimate triumph. What was the essence of the Reign of God ? 
 is the serious question. Here little light is given by the eschato- 
 logical dreaming of such a literature as that to which Daniel 
 belongs, and that side of Jesus' teaching does not concern us 
 now at all. Happily we have abundant material at hand for 
 
 ' "Die Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes," 1900. 
 
 * CJ. " Theologische Litteraturzeitung," Oct. 12, 1901 (No. 21, coll. 563-568), 
 article by Bousset in review. 
 
 ^ Dalman quoted by Weiss, Job., p. 17 of "Predigt Jesu vom Reiche Gottes " 
 
 « D:cTr ni3-'p. s Matt. 24 : 36. 
 
58 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 examination of the ethical content which Jesus ascribed to the 
 Reign oj God. 
 
 The organic basis of the teaching of Jesus was his placing of the 
 emphasis upon the ethical factors in this Reign 0} God. In this 
 he followed in the footsteps of Isaiah, Amos, and Hosea, but with 
 greater clearness and precision and with greater powers of 
 personal moral impression. He strongly insisted upon this re- 
 ligio-ethical basis for the Reign of God, and he emphasized this 
 religio-ethical factor as a condition for the personal participation 
 in the glories of that reign. This we see in the fundamental 
 teachings gathered from the "sayings-collection" in what we 
 know as the Sermon on the Mount. The arrangement of this 
 "Sermon" is, of course, the work of Matthew, but the contents 
 as we have them in Luke and Matthew reflect the intensely 
 ethical conception Jesus had of the Kingdom of God. The 
 Kingdom was thought of as coming in the apocalyptic visions of 
 catastrophe, judgment, and change; but the nature of the King- 
 dom when it came was not the material triumph of Judaism, 
 but the triumph of Righteousness. No saying is more undoubt- 
 edly that of Jesus than that of Matthew 6 : 33, " Seek ye first the 
 Kingdom (or his Kingdom) and his righteousness (rrjv StKac- 
 ocrvvrjv avrov) and all these things shall be added unto you." 
 (Tipl^'HST Delitzsch renders r7)v htKaLocrvvrjv .) What mad- 
 dened institutional religion, then, as it maddens it now, was to 
 be told that the essence consisted not in a ritual or credal cor- 
 rectness, but in an inner ethical character which it did not then, 
 as it does not now, fully exemplify. The bitter hostility to 
 Jesus was aroused by the fact that he went into details, and 
 the class of professional religious teachers felt that their influence 
 and teaching were the objects of his attack. 
 
 That the organic basis of Jesus' proclamation was a national 
 ethical reformation — to be completed only in the midst of 
 cataclysmal changes — is seen in the fact that his proclamation 
 was misunderstood. He was made a Galilean hero. "The 
 common people heard him gladly." ' A national redemption 
 
 ' Mark 12 : 37. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 59 
 
 from poverty and oppression as the result of Jesus' teaching was 
 no doubt their crude hope. According to Jesus the rich were 
 shut out from the Kingdom by their riches, and the poor were 
 welcomed for their poverty. This was acceptable teaching to 
 the humble but restless fishermen of northern Galilee, until he 
 went on to emphasize the ethical change needed in them also 
 to gain entrance to that Kingdom, when they also fell away. 
 
 This national factor in the teaching of Jesus is often forgotten 
 in the recognition of Christian universalism. Yet nothing is 
 clearer than that not only did Jesus begin as a strictly national 
 teacher, but that he himself only realized with sorrow, so far as 
 he fully realized it, the hopeless character of his national work. 
 Here also Jesus only filled out the dream of the exilic Isaiah. 
 His desire was, indeed, a world-wide redemption, but the 
 "suffering servant" was to be an ethically reformed Judaism. 
 Repentance and good works were to save the nation, or a remnant 
 of the nation, in the midst of coming catastrophies, and the re- 
 deemed Israel was to teach righteousness to the world. The 
 good news was to be proclaimed among all nations * and the 
 "elect" would partake in the ethical change, and then the tribu- 
 lation would destroy the wicked, and the Son of Man would 
 come to a completed and triumphant Kingdom. 
 
 This emphasis upon the ethical rather than upon the political 
 and economic character of the Kingdom is not only seen in the 
 Sermon on the Mount (so called) but in the material which 
 Matthew gathers into the long discourse to the disciples.^ 
 This material, however, is to be probably divided into two 
 separate periods of the teaching of Jesus. 
 
 The historical order of Mark may be provisionally accepted as 
 the oldest and most correct one. That order practically divides 
 the ministry of Jesus into two periods. The first was full of 
 success, of hope, and of large personal expectation. Then came 
 the coldness in Galilee and his final deposition from the place 
 of a popular idol and coming national leader. From that time 
 on the Mark material is intensely personal. The message is no 
 
 1 Mark 13 : 10. * Matt. 9 : 37-10 : 42. 
 
6o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 more to the nation but to the chosen group. They are to be 
 made ready to do the work of Kingdom proclaimers, which the 
 nation would not, was not, in fact, ethically fit to do. 
 
 This division is not found in Matthew nor in John, although 
 in Luke traces of it are to be distinctly seen. Yet it is a striking 
 fact that Matthew in mixing sayings of the two periods in the 
 sermon he constructs * involves Jesus in confusions from which 
 Mark alone saves him, and in which Luke does not involve him.^ 
 Mark distributes this material, and without question correctly. 
 As long as Jesus had hope for the ethical reformation of Judaism 
 he confined his message to it. He hoped it would then do the 
 world work. When he considered a national change in so short 
 a time as no longer possible, he turned to a small chosen group. 
 The ideal became a redeemed spiritual community. The 
 "ecclesia" passages of Matthew are, no doubt, a later addition. 
 Jesus never probably used any word of Hebrew or Aramaic 
 that would be translated by iKKXjjaia. The conception was 
 simply a spiritually minded following, ethically fitted to be pro- 
 claimers and forerunners of the coming ethical transformation. 
 This then brings us to consider what Jesus looked upon as the 
 ideal of personal ethics for such a spiritual community. 
 
 Jesus never was a systematic teacher, as the contrast between 
 him and the scribes goes to show. " They were astonished at his 
 teaching, for he taught them as having authority and not as the 
 scribes." ^ He declared what seemed to him obvious and does 
 not seem to have argued. His teaching was inspirational and 
 not analytical. Hence it is impossible to arrange his teachings 
 without doing a measure of injustice to them. Moreover, his 
 personal ethical teaching was so interwoven with his religious 
 faith that it is wellnigh impossible to separate it from the the- 
 ological groundwork. The particular feature, however, of his 
 teaching we may perhaps bring out under several heads, 
 
 * Chapters 9 : 38-10 : 42. 
 
 * Compare Matt. 10 : 5-15, where the messengers are to stay in Israel and 
 preach only to their nation, with 10 : 16-23, where they are "messengers to the 
 nations." * Mark i : 22. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 6i 
 
 I. Morality was for Jesus not outward conduct but inner 
 motive. The man who looks after the woman with lustful 
 eye has committed adultery with her in his heart.^ This was 
 not new, but it was a neglected and forgotten truth in the fatal 
 transformation of the law to simple statutory requirements. In 
 Job's defence (chapter XXXI) the hero of the drama is made 
 to emphasize the inward spirit; even secretly he has not rejoiced 
 at an enemy's misfortune, nor "has his heart been enticed" 
 even "secretly" to worship moon or sun. Jesus, however, 
 presses the logic home. All ritual and legal requirement is but 
 symbolic of the real demand made upon the moral man for an 
 inward purity of thought and hope. "Not that which entereth 
 into the mouth defileth the man, but that which proceedeth out 
 of the mouth, this defileth the man."^ "For out of the heart 
 come forth evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, 
 thefts, false witness, railings: these are the things which defile 
 a man." ^ To eat with unwashed hands did not, therefore, defile 
 a man. This logic made Jesus the radical destroyer of the 
 existing moralities, which were as intimately bound up with 
 outward things as much Protestant morality is bound up with 
 "Sabbath keeping," "church going" and "Bible reading," no 
 matter how mechanical. How sweeping the judgment was in 
 the time of Jesus it is hard for us now to realize. No doubt 
 Jesus' condemnation of all "judging" was the outcome of the 
 attitude toward morality. How can any one judge (KUTaKpiveiv) 
 another without reading the heart ? Hence to the woman taken 
 in adultery (a scarcely doubtful tradition of Jesus) Jesus himself 
 refuses condemnation. This is not to allege that he had any 
 clear-cut philosophy on the relation of the state to the individual, 
 or that he himself withheld all condemnation when he felt him- 
 self in a position to weigh motives. He puts his dictum forth in 
 poetical form. The version in Luke gives us a clew to the ar- 
 rangement of the material: 
 
 "Judge not and ye shall not be judged. 
 Condemn not and ye shall not be condemned. 
 With what judgment ye judge 
 
 ' Matt. 5 : 2S. ^ Matt. 15 : ii. * Matt. 15 : 19-20. 
 
62 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Ye shall be judged. 
 
 With what measure ye mete 
 
 Ye shall be measured. 
 
 *' Why look at the mote in your brother's eye 
 And regard not the beam in your own? 
 Or how say to your brother, lo here! 
 Let me cast out the mote from your eye, 
 And you see not the beam in your own! 
 Hypocrite, cast out the beam from your eye 
 And see clearly to cast out the mote from your brother's." 
 
 This inward character of ethics had its basis in the spiritual 
 experiences of the Old Testament as reflected in such hterature 
 as the 51st Psalm: 
 
 "Create a clean heart in me, O God; 
 Renew a right spirit within me." 
 
 And as in that Psalm, offerings and sacrifices began to take their 
 place in the teachings of Jesus as non-essential. 
 
 11. This led to the proclamation by Jesus of the supreme 
 importance of morality as thus defined. The identification of 
 morality with ritual in his day had confused the issue before 
 human life much as that issue is now confused by the identifica- 
 tion of morality with opinion. The solemn scene of the Judgment 
 poem ^ is based upon this sense of conduct as the criterion of life. 
 Not every one that says "Lord, Lord," but only the man who 
 "does the will" of his Father shall enter into the Kingdom of 
 Heaven.^ Those even who have conjured with the name of 
 Jesus and done in his name "mighty works," but whose life 
 "worked iniquity," cannot be saved by their ritual correctness. 
 Conduct springing from a good will is for Jesus the supreme test. 
 " By their fruits ye shall know them." ^ Conduct is the outcome 
 of the character. In a little poem given by Luke * Jesus empha- 
 sizes this inwardness of morality at the same time that he asserts 
 its supremacy: 
 
 "It is not a good tree giving bad fruit: 
 It is not a bad tree giving good fruit: 
 For each tree by its fruit can be known. 
 
 Matt. 25 : 31-46. ' Matt. 7:21. ' Matt. 7 : 20. * Luke 6 : 43. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 63 
 
 Not of thorns do men gather their figs: 
 
 Not of brambles gather men grapes. 
 The good man from good stores of his heart does his good: 
 The bad man from bad stores of his heart does his bad: 
 
 From the stores of the heart speaks the mouth." 
 
 The supremacy of righteousness is the motive put always before 
 the disciples. "Ye shall be perfect, even as your heavenly 
 Father is perfect." ^ 
 
 III. This righteousness is not only ethical as over against 
 ritual correctness, and inwardness as over against simple con- 
 formity to rule, but the character of it is deeply compassionate. 
 This is not only seen in the exclusively Lucan parables ("The 
 Good Samaritan," "The Lost Sheep," etc.), and in Jesus' own 
 conduct as with the woman taken in adultery, or in the works 
 of mercy recorded by Mark, but Jesus emphasizes it as belonging 
 to any real righteousness. "It is not the will of your Father 
 which is in heaven that one of these little ones should perish." ^ 
 That the will of the Father is compassionate is the whole teaching 
 of the parable of the Prodigal Son, and as our morality is to do 
 this will our morality must be tender and compassionate. This 
 made another point of strain between the teachings of Jesus and 
 the popular ritual conception of righteousness. Again Jesus 
 here consciously elaborates what he found, no doubt, in the 
 prophetical books. Matthew, for instance, cites Hosea 6 : 6 
 as a parallel to Jesus' reply to those who objected to his eating 
 with publicans and sinners,^ where the prophet says, "I desire 
 mercy and not sacrifice." He makes the compassionate will 
 of a father the basis for a personally compassionate morality. 
 It is this in the ethical teaching of Jesus that Nietzsche finds so 
 unsympathetic. It is opposed to the masterful aristocratic spirit 
 that has given us nearly all our systems of political economy, of 
 religion, and of morals. 
 
 IV. The morality of Jesus was, however, distinctly "non- 
 ascetic." This is seen not only in the impression he made as in 
 contrast with John the Baptist, "The son of man came eating 
 
 ' Matt. 5 : 20. = Matt. i8 : 14. » Matt. 9 : 13. 
 
64 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 and drinking, and they say behold a gluttonous man, and a wine- 
 bibber,"' and in the non-observance of his disciples of rules for 
 fasting, etc., but in the cardinal doctrine lying at the basis of 
 all his morality. For asceticism as a means of self-discipline 
 Jesus had no rebuke, although he evidently attached little im- 
 portance to it,^ but the ethical significance of asceticism is the 
 conception of self-mortification as a method of access to God. 
 For such asceticism Jesus had no place. Anything that hin- 
 dered access to the ethical Kingdom v^^as to be ruthlessly sacri- 
 ficed, hand, foot, or eye, but sacrificing the hand, foot, or eye 
 would not give any access to the ethical Kingdom.^ This was 
 the essence of the attitude of Jesus to riches. He saw in riches 
 the bulwark of class pride, and a barrier to personal perfection, 
 and he condemned them in that sense. At the same time mere 
 poverty was no means of access to God. The interpretation 
 put by Luke on the "sayings of Jesus" seems to favor the 
 asceticism that marked much early Christian thinking, and no 
 doubt as a means for ethical advance Jesus did regard ascetic 
 practices differently from the average ethical thought of to-day. 
 At the same time, even the expressions of Jesus on this sub- 
 ject, stripped of later interpretations, are singularly free from 
 ascetic practice, and permitted only as a means of self-disci- 
 pline for ethical life, and not as constituting the ethical life. 
 The matter of fasting , for instance, is nowhere condemned as 
 such, but as constituting an essential part of the outward religious 
 life of the Pharisees it is condemned.^ And it is nowhere recom- 
 mended, although presupposed as possible.^ The one passage 
 often quoted in its favor • has been omitted even by the Revised 
 Version as textually untenable. Whereas it is distinctly asserted 
 that his disciples did not fast.' 
 
 V. Jesus saw in righteousness a "good in itself," but the 
 poetical expressions of the "sayings-collection" speak also of 
 reward. At the same time the "reward" is given by a heavenly 
 
 ' Matt. II : 19. ' Matt. 9 : 14-17, friends of bridegroom. 
 
 * Mark 9 : 42-45. * Matt. 6 : 16-17. * Matt. 9 : 15. 
 
 * Matt. 17:21, "This kind gocth not out save," etc. ' Mark 2 : i8. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 65 
 
 Father and is carefully differentiated from the "thanks" that 
 sinners render to "sinners."^ The Father is to recompense 
 (the "openly" of Matthew is textually to be rejected).' Un- 
 questioningly and submissively and in secret righteousness is to 
 be wrought, and all "reward" awaited from the Father. The 
 character of the "reward" Jesus distinctly refused to define.^ 
 We are to aim at perfection as God is perfect, and he expects no 
 reward, " sending his rain upon the just and the unjust." * Who 
 loses his life finds it, if it is for Jesus' sake, i. e., for righteousness' 
 sake,* and a righteous man receives the appropriate righteous 
 man's reward.' 
 
 Undoubtedly Jesus looked forward to a coming Kingdom in 
 which these rewards were to be dispensed.^ In Luke the 
 "reward" is eternal life, in Matthew it is "thrones judging 
 Israel." It is impossible to say just how far Jesus went along 
 this line of apocalyptic revelation, or just what the really under- 
 lying thought was. The ethical advance was the connecting 
 even of the apocalyptic dream with a righteousness that in no 
 way bargains but trusts, and the severing of the very concep- 
 tion of "reward" from the coarse material aspects of it with 
 which even modern representations of heaven have often bur- 
 dened the thought. 
 
 VI. To the empiric morality of the day Jesus thus gives an 
 idealistic foundation. He probably accepted many of the cur- 
 rent ethical maxims of his generation uncritically. He, for 
 instance, passes no comment on slavery or monarchical institu- 
 tions as already there in force, nor did he in any way ethically 
 examine fundamental rights in property or in fact any of the 
 economical conditions whose ethical significance we are begin- 
 ning slowly to recognize. Caesar was Ceesar, and, as the acknowl- 
 edged authority even among the Jews, was one of the facts to be 
 taken for granted. At the same time the ethical inspirations of 
 
 » Luke 6:32. ' Matt. 6 : 4. 
 
 ' Mark 10 : 40. (Scene with the Sons of Zebedee.) * Matt. 5 : 45. 
 
 » Matt. 10 : 39. • Matt. 10 : 41. 
 ^ Matt. 19 : 28-29; Luke 18 : 29. 
 
66 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Jesus were bound to be critically applied to empiric morality 
 in every succeeding generation, with more or less success. 
 
 VII. The whole teaching of Jesus in regard to personal 
 morality had its real significance in its relation to the Kingdom 
 of God, This reign of Righteousness could only be introduced 
 and partaken of by those who had thus given themselves up to 
 "watching until their Lord should come." The establishment 
 of it was to be on the earth, "Thy will be done on earth even as 
 in heaven." The Kingdom Parables ^ reflect the fact that 
 Jesus expected that Kingdom suddenly and yet as the culmina- 
 tion of a divine process. It was to be sought for.^ It was at the 
 same time growing amidst unfavorable conditions.^ The search- 
 ing examination of the "Kingdom Parables," by Jiilicher/ sup- 
 ported as he is by Wendt and Weiss, make it impossible to use 
 with confidence the details of these parables as in any way re- 
 flecting the direct teaching of Jesus concerning his conception 
 of the Reign of Heaven. 
 
 The details, however, are not the important features. The 
 character of the Kingdom is steadily represented as a divine 
 fulfilment of righteousness on earth, introduced by calamity to 
 all wrong-doers; an ethical revolution with the establishment in 
 the world at large of a condition of things ideal in its peace and 
 justice. The ethical conceptions are enlargements of such 
 pictures as are found in the Exilic Isaiah.^ Jesus had compas- 
 sion on the multitude,^ and shared their national feeling, as 
 witnessed by his wonderful lament over Jerusalem.'' The re- 
 demption was not to be simply ethical, it was to be national and 
 race redemption. It is evident that the universalism of Jesus 
 had its basis in the prophetic conception of the ends of the earth 
 coming up to Jerusalem to see the standard of Jehovah, and 
 bringing with them the exiled wanderers scattered over the earth.* 
 That this proclamation of Jehovah was in the first instance a 
 
 ' Matt. 13. = Matt. 13 : 44. ^ Matt. 13 : 39-43. 
 
 *"Die Glcichnisrcden Jesu," vol. II, pp. 3-11, 128-133, 161-171, 514-538, 
 546-554, 569-581, 581-585. 
 ^X'- » 40 : 9-31, 41 : 1-20, 65 : 13-25, etc. • Matt. 6 : 34. 
 
 ^ Matt. 23 : 37, "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem!" ' Isaiah 49 : 22-23. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 67 
 
 judgment is also on a line with the prophetic conception. In the 
 despair of the solitary reformer before the massed corruption of 
 his time, nothing but a judgment and a revolution seems ade- 
 quate to effect the changes he sees must come. What differ- 
 entiated the revolution Jesus expected from the ordinary political 
 agitation was his reliance upon an ethically and spiritually 
 trained community whose existence would justify the judgment, 
 and whose office it would then be to exhibit the Reign of God. 
 
 This community was organized, so far as we can speak of 
 organization, on the old Hebrew democracy basis.^ The nations 
 had lords who exercised authority; it was not to be so in the 
 spiritual community. In it the " first among you shall be your 
 servant," for "the Son of man came not to be ministered unto 
 but to minister." It is doubtful, to say the least, whether Jesus 
 contemplated any rites or sacraments as marks of this commu- 
 nity, but he probably expected it to re-establish the spiritual 
 Judaism with which he had no quarrel. The relations that 
 were to bind men together were the bonds of obedience and 
 righteousness.^ Those doing the will of his Father were his 
 brethren and his sisters and his mother. These bonds were of a 
 more sacred character than flesh and blood, hence in the time 
 of ultimate stress these bonds would give way and brother would 
 deliver up brother to death, and the father his child.^ The 
 proclamation of this coming ethical Kingdom would, Jesus felt, 
 be attended with the same risks all such proclamations had to 
 run, but he had firm confidence that when the night should be 
 darkest suddenly would come the dawn and the light. All, 
 therefore, were to watch and continue patient in the hour of trib- 
 ulation, as knowing that the hour of deliverance was at hand. 
 
 VIII. The ethical teachings of Jesus were therefore grounded 
 in faith that God was to create a new spiritual and ethical com- 
 munity. He felt himself to be the herald of that coming King- 
 dom, and to be its founder and teacher. In a certain sense that 
 Kingdom was already potentially present,* as all the elements of 
 
 ' Matt. 20 : 20-28. ^ Matt. 12 : 46-50. 
 
 ' Matt. 10 : 21-22. * Luke 17 : 20-22. 
 
68 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 judgment and ethical change were in the atmosphere, although 
 its exact time of fruition could not be well determined. This 
 realization of righteousness was to be the ethical revelation of 
 God, the revealing of his heart and will. Jesus felt himself to 
 be a revealer of that Father's heart, and a declarer of the only 
 true life, that of union with that will and absolute obedience to 
 it. Whether in the buoyant confidence of his earlier proclama- 
 tion, when acceptance of his message by his own generation 
 seemed a possibility; or in the darkening glooms of Gethsemane, 
 when the day-dreams faded in the agony of great spiritual and 
 physical strain, Jesus held firmly to the ethical character of a lov- 
 ing Father, and looked with assurance past the struggles of 
 time to an overwhelming revelation of that compassionate and 
 righteous will in the perfected Kingdom on earth. Thus the 
 Reign of God became the real organizing ethical ideal and the 
 sustaining hope of Jesus' life. It was, no doubt, a bitter heart- 
 breaking disappointment to him that the nation refused to 
 accept his ethical ideals and to enter at once upon the estab- 
 lishment of the Kingdom. He, however, never wavered in his 
 faith that the Kingdom was to come, and when he turned to his 
 disciples it was not to found an institution for conquest, but a 
 spiritual ethical communion for proclamation. They were to 
 eat of his flesh and drink of his life and live his ideals, and thus 
 to share with him in the coming ethical triumphs of a redeemed 
 humanity. He could, therefore, make no compromises, because 
 his Kingdom was * not of this world, i. e., did not share its 
 ideals or its methods. Righteousness could not be established 
 on any basis but that of the unquestioned supremacy of the 
 Father's will. In the description of the temptations on the 
 mount, which no doubt reflects Jesus' pictorial account of his 
 struggle up to his ideal, Jesus represents himself as refusing 
 empire as the basis of the Kingdom, because empire involved 
 compromise and partial submission to another will than the 
 Father's. Jesus felt himself alone on the heights of his ethical 
 dreaming, and yet on the other hand such was the \ividness of 
 
 ' iK with the genitive is genitive of origin {^k tov K6ff^Lov). 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 69 
 
 his faith that he already saw empires faUing, and even then heard 
 the cries of victory in the coming sudden achievement. 
 
 In the earliest sources Jesus also linked the ethical triumph 
 of the Kingdom with the spiritual energy of his own life and 
 nature. He was himself the Bridegroom.* He could ''forgive 
 sin." ^ The Fourth Gospel only emphasizes what is already in 
 the "sayings." At the same time this energy is not magical, 
 but spiritual and ethical. The way of attainment is union with 
 him in doing the Father's will. 
 
 The organic basis, therefore, for the teaching of Jesus is 
 found in the realization of the loving will of God on earth and in 
 all human life, and in the revelation of God as essentially com- 
 passionate righteousness in the coming Kingdom. The dynamic 
 force by which this is to be realized is the love of God awakened 
 in men's hearts by the proclamation of his free forgiveness to 
 repentant men, enabling them to live the forgiven life. 
 
 Sin was separation from the Father, and meant misery and 
 death. Forgiveness brought men back to the Father's house 
 and gave them peace. This peace is here and now, but is to 
 be fully made manifest when the Prince of this World is fully 
 overcome and God reigns supreme. 
 
 II. THE ETHICS OF PAUL 
 
 The Pauline interpretation of Jesus is based upon his own 
 personal experience.^ Jesus grew up, as far as we know, in the 
 unchanging sense of perfect unity of life and will with his Father. 
 
 Literature. — Stevens, G. B.: "The Pauline Theory"; New York, 1892 
 revised edition, 1897. — Bruce, A. B.: "St. Paul's Conception of Christianity" 
 New York, 1894. — Sabatier, Auguste: "L'Apotre Paul"; 3d ed.; Paris, 1896 
 English translation by G. C. Findley, New York, 1891. — Pfleiderer, Otto: "Der 
 Paulinismus"; 2d ed.; Leipsic, 1890; also in English translation by E. Peters, 
 New York, 1885; in 2 vols.; London, 1877. — Juncker, Alfred: "Die Ethik des 
 Apostels Paulus"; Halle, 1904. — Titius: "Neutestamentliche Lehre von der 
 Seligkeit"; Freiberg, 1895-1900; 4 vols. — Ernesti, H. F.: "Die Ethik des Apos- 
 tels Paulus"; 3d ed.; Gottingen, 1880. 
 
 * Mark 2:19. ' Mark 2 : 5. 
 
 ' Gal. I : 11-17; cf. Acts 9 : 1-9. 
 
70 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 He had indeed advancing visions of his work and its methods,* 
 and he passed through critical periods in his spiritual develop- 
 ment as at Caisarea Philippi " or at Gethsemane,^ but there is 
 no evidence of any anxious searching for God or convulsive re- 
 action from sin, such as mark so generally the religious experi- 
 ences that have told upon the world's history (Augustine, 
 Francis of Assisi, Loyola, etc.). To love God with all his 
 heart and his neighbor as himself was for Jesus the natural and 
 inevitable outcome of the true relationship of the son to the 
 Father.* With Paul the case was very different. He w^orshipped 
 a just but exacting Ruler, and for him righteousness had consisted 
 in exact fulfilment of legal requirement. He longed to be 
 "righteous," and he had all the advantages of birth and training 
 for the attainment of a most distinguished career of righteous- 
 ness,^ and he had utterly failed.^ Paul, like Luther, found 
 no peace in the most exact ritual correctness. Suddenly he saw 
 God in Christ Jesus, no longer as stern law-giver, but as Re- 
 deeming Father, and entered upon the freedom of loving son- 
 ship.^ 
 
 Neither Jesus nor Paul had any serious quarrel with the 
 purer type of theological speculation prevalent in Judaism. 
 Paul is not primarily a speculative theologian. God was for 
 him one. His will was absolute and holy. He was present by 
 his spirit in the world. The age was evil, and yet the world 
 belonged to God and must one day acknowledge his governance. 
 The Scriptures could not be broken, and the law had been given 
 by Moses, and was holy. But Christ had died and fulfilled the 
 law. How this happened Paul illustrated to himself from 
 Hebrew history rather than cleared it up by any intellectual 
 process.^ Prophecy had foretold the Messianic conquest of the 
 whole earth, and Paul's Christology moves in tlic region of 
 Messianic hope of the more spiritual and ethical character. The 
 risen Christ was coming again, and God in Christ Jesus was the 
 
 ' Matt. 4 : i-ii. - Mark 8 : 27-9 -.2. ' Mark 14 : 32-42. 
 
 * Matt. 22 : 34-40. '^ Phil. 3 : 4-6. • Rom. 7 : 7-24. 
 
 ' Gal. 4 : 1-7. * Rom. 9 and 10. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 71 
 
 Christian hope of glory/ In Jesus the Jewish dream of sonship 
 with Jehovah had been completely fulfilled, and we in union 
 with Jesus could enter upon that sonship and cry Abba, Father! 
 
 In the Messianic death and resurrection the whole legal 
 structure of the past had reached its climax and end. Hence- 
 forth there only remained the proclamation of the Messianic 
 hope, the establishment of the Messianic group, and the spread- 
 ing abroad of the good news that Jesus fulfilled the Messianic 
 faith, and the waiting for the consummation of the new age in 
 which corruption and rebellion, sin and defilement would have 
 no place. 
 
 This sinless new age takes with Paul the place of "the Reign 
 of God," as Jesus used that term. Paul no more than Jesus 
 ever ceased to be a loyal Jew in thought, in hope, or in expression. 
 Wliat Hellenistic culture he may have had contact with in 
 Tarsus made no impression upon his fundamental view of the 
 world, and it is exceedingly dangerous to a right understanding 
 of Paul to use Greek categories in exchange for the Jewish ones 
 in which Paul's thought so wholly moves. In Paul ethics was 
 linked with a profound spiritual experience, and became a 
 religious force for reorganizing a world socially and economically 
 as well as morally and politically bankrupt. 
 
 Stoicism had no such saving force, for it was aristocratic, cold, 
 unemotional, individualistic, and non-religious. Oriental re- 
 ligious fervors had no final saving power because they were de- 
 spondent and essentially non-ethical. Neoplatonism was rela- 
 tively barren because only within the reach of those who needed it 
 least, and was loaded down with crude and false views of the 
 world and life. Pauline Christianity swept with a mighty re- 
 ligious enthusiasm over a fevered and disorganized life, and 
 brought with it new views of God's loving purpose and splendid 
 vistas of ethical triumphs and coming victory over the world 
 of sin and death. 
 
 The Pauline literature on which we may with assurance rely 
 for a reconstruction of his essential message is mainly polemical. 
 
 '■ I Thess., and captivity letters. 
 
72 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Leaving aside the vexed question of the doubtful epistles, 
 Timothy, Titus, and II Thessalonians, we have two main 
 groups of writings in which Paul unfolds very fully his ethical 
 system. His main interest was ethical in both groups, but the 
 background of the first group is theological and of the second 
 Christological. To the first group belong Galatians, Romans, 
 and the two letters to Corinth, as well as the first letter to the 
 Thessalonians; in the second group are to be reckoned Philip- 
 pians, Ephesians, and Colossians. And in Philemon we have 
 a fine illustration of Paul's ethical method. 
 
 The first group of letters deals mainly with the ethical content 
 of the word " righteous," and the second group treats in the main 
 of the springs of ethical conduct. These divisions are not and 
 could not be sharply made. Paul was dealing practically with 
 the extreme ethical needs of dreadfully neglected human life. 
 The nearest approach to a systematic treatise is the letter to the 
 Romans, and its relatively abstract and systematic form may 
 in part be due to the fact that he was writing to a church with 
 which as such he was not personally acquainted. We will then 
 deal first with the content of the ethical life. 
 
 I. Paul had no idea of breaking with Judaism any more 
 than had his great master, but Judaism had to undergo an essen- 
 tial change if it was to fulfil its Messianic mission.* Legal 
 exactness was no substitute for essential righteousness. The 
 proclamation of the secondary character of the "Torah" at 
 once exposed Paul to honest and excited criticism by Jew and 
 Jewish Christian alike. As a matter of most profound experi- 
 ence the Jewish community saw in their legal and ceremonial 
 observances the only effective barriers between them and their 
 children and the horrible corruptions of the slave-ridden world 
 about them. The Jewish home was not what it should have 
 been,^ but it maintained itself in relative security against the 
 awful deluge described in Rom. i : 24-32 and chiefly because 
 of the separations resulting from the law. 
 
 To the pious Jewish Christian the only way to the morality 
 
 » Rom. 1 1 : 1-24. ' John 7 : 53-8 : 1 1. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 73 
 
 of Jesus was to become a Jew as Jesus had been a Jew, and 
 when Paul's converts at Galatia went uncircumcised and 
 Sabbathless they naturally remonstrated. Moreover, when 
 Paul was cited as an authority for such lawless conduct they quite 
 naturally attacked his apostolic authority, and denounced him 
 as "lawless," a destroyer of morality, and as dangerous to the 
 purity of the church. 
 
 The poor Galatians were much taken aback, and followed the 
 directions of the new teachers; upon which Paul wrote the 
 immortal defence of his religious experience and apostolic char- 
 acter which we have in Galatians. There he asserts the freedom 
 of sonship with God,* and the fulfilment of the whole law 
 in the one word "love." ^ But wherever he now went it was 
 only to meet the suspicions, charges, and hatred engendered by 
 his very radical treatment of legalism. Hence in preparing his 
 way for work in Rome he puts his argument in still more syste- 
 matic form as we have it in the wonderful treatise to the Romans. 
 
 It must be remembered in reading Romans, first that Paul had 
 no quarrel with the theology of his critics, and secondly that the 
 book is throughout, and not in the last chapters only, an ethical 
 treatise. --' 
 
 The charge against Paul was that he was undermining moral- 
 ity, and was anarchistic and dangerous to the home and church 
 life of the really God-fearing community. He mingled with the 
 uncircumcised and ate with the unclean: hence his critics hon- 
 estly thought of him as an immoral man, as the average High- 
 land Scotchman would now regard the Sabbath observance of 
 even a pious German as stamping him as unchristian. Paul 
 was for the pious Jewish-Christians a corrupter of youth, and 
 they saw in him a tendency toward all kinds of ethical looseness 
 and license. To this charge Paul addresses himself. 
 
 Paul was therefore compelled to deal fully with the real content 
 of the word righteous.^ With great tact therefore, after the 
 first greeting, he puts himself en rapport with his readers by 
 
 » Gal. 5:1. ^ Gal. 5 : 14. 
 
 ' P^'^? dlKaios or in its abstract form ^il"!? diKatoffijvr]. 
 
74 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 sharply denouncing in almost fierce abruptness the hideous sins 
 of the heathen world which he was charged with condoning, but 
 which he hates as they hate them, and for which he has a remedy. 
 He is not ashamed of his gospel; it is a divine dynamic making 
 for " righteousness." ^ It excludes absolutely the dreadful doings 
 described in Rom. i : 18-32 against which God's just wrath 
 is revealed. Paul puts himself at once on record as having no 
 patience or sympathy with the man who leaves Judaism simply 
 that he may be free to sink in this pool of corruption.^ God will 
 judge all, and his wrath will mete out to all according to conduct.' 
 From this judgment none can escape by simply leaving Judaism. 
 
 But, alas, Paul goes on to show, there are Jews who glory in 
 the law, are ceremonially correct, who deem themselves guides 
 to the heathen, but who as a matter of fact cause God's name to 
 be blasphemed by their immoralities, so that it should be apparent 
 to all that mere ritual correctness was not "righteousness." 
 These Jews were ritually correct! Hence, he argues, Judaism 
 is not a letter but a spirit. Circumcision must be of the heart.* 
 
 This dreadful experience of the powerlcssness of ritual and 
 legal correctness to really keep a man pure raised a fearful 
 question. The Jew had suffered terribly for his faith. The 
 pious Jew saw in "righteousness" for himself and loved ones the 
 reward of his faithfulness. If the law could not secure this 
 then all his sufferings were in vain. "What did it profit" to be 
 a Jew and suffer the exclusions and ignominies of circumcision? "^ 
 
 Paul's answer to this question is wholly ethical in its interest, 
 and is very noble and lofty in character. He makes four points, 
 the last one in the fifth chapter, after a long parenthesis. First, 
 to the Jew belongs the high honor of a peculiar service. To him 
 were committed the oracles of God. He at least might know 
 the will of God.* Secondly, although the Jew has not kept 
 the law, this was his unrighteousness and reveals simply the fact 
 that he is with the Greeks under a common condemnation, all 
 have sinned, and all will be judged. Thirdly, but as God is the 
 
 ' Rom. I : 16. * Rom. 2 : 1-16. ' Rom. 2 : 6. 
 
 * Rom. 2 : 17-29. * Rom. 3:1. ' Rom. 3 : 2-8. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 75 
 
 God of both the Jew and the Gentile, so he has provided a 
 righteousness, and made it manifest which is by faith in Jesus 
 Christ, set forth to be a mercy seat through faith, and this right- 
 eousness is accessible to all Jews and Gentiles, and the sins 
 done before time are borne with in the goodness and forbear- 
 ance of God, so that a man is justified apart from all legal cor- 
 rectness, and both the circumcision and the uncircumcision are 
 justified by faith. 
 
 At this point the historical question emerges which Paul seeks 
 to meet. All recognized the fact that Abraham was "8iKaLo<;,'^ 
 or a "righteous man." Now Paul links all "righteousness" with 
 a dynamic faith in Christ, and so seems to leave no place for 
 Abraham. With great dialectic skill Paul turns the objection 
 into an argument for his position. He makes three points. 
 (a) Abraham's righteousness was "reckoned to him" and was 
 therefore of grace and not of works,* a fact that David regarded 
 as a blessing, (b) This righteousness, moreover, was reckoned 
 to him while yet uncircumcised, that he might be the father of 
 all who live in faith outside circumcision; ^ and so, as no part of 
 the ritual law is more important than circumcision, it is evident 
 that it is a mere seal of something more vital, i. e., of the faith 
 needed by both the circumcision and the uncircumcision for the 
 attainment of true "righteousness." (c) Hence he who would 
 become a " SiKaioi;, " or righteous man, must not imitate only the 
 outward sign, but take part in the vitalizing faith which made 
 Abraham the father of the faithful.^ 
 
 Paul thus makes it clear that he has no legal forgiveness in 
 mind, but a dynamic force that will actually enable a man to live 
 the righteous life. And this dynamic is of grace, through the 
 love of God shed abroad in our hearts in Christ Jesus.^ The 
 fifth chapter is given up to the exposition of the gift of God by 
 grace of a free forgiveness on the basis of one act of righteousness, 
 as sin came by one act of disobedience. Sin came as a dynamic 
 for unrighteousness, and this loving faith appears as a dynamic 
 for producing righteousness. This brings Paul back to his 
 
 * Rom. 4 : 3-8. ^ Rom. 4:11. ' Rom. 4 : 23-25. * Rom. 5 : 5. 
 
76 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 argument concerning the function of the law, and he argues, 
 fourthly and lastly, that the law came in to make trespass 
 abound that grace might still more abound. 
 
 This was no doubt one of the points Paul had often argued, 
 and to which objection must have been most strongly taken. 
 "What," said the objectors, "shall we continue in sin that grace 
 may abound?" This was the charge of lawlessness so often 
 levelled at Paul, and he meets it at once. "No," he exclaims in 
 the sixth chapter, "let this never be so!" We are dead to sin. 
 His answer is a twofold one. (i) We are in vital union with 
 Jesus Christ, who died once to sin, and rose, and we are arisen 
 in the likeness of his resurrection. This is Paul's teaching of a 
 vital, mystic union with the risen Christ, by which an actual 
 force for living the righteous life becomes ours.^ (2) We are 
 now bond-servants of righteousness as once we were bond- 
 servants of unrighteousness. We are free from sin as once we 
 were free from righteousness. We must therefore now bring 
 forth fruit unto holiness as we once brought forth fruit unto 
 iniquity, and the wages of sin is death, the gift of God is eternal 
 life.^ For Paul ethical purity is life and unrighteousness is 
 death. 
 
 Paul thus only pushes to its logical outcome the old prophetic 
 description of Jehovah. He is righteousness, and to share his 
 life is to live righteously. And we share his life in union with 
 the risen Christ, for Paul in the seventh chapter pushes the 
 image of death to all outward legal regulation, and life to a 
 spirit of righteousness, under the figure drawn from the marriage 
 relation.' Then he plunges into personal experience. The 
 law has revealed to him in the past his utter helplessness. The 
 law was holy but could only flash its light upon the darkness of a 
 helpless longing. It was powerless to gi\e peace. For even 
 while Paul felt in his mind the holiness of the law, he had no 
 power in his flesh to keep its precepts. 
 
 Then came deliverance. The spirit of life * in Christ Jesus 
 brought the power to subdue the flesh and its passions; as Christ 
 
 ' Rom. 6 : 2-14. " Rom. 6 : 15-23 ' Rom. 7 : 1-6. * Rom. 8 : 2. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 77 
 
 Jesus condemned sin in the flesh and gained control of it, so 
 all who are not in the flesh, i. e., living in its ideals and bond- 
 servants to its passions, by union with him may live the life of 
 the spirit. Here, then, Paul develops his teaching of an ethical 
 dualism as a matter of profound personal experience. There is ^ 
 a mind of the flesh {a-cip^) and a mind of the spirit. This mind 
 of the flesh has a natural aflfinity with the body (aMfia) and the 
 mind of the spirit a natural affinity to the human spirit, but it is 
 not at all clear that Paul so far left the healthy thought of all 
 Judaism as to think of the body as in itself evil. It was only 
 the seat of this antagonistic principle, and would be redeemed by 
 the spirit of Him who raised up Christ Jesus.^ Thus we enter 
 upon our highest freedom when we are raised as sons of God 
 with Christ Jesus and cry Abba, Father! ' 
 
 The closing part of the eighth chapter is a splendid identifica- 
 tion of all suffering with the redemptive life and suffering of 
 Christ Jesus just so far as these sufferings bind us to the love of 
 God in Christ Jesus, from which naught can separate us. Thus 
 for Paul aU the suffering of the world points to a coming re- 
 demption, for nothing can separate us from such love as God 
 has revealed in Christ Jesus. 
 
 At this point Paul again interrupts his argument to defend him- 
 self against the charge of an unpatriotic depreciation of Judaism. 
 Nothing is dearer to his heart, and he could wish himself sepa- 
 rated even from Christ for his brethren's sake.* He revels in 
 the glorious history of past possession of God.^ At the same 
 time he must also recognize the fact of a dual Israel. There is a 
 spiritual Israel, larger than the circumcision, * and this spiritual 
 Israel is not such by virtue of any works or legal claims, but 
 simply in the inscrutable election of an omnipotent God, making 
 vessels of wrath as the potter makes his dishes, willing to show 
 both his power and his goodness.' Paul is dealing here in no 
 sense with the philosophical question of freedom, which could 
 
 'Rom. 8:6. ^ Rgm g . jo_ii, » Rom. 8 : 12-17. 
 
 * Rom. 9:3. * Rom. 9:5. ^ Rom. 9 : 8. 
 
 ^ Rom. 9 : 19-29. 
 
78 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 hardly arise from his stand-point, but with ethical freedom 
 within the limits set by the omnipotent purpose of God. It is 
 a national election to special service with which Paul deals in 
 the famous ninth chapter, and he charges Israel with failure as 
 pronounced as that of the nations to attain to righteousness, 
 and for the same reason — they sought it not by faith but by 
 ritual correctness, whereas the nations who now seek it in faith 
 do attain to it/ 
 
 Paul argues further that this confusion of legal correctness 
 with actual righteousness is what is hindering even those who 
 have a zeal for God among the Israelites;^ hence it has hap- 
 pened that the nations have entered in where Judaism has 
 failed.^ Not, indeed, that Judaism has completely failed. 
 There remains a large remnant * whom God's grace has spared 
 and chosen, and indeed the Gentiles will need to remember 
 that if God did not spare the tree onto which he grafted the 
 Gentile church, no more will he spare the branches if they fail 
 to stand in that righteousness which Paul regards as the goal of 
 all being and the secret of all life. He hopes, moreover, that 
 Israel will be provoked into a saving faith by the Gentile church, 
 and to this end he pleads for that complete consecration of life 
 (__to the perfect will of God which alone is rational service.^ 
 ^ What, then, is the content of this righteous life ? In pursuit of 
 ' his plan to demonstrate the ethical character of his gospel, 
 Paul goes on to explicate the actual content of the ethical life. 
 He deals first with the personal temper and attitude of the 
 ethical man,® including the forgiveness of enemies and the 
 overcoming evil with good. Then he sketches the ethical life 
 in its relations to the social organization, thought of, however, 
 as an outside power,' and to the social organization thought of 
 in the second place as neighborhood,^ and then to the community 
 of faith thought of as organized in a religious community,*' and 
 so he closes the ethical treatise with an exhortation to common 
 
 ' Rom. 9 : 30-33. ^ Rom. 10 : 1-3. ' Rom. 10 : 21. ' Rom. 11 : 4-5. 
 
 * Rom. 12 : 1-2. " Rom. 12 : 3-21. ' Rom. ij : 1-7. ' Rom. 13 : 8-14. 
 
 * Rom. 14 : I- 1 5 : 7. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 79 
 
 work and personal testimony to the ethical effectiveness of his 
 proclamation of which so many seem afraid. ^ 
 
 The content of righteousness is therefore, according to Paul, ' 
 loving faith working out the will of God in all life. He opposes to 
 all ritual and legal correctness the spirit of loving obedience by 
 faith in God as seen in the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus 
 Christ. From this loving faith will proceed that which the law 
 failed to produce, the really ethical life. 
 
 Thus the ethics of Paul are based on the liberty of loving son- 
 ship through faith in Christ Jesus. For Paul this faith was 
 dynamic in character, a force that alone could overcome sin 
 and death and give victory over the world. This was his 
 own personal experience. What the authority of law, perfectly 
 and sincerely recognized as holy, could not do in producing 
 ethical character, because of the weakness of the flesh, he found 
 could be done by faith working through love. 
 
 Throughout Romans the contrast is between faith (Trio-Tt?) 
 and law (w>09), but in chapter 5:5 the "love of God" 
 {a^d-TTT) Tov deov) is spoken of as the spring of action, and Jesus 
 Christ is the standing evidence of the love of God. The supreme 
 sacrifice of love is a revelation of the Father's love and redeeming 
 purpose overcoming the wrath of God (opY?; tov deov). The 
 transition, however, from faith to love, and the ultimate identi- 
 fication of the two, is not fully made in Romans. 
 
 In his letters, however, to the church at Corinth, the ethical 
 system of Paul has a further practical unfolding. 
 
 To the man or community used to the pressure of external 
 coercion, and accustomed to make such external coercion the 
 measure of morality, the first period of freedom is fraught with 
 danger. Liberty to do right degenerates into license to do evil. 
 The boy at college after the strict discipline of a home, the 
 church after the Reformation, and the litde religious community 
 at Corinth are but examples of the common historical happening. 
 Paul's doctrine of freedom from the outward coercion of law, 
 and subjection to the inward coercion of faith working by love 
 was not only misunderstood by his foes, but misinterpreted by 
 
8o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 those who thought themselves his friends. The thing Paul's 
 enemies charged his gospel with — lawlessness — appeared in 
 Corinth. No man and no community was ever quite "ripe" for 
 the full exercise of ethical freedom. We learn by our mistakes 
 and abuses. The community at Corinth broke up into quarrel- 
 ling sects, and fornication appeared in a most disgusting shape. 
 All sorts of questions of casuistry, some exceedingly intricate, 
 appeared. For Paul it seemed very simple to decide at any 
 moment just what was the "loving thing" to do, but for raw, 
 ignorant followers there was wanting both his religious genius 
 and the trained purpose. 
 
 Even Paul was not always able to separate between social 
 conventions and ethical laws, as in his treatment of woman's 
 dress.^ And Paul himself begins the substitution of " tradition " ^ 
 for the body of legal enactment he so firmly rejected, and he 
 himself laid the foundation for a judging and condemning com- 
 munity with the power of the social ban, and even the assumption 
 of divine authority in inflicting the penalty for the soul's sake.^ 
 
 At the same time he knew what must be at the root of the new 
 life, and the letter to Corinth introduces another antithesis. 
 The danger of substituting for "faith" a "knowledge" (71/600-19) 
 or "wisdom" {co^Ca) was peculiarly Hellenistic. Paul real- 
 ized that not upon knowledge any more than on the outward 
 coercions of a legal system could the ethical life be built. Hence, 
 after meeting the pressing questions of discipline and casuistry 
 forced upon him by the disorders of Corinth, he develops that 
 which he only hints at in Romans, his doctrine of the effective 
 spring of ethical action. This spring is love (aydTrrj). 
 
 Faith and hope function constantly, but love remains the 
 eternal spring of life and action. In this letter Paul uses also 
 the phrase " Kingdom of God," * but it has not the same content 
 that the phrase bears in the synoptic usage, but rather only one 
 side of that content, the eschatological. 
 
 ' I Cor. II : 2-16. 
 
 ' Kadut iraplbdiKa vfiiv, rij irapaZbvui Atarax*'''*- I Cor. 1 1 : a. 
 
 »I Cor. 5 :3-7. *! Cor. 15 : 50. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 8i 
 
 The triumph of the new age was to culminate with the reap- 
 pearance of the risen Lord, and all would be changed: mortality 
 (to OvrjTov) would put on incorruption {a^OapaCa), the goal 
 of the ethical endeavor would be fully realized in the Messianic 
 reign. This eschatology is bound up with the ethical struggle in 
 the first letter to the Thessalonians/ This new life of sanctifi- 
 cation is already the new age, but the consummation is not yet, 
 and comes as a thief in the night, bringing condemnation to the 
 wicked and splendid justification to those appointed unto salva- 
 tion in Christ Jesus.^ The whole scheme of Jewish rewards 
 and punishments, fitting but badly as it does into the Pauline 
 ethical construction, is, however, always there, and indeed forms 
 at times a very real moment.' The content of the righteous life, 
 the purity, peace, goodness, and all the fruits of the spirit, * are 
 to have a timeless exemplification in the new age. 
 
 IV. The character of the love which is with Paul the spring 
 of ethical action finds its fullest exposition in the letters ^ to the 
 Philippians, Ephesians and Colossians. The type is found 
 in the humble loving service of Christ Jesus.* The mind of 
 Jesus is to be in us, and we are to know in it the power of his 
 resurrection, the fellowship of his sufferings, and are to be con- 
 formed to his death.' This identification in suffering and service 
 is to be so complete that the believer fills out what was lacking 
 in the redemptive sufferings of Christ.^ This love is primarily 
 for the "household of faith," ^ but the whole "Kingdom of the 
 Son of his love," ^^ and then the whole new order is the ultimate 
 object of this loving service. In these letters the writer is forced 
 to oppose the life of service in love as the spring of action to 
 "philosophy and vain deceit" " proposed as a substitute. The 
 mystic union of the church with the risen Christ, as a loving 
 
 * As II Thessalonians furnishes the ethical student no new point of view, it is 
 for us unimportant to discuss its genuine Pauline character. 
 
 2 1 Thess. 5:9. 'I Cor. 15 : 12-19. * Gal. 5 : 22. 
 
 * These letters are Pauline, whether by Paul or no, and represent the progress 
 of his thought. ^ Phil. 2 : i-ii. '' Phil. 3 : 10-16. 
 
 » Col. I : 24. " Gal. 6 : 10. '"Col. 1 : 13. 
 
 " Col. 2 : 8. 
 
V 
 
 82 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 fellowship, becomes more and more his theme/ and each letter 
 ends with practical exhortation and explication of the sanctified 
 life. Salvation is indeed sanctification,^ it is light as over against 
 darkness. Christ is to dwell in our hearts through faith that 
 we may be rooted in love.^ And more and more Christ Jesus 
 becomes for the writer the absolute and complete manifestation 
 of the Father's loving redeeming will. 
 
 This loving divine will is to be our will, this love our love, and 
 if this be the case then in the true freedom of sons we live the 
 life of complete service, and evil will not be so much as named 
 among us as becomes "holy ones." ^ This conception of the 
 community of " holy ones" is taken from the Old Testament, but 
 the spring of action is no longer fear and the coercions of an 
 external law, but an actual indwelling of the invisible but risen 
 Christ, who is present in the holy community for their complete 
 sanctification, and who will ultimately reveal himself in his body 
 which is the church.^ 
 
 For the writer the spiritual man as such could not sin, but we 
 are still in the flesh (eV t^ aapKi) and have temptations of the 
 flesh, as in Gal. 4 : 13-15, which must be overcome, and he 
 does not count himself as having laid hold of but as pressing on 
 to the prize,* hence his practical experience taught him that 
 those who were "spiritual" must restore such as were taken in 
 a fault, in the spirit of meekness, lest they also be tempted/ and 
 discipline of the flesh was necessary to maintain the supremacy 
 of the spirit.^ The spiritual life on earth was a conflict, and that 
 not with things visible, but with the invisible ; not simply against 
 flesh and blood, but against spiritual wickedness,® and the final 
 triumph would come only with the appearance of the Lord and 
 the complete establishment of the sinless age.'" The dualism of 
 Paul is therefore ethical and not metaphysical. The flesh is 
 only the occasion of sin and is not in itself sinful, and spiritual 
 forces are mustered on both sides of the conflict. 
 
 * Eph. 3 : 1-19. ' Eph. 5 : 1-14. ' Eph. 3:17. * Eph. 5 : 3. 
 "Col. 1:24. « Phil. 3 : 13-14. 'Gal. 6:1. » I Cor. 9 : 27. 
 
 * Trvtu/ittTiKA T^s irovTjplai Eph. 6:12. '"I Thess. 4 : 13-18. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 83 
 
 About the nature of the resurrection body Paul did not care 
 too closely to inquire; it would, however, be free from corrup- 
 tion and be spiritually complete/ This hope was based upon 
 the triumph of Christ over death and the grave, whose power and 
 sting were sin.^ The ultimate triumph is ethical, and the goal 
 the establishment of a kingdom of love and of righteousness, in 
 which all members have their place and function, and without 
 envy or jealousy,^ with Christ Jesus as the head and this com- 
 munity as his body.* 
 
 In the application of his fundamental principle to the conduct 
 of life, with which Paul closes all his main treatments^ and 
 which adorn all hi letters, Paul deals largely with the personal 
 life and the life of the small ecclesiastical community. The 
 early Christian could not be held responsible for that social 
 order, which Jesus and Paul rightly regarded as rapidly passing 
 away and as in itself condemned. Any social order was, how- 
 ever, ordained of God, and obedience to it within the limits of 
 the primary obedience to Christ was the duty of every Christian.® 
 In the beautiful little note to Philemon returning him a slave 
 whom Paul had converted to the hope of the gospel, Paul puts 
 the whole relationship between man and man on such a basis 
 that its logic excludes not only slavery but most of what to-day 
 is held as being legitimate in the wage-relationship, as the slave- 
 relationship was held legitimate in Paul's time. 
 
 Onesimus was to be received as a brother, and in the well- 
 regulated family the brother is neither exploited nor devoured. 
 Brotherhood does not exclude service, and the slave is to remain 
 a slave if God so wills ^ (Philemon 13), but it includes mutual 
 service,* and the bond is not financial profit, but love in Christ 
 Jesus. 
 
 The holy community was one of activity, and working with the 
 hands for daily bread was a Christian obligation in which Paul 
 
 » I Cor. IS : 35-45. == I Cor. 15 : 55-56. ' I Cor. 12:12-31. 
 
 * I Cor. 12 : 27. 
 
 * Rom. 12 : 1-15 : 4; Gal. 5 : 13-6 : 10; Eph. 4 : 25-6 : 20; Phil. 3 : 1-4 : 9; 
 Col. 3 : 5-4 : 6 * Rom. 13 : 1-6. ' I Cor. 7:21. * Philem. 19. 
 
84 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 himself had his share. So that the saying in II Thess. 3 : 10 
 and the account there given of Paul's habit, if not from his 
 pen, is certainly in accord with his habit and spirit. 
 
 On sexual purity Paul naturally laid great stress, as the 
 family is with him as with Jesus the constant type of the recon- 
 structed society, and the relationship of husband to wife the 
 most fitting figure of the relationship of Christ to his church.' 
 To defile the body was, for Paul, to defile the temple of the Holy 
 Spirit, to make a member of Christ's body impure.^ The virt- 
 ues Paul emphasizes are those of spirit and heart, and the simple 
 daily life of the average convert is glorified by making it a com- 
 munion with God in Christ Jesus, 
 r When one contrasts the ideal character as drawn from Paul's 
 letters with any reasonable fulfilment of Plato's ideal, one is 
 struck with the softer, tenderer, more child-like conception. The 
 self-centred, almost haughty, aristocratic righteousness of the 
 good man, the just citizen, the noble patriot, the loving friend, 
 and true seeker after truth in Plato's dialogues seems cold and 
 beautiful as a Grecian marble, compared to the loving gentleness 
 of the Christian ideal. Not indeed that Paul's picture is ful- 
 filled either in the feminine type or the monkish ideal, but in the 
 warmer, softer lines we recognize a distinctly new ethical ideal 
 emerging from the religious enthusiasm born of his contact with 
 Christ Jesus. 
 
 His picture of the relation of husband to wife, of child 
 to parent, of fellow-Christian to fellow-Christian, whether bond 
 or free, of citizen even to the oppressive and passing social order, 
 is entirely different from any painted even on the heights of 
 Roman Stoicism or amidst the beauties of Platonic ideals. 
 
 Most striking and impressive is the vision of God in the face 
 of Christ Jesus as Paul saw and proclaimed him. The right- 
 eousness of God is no legal exactness, no unrelenting enforcement 
 of holy law. God's grace is free; we are the free sons of a Father 
 whose love has been not only exhibited but poured out in the 
 life and blood of his Son, and what that Father longs for is our 
 
 ' Eph. s : 22-33. ' I Cor. 6 : 12-20. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 85 
 
 sanctification, that we may be companions of his holiness and 
 sit together in heavenly places with Christ Jesus. 
 
 This is not the place to discuss especially the dogmatic system 
 of the Pauline letters. It is easy to show that as we have them 
 Christology is not quite clear or self-consistent, and that the 
 doctrine of redemption moves in lines still Judaistic. Perhaps 
 had we more of Paul's teaching, or had it in a less polemical 
 form, some things now obscure might be cleared up, though it is 
 equally possible that more difficulties would arise. 
 
 Such was Paul's genius and so lofty and splendid his ethical 
 point of view that he could not make room for the real diffi- 
 culties his doctrine of ethical freedom raises. We all come out 
 from authority timidly and looking back to the easy flesh-pots 
 of past slavery. Few men shake off the chains wholly. The 
 strain is tremendous, and Paul's poor little household churches 
 seemed from any past race-experience wholly unfitted for the 
 struggle. Paul's faith was in the supernatural indwelling grace 
 of the forgiven life, but more than once he had to appeal to his 
 own authority and even to threaten with spiritual penalty. But 
 where, then, is the spiritual independence? Who is to decide 
 between Paul claiming independence of even the apostles,* and 
 some prophet claiming independence of Paul? The church 
 was to try the spirits whether they were of God or not, but by 
 what standard? The only answer Paul could give was "by my 
 gospel." Paul himself had to go back to a tradition for the ad- 
 ministration of the communion feast, as "received from the 
 Lord," ^ and even with him the traditions were not lightly to be 
 despised. He himself felt that even while throwing aside a 
 whole system of past legal enactment, in some way its perfection 
 and completeness had to be maintained and defended. 
 
 Practically Paul seems to have sought to answer the question 
 along the only lines possible. He founded organizations charged 
 with the task of oversight and control. He could not foresee 
 that there would arise out of this organization a legalism and 
 spiritual tyranny as oppressive as the synagogue ever was, and 
 
 ' Gal. 2 : 1-21. ' I Cor. 11 : 23-29. 
 
86 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 vested with completer political and judicial powers than was 
 ever the Sanhedrin. The ethical systems of Jesus and Paul 
 are for mature minds. Undeveloped human life lends itself to 
 tyranny, the weak long for shifted responsibility, the strong 
 eagerly grasp the opportunity for exploitation. 
 
 Jesus founded no church and laid no stress on any ritual or 
 sacramentarian system, but Jesus was taken from his followers 
 before the movement compelled organization. Paul and the 
 apostles were faced by conditions that compelled organization, 
 and the ethical system of Paul presupposed an organization 
 sufficiently sanctified and transformed by vital union with the 
 redeeming purpose of God in Christ Jesus to be entrusted with 
 loving fraternal authority, as he felt he could himself be in- 
 trusted with the paternal authority, an authority that has as its 
 goal not feeding children always with milk, but developing men 
 and women free in Christ Jesus to do righteousness. 
 
 The early Christians, however, were not freemen, they were 
 only freedmen. Paul was not understood,^ and his words were 
 wrested by more than the ignorant and unsteadfast. To some 
 the freedom in Christ Jesus meant, in spite of all Paul could do, 
 license and antinomianism; to others his organization was a 
 permanent source of power not for the training of independent 
 spiritual life, but for holding in spiritual subjection, of course 
 for their professed ultimate good, men and women. 
 
 In all ages multitudes readily seek refuge from distracting but 
 educative questioning in the dogmatisms of priestly and legal 
 systems. Paul himself had sought peace in such surrender to a 
 hierarchy. It was the last thing his spirit would have desired 
 to establish again another hierarchy as exacting. Yet that is 
 exactly what happened. In the system of Paul are the germs of 
 all that came after. For weal or woe an organization sprang up 
 that would have been an historic impossibility without his 
 activity, which changed the dynamic into status, and gave to the 
 world the hierarchy whose ethical systems it will become later 
 our task to take up. 
 
 « II Pet. 3 : i6. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 87 
 
 III. THE ETHICS OF THE JOHANNINE INTERPRETATION OF JESUS 
 
 As time pa'ssed the Jewish-Christian danger of narrowness 
 and legahsm had seemingly been overcome. Paul's ministry 
 was no longer doubted, and the tragic fate of Jerusalem finally 
 handed the hegemony of the Christian organization over to the 
 Gentile section. At the same time the Jewish world was still 
 the door through which Christianity was passing into the world's 
 history, although it was now the Hellenized cosmopolitan 
 Judaism which was scattered over the whole world, but which 
 we know best through Philo and his following in Alexandria.^ 
 And now the danger was a complicated one. Redemption 
 was the theme of this religious view of the world against which, 
 perhaps rather instinctively than with full consciousness of what 
 it was, Paul and John protest. This redemption from darkness, 
 error, and sin was thought of by the various sects and mysteries 
 as essentially freedom from the body, and this freedom, it was 
 taught, could be gained by initiation into various cults and by 
 learning mystic formulas in connection with equally mystic 
 rites. Even Judaism began to identify "wisdom" with these 
 formulae, and to interpret its own primitive ceremonial in terms 
 of the various astronomical and vegetal cycles which gave char- 
 acter to these oriental sects. ^ 
 
 Even Paul's own teaching of the risen Christ, known hence- 
 forth not after the fiesh,^ seemed to give a common standing- 
 
 LiTERATURE. — The best of the large literature is collected by Schmiedel, 
 P. W., in Cheyne's "Encyclopaedia Biblica," and by Reynolds, H. R., in 
 Hastings's "Bible Dictionary"; cf. also Sanday, "Authorship and Historii 
 Characters of the Fourth Gospel"; New York, 1905. — Holtzmann, H. J.: 
 "Johannes-Evangelium," in his "Hand-Commentar zum N. T.," 1890, and 
 Bacon, B. W.: "The Fourth Gospel in Research and Debate," 1910. The 
 more recent discussions are dealt with in the " Theologische Rundschau" for 
 January, 1910. 
 
 * Schurer, E.: "Geschichte des judischen Volkes," 3d ed., vol. I, pp. 1S7- 
 190; vol. II, pp. 21-67 and 72-175; also English translation. 
 
 2 One of the best introductions to this world of religious thought and feeling is 
 the work already mentioned, Cumont's "Les Religions Orientales dans le Pag- 
 anisme Romain," Paris, 1906. ^ Kara aapKo. II Cor. 5 : 16. 
 
88 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ground. The historical Jesus could be thrust aside and a 
 divine light-giving principle placed in the foreground and 
 identified with the risen and mystic indwelling Christ of the 
 Pauline Christianity. Yet neither Paul nor John contemplated 
 such a thing, and the Fourth Gospel is one long protest against 
 this very process. This oriental intrusion was almost imme- 
 diate. Gnostic Judaism was contemporary with Jesus and Paul, 
 and even Paul had to guard his teaching from Gnostic distortion. 
 
 The Fourth Gospel is a brave protest against an unethical 
 and essentially irreligious explanation of Jesus as a magic ap- 
 pearance that was not really human because humanity as flesh 
 was evil. Jesus, he insists, was actually human, and he calls 
 the witnesses from friend and foe to attest the reality of the man 
 Jesus and to prove his earthly life. He also wishes to demon- 
 strate that this historic figure is identical with the divine Person 
 of the Pauline thought. The Johannine literature is more 
 directly Christological than even Paul. The ethics is not so 
 systematically developed, but a religious ethics is the central 
 interest. The same fundamentally Jewish world of thought is 
 at all points apparent. Ethics is in the last analysis the essential 
 relement in the religious life, and in the foreground is Paul's 
 doctrine of the freedom from death and sin and the victory over 
 the grave by love. 
 
 From the opening hymn to the final scene after the resur- 
 rection, the Fourth Gospel is one long protest against the resolv- 
 ing the historic Christian experience of God in the person of 
 Jesus Christ into a vague metaphysics and a magic sacramental 
 mystery.* 
 
 For this reason the Gospel summons the witnesses one after 
 another not only to attest the historical character of Jesus, as 
 over against Doceticism, but also that they may bear witness to 
 what Jesus meant for them. It is Jesus in the actual flesh who 
 has miracle-working power and can raise the dead or turn water 
 
 ' The treatment of baptism and the omission of the sacrament feast are per- 
 haps noteworthy protests against the substitution of sacramental magic for 
 ethical and religious life in the Hellenic and oriental mystery-worship. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 89 
 
 into wine. It is he that has power to lay down his life and to 
 take it up again.* 
 
 The surest tests of these oriental pagan fellowships was 
 orthodox repetition of theological formulte and the right ad- 
 ministration of the sacramental mysteries. John felt sure that 
 only those who willed to do the will of the Father would even 
 know of the knowledge ^ or teaching. The essentially unethical 
 magic of sacred places common to all primitive paganism, but 
 elaborated by these oriental sects, the Fourth Gospel attacks in 
 Jesus' talk with the Samaritan woman.^ 
 
 The way to redemption is not magic or formulas, but obedience 
 to the Father's will as Jesus obeyed his Father.^ According to 
 the Fourth Gospel the teaching of Jesus is very simple, and all 
 the speculative elaboration of the oriental cult was simply ob- 
 structive.* For the Fourth Gospel the actual ethical experience 
 of overcoming the world and sin is bound up, not with some 
 vague, transcendental Logos-principle, but with the actual in- 
 carnation of God in an actual human being. The chief office 
 of the Christian is as a witness to this ethically transforming 
 power.® 
 
 There are those who cannot believe because they are of the 
 world and the world loves its own, but hates the Father,^ and 
 to them the exhibition of God is only to their condemnation, 
 seeing but not believing the "works." ^ Of course there is the 
 mystery of the pre-existent divine life becoming flesh, but this 
 is attested by the signs and wonders, and "the witness" of 
 those who beheld his glory. 
 
 The faith is thus based upon the impression Jesus made upon 
 his generation, for many believed him who were afraid to say so,^ 
 and upon the words and works Jesus did among men. And 
 all classes and conditions of men are successively described as 
 coming under this influence and accepting the claims of the 
 
 * John II : 1-16; 2 : i-ii; lo : i8. ' John 7 : 17. 
 
 • John 4 : 20-25. * John 17 and 15. ' John 3:12. 
 •John 14 : 25-30; 21 : 15-18; I John i : 5-2 : 6; and many passages. 
 
 ' John IS : 18-23. ° John 15 : 24. » John 12 : 42, 
 
90 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Messianic messenger: John the Baptist, Philip and Nathanael, 
 Andrew and Peter, the Ruler of a wedding feast, Nicodemus, the 
 woman of Samaria, the nobleman of Capernaum, and so on. 
 The content of righteousness is the loving acceptance of this 
 manifestation of God's love as seen in the historic Jesus, and 
 the confession not with the lips only, but in loyal surrender to 
 him that Jesus is the Christ, is the test of discipleship.^ 
 
 Without doubt we have here a serious transposition of em- 
 phasis. Orthodoxy rather than a right attitude of the heart 
 toward the purpose of God is made the standard. As so often 
 happens in trying to bar out the loose intellectualism of vague 
 Neoplatonism and Jewish Gnosticism, the way is prepared for 
 the substitution of formulae for life. For our author it was 
 almost unthinkable that any one should sincerely repeat the now 
 slowly gathering catchwords of the young ecclesiasticism, and 
 not be devoted, as was the author himself, to those ethical ideals 
 with which he had had communion in sharing the Kingdom 
 purpose of Jesus Christ. 
 
 The ethics of the Johannine literature is contained largely in 
 the first letter. The criterion for the Christian life assumes a 
 double aspect. For the author they must be held together. 
 He who believes that Jesus is the Christ is begotten of God, and 
 whosoever loveth him that begat lovcth him also that is begotten 
 of him.^ The ethics flows from this "belief," but this belief is 
 more than an intellectual perception, it is the verdict of the 
 heart.^ At the same time the formula? begin to have a place 
 which Jesus never gave them and which Paul never asserted.* 
 However, love is still an essential element of any true " belief," for 
 if we cannot love our brother whom we have seen, we cannot 
 love God whom we have not seen,^ and out of this fountain of 
 love flow all the real elements of good conduct.* 
 
 Ethics consists in overcoming the world by faith ^ and thus 
 possessing here and now eternal life.* The man begotten of 
 
 ' I John 2 : 23. •' I John 5:1. '1 John 3 : 19-24. 
 
 « I John 4: 1-6. 'I John 4: 20. « I John 3 : 3-12. 
 M John 5 : 4-5. ' I John 5:11. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 91 
 
 God cannot sin, and the evil one toucheth him not.' Yet the 
 point of view is not clear, for directions are given for dealing with 
 the sinning brother, who sins "not unto death." For in this 
 letter we have also that fateful beginning of a classification of 
 sins into venial and mortal.^ 
 
 If we read the literature of the early church in the light of 
 other young enthusiasms we can understand this complete 
 identification of opinion with conduct. It was hard for any 
 Christian teacher to understand how we could suffer in the name 
 of Jesus Christ, repeat the catchwords of the following, and not 
 also share the ethical enthusiasm which lent real value to these 
 phrases. Either test was sufficient for establishing the good-will 
 of a disciple, either his orthodoxy or his conduct, because these 
 could not be thought of as really separated. Exactly the same 
 point of view appears in the time of the Reformation or to-day 
 in the Socialist party. """^ 
 
 The Johannine literature is aimed evidently at the beginnings 
 of that reinterpretation of Jesus in the phrases, rites, and mys- 
 teries of the popular pagan cults round about. In this reinter- 
 pretation the catchwords of a Judaistic Gnosticism and a 
 Hellenic syncretism were given a Christian sense, and the 
 historic Jesus was explained away in eternal emanations, and 
 in the identification with a creative Logos was made really a 
 tcrtium quid between man and God, and all significance for 
 human life was in danger of being lost in vague and unethical 
 Gnostic speculation. Hence it is almost painful to find attri- 
 buted to the simple-hearted Johannine author opinions he hardly 
 understood, but so far as he did understand them desperately 
 fought.^ 
 
 If any one had asked the author of the first letter what he 
 meant by the expression "greater is he that is in you,"* can 
 any one doubt that his reply would be that of the Old Testament 
 
 ' I John 5 : 18. = I John 5 : 16-17. 
 
 ' Vide Ziegler's treatment, pp. 105-114, ' Geschichte der christlichen Ethik," 
 1892. 
 
 * " fiel^wp iffriv 6 iv vfjiiv^" I John 4 : 4. 
 
92 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 and not of Greek metaphysics ? that is to say, the union is ethical, 
 one of love and purpose, one of sonship and parentage, not one 
 of metaphysical unity which he would neither deny nor affirm 
 because he was no more interested in it than many of the Anglo- 
 Saxon readers of these pages will be. 
 
 The heart and life of the Johannine author's faith was that in 
 the historic Jesus God had become manifest to the world as 
 forgiving, redeeming love, and that all who had faith to accept 
 this appearance of God in human life as the Messiah would 
 have worked in them the new birth and in union with the risen 
 Christ would serve God in love and holiness. 
 
 One thing more remains to be remembered. The ethics of 
 both Paul and John were profoundly religious, they were an 
 impartation from above or rather the outcome of an impartation. 
 The spirit of God came as a dynamic force into the human life,* 
 and thus life was sharply divided between those living the life 
 of God, of love and righteousness; and the life of Satan, of hate, 
 the world, and unrighteousness. The "natural virtues" were 
 for the early Christian enthusiasts, as they have been to religious 
 enthusiasm in all ages, but "glittering vices." There might be 
 "sons of perdition" among the disciples,' but sooner or later, 
 either in doctrine or conduct or both, they would be revealed 
 and judgment meted out to them. To import into the Johan- 
 nine literature, with its simple religious view of the world, ethical, 
 philosophical, and metaphysical subtleties born of the Grecian 
 schools is to misunderstand its message in all the strength and 
 weakness of its religious enthusiasm born of contact with a great 
 religious manifestation. 
 
 Note. — The distinctly Jewish character of John's Gospel 
 appears in the supremacy of God as Creator of all things (i : 3). 
 The Jews were "God's own" (i : 11; cj. also i :3i), although 
 he does not use the Pauline expression "sons of God" {mol tov 
 6eov), and perhaps softens it to "children of God" {rmva deov) 
 (r : 12), yet this is in obedience to strong Jewish feeling of God's 
 
 ' John 3 : 3-12. 'John 17 : 12. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 93 
 
 supremacy and separateness. Jesus is the "only begotten" 
 {fiovoy€vri<;), we are only "children." No writer, not even 
 Matthew, is more insistent on the fulfilment of Scripture (i : 23; 
 2 :i7; 5 :45; 7 142; 12 : 15, 3M0; 13 : 18; 15 125; 17 : 12; 
 19:24; 19 : 28, 36-37; 20:9), or more careful to identify 
 Jesus with the Jewish hope of the Messiah (i : 41-45; 4 : 22-26), 
 or dwells more on the exclusive claims of Judaism (4:22; 7 : 19; 
 8 : S3)' Even a high-priest must prophesy the truth (11 : 51), 
 though unwittingly. 
 
 IV. THE ETHICS OF THE OTHER CANONICAL WRITINGS 
 
 The Book 0} Hebrews.— The modern student finds it hard to 
 understand how any one could ever have assigned this letter to 
 Paul. The style, aim, and argument separate it entirely from 
 the literature we identify with him. The question of the circle 
 to which the letter is addressed is not so easy.^ The prevalent 
 opinion among recent critics that it is addressed to the Gentile 
 Christians at Rome presents many difficulties, and it seems 
 almost easier to fall back on the older opinion that it was ad- 
 dressed to the free, allegorizing, Hellenistic Judaism, although 
 not especially dealing with Gnosticism. 
 
 The special purpose is to show how the continuity of religious 
 history is to be maintained by the right understanding of the 
 place of faith, and the letter reflects a time when the Pauline 
 conception of faith had been accepted although by no means 
 fully understood. 
 
 Although the letter closes with ethical instructions (13 : 1-17), 
 and is religious-ethical throughout, its main emphasis is a work- 
 ing philosophy of religion; a brave attempt to demonstrate that 
 all the spiritual values of Judaism had been conserved in the 
 
 ' Cf. Zahn, Theod.: "Einleitung in das Neue Testament," 2 vols., 2d ed., 
 Leipsic, 1900, vol. II, p. iii (English translation by M. W. Jacobus, Edin- 
 burgh, 1909, 3 vols, vol. II, pp. 293-366); Harnack, A., in "Die Zeitschrift 
 fiir die neutestamentliche Wissenschaft," 1900, p. 16; and Holtzmann, H. J.: 
 "Einleitung in das N. T.," 3d ed., 1892, pp. 292-309, where literature is given 
 very fully; Vincent, M. R.: Word Studies in the N. T., Scribner's, 1900, vol. 
 IV, pp. 361-585. 
 
94 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Christian group. For the author faith is the assurance of things 
 hoped for/ and this faith joins all the heroes of religious history 
 into a great cloud of testifiers while the runner in the race leaps 
 forward for the prize of high calling in Christ Jesus.^ The 
 recurring sins of fornication, money-loving, the running after 
 "strange teachings," and injunctions about meats are all con- 
 demned, and the virtues of hospitality, visiting prisoners, obedi- 
 ence to rulers, and offering sacrifices of praise are commended.^ 
 
 The letter is at one with the Johannine literature in the em- 
 phasis upon the oneness of the suffering historic Jesus and the 
 risen Christ, and the making perfection in a future glory the end 
 of the Christian life. The book deals with the question of 
 angels as in a sense rivals of Jesus Christ,* thus pointing to an 
 abuse that allegorizing Judaism (Philo) was likely to foster, but 
 the letter can hardly be classed as an anti-gnostic document. 
 
 One of the c^uestions raised has ethical significance, although 
 generally treated as a theological topic, namely, the significance 
 of sacrifice. And the answer of the letter is vague and unsatis- 
 factory. The real interest is in establishing the priestly char- 
 acter of Jesus rather than in using his death as symbolic of 
 sacrifice. At this point the contacts with the Pauline and 
 Johannine conceptions are strikingly few. 
 
 The covenant character of the sacrifice is brought out,^ but 
 the letter does not stop here; Jesus is at once sacrifice and 
 priest. True it is that Jewish sacrifices cannot take away sin,® 
 but the one sacrifice can and does.' How, the letter does not 
 explain. It is an a^eai<; and the al^la t^? Biad7]ic7]<; makes 
 the believer holy, and is the way into a living communion with 
 God.* There is almost the contempt for the blood of bulls and 
 goats characteristic of the eighth century prophets," at the same 
 time they are done awa" with by fulfilment. 
 
 »Heb. ii:i. » Heb. ii : 4-12 : 4. • Heb. 13 : 1-17. 
 
 ♦Heb. 1:1-2: 12; cf. Col. 2 : 18. 
 
 '■ Hub. 6 : 13-20; 7 : iS-25; 8 : 6-13; 9:1; ii-iS. 
 
 « Heb. 10 : 1-4. ' Heb. 10 : 14. 
 
 " llch. 10 : iS and 10 : 28-31. * Heb. 10 : 1-5. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 95 
 
 Sacrifice has always carried with it some taint of the immoral 
 conception of God as a demon to be feared and bribed into good 
 nature. At the same time the significance of sacrifice as a 
 sharing of the meal with God and thus inviting him to fellow- 
 ship and communion with the tribal group is almost equally 
 potent, and both of these conceptions color the somewhat hazy 
 view of Hebrews. On the one hand it is linked with the turning 
 away of God's vengeance/ and on the other, as we have seen, 
 it is the signal evidence of covenant relations with God. Thus 
 sacrifice in some way cleans the conscience and prepares a way 
 to God, but it is the living sacrifice of Jesus and not the sacrifices 
 of beasts. This ethical interpretation of sacrifice marks an 
 advance, although it had its distinct perils for the thought of the 
 future church.^ 
 
 James and The Revelation to John.— Two canonical books 
 reflect almost nothing of Christianity as Paul and the author 
 of the Fourth Gospel understood it. The contents of the 
 Apocalypse and the letters of James have as their common in- 
 terpretation of the Christian message the near coming of the 
 Messiah, the formation of a community to await that coming in a 
 spirit of loving brotherhood and good works. James ^ may not 
 be, probably, indeed, is not, a polemic against Paul, but it is 
 directed against the outcome of Paul's teaching in the minds 
 of some of his followers. The legal Jewish character of both 
 books is quite beyond dispute, and even if we allow for the fact 
 that no author is likely to put his whole theology into one letter, 
 yet Luther's judgment on both books is not far wrong. Luther 
 called James a "strawy letter" ("eine recht stroherne"), mean- 
 ing dry and juiceless from the evangelical point of view. 
 
 The ethics of James is a noble and forceful statement of the 
 loftiest morality of the Old Testament, combined with the old 
 democracy of the Holy Community, in its best estate. It is filled 
 
 ' Heb. 10 : 26-31. 
 
 ~ Cf. Professor George F. Moore's article on "Sacrifice," in Cheyne's "Ency- 
 clopaedia Biblica" for full exposition of the Biblical material. 
 '■' 2 : 14-26, particularly. 
 
96 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 with fine practical common sense and clear insight into the 
 weaknesses that began to show themselves in the Christian com- 
 munity, such as excessive respect for any exceptionally rich man 
 who "patronized" the Christian community/ What that temp- 
 tation was and is every observer knows. The Jewish dictum 
 that he who offends against the law in one point is guilty of all,^ 
 is in James (2 : 10) used to very different purpose from that to 
 which Paul puts it. For Paul it was the condemnation of the 
 whole law. For James as for Matthew (5 : 19) it was an in- 
 centive to still greater legal care over conduct. James, however, 
 had no quarrel with the law of liberty,^ which had become, no 
 doubt, a catchword of the Pauline Christianity, but with the 
 abuses arising from identifying license with liberty. 
 
 But to combat this he goes about his task very differently and 
 distinctly on a lower level than either Paul or John. He makes 
 no such application of the "inborn word which is able to save," * 
 as Paul makes of it in Romans. ' Christianity is with him an 
 ethical ideal to be attained; with Paul it was a dynamic for at- 
 taining the ideal. The letter of James would no more set a 
 world on fire with new ethical enthusiasm than did Seneca's 
 "Epistolae Morales." The letter shows no such grasp of the 
 power of the forgiven life as is reflected in the Johannine mes- 
 sage or the letter to Hebrews, 
 
 The same is true of the Revelation of John. All that im- 
 mediately concerns us are the ethical exhortations of the first 
 chapters ^ and the closing beautiful poems of the consummation.® 
 All of these move on the highest plane of Old Testament 
 enthusiasm. The exhortations are fine reproductions of eighth 
 and seventh century prophecy, and the consummation is a noble 
 climax to Messianic dreaming; but there is nothing distinctively 
 Christian in the whole book as Paul and John understood 
 Christianity. It was Christian as, no doubt, many understood 
 Jesus, and although Paul may not be deliberately ignored in 
 21 : 14, his omission from the apostolic number is significant. 
 
 • James 2 : 1-13. * Gal. 3 : 10. ' James i : 25. 
 
 * James 1:21. * Chapters 2 and 3. * Chapters 20 to 33. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 97 
 
 The God of the Revelation is the old conception of the war 
 god of Sinai, who comes down in wrath and power to restore 
 the chosen Holy Community to a place of prosperity, and to re- 
 ward all its sufferings with appropriate bliss. 
 
 This Holy Community is indeed no longer Jewish, but the 
 persecuted Christian sect that has been called of God, because it 
 saw in Jesus the Messianic hope and looked for his speedy 
 coming in power, but without any serious change in its thought 
 of God, because of the "Lamb of God," or any profound im- 
 pression of the real force that was to transform human life and 
 make the Messianic Kingdom possible. It moves between the 
 poles of repentance and ultimate victory, along the path of 
 suffering, in true Jewish fashion, the only real contact with 
 Christ Jesus being the fact that he is the suffering Lamb already 
 entered upon the victory and coming in power to share it with 
 all who name his name and do his works. 
 
 The Ecclesiastical Literature. — However little Jesus may have 
 formally organized a following it was inevitable that a fellowship 
 should gather about his memory. The faith in his resurrection 
 became the foundation-stone of the new organization. Its 
 triumphant proclamation of a risen Christ called many to the 
 new life for which Jesus stood, and the new hope of his reap- 
 pearance in glory, which stirred the hearts of his disciples, and 
 made them ready to face danger and death in the name of their 
 risen Master, The task of separating the materials that enter 
 into the book of Acts may be left to the experts; we can only 
 note that the simple Baur-Tubingen explanation of a deliberate 
 attempt to harmonize two distinct conceptions does not explain 
 the complicated phenomena by which the student is confronted 
 in the New Testament literature. There were not simply two, 
 there were many diverse tendencies, as we can see in the frequent 
 rebukes of sectarian strife and by the way the church at Corinth 
 was torn by faction. 
 
 More and more a strong organization arose in the minds of 
 the leaders as a necessity for holding together the various 
 elements. We have seen how against his great fundamental 
 
98 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 principle Paul found it necessary to assert himself as an outward 
 authority, and to call upon the organization to assert its authority 
 for the same purpose. 
 
 Whatever may have been Paul's own theoretical conceptions 
 about his fallibility/ he, like all great leaders, had no doubt at 
 all about his being able to discern between the essential and non- 
 essential elements in his teaching, and had no doubt whatsoever 
 about the infallible character of his teaching when dealing with 
 the essential things of faith.^ As, however, the great leaders 
 died or were removed from the organizations they founded, the 
 note of triumphant certainty could not be transferred to another 
 generation, and an organization and a tradition began to take the 
 place of the living voice, and memories of the "words of the 
 Lord" or of directions given by the great apostles gradually 
 became the rule of the organization's life. 
 
 The formation of a Christian morality became the immediate 
 concern of the church. It was enormously important that the 
 persecutions should be for righteousness' sake,^ and that the 
 persecutors should have no excuse for their oppression. And 
 it was all-important that when Jesus came again he should find 
 a holy community waiting for him.^ For all the leaders, Paul, 
 the authors of I Peter, I Timothy, and Matthew, obedience to 
 even oppressive rulers within the limits of loyalty to God was 
 a most important duty. Only such innocent suffering bound 
 life up with the life. and sufferings of Jesus; and the reality of 
 the religious enthusiasm was alike for Paul, John, and James 
 attested by "fruit unto holiness." 
 
 The new church was born of a divine longing for vital justice, 
 a justice neither ritual nor philosophy had attained to, but 
 which faith born of contact with the life and death of Jesus gave 
 assurance of; and the new fellowship was called together to 
 realize that justice and give to the world the Holy Community. 
 Paul addresses himself to the "saints" or "holy ones." * 
 
 It was inevitable, therefore, that there should grow up a litera- 
 
 ' As in I Cor. 7 : 25. ^ q^j 2:11. 3 1 Pet. 4 : 15-19. 
 
 * Rev. 2 : 1-3 : 22. * Rom. 16 : 15. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 99 
 
 ture based on the teachings of the great leaders, and often in 
 their name, in which this organization was now a most conspicu- 
 ous factor. 
 
 The first letter to Timothy in the name of Paul, but hardly 
 likely to be as a whole or even in part from his pen, reflects 
 the special moralities growing up for the church and its officers. 
 Sound doctrine is as important as correct life, and the officers 
 must be most especially beyond ethical reproach.^ The begin- 
 nings of a false and legal asceticism are boldly condemned.^ The 
 freedom of the gifts is now limited by the ecclesiastical arrange- 
 ments.^ Arrangements are already made for the support of those 
 giving themselves to ruling well.^ The responsible leaders are 
 protected by special arrangements.^ 
 
 When we ask ourselves what did "sound doctrine" mean to 
 the average ignorant early Christian, it is impossible to believe 
 that the things that interest us as theologians had then any more 
 than now a real place in the lives of the religious following. 
 "Sound doctrine" meant, however, unity for a fighting organ- 
 ization. Early the little Christian church meant to gather from 
 the whole world a "holy community" to prepare for the coming 
 Utopia and to receive the Master when he came.^ This organ- 
 ization had to defend itself and give a reason for the faith that 
 was held so firmly.^ It was quite as important that all should 
 give the same reason as that that reason should be right. The 
 unity of a fighting propaganda was the real reason for the 
 gradual formation of an ecclesiastical dogma ^ in which an ethics 
 was, of course, included. The traditions had to be organized, 
 and not Paul and Peter only; but the words of Jesus, the teach- 
 ings of James and John, the traditional interpretations of the 
 Psalms, and the usages of the early communities, had all to be 
 woven into a unity and a self-consistent "teaching." The 
 real interest was not theoretical, but practical, a platform on 
 
 ' I Tim. 3 : 1-13. ^ I Tim. 4 : 1-5. » j Tim. 4 : 14. 
 
 *■ I Tim. 5 : 17-18. » I Tim. 5 : 19. « Matt. 28 : 19. 
 
 ■> I Pet. 3 : 15. 
 
 * Cf. art., "Socialism as a Rival of Organized Christianity," "North Ameri- 
 can Review," June, 1904. 
 
loo HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 which to stand and a definite picture of the future hope. In the 
 Gospel of Matthew we have also the beginnings of this ecclesiasti- 
 cal programme. The words of Jesus are taken out of their 
 historical setting and arranged as an ethics and constitution for 
 the coming Kingdom of Justice/ and the law of the church 
 begins to be based definitely upon the personal authority of the 
 apostles.^ 
 
 In Paul the one intense longing was for personal holiness; 
 to the vast mass to whom he addressed himself the longing was 
 not so much for their own personal holiness as for a world 
 without the wrongs and hardships other people's unholiness 
 brought upon them. For Jesus and Paul, as for John also, 
 righteousness and peace with God were eternal life. For the 
 vast mass of Christians righteousness was a condition on which 
 an eternal life could be secured, and eternal life was the new era 
 of social justice, when the possessionless working class would 
 enter upon its rights, joys, and rewards. The Gospel of Luke is 
 full of this hope and longing of the oppressed proletariat.' 
 Hence steadily the ethics of ecclesiasticism becomes a law to be 
 imposed on others, rather than, as in the beginning, an autono- 
 mous regulation of each life by a common loving enthusiasm. 
 
 In the ecclesiastical portions of Matthew and Luke, and in I 
 and II Timothy, I and II Peter (including Jude), and in the Chris- 
 tian material in Revelation, we come more and more in contact 
 with a law-giving organization to take the place of a dynamic 
 spiritual principle. Nor was it possible for Paul the great organ- 
 izer to overlook this obvious need. The dynamic spiritual voice, 
 when it jailed or grew weak, must be strengthened or even sup- 
 planted by the law-giving organization.'' The essential differ- 
 ence between law and ethics is the character of the coercion. 
 For law external coercion is essential, for an ethical compulsion 
 the coercion must be internal. 
 
 » Matt. 5, 6, and 7. ' Matt. 16 : 17-18. 
 
 *Cf. Rogge, C: "Der irdische Besitz im Neucn Testament," 1897, and 
 Cone, Orello: "The Rich and the Poor in the New Testament," New York, 
 1902. 
 
 *I and II Corinthians and the Captivity Epistles. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS loi 
 
 True the early church had no force of a physical character to 
 enable it to transform its ethics into law, but the force of the 
 communal ban ^ was even by Paul used evidently as a powerful 
 external coercion; and more and more as fellowship with the 
 Christian church cut a man off from other life and social contacts 
 did the communal ban become a terrible instrument of external 
 coercion. 
 
 Let, for instance, in a manufacturing district in Germany, a 
 Social Democrat who has cut himself off by his political opinions 
 from all fellowship of an intimate character save with his fellow 
 Social Democrats, fall under the displeasure of his group, and he 
 has to choose between complete isolation or some kind of sub-. 
 mission to his group. 
 
 The splitting up of the Christian church into many followings 
 has happily robbed her of this compulsion. The excommuni- 
 cated Roman Catholic either maintains his social contacts or 
 joins a Protestant body. In the early church this was not pos- 
 sible. To go over to Christianity meant the severing of the most 
 sacred ties.^ It was the strength of the early church, as of early 
 Methodism in England or the Social Democracy in Germany, 
 that public ridicule and ofificial and class hatreds made those 
 who were thus outcast dependent in a singular degree upon each 
 other. The beautiful prayer put on the lips of Jesus in the 
 Fourth Gospel reflects this exclusive brotherhood spirit as over 
 against the "world" which Jesus himself came to save. 
 
 At the same time and for this very reason schism was most 
 peculiarly weakening, for just as soon as a schismatic arose it 
 was his intense interest and purpose to capture as large a follow- 
 ing as possible so that social isolation would not result.^ And it 
 was peculiarly the interest of a ban-enforcing church to make 
 her penalty as heavy as possible. The bitterness against the 
 schismatic was therefore tenfold greater than toward the world. 
 So Paul does not forbid social intercourse with fornicators "of the 
 world," but does forbid it with any Christian brother so guilty.* 
 
 * I Cor. 5 : 9-13; II John 10, 11; and John 17 : 9. 
 
 » Matt. 10 : 34-39- ' ^^^^- ^ ■ 15-18. « I Cor. 5 : 9-13. 
 
I02 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Exactly the same forces and interests may be seen at work 
 to-day in any manufacturing centre, where the trades-union, if 
 fighting for life, is confronted by the same questions. The 
 whole question of the "open shop," the "scab," and the en- 
 forcement of the boycott throws a flood of light upon the gradual 
 transformation of a Pauline ethics into a moral coercion, and 
 finally an ecclesiastical legalism. 
 
 The enforcement of this doctrinal and ethical unity became 
 soon the enforcement of a mere external uniformity. Moral 
 enthusiasm does not admit of unlimited external coercion, but 
 does soon feel the need of regulation. And for such enforcement 
 , all the arrangements of church discipline, officers, and acknowl- 
 edged authority sprang up under the direction of the leaders.^ 
 The Pastoral Epistles only represent a little more advanced stage 
 of the inevitable progression. To quarrel with this organization 
 is to quarrel with the facts of human life. At the same time we 
 must not close our eyes to the truth that, from the very inception 
 of the early church, there were forces at work changing a 
 moral enthusiasm into an organized and eventually a tyrannical 
 and immoral ecclesiasticism. 
 
 Moreover the character of this authority deserves attention. 
 The ecclesiastical canonical literature assumes an infallible 
 leading of the spirit granted to the leaders of the movement. 
 Paul's apostolate may have been seriously disputed, but when 
 Paul or Apollos or Cephas had once been accepted as apostles, 
 we may be quite sure that they wielded an authority no one in 
 Christian circles dared to challenge. Later the " writings " given 
 by inspiration took this place of undisputed authority. It is 
 exceedingly unhistoric to try and import into the view of the 
 world of the primitive Christian church the fine distinctions and 
 — perhaps — justified doubts of a later century. 
 
 It no more occurred in that age to any devout worshipper that 
 his authority could make a mistake and still remain an authority, 
 than it occurs to a well-trained child that father and mother may 
 be wrong. The moral judgments of an ethical genius of the 
 
 ' Acts 6 : 1-6; 15 : 1-29; Gal. 2 : i-io; I Cor. 12 : 28-29, etc. 
 
NEW TESTAMENT ETHICS 103 
 
 first class like Paul had for his hearers and had for himself an 
 absolute character. When he "felt that he had the spirit" he 
 had no doubts as to the infallible character of his moral judg- 
 ment. There were times and places when he wavered or had 
 "no commandment," ^ but once he had established his real 
 apostolic character, as in his letter to the Galatians, then from his 
 moral judgments when speaking in the Spirit he felt his hearers 
 could not safely dissent. 
 
 The New Testament literature moves in the atmosphere of 
 these first great moral certitudes. In Hebrews " the things that 
 were heard" (2 : i), and in II Timothy,^ "the scripture inspired 
 of God," begin, indeed, to mark the transition, but the passing 
 over is not complete. Indeed it is never complete. For practical 
 purposes John Wesley and Martin Luther thought themselves 
 as fully infallible as did Paul or the author of the Fourth Gospel. 
 
 It is characteristic of the ethical judgment at its best and in its 
 highest potency that with it goes this sense of absolute finality. 
 On the sureness of that judgment the moralized man will stake 
 earth and heaven, life here and hereafter (Who shall separate us ? 
 Rom. 8 : 38). No definition of scriptural inspiration is given 
 within the canonical limits, but who can doubt that had it been 
 given it would satisfy the most exacting traditionalist? And 
 one reason why no definition was given was because of this ex- 
 ceeding sureness. None of the canonical books sinks to the 
 level of a discussion of past ethical authority; in even the slightest 
 and most doubtful contribution there is the freshness and 
 spontaneity of ethical finality on the basis of an ethical enthusi- 
 asm that brooked no useless questioning. 
 
 The very identification of later writings with the names of 
 the apostles marks the feeling that one infallible spirit moved 
 upon the early church, that the religious and ethical feeling 
 springing from this enthusiasm must be one,^ and that the truth 
 upon any point of conscience was reachable, and could be in- 
 fallibly made known. Indeed the sense that it had been made 
 
 ' I Cor. 7 : 25. 23: 16. 
 
 ^ One Lord, one faith, one baptism, Eph. 4 : 5. 
 
104 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 known gave power and vigor to the proclamation of the ethical 
 content that had its origin in the enthusiasm and love awakened 
 in men's hearts by. the life and death and resurrection of Him 
 whom His disciples accepted without reservation as the founder 
 of that new order of social and personal righteousness — the new 
 Heaven and the new Earth men dreamed of amid the corrup- 
 tions, fears, and oppressions of a rotting social state. 
 
CHAPTER III 
 THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 
 
 Introduction on the Types of Controlling Interest. — I. The Ethics of Un- 
 organized Christianity: Hermas; The Letter of Barnabas; The 
 First Letter of Clement; The Teaching of the Twelve Apostles; The 
 Letter of Polycarp — II. The Struggle for Individualization: The 
 formation of sects; The Ebionites; Gnosticism; The Ophites; 
 Valentinus; Ptolemaeus to Flora; Marcion; Recognitions; Homilies — 
 III. The Intellectual Formulation of Christianity: Justin Martyr; 
 Clement of Alexandria; Origen; TertuUian — IV. The Ecclesiastical 
 Formulation of Christianity: Ignatius; Cyprian — V. The Ethical 
 Forces of Early Christianity: Family Purity; The Economic Brother- 
 hood; Poverty; Slavery; Martyrdom; Hospitality; Social Organiza- 
 tion; Democracy; Education. 
 
 INTRODUCTION 
 
 Before the canonical writings as we have them were finally 
 edited and accepted, the expectation of a speedy coming of Jesus 
 in person had begun to grow weaker/ In the place of this hope 
 another interest was beginning to exercise its power. The 
 ecclesiastical group with its own organization, aims, and life was 
 
 Literature. — The various editions of the Apostolic Fathers. — Migne: 
 "Patrologise Graecae" (Greek and Latin); vols. I-II; Paris, 1857. — Funk, F. X.: 
 "Opera Patrum Apostolicorum" (Greek and Latin); 2 vols.; Tubingen, 1901. — 
 Lightfoot, J. B.: "The Apostolic Fathers" (Greek and English); London, 1891; 
 also in 5 vols., 1889-1890. — Gebhardt, Harnack, and Zahn: "Patrum Apostoli- 
 corum Opera"; Leipsic, 1876-1878; smaller edition, Leipsic, 1877; reprinted 
 1894. — Hatch, Edward: "Organization of the Early Christian Churches"; 
 London, 1881 (Bampton Lectures, 1880). — McGiffert, A. C: "A History of 
 Christianity in the Apostolic Age"; New York, 1897 (International Theological 
 Library). — Ritschl, A.: "Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche"; 2d ed.; 
 1857. — Miiller, K.: "Kirchengeschichte"; Band I; Freiburg, 1892. — Moller, 
 W.: "Kirchengeschichte"; Bandl; 2ded.; Freiburg, 1902; English translation of 
 
 ' n Thess. 2 : 2. 
 105 
 
io6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 becoming an interest in itself. It was not only being organized 
 as a great propagandist society, but it fulfilled many functions in 
 the great human life in which it was placed. Of course the 
 propaganda was its primary reason for existence/ at the same 
 time hospitality to strangers, the supply of social life to the 
 lonely, of organized strength to the weak, of burial to the poor 
 were all functions of the early church.^ One thing was, as we 
 have seen (pages loi, 102) most essential. In the midst of a 
 critical and hostile community it was of tremendous importance 
 to maintain the outward unity of the organization. Uniformity 
 became confused with unity, and indeed real unity was often 
 seemingly less important in the eyes of the leaders than uni- 
 formity of conduct. 
 
 It became, therefore, wellnigh essential to gain a lasting and 
 satisfactory basis for uniformity. The account in Acts ^ of the 
 meeting at Jerusalem reveals the spirit and method that must 
 have animated the early group. 
 
 For Paul the only basis for the church life consisted in pos- 
 session by the Holy Spirit. This possession must, of course, 
 result in a distinct religious-moral type, and the approach to this 
 type could alone be a basis for effective fellowship, which is the 
 
 first edition, London, 1892. — Harnack, A. : " Lchrbuch der Dogmengeschichte "; 
 Freiburg, 1888-1890; 3 vols.; English translation in 7 vols., Boston, 1895-1900. 
 — Harnack, A.: "Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums in den ersten 
 drei Jahrhunderten"; Leipsic, 1902; second very much enlarged edition in 
 1906; English translation of the first edition by Moflatt: "The E.xpansion of 
 Christianity in the First Three Centuries"; New York, 1904- 1905; 2 vols. — 
 Gass, W.: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik"; Berlin, 1881-1887.— Ziegler, 
 Theo.: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik"; Strasburg, 1892.— Bestmann, 
 H.: "Geschichte der christlichen Sitte"; Nordhngen, 1880-1885.— Smith, W., 
 and Cheetham, S.: "A Dictionary of Christian Antiquities"; 1875-1880. — 
 Luthardt, C. E.: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik." Last edition two vols, 
 in one, 1888-1893; also English translation of the first vol. of first edition, 
 Edinburgh, 1889. 
 
 ' Matt. 16 : 13-20; 28 : 16-20. 
 
 ^Harnack, A.: "Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums," Book II, 
 chap. 3, pp. 105-128, ed. 1902. English translation (1904-1905), vol. I, pp. 
 181-219. 
 
 ' 15 : 1-29. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 107 
 
 holy temple of the Spirit.* No outward ritual such as baptism,^ 
 and no ordinances or ritual days;^ no external government or 
 even intellectual system apart from this possession by the Spirit 
 could serve for Paul as a satisfactory basis of unity. But 
 although Paul thought the fruit of the spirit was easily judged in 
 its results/ yet in point of fact, even in his own day, men claimed 
 membership who, though very far from the ideal type, Paul 
 himself did not care to expel from the society.^ 
 
 Hence a basis for unity was sought by the church of a more 
 definite kind than the enthusiasms on which the early teachers 
 so largely relied. This basis was found in various interests, and 
 the prevailing emphasis determined the peculiar type. 
 
 There were, roughly speaking, three distinct types of this em- 
 phasis made prominently central in the struggle for the uni- 
 formity and unity of the fighting organization. In historical 
 order we may see first the Judaistic and legal moral ideal in- 
 sisted upon as the central and important thing. Along with 
 this moral ideal and interwoven with it were certain ceremonial 
 and ritual customs, so that the high-minded Christian Jew could 
 hardly understand how any one, for instance, could hold fast to 
 this moral ideal as portrayed in Hermas and at the same time 
 eat blood or things strangled. Hence the struggle, touched 
 upon in Acts, which embittered the life of Paul was not simply 
 a struggle for circumcision and the outward law, but for these 
 things as symbols of a distinctly thought out moral type and 
 ethical ideal. 
 
 In the letter of James and in Hermas this ideal may best be 
 studied, and one realizes at once how impossible it would have 
 been to found an enthusiastic martyr church on such a basis. 
 The ideal is noble, cold, and formal. It can no more stir the 
 blood than Lessing's "Nathan the Wise," however willing we 
 may be to assent to the admirable character of the type. It 
 involved an entirely different conception of God and estimate 
 of sin from that of Paul's teaching. However much the actual 
 
 * Eph. 2 : 11-22. ^ I Cor. i : 17. * * Gal. 4 : 10. 
 
 * Gal. 5 : 16-21. * Gal. 6 : i; Cor. 2 : 5-11. 
 
io8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 activities of the Christian Hfe may be described in the same words, 
 the rehgious ideal is most emphatically not the same. 
 
 It was, as we have seen, no intentional polemic against Paul 
 that found its way into James, for even his use of "the faith of 
 Abraham" was only a reference to a standard illustration of the 
 relationship of works to trust (c/. Philo's treatise, " De Migra- 
 tione Abrahami," especially §§ i6 and 20); but none the less it 
 should be quite impossible to honestly overlook the fact that the 
 Old Catholic, or Bishop's church, had sooner or later to choose 
 between the two conceptions of the Christian life as a basis for 
 the establishment of a conquering organization. 
 
 The second great historical interest was speculative. To the 
 Hellenistic mind a unified view of the world, a common theory 
 of knowledge, and a cosmogony deeply tinged with symbolic 
 mythology took the place that the Jew gave to a common wor- 
 ship, a legal system and training in a distinct moral system. 
 
 For the Jew, his cosmogony, which he probably borrowed 
 directly from Babylon, was only a background for the exhibition 
 of Jehovah as the Creator. For the Hellenic mind the essence 
 of the religious life was the interpretation of the world in a 
 speculative system of truth. To hold this truth was to know 
 God. The attempt to translate the religious and ethical 
 enthusiasms of the early church into a speculative system and to 
 make that system the uniform and essential basis of the world- 
 wide propaganda, was the work Gnosticism undertook, and it was 
 under the pressure of this attempt that the Old Catholic church, 
 with the help of Greek-trained minds, formulated her creed ac- 
 cepting and rejecting various elements, though constantly doing 
 so with another interest than the purely intellectual one domi- 
 nating her action.* 
 
 For historically a third interest triumphed. The political 
 instinct of Roman imperialism, which makes itself felt even in 
 Clement's first letter, had a conception of law distinctly different 
 
 ' Cf. Hatch: " The Organization of the Early Christian Churches," 1881, 
 pp. 68-72; RitschI: "Die Entstehung dcr allkalholischen Kirche," 1S57, pp. 
 347-436- 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 109 
 
 from that of Judaism. For the Roman world law was the 
 expression of the group life in its relation to the individual; for 
 Judaism law was the expression of a relation of the group to 
 Jehovah. 
 
 The collective responsibility of the group to Jehovah for the 
 keeping of the law by the individual was exceedingly pronounced. 
 In the thought of the early church this element was, no doubt, 
 ever present. A holy group awaited the coming Messiah. But 
 before long the eschatological interest * was swallowed up in the 
 organization interest. Law becomes the basis of the propagan- 
 dist organization because it regulates the conduct of the group to 
 the individual in the thoroughly Roman sense. 
 
 This legal regulation was all the more necessary as the church 
 became more and more homogeneous and her influence in- 
 creased. In the life of this Organization slaves and women 
 found spheres for activity forbidden them in the "secular" 
 world. The humble slaVe who was no factor in the public 
 political life of Rome or the empire could yet become an impor- 
 tant element in the "■ Imperium in imperio" (Bishop Calixtus). 
 Uniformity of political organization, uniformity of ritual and 
 worship, uniformity of authority and life, were symbols of the 
 world-wide character of this new imperialism, and both intel- 
 lectual systems and moral ideals were important but subject in 
 the last analysis to these high political interests and world- 
 conquering enthusiasms. 
 
 Hence the ethical systems of the Old Catholic church from 
 James to Augustine may be classed as belonging mainly either 
 to the Judaistic, the Greek, or the Roman type, but with the 
 last interest dominating. And although the three ideals are 
 never wholly exclusive of other interests, yet the main current of 
 ethical thought is always determined by the central interest, and 
 often we must interpret current phrases, not in their historic or 
 natural sense, but in the light of the interpretation put upon 
 them by new conditions. There is a gradual assimilation of 
 some exceedingly uncongenial elements in the prevailing dog- 
 
 ' Matt. 24; Mark 13; Luke 21; Apoc, etc. 
 
no HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 matic construction, but the assimilation is never quite complete, 
 and many contradictory ethical conceptions jostle one another 
 within the system. 
 
 As a dogmatic interest gradually usurped the place of the 
 ethical the picture becomes more and more confused, and as the 
 political interest gradually asserted its power and forced a 
 dogmatic uniformity upon the world, it was a queer, discordant, 
 systemless system both in theology and ethics that became 
 "orthodox." 
 
 One of the interesting examples of the old, essentially Jewish, 
 conceptions of what should be the moral type on which the 
 Christian church should build her life is found in the extraordi- 
 narily popular book, "The Pastor or Shepherd ofHermas" 
 (iroturjv), which enjoyed canonical or quasi-canonical authority 
 in the early church. Irenceus, Clement, Origen, and, in his 
 early days, even Tertullian, quote it as with authority. 
 
 I. THE ETHICS OF UNORGANIZED CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The Shepherd of Hermas.—ln the "Shepherd of Hermas," * 
 written about loo to 150 A. D., we find a further development of 
 that type of thought which, if not actually hostile to the Pauline 
 interpretation of Christianity, was either perfectly ignorant of it 
 or wholly failed to catch its real meaning. The ethical concep- 
 tion of Hermas is Judaism touched by the asceticism of Hellen- 
 istic thought. Righteousness consists in obedience to com- 
 mandments. " Be not confounded," says the heavenly Shepherd 
 messenger to him, "but stir up in thy mind virtue, through the 
 
 * Greek editions: F. X. Funk, Latin translation, Tubingen, 18S1, 2 vols.; 
 also Otto von Gebhardt and Harnack, in "Tc.xte und Untersuchungen," and also 
 Latin translation, Mignc, vol. II. Translation in "Ante-Niccne Christian 
 Fathers," vol. II of the "Apostolic Fathers." German translation by J. C. 
 Mayer, 1869. Literature is very extensive; cf. Harnack's "Gcschichte der 
 altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius," vol. I, pp. 49-58, for the sources and 
 manuscripts. Text and translation in Lightfoot's " Apostolic Fathers," London, 
 1885, 2 vols., in four parts, where also copious notes and literary references are 
 given, with short introductions, revised texts, and translations, in one volume, 
 London, 189 1. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH iii 
 
 commandments which I am about to give unto thee." * These 
 commandments are preceded by a series of rather stupid and 
 pointless "visions." Hermas finds the Lord "angry with him" 
 for the sins of his family, and the church in the image of an old 
 woman delivers messages in which martyrdom is placed very 
 high.^ Hermas wants to sit at the right hand and is rebuked; ^ 
 only those who have endured "scourgings, prisonments, great 
 tribulations, crosses, wild beasts on account of his name " have 
 given to them this "certain glory" {Bo^av tlvo) of sitting 
 at the right hand. Baptism is the foundation of the church.* 
 The righteous life is filled with recurring repentance,^ and yet 
 after baptism only one repentance is permitted.^ This is only 
 one illustration of the hesitancy in the casuistry to which ethics 
 sinks in the treatment of the "Shepherd." Another is the atti- 
 tude toward marriage. One wife is permitted, but a second 
 marriage is deplored.' The opening scene rebukes Hermas for 
 what surely must be interpreted symbolically, namely, longing for 
 a wife of such beauty and grace as he once had seen in a slave 
 girl whom he loved as a sister.^ The lesson being that even inno- 
 cent love for things earthly is distracting for the soul. For the 
 coming of the Lord is so nigh that possessions, except as affording 
 a chance for giving alms, are a burden and a hinderance to the 
 divine life.^ Yet the rich man may be the elm-tree to which the 
 vine (the poor man) clings, and by giving fruit under the elm's 
 (rich man's) protection contributes to the rich man's salvation, 
 " for when therefore the rich man hands out to the poor man those 
 things he needs, the poor man prays unto the Lord for the rich 
 man, and God grants unto the rich man all good things ; because 
 the poor man is rich in prayer, and his requests have great power 
 with the Lord." ^° The crassness of this conception contrasts 
 
 ' Vis. V, 4. ■ 
 
 * Vis. Ill, c. 2, 1-4. The references are to Funk's edition. 
 
 3 Cf. Mark 10 : 35. * Vis. Ill, c. 3, 5. ^ Vis. Ill, c. 5, 2-5. 
 
 *Mand., IV, c. 3, 6. 
 
 "> r-fipei. oZv TT}v ayvelav Kal rrjv creixvdTtjTa. Mand. IV, c. 4, 3. 
 
 ' Vis. I, c. I, 1-2; cf. with the interpretation in c. i, 8. 
 
 * Sim. I, I. *" irXovcrla irpbs t6v debv. Sim. II, 6. 
 
112 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 most unfavorably with James/ and reveals the lowering of the 
 conception of the righteous man even from the Jewish Christian 
 point of view.^ Hermas is a lineal descendant of the James 
 type of moral ideal, but the enthusiasm has largely departed. 
 At the same time fasting is to be of the spirit, and the true fast 
 is keeping one's self from evil, and making the abstinence an 
 opportunity for giving to the poor — therefore not in itself to be 
 too highly thought of.' Angels play a leading part throughout, 
 and the judgment scene is a very complicated estimate of various 
 classes of men far removed in power and beauty from Matt. 
 25 : 31-45.'' As in the Apocalypse, the figure twelve plays a dis- 
 tinct part,^ but the apostleship is enlarged to forty ,* and a further 
 thirty-five "Prophets and ministers of the Lord" added.^ 
 The virtues are set over against the vices in an instructive way, 
 and are twelve in number: Faith, Abstinence ('EvAcpaTeta), 
 Power (/^vvafjLL<i), Patience, Simplicity, Innocence, Chastity 
 {'Ayveta), Cheerfulness, Truth, Understanding, Concord, and 
 Love: over against these are set Want of Faith CAvta-Tia), 
 Intemperance, Faithlessness {'A-rreideLa), Voluptuousness, then 
 Despondency (Autt?;), Malice, Lust, Anger, Lying, Stupidity 
 {'A<f)poavv7)), Pride, and Hatred. In each group the first 
 four are singled out as the chief ones, the others being below 
 them in value.^ Baptism is a symbol of death to the old life, 
 "For before a man receives the Name of the Son of God, he 
 is ordained unto Death; but when he receives the seal he is freed 
 from Death, and delivered unto Life. Now that seal is water, 
 into which men go down under the obligation unto Death, but 
 come up appointed unto Life." ° This whole paragraph is 
 interesting in relation to Paul's teaching of baptism for the dead, 
 and the passage in Peter about preaching to the spirits in prison."* 
 For according to the Shepherd the aposdes die, who "preached 
 
 ' 2 : i-io. 
 
 = C/., however, James 5 : 16, "Prayer of a righteous man." 
 ' Sim. V, 1-5. * Cf. the whole Sim. VIII. » Sim. IX, c. 17, 1-4. 
 
 « ol Si fi' ivbaroXoi Kal SiddcTKaXoi toO Ktip&yftaroi toO vloO rod 5eoO. Sim. IX, 
 c. 15, 4. ' Sim. IX, 15. ' Sim. IX, 15, 1-4. 
 
 • Sim. IX, 16, 2-7. '" I Cor. 15 : 29 and I Pet. 3 : 18-22. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 113 
 
 in the name of the Son of God after they had received his Faith 
 and Power, and preached to them who were dead before, and 
 they gave the Seal to them. They went down, therefore, into the 
 water with them, and again came up." * 
 
 Interesting as is the book from an historic point of view, it 
 opens our eyes to the enormous difference between the spiritual 
 and ethical ideals of the New Testament and the average life of 
 the early Christian church, yet this difference between Hermas 
 and the New Testament was felt; and although the book is 
 freely used with the canonical writings by Clement of Alexandria, 
 and is called by Origen a "divine writing" (Ep. ad Rom. com. 
 X, c. 31), yet it never really attained the spiritual and ethical 
 influence of even its nearest progenitor in the New Testament — 
 the book of James. 
 
 The thoroughly Jewish character of the book is seen in not 
 only the free use of the sacred numbers, especially twelve, but 
 in the gross eudaemonism of its ethics.^ The ethics has room for 
 works of supererogation. "If you do any good beyond what is 
 commanded by God, you will gain for yourself more abundant 
 glory, and will be more honored of God than you would other- 
 wise be." ^ And like the Jewish ethics in general, it is a group 
 ethics. Throughout it is the " household " that is warned, praised, 
 and punished.'' Infants are innocent and holy, " for all infants 
 are honorable before God, and are the first persons with him." ^ 
 There is as yet no taint here of original sin as a characteristic of 
 the body. 
 
 The contrast with the New Testament conceptions, even on 
 their lowest levels, is striking. It compares unfavorably even 
 with such a letter as that of Barnabas. 
 
 The Letter of Barnabas.^ — This general letter ascribed by 
 
 * Sim. IX, 16, 3-4. * Sim. V, c. 3, and many other places. 
 
 * Loc. cit. * Vis. I, c. 3; Sim. 7, and many places. 
 
 * Sim. IX, c. 29; cf. Mark 10 : 13-16. 
 
 * Editions: F. X. Funk, 1887, vol. I; Otto von Gebhardt and Harnack, in 
 "Texte und Untersuchungen," 1878; W. Cunningham, London, 1877; A. 
 Hilgenfeld, 1877. English translation in Ante-Nicene Library, vol. I, p. 97 of 
 "Apostolic Fathers"; also in Lightfoot's "Apostolic Fathers" are text and 
 
114 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Clement of Alexandria to Barnabas, but probably incorrectly/ 
 is under the distinct influence of the Pauline interpretation of 
 Jesus Christ. It breathes the Pauline spirit and uses many of 
 his favorite phrases. "I think that I love you more than my 
 own soul (irrrep rrjv -yjrvxv^ l^ov) because of the greatness of 
 the Faith and Love that dwelleth in you," ^ The days are 
 evil, and the virtues that are to assist faith are Fear and Patience, 
 with Long Suffering and Abstinence as fellow-fighters, when 
 then Wisdom, Knowledge, Prudence and Understanding will 
 rejoice together with them. The problem of how to use the 
 Old Testament without becoming entangled again in legalism is 
 met with the blunt assertion that the Lord had himself rejected 
 sacrifice by the word of the prophets, quoting Isaiah and 
 Jeremiah as evidence that "these things therefore hath God 
 abolished, that the new law of our Lord Jesus Christ which is 
 without the yoke of such necessity might have an oblation not 
 made by men." ^ The coming of the Lord is near,^ and hating 
 the evils of the present era men are to look forward to the happi- 
 ness of the new era. Enoch and Daniel are quoted, and the 
 last times warn us to "strive to the utmost of our power to keep 
 His commandments; that we may rejoice in His righteous 
 judgments." The fall of Jerusalem is spoken of in 4 : 14 and 
 16 : 4 as a warning of what will overtake unfaithfulness. 
 The ethics of the book centre about the two ways, one of truth 
 and the other of darkness. The formalism of circumcision is 
 condemned, and symbolic and mystic interpretations of the Old 
 Testament and of the passion of our Lord take the place of 
 arguments against Jewish legalism, and are made to instruct in 
 
 translation and copious notes. Cf. also German translation by J. C. Mayer, 
 Sources and critical aparatus in Kriiger's "Geschichte der altchristlichen 
 Litteratur," 1895, pp. 12-14; English translation by Chas. R. Gillett, pp. 18-21. 
 New York, 1897; Harnack's "Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur," pp. 
 58-62. Cf. Weizsaecker's "Zur Kritik des Buches Barnabas," 1863. The 
 references are here to Funk's edition. 
 
 ' Against the authorship by Barnabas is usually alleged that the writing dis- 
 plays ignorance of Jewish usage. 
 » I : 4- '2:6. * 4 : 3- 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 115 
 
 morals by unnatural and indeed impossible interpretations. 
 Over the "ways" are appointed angels of light and angels of 
 Satan. "One is the Lord from Everlasting, the other is the 
 Prince of the time of Unrighteousness." ^ Then follows a short 
 summary of the Christian life in which the virtues are enforced. 
 Interesting is the injunction with regard to gentle treatment of 
 the "slave who fears God," and the command to love the 
 neighbor "better than thine own soul,"^ and the injunction, 
 "Thou shalt not call anything thine own," and "Thou shalt 
 communicate to thy neighbor all that thou hast.^ The Christian 
 is also to " call to remembrance, day and night, the future judg- 
 ment," and to "meditate how thou mayest save thine own soul." 
 He is also to "labor with his own hands that his sins may be 
 forgiven him." * The way of darkness is a vivid description of 
 the sins so well known in all the history of man's transgressions, 
 witchcraft having a prominent place in the list,^ and the special 
 sexual sins being duly rebuked. The closing exhortation is again 
 based upon the near expectancy of the coming of Jesus, and the 
 firm faith in a resurrection from the dead, and a final retribution." 
 The whole ethical tone of writing is lofty and gracious, and 
 though below even the less important New Testament letters is 
 full of fresh creative moral enthusiasm, its morals are still 
 matters of life, and the outlook is on a freer and fairer world yet 
 to come. What is most depressing is the lack of real intellectual 
 seriousness, the failure to rationally grasp the meaning of the Old 
 Testament religious movement, and to follow up the hints of 
 Paul as to the real significance of the law. The arbitrary and 
 fanciful misconstructions of the Old Testament, so prominent in 
 this early literature, have lasted in their evil effects into our own 
 day. 
 
 There is in the letter no such clearly cut dominant interest as 
 we find in the letter of Clement. 
 
 The First Epistle 0} Clement. — The name of the author is only 
 a matter of tradition. It is a letter sent by the Roman church 
 
 * 18 : I. * 19 : 5- » 19 : 8. 
 
 * 19 : 10. * 20 : I. • 21 : I. 
 
ii6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 to the church at Corinth/ and is of early date as it is used by 
 Polycarp, and is mentioned by Hegesippus (Eusebius, "Church 
 History," III : i6; IV : 22 : i). It was not reckoned by Eusebius 
 as canonical, but was highly esteemed by him. Its date may 
 with fair certainty be said to be anywhere from about 98 to 120 
 A. D. Of all the writings ascribed to Clement, this alone can 
 be used by the historian as really reflecting the ethical develop- 
 ment of the first centuries. To the student of ethics the letter 
 has great significance. The political sense of the Roman church 
 is in marked contrast to the wholly unpractical character of the 
 Greek-Oriental speculation with its constant disputations, sects, 
 schools, and personal followings. With the dogmatic interest of 
 the letter we are not concerned. 
 
 The letter emphasizes the virtues of the organized life, sub- 
 mission to authority, humility in personal judgment, freedom 
 from envy and ambition. Abraham is praised not for his faith 
 but for his obedience.^ So also Lot's wife failed not in faith 
 but in obedience or lack of concord.^ And this lack of harmony 
 is traced throughout the Old Testament, always bringing its 
 appropriate disaster. Pride, boasting, foolishness, and anger are 
 especially condemned. And thus obedience to the organization 
 is identified with obedience to God: "We should become obedient 
 unto God rather than follow such as through pride and turbu- 
 lence have made themselves leaders and authors of detestable 
 emulation." * We see in the letter all the virtues so constantly 
 heralded by the Roman military organization, obedience, humil- 
 ity, submission to authority, the unquestioning acceptance of au- 
 thority, all iterated and reiterated, and see also the profound 
 
 'Greek editions are those of Funk, F. X., Tubingen, 1S81; Gebhardt 
 and Harnack, 1876; Hilgenfeld, 1876. An English translation in the Ante- 
 Nicene Library, vol. I. A German translation by J. C. Mayer. A Latin trans- 
 lation in Funk edition. Te.\t, notes, and English translation in Lightfoot's 
 "Apostolic Fathers." Full accounts of the letter arc contained in Wrede's 
 "Untersuchung zum ersten Klemensbrief," Gottingcn, 1807, and in Harnack's 
 " Altchristliche Litteratur," pp. 39-47; also in Kriiger's shorter work with the 
 same title. Translation by C. R. Gillett. 
 
 ' olroi SI viraKorjs ^ijXdev. 10 : 2, 7. 
 
 * oiiK iv 6tiofol(/.. 11:2. * 14 : I. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 117 
 
 instinct underlying the demand. Peace and concord and un- 
 questioning acceptance of the established doctrine and system 
 were the corner-stones on which the new organization was to be 
 built. 
 
 So again the letter goes on to emphasize the concord of the 
 universe: "The Heavens holding fast to his appointment are 
 subject to Him in peace." "Spring and summer, autumn and 
 winter give place peaceably to each other." " Even the smallest 
 creatures live together in peace and concord," ^ It remains, 
 therefore, only to " hold fast to those to whom God has given 
 grace," ^ and to above all things avoid "love of novelty," which 
 is placed among the abominable lusts together with "detestable 
 pride." 
 
 Highly suggestive and characteristic is also the reference to the 
 Roman military organization as a model for the church. "Let 
 us consider those who fight under our leaders — what order, what 
 obedience, with what submission they follow out the commands! 
 All are not prefects or captains of thousands nor of hundreds, 
 nor of fifties nor yet of tens." ' And naturally Paul's figure is 
 also used.* Moreover regular seasons and ordered service are 
 by no means to be neglected,^ these things are by divine appoint- 
 ment as "ordained by His supreme will and authority, both 
 where and by what persons they are to be performed." ^ The 
 high-priest again finds his place in the once priestless early 
 organization and "the layman ^ is confined to the things of the 
 laity." * Thus all the foundations are laid for the priestly 
 organization with its own code of morals and appropriate 
 ethical emphasis. The letter also brings in again the abandoned 
 sacred place. " The daily sacrifices were not offered everywhere 
 . . . but only at Jerusalem . . . and there only at the altar 
 before the temple." ^ It now only remains to identify the 
 apostles with the existing ecclesiastical order and the argument 
 
 > 20 : I, 9, 10. '30 : 3- '37 : 2- 
 
 * I Cor. 12 : 12-30, the body and the members. 
 
 * 40 : 1-2. • 40 : 3-5. "> 6 Xoidds AvOpuiros. 
 ' 40 : 5. » 41 : 2. 
 
ii8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 is complete; this the writer also does. These apostles, knowing 
 that contention would arise, "appointed persons," and when 
 "they should die other chosen and approved men should 
 succeed in their ministry," and "it would be no small sin in us 
 to reject those from their ministry who holily and without blame 
 fulfil its duties." ~ The letter of Paul is cited, and " the sedition " 
 is condemned. There is no attempt to enter into the merits of 
 the question; the appeal is to the authority of tradition or the 
 Bible ^ or the appointed "presbyters."^ The whole ethical 
 horizon of the Pauline freedom of love is obscured again by the 
 codes required for organization purposes and by the virtues 
 needed in a closely compacted fighting propaganda. Love is 
 sung in truly beautiful echoes of the Pauline proclamation,^ 
 but it is only the love that subm^ts that says, "I am ready to 
 depart; to go away whithersoever ye please, and to do what- 
 soever ye shall desire of me, only let the flock of Christ ® be in 
 peace with the presbyters that are set over her. He that shall 
 do this shall get to himself a very great reward in Christ, and 
 every place will receive him." ^ Submission to the presbyters is 
 then identified with submission to God,^ and with a very beau- 
 tiful doxology the letter closes. 
 
 Lofty and beautiful as is the letter in many of its appeals, and 
 true, and, no doubt, very essential as was its emphasis upon 
 unity, concord, and peace, the ethics of the book is the ethics of 
 an unquestioning submission to an outward authority. It is 
 from Rome, and almost startles us with its anticipations of the 
 dramatic changes that so soon overtook the ethical ideals of the 
 spiritual kingdom of Jesus' dream. 
 
 The Teaching oj the Twelve Apostles.^ — It is very tempting to 
 deal in the contrasts between Jewish and Christian, between 
 Greek and Roman tendencies; but one may easily be thus led 
 
 '42:1-5. -44: 1-3. =■45:1- ■* 47 : 6. » 49 and 50. 
 
 " rb irol/iviov toO xP'^'toO. ^ 54 • 3- ' 57 ■ '• 
 
 ' The first edition, 1883, by Bryennios, was followed by many editions: Har- 
 nack, 1884; Hilgenfeld, 1884; Wiinsche, text and German translation, 1884; 
 J. Rendell Harris, 1887 (with facsimile autotype); Philip SchafT, 18S5; Hitch- 
 cock and Brown, 1884; and a literature too large for complete citation. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 119 
 
 astray. For the ethical student there are more imperative 
 forces than national or even racial factors. The needs of an 
 organization, whether in China or Japan, in England or Ger- 
 many, will produce rules of conduct and habits of mind exactly 
 resembling each other so far as the needs of the organization 
 happen to be the same. The early church was soon a fighting 
 organization, with a settled purpose. It had as traditions the 
 life of Judaism, but was made up of those who belonged also 
 to the life of Rome and Greece. The compacting force of hostile 
 attacks compelled it to adopt a special ethics and to consolidate 
 its life and traditions. It took freely wherever it could find that 
 which suited its purpose. In the Teaching of the Twelve Apostles 
 we have the consolidation process which we have seen in the 
 Roman letter going on in the atmosphere of the more strictly 
 Jewish tradition. For our purpose it is of little consequence to 
 trace the relation of the "Teachings" to the "Two ways" or to 
 the Barnabas letter. The relation is evident.* As Clement's 
 letter reminds us of Paul, the "Teaching" reminds us of James, 
 but in both works the movement from the ethical freedom of the 
 primitive apostolic enthusiasm to the conventional morality of 
 an institutional life is the marked feature. The subjective and 
 final certainties of a great moral insight begin to seek refuge 
 in the traditions of the elders, the institutions of a church, and 
 the conventions of a sect. This must be deplored, but we are 
 not to suppose that any early institution ever lived on the level 
 of Paul or John's religious convictions. The church as such 
 never was on those heights, and without the formulation of the 
 apostolic attainments, and the fixing of standards in an institu- 
 tional life, we might never have had contact with these sources 
 of constantly reviving enthusiasm. The church began to teach, 
 not as Jesus and Paul had taught, but as the scribes. 
 
 The Didache deals with Christian ethics on the basis of the 
 Matthew tradition of the teachings of our Lord, then gives 
 liturgical instructions and ecclesiastical directions, and ends 
 
 ' If the author had to have an opinion he would follow Holtzmann in thinking 
 of a common origin for both; so also Lightfoot. 
 
I20 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 with the expressed hope of the near coming of the kingdom in 
 power. 
 
 It is entirely without vital contact with the Pauline interpreta- 
 tion of Christianity, but the omission of Paul in the "twelve" 
 apostles only reflects perhaps unthinking usage, as in Justin 
 Martyr's * 39; at least there is no obvious polemic against 
 Paul's way of thinking such as even James suggests to some. 
 One of the obvious "organization" virtues was alms, and these 
 are duly enforced. Hospitality was another virtue of great 
 weight in the loosely knit community, and it is carefully 
 regulated, but also enforced.^ The term " Xpto-Te/ATro/jo? " 
 ("Christ-monger"), showing how much this virtue was played 
 upon by pretenders, and perhaps the quotation from a lost source 
 in I : 6, " Let thine alms sweat ^ into thy hands till thou know 
 to whom thou shouldst give," is a hint at this same evil of 
 promiscuous aid to the unworthy. The commandments are 
 enlarged to forbid sins not mentioned in the Matthew source 
 nor in the Old Testament.* As in Barnabas and perhaps taken 
 from a common source, we are bidden to love our neighbors 
 better than ourselves,^ and the directions about the treatment of 
 the slave recall Barnabas.' They are not to have command- 
 ments laid upon them in bitterness, "lest they should not fear 
 him who is God over both." 
 
 In chapter IV we find the organization virtues receive the 
 emphasis: "My child thou shalt remember night and day him 
 that speaks to thee the word of God, and thou shalt honor him 
 as the Lord,' for where the Lordship (dominion) {Kvpi6Tr)<;) is 
 spoken of there is the Lord." ^ "Thou shalt not desire (make) 
 division." ' Thou shalt not turn away him that needeth, but 
 shalt share all things with thy brother, and shalt not say that they 
 (possessions) are thine own, for if you are sharers in that which 
 
 ' Apologia pro Christianis. ' 12 : 1-5. 
 
 • Accepting Brycnnios's emendation of the text. 
 
 * oil ■]ratSo<t>6opi/i(r(ii . . . ov (Povfiaen riKvov ivipdopq. ov5i •)/evvT)divra. [yeyvrjOiy 
 in Funk; ffvyrjO^vra in l.ightfoot). iiroKTtvtU. 2 : 2. 
 
 '2:7 (virip t})v ^vx'fl^ ffov); cf. p. 1 14. 
 
 •4:10. ' uis Ki/fiiov. '4:1. •4:3. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 121 
 
 is imperishable, how much more in perishable things ? * Slaves 
 are to be subject to masters "as to the image of God." ^ "In 
 the congregation thou shalt confess thy sins." ^ 
 
 The gospel of work had become very necessary (II Thess. 3 : 7- 
 12); and chapter XII refers probably not to the individual attitude 
 so much as to the associated church life and its responsibility for 
 the wayfarer. The exceedingly un-Pauline character of the 
 Teaching is plain in such an admonition as " Take heed that no 
 one lead thee astray from this way of teaching, since he teaches 
 thee apart from God. For if indeed thou art able to bear the 
 whole yoke of the Lord, thou shalt be perfect,** but if thou art not 
 able, what thou art able that do!'' and "against idol-offerings be 
 exceedingly on thy guard, for it is a sacrifice of dead gods.' 
 The attitude toward fasting is characteristic of the rapidly 
 formalizing process. The fasts of the hypocrites are condemned, 
 and are not to be kept, but on other days. The prayers are not 
 to be as the hypocrites, but the Lord's Prayer is to be said three 
 times a day! ' 
 
 Forms of prayer are arranged for the sacramental seasons, but 
 the old freedom is still permitted the "prophets."'' The fact 
 that wandering prophets, like the modern evangelist, often gave 
 trouble to the regular incumbents, and were in danger some- 
 times of leading the church to despise the regular officers, is 
 evident from XXI : 1-3. And the money-making character of 
 some of the wandering prophets is also evident.^ These prophets 
 were still the memories of the primitive and spontaneous ethical 
 enthusiasm which, however, mingled, according to modern 
 standards of judgment, with hysteria and with purely psycho- 
 pathological elements, was yet the great force on which the 
 movement at first rested for success. 
 
 These early prophets spoke from a subjective conviction that 
 was for them finality, and they made a similar impression on 
 
 > 4 : 8. ^ ws TiJTTi^j Oeov. 4:11. ' 4 : H (cf- Matt. 18 : 17). 
 
 * rfKetoi effTj. 6 : 1-2. 
 
 5 XaTpeia ydp iari OeCiv veKpdv. 6 : 3. 
 
 6 g . j_2_ ^ 10 : 7. '11:6 and 9. 
 
122 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 their hearers. From now on, however, their teaching had to 
 conform more and more to certain standards, rules, and previous 
 ethical judgments. These steadily become an increasing burden 
 upon prophetic freedom. We saw how in I John ' a dogmatic 
 statement about Jesus Christ begins to limit theological free- 
 dom, and now also certain ethical conceptions and postulates 
 must be dogmatically accepted before the wandering prophet 
 can obtain a hearing. 
 
 In the "Teaching" these begin to find their formulation, and 
 the "prophets" are watched and tested whether they teach in 
 accordance with a certain standard, and these standards are set 
 by established officers. Yet the prophetic freedom can never be 
 completely fettered, and again and again we shall see it breaking 
 the bonds of conventional ethical estimates and seeking, some- 
 times rightly, sometimes wrongly, to readjust conduct to life. 
 
 In chapter XIII elaborate arrangements are made for the 
 payment of the prophets from the "first-fruits," and on the 
 ground that they were "high-priests,"^ thus the natural but 
 dangerous reintroduction of the priestly conception is made to 
 go hand in hand with the organization development. And as a 
 consequence priestly views of ethics and a priestly morality 
 reassert them — even on the ground Paul had most prepared. 
 An elective priesthood is an anomaly, but as yet the bishops and 
 deacons were elected,^ and they were to be honored with the 
 prophets and teachers.* 
 
 The time of coming judgment was still thought of as at hand, 
 and the appearance of the Lord was an ethical motive of first 
 importance. No past faith or conduct would be of any value 
 if on this coming the watch was not kept "for the whole of your 
 faith shall not profit you except in the last season ye be found 
 perfect." ^^ The closing vision is the familiar outline of apoca- 
 lyptic vision as in Matt. 24:3-51, where one can hardly 
 
 ' I John 2 : 22. 
 
 * avTol yhp tlaiv oZ ipxteptU vixwv. 13 : 3. Comp. (cxt in Harris. 
 ' XeipoTov/i<xaT€ ovv . . . iiriaKbirovi Kal 5iaK6vov%. 15 : i. 
 
 * 15 : I. ' if) : 2. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 123 
 
 resist the impression that here as in the Apocalypse of John we 
 have a Jewish document used in a Christian sense/ "Then 
 shall the race of men come to the fire of testing, and many shall 
 be offended and shall perish; but they who endure in their faith 
 shall be saved from the curse." - "Then shall the world see the 
 Lord coming upon the clouds of heaven." ^ 
 
 Thus we have again an interesting mingling of the social 
 catastrophe as a hope which stayed the hearts of despairing 
 sufferers during the long infancy of the early church, and which 
 moulded not only their piety, but their conceptions of right and 
 wrong, of the values of family life, of private property, and of 
 labor, and which only slowly gave way as an ecclesiastical 
 organization because so identified with the social order that all 
 thought of an entire upturning of it ceased to be attractive to the 
 ruling class. 
 
 To this interesting chapter in the process we now turn. 
 
 The Letter 0} Polycarp.* — This letter may be with fair certainty 
 accepted as genuine, and the address, " Polycarp and the presby- 
 ters that are with him unto the church of God which sojourneth 
 at Philippi," is, no doubt, ancient. Hence the letter must have 
 been written before 155, when Polycarp suffered martyrdom. 
 The letter breathes a gentle spirit of that loving freedom charac- 
 teristic of Paul, to whose letter to the Philippians witness is 
 bome.^ A lamentable failure of one Valens, a presbyter, calls 
 attention to the sin of covetousness — probably Valens had mis- 
 used the confidence of the church — and great emphasis is laid, 
 therefore, by Polycarp upon the evil of this vice, and all widows, 
 deacons, and the church generally are warned again and again 
 
 * Cf. the way Justin refers to the Jewish apocalyptic literature as authoritative 
 for foretelling the future, "Apologia pro. Chris.," p. 44. 
 
 = 16 : 5. 3 j6 : 8. 
 
 * Greek editions are those of Funk, F. K., with Latin translation, 1881; 
 Lightfoot, J. B., "The Apostolic Fathers," vol. II, § 2, with notes and English 
 translation. Also an English translation in the "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. I. 
 A German translation by Mayer, J. C. Besides the histories of Harnack and 
 Kriiger, see Ritschl's "Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche," 2d ed., 1857, 
 pp. 584-600, and an article by Cotterill, J. M., in "The Journal of Philosophy," 
 XIX (1891), on the "Epistle of Polycarp." » § 3. 
 
124 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 against the love of money. The young men are to submit them- 
 selves to the presbyters and deacons "as to God and Christ." ' 
 The ethics are centred about the duties of Christians as mem- 
 bers or officers in the organization, yet hardly more so than in 
 the pastoral letters (canonical). In § 7 the Johannine formula 
 for acceptance into fellowship is given, and " Every one who shall 
 not confess that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh, is Antichrist; 
 and whosoever shall not confess the testimony of the cross, is of 
 the devil." But the letter has little of especial interest to the 
 student of ethics, save as revealing the power and influence of 
 Paul, even when his central thought had either been misappre- 
 hended or ignored; and as also showing how the enthusiasm 
 awakened in the Christian movement formed characters of such 
 powerful influence as was that of Polycarp, although when that 
 enthusiasm was formulated by the enthusiast, the tremendous 
 distance between the real life and the supposed explanation of 
 that life becomes at once apparent. 
 
 II. THE STRUGGLE FOR INDIVIDUALIZATION 
 
 Introduction. — Social disorganization, whether in the modern 
 industrial competition or in the political disruptions of a conquer- 
 
 LiTERATURE. — Baur, F. C: "Das Christenthum und die christliche Kirche 
 der drei ersten Jahrhunderte"; Tubingen, 1853. — Baur, F. C: English trans- 
 lation by Allan Menzies: "The Church History of the First Three Centuries"; 
 3ded.; 2 vols.; London, 1878-1879. — Baur, F. C: "Kirchengeschichte der drei 
 ersten Jahrhunderte"; 3d ed.; Tubingen, 1863. — Baur, F. C: "Die christ- 
 liche Gnosis"; Tubingen, 1835. — Lightfoot, J. B.: "Epistles to the Colossians 
 and Philemon"; 1886. — Friedlander, M.: "Der vorchristliche jiidische Gnos- 
 ticismus"; Gottingen, 1898. — Harnack, A.: "Geschichte der altchristlichen 
 Litteratur bis Eusebius"; 1893; I Teil; i Halfte; pp. 141-231. — Kriiger, G.: 
 "Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten"; 
 1895; pp. 43-54; English translation by Chas. R. Gillett; New York, 1897; 
 pp. 68-96. — Hilgenfeld, A.: "Die Ketzergeschichte der Urchristentums" 
 (particularly the second book); 1884; pp. 162^., 230-283. — Harnack, A.: 
 "Dogmengeschichte"; 3d ed.; 1894 seq. (particularly vol. I, pp. 507-590, 
 603-646, and 692 seq.); English translation by Neil Buchanan, Boston, 1895- 
 1900; vol. II, pp. 231-319, 332-378; vol. Ill, pp. 51 5^17. — Uebcrwcg-Heinze: 
 "Geschichte der Philosophic"; 1898; vol.11, §7, pp. 32-46; full literature. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 125 
 
 fng imperialism, produces inevitably strange sects and fellow- 
 ships whose strength is that they minister to the religious hunger 
 on its communal side. The early days of Roman imperialism 
 were marked by restless seeking after a basis for communal 
 unity, and it expressed itself in all manner of societies, guilds, 
 fellowships, and cults. The strongest bonds have ever been the 
 religious and the ethical. The state religion had largely broken 
 down. Philosophy took the vacant place among the thoughtful 
 and the more educated; all manner of theosophies, strange 
 oriental cosmologies, ascetic brotherhoods, mysteries borrowed 
 from various sources but coming to the Roman world from 
 Greece, and many weird faiths, filled the void or tried to fill it 
 among the less informed. 
 
 The dying pagan enthusiasms left a trail of fantastic symbol- 
 isms, and a Judaism becoming static gave the world almost 
 equally remarkable reminders of its religious and intellectual 
 greatness. Judaism itself was divided. There was the common 
 type of pharisaic Judaism, as at Jerusalem, but in the time of 
 Jesus, as in all time, Judaism had readily sought points of contact 
 with foreign thought, and proved itself hospitable to new cul- 
 tures. We have only to look at the Judaism of our own day to 
 understand how all shades of belief were found between the 
 "liberal" and "orthodox" Judaism of the time of Jesus. 
 
 Probably the Orient, both directly and through Hellenism in- 
 directly, worked upon Judaism. We see in Josephus and in 
 Philo how intelligent Jews sought to be true alike to the lofty 
 religious and ethical instincts of the race and at the same time 
 to maintain intellectual self-respect. For it is harsh and his- 
 torically untrue to think of Josephus as a mere flatterer of 
 Rome. The educated Jew was forced to a distinct attitude 
 toward cultures he had to confess were in some respects superior 
 to his own, while still maintaining the historical significance of 
 what he knew from experience to be an unsurpassed religious life. 
 
 When Christianity sprang into being on the basis of an un- 
 shaken faith in the resurrection of the crucified Jesus, and his 
 teachings, religious and ethical, became a power in a little group, 
 
126 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 moving men and women to the most devoted life of loving self- 
 sacrifice, and to an enthusiasm for the spread of their faith, 
 men at once asked what was this faith. An answer has been 
 hardly given yet, and it would be absurd to think of the little 
 primitive group really being in a position to analyze the situation, 
 and give in a series of dogmatic propositions an intelligent 
 philosophy of the new-born enthusiasm. 
 
 There were, however, worked out theosophies only too eager 
 to claim as their own the Christian enthusiasm. And the world 
 regarded the movement as simply a new Jewish sect among 
 many such sects. ^ There is plenty of indirect evidence that many 
 would have even gladly accepted the Christian organization and 
 given it recognition.^ 
 
 There was, no doubt, a common vocabulary of religious 
 enthusiasm, and the early Christianity of the synoptic gospels 
 has points of contact with religious movements from which, 
 however, it essentially differed, as Essenism, Ebionitism, etc., 
 and perhaps with other sects of which we now know nothing. 
 
 The looking for a '' parousia,''^ the outward rite of baptism, a 
 simple love meal, the initiation ceremonies, and various grades of 
 instruction in ethics and ritual, all belonged to the common re- 
 ligious machinery of the day. We see the same process going 
 on now. New sects arising in the United States take over with 
 them the outward forms of the evangelical movement from 
 which they spring in so far as these do not actually contradict 
 the special teaching of the new movement. 
 
 It was a matter of great moment that Christianity should 
 formulate her message far enough to disentangle her life from 
 religious movements which employed much the same machinery 
 but had different aims. 
 
 How this machinery took form in Judaism we are unfortunately 
 most ignorant. Beside the temple had grown up the synagogue, 
 
 ' Cf. Justin Martyr, "Dialogue with Trypho," chap. So, and the seven sects 
 there given. 
 
 ^ Cf. Hilgenfeki, A.: "Die Ketzergeschichte der Urchristenthums," 1884, 
 pp. 84-161. 
 
TPIE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 127 
 
 alongside the priest had arisen the scribe or learned theologian, 
 baptism had taken its place beside circumcision, prayers took 
 the place of sacrifice, but how this all happened we do not know. 
 It is simply evidence of the power of adaptation in Judaism to 
 circumstances. 
 
 Jesus was a Jew and died as one, so that it was inevitable that 
 sooner or later Jewish sects should see in the teaching of his 
 followers something of their own ideals. And on the other 
 hand Paul's deliberate universalism suggested to every Oriental- 
 Hellenistic cult a possible ally. 
 
 The struggle for a unified ethical ideal is therefore no simple 
 struggle between a Pauline and Petrine party as the brilliant 
 and still useful work of Baur would suggest.^ The syncretism 
 of Christianity is far more complex than a simple compromise 
 between these two forces. 
 
 The foundation for Christian ethics was laid deeply in the Old 
 Testament. Yet after the fall of Jerusalem the influence of the 
 narrow Judaism was almost nothing.^ 
 
 The sense of continuity with Judaism did indeed give rise to 
 some sectarian ethical ideals whose influence was, however, 
 small. In search after an historical ideal the early church went 
 rightly to the Old Testament, but she needed to interpret those 
 pages for herself. We must glance at some misinterpretations. 
 Among them were 
 
 The Ehionites. — In Irenaeus's account of this heresy ^ one sees 
 that in his day those sectarians were neither feared nor much 
 
 ^ It is constantly tempting in reading Ziegler's most attractive but misleading 
 "History of Christian Ethics" to enter into discussion with him where he has 
 been misled by an hypothesis which in its original form has been practically 
 abandoned by all schools of ecclesiastical history. But space forbids. 
 
 - Cf. Ritschl, A. : " Die Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche," 2d ed., Bonn, 
 1857, pp. 301-484; Harnack, A.: "Dogmengeschichte," I, 3d ed., pp. 271-300. 
 
 ^ "Adv. Haer.," I, 26, 2 and III, 21, i, where he says: "Qui autem dicuntur 
 Ebionaii." i. Use only Matthew's Gospel. 2. Denounce Paul as recusant to 
 the law. "Et apostolum Paulum recusant apostolum eum legis dicentes." 3. 
 Maintained such Jewish customs as circumcision. 4. Looked to Jerusalem as 
 the House of God, "Quasi domus sit dei." 5. Deny the deity of Christ. 6. 
 Deny the virgin birth. 
 
128 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 opposed, and what we know of their teachings * suggests just 
 such an interpretation of Jesus' teaching as would inevitably 
 spring up in the early days among those influenced by Christian- 
 ity in the mixed Jewish population. They, like the Essenes, may 
 have been older than the Christian church. 
 
 The Essenes. — Against the Essenes we find no polemic in the 
 New Testament writings, but far from this suggesting some 
 connection between them and Jesus it surely points the other 
 way, and implies that they lay altogether apart from the field 
 of early Christian interest.^ 
 
 The number of the Essenes seems to have been exceedingly 
 small. It is given by Philo as only four thousand, and the verdict 
 of Schurer is certainly to be accepted that in them on the basis 
 of an extreme Pharisaism, Hellenistic, and more especially 
 Pythagorean influences are to be seen working out their effects. 
 The contrast between the teaching of Jesus and the Essenes 
 could hardly be more complete, and the likenesses between 
 Essenism as described by Philo ^ to Christianity are due probably 
 more to the fact that both were modified by the same Hellenistic 
 influence than that the one borrowed from the other. 
 
 The ethics of Essenism were essentially formal and legal, that 
 
 ' C/. Hilgenfeld: "Die Ketzergeschichte des Urchristentums," 1884, pp. 
 421-446. 
 
 * Hilgenfeld, A.: "Ketzergeschichte des Urchristenthums," Leipsic, 1884, 
 pp. 87-149; F. C. Conybeare: art. "Essenes," in Hastings' "Dictionary 
 of the Bible," vol. I, 1898, pp. 767-772; Ritschl, A.: "Entstehung der 
 altkatholischen Kirche," 2d ed., Bonn, 1857, pp. 179-203; Harnack, A.: 
 "Dogmengeschichte," 3d ed., vol. I, p. 232, note 2; Schurer, E.: "Geschichte 
 des jiidischen Volkes," vol. II, 3d ed., 1898, pp. 556-584, vol. II, 4th ed., 1907, 
 pp. 651-680 (English translation, § 2, vol. II, pp. 188-218, with very full litera- 
 ture given); Uhlhorn, G.: art. "Essener," in Herzog-Hauck " Realencyklo- 
 padie," vol. V, 1898, pp. 524-527, English translation, New York, 1909, vol. IV, 
 pp. 179-180; Jiilicher, G. A.: art. "Essenes," in Cheyne's "Encyclopaedia 
 Biblica," 1901; Lightfoot, J. B.: "Epistles to the Colossians and to Philemon," 
 2d ed., 1876, pp. 349-419; Zeller, Edward: "Die Philosophic der Griechen," 
 III, 2, 277-338, 4th ed., 1903, pp. 307-384. 
 
 * "Quod omnes probus liber," 12 f., and in a quotation by Eusebius, "Praepar. 
 Evang.," VIII, ii, 12 (§§ 380, 381, vol. XXI of Migne, "Pat. Grsc"). "Hjec 
 Philo in 'Apologia,' Cujus item, in eo libro, quo probus omnes liberos esse de- 
 fcndit haec verba sunt," taken probably from the lost Apolog}'. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 129 
 
 of Jesus inward and free. The Essenes were rendered impure 
 by contact with even inferior members of their own order; 
 Jesus mingled freely with publicans and sinners. The Essenes 
 laid stress on countless washings ; Jesus neither himself baptized 
 nor permitted his disciples to be rebuked for eating with un- 
 washed hands ; what came out of the mouth defiled the man and 
 not what he ate or drank. For the Essenes angelology was an 
 essential element in their teaching, for Jesus it was simply the 
 acceptance of popular speech. The Essenes were dualistic and 
 ascetic; Jesus based his whole view of the world on the oneness of 
 God and his complete control of the physical world, his footstool; 
 and so little was he an ascetic that men called him a wine- 
 bibber and boon companion of sinners. Jesus frequented the 
 temple from which the Essenes were excluded. If the passages 
 from Josephus are accepted as accurate,^ the contrast is even 
 more striking, for there the Essenes are said to worship the 
 sun and to maintain sexual usages completely excluded by the 
 ethics of Jesus. 
 
 Gnosticism. — Very different must the verdict be when the 
 question is asked what influence had Hellenistic oriental specu- 
 lation upon the growing Christian church. Within the national 
 limits that speculation had worked already with characteristic 
 eroding force upon Jewish thought (Philo and Alexandrian 
 Judaism). It was not possible for a force so alive and so at- 
 tractive not to seek out the Christian enthusiasm as a fitting 
 field for propaganda. New schools of thought have a common 
 bond in the taboo of older and more highly organized and in- 
 trenched systems which resent their intrusion. There is a 
 tendency on the part of the new movements to try and work 
 together against the old. There was already at this time a 
 well-defined religious language and world of thought. Chris- 
 tianity had in some way to be related to it; and Gnosticism 
 was primarily the perfectly natural and indeed necessary attempt 
 to rationalize the primary Christian enthusiasm, and to fix in- 
 
 ' Cf., however, T. K. Cheyne's note 2 on § 5, art. "Essenes," in "Encyclo- 
 pedia Biblica." 
 
I30 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 telligently its relationship, on the one hand to the Judaism, out 
 of which it sprang, and on the other to the Syrian-Hellenic 
 synthetic religious world into which it came. 
 
 The attempt to fix the relation of Judaism to the Hellenic 
 culture had begun before Christ.* Indeed in the "wisdom lit- 
 erature" we see already the beginnings of an ethical Gnosticism, 
 and in Paul there are the beginnings of the inevitable adjust- 
 ment of Christianity to the intelligence of an outward world of 
 philosophic thought. As we have seen, Paul was Jewish in all 
 his fundamental thinking and only lightly touched by the Hellen- 
 istic culture whose tongue he employed and amid which he had 
 grown up. All the more necessary was it that he should offset 
 the "gnosis" of the Hellenistic culture by the better gnosis, 
 which with Paul is a charismatic impartation.^ Here Paul 
 distinguishes between the "word of wisdom" ^ and the word of 
 knowledge,^ or rather, perhaps, he parallels the "wisdom" of the 
 Old Testament with the "Gnosticism" after which the Greeks 
 sought. And in Colossians he enters upon a controversy with 
 those who would too closely identify Christianity with a system of 
 world speculation. For those who see in Paul the beginnings 
 of such an identification of Christianity with explanations of the 
 world^ miss the point that what with Paul was at most a second- 
 ary interest was for Gnosticism the essence of the religious life. 
 
 As early as the first letter of John '^ the church began to hedge 
 her teachers about with formulae which should, as we have seen, 
 distinguish them from false teachers, and many of these were 
 undoubtedly the Gnostic system-builders. We are, unfortu- 
 nately, almost entirely dependent upon the extracts and quota- 
 tions given by orthodox opponents of Gnosticism for our knowl- 
 edge of its life, hope, and teaching. 
 
 What sort of picture would we get of Protestant ideal aims and 
 ethical enthusiasms if all we knew of them were from the Roman 
 
 ' Cf. Fricdliindcr: "Der vorchristlichc judischc Gnosticismus," i8q8. 
 2 1 Cor. 12:8-9. ^Xdyos <ro(plas. * 'K6yos yvdio-eus. 
 
 * Cf. A. Julicher, in "Encyclopa,dia Biblica," art. "Gnosis." 
 " I John 2 : 22. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 131 
 
 Catholic writers of the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries? 
 Even when the apologists sought to be fair they were quite 
 incapable of calm objectivity in their accounts. Happily a few 
 Coptic translations have come down to us, giving a few frag- 
 ments of ancient Gnostic literature, and abundantly revealing 
 the fantastic character of all this early Gnostic teaching. An 
 example may be seen in 
 
 The Ophites}— R\^Y>'^\yiws groups under the name Ophites 
 or Naasseni ^ a number of sects whose doctrines, as he por- 
 trays them to us, and as we find them in Irenaeus and in the 
 few fragments of writings still surviving, seem to have been a 
 strange mingling of heathen elements and Greek philosophy 
 with Christian ethical inspirations and enthusiasms. What 
 probably bound them together was the resistance to the growing 
 pressure of the ecclesiastical organization. They demanded, 
 evidently, room for boundless speculation. They were, as 
 Harnack justly observes, the heralds of the coming theologians. 
 They felt the power of the ethical inspiration of Jesus as seen in 
 the church, but they were also under the spell of cosmogonies 
 and views of the world which they felt must be intellectually uni- 
 fied. The symbolic interpretation of the myths of polytheism 
 had been begun by Plato, the Greek mysteries had still further 
 developed this escape from vulgar idolatry, now the Old Testa- 
 ment had to submit at the hand of friend and foe to the same 
 process. In this attempted synthesis much that seems to us 
 absurd had then real meaning. The vague longings, the im- 
 perfect sciences, the crude but often searching inquiries into 
 nature and history find their expression in mystic hymns * and 
 
 •Hippolytus: "Refutation of all heresies" (xari Trao-wv aJp^o-ewv e\e7xos), 
 book V, chaps. 1-23; Irenaeus: "Adversus Haereses," book I, chap. 30; 
 Clement of Alexandria: " Stromateis," book III, 1-4, and book IV, 12-13. 
 
 ' From 6(pK or Ft"^ *'• e., serpent. 
 
 * Hippolytus has preserved to us (V, 5) a hymn, the text of which is corrupt, 
 but of which Harnack (" Sitzungsberichte der K. P. Akademie der Wissen- 
 schaften," 1902, Anhang II, pp. 542-545) has given a critical version; following 
 this text, save in two small particulars, the following is a rude rendering: "Nomos 
 was the producer of the all, the Prostitos (or firstling) was Nous, the second was 
 of the Prostitos, chaos outpoured, the third was Psyche born of both, fulfilling 
 
132 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 secret rites. These rites and hymns sought to express the rela- 
 tion of God to evil, of the redemption of Jesus to the sense of 
 forgiveness, and at the same time to give content to the loved 
 memories of religious forms whose real meaning was either 
 lost or deliberately rejected. 
 
 The ethical weaknesses of these fantastic speculations lie on 
 their face. The world-view is dark and despondent. Re- 
 demption is either magical and mechanical or is a matter of in- 
 tellectual perception and not of ethical struggle. Death is the 
 evil that must be overcome and not sin. Ignorance and not 
 moral depravity, weakness and not will, are the subjects of 
 interest. The allegorizing of old impure rituals did not really 
 take away the superstitious debasing character inherent in them, 
 and the ignorant accepted the superstitions and ignored the 
 allegorizing morality. 
 
 Indeed we may see in Irenseus and Hippolytus how, in fact, 
 Gnosticism was bringing the superstition of Egypt, Phrygia, 
 Assyria, Persia, Greece, and Rome under allegorized forms into 
 the life of the early church, already too superstitious on its own 
 account, and although all were not evil, many of these sects were 
 actually bad and debasing.' It would be out of place here to 
 
 the law (Harnack takes ip-ya^ofUv-n as passive, and apparently omits vbiu>v; 
 Macmahon translates 'received its law of toil'). Hence in the form of a deer 
 she (Psyche the soul), trembling, struggles with the clinging death, (his) oppor- 
 tunity. Now having mastery she sees the light, now in misery plunged she 
 wails, now bewailed she rejoices, now being judged she dies, now the unfortunate 
 one sunk in misery, wandering is canght in a labyrinth! Then says Jesus, 
 'See Father! a being sought out by evils far from the (life-giving) breath wanders 
 on earth, she seeks to flee from bitter chaos, and knows not whence to fly. On 
 account of this one send me Father, having the seals I will descend, I will 
 traverse all the ages {alCJvai), I will reveal all mysteries, I will manifest (i-iriM^w) 
 the forms of gods, the secret things of the holy way I will hand down— called 
 gnosis." 
 
 ' The religious customs that seem to us so strange and horrible, such as 
 prostitution in the temple and jus primer noctis, were survivals of past moralities. 
 In early tribal life at a certain stage it was immoral for a woman to refuse herself 
 to the men of her marriage group, and as sexual cxclusiveness arose, prostitution 
 in the temple and many other strange customs became the price paid for this 
 cxclusiveness. The religious character of the price paid rendered it permanent 
 long after the origin had been forgotten. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 133 
 
 attempt to describe in detail the Peratce, the Sethians, the 
 Cainites, the sects founded by Simon and Justinus. Some were 
 evidently interested in adjusting Christian inspiration to the 
 older heathen cults, some to the Old Testament, some to Hellenic 
 speculation. Had we fuller material a division of Gnostic sects 
 might, perhaps, be made on this basis, but it is often hard to say 
 how far we are dealing in the pages of Hippolytus, Irenaeus, or 
 TertuUian with caricatures and how far with actual faiths. 
 
 In some of the Gnostic sects Jehovah is thought of as an actual 
 evil demon, in some as righteous but not merciful, in some as 
 good but limited. According to some the world was formed 
 against the will of the Highest God; * according to others it 
 represents a lower but necessary state of existence.^ 
 
 Practically, in all systems, speculation seeks to mediate cos- 
 mologically between the finite and the infinite, and to identify 
 goodness with the infinite and evil with the finite. This struggle 
 with the problem of evil gives Gnostic its significance to the 
 ethical student. The early church never fully overcame the in- 
 trusion of the dualistic and magical explanation of evil, and as 
 the allegory in exegesis still haunts the theological study in re- 
 fined form, so in subtle dress oriental dualism still casts its 
 shadows over Christian explanations of evil. At the same time, 
 the attempt, fanciful as may seem the outcome, to reconcile the 
 existence of the God and Father of our Lord Jesus with the 
 actual facts of sin and misery showed a deeper grasp of the in- 
 ward difficulties of a religious philosophy than do some of the 
 dogmatic orthodoxies of a growing but stiffening Catholic 
 church. 
 
 Valentinus' in particular may seem in the pictures of the eccle- 
 
 ' Cf. Irenaeus, "Adv. Haer.," II, 2, 1-6. ^ iren^us, "Adv. Hasr.," II, 8, 1-2. 
 
 * Came from Alexandria to Rome under the bishopric of Hyginus, and re- 
 mained for a long time in connection with RomC; establishing a school of which 
 Ptolemaeus was the head. Irenaeus, "Adv. Haer.," I, 2. TertuUian, "Adv. 
 Hser.," I, cap. 4, etc. ("Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. Ill, pp. 503-520). Besides 
 the standard histories, see the admirable article by Preuschen, E., in Herzog- 
 Hauck: "Realencyklopadie," vol. 20, pp. 395-417; and Hilgenfeld, A. : "Ketzer- 
 geschichte des Urchristenthums," pp. 283-316. 
 
134 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 siasticisms of his day an exceedingly absurd teacher, more es- 
 pecially if we are to believe Irena^us and Tertullian, and think 
 of him as inventing out of his own fantasy the "triads" and 
 "monads" and "syzygies," the "aeons" and the "ogdoads" 
 which seem to us so meaningless and fanciful. But this is a false 
 conception of the entire situation. Valentinus found these things 
 as much a part of an intense ethically religious life as washings 
 and circumcision and feasts were part of the intense ethical life 
 of Judaism; and they were linked with antiquity. Indeed they 
 were linked with an antiquity that rivalled Judaism. In default 
 of other and more effective measures of truthfulness, the antiquity 
 of an opinion was the standard by which it was measured. We 
 see that in the way the "fathers" are forever citing the past 
 traditions, and we see it in the way the Old Testament was 
 clung to with feverish anxiety lest Christianity should be charged 
 with being unhistoric. 
 
 The Gnostic heresy was evidently the desperate attempt to 
 weave together two mighty impulses whose fundamental notes 
 were the ethical longings of religious hearts. The one was the 
 oriental despondent dualism of India and Persia, mingled with 
 elements from Thrace and Greece, and bound together in the 
 weird conglomerates of the mysteries of Asia Minor with 
 Ephesus as chief centre.* The other was the new fresh en- 
 thusiasm of the Christian church, despairing also of the present 
 aeon, but looking forward with splendid faith to a new aeon in 
 which should dwell righteousness. Valentinus evidently saw in 
 Christianity, as he utiderstood it, the new and long-expected 
 revelation or reincarnation of the light-bringing Logos. Even 
 amidst the ignorant caricatures of the ecclesiastical opponents 
 we see how he expected in Christianity to find East and West, 
 Asia and Rome at last united on the basis of an exceedingly 
 elastic symbolism in one religion sweeping in all the nations. 
 For this synthesis the allegorical method, built up in order to 
 explain away vulgar heathenism, could also be used to explain 
 
 ' CJ. King, C. W., "The Gnostics and Their Remains," 1864, pp. 1-33. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 135 
 
 away alike vulgar Judaism and the vulgar literal and narrow 
 Christianity of the day. 
 
 The view of the world thus gained seems to us childish, but 
 all the views of the world of that day seem so to us. 
 
 Tertullian lived in a demon-peopled world, surrounded by the 
 most fantastic miracles, amid the most extravagant superstitions, 
 and only guarded by the magic of sacramental water and 
 sacramental rites from present peril and everlasting death.^ 
 Between the neo-heathenism of the rising Catholic church and 
 the fairly full-fledged heathenism of Valentinus it was, as a matter 
 of fact, only a question of degree. But what was it that gave 
 force to the Gnostic movement and made it under Valentinus, 
 Ptolemaeus, Basilides, Isidor, and Marcion one of the most liv- 
 ing antagonists the Christian church had ? Very suggestive is 
 Hamack's exposition ^ of the letter of Ptolemaeus to Flora, a 
 Gnostic teacher to a devout Gnostic Christian, who is troubled 
 by the law of Moses. The letter is preserved to us, in fairly 
 good text, by Epiphanius (" Contra Hser." 2;^, 8-12, ed. 
 Dindorfius, vol. II), and was written about 160 A. D. We 
 have in it the key to the Gnostic symbolism. The ethics of Jesus 
 and his view of God, as Hamack justly points out, are the 
 standard by which the Old Testament is judged, and by that 
 standard it is divided into three parts. One part is from God, 
 for Jesus says, in the beginning God made man and wife: one 
 part is from Moses, for Jesus says Moses for the hardness of your 
 hearts, and one part is pure human tradition, for Jesus says, 
 "Ye have made the word of God of none effect through your 
 traditions," but even then Ptolemaeus goes on to show that the 
 lofty character of God revealed by Jesus Christ as belonging to 
 the Eternal Father could not belong to the Jehovah of the Old 
 Testament, hence that this Jehovah is the demiurge of creation, 
 just and righteous, but not the Eternal Redeeming Father of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 ' Cf. Tertullian, "De Baptismo." 
 
 ' " Sitzungsberichte der K. P. Akademie der Wissenschaften," May 15, 1902, 
 pp. 505-545- 
 
136 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 We see at once the ethical problems with which Gnosticism 
 struggled. It was because of their more perfect perception of 
 the religious value of the conception of God as Jesus revealed 
 him that made the acceptance of the growing Catholic theology 
 difficult. It was just because of the growing valuation of 
 antiquity ^ as a standard of truth that made the ancient symbol- 
 isms of Persia and Asia Minor attractive, and it was because 
 more and more the original ethical and religious enthusiasm that 
 looked for another aeon was being dimmed by intellectual sub- 
 stitutions for it, that Gnosticism was a formidable force with 
 which the growing church had to battle. 
 
 It was not, as some have supposed, that Gnosticism presented 
 a break with the historical continuity, but that it presented the 
 wrong continuity. As over against Marcion and Ptolema;us 
 the Catholic church asserted her continuity with the religious 
 life of Judaism. To this day this attitude includes strange con- 
 tradictions and quite arbitrary use of the powers of non-observa- 
 tion, but the instinct was truthful. The ethics of Judaism and 
 not of the Orient; the monism of the Old Testament prophets 
 and not even the spiritualized polytheism of India, Babylon, or 
 Asia Minor; the optimism of the New Testament and not the 
 despondency of theosophy were to win in the encounter which 
 from the later letters of Paul until the council of Nicasa gave 
 color to the whole development of the Christian life. For in 
 these things a vital Christianity had her roots. 
 
 Did we know more of the practical ethics of the Gnostics we 
 might find that in some things they had advanced upon the every- 
 day morality of the official church. The Essenes denounced 
 slavery, and the Gnostics were evidently under the influence of 
 Buddhist pity for all animal life. And in spite of the bitterness 
 of the attacks made by Irena^us, Hippolytus, Tertullian, and 
 others upon Valentinus and the Gnostics generally, it was their 
 speculation and not their conduct which aroused the zealous 
 hate of their opponents. In fact one of the developments of 
 
 ' CJ. Tertullian, " Adv. Ha;r.," chaps. 29, 30. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 137 
 
 Gnosticism was an attempt to reform the church in the interests 
 of an extreme ascetic morality. 
 
 Marcion * distinctly stood for the oriental dualistic world- 
 view. This appears not simply in his sympathy with Gnosticism, 
 but in his emphasis upon a strict asceticism and a morality that 
 precluded any mingling with the world. Wine, the theatre, all 
 amusements, and the delights of home were forbidden. Marcion 
 read into Paul this oriental asceticism, and in the interests of 
 his redemptive theory rejected the God of the Old Testament as 
 Judaistic and legal. 
 
 In this god he saw an antagonistic principle to the Redeeming 
 God. Matter is inherently the seat of evil, and redemption is 
 freedom from the flesh. He was not a system-builder like the 
 Gnostics, and his ethics are stern with self-renunciation. He 
 favored martyrdom and looked to a gradual winning of the 
 whole Christian church to his views. He organized his church 
 on the basis of the first canon of sacred writings, which, however, 
 he arbitrarily chose and mutilated. His dislike of legal Judaism 
 was excessive. 
 
 Marcion sought to exclude even Abraham from the inheritance 
 with the saints,^ and in very sharp criticism he tried to strip the 
 ecclesiastical canon of the elements he disliked, and which he 
 regarded as a corruption of the faith. 
 
 It was no mean attempt, but of course lacked all critical instru- 
 ments. The excisions were arbitrary and subjective and as 
 
 * Marcion was a rich ship-owner who as a Christian in Rome about 139 at- 
 tempted to reform the local church. In 144 he was expelled and founded his own 
 church, which lasted on until the sixth century. He was deeply interested in 
 Cerdo the Gnostic, but his system is widely apart in many ways from Gnosticism. 
 For literature, see Harnack: "Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte,"vol. I, 3d ed., 
 1894, pp. 254-271, English translation, I, pp. 266-285, and his article in "Zeit- 
 schrift fiir wissenschatliche Theologie," XIX, 1876, pp. 80-120, "Beitrage zur 
 Geschichte der marcionitischen Kirchen"; MuUer, Karl: " Kirchengeschichte," 
 I, 1892, pp. 75-77; Moller, W. : "Lehrbuch der Kirchengeschichte," 2d ed., 
 1902, I, pp. 158-161; English translation of ist ed., I, 1892, pp. 148-150. The 
 chief source is Tertullian versus Marcion and the attacks of the apologists 
 Justin and Irenaeus. Cf. McGiffert's "Eusebius," p. 184, note 24. 
 
 ^ Irenaeus, " Adv. Haer.," book IV, chap. 8. 
 
138 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 uncritical as the acceptance of the official church. Moreover 
 the instinct of the official church was in the main truer, as we 
 can now see, to the great ethical verities than was the clever but 
 speculative and headstrong radical. In various ways the ori- 
 ental character of the Gnostic thinking expressed itself. Marcion 
 is accused by Hippolytus especially of "sorcery" and "sleight- 
 of-hand," and of carrying on "operations by demons,"^ and 
 dealing with the eucharistic cup as a cup of enchantments. So 
 also Carpocrates and his followers "practise magical arts and 
 incantations, philter and love potions." ^ The Gnostics are 
 accused in the same chapter of antinomianism. No doubt 
 extreme libertinism and extreme asceticism marked various 
 schools. At the same time it is dangerous to accept the asser- 
 tions of ancient bigoted orthodoxy passing judgment some time 
 after those thus condemned were dead and unable to reply. It 
 is interesting for instance to contrast the judgment of Clement of 
 Alexandria on Basilides and Valentinus, who probably actually 
 knew by personal contact what they taught, with the accounts of 
 later critics.^ The firm rejection of their teachings is at the 
 same time temperate, and even in the frank dealings with the 
 peculiar views on sexual matters in book III there is evidence of 
 a desire to understand and do justice to the divergent and false 
 teaching. 
 
 Bardesanes is one of the few whose views on the philosophical 
 question is given us. He stood for free-will as over against the 
 mechanical views that crass dualism logically involves, but on 
 the whole such discussions were probably carried on in too 
 symbolic a fashion to have gready affected the actual thinking of 
 the church. Those who were struggling for church unity on the 
 basis of submission to an ecclesiastical machine found their 
 strongest foe in the intellectual independence of Hellenistic 
 Gnosticism. If the teachings of Marcion were so utterly without 
 historic basis, and were so entirely personal as the later apologists 
 
 ' Book VI, 34. ^ Irenaeus, " Adv. Hacr.," book I, 25, 3. 
 
 ' Clement of Alexandria, " Stromateis," book II, 3, 6, 8; book III, 1-4; book 
 IV, 12. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 139 
 
 are fond of making them appear, it is very remarkable how large 
 a space he and his teachings take in the early apology of the 
 growing Catholic church. 
 
 If the attractive suggestion of McGiffert ^ is accepted, we 
 owe the so-called Apostles' Creed in its older form to the effort 
 of the Roman church to counteract the influence of Marcion 
 and his followers. We certainly have in the pseudo-Clementine 
 fragments^ skilful attempts to offset in the name of Clement 
 the dangerous division threatened by Marcion. The "Recog- 
 nitions"^ and the "Homilies" are certainly the remainders of 
 probably a much larger literature. For our purpose the 
 question of the literary dependence of the two on each other or 
 on a third source is of little importance. We see here reflected 
 an effort on the part of the rapidly organizing church to fight 
 fire with fire, to oppose Marcion and his false gnosis by portray- 
 ing Peter and the true gnosis. 
 
 Marcion claimed Paul as his authority, so Paul is ignored, 
 though not attacked, as where the Gentiles are represented as 
 "wholly without a champion," * for Simon the magician is 
 rather Marcion than Paul, and the warning against any teacher 
 coming without a letter from James in Jerusalem, or whomso- 
 ever would come after him,^ would not affect Paul, but did affect 
 the Marcionite teachers. 
 
 ^McGi£fert, A. C, "The Apostles' Creed: its Origin, its Purpose, etc.," 
 New York, 1902. 
 
 ^ For the state of the texts, see Harnack and Preuschen, in " Geschichte der 
 Altchristlichen Litteratur bis Eusebius " (1893), Erster Theil, pp. 212-231. 
 
 ^"Recognitions." 'Aj'a7J'c6<reij. Text in Migne, "P. G." torn. I, cols. 1201- 
 1474 (whence quotations are taken), pseudo-Clementine; Gebhardt and Har- 
 nack's edition of "Apostolic Fathers": " Prolegomena," pp. xx,ff.; Lightfoot, 
 J. B.: "The Aoostolic Fathers," part i, London, 1890; Hilgenfeld: "Die 
 clementinischen Recognitionen und Homilien nach ihrem Ursprung und Inhalt 
 dargestellt," Jena, 1848; Ritschl: "Entstehung der altkatholischen Kirche," 
 2d ed., Bonn, 1857, pp. 205 ff.; Uhlhorn, G.: "Die Homilien und Recog- 
 nitionen des Clemens Romanus," Gottingen, 1854; cf. also his article in 
 Herzog-Hauck, "Realencyklopadie," vol. IV, 1898, pp. 163-179; English 
 translation, New York, 1900; Harnack, A.: " Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte," 
 I, 3d ed, 1894, pp. 294-300; English translation, vol. I, 1895, pp. 311-332. 
 
 * "Recognitions," book IH, 7. * "Recognitions," book IV, 35 
 
I40 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The ethical world in which the writers and readers of the 
 "pseudo-Clementine" literature lived was dominated by the 
 principle of authority. The "prophet" was indeed to be ex- 
 amined with due care as to whether he were really a prophet or 
 not/ but once the prophet was accepted then he was to be 
 "believed in everything." ^ All sense of moral relativity is thus 
 lost, and all moral independence is undermined. Hence for the 
 world of the "Recognitions" antiquity had as much importance 
 as for the High-church party of Newman's day in England, and 
 for the same reason, in default of any true criterion of knowledge, 
 age alone was left: hence again the value to the writers of this 
 literature of the Old Testament. 
 
 Of course the Old Testament had to be in large part explained 
 away; for this the Hellenistic allegorical method was of much use : 
 then also the Gnostics, with their distinction between Moses and 
 his laws and God and his will, were helpful. Hence in the " Rec- 
 ognitions" Moses and not God is said to have established sacri- 
 fice as a concession, ^ reminding us of the letter of Ptolemjeus 
 to Flora and the position of Moses in his thought. Of course 
 such acceptance of the Old Testament led to an almost extreme 
 legalism. God's friendship is secured by living well and obey- 
 ing his will.* Indeed the difTerence between Judaism and 
 Christianity is found simply in the acceptance or non-acceptance 
 of Jesus as prophet, ^ and the Christology is correspondingly 
 crude. Christ is chief by appointment over men.' This ap- 
 proach to Judaism was made possible, no doubt, by the fact that 
 a ritually independent Christianity was now assured and a great 
 separation had really taken place. For instance in the "Homilies" 
 
 ' " Recognitions," book I, i6. 
 
 ^ The important passage reads: "Et ideo ante omnia fidem prophetse, omni cum 
 examinatione oportet probari; quern cum cognoveris vere esse prophetam, de 
 reliquo cuncta ei credas oportet, nee ultra discutere eum per singula quas docuerit, 
 sed habere firma et sancta qua; dicit, quccque quamvis fide suscipi vidcantur, 
 antchabita tamen probatione crcduntur." — "Recognitions," lib. I, i6 (MPG, I, 
 I2IS B.). 
 
 • "Recognitions," book I, 36. * "Recognitions," book I, 26. 
 
 • "Recognitions," book I, 43. • "Recognitions," book I, 45. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 141 
 
 and "Recognitions" appears a surprising ignorance of Jewish 
 economy and sects.' Baptism is a magical cleansing, so that 
 Clement is represented as withdrawing while Peter prays, for 
 he had not yet been "washed from the sins committed,^ and 
 works and righteousness are the way to the new kingdom,^ the 
 gate of which is the magic Christian rite. "Let him be baptized 
 in order that, stripped of his past evils, he may for the future 
 become heir of heavenly blessings in consequence of his good 
 conduct." * This raised interesting ethical questions discussed 
 in the next book as to sins that "pollute the garment of baptism," 
 and these are given as sins of separation from God the Father by 
 receiving another teacher than Christ, or by thinking unworthily 
 of the substance of the Godhead; these "fatally pollute the gar- 
 ment of baptism." In actions the chief sins that pollute are 
 these: "murders, adulteries, hatreds, avarice, evil ambitions"; 
 and the things that corrupt "at once soul and body" are, "to 
 partake of the table of demons, that is, to eat things sacrificed 
 (to heathen gods), or blood, or a carcass which has been stran- 
 gled." ^ The line of separation is baptism rather than circum- 
 cision, but the separation is as complete. There should be no 
 common table with those not baptized,® and it is the water 
 that confers salvation." ' It alone can extinguish the eternal 
 fires.* 
 
 The note of the literature is the separation of an organization 
 on the basis of authority and ritual. Bishops are to be obeyed 
 as having the place of Christ." There are throughout traces of 
 the influence of Gnosticism, but the main interest is entirely 
 separate, and the distinct teachings are more than once com- 
 bated. Sin is not, for instance, in substance, for there is "no 
 
 ' "Recognitions," book I, 54, and corresponding passages in "Homilies." 
 
 * "Recognitions," book II, 19. ' "Recognitions," book II, 21. 
 
 * "Recognitions," book III, 67. ' "Recognitions," book IV, 36. 
 
 * "Recognitions," book VII, 29. ^ "Recognitions," book VI, 9. 
 
 * "Confugite ergo ad aquas istas, solas sunt enim quae possint vim futuri ignis 
 exstinguere; ad quas qui moratur accedere, constat in eo infidelitatis adhuc 
 idolum permanere, et ab ipso prohiberi ad aquas quae salutem conferunt." 
 —Loc. cit. (MPG, I, 1352 C.) • " Recognitions," book III, 66. 
 
143 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 evil in substance." * The intellectual independence of the 
 Gnostic literature is opposed by the mandate of authority 
 (passage quoted). Although the main issues in Gnosticism are 
 touched upon, namely, whence comes evil ? ^ and the question of 
 the cosmogony,^ they are in the method of their treatment 
 marked as side issues. So also the Chi;istological questions that 
 meant so much for Gnosticism are barely handled in this litera- 
 ture. Christ is chief among men, and evil springs from igno- 
 rance.^ Even the apologetic interest of Gnosticism is less 
 emphasized. The apology is confined to the commonplace 
 arguments familiar to all readers of the early literature. Jesus 
 a true prophet as shown by (i) words, (2) works, (3) fulfilment 
 of law, (4) foretold in Old Testament, and (5) awaited by all 
 nations, etc., etc.^ The interest is the separation of an organiza- 
 tion with a distinct life, a distinct teaching, and a distinct ethics. 
 
 This last is what concerns us, and the examination of the 
 ethics has shown its legal and Jewish character. There are, 
 however, still fine touches of the primitive Christian freedom. 
 In distinguishing between the false works of the pseudo-prophets 
 and the true works of the Christian teacher the character of the 
 works is the determining factor. The works of the sorcerer 
 Simon are wonderful, but those of Jesus Christ are marked by 
 their loving redeeming quality.' And in so far as the redeeming 
 works are imitated, it is only because of the end of the age coming 
 with its final and confusing tests. For the old eschatological 
 interest still survives '' and the aeon passes away and the better 
 aeon is coming, and righteousness is the bond of that coming age, 
 so that the Christian is to " show by good works the likeness of 
 that Father " who has begotten us.^ 
 
 The real strength of this movement is still seen in such a 
 
 ' "Recognitions," book IV, 23. ' "Recognitions," book III, 16, 
 
 ' "Recognitions," book I, 20. * "Recognitions," book V, 4. 
 
 * "Recognitions," book, V, 10. 
 
 • " Ista ergo signa quae ad salutem hominum prosunt et aliquid boni hominibus 
 conferunt, maiignus faccre non potest, nisi in fine mundi tantum." — Loc. cit. 
 (MPG, I, 1308 B.) ("Recognitions," book III, 60.) 
 
 ^ "Recognitions," book I, 52. • "Recognitions," book VI, lo. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 143 
 
 simple statement of faith as we find in book VIH, 47, where 
 chastisement is thought of as part of a purifying process, "but the 
 chastisement turns to the advantage of the pious, that, being 
 afifected in the present life, they may become more pure in the 
 future life, in which a lasting rest is prepared for them." Thus sin 
 and its weary restlessness is seen as the real evil of life, and the 
 only real redemption is righteousness with its corresponding peace. 
 But the freedom of Paul is gone and the dynamic love of 
 Jesus is hidden in magic rite and cumbersome organization. 
 
 III. THE INTELLECTUAL FORMULATION OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 The particular view of the world which any one of us holds 
 rests in part upon the authoritative traditions of the group in 
 which we live and in part upon the rational reflective process 
 working upon our own experience. Parents, teachers, com- 
 panions, and all intercourse with the world supply us with a 
 certain sum of knowledge, opinions, prejudices, and rules of 
 conduct. In greater or less degree we seek to analyze and 
 rationalize this heritage of ours in the light of growing experience. 
 No one can, perhaps, ever rationalize the whole content of his 
 heritage. We only deal with those elements of most immediate 
 concern to us. With some the rationalizing process never 
 proceeds very far. Between the two extremes of those who 
 accept blindly the whole content of the tradition handed to 
 them without any conscious rationalization at all, and those who 
 seek to rationalize, however vainly, the whole traditional view 
 of the world, there are all degrees of the rationalizing process. 
 
 Upon the Catholic church came the necessity of rationalizing 
 her content of authority-given faith. A heathen world insisted 
 upon asking questions. The authority of antiquity it offset by 
 the claim of still greater antiquity, which claim had to be met. 
 Moreover, this same heathen world was in possession, and could 
 enforce with death penalty its determinations. The Christian 
 world was forced on the defensive, and the attack was primarily 
 upon the morals of the Christian system. 
 
144 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The existing order always sees in a new religious enthusiasm 
 a distinct danger and from its point of view rightly resists it. 
 A new religious enthusiasm is always a danger for the existing 
 political state, the accepted morality and the conventional way of 
 thought. It was not the bad Roman rulers who most intelli- 
 gently fought the rising power of the Christian church. In fact 
 the far-seeing and large-hearted Marcus Aurelius struggling for 
 unity of empire in order to resist the encroachments of the 
 northern tribes could only see in the new faith a divisive force 
 and a destructive influence. 
 
 And he was right. An uncompromising Christianity must 
 involve the overthrow of all government of mere force no matter 
 how just or how benevolent. The enemies of the cross often 
 saw more clearly than its defenders that the logic of Christ's 
 teachings were dangerous in the last degree to the existing order. 
 The position of the early apologists was that it was possible 
 to have a spiritual impenum within the worldly imperio, and 
 that a man could be loyal to both.^ At the same time Paul's 
 dictum (Rom. 13 : i) that every soul should be subject to the 
 higher powers was offset by the saying of Peter that the Chris- 
 tian had to obey God rather than men,^ and by Paul's own 
 conduct when he came into collision with the state. The refusal 
 to worship the imperial image was only the outward and visible 
 evidence of a divided allegiance which the theory of Roman 
 imperialism could no longer brook. The friction was bound to 
 increase the wider the influence of Christian thinking and ethics 
 became. The first reflective rationalization of the faith as over 
 against propaganda literature or moral writings for the use of 
 the group sprang from the need to defend the Christian teaching. 
 
 Justin Martyr ^ was the first of a long line of apologists. 
 His undoubtedly genuine extant works contain his defence, 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, ist Apol. 17. ^ Acts 5 : 29. 
 
 ' Justin Martyr, he tells us, was the son of Priscus and grandson of Bacchius, 
 Apol. I, I, who came from FlaviaNeapolis, in Syria, which is the modern Samarian 
 city of Nablous. He was born about 104, and probably sufifered martyrdom 
 under Marcus Aurelius about 165. For literature and facts of his life, consult 
 the article by Professor Bonwetsch, in Heriog-Hauck,"Realencyklopadie," vol. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 145 
 
 on the one side against Judaism, in his dialogue with Trypho, 
 and on the other against the might of Rome in his "Apologies." 
 Interesting as is the curious Christology of the dialogue for the 
 student of dogmatics, the ethical significance of this work is 
 slight. The most interesting feature is the attitude taken to the 
 law. The Mosaic ritual law is, according to Justin, given for 
 the sake of the hard-heartedness of the Jew. Now a new law 
 has come in Christ Jesus, of world-wide application. In some 
 passages this would seem to be thought of as wholly moral and 
 spiritual.* But on the other hand baptism, the eucharist, and 
 the simple externals of the growing Catholic church are also 
 considered part of this law.^ Already the freedom of sonship, 
 although proclaimed, ' is sorely straitened. Baptism is placed 
 alongside of repentance as an external requirement, but also as 
 a semi-magical rite.* 
 
 The whole attitude toward Judaism and the Old Testament 
 is under the constraint of the notion of authority. In conse- 
 quence the Old Testament is treated as allegory in a way that 
 would really utterly destroy its value as an authority. The 
 oblation of fine flour is a distinct proclamation of the eucharist,^ 
 and the bells on the high-priest's garment plainly foreshadow 
 the twelve apostles.® Moreover, both law and prophecy are 
 explained away in allegory and figure. 
 
 As over against heathenism Justin denounced the gods of the 
 nations as demons. The philosophers, however, had grasped 
 
 IX, 1901, pp. 641-650. English translation appearing soon. For te.xts, see 
 Otto's edition, 5 vols., Jena, 1876-1881, 3d ed., with Latin translation; Migne, 
 "P. G.," torn. 6 (whose text is followed in these pages). Translations in the"Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers," New York, 1896, vol. I; Engelhardt, M. von: "Das Christ- 
 enthum Justins des Martyrers," Erlangen, 1878; Ritschl, A.: "Entstehung 
 der altkatholischen Kirche," 2d ed., Bonn, 1857, pp. 298-311; Harnack, A. 
 "Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte," 3d ed., vol. I, 1894, pp. 464-470 and 
 482-507; English translation, II, 1897, pp. 179-166, 202-230; Harnack, A. 
 "Geschichte der altchristlichen Litteratur," I, i, 1893, pp. 99-114, 838-840, II 
 I, pp. 274-284, 508-517; Kattenbusch, F. : "Das apostolische Symbol," 1900, 
 vol. II, pp. 279-298 and 508-9S3; Kriiger, G.: "Geschichte der altchristlichen 
 Litteratur," 1895, pp. 65-72; English translation, 1897, pp. 105-116. 
 
 ' Chaps. 28-30 of the dialogue with Trypho. 
 
 '^ Chap. 41. ^ Chap. 140. * Chap. 14. * Chap. 41. ^ Chap. 42. 
 
146 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 after the truth, Socrates came by wisdom with a word of truth,* 
 and the Christians, far from being atheists, proclaim the true God 
 as over against the demons.^ This God is one of justice and 
 compassion as over against the evil spirits. And the Christians 
 are not lovers of evil but of good; if some are said to be evil 
 Justin demands that the case be inquired into, first whether 
 they are really so, and also whether the evil-doers are really 
 Christian.' 
 
 The apology then is an ethical defence of Christianity in 
 which Justin seeks to show that it stands for righteousness, 
 chastity, justice, humanity, and the other qualities of divine 
 love.* In reply to the real point of the attack, namely, the in- 
 compatibility of the claims of the Kingdom of God with the 
 claims of Rome, Justin draws a distinction between a divine 
 and a human kingdom,^ and seeks to show that Christians are 
 the maintainers of law and order, condemning cheats, usurers, 
 assassins, and teaching a choice between eternal life and eternal 
 damnation.® Indeed for Justin the morality of Christianity is 
 personal. Once "we loved unchastity, now we prize chastity," 
 once "we loved money" and "prized above all things the gain of 
 goods, now we place all we have in the service of the whole." ^ 
 The whole passage ending with the declaration of love for those 
 that hate us is a very beautiful summary of the personal Christian 
 standards. The attitude of the Christian toward the Roman 
 state was obedience, but not of worship, and a final judgment 
 stood higher than all earthly tribunals. 
 
 In regard to philosophy, Justin proclaims the superiority of 
 Christianity over the best pagan thought, but admits the kinship 
 between them.* In the actual life of Rome, however, Justin 
 sees the work of the demons, and his picture of Roman life is a 
 terrible vision of iniquity." 
 
 Over against the philosophers and poets he puts Moses,'" and 
 only the activity of demons has brought about the prohibition 
 
 ' Apol. I, 5. * Apol. I, 6. » Apol. I, 7. « Apol. I, 10. 
 
 'Apol. I, II, "if we sought a human kingdom," dvdpuirivov /3a<riXefav. 
 « Apol. I, 12. ^ Apol. I, 14. * Apol. I, 20. • Apol. I, 27. 
 
 •0 Apol. I, 44- 
 
OF 
 
 THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 147 
 
 of reading those books through which men might come to God. 
 For men who lived rationally even before Christ came may be 
 claimed as Christian/ Justin lays great stress on the freedom 
 attained by the Christian life; the Christians are "Children of 
 freedom and knowledge," ^ and as over against the Stoics he 
 asserts the freedom of the will,^ which freedom he finds begins 
 in the highest sense in the waters of baptism.* The end of the 
 Christian life is "having learned the truth, that by works we 
 may be counted good citizens, guardians of the commandments 
 in order that we may be saved with an eternal salvation." ° 
 
 Thus Justin's main apology is based upon the dynamic 
 character of Christianity to produce personal character and good 
 citizenship. 
 
 Justin never seems to have given up the philosopher's gown,' 
 and his respect for ancient philosophy marks the beginning of 
 that process of harmonizing the primitive Christian faith and 
 enthusiasms with heathen culture which was part of the inev- 
 itable demand for a unified system of thought. As the Gnostics 
 compelled the official church to define her theology, so the in- 
 creasing number of philosophically trained minds compelled 
 her to formulate her ethics. 
 
 Thus Justin is compelled to take up an attitude toward the 
 ethics of the Stoics, which he finds admirable,' and in them as in 
 the poets the seeds of reason are found.* But just so far forth 
 they also have been opposed by the demons and hated and put 
 to death. And Socrates, Heraclitus, and Musonius are evidences 
 of this.^ The difference, however, is that the philosophers only 
 sought and found part of the word,^" but Jesus was the .whole 
 word. Thus when Justin became a Christian he strove to be 
 found Christian, "not because the teachings of Plato are 
 different from those of Christ, but because they are not in all 
 respects equal," as neither are those of the others. Stoics, poets, 
 
 » Apol. I, 46. 2 Apol. I, 61. » Apol. II, 7. * Apol. I, 61. s Apol. I, 65. 
 ' "Dialogue with Trypho," chap. I, and Euseb. H. E., 4, 11, 8-10. 
 ^ Apol. II, chap. 8. * <nr^p/M rod Xdyov. » Apol. I, 5; Apol. II, 8-10. 
 
 " Logos. " dXX' 8rt ovk (ctti irivT-t] 6fjiota, 
 
143 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 or historians.* For Justin philosophies are the broken lights 
 of the eternal word, the "scattered seed," whereas in Jesus there 
 is a full revelation. At the same time there is no systematic 
 attempt in his works to really set up a complete Christian ethical 
 system as over against the incomplete pagan ones, and no con- 
 sciousness of the real significance of Jesus Christ in a thorough- 
 going Christian ethics. 
 
 The formulation of dogma was, in fact, to play a much larger 
 part in Christian history than the formulation of an ethics, and 
 so ethics was most rapidly swallowed up in dogmatics. 
 
 The Pseudo- Justinian Tracts addressed to the Greeks repre- 
 sent the attitude, no doubt, of average Christian opinion of 
 the better-informed sort to Greek culture, and the tone differs 
 much from Justin's. The impatience is with the sanctioned 
 immorality of pagan mythology, and the appeal is to a final 
 judgment. Antiquity and authority are the basis of the appeal, 
 and the moral issue is beginning to be obscured by the identifica- 
 tion of Christianity with a cosmogony. 
 
 The inevitable adjustment of Christian ethical enthusiasm to 
 culture made some understanding with Hellenistic thought 
 necessary, and this process of adjustment is seen most plainly in 
 Clement of Alexandria.^ In Clement of Alexandria the process 
 
 ' Apol. II, 13. 
 
 * Titus Flavius Clemens was born about 189, and died about 211-216 (Bon- 
 wetsch). His school in Alexandria was where Origen also was trained and 
 afterward worked. For a good account of the literature, see Bonwetsch's article 
 in Hcrzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," vol. IV (189S), pp. 155-162; English 
 translation. New York, vol. Ill, pp. 137-139; and Harnack's "Geschichte der 
 altchristlichen Litteratur," I, i (1893), pp. 296-327; II, 2 (1904), pp. 3-23; and 
 his " Dogmengeschichte," I (1894), pp. 331-335. and elsewhere; English trans- 
 lation, II (1897), pp. 32-36. The best text is that of Bishop Potter, O-xford, 
 17 15, which is reprinted in Migne, 1857, " P. G.," VIII and IX. Oberthur, Fr., 
 has an edition in three volumes, Wurzburg, 1 778-1 779. English translation in 
 "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. II. German translation of the "Protreptikos," 
 " The Pedagog," and "Quis Dives," Kempten, 1875. Winter, F.J. : "DicEthik 
 des Clemens von Alexandrien " (" Studien zur Geschichte der christlichen Ethik," 
 I), Leipsic, 1882. Bigg, Ch.: "The Christian Platonists of Alexandria," 1S86. 
 Hort, F. J. A.: "Lectures on the Antc-Niccne Fathers," London, 1895. 
 Kayc, John.: "Some Account of the Writings and Opinions of Clement of 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 149 
 
 of adjustment of Christian enthusiasm to Grecian culture is 
 seen, perhaps, almost at its best. The religious-ethical spirit is 
 still in the foreground, and an exceedingly lofty conception of 
 God gives a strong foundation for the religious teaching. 
 
 In the " Protrepticus," ^ or "Appeal to the Greeks," ^ we see a 
 thoroughly broad-minded and tolerant apologetic in which stress 
 is laid upon the pure and lofty ethics of Christianity in contrast 
 to the absurdity and obscenity of the heathen mythology. 
 
 The character of God is drawn in fine and strong lines as the 
 loving Father, "O surprising love for man! Not as a teacher 
 speaking to his pupils, not as a master to his slaves, nor as a God 
 to men, but as a Father does the Lord gendy admonish his 
 children." ^ The supreme goodness and power of God are the 
 basis of a faith that shines with strong loving hopefulness. The 
 influence of Plato is apparent. He is much praised, and the 
 traditional Christian position that he had some contact with 
 Moses is reasserted.'* Nor does Clement deny that some gleams 
 of the truth are to be found in the poets,^ although we must go to 
 the prophets for the fuller revelation.® The appeal is strong and 
 lofty in tone and full of learned and interesting criticism of the 
 ethics of the Hellenic- Oriental mystery cults which were Chris- 
 tianity's chief rivals. 
 
 In the " Pedagogue" or " Instructor" ' we find one of the early 
 systematic treatises upon ethics, which suggests how large a 
 literature of this character may have been lost to us as dogmatic 
 and speculative questions forced themselves to the front, and the 
 interest in religious-ethical questions became secondary, so that 
 the dogmatic writings were preserved as the more important. 
 
 The influence of Musonius upon Clement has been demon- 
 strated by Wendland.* At the same time the very important 
 
 Alexandria," London, 1835. Wendland, Paul: "Quaestiones Musonianas de 
 Musonio Stoico dementis Alexandrini aliorumque auctore," Berlin, 1886. 
 
 ' A670J irpoTp€wri.K6i irpbs 'EXXrjvas. ^ Cohortatio ad Gentes. 
 
 ^ Protrepticus, IX. * Protrepticus, VI. * Protrepticus, VII. 
 
 ' Protrepticus, VIII. ^ 7rat5o7w76i 
 
 * Wendland, Paul: "Quaestiones Musonianas de Musonio Stoico dementis 
 Alexandrini aliorumque auctore," Berlin, 1886. 
 
I50 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 differences must not be lost sight of. Clement puts in the very 
 beginning the emphasis upon the ethical as over against the 
 intellectual life. "His (the teacher's) aim is thus to improve 
 the soul, not to teach it, and to train it up to the virtuous not to 
 the rational life." * 
 
 The very character of God which forms the basis of Clement's 
 system separates him from the Stoic and Epicurean schools, 
 with their aristocratic thought of God as Ruler. 
 
 But Clement separates himself also by his identification of 
 "reason" (Logos) with the personal Christ, who has indeed 
 inspired philosophy, but only dimly and uncertainly. Whereas 
 we " have as our teacher him that filled the universe with his 
 holy energies in creation, beneficence, legislation, prophecy, 
 teaching, we have the teacher from whom all instruction comes," 
 and therefore "need not, I think, go any more in search of 
 human learning to Athens and the rest of Greece, and to Ionia." ^ 
 
 The fact is that Clement stands exactly where scholasticism 
 later stood. Reason must coincide with revelation. Hence 
 philosophy is judged by revelation, and yet in philosophy 
 rightly comprehended God does reveal himself. It is a "pre- 
 paratory training for righteousness." ' Indeed in several pas- 
 sages Clement puts it almost on a level with the Old Testament 
 as a school-master to bring men to Christ.'* 
 
 Thus at this point Clement again separates himself from 
 philosophy. Against Gnosticism he defends the unity of the 
 Old and New Testaments.* The law only inspires with fear 
 that it may heal. " But it is the highest and best good when one 
 can lead any one back from doing evil to virtue and well-doing, 
 as the law does." ' But at the same time this law must be in- 
 terpreted in the light of the full revelation of the Logos.^ The 
 Pauline thought of the law as a school-master, pedagogue, to 
 bring men to Christ dominates Clement's whole system.* 
 
 ' Pedagogus, I, I. ' Protrepticus, XI. * Strom. I, 5. 
 
 • Strom. I, 5; I, 7; I, 19. * Strom. I, 26; I, 27. 
 
 ' 8irep 6 vbfioi ipyd^trai. Strom., I, 27, C. 
 
 ' Pedagogus, I, II * Loc cit. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 151 
 
 Thus in a sense even the Gospel is thought of as law, but a law 
 that brings freedom. It inspires fear, but a reverential fear only. 
 "There is a twofold kind of fear, one of which is joined with 
 reverence,^ ... as right-minded children to their parents, ^ 
 and the other is a kind of fear which is mixed with hatred, 
 which slaves feel toward hard masters, and the Hebrews felt 
 who made God a master not a Father." ' Thus by a clever 
 turn Clement answers the objection of the Gnostics who rejected 
 Jehovah as a God of terror, on the ground that this was a 
 Jewish misrepresentation. 
 
 Thus for Clement the Logos is the source of all ethical knowl- 
 edge, and the canons of Scripture are uncritically accepted on 
 the basis of tradition as containing the revelation, the church 
 being an authoritative source of instruction about them, as over 
 against mere individual opinion.* 
 
 The goal of the virtuous life is to do the will of God, " and this 
 virtue is a state of the soul ^ made harmonious by the Logos ^ 
 throughout the whole life.'" "And the end of godliness is 
 eternal rest in God." ' 
 
 Duties are essential only for divine discipline, "and Christian 
 conduct is the action of the rational soul according to correct 
 judgment and seeking after the truth, which reaches its end 
 through the body, accompanying and struggling with it." * 
 The goal is, of course, thought of strictly individually. Life 
 is a training for immortality.® The Kingdom of God in the 
 sense in which Jesus used the term has practically no place in 
 Clement. Even the final triumph of the ecclesiastical group is 
 hardly a defined hope. 
 
 ' /leri ai'Souj. 
 
 * KaOdirep oi iraXdes ol <T(JI><f>povei irpbi roiii varipas. 
 
 ' de<nr6T7]v iron^o'avTes, ov iraTipa. rbv de6v. " Pedagogue," I, 9 (MPG, VIII, 
 353, B.). 
 
 * Strom., VII, 16-17. 
 
 ^ diddeffis iffTi ^pvxv^. " Pedagog," I, 13 (MPG, VIII, 372, B.). 
 
 * " Pedagogus," I, 13. 
 
 ^ TAoy 5^ 4<TTi deocre^elas i] diSios dvdira.vffis iv tQ 0ef. " Pedagogus," I, 13 
 (MPG, VIII, 373, B.). 
 ' Pedagogus, I, 13. • Pedagog, II, i. 
 
152 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The possession of riches is a danger to the individual soul, 
 but they can be used rationally/ and all thought of a primitive 
 group-communion has completely disappeared. 
 
 The content of the ethical life is a development of the Pauline 
 ideal, and the beginnings of an elaborate casuistry found in him 
 are still further developed by Clement. Dress, baths, shoes, 
 rings, etc., are all described and their use by the Christian fully 
 set forth ,^ and on the whole a wise good sense dictates the 
 various regulations suggested. At the same time the painful 
 impression grows that the ethics of Christianity are being more 
 and more externalized and formalized at the expense of the 
 inner inspirations. 
 
 In regard to marriage Clement is still sane and wholesome,^ 
 although there are indications of the coming intrusions of a 
 false asceticism.* The false dualism and perversions of the 
 Gnostics are frankly disavowed,^ and indeed the whole 
 sexual question is treated with great openness and freedom.^ 
 Clement was a Christian gentleman, and the "true Gnostic" of 
 Clement's pages was taught very valuable lessons about the good 
 manners that have love as their basis and self-respect as their 
 guardian. 
 
 True the note of increasing compromise with the thoughts and 
 feelings of a world essentially pagan in its culture, even while it 
 called itself Christian, marks Clement. The sense of rebellion 
 against the "aeon" ruled by Satan, and the hope of a new 
 "aeon" of lasting righteousness, is giving way to salvation by 
 knowledge of God and right life amidst the world's follies.^ The 
 sense of isolation from the world is not quite gone, "we have no 
 country on earth, that we may despise earthly possessions." * 
 
 In the practical ethics of Clement slaves were to be treated 
 as ourselves, "for God is the same to free and to bond," ° and 
 in the closing prayer the note is, " God is not a severe judge, but 
 a good God, whom we may know." 
 
 ' Pedagogus, III, 6. = Pedagog, II and III. » Strom. VII, 12. 
 
 * Strom. II, 23. 'Strom. Ill, i. "Strom. Ill, 1-17. 
 
 'Strom. VI, 8. • Pedagog, III, 8. • Pedagog, III, 12. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 153 
 
 Yet when all has been said the student notices how far the 
 church has gone along the line of compromise with the existing 
 order. Christianity is a better and nobler ethics and philosophy, 
 but is essentially a philosophical ethics and a theoretical knowl- 
 edge. The forms of ancient thought are of necessity taken over, 
 but with them have gone many of the aristocratic and material 
 prejudgments so interwoven with even the best pagan philoso- 
 phy. The vast gulf that separates Jesus and Augustus Cassar is 
 bridged by a rationalizing compromise that includes not only 
 the adaptation of Christianity to the forms of rational process, 
 but the adaptation of her faith to an ideal that included the 
 slavery and poverty of Rome and the splendor and injustice of 
 imperial power. 
 
 This comes out most clearly in the third part of Clement's 
 great treatise, the " Stromateis." Here the attempt is made to 
 range the products of Christian enthusiasm along with literature 
 of the pagan world. The attempt is not, indeed, to give a 
 systematic dogmatics, but to adjust Christian thinking to the 
 philosophy of the day in a more thorough manner than had been 
 hitherto done. For Clement philosophies "are illuminated by 
 the dawn of light," ^ and have "plucked off parts of everlasting 
 truth," and he who can "bring together again the separate 
 fragments and unify them may without danger be certain to 
 contemplate the perfect word — the Truth." ^ Thus the Grecian 
 philosophy becomes a herald of the "truly royal teaching" and 
 is " in some degree a training in one way or other, moulding the 
 character, and preparing him who believes in Providence ^ for 
 the reception of the truth." * This identification of Christianity 
 with speculative search after a world-philosophy outweighs in 
 its historical consequences the actual results of Clement's own 
 attempt. 
 
 The question of the existence of evil in the world is lightly and 
 unsatisfactorily treated,^ and the cosmological interest, so upper- 
 most in the oriental dualistic systems, is not apparent to any 
 
 * Strom. I, 13. * Strom. I, 13. ' irpSvoiav. * Strom. I, 16. 
 
 * Strom. I, 17. 
 
\)l 
 
 154 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 great degree in Clement, but the door is opened for the entrance 
 of an entirely new and disastrous set of interests, which were 
 almost wholly to supersede the moral and spiritual enthusiasms 
 on which Jesus founded his movement. 
 
 It is no accident that Clement ^ arranged the elements of the 
 Christian life under three heads, of which the first is speculative, 
 the second the performance of the precepts thus gained, the 
 third the forming of good men; and that the speculative elements 
 contain many things wholly foreign to the original simplicity 
 of the early movement. 
 
 It is, of course, to Plato and the Stoics that Clement turns 
 for definite contact with Grecian philosophy. At the same 
 time the dependence noted by Wendland (see above, page 149) 
 upon Musonius and others of the Stoic school does not exclude 
 the influence of all the various philosophies and systems of moral 
 teaching that were jumbled together in the wide Hellenistic 
 world. So that both to the poets and philosophers Clement 
 owes much. Philo's influence is also seen in many places, and 
 particularly in the allegorical interpretation of the Scripture.^ 
 
 In point of fact the picture of the true Gnostic could never 
 be taken from the pages of the Stoics alone. All hedonism is 
 distinctly rejected. " Could we, then, suppose any one propos- 
 ing to the Gnostic whether he would choose the knowledge of 
 /God' or eternal salvation, and if these, which are absolutely 
 [ identical, could be separated, he would without the least hesita- 
 tion choose the knowledge of God,"* and Clement feels that this 
 knowledge is ethical rather than speculative, and has clearness 
 while in the realm of physics (metaphysics) there was distrac- 
 tion.' 
 
 The old immediate enthusiasm which was greater than organ- 
 ization or any outward authority is still for Clement the basis 
 .■■ \ of the true Christian life, and not outward law, "for the right- 
 y eous man's righteousness does not rest on contracts nor the 
 
 ^' ^ commandments of law, but springs from his own spontaneous 
 
 * Strom. 11, 10. ' Strom. VI, 11. ' rijy yvwaiv rov eeoO. 
 
 * Strom. IV, 22. » Strom. IV, 25. 
 
 \j 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 155 
 
 action and from his love to God." ^ And love is still the com- 
 pletion of knowledge. 
 
 Yet here also Clement marks a distinct change in the Christian 
 emphasis, and v^e note a further advance in the transformation 
 of Christianity from a religious-ethical enthusiasm for a kingdom- , 
 purpose to an intellectual system containing many elements, 
 some definitely hostile to that great fundamental purpose. The 
 ethical ideal becomes individualistic, and, in spite of disclaimers,' 
 the hope of individual salvation rather than devotion to the 
 Kingdom of God as Jesus proclaimed it makes the ethics a/ 
 refined hedonism which was bound in the long run to triumph 
 all along the line. 
 
 Origen^ in a still more marked manner emphasizes this 
 change that came over organized Christianity. In Origen we 
 see Christianity thought of as a more perfect knowledge and a 
 new key to the speculative cosmological questions which had 
 bothered the philosophic schools. The few Greek fragments of 
 the " De Principiis" abundantly demonstrate the activity of Ru- 
 finus in trying to make Origen conform to later conventional tradi- 
 tional Christianity, but on the other hand it must be admitted 
 
 ' Strom. VI, 15. 
 
 ' Origenes Admantius, born at Alexandria 185 or 186, pupil there of Ammonius 
 and of Clement, died 254. His principal works are the irepl ' Kpx^v or " De 
 Principiis," in four books, only partly existing in Greek fragments, and in a Latin 
 paraphrase by Rufinus, who confesses to omissions, alterations, and additions 
 (Preface by Rufinus), and his "Contra Celsum," in eight books, written in reply 
 to the 'AXijOi^j X670S. The best text is that of the Benedictine monks C. and 
 C. V. de la Rue (Paris, 1733-1756), and reprinted in vols. XI and XII of Migne 
 " P. G.," from which text the present references are taken. Translation in " Ante- 
 Nicene Fathers," IV, 221-669; IX, 289-512; translated by F. Crombie (and 
 A. Menzies, vol. IX). For literature, cf. Harnack, A.: "Dogmengeschichte," 
 
 1 (1894), pp. 603-647; English translation, vol. II (1897), pp. 332-380; Kruger, 
 G.: "Altchristliche Litteratur," pp. 107-126; English translation, 173-205; 
 Redepenning: " Origenes: eine Darstellung seines Lebens und seiner Lehre," 
 
 2 vols., Bonn, 1841-1846; Mehlhorn, P.: "Die Lehre von der menschlichen 
 Freiheit nach Origenes' irepl ' kpxCov in der Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte," 
 II (1878), pp. 234-253; Westcott, B. F.: "Origen and the Beginnings of 
 Christian Philosophy," in " Contemporary Review," XXXV (1879, April-August), 
 pp. 324-338 and 489-502; Bigg, Chas.: "Christian Platonists of Alexandria," 
 Oxford, 1886. 
 
156 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 that Origen himself never wilfully departed from the traditions 
 of the church. " Yet as the teachings of the church, in an orderly 
 succession handed down from the apostles, and abiding up to 
 the present day in the churches, is preserved, and that alone 
 is to be accepted as truth which differs in no respect from ec- 
 clesiastical and apostolic tradition." * The interest of Origen 
 was, as far as we can gather from the rather sparse remains of an 
 exceedingly abundant literature,^ far more philosophical and 
 theological than ethical. Even his homilies are theological and 
 speculative, and he may justly be called, as Hamack says, the 
 creator of an ecclesiastical dogmatism. For him is Christianity 
 a revealed philosophy more complete and adequate, yet along 
 the lines of Grecian speculation and oriental cosmology. 
 
 The wise man finds in this revealed knowledge his satisfaction, 
 and distinctly in Origen comes to light the element of ascetic 
 world flight. For Clement the married state was normal, and 
 even had spiritual advantages; for Origen "God has allowed 
 us to marry because all are not fit for the higher, that is, the 
 perfectly chaste life." ' For Clement also a traditional Chris- 
 tianity was not the bondage it was for Origen, for its lines were 
 less distinct, its spirit still practical rather than theoretical. 
 
 For this reason Origen even more than Clement has to assume 
 a mystical sense as a way of escape from the difficulties raised 
 by the Old Testament. " The Scriptures were written by God's 
 spirit, but have significance, not only such as is apparent at the 
 first sight, but also another meaning, which eludes the attention 
 of most readers." ^ It would have seemed a natural thing to 
 assign to the Old Testament the ethical relativity and value that 
 
 ' "Ilia sola credenda est Veritas, qua; in nullo ab ecclesiastica et apostolica 
 discordat traditione." — Prefatio ad "De Principiis," § 2 (MPG, XI, 116 B). 
 
 ^ Jerome says he wrote more than any individual could read (Crombie's trans- 
 lation [American reprint, "Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. IV (1887), p. 229], vol. 
 II, p. xxxiii), and Epiphanius says he wrote 6,000 volumes (Si enim vcrum est, 
 quod de te percrebuit, sex librorum millia a te esse conscripta, o infelix, qui 
 inanissime desudaris, . . . ), " Ha-rcs.," LXIV: 63 (MPG, XLI, 117SD). 
 
 ' " Contra Cclsum," book VIII: 55. 
 
 'Prefatio ad "De Principiis," § 8. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 157 
 
 Clement as well as Origen himself assigned to Greek speculative 
 ethics. But as the whole proof of Christ's divinity began to 
 rest more and more upon the theoretical value of the arguments 
 from prophecy in the Old Testament and less upon the imme- 
 diate impression of his person and teachings, the more essential 
 was it to defend the Old Testament as on the same level of 
 direct inspiration as the writings of the New Testament. 
 
 A really truth-loving writer such as Origen could therefore 
 only have recourse to the allegory and unnatural sense in the 
 way Philo had taught educated Jews to think of their scriptures.* 
 
 In the interest of Origen in cosmology, the origin of evil, the 
 problem of sin, the hierarchy of the spirit world, and an all- 
 inclusive view of the world may be plainly seen the influence of 
 Gnosticism. At the same time, like Clement, he turns away 
 deliberately from some of the most dangerous oriental traits of 
 the Neoplatonic and Gnostic speculation. "No one is impure 
 either essentially or naturally,"^ and it lies within ourselves to 
 possess either happiness or holiness. He overcomes the eternal 
 cosmological dualism that hangs like a shadow over all Chris- 
 tian thinking influenced by Gnostic speculation. ''We think, 
 indeed, that through his Christ the benevolence of God may 
 call back all his creatures to one end, even his enemies being 
 conquered and subdued." ^ This being a far more ethical and 
 religious solution of the problem than the relegating the God of 
 the Old Testament to a lower plane, even if this also had a 
 profound ethical instinct as its basis.^ Indeed the ethical insight 
 of Origen was keen. He defends the proposition that goodness 
 and justice on God's part are the same,^ and life is for him not a 
 probation, but an education up to divinity. We light our own -, ^ r^ 
 hells and inflict our own punishments. "By these words it^ |^>^ 
 seems to be pointed out that every sinner lights for himself the 
 
 ' Cf. also book IV, i : 11-13. 
 
 ' "Neque substantialiter, vel naturaliter esse aliquem immaculatum, neque 
 substantialiter esse poUutum." — "De Principiis," book I, 5 : 5 (MPG, XI, 
 164 C). ^ " De Principiis," book I, 6 : i. 
 
 *Cf. book II, 4:1. * " De Principiis," book II, 5 : 3. 
 
158 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 flame for his own fire, and is not thrust into some fire which has 
 been already ht by another or exists before him."' For 
 Origen Hfe was a struggle with sin, temptations coming both 
 from the spirit-world without and from our own constitutions 
 within; but happily we are never tempted beyond the power to 
 resist if we only earnestly will.^ Holy souls, " after being purified 
 by lengthened continence and being filled with holy and relig- 
 ious discipline," assume a "part with divinity" and so gain the 
 grace of prophecy and other divine gifts,^ while others place 
 themselves under the influence and power of demons. 
 
 Platonism appears in Origen's speculative explanation of the 
 early appearance of good and evil impulses. For him the pre- 
 existent soul has already made decisions that tell on the earthly 
 life. "And it is probable that these movements provide a 
 foundation for merit (meritum) even before anything is done in 
 this world (probably Origen used the Greek word aeon), so that 
 by reason of these merits they are immediately on their birth, or 
 even previous to it, picked out by Divine foreknowledge for the 
 reception of good or evil." * 
 
 For Origen, as for Clement, the summwn bonum is to become 
 like God, but for Origen the likeness is distinctly more on the 
 metaphysical and less on the ethical plane than in the pages of 
 Clement,^ here again revealing the change of emphasis. Author- 
 ity also means more for Origen than for Clement. Even Jesus 
 came not to bring freedom of thought and action only, but to 
 restore authority and to reinstitute the broken-down law, and 
 teach again the art of ruling and being ruled,^ seeing that 
 authority has broken down. When at last God's authority has 
 been restored, even death will disappear. For though it is not 
 evil but good in itself, it is only good so long as the purpose of 
 man's heart is evil.^ 
 
 * "De Principiis," book II, lo : 4. 
 
 '"De Principiis," book III, 2 : 1-6; cf. book III, i : 1-22. 
 
 * "De Principiis," book III, ;i: 3. ♦ "De Principiis," book III, 3 : 5. 
 •"De Principiis," book III, 6 : i. 
 
 •"De Principiis," book III, 5 : 6. Regendi regnandiquc. 
 ^ "De Principiis," book III, 6 : 5. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 159 
 
 In Origen's defence of Christianity against Celsus the ethical 
 elements are not neglected, but they play a rather disappointing 
 part. Origen recognizes the fact that in the last analysis the 
 conduct of the Christian is the final apology. "Jesus makes 
 no audible response, but places his defence in the lives of his 
 genuine disciples, which are the foremost witness, and one that 
 is above all false witnesses, and rebuts and overturns vain accu- 
 sations and charges," ^ and again and again, in answer to the 
 charge that Christianity is a system of deceit, Origen replies, 
 "Who can with logic maintain that a better moral life which 
 daily lessens one's sins could proceed from a system of fraud? " ^ 
 And again, in 2 : 79, the emphasis is upon what Christianity has 
 done for men in making them prudent, temperate, etc., etc.^ 
 
 It is, however, as a world-system and a religious philosophy 
 that Origen defends Christianity, and often with little success. 
 He attempts to put the ethics of the Old Testament upon the 
 level of the New.^ His world is still the demon-peopled world 
 of primitive thought. [He will not allow that God has created 
 evil,^ and he has a most exalted conception of God. " God loves 
 all existent being and despises ° nothing he has created, for in 
 hatred he would create nothing" '; but the existence of evil and 
 such a good God gives Origen much trouble, and as Christianity 
 is a complete philosophy of religion he must give an answer. 
 Thus he plunges constantly into discussions of the spirit-world 
 whose existence and character he considers the Christian revela- 
 tion as completely explaining. 
 
 For the student of dogmatics the Christology and theology of 
 Origen, as foreshadowing that of the great Roman church 
 which disowned the father of it, will have perpetual interest. 
 For the ethical student Origen, as we have him, presents almost 
 nothing that may be considered an advance in this regard on his 
 great teacher the Christianized-Platonized Stoic Clement of 
 Alexandria. 
 
 ' "Contra Celsum," Prefatio, § 2. * "Contra Celsum," 2 : 50. 
 
 ' So also 3 : 29; c/. 3 : 34. * "Contra Celsum," 7 : 23-25. 
 
 * "Contra Celsum," 4 : 65, 66 and 6 : 55. 
 
 • pSe\^<r<T€Tat. ^ "Contra Celsum," 4 : 28. 
 
i6o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 In marked contrast to the Alexandrian Origen is found Ter- 
 tullian,^ the occidental writer, whom Hoppe says founded the 
 Latin patristic style, but whose influence must have been 
 somewhat limited by his going over to heresy. About his style 
 opinions differ. He certainly wrote strong, virile Latin, but 
 Lactantius complains with justice that " Septimius Tertullianus 
 was indeed versed in letters of all kinds, but in eloquence he 
 possessed but little skill, and was not sufficiently polished as 
 well as being exceedingly obscure, wherefore he did not achieve 
 a sufficient fame." ^ And so also Jerome complains of his rugged 
 and uncouth style.' 
 
 All that we have from his pen reveals a strong, rugged, and 
 
 • Quintus Septimus Florens Tertullianus was born in Carthage probably 
 somewhere about i6o A. D. He was the son of a proconsular centurion, and 
 was learned specially in Roman law. Somewhere between 202 and 207 (com- 
 pare "Contra Marcion," I, 15, "up to the fifteenth year of Severus") he broke 
 with the Roman church, Jerome says, on account of quarrels with the priest- 
 hood there, and joined the Montanists, with whom in turn he broke. He 
 died, therefore, a "heretic" about 220. Besides the older editions of "Beatus 
 Rhenanus," Basel: Froben, 152 1; Jakob Pamelius, Antwerp, 1562, etc., the 
 best collected editions are that of Semler, J. S., 6 vols., Halle, 1769-1776; Migne, 
 " P. L.," vols. I and II, Paris, 1844 (whence for the most part the citations in 
 text are taken); Oehler, Franz, 3 vols., Leipsic, 1853-1854 (3d ed.), English 
 translation in the " Ante-Nicene Fathers," vols. Ill and IV (unequally done); a 
 German translation by Kellner, H., Cologne, 1S82 (Bonwetsch says "careful"). 
 For complete literature, see Bonwetsch, G. N., in Herzog-Hauck: "Realen- 
 cyklopadie," 3d ed., 1907, vol. XIX pp. 537-551, and Harnack, in "Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica," vol. XXIII, pp. 196-198. Life, of which little is known, 
 in Migne; cf. also Harnack, A.: " Altchristliche Litteraturgeschichte," II, 2 
 (1904), pp. 256-296; also Kriiger, G.: "Geschichte der altchristlchien Litter- 
 atur" (189s), pp. 158-174, English translation (1897), pp. 256-280. The older 
 literature (Allix, de Nourry, Mosheim) scarcely touches the ethics of Tertul- 
 lian, and deals almost exclusively with his theology. Of an enormous literature, 
 the reader may best perhaps consult: Kaye, Bishop John: "The Ecclesiastical 
 Hbtory of the Second and Third Centuries Illustrated from the Writings of 
 TertuUian," 3d ed., London, 1845; Neander. Aug.: ".\ntignostikus, Geist des 
 Tertullianus und Einleitung in dessen Schriften," Berlin, 1825; Bonwetsch, 
 G. N.: "Die Schriften Tertullians nach der Zeit ihrer .\bfassung untersucht," 
 Bonn, 1878; also his "Geschichte des Montanismus," Erlangen, iS8r, Lud- 
 wig, G.: "Tertullians Ethik," Leipsic, 1885; Hoppe, Heinrich: "Syntax und 
 Slil des Tertullians," Leipsic, 1903. 
 
 * "Divina; Inslilutiones," book V, i. 
 » Epist. 58 : 10. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH i6i 
 
 interesting but not very attractive personality. The undoubted 
 brilliancy is rough. The unquestioned strength is rude, almost 
 coarse. 
 
 In the ethics of Tertullian it is hardly necessary to draw too 
 sharply the line between his Catholic and his Montanist^ 
 periods. He broke only with Rome, not with his own hard 
 legal system of morality. One reason he is so severe with 
 Marcion is just because the ethical question that so troubled 
 Marcion was not even present to the thought of Tertullian. 
 The God of Tertullian is, alas, not the forgiving Father of our 
 Lord Jesus Christ, but the stern Law-giver, the Avenger, and the 
 absolute Ruler.^ God is, indeed, here described as "good," and 
 his mercy and free forgiveness stated. At the same time the 
 dominant note in all Tertullian's thought of God is power and 
 law. So completely does he bow to God as law that he sees no 
 difficulty with love and mercy as running counter to the actual 
 plan of the world as we see it. To Tertullian revenge was a 
 necessary attribute of any God who really deserves respect. 
 "Now if he is offended he ought to be angry, if angry, he 
 ought to visit with punishment,^ for this is the ultimate fruit of 
 anger," and "nothing is so unworthy * as not to punish what he 
 does not wish, or to permit what he has prohibited." ^ The 
 son of a Roman procunsular trained in law speaks throughout 
 rather than the disciple who has seen the Redeeming Father in 
 the face of Christ Jesus. 
 
 He cannot conceive of the love that casteth out fear. " How," 
 
 ' The Montanist heresy was a strange mixture of primitive reactionary chiliastic 
 hope with Gnostic and heathen elements. Montanus claimed prophetic freedom 
 and exacted extraordinary severity from the organized church. He forbade the 
 reception of those who had once denied the faith (lapsi) or those who had handed 
 over to the authorities the sacred writings (traditores). Martyrdom was sought, 
 and all payment of money to escape persecution (nummaria fuga) was deadly 
 sin. (C/. Bonwetsch, G. N.: "Geschichte des Montanismus," 1881; Ritschl, 
 A.: "Entstehung der ahkatholischen Kirche," pp. 462-554, 2d ed., 1857.) 
 
 * "Contra Marcion," book II, chap. 11-17. 
 
 » Si irascitur, debet ulcisci. (MPL, II, 278 A.) 
 
 * Atqui nihil Deo tam indignum. (MPL, II, 277 D.) 
 •"Contra Marcion," book I: 26. 
 
i62 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 he exclaims, "can you love, unless you are afraid not to 
 love." ' 
 
 In point of fact the solution of the problem of evil as raised 
 by Marcion is not answered very differently by Tertullian. He 
 states that problem fairly enough,^ although heralded by the 
 gentle address, " Dogs, whom the aposde has expelled, yelping 
 (latrantes) at the god of truth." ' Yet in fact his answer in- 
 cludes a devil who is simply a rival to God very much as 
 Marcion makes the creator God a contrast to the Redeeming 
 God of Jesus Christ and Paul. 
 
 To Marcion, however, the ethical difficulty was far more real 
 than to Tertullian. Marcion seems to have had a vision of God 
 as redeeming love setting men free by the dynamic of loving 
 faith in him. He found it hard to reconcile this vision of God 
 with the hard, vindictive outlines of the Jehovah of Judaism. 
 He came thus to hate Judaism, and flung out the child with the 
 bath, breaking the continuity of religious history and blinding 
 himself and his followers to the religious and ethical values of 
 the Old Testament by the crude artifice of a creation-god other 
 than the redeeming-god of the Pauline theology. 
 
 For Tertullian the antithesis that troubled Marcion hardly 
 existed, and for the simple reason that the conception of God 
 as free redeeming love, in the Pauline sense, is never used by 
 Tertullian as his organizing interest, even though it be asserted 
 in terms.* 
 
 The ethics of Tertullian are profoundly religious, but the 
 system is not Christian. His interest is indeed mainly ethical. 
 It was his intense desire for ethical reformation and transforma- 
 tion of a lukewarm church that finally carried him over to 
 Montanism. He had no real interest in the prophetic freedom 
 of Montanism. His interest was in its legal puritanism, and 
 stern asceticism. 
 
 *At quomodo diliges, nisi timeas non diligcrc? "Contra Marcion," I, 27. 
 (MPL, II, 278 D.) 
 
 »" Contra Marcion," book II: 5. * Book II: 5. 
 
 * As in " Contra Marcion," book II: 7. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 163 
 
 The theology of TertulHan is most distinctly defective simply 
 because his interest was ethical rather than intellectual. His 
 crude Christology is decisive evidence at this point.* And, in- 
 deed, the sketch of Christian doctrine given in the Apology ^ in 
 his Catholic period reveals the theological weakness of the man. 
 
 His ethics, however, have had a great influence upon the 
 thinking of ecclesiastical Christianity. Jerome says that Cyprian 
 called him " Master," ' and this can only have been on account of 
 the extraordinary moral fervor of the man, for to Cyprian a 
 Montanist heretic cannot have been otherwise attractive. 
 
 The basis of Tertullian's ethics is the authority of tradition; 
 in both his Cathohc and Montanist periods the ultimate basis is 
 thus an external authority.^ This authority is found in the 
 Bible,' interpreted in the strange literalism of the day.* 
 
 Hence his system of ethics degenerates rapidly into a weary 
 and burdensome casuistry with the most exacting hair-splitting 
 and often absurd abuse of words.' 
 
 iJThe goal of ethical struggle is the individual attainment of the 
 crown of righteousness,^ , The end of the world is judgment and 
 destruction (Apol., chap. 48), the transcendental elements only 
 being saved.^ It is quite in keeping with the marked individu- 
 
 * Et cum radius ex sole porrigitur, portio ex summa; sed sol erit in radio, 
 quia solis est radius, nee separatur substantia, sed extenditur. Ita de Spiritu 
 Spiritus, et de Deo Deus, ut lumen de lumine accensum. Manet Integra et 
 indefecta materias matrix, etsi plures inde traduces qualitatum mutueris. Ita et 
 quod de Deo profectum est, Deus est, et Dei Filius, et unus ambo. " Apologeti- 
 cus," cap. XXI. (MPL, I, 399 A.) 
 
 'Chaps. 17-21. 
 
 •Kaye, Bishop John: "The Ecclesiastical History of the Second and Third 
 Centuries Illustrated from the Writings of Tertullian," p. 6, 3d ed., London, 1845. 
 
 * "Contra Marcion," I : i; I : 21; c/. Apol., § 19. 
 
 * "De Spectaculis," cap. 3. 
 
 'David's "seat of the impious" and "way of the sinner" is shown to refer 
 to the "seats" and "ways" of the theatre. 
 
 ^ Cf. " De Oratione," cap. XIV to cap. XVII or cap. XXIL 
 8 "Ad Martyres," chap. 2, "Ad Scap.," chap. i. 
 
 * Quae ratio universitatem ex diversitate composuit, ut omnia ex jemulis 
 substantiis sub unitate constarent ex vacuo et solido, ex animali et inanimali, ex 
 comprehensibili et incomprehensibili, ex luce et tenebris, ex ipsa vita et morte: 
 eadem aevum quoque ita destinata ac distincta conditione conseruit, ut prima 
 
i64 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 alism of his point of view that the clause in the Lord's Prayer, 
 "Thy kingdom come," is explained away as a final catastrophe. 
 "Nay, Lord, Thy kingdom come with all speed, this is the 
 Christian prayer, the confusion of the nations, the exultation of 
 angels." * There is really no sense in Tertullian of the kingdom- 
 purpose as proclaimed by Jesus. There is no feeling of any 
 controversy with an existing social disorder. The Roman 
 state is of God's ordering, and the Roman emperor is next to 
 God.^ Christianity and its ethics are for Tertullian a new 
 Judaism, a better type of ritual correctness, and a more exacting 
 law.^ 
 
 It was therefore only natural that the content of Tertullian's 
 ethical system should fall far short of the New Testament 
 standard, even at its lowest. He defends the lex talionis.* His 
 views of marriage are low and unworthy.^ Both in his Catholic 
 and Montanist periods he is narrow and harsh,® and abounds in 
 petty and confused casuistical hair-splitting. He is supersti- 
 tious, but that was the fault rather of his age than of his ethics/ 
 At the same time his superstition had fearful terrors. To 
 offend the law was damnation. Montanism held out, Harnack 
 suggests, an authority settling many questions of grave practical 
 importance on which the Scriptures were not sufficient.^ He had 
 no interest in its prophetic freedom, but only in its new law- 
 giving. It condemned second marriages, imposed new fasts, 
 re-established the Sabbath, and reintroduced asceticism. 
 
 The asceticism of Tertullian is legal and disciplinary rather 
 
 hscc pars ab exordio rerum, quam incolimus, temporali cetate ad finem defluat, 
 sequens vero, quam expectamus, in infinitam ajternitatem propagetur. " Apolo- 
 geticus," Apol., XLVIII. (MPL, I, 526 A.) 
 
 • "De Oratione," cap. V. 
 ' Apol., chaps. 30-34. 
 
 • "Contra Marcion," book IV: 12. 
 
 ♦ " Contra Marcion " II : 18; though cf. " Dc Exhortatione Castitatis," cap. VI. 
 
 * "Ad Uxorem," libri I et II, and "De Monogamia." 
 «"DeSpec.," cap. XIII. 
 
 " "Ad Scap.," cap. III-IV; Apol., cap. XXII-XXIII. 
 
 * Harnack, A.: "Dogincngcschichtc," vol. I, p. 396, 3d cd., 1894; English 
 translation (1897), vol. II, p. loi. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 165 
 
 than oriental/ whereas Tertulhan was not a dualist in this 
 metaphysical sense.^ True oriental asceticism seeks to rid the 
 spirit of the body, because matter is essentially undivine. 
 Tertullian was too much a Roman and a convert to Judaism to 
 deem the body evil in itself, for God had made it. For Tertullian 
 asceticism is simply the guarantee of separateness from the evil 
 world in a holy community,^ Holiness is minute obedience to 
 legal enactment, and asceticism an aid to this obedience/ 
 
 Tertullian's interest does not seem to have been sufficiently 
 intellectual to have given philosophical Stoicism any great influ- 
 ence over him. Even when phrases and conclusions remind 
 us of Stoicism, the general spirit warns us against connecting 
 too closely the two types of Puritanism that were struggling in 
 the church for mastery. Tertullian's ethics are pharisaic 
 rather than Stoic, built up, that is to say, rather upon a tradi- 
 tional theology than upon a philosophical view of the world. 
 There is no trace of philosophical pantheism, and no philosoph- 
 ical fatalism,^ and even in the practical ethical homily the con- 
 trast in treatment between Tertullian and Stoicism is marked.^ 
 
 Naturally this new pharisaicism produced the fruits of 
 pharisaicism, and the ethics of Tertullian abound in harsh 
 absurdities ^ as well as in definite and clear moral insights. 
 
 The ethics of Tertullian are quite distinct, and give unity to 
 the otherwise somewhat confused and turgid torrent of his 
 thinking. But the system is pharisaic and not Christian. It is 
 profoundly religious, but the religion is not that of Jesus or 
 
 ' The Montanist asceticism seems to the writer to have been distinctly dualistic. 
 Contra Bonwetsch, G. N.: "Zur Geschichte des Montanismus," 1881, p. 87. 
 ' "De Resurrectione carnis," V : 47, which belongs to his Montanist period. 
 ' " Ad Uxorem," book 2. 
 
 * "De Exhortatione Castitatis," cap. Ill, VII, et XI. 
 
 * "Contra Marcion," II : 5. 
 
 •C/. "De Patientia," for instance. - 
 
 ^C/. "De Exhortatione Castitatis," cap. IX: "Leges videntur matrimonii et 
 stupri differentiam facere per diversitatem illiciti, non per conditionem rei ipsius. 
 Alioquin qua: res et viris et fceminis omnibus adest^d matrimonium et stuprum ? 
 Commixtio carnis scilicet, cujus concupiscentiam Dominus stupro adaequavit." 
 (MPL, II, 924 C and 925 A.) 
 
i66 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 of Paul. There is tremendous rugged strength in TertuUian, 
 but it is pagan moral energy. He had a vision of the living 
 God, but he had not seen him in the face of Jesus Christ. He 
 bowed in lowly reverence before God, but it was as Judge and 
 Master not as Father and Friend. 
 
 His interest is therefore an excessive individualism. Even 
 the church is a mere way of escape, and when a better disciplinary 
 group claimed him he went over to it. His compromise with the 
 Roman State is complete. "A Christian is enemy to none, least 
 of all to the emperor, whom he knows to be constituted by his 
 God, and it is necessary that he should love and reverence and 
 honor and desire his salvation, together with the whole Roman 
 Empire, as long as the age lasts for so long it will last.^ 
 
 Never, even in his Montanist period, does the chiliastic hope 
 which he cherished really organize his message or his hope. 
 True, he thinks it absurd that Christians should concern them- 
 selves about posterity, "to whom there is no to-morrow," ^ but 
 that refers rather to the individual's renunciation of marriage 
 than to any definite conception of a new aeon. 
 
 There remains always a profound impression of strength and 
 sincerity in the writings of this great father of Puritanism, but his 
 abiding influence on the ethical thinking that calls itself still 
 Christian marks the distance travelled from the loving Gospel of 
 Jesus Christ. 
 
 What he really sought was a church separating itself from the 
 world for its own soul's sake, rather than a church separated 
 for the saving of the world. Here again the pharisaic separatism 
 marks all his thought and feeling, giving his ethics a haughty and 
 aristocratic cast, preparing the way for compromise with the 
 State where compromise was out of place, and for separation 
 from life just where such separation works most mischief. 
 
 > "Quousque saeculum stabit" ("Ad Scapulam," cap. II). (MPL, I, 700 A.) 
 '"Quibus crastinum non est" ("De Exhortatione Castitatis," cap. XII). 
 (MPL, II, 927 B.) 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 167 
 
 IV. THE ETHICS OF ECCLESIASTICAL ORGANIZATION 
 
 As early as the Ignatian Letters ^ the Episcopal organization 
 was demanding the unity under the will of the bishop which 
 seemed so essential for the conservation of the young church's 
 life. "It is right, therefore," says Ignatius, "that you should 
 run together according to the will of the bishop who rules you 
 according to God," ^ and in the same chapter he says, "For your 
 justly well-known presbytery, worthy of God, is tuned exactly 
 to the bishop, as the strings are to the lyre." Already the 
 hierarchy had made its appearance, as was almost inevitable, and 
 the laity depend on the bishop, as the church does on the Lord 
 Jesus and the Lord does on God his Father.^ The great sin is 
 already separation from the church. "For he that yields not 
 obedience to his superiors is self-confident, quarrelsome, and 
 proud." * The early Christians were taught to be loving and 
 gentle to all the heathen world. " For say ye to those that hate 
 you, * Ye are our brothers,' and the Lord's name may be glori- 
 fied," ^ but toward the heretics of their own number no bitterness 
 was misplaced. "He is lying, fraudulent, soothing, fawning, 
 traitorous, rhapsodical, frivolous, discordant, wordy, sordid, and 
 cowardly."* "Whosoever 'being waxen fat' and 'become 
 gross' sets at naught His doctrine shall go to hell." ^ All the 
 
 * Ignatius Theophorus, second or third Bishop of Antioch (Euseb., H. E., Ill, 
 22), of whom little is known save his alleged martyrdom under Trajan at Rome, 
 either 107 or 1 16. Many letters are attributed to him. The accepted form is in 
 seven letters to the Ephesians, Magnesians, Trallians, Romans, Philadelphians, 
 Smyrnxans, and to Polycarp. (Harnack and Zahn following Lightfoot.) The 
 longer collection contains many additions and spurious attributions. The best 
 editions are Migne, "P. G., V," cols. 643-960; Zahn;^ Theod., 1876; Funk, F. X., 
 1881; Lightfoot, J. B., 1885 and 1891. Translation in the "Ante-Nicene 
 Fathers," vol. I, 1887. The general literature is enormous; compare Harnack, 
 A.: " Altchristliche Litteraturgeschichte" (1893), pp. 75-86, and also his trea- 
 tise, "Die Zeit des Ignatius," Leipsic, 1878; Krueger, G.: "Geschichte der 
 altchristlichen Litteratur" (1895), pp. 18-22; English translation (1897), pp. 
 
 28-34. 
 
 ' Ephesians, chap. IV. ' Ephesians, chap. V. * Ephesians, chap. V. 
 
 * Ephesians, chap. X. "Ephesians, chap. IX (longer form). 
 ^ Ephesians, chap. XVI; Trallians, VI. 
 
i68 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 freedom of moral supremacy over the law is swallowed up in the 
 awe and reverence due to the bishop. " It is becoming, there- 
 fore, that ye also should be obedient to your bishop, and contra- 
 dict him in nothing; for it is a fearful thing to contradict such an 
 one." ' 
 
 The whole tragedy of the Old Testament is not lack of vital 
 righteousness, or even failure to be faithful to monotheism, but 
 the lack of obedience to the appointed spiritual rulers and the 
 consequent divisions and schisms.^ 
 
 The denial of Judaism is formally very fierce. The Sabbath 
 is no longer to be kept in a Jewish manner as a day of idleness, 
 but as a day of work. But it is really only a transference from 
 the eighth day to the first, for the resurrection day becomes for 
 all practical purposes the Jewish Sabbath.^ The spiritual 
 supremacy of the moral man as lord of the religious life is an 
 almost wholly lost conception. Obedience to the bishop and 
 subjection to tradition have usurped the place given by Jesus 
 to the Son of Man. The dangers to the church are intellectual 
 vagaries like doceticism ^ and all manner of schismatics ^ and a 
 divided eucharist.® Marriage is, however, still held in esteem, 
 and wholesome counsel is given against despising it. "Not, 
 however, that I blame the holy ones because they entered into 
 the marriage state. For I pray that I may be found worthy of 
 God and may sit at their feet in the kingdom, as at the feet of 
 Abraham and Isaac and Jacob, as of Joseph and Isaiah and 
 the rest of the prophets, as of Peter and Paul and the rest of the 
 aposdes that were married. For these entered into these 
 marriages not on account of appetite, but to propagate man- 
 kind." ' 
 
 Martyrdom is longed for as a means of attaining God. " Pray, 
 then, do not try to do me any greater favor than that I be sacri- 
 ficed to God while the altar is still prepared . . . deemed 
 worthy to be found and sent for from the East to the West to 
 
 ' Magnesians, III. ' Magnesians, III. ' Magnesians, IX. 
 
 ♦ Trallians, X and XI. » Philadclphians, III. " Philadelphians, IV. 
 
 ' Philadelphians, IV. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 169 
 
 become a martyr in behalf of his own precious sufferings so 
 as to pass from the world to God, that I may rise again unto 
 him":' and again, "suffer me to become food for the wild 
 beasts, through whose instrumentality it will be granted me to 
 attain to God." ^ Throughout the letters there breathes the 
 earnest and devoted spirit of the sincere and faithful ecclesiastic, 
 whose sense of duty is wellnigh coterminous with the life of the 
 outward organization, and to whom the organization has become 
 the sensible incarnation of the divine life. 
 
 Thus in Ignatius there is firmly laid the foundation for a 
 church that usurps the supremacy of the spiritual man, and 
 it now only remained to define and defend that organization 
 and to establish her ethics. 
 
 This work is reflected in very great completeness in Irenaus} 
 For this writer the church as a sacramental institution has full 
 authority over the individual life, and Christianity is simply a 
 new type of Judaism.* The ethics of Jesus are simply the old 
 law revised by adding dogmatic theses to it. Our righteousness 
 must simply exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees 
 by "believing not only in God the Father but in the Son," and 
 in doing the law instead of simply repeating it, and making it 
 
 ' Romans, II. * Romans, IV. 
 
 ' Irenasus was born probably in Asia Minor and probably not before 1 20 or 
 much later than 130. He may have been martyred, although this tradition is late 
 and the date of his death is unknown. His books are mostly lost. Among 
 those known to have existed but now lost are irepl fiovapx^a-s (Eus. V, 20, i. 
 MPG, XX, 484 B); Tb ffTrovda(TfiaTrepl6y8oddos {Eus. Y, 20, I. MPG, XX, 484 
 B); irepl cx^o'/iOTos iiriffToK-fi (Eus. V, 20, i); 7rp6s 'RUrupa iiria-roX'^ (Eus. V, 
 24, 1 1-7. MPG, XX, 496). (Letters to Victor, Bp. of Rome.) 
 
 Two apologetic letters (Euseb., H. E., V, 26) ^i^Xlov rt SiaX^^euv Sia(p6po)v 
 and some other fragmentary apologetic writings. There remain, however, 
 the five books of his chief work, although only in a literal Latin translation, 
 " Contra Haereses " or ''EXe7xoJ Kal dvarpoirij rijs "irevduv^/xov yvdxreus. Eus., 
 H. E., V, 7, 1. (MPG, XX, 445 D.) Numerous remains of the Greek enable 
 us, however, to judge of the faithfulness of the translation. There are many 
 editions. Among the best known are "Erasmus" (Basel, 1526), Migne, "P. G.," 
 VII, cols. 433-1322. Translation in the "Ante-Nicene Fathers," I, pp. 307- 
 578. For general literature, consult Harnack, "Gesch. der altchristl. Littera- 
 tur," I, pp. 263-288. 
 
 *Book IV, 12 : 2. 
 
170 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 our desire as well as doing it/ The sacrament is already the 
 "oblation."^ Eating defiles the man, "For instance, they (her- 
 etics) do not scruple to eat meat offered unto idols, imagining 
 that they cannot contract defilement." ^ It is, moreover, incon- 
 ceivable for Irenaeus that intellectual heretics should be good 
 men. Marcion is charged with disgraceful conduct,* and the 
 Gnostics have been distinctly instigated by Satan "to a denial 
 of that baptism which is regeneration to God." ^ 
 
 Moreover, God is thought of in terms of the Roman Empire, 
 and fear at his name becomes the foundation of conduct,^ so 
 that the mere name has potency, and the Jews do by its means 
 put demons to flight.' There is a twofold standard of authority. 
 On the one hand the books of the apostles, and on the other the 
 tradition which "originated with the apostles and is preserved 
 by means of the successions of the presbyters in the churches.^ 
 The theory of inspiration is already rigid: "All scriptures given 
 to us by God will be harmonious." " Hence the rule for interpre- 
 tation is very simple. The parables are to be made to harmonize 
 with those passages which are perfectly plain. And all these 
 scriptures and traditions are the new codes by which the Supreme 
 Creator rules his creatures. 
 
 The whole conception of the relation of God to his world is 
 utterly uninfluenced by the vision of God as redeeming love in 
 the face of Christ Jesus. The Son reveals the Father, but re- 
 veals him "as one only God, the Creator, he who is above every 
 principality and power and dominion and virtue," who made 
 by wisdom all things, in opposition to the Gnostic teaching of 
 mediate creation.*" Already the gospel message is hardened and 
 formalized into a "plan of salvation." " It is a "doctrine of the 
 
 • Book IV, 13:1. » Book IV, 18 : 5. » Book I, 6 : 3. 
 
 • Book T, 13 : 1-7. » Book I, 21:1. • Book II, 6 : 2. 
 ^ Book II, 6:2. * Book II, 2 : 2. 
 
 • Kal ira.<rr) Tparp^ SeSo/ji^vTi rjtuv airb Qfou trvftipwvos Vf^^'' evpe0i/i<rtTai. " Contr. 
 Hcer.," II, 28, 3. (MPG, VII, 806 C.) '» Bcwk II, 30 : 9. 
 
 " Non enim per alios dispositionem salutis nostrae cognovimus, quam per eos, 
 per quos Evangclium pervenit ad nos. " Contr. Ha;r.," Ill, 1, i. (MPG, VII, 
 844 A.) 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 171 
 
 Son of God," * and a dogmatic system is already completely 
 identified with the "only true and life-giving faith." This body 
 of truth is safely housed in the central church at Rome, "the 
 tradition is derived from the apostles of the exceeding great and 
 ancient and universally known church founded and organized 
 at Rome by the two most glorious apostles Peter and Paul . . . 
 for it is a necessary thing that every church should agree with 
 this church on account of its pre-eminent authority." ^ Under 
 such circumstances the ethics becomes primarily an ethics of the 
 organization, and that organization is a sacramental ark of 
 safety. The chief virtues are submission, faith in the church and 
 the sacraments, undying fidelity to the profession of faith. 
 
 The ethics are a new law, and Jesus goes before " fulfilling the 
 law by performing the offices of the high-priest, propitiating God 
 for ^ men. The Decalogue is the permanent norm.^ Even sin 
 has as a part of its chief heinousness the fact that it injures the 
 organization life.^ The problem of sin as a tremendous chal- 
 lenge of either the goodness or the power of God, which so stag- 
 gered the Gnostic thinkers, has no terrors for Irenaeus, who argues 
 that God could have made man perfect, but that man's infancy 
 could not receive perfection.* The reasoning is slipshod in the 
 extreme, for the interest has changed. The centre of that inter- 
 est is no longer a vital dynamic righteousness, but a strong 
 propagandist, sacramental organization to which Gnostic specu- 
 lation is only abhorrent because divisive, and whose basis is the 
 unquestioned acceptance of an outward authority. 
 
 From some oriental intrusions Irenasus turns definitely away. 
 His contention that the flesh is sound, and although it will not 
 and cannot inherit the kingdom, the kingdom can and must 
 inherit it, is substantially Pauline and Christian.' He denounces 
 the preaching against marriage on the part of the Encratite.* 
 
 * Book III, preface. 
 
 ' Propter potiorem principalitatem. "Adv. Haer.," Ill, 3, 2. (MPG, VII, 
 849 A.) 
 
 3 Book IV, 8:2. * Book V, 17 : i. * Book IV, 33 : 7. 
 
 • Book IV, 38 : 1-4. ^ Book V, 9 : i; book V, 10 : 2 
 » Book I, 28 : I. 
 
172 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 At the same time the coming oriental ascetic type of piety 
 already casts its shadow over orthodoxy. "Adam shows his re- 
 pentance by covering himself with fig-leaves, although there were 
 many other leaves that would have less irritated his body," ^ 
 and continency is a gift by itself. 
 
 The whole atmosphere has now changed. The ethics of 
 Jesus, founded upon the spiritual supremacy of the redeemed 
 life, has given way to an organization legalism. The church is 
 no longer an organization of men and women for redeeming the 
 world, but a sacramental system under bishops and presbyters 
 in which men may seek safety. Morality is no longer a re- 
 deemed purpose consonant to the will of God, but an outward 
 and wholesome bondage laid upon us for the saving of our 
 souls. God is no longer thought of in terms of vital righteous- 
 ness, but in terms of creative activity and over-lordship. For 
 the development of an ethics on this basis we turn from Irenaeus 
 to Cyprian.'^ 
 
 In grace of style and simple straightforwardness Cyprian 
 greatly excels both Tertullian and Irenaeus. He has also his 
 ecclesiastical theory more fully worked out than Tertullian, and 
 his practical interest is even greater than that of Irenaeus. In 
 his innumerable letters we see the ecclesiastical mind actually 
 moulding the ethics of the community, and being itself constantly 
 directed by the interest of the organization. 
 
 For Cyprian this organization was the fmal authority. " From 
 
 ' Book III, 23 : 5. 
 
 ' Thascius C^cilius Cyprianus was born about 200 and probably in Carthage. 
 He was of good family and was an educated teacher of rhetoric: he was won 
 for the church by the presbyter Ccecilianus, and soon was made bishop. During 
 the Decian persecution he was in hiding, but under Valerian he met a martyr's 
 death in September, 258. For full list of letters and works, see Harnack, A.: 
 "Altchristliche Litteraturgeschichte," pp. 688-723; Kriiger, G.: "Geschichte 
 der altchristlichcn Lilteratur" (1895), pp. 174-180, English translation (1897), 
 pp. 280-304. The text has been edited from Erasmus (1520 and 1530) down to 
 Migne ("Patrologia Latina," vol. IV, cols. 191-1032), from which text the quota- 
 tions are taken. Translation in the " Ante-Nicene Fathers," vol. V, pp. 261-596. 
 Compare also article in Herzog-Hauck: " Realencyklopadie," by K. Leimbach, 
 vol. IV, pp. 367-375, English translation (1909), vol. Ill, pp. 331-33^- 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 173 
 
 the beginning, therefore, of my bishopric I determined to do 
 nothing on my own private opinion without your (his co- 
 presbyter's) advice and the consent of the people." ^ And this 
 organization is a fighting propagandist army. "We are still 
 in the world, we are still placed in the battle-field, we fight for our 
 lives daily." ^ This sense of the utter corruption of the world, 
 and the horror of its injustice, cr-uelty, and vice, finds strong ex- 
 pression in Cyprian, and although the church is to conquer, yet 
 the only present relief for the individual is to seek tranquillity in 
 "withdrawing from the whirlpools of the distracting world and 
 to lift his eyes from earth to heaven. He who is really greater 
 than the world can desire nothing from it." ^ Indeed in Cyp- 
 rian one feels the same sense of underlying terror and horror 
 of existing conditions which breathes in so much of Seneca. 
 But while Cyprian feels like Seneca that " It is a crime now to 
 be innocent among the guilty," yet Cyprian looks forward with 
 confidence to the conquest of the world by the ecclesiastical 
 organization. In the very martyrdoms of the church she is 
 overcoming the world.^ The day of affliction overshadows the 
 church and the end of the world, and the time of the Antichrist 
 draws near, but the end is to be a glorious triumph.^ 
 
 Hence it is all-important that the organization have unity, 
 and one of Cyprian's chief works is "De Unitate Ecclesias." 
 This unity is on the basis of the sacraments and Peter the Rock.^ 
 These sacraments are magic rites by which, "by the help of 
 the water of the new birth, the stain of former years had been 
 washed away," ^ and sustaining grace is magically imparted in 
 the eucharist.® It is therefore of the greatest moment to keep 
 the control of baptism within the organization, and to acknowl- 
 edge heretic baptism would be fearfully weakening. Heretic 
 baptism is therefore null and void,^ for how can any one give to 
 
 ' Eps. 5 : 4. Mea privatim sententia. 
 
 ^ Eps. 6:2. ' Eps. I (ad Donatum), 14. 
 
 * Eps. 8:1. * Eps. 57 : I. 
 
 * "De Unitate Ecclesiae," 6 and Eps. 52 : 8; English translation, 51:8; Eps. 
 55 : 14; English translation, 54 : 14. ' Eps. I (ad Donatum), 4. 
 
 * Eps. 9:2. * Eps. 71:1. 
 
174 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 another remission of sins who himself, being outside the church, 
 cannot put away his own sin. 
 
 The church is to be conserv^ed by the maintenance of the 
 authority of the bishops, who are higher than even the presbyters,* 
 and the chief virtues are those most essential to the organization 
 life. "The whole foundation of religion and of faith springs 
 from obedience and fear." ^ The strong appeal for purity of 
 life is the life and welfare of the organization, and for its sake 
 the Christians are to watch one another.^ " Its life is continuous 
 through the bishops. Thence through all the changes of time 
 and successions, the commands of the bishop and the routine of 
 the church go onward, so that the church is founded upon the 
 bishops, and every act is to be controlled by these rulers." * The 
 emphasis upon organic unity is constant and insistent. " There 
 is one God, and Christ is one, and there is one church and one 
 chair founded upon the rock by the word of the Lord. Another 
 altar cannot be constituted or a new priesthood made, except 
 the one altar and the one priesthood." ^ Moreover, this unity 
 has a local place, "Since Rome from her greatness plainly 
 ought to have precedence of Carthage." ° 
 
 No teacher then should even be listened to who is outside the 
 pale of the church; "he who is not in the church of Christ is not 
 a Christian." ' This Rome is "the throne of Peter," and is the 
 chief church "whence priestly unity has its source." * 
 
 Naturally such strict ecclesiasticism bred laxity, for it was 
 vastly important not only to keep outward unity but to insure 
 salvation to as large a number as possible, so that Cyprian writes: 
 "I remit everything, I shut my eyes to many things, with the 
 longing and the hope to gather the brotherhood together"; and 
 again, "Even those things committed against God I do not 
 inquire into with the exact judgment of religion. Almost do I 
 
 ' Eps. 9:1. ^ "De habitu Virginum," 2. ' Eps. 6 : 5. 
 
 * Eps. 27:1; English translation, 26 : i. 
 
 * Eps. 40 : 5; English translation, 39 : 5. 
 
 * Eps. 49 : 2; English translation, 48 : 2. 
 
 ' Eps. 55 : 4; English translation, 51 : 24. 
 ■Eps. 55 : 14; English translation, 54 : 14. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 175 
 
 myself sin, as I remit more sins than I should. I embrace those 
 who in penitence return confessing their sins with humble and 
 sincere atonement, with speedy and complete love." * 
 
 Of course, as with Ignatius and Irenaeus, the sacraments are a 
 magical system imparting grace per se. "Infants are to be 
 baptized at once, for the mercy and grace of God are not to be 
 refused to any bom of man," ^ and therefore sacramental cor- 
 rectness is of primary importance,^ and the priesthood is invested 
 with peculiar spiritual powers after the analogy of the Aaronic 
 priesthood; and as the unhappy Korah, Dathan, and Abiram 
 were swallowed up for disobedience, so all rebels against the 
 bishop are in serious danger.^ Indeed this incident figures 
 largely from Ignatius on down through all the ecclesiastical 
 writers. 
 
 The outcome of moral thought on such a foundation is a 
 minute and external casuistry. It is based on rewards and 
 punishments measured according to the legal measure of the 
 transgression. Even the persecutions that take place come on 
 account of the sins of the community. The picture Cyprian 
 draws of the state of the church shows how far the formalizing 
 externalizing process had gone. In the treatise " De Lapsis" he 
 catalogues these sins. They are increasing estates and covetous- 
 ness. Priests have no devotion to religion. Ministers are not 
 sound in the faith. Works of mercy fail. Discipline is lax. Men 
 deface their beards. Women paint their faces, color their eyes, 
 and stain their hair. Frauds are practised. Marriages are con- 
 tracted with unbelievers. There are slanders, false swearing, and 
 quarrels, and the bishops take up secular business. 
 
 There was mingled with the ethics the most mechanical con- 
 ception of pollution. In this same treatise ^ a story is told of an 
 unhappy infant, temporarily abandoned by the parents, being 
 forced to partake of bread and wine ofiFered to idols. This 
 
 ' Eps. 55 : 16; English translation, 54 : 16. 
 
 * Eps. MPL, 59 : 2; English translation, 58 : 2. 
 
 ' Eps. MPL, 63 : 11; English translation, 62 : 11. 
 
 * Eps. MPL, 65 : i; English translation, 64 : i. 
 
 * "De Lapsis," 25. 
 
176 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 "crime" is unknown to the parents, who on recovering their 
 infant take it to the church, and there the "little girl among 
 saints" is impatient of the prayers and "was at one moment 
 tossed about like a wave of the sea by the excitement of her 
 mind, " and on the deacons forcing upon her the sacramental cup, 
 the wine "burst forth from her polluted body," revealing the 
 "crime," which her infant years made it impossible for her to 
 either understand or relate. 
 
 The conception of God is that of a judge to be convinced and 
 a ruler to be appeased. Those that have proved weak in the 
 hour of trial and who have fallen must not think that " the Lord 
 can be quickly appeased"; "do you think that he will easily 
 have mercy upon you, he whom you have pronounced to be not 
 your God?" and the appeasement is by watching, weeping, fast- 
 ing, spending days and nights in prayers and tears, dressed in 
 sackcloth and filth, earnest in good works, "whereby sin may be 
 purged away, frequently doing alms, whereby souls are set free 
 from death." * 
 
 So completely has the conception of God changed to the old 
 pharisaic thought of him, that even in the interpretation of the 
 Lord's Prayer we are told that we say "Our Father" because 
 he has begun to be ours and ceased to be the Father of the Jews 
 who have forsaken him. Martyrdom is pleasing to God per se, 
 and the martyrs have peculiar power with God,- and prayers are 
 winged by these sufferings.' 
 
 Cyprian is generally milder than Tertullian, but there are 
 some fiercely pagan passages, as in the address to Demetrianus, 
 where he describes the joy of the saints in seeing the tortures of 
 Gehenna inflicted upon those who once persecuted them,^ and 
 this in spite of his own acknowledgment that "we must not 
 hate." ' 
 
 In fact, to sum up the ethics of this type of thinking, it is not 
 only on the lower planes of pharisaic Judaism, but it does not 
 
 ' "De Lapsis," 35. * "Dc orationc Dominica," 24. 
 
 ' "De oratione Dominica," ^3. * "Liber ad Demetrianum," 24. 
 
 '"Liber ad Demetrianum," 25. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 177 
 
 even rise to the higher planes of Stoicism. The whole conception 
 of man's moral freedom and supremacy over the law is hopelessly 
 gone, and the enthusiasm is for a churchly organization with a 
 superstitious and fanatical confidence in an outward sacra- 
 mental magic. 
 
 V. THE ETHICAL FORCES OF CHRISTIANITY 
 
 Any review of the formal ethics of this early Christian literature 
 leaves the reader wondering how Christianity succeeded in sur- 
 viving the entire change of emphasis from the message of Jesus 
 in the synoptic Gospels and the Pauline and Johannine interpre- 
 tation of that message to an emphasis upon things Jesus either 
 ignored or hated. 
 
 The main quarrel Jesus had with the religious life of his day 
 was with the pharisaic conception of God as law-giver, and of 
 the religious life as obedience to an outward legalism, and of the 
 kingdom of God as the success of a selfish temporal and ecclesi- 
 astical organization. And now before three generations have 
 passed away these three misconceptions are seemingly firmly 
 implanted in the fighting ecclesiastical organization. God was 
 already thought of as only the Father of the law-abiding Chris- 
 tian church ; the religious life was construed as essentially seeking 
 personal safety amid the magic of sacraments, and by conformity 
 to dogma and casuistry; and the kingdom of God was substan- 
 tially identified with a priestly organization; and this elaborate 
 misconstruction was complete in the time of Cyprian. 
 
 At the same time many noble and striking passages show that 
 in the midst of this radical misconception of Jesus and his 
 purpose there still remained in the teaching of Clement of Alex- 
 andria, Irenaeus and Cyprian, and even Tertullian, the power 
 of the primary revolution. Jesus was still a living force in the 
 lives of these and thousands of others. The world could never 
 again think exclusively of God in the terms of pharisaism, and 
 even the most exalted Stoicism was unsatisfactory in the presence 
 of the actual ethics of Jesus, and the Gospels were still read. 
 
178 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The very deification of Jesus compelled men, even when most 
 caught in formalism and legalism, to translate the life and pur- 
 pose of God into the concepts of a tender and loving humanity. 
 So that no clouds of dreary Hellenistic speculation, and no dream 
 of Roman imperialism could wholly shut out the forgiveness of 
 the cross and the absolute freedom of God's love. 
 
 The Gospel story was still imbedded in the paganized churchly 
 life, and unconsciously or subconsciously the message of Jesus 
 to the world that God was redeeming moral purpose cut across 
 the formal dogmatic contradictions. Even while thousands pro- 
 fessed with their lips the God of Pharisaism or the Absolute of 
 Stoicism, they worshipped with joy in their hearts the God and 
 Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 Thus the transforming power of the old enthusiasm for God 
 as seen in Jesus Christ remained as a purifying ethical force 
 along many lines. And nowhere was it seen to better advantage 
 than in the family group. Judaism had seemingly ceased to 
 represent the highest type of monogamy even in the time of 
 Jesus.^ No doubt it was chiefly amongst the economically 
 prosperous that this was the case. But as always, so here, 
 legalism brought forth its inevitable fruit.^ No doubt then, as 
 always, the sexual relationship was relatively pure and whole- 
 some among the simpler toiling masses. That this was true even 
 in the worst ages of Greece and Rome we need have little doubt. 
 Athens was not Greece, nor was Rome Italy, any more than 
 Constantinople is Turkey. Even in the upper classes the 
 pictures of the satirists are not to be taken too literally.' 
 
 Though this is true, however, it is also true that just as soon as 
 one class is economically dependent upon another the ethical 
 standards in matters pertaining to sex sufTer terribly. It is 
 impossible to conserve woman's purity or men's ideals of virtue 
 amid a slave population, where the slave women are the helpless 
 dependents upon the men. The agrarian slavery of old Rome 
 
 • Matt. 5 : 27-32. 
 
 ' C/. Schurer: "Geschichte des Judischcn Volkcs," II, 493-496, isted, 1898. 
 
 * Cf. "Seneca ad Marciam," 13-14. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 179 
 
 brought with it evils, but the household slavery of predatory 
 imperial Rome loosened the whirlwind of luxury and abuse.* 
 
 Yet there are evidences that not only was this confined to cer- 
 tain ranks of society, but that, as Hatch points out,^ a reforma- 
 tion was in progress in the pagan world. Christianity early em- 
 braced false and unworthy conceptions of the married state. 
 Even Paul's utterances permitted grave misconstruction. Very 
 early, virginity was ranked as per se a higher ethical condition, 
 in utter contradiction of the higher and purer Jewish estimate 
 of the family. The story of the virgin-birth was interpreted as 
 a slur upon the married relationship.' 
 
 These very aberrations, however, serve to show the extreme 
 reaction of the ethics of the early church against sexual indul- 
 gence. The indignation of Paul in his letters to Rome and 
 Corinth against laxness at this point, and the thorough-going 
 attitude of Jesus,* made a marked impression. The early 
 Christian church stood firmly for a standard of purity equally 
 high for man and woman, for free and slave. The Hellenic- 
 Roman world was not destitute of high ideals. Pliny's letters 
 reflect the sweetest devotion to his wife Calpurnia, and many 
 families, no doubt, lived on the high plane of Seneca's teaching. 
 Yet the demands of this same society on the growing boy or the 
 married man were very low. The actual result of Christian 
 teaching was the exaltation of an ideal strange and wellnigh 
 undreamt of in a pagan philosophy. The beautiful imagery of 
 Paul ^ was an ethical force of great value. 
 
 To read some writers one would suppose that hypocrisy was 
 introduced into the world by Christianity. That the exaltation 
 of an ideal and that fading enthusiasms produce hypocrisy need 
 not be gainsaid; while still maintaining that the very hypocrisy 
 
 ^ Cf. Friedlander, L.: "Darstellungen aus der Sittengeschichte Roms," 7th 
 ed., 1901, part 2, pp. 228-231. 
 
 ^ Hatch, Edwin: "The Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the 
 Christian Church," 2d ed., 1891, pp. 140-170. 
 
 » Tertullian, "De Carne Christi," cap. XVII. 
 
 *Matt. 5 : 27-32. 
 
 * Eph. 5 : 22-33. 
 
i8o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 which has so often stained the page describing human conduct at 
 this point is an evidence of a heightened standard of thought. 
 
 The humblest Christian was taught to defend personal purity 
 as a fundamental demand of the new organization. In the 
 midst of the foulness and sexual brutalities of paganism a new 
 conception was given birth. Even a beautiful story of the 
 Gospel * was probably omitted from the early canon lest it 
 should hinder in the church's battle with her deadliest enemy. 
 
 The economic struggle was in those days as fierce if not even 
 fiercer than to-day. The slave labor pressed upon the proleta- 
 riat with fearful force and depressing power.^ In a twofold 
 manner the possessing class appropriated the product of labor, 
 on the one hand by the brute force of slavery and on the other 
 by excluding freemen from the soil save on the most onerous 
 terms of rental. In this struggle of the proletariat the Christian 
 church brought in a new bond of union between the weaker op- 
 pressed workers. It bound together in a religious enthusiasm 
 the interests of both slave and proletariat freeman. The so- 
 called communism of the early church^ had no economic 
 foundation, but simply represented the revival of a strong feeling 
 of economic brotherhood.* 
 
 Any strong enthusiasm that really brings men into fellowship 
 with each other will lead to a relative sharing of the material 
 things of life. But the Christian enthusiasm taught natural 
 helpfulness, exalted giving of self and possessions for others' 
 sake; thus the oppressed proletariat were bound together in a 
 great organization for common helpfulness and mutual aid in 
 trouble. The union produced strength.' 
 
 'John 7 : 53-8 : 11. 
 
 'C/. Mommsen: "Roemische Geschichte," vol. 11,81,397; III, S'O-S". ^J- 
 1889. 
 
 » Acts 2 : 43-47; S : i""- 
 
 * Rogge, C: "Der irdische Besitz im Neuen Testament," 1897, pp. 68-76; 
 Holtzmann, Oskar: "Gutergemeinschaft," in "Zcitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte 
 (1894, edited by Brieger), XIV, pp. 327-336. 
 
 »Uhlhorn's "Christliche Liebesthatigkeit in der alten Kirrhc," Stuttgart, 
 1882, pp. 248-256; English translation, "Christian Charity in the Ancient 
 Church," New York, 1883, pp. 255-263. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH i8i 
 
 This organization was not only international, but exceedingly 
 mobile. The general poverty reflected in James and in Acts, 
 and in the constant appeals for the poor "saints in Jerusalem," 
 suggest the way in which a sense of responsibility for the weakest 
 members of the group was fostered, producing a sense of fellow- 
 ship and strength of great social and ethical value in a day of 
 such constant disintegration of social bonds. 
 
 In theory, at least, within the organization poverty was no 
 -disgrace, for Jesus had been poor and had called the poor 
 blessed. So that in one circle, professedly the economically in- 
 ferior, the groups were equal before God and could claim amid 
 all degrees of poverty the equal possession of the higher riches. 
 
 In very many forms the social kingdom-aspiration survived. 
 The church still prayed amid increasing compromise with the 
 existing social order, "Thy kingdom come on earth." And 
 the old apocalyptic dreams still haunted the imaginations of 
 the oppressed, particularly in times of stress and persecution 
 (Apocalypse of Peter, of Baruch, etc.). The triumph of the ec- 
 clesiastical organization began increasingly to take the place of 
 the hope for a magic revolution, judgment, and a new world. 
 As that organization grew in power it gradually changed 
 from a propagandist society of social and heavenly hope and 
 became itself an end. Its wide sweep, its powers of adapta- 
 tion to many levels of need, its conservation of so many differing 
 types of value, made the ecclesiastical organization a social force 
 in the dwarfed and narrowed lives of the world's teeming, 
 ignorant millions. She caught up into herself with splendid 
 inconsistency the most diverse factors that were making for 
 ethical reformation and social reconstruction. 
 
 In many ways her attitude was highly anomalous. Riches 
 began to be her portion, and her power increased as the influential 
 began to join the Christian ranks.^ Unlimited giving was her 
 
 * Cf. evidence in Harnack's "Die Mission und Ausbreitung des Christentums 
 in den ersten drei Jahrhunderten," Leipsic, 1902, pp. 376-407; English transla- 
 tion by Moffatt: "The Expansion of Christianity in the First Three Centuries" 
 (2 vols., New York, 1904-1905), vol. II, pp. 183-239. 
 
i82 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 constant message. At the same time all compulsion to give 
 would have robbed the gift of its healing efficacy.^ Not all 
 could become ascetics, so compromise was again necessary. A 
 sort of voluntary communism remained as an ideal, but on the 
 other hand the rich and powerful were special stewards of God 
 for the church's sake, and need not fear diminishing estates if 
 they freely gave.^ Any critical estimate of the economic and 
 ethical advantages and disadvantages of private possession was 
 quite beyond the scope of the church's thought. 
 
 In like manner the attitude toward slavery was utterly un- 
 critical. Slavery as slavery was not condemned. Paul sent back 
 a runaway slave, but as "a brother," ^ and no early Christian 
 had any m.ore inkling of the inherent ethical wrong of exploiting 
 a fellow-being economically for one's own ends than has the 
 Christian "sweater" of wage labor of to-day.'' It must be con- 
 fessed that slavery disappeared not because Christianity ever 
 officially fought it, but because it became economically wasteful 
 as a method of exploitation and so was displaced by serfdom 
 and the wage system. At the same time one reason why it 
 became increasingly unprofitable was the growing humanity of 
 masters, in which growth the Christian organization had a very 
 large share. The canons of Elvira^ undertake to regulate the 
 treatment of slaves by the masters and mistresses, and as over 
 against academic ideals do it more effectively, seemingly, than 
 Stoicism.' The church as such never contemplated the doing 
 away with slavery as such,' even though Stoicism had denounced 
 it as "contra naturam." * In fact the church constantly taught, 
 as did the New Testament writers, that the slave was to be 
 
 ' Acts 5 : i-ii. 
 
 ' C/. Cyprian's "De opere et eleemosynis," especially chaps. X and XI. 
 "Metuis ne patrimonium tuum forte deficiat, si operari ex eo largiter cceperis, et 
 nescis, miser, quia, dum times ne res familiaris deficit, vita ipsa et salus deficiat," 
 etc. (MPL, IV, 609 B.) 
 
 » Philemon, 16. * I Cor. 7 : 20-24. * 5 and 41. 
 
 "Overbeck, F.: "Studien zur Geschichte der altcn Kirche," 1875, pp. 158- 
 230. 
 
 ^ Rivifere, Armand: "L'dglise et I'esclavage," Paris, 1864. 
 
 ' "Ulpian. Dig.," I, 54, § i (quoted by Overbeck, loc. cit., p. 169). 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 183 
 
 obedient to the master set over the slave/ And only gentle 
 treatment of the slave by the master was demanded.^ The 
 slave of a Christian master could only be taken into the com- 
 munity by consent of the master, and slaves were forbidden to 
 ask the community to buy them their freedom.^ As might be 
 suspected, Tertullian is especially insistent upon the submission 
 of slaves/ Chrysostom taught that there was a threefold 
 servitude brought into the world by sin, that of woman to man, 
 man to the master, and all to the State, and the slave relationship 
 was natural and permanent/ Slavery was the natural atmos- 
 phere of life, and its many drawbacks and impossible consistency 
 with her highest ideals were not apparent to the official church 
 then, any more than the official church to-day is aware of any 
 standing contradiction in the social order of to-day and her 
 proclamation of brotherhood and equality before God. 
 
 Slaves, however, under certain circumstances might become 
 bishops and presbyters. Thus Calixtus rose to the highest 
 office in Rome. Hippolytus, however, attacks him for many 
 things, and among others for permitting marriage between a slave 
 and a free-born woman.® Nor was it customary to make a slave 
 a presbyter without the consent of the slave's owner, as witness 
 the controversy between the wealthy Simplicia and Basil and 
 Gregory of Nazianzus. The worst abuses were very distinctly 
 condemned,' and thus the church became in some measure a 
 court of appeal for the slave. 
 
 Nor were there lacking individuals who saw the evil.* And it 
 is doubtful whether any organized protest on the part of the 
 official church would have greatly inured to the benefit of the 
 slave population. 
 
 Of great ethical importance was the place the church gave to 
 martyrdom. In all ages sealing personal sincerity by the 
 
 * Eph. 6 : 5-8; cf. Col. 3 : 22; I Tim. 6 : i, and I Peter 2 : 18. 
 
 * Eph. 6:9. ' Ignatius ad Polycarp, c. 4. 
 
 * " De cor. mil.," c. 13. "Apologeticus," cap. 27; " Ad uxorem," II : 8. 
 » XIX Homily on I Cor; cf. XII Homily on Eph. 
 
 ' Philos., IX, 7:9. ^ "Apostolic Constitutions," 4 : 6. 
 
 * The Carpocrateans according to Clement of Alexandria, " Strom.," Ill, 2 : 6. 
 
i84 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 giving up of life for the sake of truth has exercised a great influ- 
 ence. Socrates became the reformer of Grecian thought by his 
 tragic death. In an age of cowardice and great moral strain, 
 Jesus died the death of a martyr. The church became extrava- 
 gant in her estimate of martyrdom, but it is impossible to estimate 
 the services to moral sincerity rendered by the countless martyrs 
 from all ages and classes in the community. In an age of loose 
 cosmopolitan syncretism there wsls set up a claim for an ex- 
 clusive faith, and its povi^er over men was proved by their suffer- 
 ings and their death. The world slowly sought higher ethical 
 levels, and in the movement upward the Christian church gave 
 the longed-for stamp of reality and genuineness to the profes- 
 sions of this seeking faith. The actual power of religion was 
 dramatically set forth. 
 
 The international character of the Christian movement gave 
 rise to special emphasis upon certain distinct virtues. Foremost 
 among these to be singled out was that of hospitality. As one 
 sees in both the "Teaching of the Twelve Apostles" and in 
 "Hermas," not to speak of later writers, this hospitality was 
 subject to abuse. Yet no abuse quenched the virtue, and far 
 down into church history Christians demanded and received 
 hospitality simply because they were Christians. This not only 
 bound the church together, but it reacted upon its entire life 
 and gave it breadth and strength. The church consisting so 
 largely as was the case of the non-possessing class, had a large 
 number evidently wandering about seeking economic oppor- 
 tunity. 
 
 The sympathies of this somewhat ignorant and narrow- visioned 
 membership made up of the less successful classes broadened and 
 deepened under the training of a world-wide hope and a con- 
 stantly increasing knowledge of the actual world. If the last 
 chapter of Romans be genuine, and it is exceedingly likely, it is 
 evidence that the early Christians wandered like the Jews from 
 city to city with great ease. They thus learnt statesmanship and 
 interest in world-wide movements as they took part in the 
 establishment of a spiritual autocracy, which thankfully used 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE EARLY CHURCH 185 
 
 every help toward reaching the somewhat unfortunate goal of 
 imperial power. 
 
 The social bond was strong. A common suffering and isola- 
 tion, even at the best of times, compelled the early Christians, 
 as it now compels German Social Democrats, to trust to each 
 other for companionship and social intercourse. The very ec- 
 clesiastical politics that soon usurped a large part of the time 
 of both leaders and people gave a certain seriousness and 
 purpose to the social bond, lacking in other more superficial 
 contacts. 
 
 It was thus a steady pressure from within and from without 
 that kept the growing organization strong and united. It 
 meant a great deal to be cast out as a heretic, for unless one 
 could, like Marcion or the Montanists, gather a wide following, 
 the heretic was lost to social intercourse with the old heathen 
 world, and was deprived of all friendships in the new world rising 
 in power and influence every day. Only the very strongest can 
 stand alone against their social world, and when a Christian had 
 given up his old pagan atmosphere, to be thrust out from the 
 new-found circle was to die the death. 
 
 Although a democracy that tolerates economic dependence 
 of one class upon another, as the early Christian democracy per- 
 mitted slavery, can at best only be a foreshadowing of things 
 to be, yet in Christianity were many elements of democracy. 
 The communion of saints meant still even to Cyprian the democ- 
 racy of the congregation.* Part of the educative force of Chris- 
 tianity was the self-governing character of the more primitive 
 congregations. As the trades-unions are educating men to 
 capacity for concerted action and wise compromise in behalf of 
 united effort, so early Christianity was training men for the 
 time when, even while probably yet in a minority, they should 
 be asked to share the responsibility of helping to govern the 
 empire. 
 
 Thus in spite of vast changes for the worse in the theoretical 
 ethics, and in spite of great lowering of the spiritual-ethical en- 
 * Cyprian, Epis. 5 : 4. 
 
i86 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 thusiasm, enough of primitive faith in God as the Father of Our 
 Lord Jesus remained to give sweep and reach to the onrushing 
 conquest of the great ecclesiastical movement which from now 
 on we may call the full-grown Roman Catholic church. 
 
CHAPTER IV 
 
 THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH AND 
 ITS ETHICS 
 
 Note 0} Introduction. — I. Athanasius and Monasticism — II. The Mes- 
 sage of the Great Preachers— III. The Monastery and Asceti- 
 cism— IV. The Bishop's Church and Culture— V. The Bishop's 
 Church and the Cult and Its Ethics— VI. The Church and Her 
 Theology— VII. The Ethics of the Councils. 
 
 NOTE OF INTRODUCTION 
 
 To trace the growth of an imperial, ecclesiastical, paternal, and 
 benevolent tyranny from the simple teachings of Jesus is one of 
 the strange tasks set before the historian. Jesus stood so abso- 
 lutely for the supremacy of the spiritual man that it is difficult 
 to even connect him with a strong centralized imperialism. 
 One by one Jesus was confronted by all the various manifesta- 
 tions of authority which hedge about the normal human life, 
 and over against them all, while recognizing their place and 
 function, he asserted the ultimate supremacy of the Son of Man. 
 The spiritual man might have to abandon father and mother, 
 refuse to follow scribe or priest; he must realize his lordship 
 over days and rites and past commandments. Tradition, 
 sacred and useful, must yet yield to the pressure of a new com- 
 mandment born of the inward sense of sonship with God. The 
 State had its function and we were to render to Caesar the things 
 that belong to Caesar, but in case of conflict the spiritual man 
 must resolutely assert his freedom, and if need be do as Jesus did, 
 and die as an expression of final supremacy over life and death. 
 
 This freedom of the son of God was a cardinal teaching of 
 Paul and echoes more or less clearly in all the canonical literature. 
 Yet not three centuries had passed away, and this supremacy was 
 
 187 
 
i88 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 yielded to the claim of a priestly, sacramental organization fight- 
 ing for power and place in every corner of the civilized world of 
 its day. Thus the Catholic Christian of the third century stood 
 in a twofold attitude. As over against the world, the State, the 
 forms of faith acknowledged by the ages, he felt himself free. The 
 cowering slave was raised to a new manhood, and the seal of that 
 freedom was the blood of a long list of past martyrs. In baptism 
 the sinner passed from slavery to sin and death to the new life 
 of forgiveness and virtue. The church was the brotherhood of 
 the forgiven life; the little community was the family of God. 
 
 It is out of this family relationship that the ecclesiastical 
 tyranny rose quietly and naturally. The temporary authority of 
 the family was elevated into a permanent pressure upon the indi- 
 vidual.* The time came when for the ordinary "lay" Christian 
 there were no adult years. He remained a " child of the church," 
 the priest became a permanent "father." The temporary func- 
 tion of teacher became a permanent status. If over against the 
 world there were indeed freedom, as toward the church with its 
 magic sacraments there could only be one attitude, that of 
 humble, reverential submission to its overwhelming authority. 
 
 The transition did not take place without protest and schism. 
 The Gnostics, as well as Marcion, Montanus, Novatius, Donatus, 
 and many others instinctively rebelled, but the sweep of a great 
 movement was against them. The assertion of this supreme 
 authority of an organization over the individual could not be 
 made without many a compromise, and ever again the student 
 notes the surrender of this or that secondary interest in favor 
 of the great primary demand for submission to the unity of the 
 sacramental organization. 
 
 ' The Roman conception of the family was always highly aristocratic. The 
 potestas patria survived from the old tribal agrarianism long after the essential 
 economic condition had changed. In the Hellenistic world Stoic notions of 
 jus naturale gradually undermined this conception, but it passed naturally into 
 the church, the ecdesia taking the father's place of absolute power. Cf. Morey, 
 Wm. C: "Outlines of Roman Law," New York, 1893, 6th ed., pp. 23, 129^.; 
 see also Ferrero, G.: "The Greatness and Decline of Rome," New York, 1907 
 (Englbh translation by Zimmern), vol. I, pp. 5, 6. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 189 
 
 It was no accident that this imperial claim should increasingly 
 be identified with the fortunes of the Roman church. Even 
 while the great drama of dogmatic construction was being 
 seemingly played out at Nicsea, Constantinople, or in Asia 
 Minor, the real force at work was that ambition for world-wide 
 supremacy which ever nerved the Christian heart. 
 
 That ambition was, however, far better served by the mild, 
 practical, skilful statesmen of Rome than by the quarrelling, 
 hair-splitting theologians of the Eastern church. It was in 
 Rome that religious syncretism was, on the one hand, demand- 
 ing religious unity in the interests of threatened empire, and 
 on the other willing to make large concessions to every religious 
 cult that did not too exclusively press its claims. 
 
 The simple faith of Jesus was not the force that battled for 
 political supremacy, but an elaborate religious syncretism into 
 which had entered elements of paganism from Egypt, Persia, 
 Babylon, Greece, and Rome. The strength of the Catholic 
 Bishop's church did not consist simply in its purer morals, its 
 more certain faith, its brighter promise, and its more tender, 
 loving trust in a one redeeming God. These were its better 
 portion and its nobler advantage, but as a matter of history it 
 met the guilds of Egyptian Isis and Serapis cults by a more 
 closely knit guild organization. It was confronted by the sacra- 
 mental symbolism of the Magna Mater, and evolved a virgin 
 devotion and a sacramental system simpler and more effective. 
 It found itself threatened by the cult of Mithra and the weird 
 mysteries of the sun-worship, and caught the imagination to 
 which Mithraism ministered by an ascetic practice as compell- 
 ing and a priestly organization even more effective. 
 
 It is now seemingly quite impossible to always say whence came 
 the machinery or apparatus of the religious life in the Nicene 
 period. Undoubtedly much belonged already to all cults, 
 having been borrowed by them from still older strata of religious 
 expression. Probably both Egypt and Babylon gave much to 
 the common tradition. From the oriental mystery-cults seem 
 to have come the tonsure, the white-robed priest, the matins, 
 
I90 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 nones and vespers, bells, litany, solemn processions, the mingled 
 wine and water, the sacred wafer, the sacramental magic, the 
 Easter feast, the Christmas feast to the child-God. 
 
 They apparently entered Christianity at many points, but 
 Alexandria seems especially prominent as the meeting-place of 
 the cults of Isis, Magna Mater, and Mithra. (See full literature 
 cited, "Hellenistic Preparation," p. 9.) 
 
 From the synagogue may have come the sacredness of a 
 weekly day, the assembly for instruction and religious inspira- 
 tion, the common prayer, reading of sacred books, the singing of 
 psalms and hymns, collections for the poor, the sermon, and the 
 relatively democratic organization of the congregation. 
 
 How far the dogmatic and moral reconstruction of the Chris- 
 tian message was influenced by the weightiest and most serious 
 rival in popular affection which the Christian organization had, 
 namely the Mithra cult, we shall probably never know, for the 
 elaborate theology and liturgy of this jemarkable synthesis 
 from the Orient have, it is to be feared, been wellnigh entirely 
 lost. Only the monuments and inscriptions to which reference 
 has already been made (page 26) tell us of its wide influence. 
 Some things, however, suggest so close a parallel that it would 
 be strange, indeed, if much more was not common property, 
 perhaps, of the whole religious world of that day. Both Mithra- 
 worship and the Old Catholic church had in common sacra- 
 ments, holy water, called members "brothers" and the older 
 ones "fathers," had baptism or lustration, a communion feast, 
 with holy wine and water and a wafer. Both had introduced 
 monastic vows for men and women. Both had a "Pontifex 
 Maximus." Both had grades of membership, withholding the 
 sacramental elements from the lower grades. Both taught 
 eternal life and made sacramental grace a preparation for it. 
 Both laid emphasis upon purity of conduct, and especially sexual 
 purity, as a condition of blessedness. Both claimed in rite and 
 sacrament to give strength for the battle with evil. Both called 
 the members "milites" or soldiers of virtue. Both were aggres- 
 sive, convert-making organizations, appealing to the economi- 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 191 
 
 cally oppressed and the down-trodden, and finally both found 
 in Germany and the north of Europe their most splendid field 
 for propaganda and also looked for a final triumph of their cult.* 
 
 That the ethics of Christianity were influenced we see from 
 the fact that Tertullian holds up the refusal of the "soldier of 
 Mithra" to be crowned because he is to be crowned by Mithra, 
 as an example to Christian soldiers to refuse the pagan triumphal 
 crown because awaiting the crown of Jesus. 
 
 The Bishop's Church simply swept into itself all the elements 
 of the successful religious life about the Mediterranean Sea. 
 Some of these elements were good, some were relatively indiffer- 
 ent until identified with the essence of the religious life, others 
 were harmful and debasing. The Christianity of the Nicene 
 period was, on the whole, a wholesome syncretism, powerful 
 enough to organize again the religious and even intellectual life 
 of a sadly distracted world. 
 
 It ministered to the ethical longing of the sinful, it satisfied 
 by cultural pomp the aesthetic sense of Roman and Greek. It 
 took uncritically from all what it needed for its purpose. It 
 had a more potent ethical life than any rival, so that at last 
 Constantine was compelled by political necessity to use it as 
 the one organization with sufficient vitality and unity to bind 
 together the tottering empire. Hence Mithra-worship was pro- 
 scribed and persecuted and, save for a brief resurrection under 
 Julian, the so-called apostate, it seemingly disappeared, because 
 in part, evidently, it had been practically taken up into the 
 Bishop's church. 
 
 The oriental cults were divided. There was the Isis cult, 
 the Mystery of the Great Mother, as well as the Mystery of 
 Mithra and many other lesser cults. They all taught a sub- 
 stantial speculative monotheism and linked religion with types 
 of ethical life. All had their priesthood, their judgments after 
 death, with heaven and hell. All sought dominance in the 
 
 * Tertullian " De praescriptione hasreticorum," caput XL, and " De corona," 
 caput XV. Tertullian attributes the resemblance to the wiles of an imitating 
 devil, careless of the fact that Mithra was older than Christ. 
 
192 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Roman State. It was recognized on all hands that the imperial 
 power was a prize worth having. Long before Christ the old 
 paganism of Italy had given way and the population turned to all 
 the varied superstitions of the Orient for help.* The emperors 
 sought successively among these cults for a national imperial 
 religion. Vespasian built a temple to the Mater Magna at 
 Herculaneum, but even imperial favor could not give her a 
 monopoly. So the Flavians gave their support to Isis, and at 
 one time under the Antonines her triumph might have seemed 
 assured. But then Mithra was popular among the soldiers, and 
 the cult suited the robuster Roman temper better than the gentle 
 Egyptian Isis cult. Then with dramatic suddenness Christian- 
 ity became the heir of them all, and even though only a minority 
 of her population could by any possibility be called Christian, 
 circumstances compelled the state to establish the Roman 
 Catholic organization to the absolute and intolerant exclusion of 
 her religious rivals with which the state had so long coped.' 
 
 This is not the place to discuss the many reasons for this 
 triumph, but in studying the ethics of this period it must be 
 constantly remembered that we are dealing with a new world 
 imperialism whose life and hope were very far removed from the 
 ideals of Jesus and Paul. For the kingdom-dream of a holy 
 community of loving brethren was substituted the vision of a 
 triumphant ecclessiastical organization; for the spiritual inde- 
 pendence of the loving heart was substituted the reverent sub- 
 mission of the worshipper to a mystic authority; for the freedom 
 and joy of forgiven sonship with God was placed the attitude of 
 penitent lowly seeking of magic sacramental purity; for the gift 
 of a present eternal life was substituted the rewards and penalties 
 
 • Already in 191 B. C. a decree of the Senate welcomed the Magna Mater. 
 "Roeman Festivals," p. 70, quoted by Dill, Sam.: "Roman Society from Nero 
 to Marcus Aurelius," 2d ed., London 1905, p. 550. See also Mommsen, Th.: 
 "Rcemische Geschichte," 8th ed., Berlin, 1889, vol. II, 4 : 12, pp. 411-423. 
 
 »C/. Harnack, Adolf: "Kirche und Staat bis zur Grundung der Staats- 
 kirche," in "Die Kultur der Gegcnwart," edited by P. Ilinncbcrg, Berlin and 
 Leipsic, 1906, part I, 4. Section "Die christliche Religion," ist half 
 "Geschichte dor christlichcn Religion," pp. 129-158. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 193 
 
 of a hell, heaven, and purgatory, described in an imagery bor- 
 rowed almost in its entirety from pagan mysteries. 
 
 How far the change from an inner spiritual brotherhood to a 
 secular world-conquering power had gone is seen in the mechan- 
 ical definition and treatment of sin and in the elaborate ecclesi- 
 astical machinery for its forgiveness, as well as in the extraor- 
 dinary claims of the ecclesiastical hierarchy. This change of 
 emphasis resulted also in the relative displacement of the ethical 
 interest by metaphysical and political questions. The energies of 
 the official church were no longer bent upon the question of how, 
 in the midst of a sinful, ignorant generation, a holy community 
 might be built up, but on how an artificial unity, only useful 
 for political purposes, might be preserved on the basis of meta- 
 physical definition. This was the theme of the Nicene council. 
 It is one of the sad commentaries upon the Christianity that 
 claims Jesus as its founder that the abstruse and perfectly in- 
 comprehensible metaphysics of the Nicene creed should still be 
 regarded as the bulwark of truth by so many communions, 
 while nearly all that Jesus really stood for is openly neglected. 
 
 Yet amidst this declension there still rang out the message of 
 a lofty devotion to inward holiness, and an appeal was made to a 
 high and spiritual ethics. 
 
 I. ATHANASIUS AND MONASTICISM 
 
 This we see clearly in the life and work of Athanasius,^ who 
 has become for so many the incarnation of Christian orthodoxy. 
 Athanasius was, however, far more than the great dogmatic 
 
 ' Athanasius, Archbishop of Alexandria, was born probably in Alexandria 
 somewhere between 296 and 298. Cf. art. "Athanasius," by F. Loofs, in 
 Herzog-Hauck's " Realencyklopildie," vol. II (1897), pp. 194-205, English 
 translation, New York, 1908, vol. I, pp. 343-346 (in the New Schaff-Herzog). 
 He was closely associated with Bishop Alexander and became his successor. 
 He wrote his "Operationes contra Gentes" before 319 (Migne, Vita). The 
 Synod of Nica;a was in 325. Five times he was in exile, fleeing from his political 
 and ecclesiastical foes: From July 11, 335, to November 23, 337, after the 
 Synod of Tyre, whence he fled to Trier. Again he fled, on March 19, 339, to 
 Rome, only to return October 21, 346. A third time, when Julian ascended 
 
194 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 theologian and untiring defender of a theological formula. 
 There was in Athanasius a profoundly vivid revival of the 
 old dream of a religious holy fellowship. The concept "re- 
 ligious" had been indeed already largely construed into intel- 
 lectual and metaphysical exactness of belief, but such a construc- 
 tion did not exhaust its content for Athanasius, even though such 
 exactness had become for him as for his age a sine qua non. 
 
 Two things make Athanasius of special interest to us. Quite 
 apart from the disputed authorship of the "Life of St. Antony," * 
 
 the throne, he fled to the monks of the Thebaid on February 9, 356, to remain 
 until February 21, 362, and to the same refuge he betook himself in the same year, 
 October 24, 362, to remain until September 5, 363. The last exile was short, 
 from October 5, 365, to January 31, 366, and he remained then in Alexandria 
 until his death on May 2, 373. (These dates are all still in discussion, but are 
 approximately correct). For a full list of his genuine, spurious, and uncertain 
 writings, see Archibald Robinson, in "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers," vol. 
 IV, pp. Ixiii-lvi, and Migne's "Patrologia Grseca," vol. XXV, 'Animadver- 
 siones in vitam et scripta S. Athanasii," pp. clvi-clxxxiv. For the genuine 
 character of "Contra Gentes," cf. Loofs' article in Herzog-Hauck, and for the 
 full discussion of the vita S. Anthonii, see the literature given in foot-note below. 
 For our purposes have been consulted as the books of most interest to us, " Oratio 
 contra Gentes" (X670S icari 'EWi^vuv), "De Incarnatione Verbi Dei" (\6yos 
 iTfpl ivav6po)irr)a€b)s toO X6701;), "Apologia contra Arianos," "Epistola ad 
 Episcopos /Egypti et Libyas," "Apologia ad Constantium," "Apologia de fuga 
 sua," "Historia Arianorum et epistolae ad Monachos," "Epistola ad Serapionem 
 de Morte Arii." 
 
 Translations of selected writings by Archibald Robinson, in the "Nicene and 
 Post-Nicene Fathers," edited by Schaff and Wace, vol. IV. For the list of best 
 texts, see F. Loofs, in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," vol. II (1897), p. 
 194, English translation, vol. I (1908), p. 346, or "Nicene and Post-Nicene 
 Fathers," vol. IV, p. xi; also the introduction to Migne, vol. 25, of the 
 "Patrologia Graica," which text is the one consulted in this work. 
 
 ' For discussion of the question of the authorship, see Weingarten, H.: "Der 
 Ursprung des Monchthums im nachconstantinischen Zeitalter," Gotha, 1877 
 (appeared first in the "Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte" (Brieger's), I (1877), 
 PP- i~3S'> S45~S74. reviewed by Hilgenfeld, in "Die Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaft- 
 liche Theologie," XXI (1878), pp. 139-150, by J. Cropp, in " Jahrbiicher fiir 
 deutsche Theologie," XXIII (1878), pp. 342-346, and Lucius, P. E.: "Die 
 Quellcn der alteren Gcschichte des agypti.schen Monchtums," pp. 163-19S, in 
 "Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte," Th. Brieger, VII (1885); also Gass, in 
 "Geschichte der chrisllichen Ethik," I (1881), pp. 121-125, and his article, "Zur 
 Frage vom Ursprung des Monchthums," in "Zeitschrift fiir Kirchengeschichte," 
 II (1878), pp. 254-275; Hase, K.: "Das Leben des heiligen Antonius," in 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 195 
 
 in Athanasius we see the first signs of a linking of monastic 
 asceticism to the world-purpose of the Christian hierarchy; 
 and in Athanasius is also found the identification of the Logos- 
 theology with the ethical content of the redemption by an in- 
 carnation of the divine life in the historical Jesus/ with the 
 ultimate subordination or loss of the principal interest in the 
 Logos-conception. 
 
 Whether Athanasius wrote the "Vita Antonii" is still in dis- 
 pute. It is certainly far below the intellectual level of his un- 
 doubted works, and it would be a relief to place the "Life" 
 among the forged romances in which the age abounded. More- 
 over, the simple-minded Gregory of Nazianzus ("Oratio," 21) 
 might easily, nine years after Athanasius's death, accept as genu- 
 ine even a rank forgery. But whether this is so or not, Athana- 
 sius stood in intimate relationship with the monks of Egypt. 
 He shared their world of demons and wonders.^ He overcame 
 their distinctly anti-clerical feeling,^ and bound them and the 
 whole monastic development to the world-purpose of the sacra- 
 mental imperialism. When Athanasius himself was raised to the 
 episcopate it was as "one of the ascetics." * To Egypt he fled 
 for safety, and with the ascetic ideal he linked his conception 
 of redemption. There is thus in Athanasius a transference of 
 emphasis. The Alexandrian school is given an ethical interpre- 
 
 the "Jahrbiicher fur protestantische Theologie," VI (1880), pp. 418-448; 
 Eichhorn, Albert: "Athanasii de Vita ascetica testimonia collecta Dissertatio 
 theologica," Halle, 1886; Loofs's art. on "Athanasius," in Herzog - Hauck's 
 "Realencyklopadie," vol. II (1897), pp. 194-205, English translation ("The 
 New Scha£f-Herzog," New York, 1908), vol. I, pp. 343-346; Keim, Theod.: 
 "Aus dem Urchristenthum," vol. I (Zurich, 1878), pp. 204-220; Israel, W.: 
 "Die Vita S. Hilarius des Hieronymus als Quelle fur die Anfange des Monch- 
 thums kritisch untersucht," in "Zeitschrift fiir wissenschaftliche Theologie" 
 (1880), pp. 129-165; Gwatkin, H. M.: "Studies in Arianism" (1882), pp. 98- 
 103. 
 ' C/". Harnack, A.: "Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte," vol. II (1894), 
 
 PP- 155-273- 
 
 ^ "Contra Gentes," §15:5; 18 : 4; 25 : 5; and many other passages. 
 
 ^ Cf. "Epist. ad Dracontium," XLIX; see also Griitzmacher "Pachomius 
 und das alteste Klosterleben," 52-64. 
 
196 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 tation that marks a distinct advance, at least over Origen's con- 
 ception of redemption. 
 
 These two conceptions, the monastic-ascetic and the ethical- 
 social, are never brought in church history into any real unity. 
 On the one hand the "Life of St. Anthony" teaches a crass 
 eudoemonistic ethics. In exchange for the pleasures and joys 
 of a short life the monk receives the eternal joys that do not pass 
 away.^ The eudaemonism is only softened by the characteriza- 
 tion of the " goods " that are thus acquired, " Why acquire those 
 things which we cannot take away with us? Let us rather 
 acquire those things which we can take with us — that is, pru- 
 dence, justice, temperance, courage, understanding, love, kind- 
 ness to the poor, faith in Christ, freedom from wrath, hospitality. 
 If we possess these things we shall find them 0} themselves prepar- 
 ing for us a welcome in the land of the meek-hearted," ^ For 
 Anthony the lusts of the flesh were to be conquered, and not 
 simply the flesh overcome.^ For Athanasius the flesh was not 
 in itself evil. He, in fact, expressly condemns " certain Greeks" 
 who, not knowing Christ, "have ascribed to evil a certain sub- 
 stantive and independent existence." * Whereas Athanasius 
 argues that matter cannot in itself be evil, as all is the creation of 
 God.^^ The absolute monism that excludes all dualism is de- 
 -C^lT^ended in the same treatise,* The following of Christ is a work 
 or labor whose reward is eternal life, and Judas in one night 
 destroys all his labor and loses his reward.'' Although the real 
 individualistic selfishness of this conception of salvation is not 
 plain to Athanasius, yet personally he sees in the monastic 
 development a nobler and more social purpose than the salvation 
 of one's own soul. It is for him also a dramatic sermon to the 
 pleasure-loving. "For let him that will go and see the proof of 
 virtue in the virgins of Christ and in the young men that follow 
 
 '§§16,17. 
 
 *§ I7> "Vita S. Antonii " (italics ours), Newman's translation. 
 
 ' § 5. * "Contra Gentes," § 6 : i. ° "Contra Gcntcs," §6:3, 
 
 " "Contra Gcntcs," § 7 : 1-5. 
 
 ^ § 18, "Vita S. Antonii." 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 197 
 
 holy chastity." ^ And no doubt this apologetic value was very 
 great indeed. 
 
 At the same time the monastic conception of the Christian 
 life was probably a greater danger to real Christianity than 
 Arianism, and Athanasius is quite Wind to the inherent impossi- 
 bility of reconciling the two ideals. The social-ethical ideal 
 which Jesus proclaimed under the head of the reign of God 
 appears, nevertheless, in Athanasius's conception of redemption, 
 which is fundamentally a renewal of the world and humanity by 
 a new creative indwelling. Nor is this wrought simply physi- 
 cally or mechanically or metaphysically, but by the revelation 
 of the ethical life.^ Men once more are enabled to see God 
 in human life fully revealed.^ Thus the doctrine of the Logos 
 was given a changed significance, and Athanasius identified the 
 two interests, the ethical-social interest with the metaphysical 
 interest, for from his point of view Jesus had to be fully God in a 
 metaphysical sense in order to reveal him fully.^ 
 
 With the dogmatic question we are not here concerned, but 
 when Athanasius attacks heathenism it is always along ethical 
 lines; and if "impious opinions" are as evil in his sight as the 
 unethical life, it is because he could not believe an ethical life 
 could be built upon aught save what he regarded as the only 
 sound opinion. Hence he was willing to stake all on the struggle 
 with Arius. "It is our all," he himself exclaimed. 
 
 To understand the attitude of the organized church to the 
 monastic-ascetic ideal it must be carefully resolved into its 
 elements. Asceticism in a broad sense means simply " training." 
 Any one who truly seeks from day to day to subject the lower 
 impulses to the higher purpose is in this sense an "ascetic." 
 For Athanasius, for instance, sin consisted in "the rejection of 
 better things," ^ and the Christian life was a struggle upward. 
 
 ' § 48 : 2, "De Incarnatione Verbi Dei." 
 
 * § 7, "De Incarnatione Verbi Dei." 
 
 ' 14 : 2, "De Incarnatione Verbi Dei." 
 
 * This is best brought out in the "Four Discourses against the Arians," particu- 
 larly in II chap. 17 : 25-30. 
 
 ^§5:2, "Contra Gentes." 
 
198 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Yet it is easy to see that monasticism was more than that. It 
 rested upon the conception of virginity as a good in itself. This 
 notion was wholly foreign to Jewish thinking. Not even in 
 Paul (c/. p. 179) are we to find, what some see there, the oriental 
 conception of virginity as per se good.^ It is the result of dual- 
 ism thought out to its last analysis, and could only arise where 
 high intelligence united a despair of life with the religious 
 motive of rescue from its turmoil. 
 
 Amidst the natural passions let loose by wealth and slavery in 
 the Roman-Greek world virginity became a dramatic and 
 effective assertion of conquest over the world and self. All the 
 Christian apologists dwell on the contrast between the purity of 
 monastic life and the lusts of the heathen world.^ Monastic 
 virginity was, of course, directly contradictory to the social- 
 ethical ideal built upon the notion of the family, and rejoicing in 
 fatherhood and motherhood. Yet it gave at once a fighting 
 weapon into the hands of the propagandist organization with its 
 dream of world-conquest. Nor was Athanasius slow to see this, 
 and he first binds the monks to the church.^ His residence 
 amongst them, his relations to Pachomius,^ his care for their 
 orthodoxy, and his life of St. Antony (if genuine) compel us to 
 regard Athanasius as the first of the ecclesiastical leaders to see 
 the importance of subordinating the monastic development to 
 the imperial church. He realized what it meant to have a 
 body of men cut off from the ordinary joys and duties of the 
 home life, and finding in the life of an organization the field of 
 their hopes and ambitions. Thus the strange contradiction was 
 seen, of men, whose fundamental postulate was the negation of 
 life, becoming the foremost fighters for an organization whose 
 affirmations demanded the whole of life here and in eternity. 
 
 ' C/., for contrary view, Zicgler: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik," p. 192, 
 who, however, admits that the opportunist reasons for celibacy were foremost. 
 For fuller discussion of Asceticism, sec author's article in Hastings's "Encyclo- 
 paedia of Religion and Ethics," vol. I. 
 
 ' Athanasius, "Dc Incarnatione Verbi Dei." cap. 48 : 1-4, and many passages. 
 
 ' Epistola, III, ad monarhos. 
 
 *Cf. Griitzmacher, G.: "Pachomius und das alteste Klostcrlcbcn." Freiburg, 
 1896. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 199 
 
 Such a body of men could only come into existence under the 
 influence of the oriental religious estimate of virginity as a good 
 in itself. So more and more this conception in theory triumphed 
 over the Jewish and natural valuation of the family. Never was 
 the contradiction really faced. The motherhood impulse found 
 in the worship of the Madonna, and the family impulse in the 
 very name "father" as a religious title, abundant recognition. 
 The extension of celibacy to the clergy ^ made the monastery 
 really unnecessary, but this extension was a necessary step the 
 moment virginity was considered as a good per se. Yet the 
 monastery persisted and gave rise to its own type of ethical ideal, 
 and has always been the main support of the baleful twofold 
 morality which has so seriously hampered the progress of Roman 
 Catholic ethics. 
 
 Many factors made the evolution a natural one. The looking 
 for an early coming of Jesus seems to make the founding of a 
 home a useless care. The duty of sounding the alarm, going 
 everywhere to do so, made "the leading about a wife" a heavy 
 burden. Jesus was himself so soon cut off that he never seems 
 to have married. Very early Alexandrian influences and the 
 intrusion of Gnostic philosophy converted the early essentially 
 Jewish atmosphere into one more nearly in sympathy with the 
 oriental -Hellenistic world of thought. In this atmosphere 
 world-flight and the negation of the world as being itself essen- 
 tially evil were natural conceptions. Then came persecution. 
 The world did seem to grow worse and worse, and flight from 
 it was a natural relief. Whatever may have been the influ- 
 ences of the Serapis cult^ or of the celibate band connected 
 
 ' The attempt to force celibacy upon all the clergy from deacon on was made 
 at the council of Elvira, 306, but a canon to that effect is said to have been 
 rejected by the council at Nicaea, on the plea of Paphnutius, himself a celibate 
 monk (c/. Hefele: "Hist, Councils," vol. I, p. 435^.)- I" the East bishops 
 were soon by custom compelled to live in celibacy, but the struggle lasted in 
 the West down to the time of Gregory VII (1073). Here, as in some other 
 directions, Africa, with Augustine as its representative, played a baleful part. 
 
 ^ Cf. Weingarten, Herm.: "Der Ursprung des Monchthums im nachconstan- 
 tinischen Zeitalter," Gotha, 1877; also in "Zeitsch. fur Kirchengesch," vol. I. 
 
200 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 with Mithra-worship/ it is easy to understand how these 
 monastic and dramatic exhibitions of flight from the world 
 appealed to the popular imagination. Indeed, they still appeal 
 to certain orders of minds. Thus Christianity was almost com- 
 pelled to compete in austerity and to exhibit, in her struggle for 
 world-dominion, an asceticism more pronounced than even her 
 rivals. Essenism had, so far as one can see, nothing to do with 
 Christianity.^ It was in its very essence the contradiction of the 
 free spirit of Jesus and the early church. But it is an exceed- 
 ingly interesting evidence of how the popular view of "holiness" 
 was forced even upon Judaism by the oriental time-spirit. 
 Moreover, it is also true that if oriental asceticism modified the 
 social-ethical ideal of the kingdom proclamation, we shall also 
 see in the course of our history how the social-ethical ideal also 
 in turn modified the eremitic, world-flight conception and made 
 the monks the bearers of a specific and most salutary message 
 of culture. Both in Athanasius and Augustine as well as even 
 in Tertullian, we see early Catholic Christianity reacting against 
 the merely fakir type of celibate holiness. 
 
 The monastery was a distinct advance upon the hermit life. 
 It at least compelled men to submit to a rule, and although there 
 were, no doubt, as we shall see in the rules of Pachomius, in- 
 difi"erent spirits to be forced to a higher plane, the same was also 
 true of the hermits, of whom many lived very far from the highest 
 ideal pictured in the life of St. Anthony. The idea of acquiring 
 a special virtue had by this time gone very far. The " martyrs" 
 occupied a special place and gave letters of indulgence to less 
 fearless brethren. As martyrdom ceased, virtue could be ac- 
 quired by celibacy and heroic feats of fasting and self-torture. 
 The whole doctrine of "Meritum,"^ however, supposes an 
 entirely difl"crent conception of God from that given us in the 
 life and purpose of Jesus. 
 
 ' Cf. note on page 26. ^ Contra Zicglcr. 
 
 ' C/. Harnack, A.: "Dogmengcschichte," vol. II, 2d cd., 1894, pp. 157- 
 201, for discussion of the doctrine of grace and sin; English translation, V 
 (1899), pp. 161-221. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 201 
 
 These two ideals of ethical relationship to God persist side 
 by side in all the great teachers of this period, and the funda- 
 mental contradiction between the two has not even to-day been 
 clearly recognized in Protestant dogmatic theology/ On the 
 one hand the ethical relationship is based on the free love of a 
 father to the sinning child (prodigal son), who blesses even 
 the wicked and rebellious (rain on just and unjust). Sal- 
 vation is absolutely the free gift to any one coming in sorrow to 
 the Father, whose love is over all and for all. The joy of the 
 forgiven life is its own reward, and into this joy the Father calls 
 all who will come. The ethical relationship of the ascetic to 
 God is based on the other hand on the fundamental thought of 
 God as one who is angry and must be appeased. This con- 
 ception is found in both paganism and Judaism. So the ascetic 
 thinks God is pleased by fasting and long prayers, whereas 
 Jesus and his disciples did not fast, and he forbade wordy 
 petitions. Between the worshipper and God the ascetic soon 
 thrust the Mater Dolorosa in the very color and form of the 
 Mater Magna of heathen mystery- worship; and the suffering 
 Son in imagery borrowed, one is tempted to believe, at times 
 much more from Horus the child-god and Mithra the fighting 
 incarnation of justice than from the synoptic Gospels. Over 
 against this God there can be "merit" heaped up as a claim. 
 The relationship becomes legal rather than parental; the ethics 
 are based upon exchange and calculation and not on the 
 freedom of love. 
 
 Moreover, the sacramental organization begins increasingly 
 to obtrude itself between the worshipper and this God. Optatus, 
 Bishop of Mileve, struck a fearful blow at the independence of 
 the ethical life when in opposition to the Donatists the phrase 
 was formulated, " Ecclesia una est cuius sanctitas de sacramentis 
 colligitur, non de superbia personarum ponderatur." ^ More- 
 
 . > Cf. Shedd's "Systematic Theology" on Atonement, for instance. 
 ^De schismate Donatistarum," liber II, § i. MPL, XI, p. 941. Cf. Miiller 
 Karl: "Kirchengeschichte," Band I, p. 249; Moller, Wilh.: "Kirchenges- 
 chichte," I, 2d ed., 1902, pp. 531, 532. 
 
202 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 over, the fantastic, hysterical moods bred of the desert and 
 the unnatural life of the monastery made the transference of 
 many superstitions to even the educated circles of the Christian 
 church possible, where even paganism on the same intellectual 
 level had cast them off. 
 
 The emphasis was changed. Jesus came to save the world, 
 and sent his disciples to proclaim the kingdom of God; the 
 monkish ideal was the salvation of the person's own soul, and, as 
 always happens, just as far as monasticism sought to save its 
 own soul it lost it. Strangely enough, these two ideals could 
 exist side by side in considerable measure, and in spite of the 
 triumph of monasticism, its ethical ideal never could quite dis- 
 place the social-ethical estimate of life. Hence the monastic 
 development became detached from its Oriental and essentially 
 dualistic philosophy of life, and, transplanted to the West in 
 connection with a triumphant sacramental imperialism, it took 
 up its cultural and ethical task of teaching and training Ger- 
 manic Europe. 
 
 In the doing of this work it gained and deserved a large place 
 in human history, and much of its honorable history is too often 
 buried amidst polemics or lost sight of amidst the corruptions 
 to which it inevitably fell a prey. The beginning of this sub- 
 jection of the monastic ideal to the Roman Catholic sacramental 
 system is seen in the work of Athanasius. How old the de- 
 velopment itself was is in dispute. It is certainly older than 
 Weingarten would have us believe. Its form is, however, 
 thoroughly pagan, and how it gradually passed from its pagan 
 form to superficial Christianity in Egypt and Palestine it is 
 now impossible from the data at hand to say with any assurance. 
 
 II. THE MESSAGE OF THE GREAT PREACHERS 
 
 The questions relating to the transformation of dogma and 
 creed have occupied, naturally, the attention of the systematic 
 theologian, but it is often forgotten how small must ever be 
 the number to whom such questions are really vital. The 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 203 
 
 details of such discussions have only meaning for the mass 
 of even thoughtful men as they are led by trusted teachers to 
 connect them with their own vital religious and ethical ex- 
 periences. Into the metaphysics of the question that in- 
 volved the formulation of the relation of the essence of the 
 second person of the Godhead to the first person, not one in 
 ten thousand of the nominal Christian community was fitted to 
 go. But the clear expression and the great religious earnestness 
 of Athanasius, together with, no doubt, the real linking of the 
 final formulation with the Christian experience of many, gave 
 the new creed of Nicasa a tremendous and increasing hold upon 
 the religious .imagination of the church. 
 
 As over against the divided ranks of Arianism, with its political 
 interest, its rationalistic basis and intellectualistic caste, as well as 
 its reversions to older but exceedingly varied forms of heathen 
 thought,^ the orthodoxy of Nictea offered at least a seemingly 
 united front. 
 
 The great ecclesiastical machine, built upon the devotion of 
 martyrs, the spiritual visions of a thousand saints, the labors 
 and toils and tears of uncounted and obscure followers of the 
 cross, at last triumphed; and the shrewd Constantine and the 
 emperors that followed him, with the single exception of the 
 high-minded but misguided Julian, were compelled to seek in the 
 sacramental hierarchy the only possible basis for a religious 
 unity of the empire. It is hard to see in Constantine any large 
 Christian inspiration.^ But he was shrewd and perhaps super- 
 stitious, and as he gradually saw the usefulness of the ecclesias- 
 tical organization and gave it freedom, the joy of the church 
 covered a multitude of sins. The whole position was changed. 
 Heathenism was now only tolerated, at times was even exposed 
 to harsh treatment; and the ecclesiastical hierarchy became 
 increasingly powerful. 
 
 'C/. Gwatkin, H. M.: "Studies in Arianism," 1882, pp. 52-64, and Newman, 
 J. H.: "The Arians of the Fourth Century," London, 1854. 
 
 ='C/. Burckhardt, J.: "Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen," 1880, pp. 347- 
 397- 
 
204 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 To understand the strength of the church as an ethical factor 
 we must turn away from the dogmatic disputes, whose bitter- 
 ness was increased by the fact that to ever greater extent victory 
 meant the dominion of the world. By the leaders the meta- 
 physical questions were, no doubt, sincerely regarded as the 
 key to the situation. As we study, however, the message of the 
 great preachers of the immediate postnicene period, we must 
 recognize the fact that the force and greatness of the Catholic 
 organization lay not in its intellectual, but in its ethical and re- 
 ligious life. 
 
 The history of Nicene orthodoxy is morally sickening to the 
 last degree. Bribery, persecution, repression, backstairs influ- 
 ence, and poison play their baleful roles. But, apart from eccles- 
 iastical orthodoxy, within and without it existed a great religious 
 movement.* When we compare Ambrose or Augustine, Basil 
 or Chrysostom, as writers and thinkers with their classic models 
 the difference is marked. But the leaders of the church had 
 what neither Cicero nor Marcus Aurelius possessed — they had 
 actually seen God in the face of Jesus Christ as forgiving and 
 redeeming love. Much remained unchanged in their views of 
 life and the world. Heathenism reasserted itself in saintly 
 mythology and magic sacramentarianism; human nature im- 
 perfectly sanctified, even by that vision, gave room for pride and 
 hate and fear and bigotry; but for all that, no veil could quite 
 hide the shining of the faces of those who had seen God in pity 
 and compassion, and these men became the messengers of re- 
 deeming grace. 
 
 In no man is seen more clearly the mingling of these two 
 elements, the gracious messenger of redeeming forgiveness and 
 the superstitious and sometimes hard and proud ecclesiastic, 
 than in the great organizer Ambrose oj Milan? One of his 
 
 ' Cf. Burckhardt: "Die Zeit Constantins," 1880, p. 378. 
 
 * Ambrose, born probably at Treves, of noble family, in 340. His sister, like 
 himself, was religious from early youth and became a nun. He was made 
 bishop eight days after his baptism, and that by acclamation, in 374. He died 
 after a most successful bishopric in Milan in 387. For our purposes the chief 
 works are "De Fide," in five books; "De Spiritu Sanclo," in three books; "De 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 205 
 
 main works, "De Officiis Ministrorum," is an ethical treatise, 
 in form far below the model, from which he borrowed wholesale, 
 by Cicero. The intellectual and literary worth of the two books 
 make a comparison impossible. But when the spirit of the two 
 is considered, at once it is manifest why Cicero speaks even to- 
 day to the few who need him least, and Ambrose became the 
 teacher of the unshepherded multitude. 
 
 Even along the line where the ethical message most parts 
 asunder from the teaching of the Jewish Christ, as in the matter 
 of virginity, Ambrose makes his appeal tell for a higher sexual 
 relationship, and demands of the man the same purity he de- 
 mands of the woman. ^ The corruption along sexual lines of 
 a slave-ridden community made the appeal of virginity a very 
 strong one, and Ambrose is insistent on the honorable character, 
 indeed, of marriage, but the superlative virtue of continence.^ 
 In the conception of the incarnation according to Ambrose lay 
 a joining of the life of heaven with the bodies of men in a 
 certain mechanical way that suggests the oriental dualistic 
 conception.^ But in truth the message of Ambrose was not 
 primarily a speculative system, however firmly he held as all 
 important the conventional orthodoxy of his day. His whole 
 life and teaching was a religious and ethical appeal. 
 
 Had Ambrose had his chief importance as even a theoretical 
 ethical instructor, we might almost lament his transplanting 
 
 Mysteriis" (generally accepted as genuine); "De PcEnitentia," in two books; 
 "De Ofl&ciis Ministrorum," in three books; "De Viduis" and "De Virginitate," 
 as well as "De Institutione Virginis." Among his chief addresses may be 
 mentioned the "Exhortatio Virginitatis," "De Excessu fratris Satyri," and "De 
 Obitu Theodosii Oratio." His letters also abound in material of use to the 
 student of his time. All the older editions of his works, from that of Venice, in 
 1485, to the Roman edition, 1580-1585, have been superseded by the Benedictine 
 edition, Paris, 1686-1690, which is reprinted with additions by Migne, in "Patro- 
 logia Latina," vols. XIV-XVII. A new edition at Milan, 1875-1886, is said 
 not to be an improvement. Select works and letters are translated in Schaff and 
 Wace: "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers," second series, 1896, vol. X. 
 
 * "De Officiis Min., book I, 17 : 65, and other passages. 
 
 ^ "Honorabile itaque conjugium, sed honorabilior integritas." " De Viduis," 
 12:72, quoting I Cor. 7 : 38. (MPL, XVI, 256 B.) 
 
 ^ " De Virginibus," I, 3 : 13. 
 
2o6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Cicero and the Stoics, but this was not the case. The services 
 of the pulpit as we see them rendered by Ambrose, Chrysostom, 
 and Augustine, were of high intellectual value; they brought to 
 the masses the intellectual life of Greece, even though decadent 
 Greece, an intellectual life that had still further been lowered by 
 contact with the practical issues at Rome. Nevertheless the 
 prime value of the Christian pulpit was not on this side. Con- 
 sciously or unconsciously the whole intellectual superstructure 
 of the pulpit message of the postnicene period has gone from 
 us or is going. There remains, however, the priceless ethical 
 and religious services the Christian pulpit rendered. 
 
 Nowhere is this perhaps more beautifully brought out than 
 by a comparison, for instance, of the sermons by Ambrose on 
 the death of his beloved brother Satyrus ^ with even the choicest 
 comfort of the Stoics. "Death is not a penalty," for the Lord 
 did not "inflict death as a penalty, but as a remedy," ^ hence 
 death is fundamentally not an evil, but a good; ^ it is, however, 
 not simply an escape from the thorns and briers that beset men's 
 ways, but is God's way of purifying unto holiness.* It was not 
 as prophet, but as priest that the church felt most her responsi- 
 bility. Protestantism may justly complain of the haughty 
 claims of exclusive priestly function made by the Catholic 
 imperialism. Yet it is the priestly service she rendered that 
 forms still her highest claim to our gratitude. She did mediate 
 the God and Father of Our Lord Jesus in a dialectic phraseology, 
 indeed, that is losing meaning for us, but yet effectively to the 
 world passing from one economic order with painful birth-pangs 
 to a wholly different social arrangement. 
 
 It was this superb sense of being the proclaimer of forgiven sin 
 that gave this imperialism conscious power. As over against 
 the Novatians Ambrose asserts in unequivocal terms the power 
 of the church to forgive sin,® although she would only do so 
 on conditions of her own defining;* and she more and more 
 
 ' "De Excessu fratris Satyri" and "De Fide Rcsurreclionis." 
 
 ' "De Excessu.," II, 37. ' "De Excessu," 11,39- 
 
 * "De Excessu," II, 41. ' "De Poenitentia," 1, 2 : 6. 
 
 • "De PcEnitentia," I, 3 : 10. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 207 
 
 makes this power of her proclamation a selfish instrument of 
 her might. It is a mark of the imperial character of her claims 
 that Ambrose makes schism the only unforgivable sin/ and that 
 the dealing of the church with the "Lapsi," or those who in 
 persecution had fallen away, was always controlled by the inter- 
 ests of her spreading power on the one hand and the cohesion 
 of the organization on the other. 
 
 But the organization as Ambrose loved and served it was for 
 the redeeming of men from sin; it was God's instrument for 
 calling wandering sinners back to grace and holiness. Her 
 works were to be those of love and mercy, and her strength was 
 her indwelling with God. It was not so much what these great 
 teachers taught in set dogma and formal creed, but what they 
 were as men and leaders in the new life that gave them power and 
 permanence. 
 
 What that power was is seen in the life-history of these great 
 preaching bishops. One is strongly reminded of Savonarola as 
 one reads the story of the life and final defeat of the eloquent 
 John, called Chrysostom? The ethical theory is of less interest 
 
 * "De Poenitentia," II, 4 : 24. 
 
 * John, called Chrysostom {'luivvt]^ 6 xpvffoffrSixoi), was born about 344, in 
 Antioch (on the Orontes), and was of noble birth. He was ordained reader by 
 Bishop Meletius in 369. When first sought for as a bishop, in 374, he evaded it by 
 hiding, and embraced the monastic life in the following year. In 380 or 381 he was 
 ordained deacon, and about five years later was made presbyter. On the death 
 of Nectarius he was elected Bishop of Constantinople, in 398, and began a work 
 of ecclesiastical and political reform which made him very unpopular in high 
 quarters, but secured him the support of the masses. In 403 he was banished 
 by Theophilus, Bishop of Alexandria, but had to be recalled, such was the popular 
 uproar. Finally Eudoxia (the Empress) expelled him, and he left Constanti- 
 nople in 404. In 407 he was ordered to Comana, and on the way he died. In 
 438 his body was brought back in state to Constantinople. His works are very 
 numerous, and those that interest us especially are the Homilies and Orations, 
 the treatise on Virginity ("De Virginitate, " in one book), and the treatise, "De 
 incomprehensibile Dei natura," in five books. A history of the texts is given in 
 Migne, "Patrologia Graeca," tom. 47, cols. 263-276 (see also Schaff, P., in 
 "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers," series I, vol. IX, pp. 3-5). The text used 
 is that of Migne, "Patrologia Greeca," vols. 47-64, though the reader must 
 guard against printers' errors. Translated in the first series of the "Nicene and 
 Post-Nicene Fathers," edited by Schaff and Wace, vols. IX-XIV. 
 
2o8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 to us than the actual ethical activity of the man. He was bent 
 upon securing a holy church. To this end he proclaimed his 
 ideal of the ascetic monastic priesthood and the sacramental 
 power of the ecclesiastical organization. 
 
 For the theologian his work must be of intense interest as one 
 notes how God is thrust further and further away by Greek 
 metaphysical speculation, and the religious interest fills the gap 
 thus left by putting steadily in the foreground the Incarnate 
 Logos.' Yet, in spite of Greek spirit and oriental atmosphere, 
 the organization instinct was almost as strong in Chrysostom as 
 in Ambrose. This is what Christianity accomplished and philos- 
 ophy failed to do. It made men give themselves to the new 
 communal ideal. Even if this was priestly, ecclesiastical, and 
 sacramentarian, the effect was the evolving of a new standard of 
 human conduct. 
 
 In Chrysostom we see the new and relatively democratic or- 
 ganization force its way against the military tyranny which was 
 the essence of the Byzantine Empire. And in the treatise, " De 
 Virginitate," we see how the needs of the organization compel 
 even so stout an ascetic as Chrysostom to adapt his morality at 
 this point to social needs. Hatred of marriage as proclaimed by 
 Marcion, Valentinus, and Manes, Chrysostom says, is of the 
 devil,^ and he boldly says that he who condemns marriage takes 
 away the glory of virginity;^ and even though the defence of 
 marriage is often put on the low grounds given in the English 
 "Book of Common Prayer," * the social meaning is not wholly 
 lost sight of. 
 
 As over against a vulgar fatalism that excused on the ground 
 of human nature every surrender to personal sin, Chrysostom 
 lays emphasis upon ethical freedom and the nobility of man. 
 Upon the sinner is put the burden of his sin.^ 
 
 ' C/. "De Christ! precibus, contra Anomoeos," IX. 
 
 ^^''De Virginitate," III. 
 
 ^ "De Virginitate," XXV, Ka\6v 6 yd/ios 8ti iv <Tw0po(Ti5iT7 rhv &vSpa Sian/ipei, 
 Kal ovK i<pl7](Tiv eli iropvflav KaraKvXioOivTa dwoOaveiv. (MPG, XL\'III, 550, 
 KE.') * Marriage service. 
 
 * "De diabola tentatorc," Horn. Ill, 2, and many passages. English transla- 
 tion in " Nicene and Post-Nicenc Library," vol. IX, p. 192, American edition, 1903. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 209 
 
 He taught the exercise of loving humanity in the treatment 
 of slaves, and, according to Burckhardt, demanded the entire 
 abolishment of slavery.' He faced a corrupted priesthood with 
 the stern excision of thirteen bishops, and by holding up an 
 ideal of personal purity and consecration forced the secular 
 power to terms. 
 
 The great preachers of the new Catholic church organized 
 the pulpits of the churches into a tremendous power with which 
 the rulers of the world have had to reckon ever since. Even 
 in Chrysostom one sees how the credal and ethical-legal devel- 
 opment began to balance the tendency of fierce differences in 
 opinion, and how the tradition of the organization hardened into 
 creed and canon as a formal bond for ecclesiastical and political 
 union. 
 
 Such a formal bond the political power also sought, but nothing 
 save a new ethical and religious enthusiasm could make it a 
 reality. And such enthusiasm and religious zeal as an Ambrose 
 or a Chrysostom were possessed by could not be tamely yoked to 
 the half-disrupted political machinery of the old era. In the life 
 of Basil ^ we see the far-reaching vision of a world-wide ecclesias- 
 tical dominion as it took hold of these new leaders of the world's 
 way.^ Like Ambrose, Chrysostom, and the others, Basil pro- 
 claimed the ascetic-ethical type. He was himself the founder 
 of orders, and had travelled in Egypt," Palestine, Syria, and 
 Mesopotamia, seeking those who had left all to follow Christ.'' 
 
 ' "Die Zeit Constantins des Grossen," 2d ed., 1880, p. 379. 
 
 2 Basil was born in 329 or 330, in Pontus (Neocaesarea), or in Caesarea in Cappa- 
 docia. Two of his brothers were also bishops, i. e., of Nyssa and Sebasteia. 
 In 370 he was consecrated Bishop of Csesarea, and died in 378 or 379 (probably 
 January ist of the later date). Of his numerous works, those that concern us 
 chiefly are "In Hexsmeron" (Els t^v "E^a-f)ixepov), a pious discussion of 
 creation; Tractatus Prsevii," "Prooemium de Judicio Dei," "Moralia" (ra 
 "B.6lk6.), the "HomiHes" and "Letters." The numerous texts given in Migne, 
 "Patrologia Greeca," vols. XXIX-XXXII. Translation of selected writings, 
 VIII of "The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers," second series, edited by Scha£f 
 and Wace, vol. VIII. 
 
 ^ Cf. Epistola, 70, arfd the grounds for a demand for church unity in Epistola, 
 
 65- 
 
 *Epp. I and 223. 'Epistola 223, § 2. 
 
2IO HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 His mind is clear and sharp-cut, and although impulsive, 
 domineering, and perhaps arrogant, his ethics are lofty and his 
 purpose very high. For him God was the source of all good. 
 " Equally blasphemous is it to assert that evil has its origin in 
 God; for from the opposite cannot spring the opposite. If, 
 then, evil is neither God-created nor uncreated, whence comes 
 its being ? No one who lives in the world will say that evil does 
 not have a being. What, then, shall we say ? Evil is not a living, 
 breathing being, but a condition of the spirit which is opposite 
 to good, and arises in the unthinking because they decline from 
 God." ^ We are therefore not to go beyond ourselves to seek 
 for the origin of evil or to imagine that there is a primal essence 
 of evil.^ 
 
 Basil, moreover, distinguishes between such misfortunes as 
 "sickness, poverty, obscurity, death, in brief, all human ills, 
 which should not be estimated as evils, since we do not estimate 
 as being their opposites things that are the greatest boons.'' 
 But on this problem of problems that led astray so much of the 
 best strength and thought of the oriental and Hellenistic worlds, 
 Basil does not dwell. He has found his message, and in the 
 authority of the sacramental organization and in the security 
 of traditional orthodoxy he, like thousands of others, took 
 refuge and gives his strength to the cultivation of the church 
 which is to him the symbol of the divine sovereignty on earth. 
 
 The beauty and lofty character of Basil's ethical message 
 may be seen in Epistola XXII, which is a little ethical treatise 
 drawn up for a "brotherhood" or "ccenobium," although the 
 sterner side appears in the injunction not to laugh or suffer 
 jesters. The great social power of the organization is shown in 
 the mere demand: "No Christian should consider himself his 
 own master, but each should think himself as a slave given by 
 God to the brethren who think with him," quoting as proof 
 I Cor. 15 : 23. The conception of the Christian as servant of 
 
 * " Hexsemeroh," Horn. II, 4. 
 
 ' "Hexzemcron," Horn. II, 5 (rtva (pvaiv) (MPG, 29 : 40 A.) 
 
 • "Hexaemeron," Horn. II, 5. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 211 
 
 all underlay even the haughty claims of the growing hierarchy, 
 and Basil is haunted by the vision of a community actually given 
 up to the pursuit of holiness in loving service. 
 
 In the letter to Chilo/ upon which unnecessary doubt has 
 been cast, he gives a picture of life as men of earnest mind sa\V 
 it then. No judgment could be more sweeping. "The world's 
 good things are mingled with evil things, and the evil things 
 have decidedly the advantage." He sought everywhere relief. 
 " I heard many discourses which were wholesome for the spirit, 
 but I failed to discover in any teacher one whose life corresponded 
 to his teaching. Then I heard the tuneful lyre, the applause 
 given to actors, the jokes of clowns, the jests, the follies, the 
 murmur of the rabble. I saw the tears of the robbed, the agony 
 of men under tyranny, the cries of the tortured did I hear. 1 
 looked, but no holy communion, but only a wind-tossed,'tumbling 
 sea, seeking but to submerge all in its waves." Despair fills 
 his soul. Good works are on this sea as a drop of fresh water in 
 the ocean. World-flight is the remedy, and to save one's own 
 soul the suggested way out. " For this reason I fly to the hills 
 as a bird." Yet from this despair the growing hierarchy saved 
 men. In the church's power was promise for a better future. 
 
 Just as to-day many an earnest soul overlooks the materialism, 
 the crudeness, the bickerings and divisions of political Social 
 Democracy, and sees in it the hope of a coming state of brother- 
 hood and love, so souls like that of Basil and Gregory of Nazian- 
 zus turned to the church, and forgave its divisions and its nar- 
 rowness because they saw in its hope, at least, the ideal of that 
 life after which they longed, and they shared with it the delusion 
 that this ideal community could only be built up on the basis of 
 orthodoxy and sacramentarian correctness. 
 
 Hence the message of forgiveness in its ethical relations occu- 
 pies much of the attention of these preachers of the new right- 
 eousness. How could men be saved from the awful yoke and 
 curse of the law without falling into license and sin ? And how 
 could the church proclaim the sinner forgiven? These were 
 
 ' Letter 42. 
 
212 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 burning questions of far-reaching ethical importance. Paul 
 met them early in Corinth, but as the church became more com- 
 pletely a substitute for the secular power the difficulty greatly 
 increased. Stern puritans like the Donatists, the Montanists, 
 and the Novatians, would have wrecked the political organization 
 by limiting its power to forgive sin. 
 
 The dynamic of baptismal grace was exhausted by the past, 
 and the sinner was denied approach to the source of sacramental 
 grace in the eucharist. The great leaders began ever more 
 frequently to surrender this ideal of a holy church, and to com- 
 fort themselves with the conception of a holy fellowship within 
 the church. Athanasius, as we have seen, was a foremost thinker 
 along these lines, but Ambrose, and especially Basil, did much 
 to promote the change. Even priests and nuns fell from 
 baptismal grace, and Basil has to face again the serious question 
 of their relation to the church. He does so in the wider spirit 
 engendered by the experience of the past, and extends even to 
 these the hope of forgiveness.* At the same time the condition 
 is repentance and penance. So now is organized even more 
 completely the process by which a full recognition of the sinner 
 could be secured. 
 
 Long periods of time had to intervene, and men were sum- 
 moned by canonical law to abstain from the sacraments, standing 
 first at the church door as "weepers," ^ and then entering as 
 "hearers,"^ then for another period "kneelers"^ before the 
 altar, at last staying during the mystery, although the oblation 
 was withheld, until at last, after ten or fifteen years, complete 
 forgiveness was assured and the sacraments could be partaken 
 of by the sinner.'^ The shortening of these periods was only 
 possible by acts of special grace. The holy priest in benediction 
 actually imparted holiness, "for benediction is the imparting of 
 holiness." ^ Hence the penitent could seek the intervention of 
 such as "by their way of life in the Evangel could be able to 
 prevail with God." ^ 
 
 ' Epp. 44-46. ^ irpoK\aluv. ' dKpOivpLfvos. * inroirliTTOiv. 
 
 ^ Cf. Epj). 199 and 217. " Epistola 199 : 27. ' Epislola 284. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 213 
 
 Very interesting are Basil's letters on the canons * and those 
 that refer to the judicial decisions made in cases of fault. They 
 reveal to us how completely the ecclesiastical order was super- 
 seding the political as a social-ethical force. At the same time 
 they open our eyes to the externalizing influence of canon law 
 and to the legalism into which the ethical freedom of Jesus and 
 Paul had sunk. 
 
 The old maxims of Roman law reappear as with authority.^ 
 "Custom" is quoted as even offsetting the words of the Lord/ 
 Moses is reinstated as an authority in determining penance/ 
 and even the words of Jesus to the poor Samaritan woman are 
 exalted into a code-law against exceeding the limit of second 
 marriages.^ Grave concessions are made in the case of wrong- 
 doing between the sexes to the disadvantage of the woman.^ 
 Men are forbidden to marry their sisters-in-law, and even a 
 deceased wife's sister may not be married.^ 
 
 In the ethics of the church the regulation of the family always 
 played a chief part, and to this theme the preachers and bishops 
 were constantly returning. Ambrose was legally trained, and 
 Basil had imbibed the spirit of the law whose formulation went 
 hand in hand with canon law.^ The dual r61e of preacher and 
 
 ' Epp. 188, 199, 217. 
 
 2 Cf. Epist. 188 : 3. ' Epist. i88 : 9. « Epist. 188 : 11. 
 
 ^ Epist. 188 : 4. ^ Epistolai99 : 21. ^ Epistola 199 : 23. 
 
 * The decentralization of the Roman Empire involved finding a new bond 
 of union. As from the time of Diocletian on it became not Roman but an inter- 
 national world confederation, the personal element was prominent, and the 
 decisions of the emperors, under legal advice, became a body of laws for the 
 world's guidance, subject, however, to many local peculiarities. The formula- 
 tion of this into a code from the time of Constantine on was undertaken by 
 Theodosius (438), and the formulation was accepted by the Emperor of the 
 West, Valentinian III. The Justinian code, or rather codes, together with the 
 Digest or Pandects, were drawn up in 5 29-533, and the "Novels," or new decisions 
 of the emperor, in the years following, 535-559. The church canons were 
 collected about the middle of this century, and to church canon law Justinian 
 gave legal character in the decision of the "Novels," CXLI. Basil died in 379, 
 the year in which Theodosius practically began to suppress heathenism, and 
 which Harnack calls the year (380) of the birth of a State church. (Harnack, A. : 
 "Kirche und Staat bis zur Griindung der Staatskirche," p. 157, in "Die Kultur 
 
214 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 law-giver is a marked feature of these great bishops. It is the 
 weakness of their ethics that it was legal and formal, and it 
 is the weakness of their judicial work that it was too often under- 
 taken in the heat of passion and under the strain of prejudices 
 and prepossessions. "The accidental homicide should be ex- 
 cluded from the sacrament for ten years, the ten years to be 
 passed as follows: For two years he will weep, for three years 
 continue among the hearers, for four he should be a kneeler, 
 and for one he should stand. Then he may be admitted to the 
 holy ritual," ' and while accidental homicide is thus punished, 
 "he who has denied Christ ought to weep all his life long," and 
 only receive the sacrament in the hour of death. Intellectual 
 digressions from the conventional orthodox ways of thinking are 
 placed on a plane with fornication, murder, and robbery. 
 
 The ethics of these preacher-bishops reveals also the inevita- 
 ble effect of aristocratic over-lordship. Basil was imperious 
 and domineering. Even in the eulogy by Gregory Nazianzien,' 
 we see the forceful will overstepping the bounds of meek and 
 lowly service. No admiration of ascetic humility has been an 
 antidote for ecclesiastical pride and arrogance. The frank 
 forcefulness of Basil was, of course, temperamental, but in all 
 the great ecclesiastics upon whom now came the burden of a 
 sacerdotal imperialism the effect of this over-lordship is manifest. 
 The ethics of this period is marked by the very distinct contrast 
 between the qualities needed for a fighting, organizing, militant 
 sacerdotalism on the one hand, and the ascetic, world-flight, 
 pathologically humble attitude of the monk and hermit. In 
 Basil are united in wonderful manner these two extreme modes 
 of thought and feeling, and he becomes representative of a long 
 line of haughty, ascetic over-lords, commanding a world of con- 
 fusion and readjustment and moulding a new era and a new life. 
 
 der Gegenwart" (1906), Teil I, Abt. 4, iste Halfte.) Thus from Justinian on 
 canon law was a constituent part of Roman jurisprudence. (Consult v. Jhcring's 
 fascinating first volume, "Der Geist des romischen Rechts.") 
 
 ' Epistola 218 : 57. 
 
 ' Oratio 43. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 215 
 
 III. THE MONASTERY AND ASCETICISM 
 
 Asceticism, as we have seen, was first subordinated by Athan- 
 asius to the growing imperial Bishop's church. But it had to 
 undergo a distinct change before it could be of the highest use- 
 fulness to the hierarchy. The hermit conserved much of that 
 extreme individualism with which an organization built upon 
 authority cannot work. Jesus and the very earliest church had 
 scarcely to weigh the question of the relation of the individual 
 to the external political power. The world was soon coming to 
 an end; the powers that existed were ordained of God, and in 
 general were for the punishment of the wicked and the protec- 
 tion of the weak. Even Paul appealed to Caesar against illegal 
 violence. Yet in Christianity there is a constant appeal from all 
 outward authority to the inward voice as final for the individual, 
 at least, hearing that voice. This appeal has always been a source 
 of danger to all outward authorities, no matter how sacred. 
 
 The hermit in his cell, seeing visions, and having left all to 
 follow holiness, was not apparently good material for the political 
 structure of the Bishop's church. Yet in the hermit piety was 
 also the element of submission. The body and its desires must 
 submit to the demands of a higher ideal. Hence as soon as the 
 hermit's cell became a ccenohium, and younger hermits gathered 
 about an older and venerated "hero of the ascetic life," the 
 virtue of submission and obedience was easily added to those of 
 poverty and virginity. 
 
 None the less it is evident that the monastic ethical ideal could 
 not remain the same with the hermit's ideal.^ In the life of 
 Pachomius clear evidences are at hand that there was a distinct 
 struggle on the part of the cloistered monks with the original 
 primitive ideal. The monastery of Pachomius was not the first 
 of such groups, but he gave them central organization, special 
 rules, and seems to have fought the battles needed on the one 
 
 ^ Cf. Harnack, A.: "Das Monchtum, seine Ideale und seine Geschichte," 
 Giessen, 1881; 5th ed., 1901. English translation by Charles R. Gillett, New 
 York, 1895. • 
 
2i6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 hand against the solitary ideal of the hermit, and on the other 
 of the bishop-conception in the secularized church.* 
 
 This monastic ideal was a highly composite product. It 
 involved not only, as Harnack says, flight from the world, but 
 also flight from the world in the church.^ It had within it the 
 remains of the Egyptian religiosity cultivated through thousands 
 of years, whose main passion was for ritual perfection as a key 
 to personal immortality.^ When one notices the enormous place 
 this consuming longing for personal immortality had in early 
 Christianity, it becomes perfectly evident that its source was not 
 the Old Testament nor the teachings of Jesus, nor even the 
 mysticism of Paul. It is in the monastery that we find it mainly 
 developed, and the thought forces itself upon us that the Egyptian 
 religiosity has made itself deeply felt, in part, indeed, through 
 Alexandrine Neoplatonism, but perhaps also more than we 
 realize directly through the Egyptian monastic movement. 
 Certainly in it we see the over-emphasis upon this hope, and a 
 transposition of emphasis. So that to-day the average Christian 
 thinker regards a religion without a doctrine of personal im- 
 
 ' The writer depends upon the French translation of the Coptic and Arabic 
 versions by Amelineau, "Annales du Musee Guimet," tome XVII; "Monu- 
 ments pour servir h. I'histoire de I'Egj'pte chretienne au IV siecle, histoire de St. 
 Pakhome et ses communantes," Paris, 1889, and upon the history by the same 
 author: "De historia Lausiaca," Paris, 1887; see also the criticisms and com- 
 mentary by Griitzmacher: "Pachomius und das alteste Klosterleben," Freiburg, 
 1896. The scepticism of Weingarten concerning Pachomius ("Ursprung des 
 Monchthums," pp. 50-53) is far too sweeping, and there seems little reason for 
 doubting the existence of cloistered Christian monks very early in the history of 
 Egyptian Christianity, even before the time of Pachomius (c/. Butler, Dom 
 Cuthbert: "The Lausiac History of Palladius in Texts and Studies," edited 
 by J. Armitage Robinson, vol. VI, i, 1898, pp. 230-256). Nor is there any 
 reasonable doubt concerning the influence of Athanasius on the development, 
 even if we may hesitate in dogmatically affirming or denying his authorship of 
 the Vita Antonii. See for discussion, p. 194 note. Cf. the work on Palladius, by 
 Cuthbert Butler, ad loc. cit., and cj. Preuschcn, Erwin: "Palladius und Rufinus, 
 ein Bcitrag zur Quellenkunde des altestcn Monchtums," 1897. 
 
 ^ Harnack, A.: "Das Monchtum," etc., pp. 16, 18. English translation, pp. 
 17, 20. 
 
 ' Cf. Breasted, Jas. H.: "History of Egypt," 1905, pp. 62-73, ^"*^ Erman, 
 Adolf: "Die agyp»ische Religion," Berlin, 1905, pp. 87-147. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 217 
 
 mortality as wellnigh unthinkable. Yet the Old Testament 
 religion made little of it. Buddhism is wholly without it, and 
 nearly all modern philosophic substitutes for Christianity, in 
 spite of intense religious feeling, generally either ignore or deny 
 the doctrine. 
 
 This passion for personal eternal life gives the early monastic 
 ideal an almost selfish egotistical character, borrowed from the 
 hermit-conception out of which it sprang. In fact, we see that 
 as Pachomius turns for perfection to the hermit-life away from 
 his former Christian loving and helpful activity, he does so dis- 
 tinctly because he thinks there is a higher perfection obtainable 
 than by such activities. He had himself been brought to Chris- 
 tianity by the kindly offices of Christians to the thirsty recruits,* 
 and busied himself with the poor and the sick, both as a Serapis 
 monk and as a Christian, but as he takes up the life of a hermit 
 he renounces these things.^ So that in the midst of the very 
 monastic ideal itself there is a dualism. Between the extremes 
 of the silent seclusion of the Trappist monk and the activities of 
 the modern lay- Jesuit there are all shades of attempted synthesis. 
 But the antithesis is there. The monks of Egypt not only sup- 
 ported themselves, but by industry, co-operative organization, 
 and great frugality, as well as by the fact that the expenses of 
 family fell away, became rich and were able to contribute to the 
 poor. In the rules of Pachomius ^ work and organization are 
 constantly presupposed, and food is to be supplied in the inter- 
 
 ' Cj. Kriiger's scepticism in regard to the story, in " Theologische Littera- 
 turzeitung," 1890, col. 620 ("Revue of Annales du Musee Guimet," tome XVII, 
 Paris, 1889, "Histoire de Saint Pakhome et de ses Communantes. Documents 
 coptes et arabes inedits, publics et traduits par E. Amelineau"), and for the 
 story "Annales du Musee Guimet," tome XVII, p. 316 seq. 
 
 " "Cette action de servir beaucoup de gens dans un village n'est pas le fait 
 d'un moine, mais celle des pretres et des vieillards fideles," "Annales du Musee 
 Guimet," p. 345, Amelineau's translation. 
 
 ^ The rules are translated into German from the Ethiopian version, edited by 
 Dillmann: " Chrestomathia ^^thiopica," Leipsic, 1866; by Konig, Ed.; "Die 
 Regeln des Pachomius aus dem Athiopischen iibersetzt und mit Anmerkungen 
 versehen in Theologische Studien und Kritiken," 1878, pp. 323-337, and into 
 Latin by Jerome, in Migne's "Patrologia Latina," tome XXIII (vol. II of Jer- 
 ome's works}, cols. 65-86. 
 
2i8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ests of strength for this work. "Let every one eat and drink, 
 and according to their food give them service, preventing neither 
 fasting nor eating, only (seeing that) the food is strong for the 
 strong and mild for the weak" (Ethiopian version), and, unless 
 Jerome is wholly untrustworthy, into the rules entered also 
 the element of education,* as, indeed, is assumed in the older 
 Ethiopian version, where, after the devotional meeting of the 
 order, each goes to his dwelling-place discussing or reading 
 the lesson of the day. Nor was this cultural element wholly 
 added on to the monastic institution. Even the Serapis monks 
 acted to some extent as the apostles of charity and letters.^ 
 It lies also in the very nature of such a life of contemplation and 
 devotion that it should conserve the sacred traditions of the 
 past. We have only to think of the priestly writings (hiero- 
 glyphics) of Egypt to see how naturally an Egyptian monastic 
 institution turned to the conservation of sacred writings of 
 Christian character. 
 
 The second great force in this development was the passion 
 for personal purity represented in the main by sexual continence. 
 The whole monastery movement is under the sway of this intense 
 longing for " perfection." The legend of Anthony represents him 
 as going from one sacred person to another to gather the virtues 
 of all,^ and when a hermit hears of one "more perfect" he 
 straightway visits him. Jerome relates in his life of Paulus 
 how Anthony was dwelling in a solitary place, and it occurred 
 to him " that no monk more perfect had taken up abode in the 
 desert," but it is revealed to him that one "more perfect" lived 
 in the desert, and he ought to visit him; so at the age of ninety 
 
 ' "Qui rudis monasterium fucrit ingressus, doccbitur prius qux debeat ob- 
 servare: et cum doctus ad universa consenserit, dabunt ei viginti Psalmos et duas 
 Epistolas Apostoli, aut alterius Scripturae partem. Et si litteras ignoraverit, 
 hora prima, et tertia, et sexta vadet ad eum qui docere potest, et qui ei fucrit 
 delegatus, et stabit ante ilium, ct discet studiosissime, cum omni gratiarum 
 actione." Rcgula 139. Hieronymus. (MPL, XXIII, 78 B.) 
 
 ' C/. Brunet dc Presles, C. M. W.: "M(5moire sur le Serapeum dc Memphis in 
 Memoires prcsentes a I'Acaddmie des Inscriptions," series I, vol. II, pp. 552-576. 
 
 • " Vita Antonii," § 4. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 219 
 
 he sets off.^ The conception of perfection varies, of course, 
 with the level of culture, the racial character, and the individual 
 peculiarity of the seeker after it. But two or three things mark 
 especially the monastic ideal as we find it affecting the message 
 of fourth and fifth century Christianity. In the first place, 
 although intensely orthodox, perfection is not, and never has 
 been, in the monastic development resolved into a simply intel- 
 lectual correctness. From Pachomius to Francis of Assisi the 
 interest is only secondarily intellectual. Orthodoxy is assumed, 
 but orthodoxy is not primarily what accords with the facts, but 
 what is handed down by tradition. Authority and not reason 
 is the basis of the search for perfection. 
 
 In the second place, perfection is, like the conception of holi- 
 ness in post-captivity Judaism, largely to be resolved into ritual 
 observance. Prayer and fasting are in themselves pleasing to 
 God, and the ascetic hero by pain actually does draw nigh to 
 perfection. 
 
 But thirdly, the virtues of the canonical books are taken up, 
 however unequally in the emphasis, into the monastic concep- 
 tion of perfection. So that love, gentleness, truth, faithfulness, 
 and particularly such group-virtues as concord and the apos- 
 tolic ideals of unselfishness and sacrifice, have a place even 
 when world-flight seems most to contradict this active social 
 ethics. 
 
 Then again the world of monastic life, though an unnatural 
 world, was still a world in which living together compelled the 
 formation of a social rule of life. In the first rules of Pachomius 
 it is easy to see the various social problems that arose. The 
 moment that monasticism was drawn into the service of the 
 Bishop's church this social side became pronounced. Two 
 things happened. The Bishop's church became monasticized 
 and the monastery became secularized. The resulting compro- 
 mise had all sorts of shadings. Far into history the hermit was 
 still recognized as a grade of Catholic perfection, and in modem 
 days the lay-brother and the lay-member of the society of Jesus 
 
 » § 7 of "Vita S. Pauli Primi ErmitcE." M. P. L., tome XXIII, col. 22. 
 
220 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 represent the secularizing influence of the imperial ambition; 
 but in all grades personal perfection is kept constantly in view. 
 
 And lastly, the monastery became the refuge for many con- 
 ceptions most prominent in primitive Christianity but incom- 
 patible with the secularization of the Bishop's church. Thus 
 in it we find conserved the primitive communism, the primitive 
 under-valuation of the social order, the primitive estimate of 
 "saints" as being all on a level of possible attainment of holiness. 
 Amidst an organization that was becoming more and more 
 aristocratic in its temper and government, the monastery re- 
 mained a refuge for a mutilated democratic ideal. Thus this 
 ideal constantly reacts upon the hierarchy. Ambrose and Basil 
 often revert with a certain longing to the primitive communism, 
 although they realized that it was utterly incompatible with 
 either the secularized church or the social order with which that 
 church was preparing its elaborate Middle-Age compromise.^ 
 
 The struggle between the two ideals, the aristocratic imperialism 
 of the Bishop's church, in which the individual "lay-member" 
 was more and more utterly subordinated to the priestly and 
 sacramental organization, and the relative communal democracy 
 and individualism of the monastery in which the unordained 
 man might yet "attain" to the highest perfection, has never 
 quite ceased. If any one doubts this let him inquire as to how 
 the members of the recently suppressed congregations view the 
 papal organization. 
 
 The compromise, however, was effected. The priesthood of 
 the Bishop's church accepted celibacy and was in other ways 
 " monasticized " ; the monastery became the active agent for the 
 spread of the influence of the imperial hierarchy. And although 
 at each new revival of the monastic ideal the sacramental im- 
 perialism has resisted the movement as long as it dared ,^ yet 
 in the end it has always on the one hand accepted the compro- 
 
 ' C/., among many passages, Ambrose, "De Offic." i : 28 : 132, and Basil, 
 Epistola, 150, § 3. 
 
 * Francis of Assisi and Rome. Cf. "Vie de Francis d'Assisi par P. Sabatier," 
 1896, pp. 101-116. English translation by Mrs. Louise S. Houghton, New 
 York, 1S94, pp. 88-102. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 221 
 
 mise, and on the other known how to subordinate in large 
 measure the monastic enthusiasm for its own ends. Thus the 
 conception of a kingdom of God, a righteous community with 
 God's will the living law, survived on the one hand in the 
 ecclesiastical Bishop's church with its world-wide ambition, but 
 with all manner of concessions to the world it hoped to rule; 
 and on the other hand in the monastic community in which 
 special holiness was the aim of a communal life that, however, 
 resigned itself to a but partial realization of the communal 
 dream, and weighed itself down by the maintenance of foreign 
 remnants of past religiosity. 
 
 IV. THE bishop's CHURCH AND CULTURE 
 
 The Bishop's church not only accepted the empire, but began 
 to occupy itself with the art and culture of the passing Roman 
 world. It lay in the very Jewish origin of Christianity that it 
 should not be hostile to learning and letters. However exclusive 
 pharisaic Judaism became at one time in its history, yet in all 
 ages Judaism has been foremost to acquire such elements of 
 learning as it could make useful. 
 
 So the new Nicene Christianity was along the line of sound 
 tradition from Paul on in taking what elements it could from the 
 superior literary culture of the pagan past. The rigid ideal of the 
 monastery, indeed, should cut off the seeker after its perfection 
 from all the cultural acquirements of the forsaken world. But 
 as a matter of fact the monastery directly and indirectly has 
 served a most useful purpose in the preservation of that very 
 culture it had itself foresworn. 
 
 Very early, therefore, we have attempts at history in the Acts 
 of the apostles; and, indeed, as all history was more or less 
 biographical, the canonical gospels may almost be included. 
 In the new Nicene Bishop's church the impulse was strongly 
 felt to continue this historical work, and we cannot pass the 
 historical and literary activity of this period without glancing 
 at its ethics and ideals. A foremost figure in the literary move- 
 
222 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ment of the period is Eusebius of Caesarea/ In a credulous and 
 uncritical age Eusebius seems to have been cool and careful. 
 There is no such acceptance of miracle and wonder-working as 
 in Sozomen, and in general he seeks to give his authorities. 
 Yet the impression of the condition of the church made by his 
 history is unpleasant and saddening. He seems conscious of 
 the dawning of a new age, but unconscious of the wide chasm 
 that lay between the ethical ideals of the New Testament and 
 those of the Bishop's church. 
 
 Several things stand out plainly in the history. The ethics 
 are dominated by the needs of the growing ecclesiastical im- 
 perialism. Hence "unity of opinion" is the foremost virtue. 
 Eusebius was fully in accord with Constantine in demanding 
 submission by the extremes of both factions in the Arian struggle 
 to the will of the majority, and the despotism of the ecclesiastical 
 leadership seemed to him fully justified in the interests of this 
 " unity." ^ For Constantine the interests of the empire demanded 
 religious uniformity, and Eusebius therefore fills his pages with 
 criticism of the "heretics" whose "impious blasphemies" cast 
 shadows on this fair unity. He has no sort of insight into the 
 ethical situations which produced the Novatian and Marcionite 
 struggles, and no comprehension of the intellectual cravings 
 which gave rise to Gnosticism, and this in spite of the fact that 
 in his own intellectual life he had found Origen so highly fruitful. 
 
 The imperial dream overshadows all else, and unless the 
 church was "one" this dream seemed impossible, hence the 
 
 ' Eusebius of Caesarea, in Palestine, was born about 260, probably in Palestine, 
 and died about 339 or 340. He was a most industrious and prolific writer (see, 
 for full account, Lightfoot's life of him in Smith and Wace's "Dictionary of 
 Christian Biography," vol. II, 1880, pp. 308-348). The works that interest us 
 especially are his "Historia Ecclesia" (iKKXrjjiaffTiKr] Itrropla), in ten books, 
 and his "Vita Constantini" (eU rbv ^Lov rod fxaKaptov KufffTavrlfov rod 
 fiaffiX^us), in four books, together with the oration of Eusebius on Constantine. 
 The fullest text is that of Migne, and the history has been often translated, 
 the best translation being that by A. C. McGifTcrt and Ernest C. Richardson, 
 " Life of Constantine, " in the "Nicene and Post-Niccnc Fathers," second series, 
 vol. I, where fullest literature is given. 
 
 * Cf. "Vita Constantini," chaps. 64 and 65. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 223 
 
 enormous and increasing emphasis upon "unity of faith," 
 meaning by that unity of opinion/ The supreme virtues are 
 "obedience" and "submission," as must always be the case in 
 a fighting organization. 
 
 And again the situation produced the false estimate of 
 martyrdom. It had meant so much for the ecclesiastical organ- 
 ization that men and women had faced torture and death for 
 their convictions, that the tendency is soon noticed to treat 
 martyrdom as a good in itself and to ascribe to the martyrs a 
 special and sanctifying power.^ Hence also the ethical ideals 
 are often debased by fanaticism and mingled with sensuous and 
 unworthy motives, the exchange of hours of pain for an eternity 
 of bliss, and the reverence for the martyrs was soon exchanged 
 for prayers to them; and the substitution of their intercession 
 for the free gift of forgiveness. 
 
 The politic ecclesiasticism of the Bishop's church constantly 
 tended to a "middle way" in its treatment of ethical questions. 
 The necessities of an organization that now grew with tropical 
 luxuriance, but which began increasingly to embrace all sorts 
 of spiritual and ethical laxness, forced upon the leaders like 
 Eusebius patience with ethical mediocrity and impatience with 
 any extreme puritanism. The monastery became the outlet 
 for such vigorous ethical force as could not reconcile itself with 
 the via media of the politic bishops. 
 
 Moreover, in the history of Eusebius we may see plainly the 
 growing distance between the Bishop's church as a sacramental 
 priestly organization and the people. He makes a daring com- 
 parison between the gathering at Pentecost and the Nicene 
 council to the advantage of the latter: "But that assembly was 
 less, in that not all who composed it were ministers of God; but 
 in the present company the numbers of bishops exceeded two 
 hundred and fifty, while that of the presbyters and deacons in 
 their train, and the crowd of acolytes and other attendants, was 
 
 * Cf, treatment of Novatus Ecc. Hist., VI : 43 : 1-22; of Paul of Samosata, 
 VII : 27 : I /. 
 
 ^ Cf. "Martyrs of Palestine." 
 
224 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 altogether beyond computation." * For Eusebius, as for 
 Socrates, Sozomen, Rufinus, and Theodoret, the church is sub- 
 stantially the ordained clergy. The priesthood of all believers 
 and the apostolic democracy has gone altogether. Yet the 
 church is not wholly a centralized imperialism. 
 
 To this last step the force and political wisdom of Constantino 
 contributed much. In Eusebius we see how the imperial pro- 
 tection rendered the bishops servile instruments of the royal 
 will. It was, alas, only too natural. The church at last had 
 come to her own, and the imperial master who broke her bonds 
 easily substituted a golden bondage from which as yet no 
 ecclesiasticism in any age has completely freed itself. The 
 quiet substitution of himself as head of the church by Constan- 
 tine is hidden under vast deference to the orthodox, i. e., sub- 
 missive bishops. He says: "You are bishops whose jurisdic- 
 tion is within the church: I also am a bishop, ordained of God 
 to oversee whatever is external to the church." ^ And in his 
 power as ruler he appoints the Sunday as a special occasion for 
 prayer.^ When one remembers that he was not even at that 
 time baptized, one sees how far the ecclesiastical organization 
 had struck hands with the imperial power on the basis of a com- 
 promise. On the cringing flattery of Eusebius we must not 
 dwell too hardly. Far worse rulers have been even more 
 cringed to by stronger ecclesiastics in all ages; and no doubt 
 Eusebius had a well-grounded respect and affection for the 
 strong, mild, and politic Constantine to whom the church owed 
 so much. 
 
 Constantine speaks fair words for religious freedom and 
 responsibility: " Perceiving long ago that religious liberty ought 
 not to be denied, but that it ought to be granted to the judgment 
 and desire of each individual to perform his religious duties 
 according to his own choice." * But as soon as he has power 
 
 ' "Vita Constantini," E. C Richardson's translation, III : 8. 
 
 " "Vita Constantinii," IV : 24. 
 
 ' "Vita Constantini," IV : 18. 
 
 * Imperial Decree, Euscb. Ecc. Hist., X : V : 2. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 225 
 
 we find him persecuting under episcopal guidance the heretics, 
 and later on even the pagans. Liberty of conscience and the 
 superiority of sincere intellectual misjudgment to insincere 
 orthodoxy is not even yet an accepted ethical canon. 
 
 The continuation of Eusebius's history by Socrates^ marks 
 no change in the main ethical conceptions upon which we have 
 so far dwelt. True it is that Socrates is fairer in his treatment of 
 heretics than Eusebius, probably because he was hunself tainted 
 by Novatianism. But in his pages we trace the same struggle 
 going on by the bishops for the consolidation of the ecclesiastical 
 empire. The miracle and the prodigious find even more ready 
 credence by Socrates than by Eusebius, although he is superior 
 in this respect to his contemporary Sozomen^ whose credulity 
 passes all bounds. More and more pronouncedly do the ethics 
 become those of a great compromise between the secular state 
 and the bishop's sacramental organization. Yet in both Soc- 
 rates and Sozomen we see a people's church not altogether to 
 be identified with the bishop's sacramental organization. On 
 the one hand the ascetic development grew up independent of 
 and even hostile to the somewhat secularized church, and on 
 the other the democracy found expression in the sectarian 
 development which fills the pages of Eusebius, Socrates, and 
 Theodoret. With the first the Bishop's church never has dared 
 to wage open war; but with the second it was always a conflict 
 for life or death. 
 
 The low literary ethics of this period the new Christian liter- 
 ature shared with paganism. Either Socrates or Sozomen stole 
 without conscience one from the other. Deliberate forgery in 
 
 * Born in Constantinople about 380, he died .some time after 439. Little is 
 known of his life. He was either a Novatian or had reasons for special interest 
 in the Novatian Church. Cf. G. Lceschke's article in Herzog-Hauck's "Real- 
 encykU.padie," XVIII (1906), pp. 481-486, and Smith and Wace's "Dictionary 
 of Christian Biography," III (1887), pp. 709-711, by Wm. Milligan. 
 
 ^ Born in Palestine about the beginning of the fifth century, and living in 
 Constantinople at the court of Theodosius the Younger, little is known of him. 
 CJ. Smith and Wace's "Dictionary of Christian Biography" (bv Wm. Milligan), 
 vol. IV (1887), pp. 722-723. 
 
226 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 a good cause was not uncommon. Gregory of Nyssa forged 
 letters to bring about a reconciliation between Basil and his 
 uncle. "You forged one letter," Basil writes,^ "and took it to 
 me from our very holy uncle"; the forgery was found out, but 
 it did not prevent two more attempts. Stories are related of 
 Pachomius as though by eye-witnesses, which are mere copies 
 of the Coptic "life" from which all stole and to which all added.^ 
 The forged decretals, the pseudo-apostolic writings, and the inter- 
 polation of passages and extirpation of others are the common 
 evidence of the low standard of truthfulness common to the 
 period.^ 
 
 An interesting insight into the ethical-religious life of that day 
 is gained in those religious romances which have been so often 
 taken for sober history. Whether Athanasius wrote the " Vita 
 Antonii" * or not it can hardly have been meant for anything but 
 a pious romance, of which literature we have the remains in 
 Jerome and perhaps also in the famous "Historia Lausiaca of 
 Palladius,'' ^ whose pages abound in the stories which must have 
 circulated freely as incitements to devotion in this period. It is 
 impossible to take the accounts of Palladius as sober matter of 
 
 » Epistola 58. 
 
 ^ Cf. Am^lineau, E.: "Histoire de St. Pakhome," Paris, 1889, and "De his- 
 toria Lausiaca," Paris, 1887. 
 
 * C/. the evident confusion of Jerome, in the "Life of Malchus," between him- 
 self and "the source of" his information. He related as an eye-witness things 
 evidently told him by Bishop Evagrius. The mere fact that Gregory of Nazian- 
 zus attributes the "Vita Antonii" to Athanasius, nine years after the death of 
 Athanasius, does not therefore prove that he was the author or even that Gregory 
 thought he was. 
 
 * Cf. discussion under "Athanasius." 
 
 " Bishop Palladius was born about 368, although the date is uncertain, and he 
 died about 430. He was the friend and defender of Chrysostom, assuming that 
 the " Dialogue" is also by him. His " Historia Lausiaca" was written probably 
 about 405 to 420, and receives its name from the one to whom it was addressed 
 (rb AavffarKSy). The most exact researches are by Erwin Preuschen ("Pal- 
 ladius und Rufinus," 1897) and Dom Cuthbert Butler ("The Lausiac History of 
 Palladius," 1898 and 1906, in "Texts and Studies," edited by J. A. Robinson, 
 vol. VI). C/., also, Lucius, P. E.: "Die Qucllcn dcr iiltercn Geschichte des 
 agyptischen Monchtums, Zeitschrift fur Kirchcngcschichtc," edited by Th. 
 Bricger, VH (1885), pp. 163-198. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 227 
 
 fact, although, no doubt, he had seen nuich that he relates. 
 When one reads the contents of the novels and tales of that 
 period given us by Rohde,* with their superabounding wonders, 
 strange animals and miracles, their struggles against fate, and 
 tales of love's faithfulness, one is tempted to see in Jerome's 
 "Life of St. Hilarion," "Life of Paulus the Hermit," and 
 "Malchus the Captive Monk," an effort to do for the Christian 
 society what these mediocre artists were doing for the pagan 
 community. 
 
 Whether this be so or not, these stories open our eyes to the 
 strange religious world in which the Bishop's church had its 
 place. The monks retained memories of the primitive com- 
 munistic ideals. Malchus sighs for his captivity after he had 
 left his cell, and seeing the ants at work, he remembers "how 
 Solomon sends us to the shrewdness of the ant and quickens 
 our sluggish faculties by setting before us such an example," and 
 he longs " to imitate the ant in the monk's cell where toil is for 
 the community, and since nothing belongs to any one, all things 
 belong to all." ^ 
 
 These monks and hermits live in a world of wonders and 
 strange adventures which, no doubt, were accepted about as 
 the pagan world accepted the stories of fauns and satyrs. 
 
 Jerome ^ was one of the mosrt famous and useful scholars of 
 the period. He was fanatical and narrow in temper, and 
 pressed, for instance, his heresy case against Origen with a 
 bitter a'nd unchristian partisanship. But that was, alas, the 
 
 ' "Der griechische Roman und seine Vorlaufer," 2d ed., Leipsic, 1900, pp. 
 310-554. * "Life of Malchus," § 7. 
 
 ' Hieronymus, or Jerome, was born at Stridon, in Pannonia, about 340-350. 
 He died about 420. For full account of him and his writings, see Smith and 
 Wace's "Dictionary of Christian Biography," vol. Ill (1882), pp. 29-50, by Wm. 
 H. Freemantle. His translation of the Bible into Latin (the Vulgate version), 
 and his defence of the ascetic life and his propaganda for it in the West, have 
 given him extraordinary influence in the later history of the Roman church. 
 The best edition is Migne's reprint of Vallarsi, "Patrologia Latina," vols. 
 XXH-XXX, translation of selected writings in the "Nicene and Post-Nicene 
 Fathers," second series, vol. H, pp. 359-381 ("Lives of Illustrious Men"), and 
 vol. VI ("Select Works and Letters"). 
 
228 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 spirit and temper of the day. When once Origen was proclaimed 
 heretical, then no terms could be too strong and too severe in 
 condemnation of him,* even though he praised him unguardedly 
 before and had made him known to the Western world by 
 translations. In fact, Jerome, like nearly all his ecclesiastical 
 contemporaries, dreaded only one thing — to be called unortho- 
 dox. For him, "heretics wjio depart from the straight path of 
 the faith shall be consumed if they will not return to the Lord 
 whom they have forsaken.^ 
 
 Childish credulity is mingled with real culture and learning.' 
 For he also lived in the demon-haunted world from which Chris- 
 tianity had failed utterly to rescue paganism. Athanasius, 
 Augustine, Basil, and the highest and finest minds of the period 
 were still in bondage to demon-fear which perfect love had not 
 cast out. 
 
 As ascetic Christianity made its way, the essentially dualistic- 
 oriental conception of body and spirit reappears,^ and with it 
 the despondency and world-weariness which we shall also find 
 in Augustine.^ No longer is the sense of loving sonship the only 
 root of ethics with Jerome and his contemporaries; it is the fear 
 of hell as well as the longing for heaven.® 
 
 The false basis for ethics in this ascetic dualistic estimate of 
 the body makes itself felt in the whole attitude toward marriage. 
 The sound common-sense of uncorruptcd Judaism saw only 
 God's blessing in a happy marriage, the multiplication of the 
 race, and the united life of man and woman. For Jerome the 
 virgin is one degree higher than the widow, and the widow a 
 degree higher than the married faithful wife. And in fact the 
 only way a mother can get herself real sanctity is by guarding the 
 virginity of her daughter and thus becoming "the mother-in-law 
 of God." ' 
 
 » Cf. Epist. 6i : 1-4 MPL, vol. XXII, col. 602. 
 
 * "Dialogus ad Pclagianos," i : 28. 
 
 ' Epistola; and his lives of Paulus the Hermit and of St. Hilarion, etc. 
 
 * Jerome, Epist. 22 : 4. 
 
 * Cf. Jerome, Epistola 22:5; 12S : 4. 
 
 ' Epist. 22:7. ' Epistola 22 : 20. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 229 
 
 Yet even Jerome felt the force of healthy Jewish thinking in 
 the Old and New Testaments, and now and again enters upon a 
 feeble and qualified defence of marriage/ 
 
 The result of such teaching was the rousing of most unnatural 
 passion/ and a reduction of piety to a passionate, vague physical 
 longing with corresponding misuse of the unfortunate Song of 
 Songs.^ That this unhealthy development was challenged we 
 see in the quotations from Jovinianus, whom, unfortunately, we 
 only know in the unfair and abusive controversial writings of 
 Jerome. But evidently Jovinianus was not the only one to 
 protest. The sanity of northern Europe has never made full 
 surrender to oriental pathological dualism at this point. Hence 
 Jerome raised by his writings on the subject of virginity a storm 
 of protest." And the work of Helvidius is preserved to us in the 
 intemperate but able reply of Jerome. Helvidius had pointed 
 out that Mary herself calls Joseph her husband and that Jesus 
 had brethren and sisters. 
 
 In the work of Jerome we see clearly what tremendous force 
 the cool-headed political ambition of Rome had over against the 
 divided East.^ His letters are indeed most interesting as show- 
 ing how naturally the Bishop's church fell a prey to the central 
 Roman bishopric. The Eastern church forced on the Western 
 her dogmatic development and her asceticism, but in doing so 
 wellnigh lost her independence. For both Eastern and Western 
 churches the principle of outward authority had triumphed.* 
 The only question was whose authority was supreme. 
 
 At one point the church has much cause for thankfulness to 
 Jerome. In spite of many expressions of contempt for pagan 
 literature, Jerome really was the father of that monastic learning 
 to which we now owe so much. No one has spoken more 
 vigorously for a learned clergy than Jerome. To both his men 
 and women disciples he says: "Read often, learn all that you 
 
 • Epistolse 22 : 2; 22 : 19-20. ^ Epist. 22 : 7. 
 ^ Epistola 22:1 and 6 and 24-25. 
 
 * Epistolae 45 and 48-49- * Epist. 15 : i. 
 ^Epistolae 15 14; 22 : 38. 
 
23© HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 can." * And he scoffs vigorously at the ideal of ignorance as 
 piety; " as Horace says: 
 
 'Doctors alone profess the healing art, 
 And none but joiners ever try to join.' 
 
 The art of interpreting Scripture is the only one of which all 
 men everywhere claim to be masters. To quote Horace again: 
 'Taught or untaught, we all write poetry.' The chatty old 
 woman, the doting old man, and the wordy sophist, one and all 
 take in hand the Scriptures, rend them in pieces, and teach them 
 before they have learned them." ^ He was himself learned, and 
 even when taught in a vision not to overestimate Cicero, he 
 does not abandon the classics,^ and his letters teem with quota- 
 tions and allusions to Virgil, Horace, Homer, and many other 
 classic writers. He was a painstaking student. His Vulgate 
 version is for that uncritical day a wondrous work, and his own 
 style is charming and strong. 
 
 And yet Jerome is sad reading. The ethics are formalized and 
 externalized and orientalized out of all semblance to a really 
 Christian ethics. Fasts and feast days* and the reverence of 
 relics ^ reflect the heathen intrusion. Fear takes the place of 
 love. Life is bondage to law amidst the terrors of a demon- 
 world from which alone sacramental magic and stern self- 
 suppression can free us. 
 
 Moreover, in his letters we see the natural outcome in a sordid 
 and greedy hierarchy. The Emperor Valentine had to pass 
 laws forbidding priests and monks to inherit, so great was the 
 misuse of death-bed terror, and yet by trusteeships these laws 
 are evaded and disobeyed ' and the description of the life of the 
 clergy is discouraging. The canons of Nice and Elvirae had 
 failed to deal with the "agapetae" effectively, for we still find 
 women living with the monks and priests in boasted purity, while 
 sharing with them bed and board. 
 
 ' Epist. 22 : 17. 
 
 ' Epist. S3 : 6-7. Freemantle's translation. 
 
 » Cf. Epistolae 58 15; 60 : 5; 61 : 4; 70 : 2-6; 125 : 12. 
 
 * Epist. 71:6, * Epist. 109 : i. • Epist. 52 : 6. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 231 
 
 The Bishop's church, even at its best, was not Christianity, 
 and at its worst was paganism of a pecuHarly depressing char- 
 acter. The learning of Jerome and Theodoret has lost the 
 freedom and outlook that marked Greek culture at its best, and 
 the ignoble fear of hell and longing for heaven rob even the 
 Stoic ethics that now passes for Christian of a good deal of its 
 charm. Religion threatens to be swallowed up in religiosity, 
 hateful, fanatical, and ambitious. The zeal of the monastery 
 misdirected the religious-ethical energies of the foremost races in 
 history for nearly a thousand years, and although they conserved 
 for us the pagan literature, and did advance agriculture and 
 peace, their services were but by-products of their activity. 
 
 The learning of Jerome, Cassiodorus, and of Gregory of 
 Nursia was genuine and profound, but relatively unfruitful 
 because essentially scholastic and under the shadow of authority. 
 It lacked freedom and faith in truth. The religious-ethical de- 
 velopment of the Bishop's church was essentially the triumph of 
 a distorted conception of social and individual righteousness. 
 And the rendering relatively sterile of the religious-ethical 
 leadership was a misfortune it is now quite impossible to estimate 
 accurately. But it would be difficult to overestimate it. 
 
 V. THE bishop's CHURCH AND THE CULT AND ITS ETHICS 
 
 It is difficult to gather from the scattered material a vivid 
 picture of the ethical ideals of this period as seen in the external 
 cult. All the elements that are to become familiar to us in the 
 Middle-Age church are, however, now present. Churches and 
 chapels have arisen everywhere attesting the living interest of 
 the community in the religious organization. In Eusebius's 
 famous discourse at Tyre, given in his history,^ we have an in- 
 valuable description of a church which shows how elaborate the 
 elements of the cult were. The church is already a "sacred 
 place," and hands and feet are washed before entrance in the 
 caniharus or phiala,^ and Ambrose warns virgins against un- 
 
 ' Book X : 4. "Euseb. H. E., lo : 4 : 40. 
 
232 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 seemly talking and laughing during the mystery/ on the ground 
 of the special sacredness of the place. Churches were erected 
 as memorials for the martyrs ^ and were remembered by feasts, 
 which, according to Augustine, were marked sometimes by 
 excess. How early separate buildings were demanded cannot 
 be exactly stated, but of course the first churches had no build- 
 ings but were the "churches at the houses" of the more prosper- 
 ous converts,^ and sacredness could only begin to attach to the 
 place after that period had passed. As early as 305 a church was 
 destroyed at Caesarea,^ but they must have existed long before 
 that. During the Diocletian persecution the churches and the 
 bishops were the special objects of attack. 
 
 The simple cult described by Pliny in his famous letter,^ with 
 its hymns, love-feast, prayer, must soon have expanded under the 
 influence of rivalry with the heathen mystery into an elaborate 
 ceremony from which the uninitiated were excluded. From the 
 early days singing formed a large element in the worship.* The 
 heretical movements which were often revivals of primitive en- 
 thusiasm and piety took also to hymn-singing, and in rivalry the 
 Catholic party also wrote hymns and enriched the service of the 
 "orthodox" party. So Ephraem the Syrian composed hymns 
 to the melodies of the heretical Harmonius to wean the heretics 
 from the error of their teaching and to save the church,^ and 
 Chrysostom introduced processions with singing to outdo the 
 Arians who were successfully making propaganda in that way.* 
 So also Ambrose in Milan enriched the service to head off the 
 enthusiasm of the Arians by introducing the famous chants 
 which have played so signal a part in church history." So, no 
 doubt, the exceedingly old ceremonial of the Eastern church 
 grew slowly by concession and compromise, and with a steady 
 
 ' "De Virgin." 3 : 13. * Mapri/^ta. ^ I Cor. 16 : 19. 
 
 * Lactantius " De Mort. Persccut." 12. 
 " Epist. 97 to Trajan. 
 
 * Acts 16 : 25; and we may see fragments of hymns in I Tim. 3 : 16; 6 : 15; 
 II Tim. 2 : 11-13; Eph. 5 : 14 and 19-20; Col. 3 : 16-17. 
 
 ^ Sozomen, E. H., 3:16. * Sozomen, E. H., 8 : 8. 
 
 * Cy. also Basil, Ejjist. 207 : 3. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 233 
 
 tendency to harden into the formal lifeless cult into which both 
 simple and elaborate ceremonial may easily lapse/ 
 
 It was not the Christian church nor the Jewish synagogue 
 alone that saw the danger and evils of image-worship. Clement 
 of Alexandria says that Pythagoras and Zeno both forbade the 
 making of images, and that Zeno included temples; ^ and Tertul- 
 lian, Clement of Alexandria, and Augustine all protested against 
 images. But the cross and symbolic figures like the fish and the 
 anchor soon were bound up with superstition, so that Julian 
 taunts Christians with worshipping the wooden cross. Then the 
 relics of saints began to have special value,^ and in Augustine's 
 time a trade was driven with forged relics.^ 
 
 Here again the symbolism of such cults as that of Mithras 
 must have reacted on the Christian custom, and so we find a 
 painting "of Christ or of one of the saints," Epiphanius does 
 not remember which, hung up in a church at Anablatha as a 
 curtain, and he indignantly tears it down and sends to Cyprus 
 for another to take its place,^ for it was against the religion of 
 Christ to have any image or painting of a man in a church. 
 Expressions of a simple natural curiosity and reverence such as 
 find expression in Gregory of Nyssa's own case,^ but which 
 were harmless antiquarian interests did not long retain this 
 character. The age was far too superstitious and far too un- 
 critical to be profoundly moved by such associations. The 
 reverence for relics and the hunt for them was part of the 
 heritage of the ages, a memory of the old feeling for amulets 
 and charms which has never really died out even among edu- 
 cated men and women of the twentieth century. As the re- 
 ligious enthusiasm waxed cold spiritual conceptions were being 
 supplanted by mechanical and magic formulae.^ 
 
 ■ Cf. Neale: "Hymns of the Eastern Church," 1863, and Koch: "Geschichte 
 des Kirchenlieds und Kirchengesangs der christlichen Kirche," vol. I, 1856. 
 " "Stromata," 5 : 5 : 28. ^ Basil, Epist. 155. 
 
 * "De Opere Monach," 28. MPL, vol. XL, col. 575. 
 ' Translated by Jerome, in Epist. 51:9. 
 'Epist. 17. MPG, 46, c. 1057. 
 ^ Cf. the familiar passage Augustine's Confess. 6:2:2. 
 
234 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The writers of the period, Basil, Gregory of Nyssa, Jerome, 
 assume a declension in the morals of both church and population, 
 but that is, of course, impossible to either affirm or deny. We 
 cannot impartially estimate the morality of our own day or 
 state definitely any tests by which to measure it. What we may 
 assume, however, with a fair amount of assurance is that with 
 the growth of the church as an imperial and successful hierarchy, 
 on the one hand men entered it for a lower purpose than in times 
 of persecution or neglect, and that on the other the responsibility 
 of the layman was distinctly lessened, and with his responsibility 
 also went sustaining strength as the priest and bishop usurped 
 the place of the church. 
 
 From the time of Constantine on there seems to have been a 
 steady rush to become " Christian," but that there was any cor- 
 responding spiritualization and moralization of the life is less 
 likely. Crass paganism thus received Christian baptism, and 
 the demi-gods became saints; the mythology of Greece became 
 the miracle-stories of the monastery, the magic of the mystery, 
 the sacramental grace of the altar. 
 
 The uncritical credulity of the day, common to pagan and 
 Christian alike, accepted all kinds of miracles of healing as part 
 of the regular cult. The exorcist and divine healer were regular 
 parts of the religious structure, and even the most intelligent and 
 sceptical observers, like Eusebius and Augustine, had a simple 
 faith in miracles of resurrection and exorcism of demons. 
 Jerome fills his pages with stories of pious wonders and miracles 
 in which the pagan centaur and satyr reappear.* The effect of 
 superstition upon ethical development is always peculiarly un- 
 fortunate. There is an immediate transference of emphasis 
 from the responsible personal factors in life to the irresponsible 
 and impersonal elements. 
 
 In no region of our experience is it more difficult and more 
 important to trace cause and efTect than in that of conduct; and 
 where superstition comes in with its relative suspension of ordi- 
 nary causation the difficulty becomes simply overwhelming. 
 
 • "Vita Pauli," 8. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 235 
 
 It is, no doubt, untrue to the facts to assume or afSrm, as some 
 have done, that the world was made credulous by Catholic 
 Christianity, but what we may lament is that upon spiritual 
 Christianity in its earliest and highest inspirations there was 
 foisted so much credulous paganism, both oriental and Jewish, 
 as well as Greek and Roman. The dark shadows of mechanical 
 conceptions of guilt such as make Greek tragedy at once so 
 gloomy and so inexplicable to us, where guilt and sin are actually 
 separable quantities, as for instance in the (Edipus of Sophocles, 
 hang over much Christian thinking even before given character 
 and place by Augustine in his theory of original sin. 
 
 The cult took form and character under the influence of this 
 confusion, and becomes more and more the setting for a sacra- 
 mental magic, and less and less the impartation of ethical and 
 religious inspiration to mastery over self and the world. 
 
 VI. THE CHURCH AND HER THEOLOGY 
 
 It has been a popular pulpit theme to trace the Roman deca- 
 dence to its sexual excesses.^ But, as a matter of fact, to sum up 
 again what we have said, the sexual excesses had their deeper 
 cause in the social organization, based as it was on slavery and 
 the ownership of the land by a military aristocracy. Slavery 
 handed over to the absolute power of the master women and 
 boys, and an idle and luxurious life stimulated the powerful 
 passions which grow on what they feed and produce all the 
 strange enormities of unnatural vice. Against this all ethical 
 religious life, whether Neoplatonic or Stoic, whether embodied 
 in the Mithras cult or the priesthood of the Serapium, began to 
 protest even before Judaism and Christianity raised their voices. 
 And as in all such cases there arose as the form of the protest a 
 sexual fanaticism. It even went so far as to brand the natural 
 sexual desire as per se evil, and to treat marriage as a concession 
 to the flesh and bar to the highest holiness. 
 
 Theoretical dualism had probably about the same relation to 
 
 ^ Following Augustine in "De Civitate Dei," book II : 4-29. 
 
236 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 this protest that scientific demonstration that alcohol is a poison 
 has to the demand for total abstinence. But the whole treat- 
 ment of the body as evil was directly related to the popular 
 dualism, and sexual asceticism fitted in well, therefore, with the 
 popular moral ideals. At the same time there were voices 
 raised in protest against these ideals. We know nothing of 
 Jovinian save what Jerome tells us, and what would we know of 
 Pelagius if so untrustworthy a source as Jerome's writing against 
 him were our only means of information? Jovinian at least 
 maintained the perfectly true proposition that to married persons 
 and widows the same attainment in holiness was open as to 
 monks and nuns.^ And Vigilantius was, no doubt, only one of 
 many to see the absurd and immoral phases of the monastery 
 ideal.^ The church, however, had been so absorbed in the 
 theological and Christological question that the anthropological 
 problems had never been officially dealt with. The formulation 
 which received the nominal assent of the official church, although 
 it neither understood nor really accepted it into its life, was that 
 given by the great Augustine.^ He stamped by his transcendent 
 
 ' Cf. "Hicronymus Contra Jovinianum," book I : 3, where the four points 
 Jerome contends against arc given as (i) baptized virgins, widows, and married 
 women are of equal merit; (2) those once baptized in faith cannot be overthrown 
 of the devil; (3) all food can be taken with thanksgiving and fasting has no 
 peculiar sanctity; (4) there is only one level of reward for all in heaven. 
 
 2 For Vigilantius, see "Dictionary of Christian Biography" (edited by Smith 
 and Wace), vol. IV, pp. 1141-1143, by Wm. H. Freemantle; also Gilly, Dr. 
 W. H.: "Vigilantius and His Times," London, 1844; and Jerome's diatribe, 
 "Contra Vigilantium." 
 
 ^Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, born in Tagaste, November 13, 354. His 
 father was a freeman in humble life, who remained a pagan until the sixteenth 
 year of Augustine's life. His mother was the famous Monnica, whom church 
 history has idealized, but whose character, as seen in the "Confessions," was not 
 extraordinary for ethical insight. He died at the age of seventy-six, on the 28th 
 of August, 430. Abundant autobiographical material is contained in his 
 "Life," written by Bishop Possidiusof Calama ("Vita Sancti .^urelii Augustini, 
 Hipponensis episcopi Migne Pat. Lat.," 32 ("Augustine's Works," vol. I), 1841). 
 Good condensed lives are found in Smith and Wace's "Dictionary of Christian 
 Biography," I (1877), pp. 21O-225, by E. de Pressensc, and in Professor F. 
 Loofs's article in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadia;," vol. H (1S97), pp. 257- 
 285, English translation ; in the New Schaff-Herzog, vol. I (1908), pp. 365-372. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 237 
 
 religious genius the ethical development not only of his day but 
 even of our own, with the dualistic despondent impress born 
 rather of pagan and oriental decadence than of Jewish and 
 New Testament common-sense. 
 
 The ethics of Augustine springs from his experience and is 
 interwoven with his deeply religious feeling. To understand 
 his ethical view-point we must take it in connection with that 
 religious experience. His restless soul found at last, after years 
 of moral and intellectual struggle, the peace that comes in the 
 supposed surrender to an outward authority.* As a matter of 
 fact, in all that really concerned Augustine he led and did not 
 slavishly follow. Like Athanasius, he would no doubt have 
 stood against the world had his vital faith been touched. But 
 having surrendered to the church, from thenceforth her sacra- 
 ments, her type of piety, her authority, her imperial claim became 
 identified with the divine life Augustine had found in her. 
 Nowhere does the church become more pronouncedly a mediator 
 between God and the soul than in Augustine. In the church he 
 comes immediately in contact with God. In true Neoplatonic 
 style the visible church is only a type of the ccelestis societas, but 
 it is this visible church which can forgive sins,^ and so his re- 
 
 Of his numerous works those of most service to the student of ethics are "The 
 Confessions," "De Civitate Dei," "The Enchiridion," and the controversial 
 writings against the Donati&ts, Pelagius, and Julian. Numerous editions of 
 separate works have appeared, but the best and completest edition is still the 
 Mauriner editio princeps, reprinted by Migne, "Pat. Lat.," vols. XXXII-XLVI. 
 A new edition in the "Corpus Scriptorum ecclesiast. Latinorum," Vienna, has 
 been severely criticised by Adolf Jiilicher in the "Theologische Litteratur- 
 zeitung," 1892, cols. 130-132; 421-425. This is not complete. An English 
 translation of varying merit appeared in the "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers," 
 second series, vols. I-VII, New York, Scribners, 1886-1888. The general 
 literature is too great to give in detail. Most useful the writer has found : Har- 
 nack's "Dogmengeschichte," vol. Ill (1890), pp. 54-215, English translation, 
 vol. V (1899), pp. 61-240; Renter, Hermann: " Augustinische Studien," Gotha, 
 1887; and the passages in the histories of Baur, Neander, and Schaff, where an 
 enormous literature is noticed. See also the literature given by Harnack in note 
 on pp. 54 and 55 of "Dogmengeschichte," English translation, vol. V (1899), 
 pp. 61-62. 
 
 ' Evangelis non crederem, nisi me Catholicas commovisset auctoritas. 
 
 - Per remissionem peccatorum stat ecclesia, quae in terris est. 
 
238 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ligious and ethical life, Augustine felt, was staked upon the 
 sacraments and authority of the visible sacramental communion. 
 This is why his first struggle within the church was with the 
 Donatists, whose general demand for purity and reformation one 
 might suppose would have been along the line of Augustine's 
 sympathies. But Augustine could not brook anything that 
 imperilled the authority of the sacramental organization, whose 
 world-wide reach was a chief argument for her divine claim. 
 In his struggle out of and then with the Manicheans his chief 
 weapon had been this authority of the world-wide church. It 
 alone had given him rest. Where ratio had failed him auctoritas 
 had come to his aid. Now against the Donatists he had to 
 defend baptism in all its magic sin-forgiving power. It is almost 
 indispensable to salvation^ and is independent of the moral 
 attitude of the baptized one's heart. * ' The sacrament of baptism 
 is one thing and conversion of the heart another.^ ' This tre- 
 mendous weapon of the church had to be guarded against doubt 
 of its power, through the personal weakness of the agent on the 
 one hand, and yet to be retained as the exclusive weapon of the 
 church on the other. The ethical pitfalls are many into which 
 this desperate venture brings Augustine. The external, magical, 
 and offensively mechanical estimate of both baptism and for- 
 giveness of sin runs a sword through the very heart of the 
 Pauline doctrine of inwardness and spiritual independence. 
 And it is sad indeed to find Augustine urging the persecution of 
 the Donatists by the civil authorities.^ Even when he has 
 to confess that bishops and councils have erred, and that later 
 councils can correct earlier ones,* yet Scripture is absolute, 
 and the interpretation of Scripture is in the hands of the church. 
 Moreover, the deadliest sin is schism from this sacramental 
 Catholic church.^ Hence this Catholic church may use vio- 
 lence to force men to the truth. 
 
 * "De Bap.," 4 : 22 : 29. ^ "De Bap.," 4 : 25 : 33. 
 
 * " De Correctione Donatistarum," Epist. 185. i : S-10. 
 
 * "De Bap.," 2:3:4. 
 
 * "Dc Bap.," 2:6: 9-10. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 239 
 
 It is out of this identification of his personal religious experi- 
 ence with the church that even the details of his ethical ideals 
 are sprung. It is, of course, extreme and essentially unhistoric 
 to speak of "a wild youth" and "bog of sensual excess" or 
 "African sensuality" as the cornerstones of the Augustinian 
 system. From the highest Christian point of view Augustine 
 gravely sinned in living, even in monogamous faithfulness, with 
 his mistress for nine years. Such a relationship is demorahzing 
 to both the personal and social life. But it is absurd to call it a 
 bog of sensuality. He had a much-loved boy from the irregular 
 union. His mother never seems to have had any objection to it. 
 The church in its formal canons made provision for such unions, 
 and did not exclude the parties from the communion.^ In fact 
 the real sin was in sending away his mistress after nine years of 
 such happy united life, instead of giving woman and boy such 
 recognition as civil marriage involves. As far as one can judge 
 from the "Confessions" and the "Life," Augustine was essen- 
 tially a steady, well-controlled normal man, whose sexual rela- 
 tions were rather above than below even the Christian average 
 of his day. 
 
 Not so, however, judged the sensitive and misinformed con- 
 science of Augustine himself. His vision of God had been in 
 connection with the sacramental church, and her monastic, essen- 
 tially dualistic valuation of the sexual relation became Augus- 
 tine's. He had, moreover, to intellectually justify this more 
 profoundly than the church herself had done. Hence he saw in 
 concupiscentia the root of all evil, and committed himself and 
 the whole Middle- Age church to what Julian of Eclana justly 
 calls Manicheism. Marriage thus becomes for him a con- 
 cession to human infirmity, and brings with it more than the 
 inconveniences, of which all the fathers speak, but an actual 
 defilement in original sin. In fact, the whole doctrine of original 
 sin in all its artificial logic and false ethics is the result of an 
 extension o-f the dualistic, pessimistic valuation of matter we 
 have so often noticed. 
 
 ' Council of Toledo, canon 17; Mansi III, looi (A. D. 400). 
 
240 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 At this point Augustine had to face the consequences of his 
 teaching and to face other ethical questions in his struggle with 
 Pelagius. True Pelagius was in accord with him in the general 
 monastic conception of the holy life, but between monasticism 
 and a sacramental grace-dispensing organization under bishops 
 there was, as we have seen, a fundamental difference in view- 
 point/ In strict logic the monk can earn his salvation without 
 sacraments or church. In fact, the hermit cut himself off from 
 both. In the interests of the sacramental church Augustine 
 denied the freedom of will in even the measure the monastery 
 needed it. Thus he came into conflict with Pelagius and 
 Coelestius, neither of whom were his intellectual equals and 
 both of whom desired no break with the church. 
 
 The crucial point with Augustine is sacramental grace. By 
 that and that alone we are saved. It is a reformation misinter- 
 pretation of Augustine to omit " sacramental." Augustine could 
 not think of any grace apart from the sacraments. The sacra- 
 mental church is ordinarily the only channel of grace, and that 
 sacramental church goes back to the Jewish church, to Abraham, 
 to Noah, and even to Adam. But if there is no present freedom 
 of will, how are we saved ? Only by the secret and inscrutable 
 election of God. This was Augustine's only answer. It leaves, 
 however, the human soul constantly hanging between hope and 
 fear, and ever turning with feverish longing to the sacraments as 
 the one channel of that saving grace. 
 
 This gloomy and essentially pagan conception of life was born 
 of Augustine's vision of sin. He had fiercely fought with 
 passions corrupted by the social organization in which he dwelt. 
 He saw sin everywhere. "None is free from sin, not even the 
 infant which has lived but a day upon the earth.^ He wished 
 to avoid Manicheism by denying that sin was a "substance," ' 
 
 * Cf. the Egyptian proverb quoted by Cassianus: "De Coenobiorum institutis," 
 lib. XI, cap. 17; "Omnimodis monachum fugcre debere mulieres et episcopos." 
 MPL, 49, 418. 
 
 ' Confess., i : 7 : 11. 
 
 • Confess., 7 : 12 : 18, and many other passages. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 241 
 
 but in fact he identifies it with the body and its natural impulses 
 as such. 
 
 In his psychology Augustine swings, as does Aristotle, between 
 will as the seat of sin and the reason which informs the will. 
 But in fact, in common with practically all Cathohc writers, \^ 
 opinion, i. e., the holding of "truth," is the all-important thing. 
 And into his psychology enter, therefore, foreign elements.^ At 
 the same time sin is not only an act of the will but a quality of 
 the personality. At this point Pelagius seems shallow and 
 unreal in comparison with Augustine, who unquestionably 
 deepened and enlarged the whole conception of sin as an attitude 
 of the personality toward God. 
 
 Yet even here his dualism prevented clear thinking. If sin 
 is thus an attitude of the personality, how about the saved 
 personality? In the state of sacramental forgiveness there 
 should be no room for sin. Augustine was too keen an ethical 
 critic of himself and the church not to see that there were sinners 
 in the sacramental organization, and sin in the forgiven life. 
 The only answer was again the recurrence to a constant renewal 
 of sacramental grace, and there is given us the foundation for 
 the weary struggle of the Middle-Age church to find ethical rest 
 in sacramental forms. Moreover, lest human superbia should 
 tempt us, all the merifa which may be secured by the monastic 
 discipline— which Augustine did not deny or dispute— were but 
 the gift of God.^ The keen criticism of Julian of Eclana,^ 
 Augustine could not at this point at all meet. Only when the 
 reformers attempted to get rid of all meriia does the Augustinian 
 system at this point receive consistency. 
 
 Indeed, consistency is not the strength of the Augustinian 
 thinking. He was the father of fides implicita,* and the baleful 
 
 » Cf. Confess., lo : 8-21, and Siebeck, H.: "Die Anfiinge der neueren Psy- 
 chologic in der Scholastik," in "Zeitschrift fur Philosophic und philosophische 
 Kritik," vol. XCIII (1888), pp. 161-216. 
 
 = Confess., 9 : 13 : 34. De Gratia et libero Arbit lib. 15. 
 
 5 Cf. admirable monograph by Bruckner, "Texte und Untersuchungen," vol. 
 XV, heft 3, 1897. 
 
 * Cf. Harnack, "Dogmengeschichte," III (1897), p. 75. 
 

 242 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 influence of this one may read in Ritschl's history of it/ and 
 what has fides implicita to do with logic and consistency? He 
 thus exalted an ethical element in the child's life to a permanent 
 and unethical factor in the churchly development. 
 
 One of the splendid inconsistencies in the ethics of Augustine 
 was the place he gave to love. He was "God-drunken," and 
 the real ethical force in his life was his absorbing, consuming 
 love of God. Not the "Confessions" alone, but the whole 
 Augustinian literature is filled with this longing after the source 
 of all ethical purity. Again and again Augustine sweeps away, 
 seemingly, the elaborate sacramental apparatus to come into 
 immediate contact with the life of God as forgiving grace. This 
 vision of God is for him the summiim honum; and love is the 
 power that lifts us up into the vision. In these places ^ love is 
 the new source of a new morals. 
 
 The place thus given to love in the system makes Augustine 
 the father of so much of the mystic devotionalism of both the 
 Middle-Age church and the mystic Protestantism on into our 
 own day. 
 
 When we carefully inquire what Augustine means by love, 
 the result is somewhat disappointing. In his system it could be, 
 and in Calvinism was, successfully bound up with an ethical 
 direction of the will. But as a matter of fact the distinct ten- 
 dency in Augustine is to identify it with feeling almost to the 
 exclusion of will, with a consequent inevitable trend toward 
 quietism and Neoplatonic subjectivism. 
 
 With Augustine came again the more or less distinct linking 
 of ethics with a social purpose of redemption. True, the city of 
 God was distinctly in one sense transcendental. Yet the very 
 object of the apology was to show how Christianity better com- 
 ports with and conserves the social state than the heathen cults. 
 The hope of a state subject to and serving the church, which 
 Augustine even as a corpus admixtum still regarded as the 
 
 ' Ritschl, A.: "Fides Implicita, eine Untersuchung iiber Kohlerglauben, 
 Wissen und Glauben, Glaubcn und Kirchc," Bonn, 1S90. 
 * They are many. Cf. Confessions, 4:9:14. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 243 
 
 kingdom of God, Regnum Dei, is the vision that haunts him. 
 And how distinctly he looked to this is seen in his unfortunate 
 letter, de correctione Donatistarum, 
 
 Moreover, in the union of ethical v^ith religious life and the 
 distinct overcoming of the cold intellectualism of a Stoic moral- ^ ^^X 
 
 ity, he rendered unquestionable service to the social organism, -y]^ 
 Between the poles of sin and grace, amidst the sweet pains of 
 forgiven sin, Augustine saw a triumphant sacramental organiza- 
 tion steadily moving on, and leading by word and sacrament the 
 nations into the divine life and vision. Nowhere is the dream 
 a perfect one. It is shadowed always by the despondency of 
 oriental and Hellenistic pessimism so characteristic of African 
 piety. The force giving it unity is, however, love. 
 
 All virtues were in it but as the signs of this one strong central 
 principle. The four virtues (Stoic) were but manifestations of 
 love. Temperantia is opposition to the love of the world from 
 love to God. Fortitudo antagonizes pain because love strength- 
 ens. Justitia is love serving God. Prudentia is love choosing 
 aright.^ And all that proceeds not from love (divine) is vitia, or 
 at least only relatively virtuous.^ Within this kingdom we may 
 use the world, although we ought alone to enjoy God.^ 
 
 Now through the continuance of sacramental grace a great 
 throng, chosen in God's free love and mercy, was being fitted to 
 take the place of the fallen angels and dwell in continual enjoy- 
 ment of the beatific vision. In many passages modern religious 
 sense is offended by the almost selfish emphasis upon this 
 enjoyment, but on the other hand in the last analysis redemption 
 for Augustine is freedom to live the divine life, and that life is 
 loving holiness and the fulfilment of God's commandments. 
 
 The theological historian is, no doubt, constantly tempted to 
 gravely overestimate the importance of formulated doctrine: 
 
 ' "De Moribus Ecclesiac Catholicse," i : 15 : 25. 
 
 'De Civ. Dei., 5 : 12-19. 
 
 ' Utendum est hoc mundo, non fruendum; ut invisibilia Dei, per ea quae 
 facta sunt, intellecta conspiciantur. "De Doctrina Christiana," I, 5, Migne 
 "Pat. Lat.," vol. XXXIV, col. 21 a. 
 
244 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 even the non-theological Carlyle attaches too much importance 
 to the Arian controversy. Had Arius even triumphed it is 
 difficult to see how the church could have more crassly plunged 
 into the worship of three gods with a throng of intermediate demi- 
 gods (saints), angels, and demons than it did. The popular 
 faith is the product of personality and social conditions, and the 
 final dogmatic formulation is the work of a select few for a 
 select circle. 
 
 So it is easy to grossly overestimate the influence of the 
 Pelagian struggle upon even the history of the church. In point 
 of fact the church never followed in her living faith either 
 Pelagius or Augustine. She went on her way teaching freedom 
 to do good works, the value of penance to wipe out sin and gain 
 salvation, the beauty of co-operating grace; while she vigorously 
 upheld Augustine — as far as she understood him. 
 
 It is interesting to note the things the Council of Africa in 
 418 condemned, (i) That those holding that natural death 
 was independent of sin were to be cursed. (2) Those denying 
 sin and guilt on the part of infants were to be cursed. (3) 
 Those holding that unbaptized infants would have any sort of 
 blessedness were to be cursed. (4) Those who refer the justi- 
 fying grace of Christ only to past sins are to be cursed. (5) 
 Those who see in grace enlightenment only and no power to 
 resist are to be cursed. (6) Those who do not see in grace an 
 absolutely necessary power to well-doing are to be cursed. (7) 
 Those who saw in confession only an expression of humility 
 (and not sacramental efficiency) were to be cursed.' And this 
 was the gist of Augustinianism as the church understood it! 
 
 The fact was that for the Greek church the freedom of the will 
 was never seriously in dispute. Profound as was the influence 
 of Augustine upon the Middle Ages, it was upon its piety rather 
 than upon its dogma. And it is capable of demonstration that 
 the freer, more human, more rationalistic, and more compre- 
 hensible view of the world taught by Pelagius, Coclestius, and 
 Julian of Eclana never lost its influence upon large numbers 
 
 ' C/. Harnack: "Dogmengeschichtc," vol. Ill, p. 172, note, edition 1897. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 245 
 
 of minds, although without doubt the system never had behind 
 it so representative and overwhelming a personality as that of 
 Augustine, whose very weaknesses (his entire acceptance of 
 popular Catholicism) made him acceptable to the half-paganized 
 church. 
 
 The actual piety and ethics of the period are, probably, far 
 better represented in the pages of Johannes Cassianus} His 
 "Institutes" and "Conferences" are of especial interest, not 
 because he consciously set about the ethical reformation of the 
 church, but because he proclaims the ideals that seemed to him 
 the highest, and which represent the monastic morality, which 
 was to be supreme in all its weakness and all its power for a 
 thousand years. The setting is called "semi-Pelagian" on the 
 basis of Collatio XIII of Abbot Chaevemon. But in point of 
 fact this represents the simple uncritical religious belief of ninety- 
 nine of one hundred Christians in all the centuries. 
 
 And the last man in the world to call an opinion his own was 
 Johannes Cassianius. He would have subscribed with all his 
 heart to the quod ubique, quod semper, quod ah omnibus of 
 Vincentius of Lerins.^ Nor can it be disputed successfully that 
 the system of Augustine was in reality as far away from any body 
 of doctrine thus described as was that of Pelagius. 
 
 The picture of the ethical ideals of the Catholic church is full 
 of the most significant contrasts. To dwell upon either side of 
 
 1 Johannes Cassianus, born about the year 360, Gennadius says in Scythia 
 (Catalogus 62), but perhaps confused by the Egyptian Scetis, Scete, or Scyathis, 
 where he spent much time. He died during the reign of Theodosius and of 
 Valentinian. His chief works are his "De coenobiorum institutis libri duo- 
 decim," the twenty-four " Collationes," and the seven books, "De incarnatione 
 Christi," against Nestorius. The best edition is the Vienna edition by Pet- 
 schenig, in "Corpus Scriptorum Ecclesiasticorum Latinorum," vol. XHI, parts 
 I and 2, in two volumes. In Migne, " Patrologia Latina," tomi duae, 49 et 50. 
 Translation in the "Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers," second series, vol. XI, 
 1894, pp. 161-621. See also for literature articles in "Dictionary of Christian 
 Biography" (Smith and Wace) and Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," III, 
 1897, pp. 746-749, by Griitzmacher, English translation, II, 1908, pp. 435-436- 
 Although less critical, we have used Migne for the sake of the most instructive 
 commentary by Alardus Gazeeus. 
 
 * "Commonitorius," II : 6. 
 
246 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 the picture, to think only of the shadows, or see nothing but the 
 high lights is equally to resolve history into an inexplicable 
 mystery. The shadows are very deep. Nothing could be more 
 revolting than the picture of a tortured and neglected child, 
 purposely beaten and starved to test the father's renunciation, 
 until at last he is told to throw the boy into the river, and proves 
 his "holiness" by doing so, when the wretched boy is rescued 
 by the monks.^ 
 
 And truly pathetic are some of the cases of artificial piety 
 with its sad issue in insanity, as where the old man Heron 
 flings himself into a well in obedience to a " vision" which, as he 
 dies from the effects, is attributed to a devil, and with difficulty 
 does he escape a suicide's disgraceful burial.^ Nor can one be 
 surprised at the low average intelligence indicated by the story 
 of the anthropomorphic struggle. The monks, namely, were 
 firmly of the opinion that God had hands and feet, and when 
 the spiritual character of God was proclaimed, poor old Serapion 
 (in actuali disciplina per omnia consumatus) was overwhelmed 
 by the proof that the Catholic church taught it. But it left 
 him desolate. " They have taken away my God," he exclaimed.' 
 He had no one to adore or address! Of course, in common 
 with even the cultivated men of the age the popular piety was 
 childishly credulous. Miracles abound,^ and it is hard to acquit 
 such an one as Sulpitio Severus of deliberate pious lying.' 
 Moreover, the worship and life have become formal, rigid, and 
 complicated to an extraordinary degree,* and the ethics begins 
 increasingly to harden into a casuistry with grades of merit, 
 and classified in two divisions of venial and deadly sins.'' More- 
 
 ' "De Coenob. Instit.," 4 : 27. " "Collatio," II : 5. 
 
 ' Hcu me miserum! tulerunt a me Deum raeum, et quern nunc teneam non 
 habeo, vel quem adorem aut interpellem jam nesciol "Collatio.," X : 3. 
 (MPL, 49, 824 B.) 
 
 * Cf. "Collatio," XV : 3-5. « Cf. Vita S. Martinii. 
 
 •"De Coenob. Instit.," lib. I et II. 
 
 ' "Nam . . . nunc arripere colluctationem adversus octo principalia vitia 
 vestris orationibus, Domino confortante, disponimus, id est, primum gastri- 
 margiae, quae intcrprctatur gula; concupiscentia; secundum fornicationis; 
 tertium philargyriae, quod intelligitur avaritia, vel ut propius exprimatur, amor 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 247 
 
 over, as always happens when ethics becomes legal, the art of 
 escape from impossible positions develops a defence of deceit 
 and untruthfulness born of conscientious scruples. Very in- 
 structive is the discussion ^ as to whether solemnly given promises 
 and vows may not be broken in the interests of the higher spiritual 
 welfare. And Abbot Joseph proves from Scripture that lying 
 and deceit are often the lesser evils, and therefore to be chosen. 
 Indeed this whole discussion is a fitting prelude to the casuistry 
 which has brought Jesuitism into such bad repute.^ 
 
 Dreadfully prominent in the ethical ideals of this age is the 
 separation between "good works" and social purpose. Obedi- 
 ence of the most slavish kind is exalted as a virtue per se. A 
 monk waters a stick for years at the behest of his superior 
 merely to test his obedience,^ and hard work at useless tasks is 
 constantly praised. This unnatural separation of virtue from 
 its social meaning results in actual brutality. A monk is praised 
 for burning loving letters from home unread, lest they distract 
 him from his prayers.^ A brother refuses the simplest act of 
 assistance to his brother on the basis of his "being dead" to the 
 world.^ A husband deserts a loving wife, to "save his soul," ^ 
 and although it is evident that Cassianus is not quite sure of his 
 ground, yet he praises the husband's conduct, while making a 
 half-hearted excuse for marriage. The ideal is a false suppres- 
 sion of natural and legitimate human desires, and results, of 
 course, in all kinds of questionable conduct. Above all, the 
 gratia castitatis is, of course, most especially praised, and most 
 questionable means of testing and proving it are suggested.' 
 
 pecunise; quartum irae, quintum tristitiae; sextum acediae (dxrySia), quod est 
 anxietas, sive tsedium cordis; septimum cenodoxise, quod sonat vana seu inanis, 
 gloria; octavum superbise," "De Ccenobiorum Instit.," V, i. (MPL, XklX 
 202 D, 203 A.) 
 
 i"Collatio," XVII :i-20. 
 
 ^ Cf. Newman's "Apologia pro Vita sua," edition 1885, notes F and G. 
 
 ' "De Coenob. Instit.," lib. IV : 24. 
 
 * "De Coenob. Instit.," lib. V : 32. 
 
 « " Collatio," XXIV : 9. * " CoUatio," XXI : 9-10. 
 
 " Most sadly suggestive are the notes given in the Commentary of Alardus 
 Gazseus to "Collatio," XIX, caput 16, note b, Migne, torn. 49, col. 1146. 
 
248 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The anchorite is placed as a matter of necessary logic higher 
 than the monk in the cenobium/ but this course of his has 
 given the palm to the milder compromise. It is pathetic in the 
 extreme to read the careful and most interesting psychological 
 analyses of the mental states produced by the unnatural life of 
 the monk. "The sixth struggle is what the Greeks call uKrjSia, 
 which we may render weariness and anxiety of heart.^ It is 
 like melancholia, and is particularly severe with the hermit 
 and a constant and dangerous foe of the solitary, attacking the 
 monk at the sixth hour, as does a fever with its burning heat 
 the sick man, at regular intervals . . . and when it seizes 
 some miserable one, he conceives a horror of the place, an utter 
 disgust of his cell; of his brethren also with him or near him it 
 begets disdain and contempt, as negligent and unspiritual." ' The 
 whole description is saddening in the extreme. The unnatural 
 strain producing all manner of mental disorders, and giving rise 
 to visions, dreams, and fantastic modes of life which were then 
 variously interpreted as either the visitation of angels or the 
 attacks of demons. 
 
 The gracia castitatis giving rise to the natural pathological 
 consequences^ and coloring the whole ecclesiastical ethical devel- 
 opment in a most unhappy way.^ 
 
 At the same time, dark as are the shadows, the picture as a 
 whole gives promise of better things. The conception of work, 
 and that in the main useful work, as the chief remedy for the 
 languor, pride, melancholia, and "accedia" is strongly insisted 
 upon, not only by Cassianus, but by the whole literature of 
 
 * Preface to the "Collationes." 
 
 ' Taedium sive anxietatem cordis. 
 
 ' "Do Coenob. Instit.," lib. X : r and 2. 
 
 *C/."De Coenobiorum Instit.," XII : 20, "Novi quemdam do fratrum nu- 
 mero, . . . qui probatissimo cuidam senum vitio carnis semetipsum gravissimo 
 confessus est impugnari; nam contra usum natura; desiderio patiendi magis 
 quam inferendi ignominiam intolcrabili aistu libidinis urebatur." The unhappy 
 brother was accused of blasphemy and thus the disorder was traced directly to 
 the devil. (MPL, 49, 457 B.) Cf. CrafTt-Ebing Psyrhopathia Se.xualis, 1894 
 (9th ed.), pp. 89-150. 
 
 * C/. Harnack: "Dogmengcschichtc," vol. Ill (1S97), note i, p. 204. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 249 
 
 Western monasticism at its best. In spite of theory and logic, 
 the social monastery supplanted the loosely attached hermit 
 gatherings, and almost entirely displaced the anchorite. The 
 keen psychological analysis that marks both the "Institutiones" 
 and the " Collationes" ^ is superior to anything the writer knows 
 in classic literature, and reflects the process by which the in- 
 wardness and immediacy of the sense of sin came to its own in 
 human thinking. 
 
 Amidst all the unnatural perversions of the monastic ideals, 
 common-sense comes often to its rights. The familiar story of 
 John, who defends his playing with his tame partridge on the 
 ground that the bow must not always be bent, reveals the human 
 side.^ 
 
 In the ethical ideals we see the almost extreme emphasis upon 
 the inner life as the determining element in conduct. Angry 
 acts may be wholly avoided and the soul be in mortal sin because 
 of angry thoughts.^ All hate and passion must be banished, 
 and love must hold absolute sway as the source of all goodness.^ 
 Moreover, this love is independent of either the fear of hell or 
 the longing for heaven,'^ and becomes the strong barrier against 
 all sin. 
 
 In spite of the dualistic remains in theory, at least, the Mani- 
 chean estimate of body is overcome and the substantive character 
 of sin is denied. As with Augustine, so in Cassianus and in the 
 popular ethical estimate, sin is negative and not created by God, 
 but only permitted. 
 
 The character of God is, of course, drawn far too much as 
 Judge and Law-giver and too little as loving and forgiving Father. 
 Yet this description is never wholly lacking, and such a passage 
 as "Collatio," III : 7, leaves nothing to be desired in the way 
 of evangelical fervor. God is longing for the salvation of the 
 
 * Cf. such passages as "De Coenob. Instit.," XII : 27, 29, 30. 
 
 2"Collatio," XXIV :2i. 
 
 ' "De Coenob. Instit.," lib. VIII : 20. * "Collatio," XI : 9-13. 
 
 ^"Collatio," XI : 8, "Et est quidem in illis gradus cujusdam profectus im- 
 buens nos, ut dum vel poenarum metu, vel pra;miorum spe incipimus vitia de- 
 clinare, ad charitatis gradum transire possimus." (MPL, 49, 854 c.) 
 
 L^ 
 
250 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 sinner, and all the most familiar passages of loving grace and 
 forgiveness are beautifully grouped together. The practical con- 
 sequences of Augustinianism are avoided, even if the resulting 
 synergism is philosophically as unsatisfactory as a similar at- 
 tempt on the part of Melanchthon.* ' 
 
 On the religious and ethical side, moreover, all the really im- 
 portant elements are carefully guarded. Fasting has no merit 
 in itself, but is only a means to an end, and merit cannot be 
 acquired as over against God.^ Man is responsible, but all 
 good things come from God, including the gift of penitence, 
 which must be from the heart, and is faithfully and even beauti- 
 fully described.^ Language is, of course, used whose import is 
 very different. The vulgar conception, however, of work-right- 
 eousness is constantly disowned, and God's free grace constantly 
 proclaimed. Here, however, as elsewhere, two completely differ- 
 ent views are brought together in no vital union either philoso- 
 phically or religiously. And the component parts of the Catholic 
 synthesis often creak against each other in great disjointment. 
 
 Perhaps one of the most instructive comparisons between 
 classic paganism and the Christian-catholic synthesis is furnished 
 by Cassianus's treatise on friendship as compared with Cicero's 
 "De Amicitia." Everything that Cicero has Cassianus almost 
 entirely lacks. Form, wit, grace, beauty of expression, and 
 gentle dalliance with feeling, all are missing. But Cassianus 
 has, beneath all the conventional devotionalism, that of which 
 Cicero had no conception, namely, the union of souls in the 
 eternal purpose of redeemed life. Even the Protestant critic, 
 utterly out of accord with all the sacramentarian and, from his 
 point of view, pagan monasticism, must feel the warm, solemn 
 earnestness of the religious life that pulses through the " friend- 
 ship" of Cassianus, but which is utterly lacking in Cicero. 
 
 We have dwelt on Cassianus just because, while he is not 
 original, nor yet a leader, nor even a new formulator of the 
 thought of his day, he does so abundantly, clearly, and deliber- 
 
 »C/. "Collatio," XIII : i8. 
 
 ' "Collatio," XXI : 14. ' "Collatio," XX : 1-12. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 251 
 
 ately reflect what the great, nay, overwhelming, mass of the 
 Christian church officially thought about God, conduct, and the 
 world. In him we see how the ethical ideal has a synthesis, into 
 which elements from Judaism, Neo-platonism, Aristotehanism, 
 Roman Stoicism, African paganism, Persian dualism, Egyptian 
 and oriental mystery-worship all entered; but that the strength 
 and unity of this synthesis was the imperial hope of a kingdom 
 of righteousness, and the real inwardness and glow came still 
 from the life of Jesus of Nazareth, even though that life was only 
 known in interpretations of it that varied in character and power 
 from Paul to the superstitious anchorite of the Egyptian desert. 
 We must begin to seriously regard Christianity, as we know it, 
 as the greatest and most successful of the great syncretistic 
 religious movements in human history, and freely recognize the 
 fact that we are debtors to the Greek and the Roman, to the 
 bond and the free, and equally seriously begin to segregate the 
 weak and beggarly elements, whatsoever may be their source, 
 and to strengthen those things that remain as the gift of God 
 from whatever quarter he sends them. The tests being the 
 appropriate tests for the discovery of truth; and on the ethical 
 field the final test being fitness for the promotion of individual 
 and social righteousness in the divine-human fellowship of the 
 kingdom of God. 
 
 VII. THE ETHICS OF THE COUNCILS 
 
 The division between the East and West was long postponed. 
 The intense feeling that organic unity furnished a guarantee for 
 the truth handed down, as well as political considerations, 
 made both the great wings of the church careful about division. 
 Yet the two churches had most distinctly different aims and 
 methods. The real intellectual leadership long remained with 
 the East. The pohtical leadership was almost as undisputed by a 
 possession of the West. The councils that settled the great 
 dogmatic questions were all under Eastern influence, but were 
 then accepted by Rome as the authentic formulators of her 
 
252 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 teachings. Not, indeed, that Rome's interest was ever primarily 
 dogmatic or theological. Indeed, it is quite evident that in many 
 cases Rome had no very intelligent interest in many of the 
 questions at issue. Even when such a bishop as Leo inter- 
 posed to lead a dispute, it is easy to see in that leadership the pre- 
 dominance of the political over the abstract intellectual interest. 
 
 With the dogmatic development of the councils we have 
 nothing to do, but the infallible authority of the council was not 
 confined to dogma, but covered also matters of discipline; and 
 the development of canon law was, according to the faith of the 
 early church, a divinely inspired development. That is to say 
 the authority was based on the divine leadership supposed to be 
 assured to the bishops in council, and therefore different in 
 character from the ordinary results of human intelligence, so that 
 when the ecumenical council spoke, it spoke with inspired 
 wisdom. 
 
 Interesting as are the canons of the councils,^ both to the stu- 
 dent of the historical development and the social investigator, 
 the dogmatic interest is so overwhelming that the student of 
 ethics comes away from the study disappointed. We have 
 already glanced at the canons of Bishop Basil (pp. 209, 210), 
 and in them is reflected the same organization interest which 
 appears throughout. 
 
 A few characteristic touches, however, may be noticed in 
 passing. In the ecumenical synod of Nice all interest is for- 
 
 > The classic work is Hefele, " Conciliengeschichte," 1890 (English translation 
 by Wm. R. Clark, "History of the Christian Councils," 1S71, seq.), where 
 abundant bibliographical material is given. See also Schafl's " Creeds of Chris- 
 tendom," three vols., 1877. We have also thankfully used Bishop Beveridge's 
 " 2i;v65tKo»', sive Pandecta; Canonum S. S. Apostolorum, et Conciliorum ab Ec- 
 clesia Gra;ca receptorum," tomi I et II, 1672 (Greek and Latin). One or two 
 of our references are also to Mansi's "Concilia," 1759, simply because at hand. 
 The translation of the canons and decrees by Dr. Henry R. Percival and his co- 
 workers IS well done ("The Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers," second scries, 
 vol. XIV: "The Seven Ecumenical Councils," 1900), but the notes and omis- 
 sions betray the unconscious bias of one who can say: " I accept all the doctrinal 
 decrees of the Seven Ecumenical Synods as infallible and irrcformable," p. ix 
 of Preface. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 253 
 
 bidden on money loaned by the clergy.* Increasingly the canons 
 restrict the prophetic freedom. As soon as the church could 
 she forbade free religious assembly,^ and appealed, alas, to the 
 civil authority to suppress those "meetings for private worship" 
 which had been her own life so long! 
 
 At the same council access to the emperor is reserved for the 
 higher ecclesiastics,^ and wandering teachers are hindered from 
 proclaiming their message. According to canon VI of Laodicea 
 heretics were not permitted to enter the house of God while in 
 heresy, and the same council decreed that "no one shall join 
 with heretics or schismatics in prayers." * 
 
 In Chalcedon the monastery is finally subjected to the bishop;' 
 and secret societies and conspiracy are forbidden^ as dangerous, 
 no doubt, to episcopal authority. 
 
 There are some interesting glimpses at the ethical level 
 afforded by the canons. "Those who forcibly carry away 
 women under pretext of marriage, and the abettors of such 
 ravishers, ij they be clergymen, shall be degraded." ' Simony 
 has constantly to be enacted against, and covetousness, secular 
 occupation, and absorption in money-getting are constantly 
 rebuked. Some superstitions are also denounced; as, for in- 
 stance, the giving of the sacraments to the dead ^ and the wearing 
 of amulets." The playing with dice, the attendance upon hunts, 
 theatric performances, theatric dances are forbidden to clerics,*" 
 who are also ordered to wear clerical dress." One curious 
 provision forbids the taking of the testimony of "slaves, freed- 
 men, actors, heretics, heathen or Jews." *^ 
 
 ' I Nice, Canon XVII; see also Laodicea, Canon IV, and cf. also African 
 Codex, Canon V. 
 
 2 Antioch, Canons II and V, and Gangra, VI. 
 
 3 Antioch, XI. * Canon XXXIII. 
 s Canon IV. 
 
 « Canon XXXIV. Cf. Chalcedon, Canon XVIII. 
 
 ^ Chalcedon, Canon XXVII. Cf. also Trullan 92. 
 
 8 African Code, Canon XVIII; cf. I Cor. 15 : 29. 
 
 » Laodicea, Canon XXXVI. 
 
 "> Trullan L and LI. " Trullan XXVII. 
 
 '2 African Code, Canon CXXIX. 
 
254 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 What strikes the student of ethics is the steady supplanting of 
 the ethical interest by the dogmatic and organization points of 
 view, and the steady separation of the clergy into a caste in which 
 the celibate requirements play a most prominent and unfortu- 
 nate part. 
 
 The development of the ecclesiastical mind and temper is 
 plainly marked, and the unfortunate relations between the 
 empire and the church, however great may have been the bene- 
 fits, were constantly tending to make the ethics into a corpus 
 juris, and to harden the whole treatment of ethics into a rather 
 bloodless casuistry, with all the attendant unethical conse- 
 quences. 
 
 The conciliar utterances are not engaged in stemming the tide 
 of pagan intrusion which steadily flows into the stream of the 
 ecclesiastical development. 
 
 It is one of the vivid illustrations of the uselessness of external 
 infallible authority that not even the reverence for the letter 
 of Scripture could stop the crassest idolatry and most vulgar 
 witchcraft being foisted on the church in the name of Jesus 
 'and his disciples. In point of fact the doctrinal and ethical 
 I development was quite as dependent upon heathen philosophy 
 as upon the New Testament for the form and method of its 
 growth, and with the philosophy entered the pagan superstitions 
 from which the philosophy had never wholly freed itself.^ For 
 the learned even these things were dangerous (Augustine and 
 his doctrine of demons), for the ignorant they were fatal. It 
 resulted in the maintenance under other names of popular pagan 
 superstitions without number. 
 
 We have seen how the mystery cult and the sacrament soon 
 coalesced, and in the rites of baptism and the Lord's Supper, as 
 by open doors, there entered the whole cycle of pagan magic 
 conceptions, utterly undermining in the vulgar mind the ethical 
 values of the simple symbolism. It was, no doubt, through this 
 door that the cult of the dead (Egypt) also made its easy way. 
 No doctrine came with greater force to a perishing social organ- 
 
 ' Platu and the symbolic explanations of the myths. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 255 
 
 ization than Paul's proclamation of the resurrection-life. It 
 was identified almost at once with purification by baptism, so 
 that the baptized were "buried with Christ" and rose to a new 
 life. 
 
 Soon also the sacrament of the Lord's Supper with its mystic 
 interpretation (Johannine Logos theology) was the partaking of 
 the divine life and the entrance from death into life. The 
 saint and martyr were soon accorded special honor as hav- 
 ing completed the work begun in sacramental mystery, and 
 their relics were soon "reverenced," ^ and by the vulgar soon 
 worshipped.^ It is quite vain to emphasize this distinction as 
 important. No really intelligent pagan ever thought the statue 
 made by hands really divine, but regarded it as a " help to devo- 
 tion." The struggle over the worship of pictures was, however, 
 in vain. The iconoclasts were wellnigh as superstitious as the 
 picture-worshippers. Their arguments are based upon the 
 essential wrong of any attempt at the portrayal of Christ because 
 it implicitly denies his divinity, and the mother of God was not 
 to be painted because painting was a heathenish art.' 
 
 Indeed the iconoclastic agitation came from without. Per- 
 haps the Mahometan movement, with its military pictureless 
 fanaticism, was the moving factor in the mind of the iconoclastic 
 emperors and army. 
 
 Whether Vigilantius really represented an intelligent rejection 
 of saint-worship and eco«-superstition we do not know. We 
 have only the intemperate and scurrilous abuse of Jerome as the 
 source of our information. Canon Gilly's interesting book* 
 leaves us still guessing and very much in the dark. One thing 
 is certain, the council of Nicaea (787) settled the question for 
 both East and West, and settled it wrongly. For however the 
 educated may guard against the puerile materialism represented 
 in the image-cult, all historical experience has shown that the 
 ignorant cannot be guarded against it, and that it debases wor- 
 ship swiftly and surely. 
 
 * irpoffKvveiv. * \arpeiv. ' " ConciHabuIum, Constantinople," 754. 
 
 *" Vigilantius and His Times," 1844. 
 
256 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 As a matter of fact it simply opened the door to the worship of 
 the heathen gods, which had probably never really ceased under 
 other names. Mary becomes the Queen of Heaven, and the 
 saints and apostles take the places of favorite demi-gods and 
 pagan heroes. Their relics are worshipped, and a canon orders 
 all churches to be supplied with them.^ 
 
 In fact a crude Gnosticism prevailed, in which access to the 
 highest divinity was only to be obtained by the intervention of 
 intermediate demi-gods. Mary became toward the close of this 
 period the influential intermediary between God and man, so 
 that Nestorius protests against making her a goddess. She 
 becomes the Bride of the Holy Spirit, the Mother of God 
 (Athanasius), and to this day is the centre of a superstitious 
 cycle of legends borrowed from pagan antiquity. 
 
 This period is constantly haunted by fears of Judaism. One 
 of the canons of Laodicea ' forbids Christians to Judaize by 
 "resting on the Sabbath day. They must work on that day, 
 rather seeking to honor the Lord's day, and i} they can by resting 
 on that day." But in spite of this fear, through Judaism also 
 came pouring in a flood of superstitions and ritual formahties. 
 The Judaism of Christ's time had become dreadfully corrupt. 
 Angel and devil worship, probably of Babylonian-Persian origin, 
 had left many traces upon it. 
 
 Even the canonical Scriptures, though so generally representing 
 the purifying processes introduced by propheticism in the eighth 
 and seventh centuries, nevertheless contained many memories of 
 the more primitive paganism out of which Judaism had so 
 slowly emerged. Upon these remnants of heathenism the atten- 
 tion of the church was all too often fixed. It was a great gain 
 in many respects that the Old Testament had received full 
 canonical authority together with the New Testament writings. 
 But at the same time it involved serious losses. The knowledge 
 
 ' II Nice, Canon VII: "And if any bishop shall henceforth proceed to conse- 
 crate a church without holy relics, he shall be degraded as a transgressor against 
 churchly traditions." Cf. also Canon XVII of the Sixth Synod of Carthage. 
 (Hefele, II, Edinburgh, 1876, p. 426.) ' Canon XXIX. 
 
THE OLD CATHOLIC OR BISHOP'S CHURCH 257 
 
 of its pages was utterly uncritical and unhistorical. It involved 
 the reintroduction of false conceptions of sacrifice and of out- 
 worn conceptions of physical purification from which Jesus 
 sought to free us, and they still hold their place in even some 
 Protestant circles/ 
 
 The Gnostic Judaism of a Philo, with the artificial interpreta- 
 tion characteristic of the school played havoc with the Scripture 
 reading of the early fathers, and made the Old and New Testa- 
 ments ready sources for the defence of any particular superstition 
 that served the momentary purpose of the ecclesiastical impe- 
 rialism.^ 
 
 At this stage the Eastern church hardened into the religious 
 organization which it has remained almost up to the present. 
 The struggle with Rome engendered the undying hate that kept 
 the two communions apart, because subjection to the Vatican 
 was the only condition of union. True, the final break was long 
 postponed,^ and yet the break with Leo IX (1054) and the final 
 rupture in 1204 were but the seals on what was really accom- 
 plished in the struggle over Photius (858).* 
 
 For the student of the unrolling of a Christian morality the 
 pages of the history of the Eastern church have an unending 
 interest, but for the history of a development of ethics as a 
 theory of conduct the book is closed with the canons of the second 
 Nicaean council. 
 
 ' Instructive is Ambrose "de Officiis Ministrorum," lib. I, c. 50, to which 
 reference was made on p. 205. 
 
 ^ "Jerome contra Jo\4nianum," lib. II, cap. 15. 
 
 ' C/. Miiller, Karl: " Kirchengeschichte," vol. I (1892), pp. 369-372. 
 
 * Cf. Bonwetsch, G. N. : " Griechisch-orthodoxes Christentum und Kirche in 
 Mittelalter und Neuzeit," in P. Hinneberg's series; "Die Kultur der Gegen- 
 wart," teil I, Abteil. 4 (1905), pp. 161-182, and Kattenbusch, F.: " Orientalische 
 Kirche," in Herzog-Hauck's " Realencyklopadie," XIV (1904), pp. 436-467. 
 
CHAPTER V 
 THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 
 
 I. The Separation of the East from the West; The Intellectual Elements 
 and the Cult; The Political Ambition — II. Relations of Church and 
 State in the Two Wings of Christianity; Gregory I; Bede — III. The 
 Missionary Movement and the Monastery; Augustine; Bonifacius; 
 Alcuin — IV. The Actual Working Ethics of the Roman Church; The 
 Slave Question; Woman; Land Question; Dignity of Labor; Law. 
 
 I. THE SEPARATION OF THE EAST FROM THE WEST 
 
 Early in the history of organized Christianity, even before 
 the days of Leo I (440-461), the distinct difference in spirit 
 between the Eastern and the Western churches became evident. 
 For some time the African church formed a connecting link 
 between the two, but as the centres of activity moved northward, 
 and as Islam advanced, she ceased to influence the destiny of 
 either branch. 
 
 In the East the metaphysical and the dogmatic interests had 
 been supreme. But the crushing weight of Byzantianism trans- 
 formed the life of the Eastern church. The old excuse of 
 Constantine for the establishment of Christianity was the unity 
 of the empire. From that fatal day the Eastern church became, 
 and remains to a large degree, the mere tool of autocracy, with 
 ignorance as its chief weapon. 
 
 The cult then took the place of any intellectual interest. 
 Hence the struggle in the Eastern church over the icons was 
 characteristic as a turning-point in her history, and from the 
 triumph of those who substituted cult for thought the Eastern 
 church almost ceases to interest the student of theoretical ethics. 
 This triumph was due to the monks, whose fierce insistence upon 
 the legitimacy of the worship of images carried the day. The 
 
 358 
 
THE militant' PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 259 
 
 interest of the anti-picture party, with the iconoclastic emperors 
 at their head, was hardly confined to the establishment of a 
 purer type of worship; it was the demand for a simpler basis of 
 church unity and for freedom from the dominance of the mon- 
 astery. And its deepest root was in the subordination of all 
 other interests to those of cult correctness. 
 
 Hence the increasing ethical barrenness of the Eastern litera- 
 ture from St. Maximus the Confessor (580-662, about) to the 
 voluminous and most influential John 0} Damascus.^ The 
 liturgical and ritual development is rich, and if varied in value 
 yet remains a wonderful product of religious genius.^ At the 
 same time the energies seem to have been absorbed so com- 
 pletely in this direction and in the doctrinal disputes that the 
 ethical suffered distinct eclipse. 
 
 On the other hand, it was a matter of life or death for the 
 Roman church to impose her culture and her ideals upon the 
 strong rude invaders from the north. That these were in 
 many cases already nominal Christians prepared the way, but 
 from Rome's point of view did not lessen her duty, for nothing 
 less than complete subordination to Rome could fulfil the 
 dream that had taken the place of the primitive conception of a 
 spiritual kingdom of God. Not the Pope only but the serious- 
 minded began to long for visible imperial unity again under 
 religious leadership. 
 
 *John of Damascus (about 676-754), the great Greek theologian whose 
 works are epoch-making for Byzantine dogmatic Christianity. Cf. Katten- 
 busch, F.: "Johannes von Damaskus," in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," 
 IX, 1901, pp. 286-300; and for the controversy about images in which he played 
 a principal part, see Bonwetsch, G. N.: " Bilderverehrung und Bilderstreit," in 
 Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," II, 1897, pp. 221-226; Schwarzlose, 
 Karl: "Der Bilderstreit, ein Kampf der griechischen Kirche um ihre Eigenart 
 und um ihre Freiheit," Gotha, 1890, and the discussion in F. Kattenbusch's 
 "Lehrbuch der vergleichenden Confessionskunde," I, Freiburg, 1892, pp. 
 
 456-475- 
 
 2 See Neale, J. M. : " History of the Holy Eastern Church," 1850, Introduction, 
 part I, book III, pp. 317-526; also "Christ et Paranikas, Math. Anthologia 
 Graeca carminum Christianorum adornaverunt," Leipsic, 187 1, with interesting 
 introduction on the liturgical use of the hymn. 
 
26o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Hence we pass in our history almost completely away from 
 the East to follow the ethical development under the skilful 
 and ofttimes unscrupulous, but generally forceful, leadership of 
 the Roman hierarchy. 
 
 From the time of Leo I (440-461) to Gregory I (590-604) 
 the church is still the Bishop's church. Even Gregory I was 
 profuse in his humble disclaimer of all supreme titles,^ while 
 claiming for Rome powers of most arrogant interference with 
 the internal affairs of other dioceses. Under the shrewd and 
 forceful leadership of Gregory I we see the Roman church and 
 the ethical ideals assume a distinct and permanent character. 
 
 The new factor in the situation is the rising Germanic civiliza- 
 tion overgrowing and mastering the remains of Hellenistic 
 power and culture. It was with true and sure instinct that 
 Gregory I turned to Gaul and England as the future fields for 
 Rome's activity. At the same time this transference of interest 
 marks the growing separation between East and West. 
 
 As the conquests of Islam from this on weakened the African 
 church and absorbed the energies of the East, Rome turned 
 with increasing concentration of purpose to the subjugation of 
 a new world. 
 
 Rome accepted as the basis for her mission the dogmatic con- 
 struction handed over to her by the East. The intrusion of 
 Leo I upon the field of dogmatic discussion had no real intel- 
 lectual interest, but was simply the excuse for the assertion of 
 central and final authority. 
 
 Dogmatic discussion goes on, it is true, but it is increasingly 
 subordinated to questions of authority and cult. Both in the 
 East and the West intellectual interest is almost wholly swal- 
 lowed up in practical purpose. Even the remains of Hellenistic 
 curiosity in the Eastern church are taken up with small details, 
 and it is noteworthy that the disputes arc about no great new 
 dogmatic issues, but only concern the bringing of the Arian 
 heretics under the sway of Rome and the fixing of the cult 
 (Easter celebration, fasts, etc.). 
 
 ' Epis., V. 18; cj. Giescler, I, 2, p. 228. 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 261 
 
 It is perfectly evident as one studies the life work of such an 
 Eastern leader as Photius,^ that national or perhaps better, sec- 
 tional feeling, the pride of history and tongue (Latin a "barbar- 
 ous tongue"), the conception of life, the social ideals, had quite 
 as much to do with the ecclesiastical schism as any doctrinal 
 divergence. The tottering neo-Greek world could not and did 
 not understand the new power rising in the West. The Roman 
 pontiff did comprehend it in a measure, and as Rome died to 
 Eastern sway she rose again to Western domination. 
 
 II. THE RELATION OF CHURCH AND STATE 
 
 The most complicated question the student of Christian 
 ethics has to face is the relation of the Church to the State. It 
 is involved in the whole complicated history of feudalism. 
 
 As a new social order rose on the basis of the great Roman 
 estates, and the German and Frankish communal customs,^ the 
 question that had to be answered on all sides was what relation 
 the organized church was to bear to the new powers. Here 
 Rome's claim to rule as over-lord in the name of Christ all the 
 newly rising kingdoms of the north began to be formulated. 
 From the time of Leo I onward this struggle for place in the 
 
 * Photius, patriarch of Constantinople from about 857 to 867 and 
 878-886; died about 897. Cf. Kattenbusch, F.: "Photius," in Herzog- 
 Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," XV., 1904, pp. 374-393, where the abundant 
 literature is given. His chief works were "Bibliotheca" or " Myriobiblon" 
 (Latin translation by Schott, 1653), in which he reviews some 280 works 
 with extracts {cf. Migne, "Pat. Greca" torn. 101-104); the " Amphilochia" 
 {cf. Hergenrother, J.: "Photius, Patriarch von Constantinopel, sein Leben, 
 seine Schriften und das griechische Schisma," vol. Ill, p. 36), and his 
 letters (Migne); also the author of many polemical works and miscellaneous 
 tracts. 
 
 * For the literature of feudalism, see besides the standard histories an 
 admirable little summary in Robinson, Jas. H. : "An Introduction to the 
 History of Western Europe" (Boston, 1903), pp. 104-119. Much remains 
 to be done in detailed investigation, as, for instance, the fidelity-oath to the 
 English king which changed the land laws of England. But on the whole 
 the main outline of the rise of feudalism is now settled. See Emerton, 
 Ephraim: "Medieval Europe, 814-1300," (Boston, 1894), chap. 14., pp. 
 477-508- 
 
262 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 new social order dominates the whole situation. Every bishop, 
 every monastery, indeed, nearly every church, had property 
 interests to be guarded in the new distribution of power and 
 authority. 
 
 True it is that this struggle involved the church of necessity in 
 all manner of palpable contradictions. For her mission of 
 culture and education she needed both property and authority 
 while professing to disclaim both. She had no thought-out 
 doctrine of the relation of Church to State. The old tradition of 
 the State as a hostile power came down from the pre-Constantine 
 days, and survives with a measure of truth to this day. On the 
 other hand, from Constantine on the peace that had been 
 established between the Church and State in the Eastern world 
 never ceased to be the model for all the rising temporal authori- 
 ties in the West, for this meant a large subordination of the 
 Church to the State. 
 
 With this solution Rome, even at her worst, was never quite 
 satisfied. She was constantly, though not always equally con- 
 sciously, struggling for over-lordship in the fullest sense of that 
 term, and her relative success still haunts her dreams, even 
 though feudalism is most palpably a thing of the past. 
 
 It is evident that the State is a means of culture, and human 
 experience has accepted it as quite as "divine" in its activity 
 as any other agency for human progress is a "divine" agency. 
 But Rome could not and cannot even to-day shake off the dual- 
 ism that establishes a world-wide difference between that which 
 is "secular" and that which is "sacred." The claim to mediate 
 as by her magic between two worlds seemed too important to sur- 
 render. Hence Rome was bound to enforce her supreme claim 
 as over-lord because the "secular" must be secondary in real 
 importance to the " sacred." * Hence the struggle of the militant 
 
 * Gregory I says in the preface to his " Moralium": " Blessed Job is bidden 
 to intercede for them (the friends) because the sacrifice of heretics can never 
 be acceptable to God unless offered for them by the hands of the universal 
 church, so that by her merits they may obtain again salvation (remedium 
 salutis inveniant) whom by the arrows of their words they did assail 
 wounding her." VIII : 17. 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 263 
 
 papacy for feudal power and acknowledged supremacy. In this 
 struggle the organization was bound to suffer all kinds of injury. 
 When she was successful, ambitious men took advantage of her 
 success for their selfish purposes. When her leadership was 
 weak, the same selfishness despoiled and robbed her of her 
 possessions. 
 
 These facts stared Gregory I,^ " the Greai,^^ in the face when 
 he was called to take charge of " his rotten, leaky vessel." ^ The 
 church had no force available to wring from the wild Lombard- 
 ians any real acknowledgment of her claims. She had to turn 
 in her dire need to the emperor, and from him Gregory had to 
 seek confirmation of his election. The painful results of such an 
 attitude of dependence upon a corrupt State is nowhere seen 
 more plainly than in the attitude of Gregory himself to the 
 murderous Phocas and his equally guilty wife.^ And when we 
 
 ' Gregory the Great, I, was Bishop of Rome from 590 to 604. He was 
 born of noble and wealthy parents, probably about 540. Pope Felix III 
 was one among his ancestors. He gave up his property and high official 
 position to become a monk, from which vocation he was compelled by 
 popular clamor to take up the bishopric of Rome. At least so we are told 
 in the two short lives given in Migne, " Pat. Lat.," tom. 75, by Deacon Paul, 
 cols. 41-60, and Deacon John, in four books, cols. 59-242. His works 
 are volumnious (Migne, " Pat. Lat.," 75-78). Most instructive for us are his 
 letters, and his commentary upon Job, in 35 books. C/. Walther, W.: 
 " Gregor I," in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," VII, 1899, pp. 
 78-89, and Lau, G. J. Th.: "Gregor I, der Grosse, nach seinem Leben 
 und seiner Lehre geschildert" (Leipsic, 1845), particularly the 14th chap, 
 of part 2, pp. 527-541. The illustrations (adornata) to his life from his 
 own works in Migne, tom. 75, cols. 241-462 are suggestive. Cf. also 
 Baxmann, R.: "Die Politik der Papste von Gregor I bis Gregor VII," 
 Elberfeld, 1868-69, teil I, pp. 44-146. The Pastoral Rule and selected 
 Epistles are translated by James Barmby in the "Nicene and Post-Nicene 
 Fathers," second series, vol. XII, pp. 217-243, and vol. XII, pp. i-iii. 
 
 ^"Sed quia vetustam navim vehementerque confractam indignus ego 
 infirmusque suscepi (undique enim fluctus intrant, et quotidiana ac valida 
 tempestate quassatae putridae naufragium tabulas sonant)," . . . Epist. 
 liber I : 4. (MPL, 77, 447 B.) 
 
 ^ "Considerare cum gaudiis et magnis actionibus gratiarum libet quantas 
 omnipotenti Domino laudes debemus, quod, remoto jugo tristitise ad 
 libertatis tempora, sub imperiali benignitatis vestra; pietate pervenimus." 
 Epistolarum, Hber XIII, Epist. 38. When we think that this Phocas had 
 
264 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 turn to the actual morals of Gregory, as reflected in his very 
 wearisome exposition of Job, we see, not a system of ethical 
 thinking, but a conglomerate of oriental monkish quietism, of 
 pagan ethics dominated by imperial ambitions, and strangely 
 interwoven with real Christian feeling. 
 
 Here we see the materials of the culture by which the militant 
 papacy gained her primacy among the peoples of the north. 
 She came bearing an absolute authority. It is of slight importance 
 who wrote Job : the author was but the pen of the Holy Spirit.* 
 The trials are sent by Satan, as Job represents Christ, or Christ 
 in his church assailed by many enemies.^ Job's patience in his 
 trouble is typical of the saints' attitude toward the various 
 woes of life.^ The false friends are the heretics." Job himself 
 is typical of Christ, as his name implies,^ and as Job receives 
 double for all his losses, so also the saints will receive here one 
 blessedness, and after the resurrection twofold.^ Throughout 
 there is to be seen the "sensus historicus" and the "sensus alle- 
 goricus" and the " sensus moralis." Thus to fastidious souls are 
 offered various kinds of food.' The four cardinal virtues and 
 the three evangelical ones are offset by formidable lists of vices, 
 and free-will and predestination are both taught,* Life is a 
 series of struggles and temptations, and ascetic despondency 
 seent€d often about to gain the upper hand; ^ but we must have 
 joy even in our temptations and rise with new vigor for the con- 
 flict.*" The use or rather misuse of Scripture is everywhere 
 evident, and the contradictions and absurdities that mingle with 
 much good sense and real piety are characteristic of the day and 
 
 brutally slain the eight princes before the eye of the father and then mur- 
 dered the father whom Gregory had himself loaded with flattery and en- 
 treaty (c/. p:pistoljE III : 65; V : 20; V : 30; V : 40, etc.), the baseness of 
 the flattery fairly startles us. For Gregory was an upright man as few men 
 in history have been unselfish and upright. (MPL, 77 : 1287 C.) 
 
 ' Moralium, Prrefatio I : 2-3. ' Moralium, Prx-fatio IV : 9. 
 
 ' Prx'fatio V : 11. * Pr.tfatio VI : 15. 
 
 ' Moralium, Pr;cfatio VII : 16. * Moralium, Prrefatio X : 20. 
 
 ' Moralium, liber I : 36 : 56, and in IV. I. i sensus historicus. 
 
 ' Moralium II : 37 : 60; cf. with III : 14-27. 
 
 • Moralium IV : I (Rcc. V) i. " Moralium V : 17 : 34. 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 265 
 
 stage of the world's thought. There moves also throughout the 
 moralisms a tremendously serious purpose and courage. The 
 saint is armed and ready for all assaults, those of the sword of 
 war, the tongue of scorn, and against internal and external foes 
 of his peace.* Amidst all the really puerile reasonings and false 
 ethics there lives that faith that was to carry the half-culture of 
 the paganized church to the nations growing up in the north. 
 
 The world as we see it through the glasses of the ascetic monk- 
 autocrat was indeed a disordered world.^ And yet it is unhistor- 
 ical to forget that the world is always disordered, and that did 
 we know the lower world of Rome and Athens at their best we 
 would more vividly realize how disordered those worlds were 
 in spite of the high culture of a very few. 
 
 We must remember that the world of Athens compelled Socrates 
 to drink poison, sold Plato on the auction block into slavery, and 
 slew Aristotle with homesickness in lonely banishment; and 
 that the world of Rome thrust a golden needle through the tongue 
 of Cicero's dishonored head, rejoiced in the fearful brutalities 
 of the arena, and gave itself up to nameless excesses. 
 
 The almost childishly superstitious organization that claimed 
 the name Christian was probably not more haunted by the 
 ghosts of ignorance and primitive terror than the world at the 
 height of Athenian culture. But it was now a larger world. 
 The broken culture of the few was being made the possession of 
 the many. It suffered in transmission. Culture always does 
 so suffer even in our own day. But on the other hand there are 
 ethical values in the Moralium of Gregory the Great and the 
 sentences of Isidore of Seville which have no parallel in the 
 classic ethics of paganism. The softer virtues of love, penitence, 
 faith in the world-order, hope and joy in the triumph of virtue, 
 are not only present, but take their place in the organization of 
 the new world. 
 
 Much one could wish were otherwise in the morality of Greg- 
 
 • Moralium VI : 29 : 46. 
 
 ^ Cf. Sancti Gregorii Papaei Vita, ex ejus potissimum scriptis secens 
 adornata. Migne " Pat. Lat." torn. 75, cols. 241-462. 
 
266 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ory. It is the ascetic quietist type that is often most attractive 
 in him; but with all that we owe the monastery, it handed down 
 a perverted ideal and Gregory accepted fully this perverted view 
 of life. For him in theory the contemplative life was the full 
 life, and yet even he realized that for most men life must be a 
 struggle, and that on earth the "solitudo cordis" was only a 
 means to strengthen us for that struggle,^ He plainly realized 
 the need of compromise that the organized church might do her 
 work, and so accepts both imperialism and the monastery in spite 
 of all the contradictions that involved. 
 
 It is thus quite vain to attempt to systematize the thought of 
 Gregory the Great. All the elements of a world that was " in 
 process of becoming" were in him. Imperial ambition jostles 
 with world-flight. Love of the brethren is a fellow-servant of 
 hatred to the heretic. The family is praised and guarded, while 
 celibacy is lauded and forced upon the lower clergy. The 
 State is the guardian of the church and yet her leading rival. 
 Haughty and arrogant claims are set forth in the meek and 
 humble accents of a servant of the cross. Pagan and Christian 
 motives walk hand in hand in a seemingly lasting friendship. 
 
 There is really no use attempting to construct an ethical 
 system out of the massed-up contradictory elements that stare 
 the reader in the face. Nor did Gregory himself consciously 
 attempt any rationalization of the elements of conduct, faith, and 
 culture thus handed over simply for reproduction and practical 
 purposes. The age pressed for action rather than reflection. 
 The old struggle of imperial Rome was being carried on on 
 another field, and the struggle for power was only hampered by 
 rationalization. 
 
 Nor was the work of the unifying hierarchy badly done by 
 Gregory I. He was in many ways a truly great ethical factor. 
 He was a real monk, with far more of the inwardness of the 
 monastery ethical type than, for instance, Gregory VII. His 
 services to the music of Europe are immortal. Not the music 
 founded on erotic dance, nor even the melody of the laughing 
 
 ' Moralium XXX : i6 : 52-55. 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 267 
 
 South have taken the place of primacy in the worid of music; 
 but the solemn choral based on the churchly chant echoes 
 through Bach, Beethoven, Schubert, Weber, Wagner, and 
 Brahms. And it v^as Gregory I that forced on unwilling Gaul 
 and all the world of religious culture for ages the Gregorian chant. 
 
 With Gregory's name will also forever be linked the spiritual 
 conquest of Great Britain. The oft-re-echoed story of Bede 
 may or may not be true, but the sending of emissaries to take 
 possession of Great Britain in the name of Rome was more far- 
 seeing than Caesar's adventurous conquest. 
 
 The story of that missionary enterprise marks the beginning 
 of the conquest of England's church by Rome. The details 
 of the first founding of an English church are wrapt in myth and 
 legend, for it is quite amazing that the history as transmitted to us 
 by the venerable Bede,^ and which is full of wonders, miracles, 
 and impossible dates, should be taken as seriously as it is by 
 some critical historians. With this mass of miracles, legend, 
 and allegory, amid which it is now quite impossible to pick out 
 the actual history, as the only source of information on many 
 points, one must simply be content to rest in ignorance, for the 
 work of Bede is altogether too evidently uncritical and fanciful 
 to be trusted. 
 
 Yet the history and his letters have for us one great value: 
 they open up to us the world in which a really formative religious 
 culture was doing its work. The angels, devils, dreams, mira- 
 cles, and magic of Bede's world were not introduced by Chris- 
 tianity. That was the world in which a comparative barbarism 
 was hving. 
 
 * Bede (Beda, Basda) Venerabilis, 674-735, was from near Wearmouth, 
 and within the walls of her cloister did his great life's work. Best known 
 from his "Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum," best edition, Oxonii 
 (Oxford), i8g6. Collected works by Migne, "Pat. Lat.," torn. 90-95. See 
 article by Wm. Stubbs in Smith and Wace's "Dictionary of Christian 
 Biography," I, 1877, pp. 300-304, and article by Seebach in Herzog- 
 Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," II, 1897, pp. 510-514; cf. the New SchaCf- 
 Herzog, II, 1908, pp. 22-23, where complaint is made of the lack of a 
 really critically edited edition. 
 
268 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 To this world Bede and his fellow-workers brought new ele- 
 ments and a new ethical purpose and life. The monks sent by 
 Gregory to England came, Bede says, with a silver cross and the 
 image of Our Lord painted on a board, with procession and with 
 prayer. But the real content of their message he gives in the 
 litany: "We beseech thee, O Lord, in all thy mercy that thy 
 anger and wrath be turned away from this city, and from thy 
 holy house, because we have sinned. Hallelujah!" The induce- 
 ments to accept the message of forgiveness were everlasting joy 
 in heaven, and the kingdom that would never end with God. 
 At the same time "the service of Christ ought to be voluntary 
 and not by compulsion." * 
 
 The main virtue in Bede's mind is humility. In his history ' 
 he pictures the tests by which the messengers of the cross are 
 to be judged: "If, therefore, Augustine is meek and lowly of 
 heart, it is to be believed that he has taken upon him the yoke 
 of Christ, and offers the same to you to take upon you. But 
 if he is stem and haughty, it appears that he is not from God, 
 nor are we to regard his words." So that even in a world in 
 which miracles are the ordinary accepted test of truth, the 
 ethical test is put forward as the final and real one. 
 
 And again in Bede's letter to Eckbert the bishop, the conduct 
 of the monastery and the life of the priest are treated as the con- 
 clusive evidence of the divine life in the church. The monastic 
 temper of Bede is very pronounced, and yet like Jerome he 
 bound it up with love of learning and art. Mathematics and 
 music received his constant attention, and his historical effort, 
 no matter how uncritical and untrustworthy, reflects the literary 
 and historical interest that still bound the Western monastery to 
 the world. 
 
 Moreo\'er, to rightly estimate the ethical ideal Bede held up 
 to the world of his day we must realize what medicine that sick 
 world wanted. For the world was sick. It was an age of 
 transition from one cultural stage to another, and the ethics of 
 
 ' " Historia Ecclesiastica Gcntis Anglorum," liber I, cap. 26. 
 * " Ilistoria Ecclcs," liber II : 2. 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 269 
 
 the one period were not fitted for the direction of life in the new. 
 The simple rules and habits of conduct whose observance keep 
 men relatively moral in the routine of primitive life may be 
 utterly inadequate for new and complex conditions. To the 
 northern world these new complexities had come. And with 
 them came the ethical entanglements that were inevitable. 
 
 Some critics of the period write as though the church had been 
 the only bearer of Roman and Greek culture. That is not true. 
 The armies of Rome were the first messengers both to Gaul and 
 Britain. The destruction of primitive organization had gone 
 far and wide. The work of reconstruction was only beginning. 
 To make effective the work of Rome as an agent of culture it was 
 essential that her authority be established and maintained. In 
 far-off regions lonely missionaries loved to dwell upon the power 
 and authority of Rome, and thus her missionary enterprises 
 became important factors in the question between the Roman 
 church and other forces. To make Rome supreme seemed to 
 strengthen her all along the line of her missionary life. 
 
 III. THE MISSIONARY MOVEMENT AND THE MONASTERY 
 
 Among the agencies reconstructing human life not the 
 least was the monastic missionary. Amid much corruption 
 and decay in the Western church the constantly healing and 
 redeeming factor was the social service rendered by the monas- 
 tery. It was the monastery rather than the hierarchy that 
 deserves the crown, but in Gregory the Great the work of Atha- 
 nasius was completed. The monastery was merged more and 
 more in the hierarchy and subordinated to its ends. So that 
 from Gregory on the triumphs of the monastery were the glory 
 and the profit of the church. 
 
 One remarkable feature of the missionary movement is the 
 place that the cult has in it. From the time of the British mis- 
 sionary Augustine, sent by Gregory I to convert England, to the 
 final subjugation of the north to Rome, the struggle is not so 
 much for dogmatic correctness as for ritual unity. This was 
 
270 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 perhaps natural. Dogmatic disputes in the early Greek sense 
 were above and beyond the hardy fighting Germanic aristocracy 
 and wholly indifferent to the mixed lower classes that aristocracy 
 governed. So, also, even making all allowances for the extrava- 
 gance of Tacitus, in his preaching to Rome with the Teutons 
 as a text, the ethics of the Germanic people did not need as much 
 patching up as the morals of the decadent Italian population. 
 To the fierce war-loving tribes, however, the message of the 
 gentleness and suffering of Jesus, the tenderness of the "Mother 
 of God," and the passive courage of the saints and martyrs 
 came with power. 
 
 The earliest literature in England and Germany reflects the 
 ideals thus created, the forerunners of the strange mingling of 
 fierce passionate insolence with tenderest pity and grace which 
 mark the feudal ideal as we shall study it in the Middle Ages.' 
 
 The missionary work of the church had, indeed, also to go on 
 in the south and southern parts of the Roman Empire from the 
 earliest day until the struggle with Mahometanism.^ Yet the 
 main task was toward the north, and the storm of Mahometan 
 invasion left the corrupted wellnigh heathen church of the 
 south and Africa a mere ruin. 
 
 It is extreme to say with Felix Dahn that the Germanic tribes 
 became Christians just because that was the State religion of 
 Rome, and that had it been Buddhism or Isis worship they 
 would have accepted that.^ In fact, Christianity had made 
 progress among the Goths before ever it had become the official 
 religion of the Roman State.* Moreover, the fact that it was the 
 
 ' C/. Ebert, Adolf: "Allgemeine Geschichte der Literatur des Mittel- 
 alters im Abendlande bis zum XI Jahrhundert," vol. I (Leipsic, 1889), 
 pp. 612-659. 
 
 * C/. Duchesne, Abb^ Louis: "Les Missions chretiennes au sud de 
 I'Empire Romain" (publications of the French School at Rome, 1S96), 
 pp. 79-122. 
 
 * In Wietersheim, Ed.: "Geschichte der Volkerwanderung," vol. II, 
 2d ed. edited by Felix Dahn, Leipsic, 1881, p. 53. 
 
 * Waitz, Georg: "Ueber das Leben und die Lehrc des Ulfila. Bruch- 
 stiicke cincs ungcdruckten Werkes aus dcm Ende des 4 Jahrhunderts." 
 1840, p. 35. 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 271 
 
 religion of Rome was evidently often rather a hinderance than a 
 help, so far as the hardy Germanic tribes went, for they looked 
 upon Rome as an enemy. 
 
 The material is, alas, rather insufficient for forming more than 
 tentative opinions, yet so far as it is possible to estimate the great 
 missionary movement it may be said, first, that it is true that the 
 forms of Christianity were in some cases accepted simply as parts 
 of the superior culture the missionaries brought with them; 
 and, secondly, that the religious life of the Germanic tribes had 
 broken down much as Roman paganism had broken down a 
 generation before the Ctesars. Hence the tribes readily took 
 up the new forms with which they mingled many elements of 
 the old (Saint Stories and Germanic Mythology). 
 
 Sometimes this mingling of the ethics of Christianity as under- 
 stood by the monastery and the remains of mythology was 
 harmless and poetical. Sometimes it was much less so. Grave 
 superstitions were thus foisted upon the religion of the Middle 
 Ages (witchcraft, etc.). The Germanic tribes seem in general 
 to have had no fixed priest caste, and the roving military life of 
 the aristocracy had seemingly broken up such forms as had 
 developed in more settled times. 
 
 And, thirdly, it seems perfectly evident that Christianity dealt 
 not with the "proletariat" or "peasant" elements, so far as these 
 were present, but with the roving military aristocracy, and so 
 became the religion of the ruling class. This in part explains 
 both the Saxon resistance and the exceedingly rapid spread of 
 the monastery type of Christianity among the Goths, Ostro- 
 goths, Longobardians, Franks, and eventually the Saxons. 
 
 With a special measure of success Gregory I evangelized 
 England, and here perhaps the power of the church as a force for 
 culture and economic reorganization might have been seen at its 
 best had not the distractions of foreign invasion so constantly 
 complicated the situation. 
 
 The monastery was saved from corruption and selfishness by 
 its enthusiastic acceptance of this cultural mission in which it 
 accomplished so much. The way in which Jerome, Ambrose, 
 
272 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Gregory of Nursia, and Cassiodorus, Senator,'^ made the monas- 
 tery a refuge for learning and linked religion with life and 
 scholarship atones for much of the fundamentally unsocial 
 character of the monastery ethical ideal. Nearly all we know 
 about Augustine as the first Archbishop of Canterbury we know 
 from the exceedingly uncritical history of the venerable Bede.^ 
 The failure of Augustine to win the British church to Rome was 
 a sad one, but in the conditions he made one sees how much 
 the ritual and the imperial interests dominated the ethical. The 
 story goes that the British bishops asked a sainted old man if 
 they should accept Augustine, and he told them "Yes," if 
 Augustine had the spirit of Christ, and this they could know if 
 he rose to greet them when they met. This Augustine did not 
 do, and the haughty demand that they submit to him as the 
 representative of Rome made them say: "If he treats us so 
 before he is our acknowledged head, how will he treat us after 
 it?" And they refused obedience. The conditions of sub- 
 mission were a correct Easter day, abstinence from blood and 
 things strangled, and submission to Rome. 
 
 We see here how small a part ethical ideals played in the mes- 
 sage, but how important the central authority was in the eyes of 
 the missionary. Not less so was it important to Bonifacius,^ 
 
 ' Cassiodorus, Magnus Aurelius, Senator, was born about 469 or 470 
 and died about 560. He rendered important services to Theodoric and to 
 Italy. He retired to a monastery of his own founding, and presented to 
 it his library and by his writings became in good measure the mediator of 
 Roman culture to Germanic Catholicism. Cf. Migne, " Pat. Lat.," tom. 
 69-70; and "The Letters of Cassiodorus," a condensed translation of the 
 Variae, with introduction, by Thomas Hodgkin, London, 1886; also Herzog- 
 Hauck's " Realencyklopadie," II, 1897, pp. 749-750, by A. Hauck; English 
 translation, II, 1908, pp. 436-437, and Smith and Wace's "Dictionary of 
 Christian Biography," I, 1877, pp. 416-418, by E. M. Young. 
 
 ' C/. Montalembert's "Monks of the West"; Stanley's "Memorials of 
 Canterbury," 4th ed.; Gocelinus, "Vita S. Augustini"; Migne, "Pat. 
 Lat.," tom. 80, cols. 41-94, and also a smaller life in tom. 150, cols. 743-764, 
 which according to the editor "Auctorem vixisse circa ann. 1000 ex his 
 coUigi potest." (MPL, CL, 765-6.) 
 
 ' Winfred Bonifacius, born somewhere about 675 to 683, and died 755. 
 His birthplace was Wessex in England. Early he attempted missions in 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 273 
 
 who came to Germany as the herald of the hierarchy. The 
 activity of the man is surprising, and no doubt the regulation 
 of the somewhat formless Christianity he found sitting lightly 
 upon the population of what is now Bavaria and Tiiringen was 
 very necessary. 
 
 At the same time one cannot but be struck with the formal 
 legal character of his message and the extreme poverty of the 
 religious and ethical ideals. Uniformity of worship, a celibate 
 priesthood, the abolition of the primitive wandering bishop, the 
 abstinence from horse-flesh as food, etc., etc.; these are the 
 things we find insisted upon, and as all-important is the accept- 
 ance of the authority of Rome. Sexual purity and temperance 
 are, of course, enforced, and the purity of the married relation is 
 conserved as far as great legal severity could be made to conserve 
 it. "Illegal relations with concubines on the part of laymen 
 were broken up by the holy man's admonitions, and the (mar- 
 ried) relations of priests to women were given up and they lived 
 apart." * "All was reformed and atoned for in accordance with 
 the canons." The heathen relics, amulets, charms, etc., were 
 banished, and Christian relics, amulets, and charms were intro- 
 duced. It is related how wherever Bonifacius went he bore 
 with him the relics of the saints.^ 
 
 In fact it is evident from the wholesale way in which the con- 
 versions were made that no very important changes in life's 
 ideals were demanded. Priests and sacred persons were indeed 
 not permitted to go into battle; but sacred persons are seldom 
 thus called upon at any stage of religious culture, and for the rest 
 the church left the Germanic people about as fierce and warlike, 
 
 Friesland, and then, after consultation with Gregory II, he became Rome's 
 chief agent in the attempt to centralize the Catholic power and induce the 
 Germanic forces to submit to Rome. Cf. Migne, " Pat. Lat.," tom. 89, cols. 
 597-892, and especially "Vita," by Willibald (translated into German by 
 W. Arndt, in " Geschichtschreiber der deutschen Vorzeit," vol. 13, Leipsic, 
 1888); also Pfahler's "St. Bonifacius und seine Zeit," Regensburg, 1880; 
 A. Werner, in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," II, 1897, pp. 301-306, 
 English translation, II, 1908, pp. 226-227 
 
 • "Vita," 9 : 29. (MPL, tom. LXXXIX, col. 623.) 
 
 =* " Vita," 8 : 23. (MPL, tom. LXXXIX, col. 619.) 
 
274 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 as grasping and overbearing as it found them. It did, however, 
 introduce some culture, order, respect for law, and by its own 
 centralized political character trained the nations for central 
 power and national organization. 
 
 In this deepening of national life by the introduction of the 
 culture and the learning still preserved in the Roman church 
 another Englishman had a most prominent place. The student 
 of Bede's works and the teacher of Lindger (the apostle to 
 Friesland), and one of the most influential men in the court of 
 Charlemagne, was Alcuin,^ who transferred to the growing 
 Frankish kingdom the learning and literature gathered and 
 preserved in England, but which would soon have been lost 
 there, perhaps, amidst the political disturbances of the following 
 century had not the court of Charlemagne given it a resting- 
 place. 
 
 Alcuin has for the missionary movement the special significance 
 that he united with the transmission of the religious and ethical 
 message a very large element of learning and culture. His 
 ethical ideal was that of the monastery, but of the missionary 
 working monastery. His ethics is that of Augustine, whom 
 he largely transcribes in his book, "De Virtutibus et Vitiis," 
 and his treatise, "De Animae Ratione." He ruled several 
 monasteries, but there is no evidence that he was himself a 
 monk, yet his whole way of thinking reflects the monastic 
 culture of his day. And he had a great deal to do with the most 
 important process by which the monastery became the library, 
 
 ' Alcuin (Flaccus Albinus) was born in Northumbria about 735 and he 
 died before 815. He was probably not a monk, but belonged to the 
 secular clergy. His works comprise his letters, exegetical works on nearly 
 all the books of the Bible, works on liturgy, on dogmatic subjects, poems 
 (including hymns, epigrams, and poetical letters), dialogues on grammar, 
 rhetoric, logic, and various topics including natural science, and some works 
 on moral philosophy, namely: "De Virtutibus et Vitiis"; " De Animie Ra- 
 tione"; "De Confessione." Cf. Migne, "Pat. Lat.," tom. 100 and loi. 
 Monnier, Francois: "Alcuin et Charlemagne," 2d ed., Paris, 1863, and also 
 the accounts in Flerzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopiidie, I, 1896, pp. 365-369, by 
 Hahn, English translation, I, 1908, pp. 111-112, and Smith and Wace's, 
 "Dictionary of Christian Biography," I, 1877, pp. 73-76, by Wm. Stubbs. 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 275 
 
 the university, the school, the refuge of the learned and the con- 
 server of that worldly literature, art, and science the hermit so 
 vigorously sought to escape. This change could not take place 
 without a relative suppression of the religious conception, and 
 the disorders of the monastery with which Rome struggled 
 whenever she herself was religiously awakened appear steadily 
 and persistently from now on. 
 
 Alcuin marks also the position the Roman Catholic scholar 
 was to take in the important work of transforming Europe. As 
 the constant counsellor of the king, he uses his place and power 
 for the extension of the two-sworded kingdom, rejoicing when 
 the arms of Charlemagne extended the hierarchy's influence,^ 
 and seeing in that extension the victory of essential righteousness. 
 
 The place of emphasis now begins in the seclusion of the 
 cloister to change from the ritualistic and administrative to the 
 philosophic and dogmatic. The speculations of Greece begin 
 again to work as ferment in the minds of those who found 
 leisure in the monastery denied to the agressive missionary 
 fighting forces which constitute the army of the militant papacy. 
 We shall see at a later stage what an important part, for instance, 
 in the spiritual life of feudalism was played by the works of the 
 pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite.^ 
 
 The strange thing is how little it is possible to do more than 
 fix the ethical ideal of the monastery and follow out that influ- 
 
 * " Primo sciat dilectio tua, quod miserante Deo sancta ejus Ecclesia in 
 partibus Europas pacem habet, proficit ac crescit. Nam antiqui Saxones 
 et omnes Frisonum populi, instante rege Carole alios prjemiis et alios minis 
 sollicitante, ad fidem Christi conversi sunt. Sad anno transacto idem rex 
 cum exercitu irrupit super Sclavos, quos nos Vionudos dicimus, eosque 
 subegit suae ditioni." Epistolae III (anno 790). (MPL, C, 142 B.) 
 
 ^ The " Writings " are by an author whose date is quite uncertain, probably 
 before 400; the Neoplatonic and Pantheistic type of thought is pronounced. 
 English translations by J. Parker, two parts, London, 1897-1899 (in the 
 edition of 1894 is an introduction and defence of authorship by Dionysius 
 the Areopagite); see also A. Harnack, "Lehrbuch der Dogmengeschichte," 
 II, 1887, p. 426, foot-note I, English translation, vol. IV, 1898, p. 282, foot- 
 note 2, and also Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," vol. IV, 1898, pp. 
 687-696, English translation by N. G. Bonwetsch; Westcott B. F.: "Re- 
 ligious Thought in the West." 
 
276 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ence in its workings upon the ethics and law of the northern 
 tribes. 
 
 Very early both in England and Germany the culture carried 
 by the missionary begins to produce a distinct folk-literature, 
 and that literature betrays its origin by the religious character of 
 its themes (one thinks of Caedmon and of the "Christ" of 
 Otfried or the "Heliand"). The hierarchy is now distinctly 
 an aristocratic social form, but the celibacy of the priesthood 
 ruled out a separate hereditary caste, or we might have seen a 
 hereditary hierarchy grow up in Europe as in India. In conse- 
 quence of this celibacy the hierarchy had a distinct secondary 
 democratic influence. It was the easiest and most common 
 way for the poorest and lowest to rise to the very highest place 
 in life. Within the social form birth and wealth were, of course, 
 of great advantage, but poverty and even serfdom were no 
 absolute barriers in the way of ecclesiastical advance. 
 
 It is, perhaps, a mistake commonly made to attribute to the 
 Christian church from Nicaea to Charlemagne too large a share 
 in the formation of the social forms of the Middle Ages. Some 
 things stand out plainly. The militant papacy served a most 
 useful function in conserving and handing down many of the 
 best traditions of Roman law. A'U commentators on the codes 
 of Justinian and Theodosius are agreed upon the fact of Christian 
 influence, although the estimates of the amount of it vary greatly.^ 
 On the whole, however, the social forms of the feudal state were 
 all well on their way before the organized hierarchy became a 
 social force of the first importance. 
 
 The disappearance of slavery was not directly due to organized 
 Christianity. Such protests as appeared against it were isolated 
 and can all be duplicated from heathen sources. Neither Paul 
 nor Gregory the Great nor Leo III thought of abolishing slavery. 
 It became, however, under advancing humanitarian ideas and 
 with the decreased supply from war, an unprofitable economic 
 form, and disappeared in fact long before it disappeared from 
 
 • CJ. Troplong, R. Th.: "De I'lnfluence du Christianisme sur le Droit 
 Civil des Romains," 2d ed., 1885. 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 277 
 
 codes of law or of morals.* It was too expensive and wasteful 
 a system.^ The rise of serfdom is usually traced to the Roman 
 " colonies," but as a matter of fact the relations between patron 
 and client seem very early to have produced in the great estates 
 (Latifundia) a full-fledged feudalism long before the northern 
 invasions. So that the influence of the Germanic invasions 
 and customs seems usually to have been much overestimated. 
 Feudalism was in fact quite as much a demand that the tenant 
 have secure possession as long as he fulfilled his obligations, 
 as an attempt to secure fixed labor by tying the laborer to the 
 soil. It was a protest against rack-renting, or the driving of 
 the cultivators off the soil, as has happened among the crofters 
 of Scotland or the truck gardeners in the neighborhood of 
 London. 
 
 Save only as Christianity acted generally in the softened 
 customs of life, it had little to do with the rise of feudalism. 
 
 ' The only fairly good history of slavery in English is J. K. Ingram's 
 expansion of his article, "Slavery," in "Encyclopaedia Britannica," 9th ed., 
 vol. XXII, 1887, pp. 129-177; in book form, "History of Slavery and Serf- 
 dom," London, 1895. The most elaborate and exhaustive work is Wallon, 
 H. A.: "Histoire de TEsclavage dans I'Antiquite," 3 vols., 2d ed., Paris, 
 1879, particularly see vol. Ill, pp. 296-443. Blair, Wm.: "Inquiry into 
 the State of Slavery Among the Romans, from the Earliest Period to the 
 Establishment of the Lombards in Italy," Edinburgh, 1833, has much 
 useful reference, but misses the economic meaning. Fustel de Coulanges, 
 N. D.: "Recherches sur quelques Problemes d'Histoire," Paris, 1885, is 
 a suggestive book. Serfdom in England is noticed in Stubbs, "Con- 
 stitutional History of England," 1874-1878. In the bonds of a theory but 
 highly instructive are Letourneau's (C. J. M.) series on "L'Evolution de 
 le Morale," 1887; "L'Evolution de la Propriety," 1889 (English translation, 
 London, 1892); and "L'Evolution de I'Esclavage," 1897. Although he 
 deals with the later phases, we have found most suggestive of all Sugenheim, 
 Samuel: "Geschichte der Aufhebung der Leibeigenschaft und Horigkeit 
 in Europa," St. Petersburg, 1861. Biot's (E. C.) "De I'abolition de I'Escla- 
 vage ancien en Occident," Paris, 1840, we have not seen. Cf. also Lar- 
 roque, Patrice: "De I'Esclavage chez les Nationes Chretiens," 1864; Yano- 
 ski, Jean: "De 1' Abolition de I'Esclavage Ancien au Moyen Age et de sa 
 Transformation en Servitude de la Glfebe," i860, particularly chap. II, 
 
 PP- 33-75- 
 
 » Cf. Adam Smith's "WeaUh of Nations," III, 2, pp. 427-440, of "World 
 
 Classics," ed., 1904. 
 
278 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The papal State and the monasteries became great slave and serf- 
 holders. 
 
 In many indirect ways, of course, the church affected slavery. 
 It was probably early regarded as meritorious to free slaves, a 
 tradition inherited from Roman ethical teachers. Moreover, 
 under certain conditions a slave could secure freedom by be- 
 coming a monk or priest. The church building became the 
 asylum to which the slave could flee as the temple or grove 
 of Roman life had been, and he could wait there until the 
 priest had pled with the owner. The slave was also theo- 
 retically a full-fledged soul, with the rights of manhood or 
 womanhood in a way no pagan philosophy had in practice 
 taught. 
 
 The Roman law shows from Trajan on a steady improvement 
 of the slave's position in the eye of the law. From being abso- 
 lutely a chattel of the owner he came to enjoy legal rights of 
 large significance. He shared in the Roman State's interest in 
 its own poorer classes,^ but the process was greatly hastened by 
 the democracy of the communion-table and by the trend of even 
 ascetic morality. 
 
 The value set upon the person as a person increased.^ In 
 the same way the new hierarchy took the place in the Frankish 
 kingdom which the religious principle had in the formation of 
 old Rome,' and undoubtedly moulded the ever-increasing legal 
 protection flung about the slave, rendering his labor econom- 
 ically ever more unprofitable until he was caught in serfdom 
 and the wage system, as being more economical for the employ- 
 ing class. 
 
 The church fathers had almost without exception accepted 
 slavery as founded in the natural state of things. Augustine 
 saw in it a direct outcome of sin, and this conception, born partly 
 
 ' C/. Jhering, R. ivon: "Der Geist des romischen Rechts," ed., 1852, 
 part 2, pp. 239-267. 
 
 * C/. Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire" (Bury's ed., 
 1898), vol. IV, pp. 470-476. 
 
 * Cf. Jhering, R. von: "Der Geist des romischen Rechts," ed., 1852, 
 part I, pp. 256-281. 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 279 
 
 of Aristotle, partly of dualism, prevented the organized church 
 from taking any stand against slavery per se. But from Chrysos- 
 tom and Ambrose on, both in the East and West, the pulpit 
 enforced the equality of all men in Christ Jesus, and dictated 
 conditions for the slave which had they been enforced would 
 have made his labor highly unprofitable.^ 
 
 The Germanic tribes accepted, on the whole, the social 
 arrangements of the later Roman Empire, with, of course, 
 modifications due to the economic situation. In fact, both 
 religious and social forms seem to have profoundly suffered 
 during the time called, for lack of a better name, the " Volker- 
 wandering" or Germanic invasion. The period of ecclesiastical 
 reconstruction and missionary effort introduced the Roman- 
 Greek civilization founded upon the formulated law of Justinian 
 and Theodosius, and thus the way was made ready for the feudal 
 Middle Ages. 
 
 The period is one of long incubation, but is neither so dark 
 nor so reactionary as has been commonly represented. 
 
 When once more the human spirit awoke to a realizing self- 
 consciousness, it discovered the fact that it was now not a 
 question of a small class but of the race. The national democ- 
 racy of the Old and the race democracy of the New Testaments 
 are not the only factors in this reawakening. All through the 
 period from Gregory I to Charlemagne, Aristotle and Cicero were 
 still at work, and the ancient philosophy and science were kept 
 alive both in the cloisters and among the Mahometans. But 
 the Christian church was the popular even if very inefficient 
 teacher. It is quite useless to attempt to depreciate her services 
 in the tone of Yves Guyot.^ The barbarism and darkness of 
 this period were not her fault. They sprang from the giving 
 way of the social structure under the weight of warlike impact 
 from the north. The social structure was rotten before the 
 Christian church had power, and the northern invasion would 
 
 ' Cf. Chrysostom, Epist. ad Eph. IV : and Horn. 15:3. 
 ^ Etude sur les doctrines sociales du Christianisme (Guyot et Lacroix), 
 1873, and new ed., 1903. 
 
28o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 have been far more destructive of pagan law and culture had 
 not the Christianized Papal church stood as mediator between 
 two levels of culture and mitigated in a hundred ways the 
 severity of the invasion. 
 
 Slowly but steadily the hierarchy became by processes of 
 absorption and adjustment the almost perfect expression of the 
 conglomerate religious life of the various national units that now 
 rise on the ruins of Roman might. For one thousand years 
 (400-1453) the Eastern church stayed the tide of Mahometan 
 invasion, and bound together the life of the races to which she 
 gave the only real unity they had. The Western church carried 
 on her mission of culture and national unification with astound- 
 ing vigor and enthusiasm. It must always be remembered, 
 both by friend and foe, that neither the Eastern nor Western 
 churches were the Christianity of the synoptic Gospels, nor even 
 of John and Paul. Whatever may be our estimate of the 
 elements that enter in, monasticism, Neoplatonism, oriental 
 mysticism, etc., whether we regard them as obnoxious intrusions 
 or as justified additions under the providential guidance of the 
 promised Spirit, we must as historians take account of them 
 and trace them to their sources as well as estimate their influ- 
 ence on the total culture. It is amazing that any man should 
 really seek to explain the ethical ideals of the militant papal 
 church from the pages of the New Testament alone. The 
 papal church is herself wiser and more historical than that. 
 She claims the inward authority of an infallible guidance 
 progressively unfolding the truth according to her needs. 
 From age to age she expects the same authority to guide 
 her with equally infallible wisdom amid the future complica- 
 tions. 
 
 The logical modem Protestant has rejected all infallible 
 guidance. He accepts unreservedly the relative character of all 
 knowledge. All absolute truth is in the region of faith and 
 hope. For him the period could hardly have been otherwise 
 than it was, seeing that it had as its religious guides such very 
 imperfect and yet such nobly imperfect ecclesiastics, whose ideals 
 
THE MILITANT PAPACY AND ITS ETHICS 281 
 
 were the product of an historic synthesis which faith calls 
 providential, but which none the less combined many elements 
 whose weakness we now easily discover and whose limitations 
 were definite and marked. 
 
CHAPTER VI 
 
 SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 
 
 I. Definition of Scholasticism and Its Beginnings — II. Constructive Scho- 
 lasticism—Ill. Critical Scholasticism— IV. Mystical Scholasticism. 
 
 I. THE ETHICS OF SCHOLASTICISM 
 
 The definition of scholasticism for our purpose is not difficult 
 to make. It was essentially the attempt to rationalize the grow- 
 ing experiences of the race within the limits of a system which, 
 it was assumed, was closed. This closed system was the un- 
 organized teaching of the culture-bearing church. She came 
 to the Western world with the ethics of the Old and New 
 Testaments, the ethics of Plato and the Orient, of Aristotle and 
 the later Hellenism. All alike were accepted by her on the basis 
 of tradition and fulfilled function. She in her turn gave them 
 to the world of western Europe in the name of divine authority, 
 and claimed for herself the right of final decision in all matters 
 of ethical controversy. The innumerable contradictions within 
 this conglomerate of systems she was altogether too busy to see. 
 The supposed basis was her divine authority. What the faithful 
 said or taught was final. The Fathers and the councils are ever 
 on the lips of Gregory and Isidore. 
 
 In point of fact the system was one vast convenient compro- 
 mise. The high religious culture of Judaism, with its lofty 
 ethics culminating in the teachings of Jesus and Paul, was as 
 much beyond the average comprehension as were the fine and 
 subtile intellectual and artistic exactitudes reached by Greece at 
 her best. The thorough-going metaphysical systems of the 
 Orient, with their pessimism and passivity, were equally beyond 
 the rude north, and were quite impossible teachings in the midst 
 of her stern struggle with nature and life. 
 
 282 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 283 
 
 From all this past the hierarchy took elements which she 
 needed for her purpose; she came bearing gifts from Egypt, 
 Persia, Greece, Rome, and Judea, but supposed that all came 
 from one Christian source and that the message she brought 
 with her had a single inspiration. For her practical purposes 
 Aristotle and Plato, speaking with the voice of Augustine or 
 Athanasius, were as divinely inspired as Amos or Paul. She 
 adapted as best she could the various messages to the nations 
 she was trying to train. For the work and services of the church 
 we should all be thankful, while yet remembering that she was 
 only one agent of culture among many and that the child who 
 really learns is largely self-taught. 
 
 From the time of Charlemagne onward the organization of 
 life takes another step forward. With the so-called "conver- 
 sion" of the Saxons the nominal subjection of the north to 
 southern culture was completed. The child became a youth. 
 It is quite unhistorical to think of the Middle Ages as "dark" 
 or as a fearful fall from the heights of Hellenistic attainment. 
 In those ages of intense activity the foundations were being laid 
 in song and art, in language and in law, in logic and religion for 
 that certainly larger and we hope fairer temple that is yet to 
 crown the world's acropolis. 
 
 Alcuin was no scholastic; that is to say, he had no deliberate 
 purpose to rationalize the heterogeneous elements of culture he 
 highly prized and profoundly appropriated. He is one of the 
 greatest products of the unquestioning acceptance by the Western 
 and northern races of the culture brought from the south. 
 
 But even in the time of Alcuin the signs of a coming indepen- 
 dence are not wholly lacking. 
 
 The influence of authority has its wholesome limits. We all 
 enter life under authority. The child must obey. Its life de- 
 pends in a thousand cases upon a prompt and unquestioning 
 obedience to an experience which, however faulty, is far superior 
 to the child's. The Roman hierarchy demanded this unques- 
 tioning obedience. Her voice was God's voice. And she was 
 so vastly superior to the untrained north that she received, if not 
 
284 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 a perfect obedience, at least a nominal submission of a very 
 child-like character. The intelligent child, however, soon 
 grows unconsciously restless under authority, and the wise 
 parent or teacher hails with joy the tokens of coming maturity 
 and patiently and steadily prepares the growing mind for its 
 autonomous activity. Less wise teachers fret and worry because 
 their wisdom is not accepted as unquestioningly as of old, and 
 wonder only how they may hold in permanent dependence those 
 whom they sincerely but most mistakenly love. 
 
 Among the less wise teachers was the Roman hierarchy. Her 
 enormous property interests, her political power, her very place 
 as teacher and leader betrayed her into the vain attempt to 
 permanently hold the growing world in subjection to her claim 
 to be the one infallible voice of God. 
 
 She based her claim on her cosmopolitan character, her an- 
 tiquity, and the evident superiority of her culture. The real de- 
 votion of her sons and daughters gave her unique authority over 
 all classes of men and in the whole Western world. In times of 
 great strain she had succeeded in holding her world together, 
 and men looked to her for relief and comfort under the tensions 
 and hardships of the increasing complexity of life. The con- 
 ceptions in which she did her work had proved themselves useful 
 for certain purposes of human conduct in the past. The ethics 
 that had become traditional with her were no arbitrary collection 
 of maxims. They were, like all our conceptions, the result of 
 an age-long selective process. 
 
 But that process was uncritical and relatively unreflective. 
 Even to-day men shrink from nothing so much as from ethical 
 reflection, if it be truly radical and thorough-going. To question 
 the fundamental conceptions is to at least threaten them with 
 destruction, and for most men, however really intelligent, there 
 
 i is a closed system— it may be the State or the creed or the family 
 —within whose bounds they are ready to rationalize, but whose 
 
 - bounds are for them fixed and held sacred from all impious 
 scrutiny. 
 
 The first signs of restlessness were, of course, when the Roman 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 285 
 
 claims interfered with immediate and pressing purpose. This 
 friction is first manifest upon the pohtical field, where the inter- 
 ests of the hierarchy soon began to conflict with the rising 
 national feeling. And it has always happened that when the 
 hierarchy has challenged national feeling she has suffered her 
 most disastrous defeats. 
 
 In the age of Charlemagne, however, it was still a strength to 
 national purpose to work with the hierarchy under the strong 
 sense of her spiritual and ethical supremacy, and tnis supremacy 
 was as unquestioned as the multiplication table. It was as- 
 sumed that she was the infallible teacher and that what she 
 taught was a self-consistent system. We all move in some 
 system we inherit. Most men assume the present social order 
 to be permanent, a system of "law and order" within whose 
 limits all "good men" think, just as the Roman hierarchy's 
 system asserted herself as the pillar of a social order in which all 
 "good men" had to live. The men of the Middle Ages all 
 assumed as an unquestionable fact the supreme authority of the 
 Roman Catholic papal power, and that even though on every 
 hand were the palpable failures of the authority to achieve its 
 ethical and spiritual purpose (corrupt priesthood and stained 
 monastery life). 
 
 Few of us have the surplus intellectual energy to do our own 
 thinking on any but an exceedingly constricted field. Most of 
 life we take on authority. Life is too short to regard every 
 question as open for discussion each day. The men of the 
 ninth century had a tense and absorbing struggle for mere life. 
 It is most wonderful what they actually did. The old slave 
 world was transformed into a relatively ordered feudalism. 
 Barbarism gave place to culture and civilization. Art again 
 began to express a new world of longing and inspiration. It is 
 little wonder that the claims of the church which played a part 
 so important in the transformation went almost unchallenged 
 everywhere. 
 
 The preparatory stage for the great attempt at intellectual re- 
 organization of the world's thought within the limits of a closed 
 
286 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 system was marked by some of the most interesting phenomena 
 in human history. The student of the ethics of Christianity 
 cannot pass them by without seeking in some way to relate them 
 to the ethical process which is his immediate interest. The age 
 of Charlemagne and the years that intervene between him and 
 Gregory VII ^ have been drawn in very dark colors,- and it would 
 not be easy to refute in detail the many serious charges that can 
 be made against that age. 
 
 The leadership of both Church and State after Hadrian and 
 Charlemagne had passed from the stage leaves much to be 
 desired. Weak, bad kings and popes follow one another in 
 weary succession. Ignorance and superstition mark both people 
 and clergy. On the other hand, when the evidence for special 
 darkness and dissoluteness is weighed, as in so many other cases, 
 the mind hesitates. It is so exceedingly hard to get objective 
 criteria by which to judge; and so often the discontent and com- 
 plaints are a sign of a rising moral standard on the part of the 
 critics rather than of an actual lower moral life in the age thus 
 rebuked. Personally the author doubts whether in the main 
 the tenth century was not rather better off than the eighth or 
 ninth. 
 
 It was at this time that Mahometanism reached its wellnigh 
 widest European boundary. The forward movement that led 
 to the capture of Constantinople (1453) was offset by the 
 gradual driving back of the Saracene invasion of Spain, culminat- 
 
 ' For this period, besides the chapters in the standard church histories of 
 Neander, Gieseler, Schaff, Miiller, see Reuter, N.: "Geschichte der 
 religiosen Aufklarung im Mittelalter," 2 vols., Berlin, 1875-1877. — Bax- 
 mann, R.: "Die Politik der Piipste von Gregor I bis Gregor VII," 2 vols., 
 Elberfeld, 1868-1869.— Ranke, Leopold: "Geschichte der Papste (often 
 translated into English; also in the Bohn Library). — Robinson, "History 
 of Western Europe," 1903.— Taylor, Henry Osborn: "The Classical 
 Heritage of the Middle Ages," New York, 1901. — Adams, George B.: 
 "Civilization During the Middle Ages," New York, 1900. — Mombcrt, J. I.: 
 "A History of Charles the Great," London, 1888.— Bryce, James: "The 
 Holy Roman Empire," 1871, new ed.. New York, 1904. 
 
 * As by Draper in his "History of the Intellectual Development in 
 Europe," vol. I, pp. 274-283, 4th ed. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 287 
 
 ing in 1492. The feudal system hardened into its classic phase, 
 with the Emperor or the Pope as chief claimant for the logical 
 climax of the system. The Western church lost steadily its 
 feeling for and its contact with the Eastern church, and sought 
 its strength rather to the north and west; while Byzantianism 
 stiffened into a hard, cold dogmatism with but little ethical life 
 or power. 
 
 The Roman church, re-enforced by the possessions granted 
 by Charlemagne, and led by active even though often worldly 
 minded bishops, asserted herself even under weak, bad popes 
 as the centre of the world's Western unity. Spain conformed 
 gradually. The Prankish Empire was fastened by bonds that 
 held her substantially until 1907 to papal rehgious dominion. 
 The centre of interest was ritual and not dogmatic. Alcuin 
 and Charlemagne might have stirred up a struggle over picture 
 and image worship such as distracted the Greek church, but 
 the Carlovingian books ^ made no real impression upon a popu- 
 lation that had made up its mind already. 
 
 The strife over adoptianism was like Gottschalk's attempted 
 revival of extreme Augustinianism, a really foreign intrusion. 
 The age had not begun its work of mental reconstruction. It 
 was still working with the tools in hand. 
 
 It is hard for us to estimate the work done in Charlemagne's 
 time to revive learning and to inspire to thought. A triumphant 
 hierarchy under the strong sway of Gregory VII did not pre- 
 serve to us the literature of criticism, but it is amazing to find 
 
 * The second council of Nicaea, claiming to be ecumenical (787), had 
 condemned those refusing to venerate (venerare) images, and this was done 
 under the direct inspiration of Hadrian. In the name of Charlemagne, 
 and undoubtedly in his spirit, an opus Carolinum was sent as a reply to 
 the Pope in which the worship of images was condemned. A synod at 
 Frankfort a.M. (794) sustained this protest, but Hadrian's reply was a 
 politic yet firm reiteration of the attitude of 787. Moreover, the protest 
 was in some measure uninstructed. The distinction between Xarpe/a and 
 npoa-Kijvrjffis had been taken over in point of fact by Rome, only, unfortu- 
 nately, the average man did not know the difference between veneration and 
 adoration. See Hefele, " Conciliengeschichte," III : 416 _//.; Baxmann, 
 "Politik der Papste," I : 297. 
 
288 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 the free simple spirit that moved a man hke Claudius, Bishop of 
 Turin.' In his reversion to Augustine he did more than simply 
 take his dogmatic system, but seems, from the imperfect frag- 
 ments of his works that remain to us, to have accepted primitive 
 Christianity on the basis of a pure spiritual metaphysical mono- 
 theism. God is all in all, and to find in him the absolute is 
 redemption. The risen Christ is the real basis for the religious 
 life, not the human and passing phenomenal appearances. 
 Jesus is given his character as divine man by the Father.^ He 
 is the head of his church, the anointed.^ And by his enemies 
 Claudius was accused of Arianism and Nestorianism, against 
 which charges he defended himself in an apology, now lost to 
 us, and in his commentary to Galatians.* 
 
 The main ethical interest, however, attaches to his thorough- 
 going rejection of images and crosses, and even though the 
 Synod of Frankfort had permitted them for instruction, he 
 turned them all out of the churches, and defends himself against 
 Jonas and Dungalus on Scriptural grounds, in a work also, alas, 
 lost to us. He also rejected all work-righteousness, and following 
 Augustine makes an imparted divine grace man's only hope of 
 salvation. He, in fact, accepted Augustine as his great mas- 
 
 » Claudius, born in Spain about the second half of the eighth century, 
 pupil of Bishop Felix of Urgel, Bishop of Turin by the appointment of 
 Louis the Pious, who maintained him there all his life. He died some 
 time before 832. C/. Migne, " Pat. Lat.," torn. 104, cols. 609-616; "Notitia 
 historica in Claudium." 
 
 2 In describing the throne of Solomon in " QucEStiones XXX super libros 
 regum,Liher III" (commenting on I Kings 10 : 18), Claudius says: "Thronus 
 eburneus sternam judicis potestatem auro divinitatis fulgentem, quam 
 Dominicus homo a Patre accepit, figuram gestasse non dubium est." 
 (MPL, 104, 758 D.) 
 
 ' Omnes quippe unctos ejus chrismate recte Christos possumus dicere. 
 Quod tamen totum cum suo capite corpus, unus est Christus." (" Quacst. 
 XXX," lib. I, MPL, 104, col. 645 A). 
 
 ♦In a fragment of a commentary to Galatians he says: "Quia enim 
 et Filii et Patris una est operatio: et ut scias quia Deus est Christus, a 
 quo illc est factus apostolus, diligenter adverte quod ante nominaverit 
 Filium quam Patrem, contra calumnias Arianorum." (Migne, " Pat. Lat.," 
 tom. 104, col. 845 C-D.) 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 289 
 
 ter,* the "Pen of the Trinity," and went under his direction to 
 Holy Scripture for his doctrine. 
 
 There is no direct evidence, so far as the writer is aware, that 
 Bishop Claudius was the founder of the Waldensian church, but 
 it is not a Httle remarkable that so strong an Augustinian and 
 Pauline type of Christianity should have maintained itself in the 
 Piedmontese valleys so directly under the influence of Claudius 
 of Turin. 
 
 For the rest, his teaching is strongly influenced by the Mora- 
 lium of Gregory I, and one may distinctly trace the threefold 
 exegesis, the historical, the allegorical, and the moral, by which 
 Kings and Leviticus are made to convey Augustinian and Pauline 
 ethics. These ethical teachings are warm, personal, and loving 
 in character, with the virtutes activcB in the foreground. At the 
 same time Claudius is neither a forerunner intellectually of 
 scholasticism nor religiously of the Reformation, but a fine and 
 refreshing reminder that even when superstition and ignorance 
 lay heavy on men there were bright rays of light on strong 
 men's paths. 
 
 Agobaud, or Agobard of Lyons,^ also fought image-worship 
 and superstitions, such as judicial combat and trial by fire and 
 water. He remained in the simpler type of teaching illustrated 
 by Claudius, and, like him, as a theologian largely contented 
 himself with exposition and collection of past opinions. But he 
 introduces us to one serious and insufficiently studied chapter 
 in the history of Charlemagne's time and the subsequent century, 
 namely, the influence upon thought of Saracen and Jewish 
 scholarship. 
 
 * "Amantissimus Domini sanctissimus Augustlnus, calamus Trinitatis, 
 lingua Spiritus sancti, terrenus homo, sed coelestis angelus, in quaestionibus 
 solvendis acutus, in revincendis haereticis circumspectus, in explicandis 
 Scripturis canonicis cautus." (Migne, "Pat. Lat.," torn. 104, cols. 927-928.) 
 
 ' Agobardus episcopus Lugdunensis was of Gallic parents but born in 
 Spain, 779, and came to Lyons under Leidrad, the archbishop, became his 
 successor, and died 840 or 841. Cf. Migne, '* Pat. Lat.," tom. 104, cols. 9-12, 
 and A. Hauck, in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," I, 1896, pp. 
 246-248, English translation in the new Schaff-Herzog, I, 1908, p. 89. 
 
290 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Agobard wrote much against the Jews.^ And when the really 
 Christian student takes up his chief work against them, "De 
 Judaicis Superstitionibus," he begins under Agobard's guidance 
 a saddening review of the hatred and bigotry that has stained 
 official and unofficial Christian history from early times. Ago- 
 bard calls attention to the hard and cruel things he gathers from 
 the fathers, beginning with Hilarius and going down through 
 the list, Jerome, Ambrose, etc., and then he takes up the coun- 
 cils from Laodicea,^ etc., and then with the weird exegesis whose 
 methods are not yet extinct, he proves how Jesus and Paul teach 
 us to hate and condemn with all untruth and lack of charity 
 those who rejected what the guileless Agobard called Chris- 
 tianity. 
 
 From his pages it is impossible to form any opinion of the 
 actual influence of Judaism upon Christian thought. That it 
 was considerable one may see from the place that polemic against 
 Judaism has from Gregory I onward. Agobard accuses the 
 Jews of httle except rejection of Roman Catholic dogma, and 
 of teaching that God has hands and eyes and ears, etc.,^ and that 
 they had another conception of the world's creation and main- 
 tenance,* and that the letters of the alphabet and the law of 
 Moses date from before creation. Agobard was opposed to 
 several grave superstitions like trial by fire and water and magic 
 against hail,^ but it is vain to go to him expecting superstition 
 
 ' "Liber de Insolentia Judseorum." " Epistola de Judaicis Superstitioni- 
 bus." " Consultatio de baptismo Judaicorum mancipiorum." " Epistola De 
 cavenda societate Judaica." " Epistola ad proceres palatii contra pncceptum 
 impium de baptismo Judaicorum mancipiorum." Cf. Migne, "Pat. Lat.," 
 tom. 104, cols. 70-114; 174-178, etc. 
 
 * The council of Laodicea of uncertain date. See for the canons against 
 the Jews, the 37th and 38th. Cf. Hefele, C. J.: "Conciliengeschichte," 
 2d ed., Freiburg, vol. I, 1873, pp. 746-777. English translation, Edin- 
 burgh, vol. II, 1876, pp. 295-325. 
 
 '"Dicunt denique Deum suum esse corporcum, et corporeis linia- 
 mentis per membra distinctum, et alia quidem parte ilium audire ut nos, 
 etc." (" De Judaicis Superstitionibus," X : i. (MPL, CIV, 86 D.) 
 
 nhid., X:i. 
 
 * Sec his polemic, " De Grandine et Tonitribus," Migne, " Pat. Lat.," tom. 
 104, col. 147. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 291 
 
 as such to be condemned; it is only superstitions without any 
 official sanction that he condemns. Whether the Jews and 
 Saracens were really less superstitious than the world about 
 them the writer has not been able to decide after taking some 
 pains to find out/ But they had another set of superstitions, 
 and any thoughtful man can hardly reject some one else's super- 
 stitions without some inquiry as to the basis of his own. 
 
 That they were a disturbing factor, awakening in men dis- 
 turbing doubts, we see from the pages of Agobard's attacks and 
 from the constant repetition of the church canons forbidding 
 Christians to eat or drink or intermarry with them. They were 
 dreaded even more than heretics,^ who had some common 
 ground with Christians, but the Jews had no truth at all. 
 
 In his controversy with Fredigis of Tours ^ it is hard to see 
 how in any important particular he in any way differed from his 
 antagonist. Both accepted without any reservation the absolute 
 authority of Scripture, church, and tradition, without any seem- 
 ing consciousness of possible contradictions. The assumption 
 was the one constantly made by all parties that human intelli- 
 gence and the divine authority could only clash in cases of innate 
 moral depravity. The sense of tribal unity, the overpowering 
 need for unquestioning maintenance of the communal authority, 
 on which politically the life of a nation or group has so often 
 depended, was transferred to the religious field. Only "bad" 
 men would weaken the authority of the religious bond by sug- 
 gesting their own thoughts in opposition. It was "virtue" to 
 think as the church thought, or rather to so bury the religious 
 life in rite, ceremony, and superstitious acceptance of miracles 
 that there was no time or strength for thought. 
 
 * See art., "Superstition," by Joseph Jacobs, in "Jewish Encyclopedia," 
 vol. XI, 1905, pp. 597-601, and fuller literature in Giidemann, M. : "Ge- 
 schichte des Erziehungswesens und der Cultur der abendlandischen Juden," 
 3 vols., Vienna, 1880-1888. 
 
 ^ " Juda^orum autem ex toto mentire, ex toto blasphemare Dominum et 
 Deum nostrum Jesum Christum et Ecclesiam ejus," "De Judaicis Super- 
 stitionibus," IX. (Migne, " Pat. Lat.," tom. 104, col. 86 B.) 
 
 ' CJ. Renter: "Geschichte der Aufklarung," I : i : 10, pp. 36-41. 
 
292 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The political life was torn by the quarrels and violence of the 
 children and grandchildren of Charlemagne and Louis the 
 Pious. The feudal aristocracy, with customary patriotism, took 
 this occasion, of course, to strengthen their own holdings and 
 advance their fortunes. Of the life of the common people it is 
 hard to even form an idea, but the condition from several signs 
 seems, though very low, not to have been made much worse by the 
 dynastic struggles. For one thing the feudal lords were strong in 
 proportion as they could put men into the field as soldiers and 
 maintain them by well-tilled fields, so population seems to have 
 increased, barbarism was slowly supplanted by a rude civiliza- 
 tion, the incursions of the Saracens, the Normans, and to the east 
 the Wends, still made life on the borders hard and uncertain, 
 but within, even at the height of the dynasty disputes, relative 
 order was maintained by the feudal lords and the churchly 
 bishops. Yet it is vain to look for original contributions to a 
 theory of Christian ethics, and the intellectual energy was not 
 mainly spent in that direction. 
 
 Even the unfortunate monk Gottschalk's * quarrel with his 
 day over an extreme theory of predestination represents no con- 
 scious break with Scripture, the church, and tradition as giving 
 a closed system within which men must think, but only the in- 
 sistence upon interpreting them all in the light of one principle, 
 borrowed, it is true, from Augustine, but which is not really 
 Pauline, and which the church had quite naturally found it 
 impossible to use. Her method of enforcing unity was the 
 primitive one, no longer fashionable in theology but still accepted 
 
 ' Gottschalk the Monk was the son of a Count Beno, and as a mere 
 youth was forced for some reason into a monastery. He maintained to 
 the last his heresy of a twofold predestination based on Augustine and 
 Paul. His chief enemies were Hinkmar of Rheims, Hrabanus Maurus, and 
 Johannes Scotus Erigena. But his teaching also found powerful friends in 
 Ratrammus of Corbie, Prudentius of Troyes, Remigius of Lyons, and 
 others. They were not strong enough, however, to save him, and he died 
 in a monastery prison after twenty years of confinement. For full literature, 
 see the article by A. Freystedt, in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," 
 VII, 1899 pp. 39-40. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 293 
 
 as wholesome in other fields where more vital interests are sup- 
 posed to be at stake. 
 
 The court of Charles the Bald was not on the level with that of 
 Charlemagne, nor would it be historical to claim for either of 
 them tolerance in the modern sense of that word, but both were 
 willing within the limits of the accepted system to hear and en- 
 courage free speech, and both felt the need of culture for the 
 mass of men as well as for the select few. 
 
 From 843 (Treaty of Verdun) the Frankish kingdom, with 
 its semi-Latin Romance tongue, began to separate in speech and 
 culture from the Eastfranks, or those who spoke "the people's 
 tongue," i. e., "Deutsch." The more this was the case the 
 more need was there for a basis of unity removed from the polit- 
 ical chance, and the Roman cultus grew in importance in men's 
 eyes as they saw the danger of the pohtically torn social state. 
 Its tongue was Latin, and the educated clerical world spoke this 
 language everywhere, and so bound the world together in 
 culture in an extraordinary degree. Alcuin was an Englishman; 
 Johannes Scotus Erigena was born in Ireland. Anselm was 
 Piedmontese and English Archbishop. Yet all could write and 
 be read and understood by the world of letters everywhere. 
 This gave to the church that cosmopolitanism which is still the 
 chiefest charm of the Roman communion and not a little of her 
 strength. 
 
 Such a group of men as Hinkmar of Rheims, Lupus, Usuardus 
 Ratrammus, Prudentius of Troyes, and Johannes Scotus 
 Erigena shows what high capacity and learning could be gathered 
 together even in the ninth century, and the practical work of 
 Bishop Anskar^ reveals the fact that the church was still earnestly 
 conscious of her missionary and cultural obligation. This was 
 her real ethical life. It was her social service and not her strug- 
 
 ' Archbishop of Hamburg about 831-865. See Hauck, "Kirchen- 
 geschichte Deutschlands," 2d vol., pp. 617^., 1890. Anskar was the father 
 of Danish Christianity. Born about 801, he accompanied Harold back 
 from the "Reichstag" at Mainz, and after his deposition undertook missions 
 to Sweden and then became Archbishop of Hamburg. 
 
294 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 gles over the question of whether Mary suffered birth pangs or 
 not ' that gave her place and power. And already she had 
 awakened the spirit that demands a reason for a world of which 
 the religious spirit insists upon postulating reasonableness. 
 
 II. CONSTRUCTIVE SCHOLASTICISM 
 
 The era of constructive scholasticism coincides with the need 
 of a rational and unified view of the world on the part of an 
 awakening intelligence. The place of honor in this process is 
 usually given to Anselm (1033-1109), but in point of fact we 
 must go back to the court of Charles the Bald for the real 
 founder of scholasticism, and examine the work of Johannei, 
 Scotus Erigena? Christlieb has refused to recognize him, it is 
 
 ' It is hard to resist the impression that the unnatural suppression and 
 distortion of the sexual life in monastery and cloister is in large part re- 
 sponsible for the constant morbid inquiries with regard to the birth of our 
 Lord. 
 
 ^ Johannes Scotus Erigena, it is now admitted, was born in Ireland, 
 and probably somewhere about 820, although the years of both birth and 
 death are conjectural. He came to the court of Charles the Bald, and by 
 his scholarship and knowledge of Greek, as well as by his humor — if William 
 of Malmesbury is to be trusted — gained the constant support of Charles. 
 After Charles's death the opposition of the clergy and his condemnation by the 
 councils and a pope may have driven him from France. But the story 
 that he was murdered by his own pupils in England, whither he had been 
 called by Alfred the Great, is doubtful. His great work is "De divisione 
 naturae" (German translation by Ludwig Noack, 1870, said to be good); 
 and important for its understanding is his translation of the Pseudo- 
 areopagite and the Scholia of Maximus the Confessor to Gregory of Nazian- 
 zus. His work on Predestination is also useful. For our purposes the 
 fourth book of "De divisione naturae" is the most important of his writings. 
 His collected works by H. J. Floss, in Migne, "Pat. Lat.," tom. 122 (1853), 
 where also all that is known of his life, together with an ingenious sug- 
 gestion with regard to the same, is given. (See "Provencia," p. 19.) Of 
 the abundant literature there may be mentioned besides Ueberweg-Hcinze 
 and the standard histories of philosophy: Staudenmaier, F. A.: "Johannes 
 Scotus Erigena und die Wissenschaft seiner Zeit," Frankfort, 1834; "Christ- 
 lieb Th. Lebcn und Lehre des Johannes Scotus Erigena," Gotha, i860; 
 Huber, Johannes: "Johannes Scotus Erigena," Munich, 1861; Prantl, C: 
 "Geschichte dcr Logik in Abendland," Leipsic, 1S61, II, pp. 20-37; 
 Maurice, F. D.: "Moral and Metaphysical Philosophy," vol. I, part 3, 
 pp. 467-501. New edition, London, 1886. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 295 
 
 true, as the father of scholasticism and mysticism, to which place 
 Staudenmaier had raised him. 
 
 In regard to mysticism, Christlieb is undoubtedly right. 
 Erigena was in no sense a mystic, although there are points of 
 contact between his system and mysticism. But the reasons 
 Christlieb gives for refusing to make him a scholastic are surely 
 insufficient. He set about the same task, within the same limits, 
 with the same tools and the same essential postulates; nor did 
 he, in point of fact, reach very different results from the later 
 men. He is the author of the oft-quoted phrase which almost 
 defines the faith of scholasticism.^ Christlieb says he was free, 
 but how could any one's speculations be really free starting with 
 such a point of view and making the "regulae," or "rules of 
 faith," the essence of religion in the way Erigena did? 
 
 He only seems free in contrast with some of the later scholas- 
 tics, because he has a somewhat wider range of authority, and 
 transplanted Greek speculation into Latin soil. But he is not 
 really free, and his interests are no more metaphysical than were 
 Anselm's. 
 
 The usual definition of scholasticism as exclusive interest in 
 dogma is too narrow. There are levels of interest distinctly 
 marked. All, it is true, sought to rationalize within the closed 
 dogmatic system, but some had the rational speculative interest 
 foremost; such were Johannes Scotus Erigena, Anselm, and 
 Abelard; others had the dogmatic interest in the foreground, 
 and the speculative was but dogma's handmaid, as in the case 
 of Peter Lombard, Albertus Magnus, and Thomas Aquinas. 
 There is yet a further division, where the attitude toward both 
 dogma and philosophy was so critical that all rationalization 
 was seen to be impossible, as was the case with Duns Scotus 
 and the Nominalists. They remained scholastics because they 
 
 1 " Quid est aliud de philosophia tractare, nisi verjE religionis, qua 
 summa et principalis omnium rerum causa, Deus, et humiliter colitur, et 
 rationabiliter investigatur, regulas exponere? Conficitur inde, veram 
 esse philosophiam veram religionem, conversimque veram religionem esse 
 veram philosophiam." ("Liber de Praedestinatione," cap. I, § i, Migne, 
 "Pat. Lat.,"tom. 122, cols. 357-358-) 
 
296 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 bowed to authority, but they unwittingly heralded the bank- 
 ruptcy of scholasticism. 
 
 Before entering upon the examination of scholasticism, it 
 must be remembered that the whole school is exceedingly un- 
 fruitful for our subject. Ethics on the basis of authority becomes 
 a mere legal casuistry. Ethics was handed over to the confes- 
 sional, and was dealt with in the distressing books of penitence,^ 
 where the practical purpose of church discipline, of reformation 
 of the sinner, and the preservation of the peace mingle with 
 other and lower motives, as the exaltation of the clergy, the pro- 
 tection of property and class privileges, and the maintenance of 
 a humble frame of mind among those whom the church gov- 
 erned. 
 
 And yet ethics could not be wholly neglected even by the most 
 speculative and the most metaphysical; and the type of ethical 
 thinking is determined by the emphasis in the interest of the 
 writer. When, in turn, we come to the mystic scholasticism, we 
 find feeling taking the place of thought and giving us another 
 ethical ideal that in its logic displaces scholasticism as thoroughly 
 as the nominalist logic. 
 
 The system of Johannes Scotus Erigena was primarily meta- 
 physical. He enters upon his subject by giving us a fourfold 
 division of all things, into the Uncreated who creates — /. e., God. 
 The Created that creates — /'. e., the world of ideas — these are the 
 causcB primordiales and give rise to the complexity of created 
 
 * " Libri pxnitentiales." These were books of penance introduced 
 with English culture, and bearing the names — probably without warrant 
 in the circulated form — of Beda, Egbert, Theodore of Canterbury, and 
 many others. These were followed by Roman Libri pcenitentiales, and 
 so there arose a considerable literature of no small importance for the history 
 of conduct and culture, although they must be used with care. One does 
 not go to books of pathology to get the statistics of a nation's health. The 
 literature is made accessible by Wasserschleben (F. W. H.), whose "Die 
 Bussordnungen der abendlilndischen Kirchc," Halle, 1851, and whose 
 edition of "Reginonis . . . libri duo de Synodalibus causis et disciplinis 
 Erclcsiasticis . . . adnotationcm duplicam adjecit " (Lcipsic, 1840), seem 
 to be simply exploited by the other authors the writer has consulted, and 
 without much advance upon his results. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 297 
 
 things as over against the absolute unity of God. These go 
 forth from God, and are, of course, modifications of Plato's 
 ideas and forerunners of realism's apparatus for the construction 
 of the seen world/ There is thirdly that which is created and 
 cannot create. This is not, however, an eternal creation, like 
 the primordial ideas and the Logos, but is in time;^ thus we 
 have not only the prototypes but something like the Trpcori] v\r] 
 of Aristotle, only that Erigena rejects a formless matter, probably 
 not wanting to suggest an eternal matter or "Urstoff," so that 
 the form eternal moulds the matter from the beginning ^ but in 
 time. And, lastly, there is the uncreated that does not create. 
 This is the principle that leads back from division and the many, 
 where were weakness, sin and death, to unity, oneness with God, 
 and eternal life." This is for Erigena the meaning of the in- 
 carnation and the redemption, and it is thought of in thoroughly 
 Hellenistic-oriental terms as a swallowing up of the temporal 
 in the eternal. 
 
 It is at this point that Erigena begins to have interest for the 
 ethical student, and the type of thought here involved reappears 
 throughout theological history. God is thought of as all in all. 
 His conceptions are the realities of the seen world. But how 
 then comes sin into the world? Because man is a secondary 
 creative agent,^ he is the effectual agent. And thus, as with 
 Origen, sin for God becomes negative and unreal. And the 
 exegesis by which the fall of man and the need of redemption is 
 explained is the regular symbolic exegesis common to many 
 schools of thought. Man is thus a secondary agent beside God, 
 responsible and free. Thus the double predestination of Gott- 
 schalk, robbing man of his dignity, was abhorrent to Erigena. 
 It is as an intelligent being and moral agent that a man knows 
 himself." Thus within his sphere man is actually the reality, 
 and in his consciousness is the substance of his world. Thus the 
 universe becomes a high feudal system with man as the inde- 
 
 » "De div. nat.," II : 2; III : 1. ' "De div. nat.," Ill : 15. 
 
 » "De div. nat.," I : 56; I : 57. * "De div. nat.," II : 13; V : 25. 
 
 *"Dediv. nat.," IV: 9. e"Dediv. nat.," IV : 9. 
 
298 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 pendent lord within his realm. And in this sense, and no doubt 
 under the influence of the new social organization taking place, 
 Erigena constructs his ethical philosophy from the idealisms of 
 Plato, Plotinus, Maximus, and Dionysius the Areopagite. 
 
 Within this admixture of pantheistic idealism and political 
 and scholastic realism, this strange and difficult conglomerate of 
 free speculation and slavish holding fast to traditional dogma, 
 there is no logical room for hell and eternal punishment any 
 more than in Origen; for all things return to God that God 
 may be all in all. Adam never was in time in paradise,^ he is the 
 idea of the whole race, and so far as time goes entered at once 
 upon a sinful life. The fall is the actually entering upon this 
 temporal existence. Hence man was not in a state of virtue, 
 but of equilibrium,^ and his freedom led to the fall.^ Sin springs 
 from pride,^ and came with the first sleep, and indeed according to 
 Erigena the narrative in Genesis is by anticipation of what is yet 
 to come, and all that is related of Eve, the serpent, etc, came after 
 the first real sin which took place in sleep.^ 
 
 The sensual character of sin is taken from Augustine or the 
 monkish ethics of the day. Hence man awoke from his life as 
 idea in God to the reality of sin. He never has been really 
 sinless, but aims at a return to God when he will become sinless; 
 for the very taking on of the body is a falling aw^ay from God 
 and reality. The Neoplatonic and dualistic elements are here 
 evident, and are really destructive of all freedom and all ethics. 
 But Erigena does not see that nor does he go the whole length of 
 the system. So also in this same book * he teaches that sex is 
 also a result of the fall as well as the very possibility of temptation 
 by lust. Sin is in fact a relative removal by man geographically 
 or ideally from God, and in no way does Erigena really relieve 
 
 ' "De div. nat.," IV : 15-19. = De div. nat.," V : 38. 
 
 *"Confcctum est, Deum primo homini talcm voluntatcm et dedisse, et 
 in eo earn condidisse in tantum liberam, ut per earn posset peccarc, posset 
 non peccare." ("Liber dc Prsedestinatione," cap. V : 9, Migne, "Pat. 
 Lat.," torn. 122, col. 379 B.) 
 
 *"De div. nat.," IV : 6; IV : 20-22 . 
 
 * " De div. nat.," IV : 18-20, 23. * " De div. nat.," IV : 20. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 299 
 
 God of responsibility for sin, since he knows as he creates his 
 effectual agents what must result. Erigena's dialectic in no 
 way covers the contradiction, and this he himself dimly realizes.^ 
 Sin is for Erigena its own punishment, as virtue, i. e., existence 
 in God, is its own joy. To be away from God is sin and hell, to 
 be returned to God is life and joy. Here we have again Augus- 
 tine and in some ways also Dionysius. 
 
 The sacramental magic that so marks and mars ecclesiastical 
 ethics also appears, though but casually, in Erigena. In this 
 fourth book baptism takes away the sin brought into the child 
 by the very fact of conception.^ The sin of the world is " The 
 common sin of the whole world, i. e., of human nature, of which 
 the guilt (reatus) is remitted by baptism, and which is itself 
 destroyed at the end of the world in the resurrection of all." ^ 
 Erigena is not at one with himself as to the relation of God to 
 this sin of the world. 
 
 As foreknowledge with God means also predestination, Erigena 
 makes God ignorant of sin," and yet this knowledge thus denied 
 can only be the active creative knowledge, for outside of God is 
 nothing. So as sin becomes a negative quantity it really should 
 lose its character. But Erigena is too bound to the vocabulary 
 of the church to go as far as that. He therefore at this point 
 writes in the greatest confusion. In fact, to the present writer 
 his tract, ''De Prsedestinatione," seems so full of contradictions 
 and various mutually exclusive points of view, that it suggests 
 either a certain apologetic opportunism or an intellectual care- 
 lessness not otherwise characteristic of the man. 
 
 With metaphysical mysticism the system has, indeed, many 
 
 »"De div. nat.," V : 36. 
 
 * " Carnalia vero conjugia, etsi legitima sint et religiosis hominibus 
 conjuncta, libidinoso tamen illicitoque motu carnalis pruritus carere non 
 posse incunctanter affirmamus. Non enim aliunde nascentes in came 
 parvuli, nisi inde, aeternae mortis reatum attrahunt, quos solum catholicae 
 Ecclesiae baptisma ab ipso reatu liberal. " ("De Divisione Nature," 
 liber IV : 23. Migne, " Pat. Lat.," torn. 122, col. 847 A.) 
 
 ' Comment, in Evang. sec. Joannem, "Ecce Angus Dei!" (MPL, 122, 
 col. 299 A.) 
 
 *"De Prcedest," XI : 6-8. 
 
300 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 points of contact. But it is not really essentially mystical. 
 With the religious and ethical ideals that actually animate 
 mysticism there is almost no real sympathy. That he widely 
 and deeply influenced thought along that line is due to misun- 
 derstanding of him and to the fact that by his translation he 
 did much to further the school. 
 
 The logic of mysticism is a thorough-going despondency with 
 regard to this world. This Erigena will not allow. All is good 
 so far as God has made it, only man's misuse makes of good an 
 evil. Even hell in God is a good, and even for a good man not 
 an evil, for heaven and hell are states of consciousness, as we 
 have seen; and as the shadow is needed to see light in its beauty, 
 so just punishment and pain but bring out eternal harmony.' 
 
 Never is Erigena consciously outside the dogmatic system, 
 but he deals broadly with it. 
 
 Under the protection of Charles the Bald a certain rather 
 wide latitude of opinion was permitted. Dogma is never really 
 the fixed quantity that schools of thought try to make it. For 
 there will always be as many different interpretations of the 
 dogmatic statement as there are types of temperament and 
 levels of intellect. The unity of political empire was, however, 
 the model on which Rome began to steadily push for an organized 
 and accepted body of philosophic teachings giving unity to the 
 dogmatic system. 
 
 Each dispute gave Rome her opportunity to assert her claim 
 of decision as a court of last resort. To strengthen these claims 
 came very opportunely the forged Isidorian Decretals.^ It is 
 
 'The best discussion of this theme is in Ruber's "Johannes Scotus 
 Erigena," pp. 358-428, where he deals with the whole subject of Erigena's 
 eschatology in what seems to the writer the most sympathethic and objective 
 way possible. 
 
 * For the enormous literature, see Herzog-Hauck's " Realencyklopadie," 
 "Pseudoisidor," by E. Seckel, vol. XVI, 1905, pp. 265-307. Text in Migne, 
 "Pat. Lat.," vol. CXXX, edited by Heinr. Denzinger, 1853. The decretals 
 arc the work of a skilful and deliberate forger about the year 852. The 
 discovery of their forged character was made certain by Blondel ("Pseudo- 
 Isidorus et Turrianus vapulantcs . . . ," Geneva, 1628), and convincingly 
 proved by Paul Hinschius ("Decretales Pseudo-Isidorianae et Capitula An- 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 301 
 
 humiliating to realize how much the progress of the race has 
 been mingled with and advanced by superstition, ignorance, and 
 fraud, or rather how the ideals that have lured us on from 
 ethical conquest to ethical conquest have been wrapt up in 
 symbols that became the objects of superstition, have been 
 cherished because of ignorance of the realities that masked them- 
 selves as the incorporation of these ideals, and have been ad- 
 vanced by frauds that lent themselves to ideal purposes. 
 
 The importance for the world's life of some unification of her 
 ideals was so overwhelming that thoughtful men everywhere 
 accepted with a most amazing lack of critical examination the 
 spiritual claims of Christianity as a religion and of the papacy 
 as her official representative. 
 
 The bishop's courts became the rival of the courts of the 
 empire. Canon law became not simply a matter of ecclesiastical 
 discipline, but of fundamental importance in matters of civil 
 and penal process.^ The lower clergy and the monasteries were 
 
 gilramni . . . ," Leipsic, 1863). There is now no reasonable doubt about 
 the forged character of the decretals, but they have been the mainstay of the 
 papal claims for over six centuries. They arose in the Prankish Kingdom, 
 and pretended simply ^' canonum sententias colligere, et uno in volumhte 
 redigere, et de muUis unumfacere" but in reality the aim was to increase the 
 power of the bishops as over against the civil government and to exalt the 
 papacy. (MPL, 130, 7 A.) 
 
 ' The influence of law upon the whole churchly development is far too 
 large a subject for these pages. Yet the ethics, particularly of the Western 
 church, were deeply affected by the transition from the conception of the 
 church as a vehicle of the evangelical proclamation to the church as a 
 law-giving and law-enforcing organization. This progress may be traced 
 in the history of canonical law (6 Kavdiv avoiTTo\iKbs — 6 /cacc6v 5' iKK\i]<Tia(TriK6s, 
 or 6 Kavdv ttjs iKKX-qa-ias). Canon meant at first the regulation of the churchly 
 life by the synods. Then it received the fuller meaning of all churchly direc- 
 tions by the pope or churchly authority. The decrees of the popes and the 
 decisions of councils form, from the sixth century onward, a body of law that 
 runs parallel with the civil law and often covers the same ground. This body 
 of canon law was full of contradictions, was, in fact, an undigested mass, 
 and various attempts were made to collect and organize the body of law 
 it contained. The most noteworthy attempt was made by Gratian, a 
 monk in the cloister St. Felix of Bologna, between 1139-1142, the "Con- 
 cordantia discordantium canonum," which is generally referred to as the 
 "Decretum Gratiani," or simply "Decreta." (Herzog-Hauck, "Real- 
 
302 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 maintained in large part by the people, and they in some 
 measure at least curbed the arrogance and stayed the injustice of 
 the ruling class. Amidst all confusions the ritual and language 
 of the Roman church loomed large as the firm maintainers of 
 a glorious tradition of conquest and suffering, and as the sure 
 symbols of more eternal triumphs still in the world to come. 
 Miracles were the church's constant pride and boast. Sacra- 
 mental magic was woven into every act of importance in human 
 life. The babe was baptized to free it by magic from inherited 
 guilt; the sacrament was taken to give magic strength in time of 
 temptation or trouble. The sign of the cross kept witches and 
 devils at bay. The church bells protected the village from the 
 assaults of envious demons; the ground in which men were 
 buried had to be blessed and magically set apart for this purpose. 
 The priest in the Catholic church had full control of this magic. 
 In the churches lay the wonder-working relics of the saints, and 
 Rome controlled the priests and largely supplied the relics, and 
 could alone guarantee the efficacy of the magic. 
 
 Thus magic was organized, regulated, and in some degree 
 ethicized as well as limited. We have seen how Agobard 
 attacked the unofficial magic of his day (page 289). It became 
 sorcery, witchcraft, and of the evil one, even when exactly the 
 same magic in the hands of the church was effective and divine. 
 With an awakening intelligence the thought of the day had also 
 to be organized, regulated, and kept within the bounds of creed 
 and dogma. No one did more to advance this process than 
 Anselm * 0} Canterbury. 
 
 encyklopadie," X, 1901, p.n). This collection has never been officially 
 recognized by Rome, but its influence was simply past computation. It 
 has been succeeded by other collections, but to no one has papal authority 
 been given, and the influence is therefore indirect. See for full literature, 
 Schulte, Johann Friedrich: "Beitrag zur Gcschichte des canonischen 
 Rechtes von Gratian bis auf Bernhard von Paria," Wien, 1873; Bickell, 
 Johann Wilhelm: "Geschichte des Kirchcnrechts," Frankfort a. M., 
 1843-1849 (vol. I, in two parts, no more published); Crcdncr, Karl .\ugust: 
 "Zur Geschichte des Kanons," Halle, 1847. 
 
 •Anselm (1033-1109) was born in Aosta, Piedmont, of parents whose 
 hopes for him differed greatly. His mother was a pious and earnest 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 303 
 
 Into the dogmatic questions that cluster about Anselm we 
 cannot go.^ At two points, however, Anselm laid the foundation 
 for the whole ethical development of the scholastic period. In 
 his conception of God and his emphasis upon the ethical ele- 
 ments involved in the atonement he forced great issues upon the 
 thought of the church. 
 
 His conception of God is a wonderfully religious and lofty 
 
 woman (see Rule, Martin, "The Life and Times of St. Anselm," in two 
 vols., London, 1883, pp. 7-14) and his.father's character seems to have been 
 good, contrary to the ordinary tradition. Both parents were of high class, 
 with royal blood in both lines of descent. But the father cherished, seem- 
 ingly, ambitions rather for the temporal than the spiritual powers of a 
 bishopric for his son. Anselm was in England when William II, on his 
 sick-bed, desired to fill .the rather long-vacant see of Canterbury and chose 
 Anselm. Under Anselm England came to an understanding with Rome 
 about investiture and the feudal vow. Anselm took the vow of loyalty to 
 William, but his investiture from Rome. For full list of books, see Migne, 
 "Pat. Lat.," tomi 158, 159. There are many editions of his single works 
 "Monologium" and "Cur Deus Homo?" English translations of "Pros- 
 logium," "Monologium," and "Cur Deus Homo?" by S. N. Deane, Chicago, 
 1903 (Open Court Publishing Company). Hasse, Fr. R.: "Anselm von Can- 
 terbury," I, Leben II, Lehre (Leipsic, 1843-1852), is still the fullest mine of 
 information about Anselm. Rule's "Life" is full and attractively written 
 though at times uncritical. Remusat, Chas. F. M. de: "St. Anselme de 
 Cantorbery, Tableau de la Vie monastique . . . ," Paris, 1853. See also 
 the article by Kunze, in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," vol. I, 
 1896, pp. 562-570, additional literature in the article by Beckwith in the 
 New Schafl-Herzog "Encyclopaedia," vol. I, 1908, pp. 188-190, and the 
 "Vita," by Eadmer, in Migne, torn. 158, cols. 49-118, of which a translation 
 by the dean of St. Paul's is mentioned with praise by Rule, but the writer 
 has not seen it. 
 
 »See Harnack, A.: "Dogmengeschichte," 3d ed., vol. Ill, 1897, pp. 
 355-359, English translation, vol. VI, 1899, pp. 54-79; Ritschl, A.: 
 " Rechtfertigung und Versohnung," 3d ed., 1889, I, pp. 31-37; 52-54. 
 English translation by J. S. Black, Edinburgh, 1872, pp. 22-34, 38-40; 
 Baur, Ferdinand Christian: "Die christliche Lehre von der Versohnung 
 . . . ," Tubingen, 1838; Cremer, H.: "Der germanische Satisfak- 
 tionsbegriff in der Versohnungslehre" ("Theologische Studien und Kriti- 
 ken"), vol. LXVI, 1893, pp. 316-345; the same: "Die Wurzeln des 
 Anselm'schen Satisfactionsbegriffes" ("Theologische Studien und Kriti- 
 ken," vol. LIII, 1880, pp. 1-22;) Reuter, H.: "Geschichte der religiosen 
 Aufklarung im Mittelalter," 2 vols., Berlin, 1877; Hasse, Fr. R.: "Anselm 
 von Canterbury," part 2; "Die Lehre" (1852), and the standard works on 
 theology. 
 
304 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 creation. Based as it is intellectually upon Augustine, and per- 
 vaded by his spirit, it is ethically an advance upon Augustine 
 to whom God was still far too much thought of in the terms of 
 an arbitrary oriental monarch whose main attribute was power 
 (seep. 2^"] f}.). In the " Monologium," and still more pro- 
 nouncedly in the ''Proslogium," God is thought of as the ethi- 
 cally highest* being, and his reality is postulated, because 
 being is thus to be identified with our highest thought of it. 
 In spite of the world of reflection that separates Kant from 
 Anselm, there is in this ethical interest in God a common 
 bond between the two. In the beautiful "Proslogium," Anselm 
 pours out his soul to a loving, forgiving, good God,^ a God 
 who is highest justice and highest mercy. 
 
 And yet the gulf that separates the God of Anselm's highest 
 religious achievement from the God and Father of Our Lord 
 Jesus is a great gulf. For Anselm's thought of God is built 
 upon the legal constitution of the society of his day.^ God is the 
 incarnation of a most just feudal Over-lord, who holds society 
 
 '"Monologium," caput XVI: "Sed palam est quia quodlibet bonum 
 summa natura sit, summe illud est. lUa igitur est summa essentia, summa 
 vita, summa ratio, summa salus, summa justitia, summa sapientia, summa 
 Veritas, summa bonitas, summa magnitude, summa pulchritudo, summa 
 immortalitas, summa incorruptibilitas, summa immutabilitas, summa 
 beatitudo, summa seternitas, summa potestas, summa unitas; quod non est 
 aliud quam summe ens, summe vivens: et alia similiter." (Migne, " Pat. 
 Lat.," torn. 158, col. 165 C.) 
 
 * " Proslogium," cap. I, V, IX, XVII, XXV. Very beautiful is the closing 
 invocation of this vi'onderful meditation, cap. XXVI seq.: "Deus meus, et 
 Dominus meus, spes mea, et gaudium cordis mci, die animae meae, sic hoc 
 est gaudium, de quo nobis dicis per Filium tuum: Petite, et accipietis, ut 
 gaudium vestrum sit plenum," etc., etc. (Migne, "Pat. Lat.," torn. 158, 
 cols. 241-242.) 
 
 * Into the interesting question of the origin of Anselm's conceptions of 
 the satisfaction theory, whether it is to be sought in Roman or Germanic 
 law, the present writer is not competent to go. But the correspondence of 
 Anselm shows abundantly how the feudal system, with its lord and over- 
 lord and its conception of ranges of personal dignity, its distribution of 
 power, was for Anselm the normal state of things and affected all his 
 thoughts. For the controversy, see especially Cremer, H.: "Theologische 
 Studien und Kritiken," 1880, pp. 17 I-; 1S93, pp. 31^345- 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 305 
 
 together in loving but majestic sovereignty. For Augustine sin 
 was the inherited alienation of the fleshly life from the source of 
 its being. For Anselm sin is the infringement of the dignity of 
 the sovereign Over-lord, As over against oriental despotism, 
 both Roman and Germanic law exalt the place of the group and 
 connect the dignity of the ruler with its conservation. God is 
 for Anselm the Over-lord who punishes to conserve the peace of 
 the universe and maintains his dignity as Ruler.^ He must 
 punish and he must reward,^ because it inheres in the very 
 thought of the highest Ruler of the Universe that he should thus 
 act. 
 
 This gives the basis, indeed, for an ethical conception of God, 
 and yet it fails, as Kant's conception fails, really to exhaust the 
 religious content of God thought of not as Ruler but as Father. 
 
 In Anselm's theory again of the death of Jesus as a satisfaction, 
 in spite of its utterly untenable and legal character, there also 
 enters an ethical element. The argument is built up to conserve 
 the social values, justice, pity, and order in the universe. It is 
 again an essential reading of the social order of that day into the 
 wider experiences of all time, but it is an ethical advance upon 
 the crude dualism that pervades the thought of atonement up to 
 Anselm's time. Jesus does not die to buy us from the devil, and 
 the devil has no just claim upon us.^ 
 
 However little successful the attempt was, Anselm did attempt 
 to make ethical valuation supreme as the test of dogmatic truth, 
 always, of course, within the limits of the closed system. 
 
 From the point of view of a really Protestant ethics the theory 
 has no value, for it rests substantially on the conception of 
 works of supererogation (wrought by Jesus), which not only 
 enable but compel God to reward the worker, and the only 
 element of pity and love is in making the reward our redemption, 
 
 '"Proslogium," cap. IX-XI. "Cur Deus Homo," lib I, cap. XIII. 
 "Meditatio Super Mis.," § i. 
 
 * Harnack justly points out that Anselm's theory of the atonement is not 
 on the basis of bearing punishment, but of giving reward to the Son for that 
 which is superabundant merit. Cf. "Cur Deus Homo," lib II, cap. XIX. 
 
 ^"Cur Deus Homo," lib. I, cap. VII. 
 
3o6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 lovingly demanded by Jesus Christ and lovingly granted by the 
 Father, which it was quite within God's power not to do. The 
 whole scheme rests upon utterly unreal metaphysical relations 
 between the triune persons, and in point of fact moves within 
 the limits of a false legal conception of life born of the feudal 
 system in which social structure Anselm played a weighty part/ 
 
 The fact that under Gregory VII the dream of world power 
 for the hierarchy seemed near a possible realization has a large 
 place in the history. It affected the religious and ethical devel- 
 opment in the profoundest way. This dream had completely 
 taken the place of the kingdom-dream as that vision had haunted 
 the late Jewish and early Christian life. Even mystic scholas- 
 ticism, whose real interest was so far away from temporal sover- 
 eignty, was, as we shall see, not unaffected. 
 
 But with Anselm the influence is overwhelming. He was a 
 monk, but his world of thought is not dominated by the crude 
 realism and particularism which marked the origins of the 
 monkish intrusions. The international character of the hier- 
 archy is seen in his abstract conception of God as over against 
 all national and concrete ideas of him. The legal character 
 of the church is marked in the external and formal relations 
 postulated as being the relations of God to his universe. The 
 attributes of God are played off against each other, justice 
 against mercy, dignity against love, power against pity, etc. So, 
 though Anselm has given us no developed ethics, it is easy to see 
 along what lines alone he could have developed a system. 
 
 As the state, or states, found in the Roman law the basis for 
 a new social reconstruction, so the eager minds of the scholastic 
 
 * It is interesting to recall the fact that the struggle of Anselm with 
 William II of England compelled him to consider all the relations of Church 
 to State. The King's demand that the church remain in his hands and 
 Anselm's maintenance of Gregory's VII's position against lay investiture 
 led to the long quarrel with Anselm, his twofold banishment, and at length 
 to the compromise which lasted so long in English history. The efifect of 
 this legal struggle is revealed in Anselm's theology. For a good account, 
 see Hasse, F. R.: "Anselm von Canterbury," part i, Lcben (1843), pp. 
 235-454- 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 307 
 
 period turned to the only systematic intellectual tradition within 
 reach, namely, the Organum of Aristotle as it had been pre- 
 served and handed down by Jewish, Mahometan (Arabic), and 
 Byzantine scholarship.* Aristotle and later Plato were soon to be 
 accessible in the original tongues and to assume their old places 
 as the world's teachers, but Anselm knew them only in part. 
 Yet he moves wholly in this world of conceptual abstractions, 
 whose overwhelming usefulness for holding the world of thought 
 together has so long led men to believe, even into our own day, 
 that they have some divine and independent source of knowledge 
 apart from experience; and so for scholasticism, ancient and 
 modern, they become the really concrete realities by which 
 experience is to be judged, and are thought of as existing before 
 and beyond all experience. 
 
 For all the constructive scholastics, the great system builders, . 
 faith must precede knowledge, but faith is the acceptance oV'~'^=^-i 
 statements, either dogmatic or ethical or historical, as true, and 
 knowledge is weaving these statements together with experience 
 into an intellectually tenable system, i. e., into a system that will 
 not exhibit internal contradictions. 
 
 From this point of view ethics, also, can only be a systematic 
 treatment of revealed laws of action. Thus the canons and 
 ethics mingle hopelessly as the process of externalization and 
 formalization proceeds. The first demand of the church was 
 
 " So far as the writer can judge — without having access to the Arabic literature 
 — all that the Arabic scholarship did was to hand down the Greek literature in 
 somewhat faulty form. Their own thought was confined almost entirely to a 
 few fundamental questions, and they were bound by the Koran as narrowly as 
 Christian thought was by traditional dogma. But they wrote commentaries on 
 Aristotle (Alkendi, circa 850; AKarabi, circa 950; Avicenna [ibn Sina], 1030; 
 Algazel, HOC, and Averroes [ibn Roshd], 1200) and conserved something of the 
 mathematical and astronomical traditson of the past. With them were associated 
 in the minds of the scholastics Jewish thinkers like Avecebron [ibn Gebirol], 
 about 1050, the author of "Fons Vitas," and Moses Maimonides (1204). 
 Dieterice, F. : " Die Philosophie der Araber im neuten und Zehnten Jahrhundert," 
 1858-1886; Prantl: "Geschichte der Logik im Abendlande," vol. II, pp. 
 297^. Good account with full literature in Ueberweg-Heinze: "Geschichte 
 der Philosophie," 1905, part 2, pp. 234-270 (§§ 28-29). 
 
3o8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 for fides implicita,^ and the moral man was expected to submit 
 absolutely to the authority of the teacher before he could ration- 
 alize his conduct. 
 
 Moreover, in order not to awaken suspicion, this rationaliza- 
 tion must be within the limits set by the logic of the schools. 
 Thus, for instance, Peter Lombard,^ though a pupil of Abelard's, 
 was content to go back to the method of the compilers of the 
 ninth century, and to collect the various sayings of the fathers 
 and sentences from the Bible, with an attempted ignoring of the 
 work of the speculative teachers,^ that all the various contra- 
 dictions could be gotten rid of by proper exegesis of the words, 
 or that where doubt still remained the greater weight of au- 
 thority was alone to decide the matter. 
 
 There is therefore nothing in the great magister sententiarum 
 that is intentionally new, and ethics was of such secondary 
 importance beside dogmatics that only in the discussion of these 
 are ethical questions indirectly touched upon; as in the discus- 
 sion of predestination,* where Augustine in the conventional 
 churchly interpretation is closely followed, or in the famous 
 discussion of the moral and physical characters of angels,^ or 
 the creation and fall of man,' or the imputation and impartation 
 of grace.' The ethics of the one important ethical section of the 
 
 'For historical treatment of Fides implicita, see Ritschl, A.: "Fides 
 implicita. Eine Untersuchung iiber Kohlerglauben, Wissen und Glauben, 
 Glauben und Kirche," Bonn, 1890; also Hoffmann, Georg: "Die Lehre von 
 der Fides Implicita innerhalb der katholischen Kirche," Leipsic, 1903. His 
 second volume: "Die Lehre von der Fides Implicitas bei den Reformatoren," 
 Leipsic, 1906, the writer has not seen. 
 
 ' Petrus Lombardus was born of humble parentage in Lombardy, somewhere 
 about the beginning of the twelfth century, in the town of Novara, and died about 
 1 160. He was a pupil of Abelard's and a distinguished teacher in Paris. His 
 works are collected in Migne, "Pat. Lat.," torn. 191 (where also a short life is 
 given) and 192, cols. 1-964. Of the many encyclopaedic articles the best is 
 that by R. Seeberg, in Herzog-Hauck's " Realencyklopiidie," vol. XI, 1902, pp. 
 630-642. 
 
 * "Garruli ratiocinatores " (and the calm assurance), I : dis. 4 : 2; I : dis. a : 3. 
 
 * "Scntcnt." I : 40-42, especially I : 48 : 1-5. 
 ' ".Sentent." II : 4-7. 
 
 * "Sentent. II : 19 : 1-16; II : 22 : 1-12, etc. ^ "Sentent." II : 26 : 1-2. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 309 
 
 "Sentences" * are grouped about faith, hope, and charity, the 
 four cardinal virtues, and the two tables of the commandments 
 in almost mechanical carelessness. Under the head of marriage 
 as a sacrament, all concupiscence is condemned, not indeed as 
 sin, but as evil, thus distinguishing in the truly Hellenistic spirit 
 between guilt and sin.^ 
 
 Constructive scholasticism attained its greatest height in the 
 monumental works of two great souls — Albertus Magnus and 
 his great pupil Thomas Aquinas. The moral and intellectual 
 greatness of these two men will excite respect and admiration as 
 long as learning, sincerity, and character are valued among men. 
 Albertus Magnus ^ represents in its full glory the mediaeval 
 
 • "Sentent." Ill : distinctiones 26-40. 
 
 ' " Et nos dicimus illam concupiscentiam semper malam esse, quia foeda est, 
 et poena peccati; sed non semper peccatum est." "Sentent." IV, dis. 31 : 8. 
 (MPL, 192, 921 D.) 
 
 ' Albertus Magnus was born of noble family — the von Bollstadt — at Launingen 
 in Swabia, probably about 1193, and early became a member of the Dominican 
 Order. He was used by the order for the reorganization of their methods of 
 teaching, and so lectured in Regensburg, Freiburg, Strasburg, Paris, Hildes- 
 heim, and Cologne, where his chief work lay. It was in Cologne and Paris that 
 Thomas Aquinas became his pupil, and he outlived his favorite scholar and 
 defended his orthodoxy after his death. He himself died 1 280, after a long and 
 nobly useful life. His works are most numerous, and have been collected and 
 reprinted in Paris by Abb^ Auguste Bourgnet in thirty-eight volumes, 1891-1898, 
 vnth full reference to the critical work done on the life of Albert by Jac. Quetif 
 and Jac. Echard. These pages, however, refer to the edition of Petr. Jammy, 
 21 vols., Lyons, 1651, which, though uncritical and defective in accurate paging, 
 is the more commonly cited edition, and is at the basis of the Paris edition. For 
 discussion of the critical questions, see the Prcemia to the Paris edition. The 
 sources of special interest to the ethical student are the "Ten Books of Ethics" 
 (Jammy, tom. IV, pp. 1-362), in which Aristotle is freely paraphrased and 
 supplied with comments from other writers; the "Summa Theologias" (Jammy, 
 tomi XVII and XVIII); and the "Paradisus Animae, sive Libellus de Virtutibus" 
 (Jammy, tom. XXI), which is one of the most interesting ethical works of this 
 period, and should be read in connection with Albertus's "Commentary upon 
 Beatum Dionysium Areopageticum " (Jammy, tom. XIII, pp. 1-196). The 
 literature is very large; for a resume of it see Ueberweg-Heinze, " Grundriss der 
 Geschichte der Philosophic," 8th ed., 1898, part 2, pp. 264-265. The life by 
 Sighardt, J.: "Albertus Magnus, sein Leben und seine Wissenschaft nach den 
 Quellen dargestellt," Regensburg, 1857, is still readable, although uncritical and 
 indiscriminate. The English translation, "Albert the Great of the Order of 
 
3IO HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 thurch still fulfilling her function as authoritative teacher of 
 western Europe along all lines. Never was the power of the 
 Roman papacy more splendidly made manifest than under 
 Innocent III; and few men ever summed up the learning, the 
 religion, and the nobility of their age's character more completely 
 than did Albertus Magnus that of his. 
 
 The scholastic faith that the dogmas and system of the church 
 were absolutely in accord with reason and knowledge was never 
 questioned by Albertus. At the same time these two are separate 
 fields for many purposes. It is perfectly evident what Albertus 
 really regarded as infallible ; it is not the voice so much of church, 
 council, or Pope as the general message of culture, science, and 
 ethics which the church bears with her. Aristotle is Albertus's 
 real teacher in matters of science. He boldly disputes with his 
 great master about the eternity of matter and the nature of the 
 soul, but in logic, metaphysics, and the natural sciences, Aristotle 
 is wellnigh final.* In matters of morals he trusts Augustine, 
 in medicine and physics Galen, Hippocrates, and Aristotle. 
 He is, of course, firmly persuaded that between the science of 
 Aristotle and the religion (creed, dogma) of the church there 
 can be no real dispute. 
 
 Hence we have an interesting twofold ethics in Albertus. 
 On the one hand he gives us an ethics that reflects in its main 
 outlines the intellectual and aristocratic ethics of Aristotle, but 
 little softened by the reservations and comments of the Christian 
 Albertus. The rejection of the eternity of matter, and the 
 changes in Aristotle's psychology, which mark his paraphrase of 
 the ethics, are not fundamental enough to greatly change the 
 complexion of the whole. 
 
 But the later and real ideals of the teaching church are best 
 set forth in the little book "Paradisus Animae," which Albertus 
 wrote late in his life, and which gives us the curious combination 
 
 Friar-Preachers," translated from the French edition by T. A. Dixon, London, 
 1876, the writer has not seen. Cf. also Hertling, Gcorg von: "Albertus Magnus, 
 Beitrage zu seiner Wiirdigung . . . Festschrift," Cologne, 1880. 
 * "Sent." II, dis. 13 : 2. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 311 
 
 of Aristotle and monk, which was made possible only because 
 of the place the philosopher was given in the peripatetic philos- 
 ophy, and whose conversion into a monk was difficult but not 
 impossible. 
 
 Ethics, although a science, is yet for Albertus a science of 
 practice/ For the science we have only to follow Aristotle as 
 he had passed into the thought of the church, but worked over 
 more carefully by Albertus, and really intelligendy altered for 
 the church's purpose. As Albertus refused to confine reality 
 either to post rem or in re or ante rem, but regarded the universal 
 as first in God's thought {ante rem), then in nature {in re), and 
 lastly as existing in our conception, or explanation {post rem), so 
 the final good exists in God and is to be realized in personal life. 
 This realization of the good is happiness, and happiness is the 
 highest good. The summum honum is thus the fulfilment of 
 function, and exists in and for itself, as a good in itself;^ but this 
 is not the case with evil,^ for evil is privative, and has no place in 
 reality finally. 
 
 Man's good appears in a threefold relation. There are the 
 virtues of social citizenship— fourfold in character— of the home, 
 and the monastic virtues."* That which gives ethics its character 
 as over against physics is man's freedom. At this point Albertus 
 unwittingly follows Aristotle rather than Augustine, and in a 
 matter that profoundly affects his theology,^ at the same time 
 only as the church herself had done ever since Gottschalk, the 
 unhappy monk, was condemned. Not only was man's freedom 
 dear to Albertus as giving man his special likeness to God,® but 
 we are to use it for the mastery of the world and ourselves.' 
 
 ' "Et hoc modo bene consideremus, quod moralis docens theoretica est, et 
 moralis utens practica," Eth. 1:1:4. 
 
 ^Eth. 1:3:1. 3 Eth. 1:2:5. 
 
 * Eth. 1:3:1. At this point we notice the skilful adaptation of an essentially 
 different ethics to the contemplative, ascetic ideal. 
 
 * Cf. "Summa Theologia," I, tract 15-17 (Jammy, torn. XVII). 
 8"Paradisus Animae," cap. XXVI; "De Libertate," opera, vol. XXI, 1651, 
 
 p. 21. 
 
 ^ An interesting expression occurs in Albert's discussion of vegetables. He 
 remarks on his own corroboration of the facts handed down on authority and 
 
V 
 
 y 
 
 312 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Nature is in itself good and not evil/ because so far as nature 
 is positive and has had existence in God's thought it must be 
 good. 
 
 Man is a social being, and although Albertus has to do violence 
 to the real Aristotle, he is evidently quite unconscious of the 
 gulf fixed between Augustine, even as modified' by churchly 
 tradition, and the simple humanism of Aristotle. 
 y^, Y At this point the social note has a place in Albertus. The 
 ^Ou>^ { civil good is the highest good of the individual,^ but in point of 
 yT / fact he makes no real use of it, and his ethics always remains 
 essentially individualistic and even other-worldly. The same 
 may be said of his theoretically accepted relativity in ethics,' 
 which is a mere repetition of Aristotle's position, without the 
 least intention of taking it seriously. The full life is the ethical 
 life, but what Aristotle means by the life of the philosopher 
 Albertus takes as the life of the studious monk.* He was, of 
 course, conscious of his difference from the great master, yet 
 demanded freedom from the criticism of the stupid and inert 
 who blamed him for following Aristotle without themselves 
 reading the great master to discover why he taught as he did. 
 Such stupid ones were those who killed Socrates, and compelled 
 Plato to fly, and drove Aristotle himself into exile.' 
 
 And yet another picture is presented when we turn to the 
 theological Albertus. He is not himself aware of it. The 
 utter sincerity and nobility of his character shines in his books 
 and is testified to by all who knew him. But he was a child of 
 the paganized, orientalized organization which called itself the 
 Christian church, and which still preserved some of the choicest 
 fruits of the early Christian ethical uplift. It is a really beautiful 
 ethical ideal that is unfolded before us in the " Paradisus Animae." 
 It is not the ideal of Jesus. There is no thought of a kingdom 
 
 says: " Experimentum enim solum certificat in talibus; eo quod lam de parlicu- 
 laribus naturis simile haberi nan potest." "De Vegitabilibus," VI : i. 
 
 ' Elh. 1:2:6. 
 
 * Eth. 1:1:3 and 13-14. Cf. his translation of the "Politics." 
 
 »Eth. 1:4:1. «Eth. 1:6:8. 
 
 » "Politicorum," VIII : 6. Opera, vol. IV. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 313 
 
 of God on earth in the prophetic sense; and the salvation of 
 the soul is Hellenistic, not New Testament. Nor is it the lofty 
 aristocratic ethics of Aristotle or of Plato with intellectual 
 refinement in the foreground; it is the monkish ideal as that 
 conception of life had been modified and ennobled by the active 
 life of service in northern Europe. 
 
 If any Protestant critic is confounded by the pictures of de- 
 pravity, ignorance, and coarse materialism presented by Roman 
 Catholic historians as common in the monastic orders, and 
 wonders how an institution with such dark shadows over it 
 could so long and successfully maintain itself, let him turn with 
 us to the "Paradisus Animae" and remember that hundreds and 
 thousands literally left all that ordinarily makes life attractive 
 to devote themselves with more or less success to the ideal there 
 presented. 
 
 The book has forty-two chapters,^ and opens with a prologue 
 in which the great difficulty is pointed out of distinguishing 
 between virtues that look like vices and natural virtues that 
 look like those of grace,^ but which deserve no eternal reward. 
 
 Love is easily the mother of all virtue.^ Hence ethics begins 
 with love to God and love to one's neighbor,^ and this love must 
 spring from our sheer joy in holiness, and must not have its 
 roots in any fear of penalty or hope of reward. The delicate 
 mind abominates the very thought of loving God for reward,' 
 and so also we keep the commandments from no fear of punish- 
 ment, but to purify our minds. We are to love our neighbor 
 because we see God in him; he may be unloving and unlovely, 
 but even with our enemies we are to rejoice in their joy and 
 sorrow with their tears. 
 
 The second chapter deals with humility, which springs from 
 a right attitude toward God, and the second chapter of Philip- 
 
 ' In Jammy, torn. XXI. 
 
 * " Virtutes gratuitae Prologus." 
 
 ' " Et primo de charitate, qus est mater et ornamentum omnium virtutum." 
 "Paradisus anima; Prologus." * Caput I. 
 
 5 " Delicata enim anima, quasi abominatur, per modum commodi vel prsmii 
 amare Deum." Cap. I (A). 
 
314 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 plans is the key-note of the treatment. The mind of Jesus is to 
 be our mind. 
 
 This leads to the third chapter and a treatment of obedience. 
 Here the monastery conception comes fully into view. We are 
 to obey our superiors as we obey God. True obedience asks 
 no questions and never murmurs. Albertus neither raises nor 
 idiscusses all the difficult questions an absolute authority suggests 
 V ^' Min the presence of the ethical autonomy on which Greek ethics 
 was based. 
 
 All the chapters have a certain scheme. The virtue is defined/ 
 then illustrated in detail, often its advantages pointed out, the 
 methods of its cultivation given, the evidences of true virtue on 
 the one side and the false on the other made plain. So the 
 evidence of true patience ^ is the refusal to vindicate one's self or 
 render evil for evil. But a false patience seems to endure while 
 really complaining and becomes bitter. The next three chap- 
 ters are devoted to the monastery — virtues of poverty, which is 
 the relinquishing of all for God's sake, not from necessity; of 
 chastity, which is purity of mind, and where possible with this 
 the conservation of virginity and of abstinence, which is treated 
 of as a virtue for God's sake and a means to an end, i. e., it 
 leads us into the secret of God and enables us to hear his voice. 
 
 Prudence and fortitude enable us to hold life balanced and 
 to maintain our way amid all terrors, because God is with us. 
 Justice is the Golden Rule which Albertus insists must control 
 entirely and without exception all our relations with our fellow- 
 men. Temperance is beautifully defined as the exact regulation 
 of the inward motive and the outward action — moderation in 
 all things. Compassion is not only for our neighbor in this life, 
 but for those in purgatory for whom we are to constantly pray, 
 because as God has had compassion on us we must pity all 
 who have sinned and are suffering. This compassion leads to 
 pity, which has three forms: giving, condoning, and works of 
 supererogation.' 
 
 ' Thus "Paticntia vera et perfecta est, cum aliquis," etc. ' Cap. IV. 
 
 *"Dando — condonando — supererogando," cap. XIV. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 315 
 
 Albertus then discusses Concord, Constancy, Generosity, 
 which is giving of one's entire self to service and is false when 
 done for praise or reward; Truth, which is an exact correspond- 
 ence between heart and mouth; Magnaminity, Faith, which is 
 very defectively defined as the acceptance as true of the dogma 
 of the Trinity and the main articles of the creed. Hope is the 
 expectancy of future felicity on the basis of God's promise, and 
 Fear is also a virtue when regarded as due caution, and the sense 
 that we may just come short. Joy is to be in God, and Sorrow 
 is better than joy and more useful. We are mainly to sorrow 
 for the insults offered to God since man's fall, and for this we 
 should sorrow with many tears. Gratitude is to mark our whole 
 life, which is to be one long expression of gratitude to God for 
 his goodness and love. 
 
 In the discussion ^ of Zeal the ascetic conception of life is 
 again prominent; "sacred meditations, fervent desires, tears, 
 prayers, vigils, fasts, preachings, confessions, advice, doctrine, 
 and good works for the saving of souls" are the evidence of real 
 zeal. How strange a note that would be in the Nicomachean 
 ethics! 
 
 Liberty is defined in the terms of Anselm, who is quoted; 
 to sin is not liberty but is slavery. Free-will is God's gift, and 
 his evidence that he wants us to be free and like himself. But 
 passions and lusts are chains. We must be free even from the 
 desire to escape reproach or to escape the yoke. Religion is 
 defined in the words of James,^ and thus in the discussion the 
 passive rather than the active virtues receive the emphasis. Ma- 
 turity and Simplicity are virtues which, as Albertus views them 
 also belong largely to the monastic ideal. They involve divorce 
 from earthly things. So also Silence, Solitude, and Contempla- 
 tion are discussed, and mean fixing the attention upon heavenly 
 things and not simply stupid dumbness. Discretion is fixing 
 the exact shades in conduct between good, better, and best. 
 The Christian man will be given to Congratulation, which is 
 rejoicing in God, and will have Confidence in him. For God is 
 
 1 Caput XXVI. « I : 27. 
 
3i6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 omnipotent and faithful, and will never desert one trusting in 
 him. 
 
 The next five chapters (XXXVII-XLI) are again thoroughly 
 monastic in their spirit, and deal with contempt of the world; 
 Maceration of the body "by fasts, vigils, prayers (!), hair-cloth, 
 the discipline, and abstinence from food and drink"; with 
 Contrition, which is constant penitence for our own and others' 
 sin; with Confession, which must be made to a legitimate priest; 
 and Penitence, which is really defined as penance. Then the 
 book closes with a chapter upon Perseverance in good works 
 and in prayer. 
 
 Here in sharp outline we see the ideal that animated the 
 teaching church at her best, as Albertus Magnus strove to em- 
 body in the intellectual forms of Aristotle the ascetic monkish 
 morality of the hierarchy. The endless compromises by which 
 the result was attained were not patent to either himself or 
 Thomas Aquinas, whose ethics presents little advance upon his 
 great teacher, save in precision and by elimination; but the 
 full and unreserved handing over of Aristotle to the learning 
 world was bound, in the end, to compel men to take a position 
 sic et non ! 
 
 The final formulation, of a semi-official character for the 
 Roman hierarchy on the field of ethics, is the work of Albertus 
 Magnus's favorite pupil, the father of Roman Catholic theology, 
 namely Thomas Aquinas} \ 
 
 ' Thomas of Aquino was born about 1225 in the castle Roccasicca of his 
 father, the Count Landulf, and died in 1274 at the age of fifty years (Contra 
 Qu^tif). His life was that of the studious monk. At the age of five he was sent 
 to his uncle at the Benedictine monastery of Monte Cassino, and while yet a boy 
 he tried to enter the preaching order of the Dominicans, but was at first hindered 
 by the family. He, however, after a year or two in confinement, succeeded in 
 carrying out his plan, and the order sent him to Cologne, where he studied under 
 Albertus Magnus (see page 309), whom he then accompanied to Paris, and 
 thence back to Cologne. He again appears in Paris as struggling for the recogni- 
 tion of the preaching orders, and in this struggle was successful. He worked 
 with Albertus in the reconstruction of the schools of learning controlled by the 
 T3ominican Order, and reorganized the theology of the day in his immortal 
 "Summa Theologian." His death was a great blow to his generation, and more 
 especially as he left the third part of the "Summa" incomplete. The critical 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 317 
 
 The Ethics 0} Thomas Aquinas.— The twofold character of 
 scholastic ethics as we have seen them so far is only apparently 
 overcome in Thomas Aquinas. The exceedingly skilful inter- 
 weaving of the Aristotelian-intellectual with the monkish-ascetic 
 or authoritative-mystic ethics cannot blind us to the contradic- 
 tions such a combination must involve us in. The threefold 
 division of the virtues into theological, intellectual, and moral * 
 
 life of Quetif, J., and Echard, J., in "Scriptores Ordinis Praedicatorum," Paris, 
 1719-1721, 2 vols., is still quoted as authoritative (c/. Prefatio to the Roman 
 edition). See also Roger Bede: "Life and Labors of S. Thomas of Aquin," 2 
 vols., London, 1871; abridged and edited by Cardinal Vaughan, London, 1875. 
 For very full references to his life, see Ueberweg-Heinze: "Grundriss der 
 Geschichte der Philosophie," vol. II, 1905, § 30. 
 
 The sources for the ethical student are mainly in the two divisions of the second 
 part of the "Summa," known as "Pars prima et Pars secunda secundse." The 
 commentary upon Aristotle contains almost nothing that one would dare to 
 place over against the plain statements of the "Summa"; and the two types of 
 ethical thinking — pagan-classical and monkish-ascetic — which exist to some 
 extent apart in Albertus Magnus are skilfully woven together by Thomas. 
 
 There are many editions of the complete works, but the only critical edition 
 is not yet finished. "Sancti Thomae Aquinatis, opera omnia jussu impensa que 
 Leonis XIII, P.M. Romae" (twelve volumes have appeared up to 1908). The 
 ethical portions of the "Summa" are complete in tomi VI-X. A handy edition 
 of the "Summa" is that of "Abbe Drioux," Paris, 1869, 3d ed., with French 
 translation; "La Somma Theologique de Saint Thomas," fifteen volumes; the 
 Parma edition in twenty-five volumes (1852-1872) is uncritical, but as the 
 only complete edition is the one most quoted. A German translation of the 
 "Summa," by Schneider, Ceslaus Maria, has appeared under the title "Die 
 Katholische Wahrheit oder die theologische Summa deutsch wiedergegeben," 
 twelve volumes, Regensburg, 1886-1892. An English compendium of the 
 "Summa," by E. O'Donnell, two volumes, Dublin, 1859, and Rickaby, Joseph, 
 has translated the principal portions of the ethics under the title "Aquinas 
 Ethicus," two volumes, London, 1896. These last three the writer has not seen. 
 
 For the enormous literature reference must be made to the standard bio- 
 graphical articles or to the ninth edition of Ueberweg-Heinze, "Grundriss der 
 Geschichte der Philosophie." 
 
 For helps the student will do well to turn to the "Thomas Lexikon" of 
 Schiitz, Ludwig, 2d ed., Paderborn, 1895. It is very useful though far from 
 exhaustive, and omits important terms. The index to the Parma edition is 
 good. The commentary of Cardinal Cajetan is published with the "Summa" 
 in the papal edition, as well as with others, and is an excellent help to the study 
 of Thomas's ethics as well as his theology. 
 
 ' "Summa," II : II : 109, A. i, "Unde Veritas non est virtus theologica, neque 
 intellectualis, sed moralis." Ad. A. 3. 
 
3i8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 is itself a compromise between evangelical tradition and pagan 
 culture, and the clash of the two ideals is never absent from the 
 pages of the "Summa." Almost the last thing we can think of 
 Aristotle putting in the foreground of his ethics would be the 
 crucifixion of the body and the absolute submission of the mind 
 to external authority. What Aristotle meant by the contempla- 
 tive life was a life of ceaseless curiosity; what Aquinas meant 
 by it was a life of devotional submission. For Aristotle fulfil- 
 ment of function meant the full development of all human 
 powers; for Thomas it meant the abstraction of the mind from 
 the phantasy of the senses as the perfection of highest mental 
 functioning/ which was to be gained by chastity and abstinence. 
 In taking over the pagan culture, with its lofty humanism, 
 Thomas ignores what was its chiefest note, namely, the restless 
 and ceaseless assertion of the individual as an end in himself. 
 The longer one studies Aquinas the more powerfully does the 
 inherent incompatibility of these two ideals to live together in 
 unity impress the student. All the fine dialectic and genuine 
 knowledge and enthusiasm of Thomas Aquinas fail to produce 
 more than a seeming unity. For Albertus Magnus the two 
 ideals existed more or less consciously side by side, though in 
 different spheres.^ With keener grasp of the actual needs of 
 the hierarchy, Aquinas forced the religious and intellectual 
 culture into a union that at bottom meant the complete control 
 of culture by creed and dogma. Not without a measure of 
 truth have the Jesuits given to Thomas Aquinas the place in 
 the Roman Catholic world of thought which Paul occupies in 
 the world of post-Reformation Protestantism. 
 
 ' "Summa," II : II : 15. 3, conclusio, "Respondeo dicendum quod perfectio 
 intellectualis operationis in homine consistit in quadam abstractione a sensibilium 
 phantasmatibus; ..." 
 
 * When Harnack says in general of the Middle Ages ("Lehrbuch der Dog- 
 mengeschichle," vol. Ill, 3d ed., 1897, p. 334: "Die Wissenschaft war kirchlich, 
 theologisch. Es gab kcine Laicnwissenschaft"); (English translation, VI, 1S99, 
 pp. 31-32: "Science was ecclesiastical, theological. There was no lay science," 
 he is no doubt right within limits, but Jewish and Arabic science must not be 
 forgotten, and in Albertus Magnus we have a very near approach to a lay 
 science on the part of a churchman. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 319 
 
 The skill with which Aquinas takes over the elements he 
 needs for his structure, and twists and changes, utterly uncon- 
 sciously, these elements into the likeness of the monastery ideal 
 excites growing admiration as the work goes on to the climax; 
 and this adaptation was possible only because there were dis- 
 tinctly common elements in the two ideals. Both are rooted in 
 a thoroughly aristocratic conception of human society. Both 
 are distinctly intellectualistic in fundamental note. Both deal 
 with life in terms of the small, highly organized group, and 
 finally both are related to analogous metaphysical conceptions 
 clothed in physical and theological terms. 
 
 No one up to the time of Thomas Aquinas had formulated 
 with such clearness the scholastic method. It may be called the 
 authoritative-rationalistic method. Thomas does all his think- 
 ing within the limits of a framework given in past authoritative 
 utterances,* and humbly bows to the supremacy of the central 
 hierarchy. At the same time the method is really a rationalistic 
 one, for between the voices of authority reason must decide, and 
 in the interpretation of the authority there is again room for the 
 individual reason. 
 
 In fact the assumption that revelation not only is but must be 
 rational is fundamental to all the culture that claimed Aristotle 
 as its father. For this reason the Scriptures must be treated 
 freely and as symbolic and mystical in order to escape the patent 
 contradictions and unethical positions there recorded. The 
 result is to make human reason really supreme, for the real 
 power hes not with the giver but with the interpreter of a law. 
 
 Where, however, Aquinas especially falls far short of the 
 work of Aristotle in ethics is his failure to realize the funda- 
 
 • The "Summa" is written in a series of questions (quaestiones) in which the 
 various problems are set forth {Delude considerandum est de, etc.); then they 
 are taken up one by one, introduced by the stereotyped phrase "Ad primum, 
 secundicm, etc., sic proceditur," with additional observations PrcBterea; then the 
 opposite view is set forth, sed contra est, and then there follows Thomas's own 
 opinion, which he invariably introduces by the phrase "respondeo dicendmn 
 quod, ad primum ad secundum," etc., and after that comes often a conclusion, 
 conclusio. 
 
320 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 mentally empiric method of the great master. For Aristotle 
 ethics was the discovery of the golden mean between extremes, 
 and was a science of experience rather than of exactness in 
 abstract conception.* The two pillars upon which Thomas 
 Aquinas rests his structure are definition and authority. In 
 point of fact the entire inadequacy of this method is revealed 
 in the way the contemporary social morality is reflected in the 
 ethics of Aquinas ^ and in the relative moral fruitlessness of the 
 method. Slavery is condoned and the real evils of the world 
 of exchange are passed over. The acuteness of the discussions 
 and the wonderfully full and suggestive argumentation upon 
 disputed points should not blind us to the inherent limitations 
 of the whole procedure, and the inevitable bankruptcy which 
 was already indicated in the restlessness of scholasticism itself. 
 But for the time Thomas was seemingly completely triumphant. 
 His method became the standard for all the higher schools, and 
 his interpretation — or misinterpretation — of Aristotle became 
 final in Roman Catholic theology. 
 
 Why this should be the case rests upon reasons apart from 
 the real greatness of Thomas Aquinas and the merits of the 
 system itself. The hierarchy had become a legal organization, 
 with its own jurisdiction, closely related to and deeply influencing 
 the legal system of the various states. The line of demarcation 
 between ethics and law had never been sharply drawn since the 
 surrender of Christianity to the paganism of the empire. But 
 now, even more than in an earlier age, it seemed essential that 
 ethics should be formulated as law. 
 
 This formulation Aquinas carried through with superb feeling 
 for the existing needs of the quasi-political organization that 
 had substituted itself for Christianity. Thus the ethics have 
 throughout a legal rather than an evangelical character. This 
 is especially marked in "Summa," II : II : Qs. 58 to 81, but 
 it colors the whole treatment, and that not merely because of 
 
 • Eth. Nic. A. I : 1-15 (SusmUhl's edition, 18S7), B. IX : 1-3 
 »C/. Maurenbrecher, W.: "Thomas von Aquino's Stcllung zum Wirtschafts- 
 leben seiner Zeit," Leipsic, 1898, etc. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 321 
 
 the legal method, but because of the end in view. What often 
 seems to us dry and outworn defence of stupid conventions of 
 thought and feeling was in its day a fresh, vigorous, conquering 
 force overcoming ignorance, superstition, and disorder in the 
 name of an undoubtedly higher culture and larger intellectual 
 freedom. The weapons of one age are often forged into chains 
 for the next one. The tyranny of mere brute force and posses- 
 sion found in the hierarchy a rival for control of the masses. 
 And scholasticism was the intellectual and ethical preparation 
 for fighting cohorts bidding for the people's obedience and 
 allegiance. The struggle was no less real because it went on so 
 quietly and steadily, only now and then rising to the dramatic 
 climax of a Canossa or Third Crusade. How much the hie- 
 rarchy actually did substitute law and morality for personal 
 tyranny and centralized political might is seen in the way 
 personal tyranny flourished for a time when the Reformation 
 broke the supreme power of the hierarchy, and in the way such 
 personal tyranny was compelled to compromise with the churchly 
 code of law and morality. 
 
 The mission of culture to which the preaching orders felt 
 themselves called, the work of educatidnal reorganization which 
 Albertus Magnus and Thomas Aquinas so successfully carried 
 through, did indeed add strength to the papal personal rule, but 
 it also purified and cleansed in very great measure, so that in 
 the eyes of the vast mass of men that personal rule was justified 
 by the results. The law is a school-master to bring us into the 
 presence of the larger freedom, and the legal character of the 
 ethics of Aquinas belongs to the very function which its ethics 
 was to fulfil. 
 
 An outline of the ethics of Aquinas is not easy. In the first 
 place they are interwoven with his whole theological system, 
 and in the second place as a positive system they grow out of 
 the doubts and difficulties which Aquinas so bravely and fully 
 faced, and yet into the elaborate discussion of those difficulties 
 space forbids us to go. The student of ethics who begins with 
 "Pars Secunda Secundae" soon finds himself compelled to take 
 
322 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 up the primary discussions in "Pars Prima Secunda;," and from 
 thence he will generally be forced back to the theological dis- 
 cussions of the first part. The ethics may, however, be divided 
 into two main discussions. 
 
 I. The Theoretical Ethical Questions. — These are contained 
 in "Pars Prima Secundas" and the "Pars Prima. We must 
 glance quickly at the initial questions which must be answered 
 for the sake of understanding the system more fully worked out 
 in the "Secunda Secundce." 
 .<-;*-!, The theory of knowledge, as related to ethics, which Aquinas 
 actually makes use of is based fundamentally upon the postulate 
 that science (scientia) deals, not with particulars, but with 
 causes, and that which relates particulars together.^ For 
 j Aquinas the syllogism is thus the means by which the mind 
 reaches certitude, because for him freedom from inner contradic- 
 tion is the test of truth.^ So enormously important does the 
 abstract conception loom upon the scholastic horizon that one 
 pauses to ask why. Nor does the answer seem difficult. The 
 overwhelming importance of concepts binding our world of 
 otherwise seemingly unrelated experiences together forced upon 
 the scholastic mind the conclusion that these concepts had 
 something quite superhuman and independent of all particular 
 human experience. Hence the vast importance of logic in the 
 world of scholastic training.^ We ourselves often still speak 
 with solemn voice of "mathematical certainty," and forget how 
 completely mathematics is simply a science of definition that 
 has proved highly useful and justified itself in age-long experi- 
 ence. 
 
 The Aristotelian world of conceptual structure was for 
 Aquinas in his struggle to organize a new world of moral feeling 
 what mathematics is to the modern engineer organizing a new 
 
 • Cf. discussion of God's knowledge, "Summa," I : Q. 14, A i. 
 
 » Cf. discussion of "intellectual virtues," "Summa," I : II, Q. 57, A. i. 
 
 ' Cf. Aquinas's discussion of Aristotle's attitude, " Ex posit io in duo libris 
 posleriorum analyticorum Aristotelis," 44 c. "Scientia importat ccrtitudinem 
 cognitionis per demonstrationem adquisitam," where, however, the demonstra- 
 tion is not a final reference to sensational experience, hut to mental consistency. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 323 
 
 world of bridges and sky-scrapers. The "forms" of thought 
 are real, Aquinas teaches, but not apart from the mind of God 
 in which they exist/ They are therefore ante rem and in re, 
 existing before and in the individuals. " In the divine wisdom 
 there are the conceptions (rationes) of all things, which we have 
 called before 'ideas,' that is, pattern forms (formas exemplares) 
 existing in the divine mind." ^ This twist to Aristotelian real- 
 ism does not, however, lead Aquinas to a pure Platonism, for 
 these forms have no existence apart from God's mind. 
 
 All ethical certainty depends, therefore, upon our contact with 
 the mind of God, and realizing in our experience the eternal 
 ideas. We need not go into the elaborate classification of 
 forms, as essential and accidental, as absolute and relative, 
 because they have little place in his ethics. 
 
 So also the theology only interests here as it affects the ethics. 
 Aquinas's thought of God is distinctly influenced by the social 
 forces about him. God is the Ruler and Creator who creates 
 and holds the world together.^ He is infinite in power and 
 justice and pity. But throughout he is Lord and Ruler. There 
 is no such tenderness as in Anselm's thought of God in the 
 " Proslogium," and although devout and lofty in the extreme, 
 Anselm comes more nearly to the thought of the God and 
 Father of our Lord Jesus than does Thomas Aquinas.* We 
 have throughout the impression that the interest of Thomas is 
 rather metaphysical and intellectual than ethical, and that his 
 interest in the question of God's existence and being is dominated 
 by the place he has in the system. The fatherhood of God is 
 thought of almost exclusively as in the triune relationship and 
 simply opposed to the sonship of Jesils.^ It is as metaphysical 
 principle that his existence can be proved,® and is of greatest 
 
 1 "Summa," I : Q. 15, A. i. » "Summa," I : Q. 44, A. 3. 
 
 ^ The discussion of the doctrine' of God is in "Summa," I : Q. i to 44. Q. 
 4 deals with God's perfection and Q. 6 with God's goodness; Q. 20 with God's 
 love; Q. 21 with his justice and mercy; Q. 26 with God's blessedness. 
 
 * Cf. "Summa," I : Q. 20 and 21. 
 
 * "Summa," I : Q. ^:^, A. 1-3. 
 ""Summa,"! : Q. 2, A. 3. 
 
324 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 importance to us that the distinctions in the persons and the 
 relations of the persons to the world be distinctly described and 
 held in mind. 
 
 The ethical questions relating to the doctrine of man are 
 
 6^ answered prevailingly in what was supposed to be orthodox 
 
 Augustinianism/ and before man there is a lengthy discussion 
 
 of the whole subject of angels and demons, which is still the 
 
 classical form of the doctrine in Catholicism.^ 
 
 The soul (anima) of man is not a body or "corpus," but is the 
 actuality of a body.^ As heat is not a body, but is the active 
 principle of things made hot, man is, as Augustine teaches, 
 not a soul or a body, but a soul and a body/ The psychology 
 of Aquinas is the traditonal Aristotelian, as Aristotle was under- 
 stood in the Middle Ages, with some modifications drawn from 
 Augustine, in part resulting from his Platonism and in part 
 made necessary by the Augustinian doctrine of sin. 
 
 Man has free-will, or otherwise all counsels, exhortations, 
 precepts, prohibitions, rewards, and punishments would be 
 vain.^ And this freedom is power, and as reason and intellect 
 are not two powers, but one, so will and freedom are not two 
 powers, but one." And this voluntary element is in all human 
 acts,' and though fear may produce acts that are a mixture of the 
 voluntary and involuntary, lust, dealing as it does with the inner 
 man, produces only voluntary action.* But man has become 
 corrupt in the fall, and all the guilt of sin rests upon him. In 
 his state of innocence his life was quite different, and would 
 have remained so but for the fall." 
 
 ' Cf. discussion of the cause of evil, "Sumraa," I : Q. 49, A. 2-3. 
 ^ "Summa," I : Qs. 50-64. 
 
 ' For the full discussion, "Utrum anima sit composita ex materia et forma?" 
 see "Summa," I : Q. 75, A. 5. 
 
 * "Summa," I : Q. 75, A. 4. "Sed contra est quod Augustinus commendat" 
 ("De civ. Dei," lib. XIX, cap. 3), Varronem, etc., etc. 
 
 » "Summa," I : Q. 83, A. i. « "Summa," I : Q. 8, A. 4. 
 
 ^ "Summa," I : II : Q. 6. « "Summa,' I : II : Q. 6, A. 6-7. 
 
 • For elaborate discussion of man in a state of innocence, see "Summa," I : 
 Qs. 93-101. All this knowledge is for Aquinas as sure and as attainable as 
 the facts of cvery-day life. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 325 
 
 In the discussion of original sin, Augustine, who has been so 
 widely departed from in the doctrine of the will, is now again 
 followed/ The corrupt nature must be restored by sacramental 
 grace. This strange mingling of Aristotle and Augustine has 
 its historic roots in the needs of the hierarchy, whose power is 
 so entirely wrapt up in faith in sacramental grace.^ Having 
 dealt with the great questions of theoretic importance, the actual 
 system of ethics is unfolded, with some necessary repetitions, 
 inevitable under such treatment, in Pars Secunda SecundcB. 
 
 II. The Practical Ethics. — In the classification of the virtues 
 we see at once the synthetic character of the ethics of Aquinas. 
 The first three virtues are the theological ones, of Faith, Hope, 
 and Love (caritas); then follow the fruits of love, i. e., joy, 
 peace, pity, beneficence, alms-giving, fraternal correction. After 
 these come the cardinal virtues,' Prudentia, Justitia, Temper- 
 antia, Fortitudo, following which Thomas discusses Religion, 
 Piety, Obedience, Truth, Liberality, Magnanimity, Patience, 
 etc., etc., and introduces elements hitherto somewhat strange to 
 his system from Roman Stoicism and its ethics, borrowed, no 
 doubt, through Ambrose. ^ | 
 
 After a discussion of a virtue, Thomas usually discusses ' " *^" 
 also the corresponding vice not in order to find an empiric 
 mean between extremes, but in order to define and condemn 
 the forbidden sin. We have memories here of the method of 
 Aristotle, but no fruitful attempt at an actual application of it 
 to life. The basis is authoritative definition, and the authorities 
 are the Philosopher himself or a church Father, or the Bible, 
 seldom a council, and only now and then a Pope. 
 
 The very opening discussions on the subject of faith introduce 
 us to the pagan-intellectualistic elements so evident in the 
 system. Faith is at bottom " believing things to be true because 
 God has said them," * and is therefore a more certain basis for 
 knowledge than science, because nothing is more certain than 
 
 >"Summa,"I : II : Qs. 81-84. 
 
 ' See discussion of grace, "Summa," I : II : Qs. 110-114. 
 
 3 Cf. "Summa," I : II : Q. 61, A. 4. * "Summa," II : II : Q. 4, A. 8. 
 
326 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 the word of God. At the same time these things are given in 
 articles whose acceptance and interpretation belong to the intel- 
 lect/ and faith is a habit (habitus) both of the will and the intel- 
 lect.^ So no one article can be rejected without peril to faith 
 and the immortal soul of the heretic' Here, therefore, we have 
 an intellectual superstructure built up on a mystical piety, and 
 in Thomas are co-ordinated the mystical elements borrowed by 
 Christianity from Neoplatonism, and the scientific pagan ele- 
 ments borrowed from the pages of Aristotle. They are held 
 together often in an outward and formal way. The central 
 authority of the church, the overwhelming force of tradition 
 begin to take the place both of the mystic inner vision and the 
 rational conclusion of the mind. 
 
 It is always the failure of the aristocratic type of mind that it 
 trusts in the outward might or wisdom of the few, and thus in 
 ethical matters is inclined to look to the outward rather than the 
 inward regulation of average human life. Hence in Thomas the 
 outward church receives sharper definition and more outspoken 
 support as the bearer of the outward authority than in almost 
 any other scholastic* The ethics tend to become the outward 
 code of regulative law. Thus are laid also in Thomas the foun- 
 dations for the future elaborate casuistry. The monastery orders 
 represented democratic elements in the social and religious life 
 of the day, but they were not in themselves democratic, nor did 
 they tend to democracy in the church. They, in fact, introduced 
 and legalized the twofold order of Christianity by which only 
 the highest attainment was open to the monk. They thus be- 
 came with the priesthood the aristocracy of the church. 
 
 In Thomas the ethics reflect the monkish, ascetic ideals, and 
 they are colored by the mystic piety — which took immediate 
 knowledge of God as the principle of the existing, for the 
 immediate goal of the religious life. The object of faith is 
 
 ' "Summa," II : II : Q. i, A. lo. ' "Summa," II : 11 : Q. 4, A. 4. 
 
 »"Summa," II : II : Q. 5, A. 3. 
 
 * C/. discussion of the power of the keys, "Summa," III, supplement : Q. 
 17, A. 1-3. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 327 
 
 formally first truth, and materially is God and the things that 
 make the way open to God/ This knowledge of God is reached 
 by fasting and the contemplative life.^ And although the active 
 life has place for religion, and there should even be orders devoted 
 to the active life together with contemplation, yet " true religion 
 embraces love, to God and one's neighbor," and the contem- 
 plative life deals directly with love to God, while the active life 
 deals with the neighbor and so through the neighbor with God,^ 
 but thus indirectly. 
 
 Of course the vows of poverty, chastity, and obedience are 
 essential elements of the highest Christian life, because that life 
 is thought of as a search after the knowledge of God and our 
 relations to him.* Love is defined in terms of Augustine ^ as a 
 motion of the soul (motum animi) toward enjoying God for his 
 own sake (propter ipsum), and for those who can sustain it the 
 solitary life of contemplation is the highest, but is not open to all.* 
 
 Yet in spite of these mystic and ascetic traits which logically 
 exclude the social and political life, as forming religious oppor- 
 tunity, Aquinas is too thoroughly a child of the conquering 
 ambitious hierarchy to omit the social and political elements 
 from his conglomerate ethics. Though Aquinas gives us no 
 definite doctrine and treatment of the church, he does give the 
 materials for a construction of such a doctrine in his dealing 
 with a state.'' 
 
 » "Summa," II : II : Q. i, A. i. 
 
 2 "Summa," II : II : Q, 147, AA. 1-8 and II : II : Q. 180, AA. 1-8. 
 
 ' "Ad dilectionem autem Dei directe pertinet contemplativa vita, quae soli 
 Deo vacare desiderat," etc. " Summa," II : II : Q. 188, A. 2. 
 
 * "Summa," II : II : Q. 81, AA. 1-8. 
 
 6 II : II : Q. 24, A. 2. ' "Summa," II : II : Q. 188, A. 8. 
 
 ^ A quite large literature has grown up about this side of Aquinas's teaching. 
 See Baumann, Johann Julius: "Die Staatslehre des hi. Thomas von Aquino 
 . . . aus seinen Werken authentisch zusammengestellt . . . Beitrag zur Frage 
 zwischen Kirche und Staat," Leipsic, 1873; Schneider, Ceslaus Maria: "Die 
 sozialistische Staatsidee beleuchtet durch Thomas von Aquin," Paderborn, 
 1894; Walter, Franz: "Das Eigenthum nach der Lehre des hi. Thomas von 
 Aquin und der Socialismus," Freiburg-in-Baden, 1895; Schaub, Franz: "Die 
 Eigentumslehre nach Thomas von Aquin und dem modernen Sozialismus . . . 
 Gekronte Preisschrift," Freiburg-in-Baden, 1S98. 
 
328 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The church on earth is the ecclesia militans, but feels herself 
 one with the ecclesia triumphans; * she is the sacrament -dis- 
 pensing power, which she exercises through priests, with the 
 power of the keys and of absolution and excommunication.^ 
 But the kingdom of God as the object of the Christian hope in 
 the primitive sense is entirely wanting in scholastic theology. 
 The only side of this hope that has any representation being 
 the eschatological as the eschatological elements are taken over 
 in Dionysius. In the explanation of Matthew ^ Thomas gives 
 four senses in which the expression the kingdom of God {regnum 
 ccBlorum) may be understood, viz., as Christ himself dwelling 
 in us through grace, or as the Word of God, or as the present 
 church militant {ecclesia militans), or, fourthly, the kingdom of 
 Heaven may be the heavenly "curia." And in the " Summa" * 
 there is a definition of the kingdom which makes all turn upon 
 the personal life of the individual. "The kingdom of God 
 consists principally in internal acts; ^ but as a consequence the 
 kingdom of God also has to do with all those things without 
 which internal acts are not possible; thus the reign of God is 
 internal justice and peace and spiritual joy: it is necessary 
 therefore that all external acts repugnant to justice or peace or 
 spiritual joy, are repugnant to the kingdom of God, and should 
 be prohibited in the kingdom of the Gospel." ^ 
 
 Yet even in this sense the phrase has little place in Thomas; 
 the individual is in the foreground of his thought, and the 
 salvation of the individual is the goal of the religious life. 
 
 III. Outcome. — The ethical outcome of such a conception of 
 Christianity is on the whole disappointing. The social condi- 
 tions of the day are in the main accepted, and however exalted 
 the ideal for the personal life may be, the ideal is overshadowed 
 by the unreality of the ascetic teachings. 
 
 ' "Summa," I : II : Q. 102, A. 4 ad 3. 
 
 ="'Summa," III : supplement : Q. 24, AA. 1-3; supplement : Q. 19 : AA. 
 1-6. ' ^latt. 3. 
 
 * "Summa," "Prima SecundiE," I : II : Q. 108, A. i ad i. 
 ' In inlerioribus aclibus. 
 
 * In Evangelii regno. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 329 
 
 It was not the least of the services that the monastery had 
 rendered to Europe that the monks worked with their hands 
 and taught better methods of farming, gardening, fruit growing 
 as well as household management. But industry as a virtue 
 has no special treatment in the ethics of Aquinas. The life of 
 solitary contemplation is the highest ideal. So even the service 
 rendered by the studious monk is passed over in relative silence. 
 One would hardly gather from the ethics of Thomas what noble 
 ideals of study, research, and scientific effort his own order was 
 spreading through Europe. 
 
 The enthusiasm that made the monastery orders the reformers 
 of the church, and that kept them strong amid much corruption, 
 was the enthusiasm for social service, which was rendered by 
 preaching, teaching, and going into waste places with a mes- 
 sage of new culture. But in the systematic ethics of the day 
 there is none of this; indeed, it is shadowed over by what is 
 logically and historically destructive of such service. 
 
 In fact, in the systematic ethics of Thomas the old pagan 
 slave state with its attitude toward human life reproduces itself 
 in many ways. There is the same aristocratic contempt for the 
 lower ranges of human life and the same defence of existing 
 evils on the ground that they must be so. Slavery is a result, 
 for Thomas, of sin, and defensible on that ground.^ We need 
 those who will do the meaner work for us,^ and the higher life of 
 thought is only for the select. Of course mastery should be 
 exercised with mercy and pity, but the whole conception of life 
 is the pagan notion, that one small class is to rule and live upon 
 the rest. So in the Roman Catholic literature aimed against 
 socialism (see note, p. 327), the interpretation of Thomas not 
 inaccurately represents him as consistent defender of this 
 aristocratic attitude; for even the expressions taken from the 
 Stoics are modified by the context to mean a real depend- 
 
 *C/. "Der Heilige Thomas und die Sklaverei St. Thomasblatter," Jammy, 
 1889; Maurenbrecher, W.: "Thomas von Aquino's Stellung zum Wirthschafts- 
 leben seiner Zeit," Leipsic, 1898, where the material is gathered. 
 
 ' "Summa," II : I : Q. 105, A. 4. See whole article. 
 
330 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ence of even those equal before God, upon the master in the 
 flesh. 
 
 That the mastery is thought of in terms of spiritual domina- 
 tion as well as civil rather darkens than relieves the situation. 
 It is vain to tell working-men to-day that in the ethics of Thomas 
 there is any real outlook for the essential democracy based on 
 the worth and dignity of all labor.* Such modifications as 
 feudalism made upon the Aristotelian ethics at this point were 
 not directed toward democracy but the patrician aristocracy of 
 the Italian city. 
 
 Thus, for instance, in the discussion of war there is no real 
 attempt to bring its brutalities and horrors to the bar of a loving 
 gospel. There are three conditions for a righteous war;^ first, 
 it must be made by the authority of the prince and not by 
 private persons. Secondly, the cause must be just, and thirdly, 
 the intention must be to advance good and not evil. Augustine 
 is the authority cited, and the New Testament has very little 
 more place than in the ethics of to-day. 
 
 Of course clergy and bishops are forbidden to fight' and 
 deceit and strategy are permissible, as well as fighting on feast 
 days.* What we find, therefore, is the ordinary acceptance by 
 Christian ethics in its scholastic form as, indeed generally since, 
 of the evils of the day as necessary; and instead of a frank 
 recognition of the prevalent paganism in contrast with the Chris- 
 tian ideal, we find lame defences of the pagan attitude. On 
 the subject of slavery and equal manhood Thomas Aquinas is 
 below Stoicism at its best, and in regard to war is about on the 
 same level. 
 
 The ethics of property are those of Aristotle, but slightly 
 modified by the monastery ideal.^ Man is in a twofold relation 
 
 » C/. "Summa," I : Q. 96, A. 4; II : H : Q- 57. A. 3; H : II : Q- 10, A. 10 
 ad 3, etc. ' "Summa," II : II : Q. 40, A. 1. 
 
 '"Summa," II : II : Q. 40, A. 2. 
 
 ♦ "Summa," II : II : Q. 40, A. 3-4. 
 
 » See "Summa," II : II : Q. 66, AA. 1-9, where the discussion deals with the 
 questions: (i) Whether it is natural that men should be in possession of 
 external things; (2) Whether private possession is permissible; (3) Is theft the 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 531 
 
 to property; on the one hand he is competent to procure and 
 dispense, and so far he has the right of private ownership. But 
 he is also a user and enjoyer, and so far he has not private 
 ownership, but must share with others. Private possession is 
 not contrary to natural law, but is superadded by positive law.^ 
 Theft from necessity is not harshly judged, and rapine is a graver 
 ofifence than theft, because of its violence and danger to the life 
 and honor of the person robbed. 
 
 The personal life is placed on a high level, thought of through- 
 out, however, as contemplative rather than active. The ideals 
 of personal purity are high, though here again the false concep- 
 tions of chastity ^ as the normal Christian life, and the unmarried 
 homeless life of the monk as normal makes the ethics at this point 
 singularly barren and fruitless for an age when even Catholicism 
 has in practice, if not in theory, abandoned, in Protestant sur- 
 roundings, at least, its unnatural attitude. Even heretics are to be 
 only lovingly put to death after the church has excommunicated 
 them.^ Truth, honor, fortitude, etc., are dwelt upon with force 
 and intellectual vigor. The life of virtue is to be one of serious 
 and constant struggle for divine perfection and inward purity, 
 and there is to be no room amidst the spiritual joys * for despond- 
 ency and depression. How much the life of th5 monastery was 
 plagued with depression and morbidness may be seen in the part 
 the sin of acedia plays in the monastery ethics. Acidia or 
 acedia is taken from the Greek, and came to mean the revolt 
 of life against temporal and spiritual blessings; the sorrow or 
 
 secret taking of another's possession? (4) Whether rapine differs from theft; 
 (5) Whether all theft is sin; (6) Whether it is mortal sin; (7) Whether one 
 may steal in necessity; (8) Whether all rapine is mortal sin; (9) Whether 
 rapine is a graver offence than theft. 
 
 * "Summa," II : II : Q. 6, 6, A. 2. 
 
 » "Summa," II : II : Q. 151, AA. 1-4. 
 
 ' "Respondeo . . . sed post primam et secundatn correptionem, ut Apostolus 
 docet: postmodum vero si adhuc pertinax inveniatur, Ecclesia de ejus conver- 
 sione non sperans, aliorum saluti providet, eum ab Ecclesia separando per ex- 
 communicationis sententiam; et ulterius relinquit eum judicio saeculari a mundo 
 exterminandum per mortem." "Summa," II : II : Q. 11, A. 3. 
 
 * Gaudia spiritualia. 
 
332 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 depression of the soul which hinders spiritual exercise.^ For 
 Thomas Aquinas the natural fruit of the spirit was joy and 
 peace. 
 
 Apart from the monastery Hmitations the life of active teaching 
 service, the healthy contact with reality, and, no doubt, the deep 
 and lasting influence of Albertus Magnus, whose character shines 
 in all his works, the ethics of Thomas reflect a noble ideal of 
 manhood and womanhood. 
 
 With Thomas Aquinas the constructive stage of Roman 
 Catholic ethics practically ceases. Not even the Council of 
 Trent did more than clear away some inconsistencies and 
 restate some teachings. If Roman Catholicism is to be identi- 
 fied with scholasticism, as the late utterances of the Vatican 
 would seem to indicate, then the Jesuit estimate of the great 
 Dominican is quite justified as it seeks to make him the formu- 
 lator, final and complete, of Roman Catholicism as a closed 
 system of knowledge about God, man, angels, earth, heaven, and 
 hell, and how we may escape hell and purgatory, and gain heaven 
 and the vision of God. All completely given and subject to 
 no doctrine of growth or evolution.^ 
 
 For Thomas Aquinas the new social structure was subject 
 to exactly the same ethics of conduct as the social structure of 
 the early Christian church. Nothing is more noteworthy in 
 scholasticism than its entire lack of interest in history. Abelard 
 could outrage his world more by an historical doubt concerning 
 the identity of Dionysius with the Areopagite than by a serious 
 heresy with regard to the Trinity. This unhistorical trait of 
 scholasticism makes it for modern thought, with its predomi- 
 nandy historic interest, a strange world. There is in the ethics 
 of this world no question of adaptation to new historical situa- 
 tions in the broader meaning of the term. There are no ethical 
 lights and shades. The balancing of pros and cons does not 
 
 * "Acedia vcro est quaedam tristitia qua homo redditur tardus ad spirituales 
 actus," "Summa," I : Q. 63, A. 2 ad 2. 
 
 » "Acta Sancta; Sedis," vol. 40, fas, 10, 1907. Littera; encyclicse, "Pascendi," 
 pp. 617-621. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 333 
 
 mean that there can be any half-lights in which even the well- 
 meaning man may take darkness for light; it only signifies that 
 a sharper and more self-consequent dialectic is needed and a 
 larger and more exhaustive examination of authorities. 
 
 Theology is for scholasticism not only a divine system of 
 knowledge about God and our relations to him, but the explana- 
 tion also of a divine system of knowledge about the world, its 
 past, and its future. The hopelessness of substituting this flat, 
 non-plastic picture of human conduct; this colored map, with 
 its lack of all elevation and depression, with its strained surfaces 
 and unreal projections, for the actual living organism ethics is 
 called upon to deal with and to explain, should surely slowly 
 dawn even upon the obtuse. 
 
 From this point of view Aquinas is in a sense the last word. 
 As far as dialectic and authority can bring us he has brought us. 
 The service he rendered was no little one. The " silent Sycilian 
 bull" did make his roar heard in all the world, and the voice is 
 not silent yet. His firm faith that all religion and all knowledge 
 could be summed up and that it was the theologian's duty to 
 sum up the religion and the knowledge of his day gave impetus 
 to serious study and research and gave a new starting-point 
 for the world's advancing culture. Alas, that men so easily 
 mistake the starting-point for the goal. 
 
 in. CRITICAL SCHOLASTICISM 
 
 It may seem artificial to separate out some of the scholastics 
 from their fellows and call them critical. They were not them- 
 selves consciously or willingly more critical than those whom 
 we have discussed. But it is by the outcome of their work 
 rather than by their aims and methods that we so judge them. 
 It lay in the very undertaking of scholasticism that serious 
 doubts should be raised, and that the answers given should raise 
 critical objection. When in older pre-scholastic days Boethius 
 raised the question as to the kind of reality possessed by the 
 
334 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 so-called universals or "praedicabilia," ^ he was simply asking 
 again the question of all questions in philosophy, but when 
 scholasticism identified religion with a final answer to that ques- 
 tion it was inevitable that sooner or later religion should herself 
 be challenged in the name of philosophy. 
 
 It was possible for Johannes Scotus Erigena to hold alike the 
 dogmatic system of the East and a pagan culture, because the 
 Western intellectual world was young; but as it grew older the 
 questions became more and more insistent and minds constantly 
 more critical. Even Anselm was an educator of the questioning 
 mind. He undertook to satisfy the doubter, not simply by 
 piling up authority upon authority, but by satisfying the reason. 
 Sooner or later the question must arise: "If reason contradicts 
 authority, which must yield? Whether they wished it or not, 
 the substantial outcome of critical scholasticism was the im- 
 pression that men had to flee from reason to authority or sur- 
 render authority. 
 
 If ethics is a system clean cut, sharply defined, based upon 
 final divine utterances, then examination and exposition of 
 those utterances is the only method of approach. Scholasticism 
 however, had accepted Aristotle and Plato as ethical teachers, 
 and these teachers had started with man, with his longings, his 
 impulses, his intentions, his search of happiness and the final 
 good. It is this conception of ethics that dominates the men 
 we are now to consider. They were all true children of an 
 authoritative church. The judgments of Cousin and Reuter - 
 upon the first of these critical scholastics, Peter Abelard,' in 
 
 * As in his commentary upon the Isagog of Porphyry, "Mox de generibus at 
 speciebus illud quidem, sive subsistat, sive in solis nudis intellectibus posita 
 sit, sive subsistentia corporalia sint an incorporaha, et utrum separata a sensi- 
 bilibus an insensibilibus posita: et circa hxc consistentia dicere recusabo." See 
 MPL, vol. LXIV, col. 82. 
 
 ^Reuter, H.: "Geschichtc der religiosen Aufklllrung im Mittelalter," vol. I, 
 Berlin, 1875, pp. 183-259. 
 
 ' Petrus Aba;lardus, or Ab(?lard, was born 1079 at Palais, and studied under 
 Roscelinus, William of Champeaux, and Anselm of Ruan. His relations to 
 Heloise the niece of Canon Fulbert, and the revenge Fulbert took are well known. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 335 
 
 which the impression is left that he is to be regarded as a con- 
 scious herald of the coming illumination, is unjust to him. He 
 was honestly persuaded of his own orthodoxy, and the ideals 
 and freedom of the illumination would have been strange and 
 even repulsive to him. This one sees plainly not only in his 
 attitude toward the controversy with Roscelin about the Trinity, 
 but in his defence of the method of dialectics.^ His point of 
 view was that authority, indeed, was the last resort, but that to 
 understand authority one must have a dialectic. 
 
 Upon us the arguments of Sic et non produce the effect of 
 hopeless confusion among the authorities. But for Abelard and 
 his age the authority of the church as the protectress of all 
 culture was unshaken, it remained only for the faithful son of 
 the church to properly understand the authority. Abelard, as 
 Cousin rightly argues, in full good faith applied dialectic to 
 theology with a keenness hitherto lacking.^ And in good faith 
 he was persuaded that reason and faith had no conflict with each 
 other. Of course the effect was inevitable. The process 
 became even in the hands of Abelard a trial of the conclusions 
 
 He had a restless, tragic life, and died in 1 142. Paris was the place of his great- 
 est triumph and bitterest humiliation. The sources for the ethical student are 
 found in his collected works. Victor Cousin: "Ouvrages inedits d'Abelard," 
 Paris, 1836, and Petri Abaelardi: "Opera hactenus scarsim edita nunc primum 
 in unum collegit," Paris, 1849-1859, in two volumes. The first volume contains, 
 besides other writings, the famous " Sic et non," and in the other volumes are found 
 the " Theologia " and " Ethica," the last under the title " Scito te ipsum." These, 
 together with parts of the "Dialogue between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Chris- 
 tian," form the main sources for the ethical teachings of Abelard. All are found 
 reprinted in MPL, torn. 178, 1855. His life is sketched by his own pen in the 
 famous "Epistolae." For the "Historia Calamitatum," see Epistola I, opera, 
 torn. I, p. 3 (Cousin). There are many French translations of the letters to 
 Heloise (M. Greard, 1870, and others), and also free English renderings. Victor 
 Cousin's introduction to the first volume (" Ouvrages inedits ") is an excellent 
 guide, but must be read critically. The literature concerning Abelard is very great, 
 but his ethics have been but slightly dealt with. Cf., however, a good review by 
 Ziegler, Th.: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik," 2d ed., Strasburg, 1892, pp. 
 262-271, and in Ueberweg-Heinze: "Grundriss der Geschichte der Philosophic," 
 Berlin, 1905, § 24. 
 
 ' Epist. Xni, Migne, torn. 178, col. 351. 
 
 * Cousin, v.: "Ouvrages inedits," introduction, clxxvii. 
 
336 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 of authority before the bar of reason, with the new dialectic as 
 the method of inquisition. 
 
 It was thus inevitable that the ethics of Abelard should break 
 the bounds of legal enactment, and that he should endeavor to 
 deepen and spiritualize the basis of conduct. This involved 
 him at once in controversy with the existing tradition, for he 
 tries in Scito te ipsum ^ to show that vices (vitia) must be of the 
 mind, that mere defects are not vices. He argues that there is 
 a difference between the vice inclining to evil (malum) and sin 
 (peccaium), and that to sin there must be the intention of the 
 will; and that in any act, as of self-defence upon the part of a 
 slave resulting in murder, the sin of the act is measured by the 
 intention.^ Thus sin is not in being tempted but in having a 
 mind that is inclined to temptation and in yielding to it, for 
 God will not suffer us to be tempted beyond our strength. So 
 that even the suggestions of demons can be resisted. 
 
 The committed sins are, indeed, more heavily punished than 
 intended but uncommitted ones, but this is for examples' sake, 
 and because we can only judge from results, but not so with 
 God's judgment, who tries the heart. Since all sins are of the 
 mind and not of the body, what is meant by spiritual and carnal 
 sin is that the bodily lust is yielded to by the mind.' 
 
 Thus there can be no sin unless there is an offended conscience. 
 Sin is contempt of God {Contemptus Dei). Those who igno- 
 rantly persecuted God's saints sinned by not knowing God, but 
 not in following conscience, hence Stephen prays for them. 
 Sin is often used for penalty. Adam sinned and the penalty 
 {poena) has fallen on all. And God suffers men to be punished, 
 not for intended sin on their part, but for their purgation or 
 probation. Moreover, God knows from the beginning the minds 
 and intentions of men, and acts accordingly. Sins vary in de- 
 gree, and Abelard's conclusion, of course, is that we must study 
 to please God and find out what his will is. Perfection, there- 
 
 ' Cousin, v.: "Opera," vol. II, pp. 593-642; also in Migne, torn. 178, cols 
 633-678. 
 2 Cap. III. * Cap. VI and VII. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 337 
 
 fore, involves a knowledge gained only by fearless and skilful 
 dialectic and an intention to do the right when it has thus been 
 disclosed. 
 
 In the following discussions of the treatise on penitence, con- 
 fession, and the priestly power of the keys Abelard moves in 
 the traditional world of thought. He neither here nor else- 
 where plainly sees the real effect of his teaching upon sacra- 
 mental grace, a magic priesthood, or the blind acceptance of 
 churchly authority. Any one going to Abelard's works, and 
 expecting to find them what Reuter in his history of the illumina- 
 tion would seem to regard them as being, namely, reformation- 
 writings before the Reformation, will, it is to be feared, be greatly 
 disappointed. But in so far it is just to call Abelard a fore- 
 runner of the illumination in that he did actually show the 
 process by which scholasticism, on the one side, developed its 
 system in Aquinas, and on the other destroyed it in humanism. 
 
 But even humanism was not of necessity hostile to the church, 
 because, while rejecting the particular solution of the question 
 given by scholasticism, it could do its thinking within the limits 
 of ecclesiastical cult and ritual. This is substantially, indeed, 
 the solution Abelard urges upon philosophy in the "Dialogue 
 between a Philosopher, a Jew, and a Christian." This dialogue 
 resolves itself in the later phases into an ethical treatise and a 
 discussion of the highest good. This begins where the Christian 
 takes up the argument,^ and shows that Christianity has all that 
 the Jew and the Philosopher have and the promise of more. 
 That philosophy is right, as far as it goes, Abelard does not 
 question: so also Judaism is right up to a certain point, but both 
 have need of an authoritative guidance, and this Christianity 
 alone supplies.^ The little treatise on the virtues given in the 
 "Dialogue" ^ represents, no doubt, fairly the ethical content of 
 
 ' Victor Cousin's edition, vol. II, pp. 643-718, MPL, torn. 178, col. 1635. 
 
 ^"Exoratio Magistri ad discipulum de inquisitione summi boni." Victor 
 Cousin's edition, vol. II, pp. 715-718, MPL, 178, col. 1681-1684. 
 
 * Victor Cousin's edition, vol. II, pp. 687-691, and MPL, torn. 178, cols. 
 1654-1660. 
 
338 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Abelard's own teaching, but such a knowledge of good and evil 
 only increases man's responsibility and need, and only the light 
 of the church gives the fulness of divine guidance/ Moreover, 
 for Abelard the weight of the argument is to show the justice 
 and goodness of the God whose forgiveness and punishments 
 are matters of revelation. The defence of God by the Christian 
 reminds the reader often of the defence of him made by Job's 
 false friends, but that which Abelard deems of importance is 
 rather the rational character of ecclesiastical ethics as revealed. 
 So at the close the Master exhorts his disciple, "that he should 
 listen indeed to the natural law proclaimed by the philosopher, 
 and to the law defended by the Jew, but that grace and truth 
 only came by Jesus, and he is anathema who teaches other than 
 the word of evangelical doctrine,^ which alone strengthens the 
 will by grace preceding and accompanying its acts, and gives 
 us to see and taste the highest good which is the Father, the Son, 
 and the Holy Spirit, in one God.^ 
 
 In some sense Abelard may be called the founder of the 
 scholastic method, for his Sic et non marks distinctly the spirit of 
 all the later writers. There is the same balancing of the various 
 authorities, the objective statement of the intellectual difficulties, 
 and then the attempted resolution of the difficulties. This is seen 
 in weary perfection in the entirely indigestible Duns Scotus* 
 
 ' "Mystice tamen intelligi facile est lunam tunc ut solem fulgere, id est eccle- 
 siam electorum sicut et ejus solem Deum indeficientem lucem habere, et in ipsum 
 ejus solem tunc quoque ita lucem ipsius lunae transcendere, ut in ipso solo lucis 
 sit perfectio, quae scptenario designatur numero." Victor Cousin's edition, vol. 
 II, p. 705. 
 
 ' " Verbum doctrinas ipsius evangelical, plena et veritate." Migne, " Pat. Lat.," 
 178, 1684 D. 
 
 ' The closing words of the "Exoratio magistri ad discipulum," attached to the 
 "Dialogue." Migne, "Pat. Lat.," cols. 1081-1084. 
 
 * Johannes Duns Scotus was born either in Duns (Ireland) or in Dunston 
 (Scotland), between the years 1265 and 1274. He became a member of the 
 Franciscan Order, and taught in O.xford, Paris, and Cologne. He died about 
 1308. The main sources for his ethics are the "Distinctiones in Lib. Senten- 
 tiarum," tomi V-X. Complete edition of his works by the Irish fathers of 
 the order, Lyon, 1639, in thirteen volumes, and a new Paris edition in twenty-six 
 volumes, Paris, 1891-1895. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 339 
 
 For the student of ethics his works are highly unfruitful, save 
 only as he laid the foundation for a deep distrust of all merely 
 rational ethics, and exalted the science. Theology (theologia) 
 is for Duns Scotus practical and not speculative,* yet no system 
 seems at times more hopelessly speculative, for Duns Scotus 
 gives back on bare authority, as he interprets it, all the meta- 
 physical philosophy he takes away by his sceptical dialectic 
 acuteness. As a good example of his learned confusion one 
 may turn to his discussion of the Aristotelian teaching concerning 
 "habitus" in the ethical realm.^ His interest is to assert the 
 will as superior to the intellect and as ordering the whole 
 spiritual life. This spiritual life is then shown to be a super- 
 natural gift. Reason is powerless. God is the supreme giver, 
 and maker of the good. But his decree includes man's freedom 
 of choice,^ and hence a contingency which, as far as the writer 
 knows, he never really adjusts to God's foreknowledge, which 
 he also, of course, postulates.* In this freedom man can do 
 justly or can sin, but mere conformity of outward acts to what 
 God purposes does not constitute moral good, it must be an 
 inward conformity only possible by grace,^ Man's sin is his 
 own, and God's responsibility is only secondary, or mediate.® 
 
 In discussing whether "intention" constitutes the sole act of 
 the will Duns Scotus insists upon defining the intention and 
 showing an intellectual element in each decision.^ 
 
 In the actual ethics Duns Scotus follows in the same general 
 line drawn by traditional theology before either Aquinas or 
 himself,* although the familiar thoughts of Dionysius and the 
 Platonic school have larger influence, and the ethics is even 
 more essentially legal, as simply the expression of God's infinite 
 
 * "Prologue Distinctiones," 4, Paris edition, 1893, torn. 8, pp. 195-293. 
 ^ Lib. I, dist. XVII, Quaest. 1-6, Paris ed., torn. 10, 1893, pp. 32-122. 
 
 ' Lib. I, dist. XXXIX, Paris ed., 1893, torn. 10, pp. 612-675. 
 
 * The full discussion in Lib. I, dist. XXXIX to XLII, and Lib. II, dist. XXVIII 
 to XXIX. 
 
 » Lib. I, dist. XLVIII, Q. i. « Lib. I, dist. XXXVII, Q. i. 
 
 ' Lib. II, dist. XXXVIII, Q. i, Paris ed., 1893, torn. 13, pp. 398-405. 
 » Cf. the ethics of Lib. Ill, dist. XXVI to XL. 
 
 ^J^ 
 
340 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 and powerful will. Nor is it encouraging to see the way the 
 subtile Franciscan changed the loving freedom of his great 
 master St. Francis into sacramental magic. For to the sacra- 
 ments and their particular magic power he devotes special 
 attention.* There is a devotional tone in Duns Scotus which, 
 however, does not soften, as one might expect, his ethics, nor 
 indeed his general outlook.^ In him appears also all the childish 
 scholastic speculation at greater length than ever.^ And great 
 as is his dialectic skill, the result of his teaching was not and 
 could not be constructive. It was too critical of the philosoph- 
 ical basis upon which the school philosophy rested. His con- 
 tinual refuge is to authority, because reason gives way, and he 
 thus unwittingly admits the bankruptcy of rationalization. 
 
 It is not the place here to decide how far Abelard and Rosce- 
 linus were nominalists, and how far they agreed or disagreed, nor 
 yet what was the exact relation to the controversy about uni- 
 versal sustained by William Ockhani.* He was one of those 
 who disturbed the peace by simply raising again the question on 
 which the whole traditional thinking rested. 
 
 Often the scholastic writers seem to the modem reader hke 
 exceedingly clever children discussing a world they only know 
 
 > The discussions are found in Lib. IV, dist. I to XIII, Paris ed., 1894, tomi 
 16 and 17. 
 
 " Cf. his discussion of whether the damned and their sufferings are seen by the 
 saved. Lib. IV, dist. L, Q. 3, Paris ed., torn. 21, pp. 543-548. 
 
 ' Cf. Lib. IV, dist. XXX, Q. 2. "Utrum inter Mariam et Joseph fuerit verum 
 matrimonium?" 
 
 * William Ockham was born in Surrey, England, about 1300, and died April, 
 1347. He was a pupil of Duns Scotus, and a Franciscan monk. He distinctly 
 influenced Luther in his conception of the relation of the Pope to the State. 
 (Cf. Rettberg, Friedr. Wilh.: "Ockham und Luther, oder Vergleich ihrer Lehre 
 vom h. Abendmahl" in Theologische Studien und Kritiken, 1839, pp. 69-136.) 
 His works are not accessible in a complete edition. (No reprint in Migne, " Pat. 
 Lat.") All the writer has had access to arc: "Super Potestate Summi Ponti- 
 ficis . . . ," 1496; "Disputatio inter clericum ct militem," 1495; "Summaria 
 . . . operis nonaginta Dierum," 1495; "Compendium crrorum Johannis pape 
 XXII," Lyons, 1495. He was driven from Paris and took refuge with Louis of 
 Bavaria. In the works to which the writer has had access is no systematic 
 treatment of ethics as such. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 341 
 
 by hearsay, and firmly persuaded that their parents and teachers 
 are incapable of blundering. To merely suggest that the dialec- 
 tic method was at so important a point seriously at fault was to 
 shake the foundations of the elaborate theological structure, so 
 painfully reared, and which was so intimately identified with 
 the actual living faith of the mass of thinking men and women. 
 
 Nor can it be successfully disputed that this elaborate structure 
 has its logical outcome in an infaUible living voice, and that the 
 Pope has the best historical claim to be that voice. If religion 
 consists in accepting infallible authority, then surely it is of high 
 importance that the authority be as unquestioned and as un- 
 questionable as possible. Hence the attitude of Ockham toward 
 the papacy, and indeed the attempted independence of the 
 University of Paris and the Gallican church, were serious 
 matters and disturbing factors in the last degree. 
 
 Nominalism failed to go the logical lengths of the system, and 
 took refuge in authority as over against speculation, and so 
 really strengthened the papacy: but for a little time it seemed 
 as if the new type of piety — introduced by the mendicant 
 orders * — might so separate itself under the leadership of critical 
 scholasticism as to produce a serious revolution in the religious 
 and ethical thinking of the church. This type of piety we study 
 best in the works of another set of scholastic thinkers. 
 
 IV. MYSTICAL SCHOLASTICISM 
 
 What Harnack calls the " tedious doctor's thesis question," ^ 
 concerning the relation of mysticism to scholasticism, will 
 always be answered in accordance with one's understanding of 
 these two terms. Mysticism is found throughout in scholasti- 
 cism because it belongs to the systemless conglomerate with 
 which scholasticism as an organizing intellectual force had to 
 deal. The Western world did not accept Christianity primarily 
 as a system either of theology or ethics, but as religion and life. 
 
 > See p. 357- 
 
 ' ". . . durch Confusion und Langeweile ausgezeichnete Doctorfrage." 
 " Dogmengeschichte," vol. Ill, p. 328, 3d ed. 
 
342 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 This religion had from early days its mystical elements. Whether 
 they are legitimate divine additions to the simpler ethical mono- 
 theism of Judaic prophetism or whether they are obnoxious 
 intrusions is still a mooted question. 
 
 It is, however, important that it be clearly understood what 
 in these pages is meant by mysticism. The term would be more 
 useful if more narrowly defined, not as covering emotional and 
 sentimental piety, but as referring to the profound faith that 
 religion is knowledge of ultimate reality and that this knowledge 
 can only be obtained by abstraction from the sensuous and 
 phenomenal. In this sense mysticism is despondent with regard 
 to the present and the seen; it is essentially dualistic, dividing 
 between the ultimate reality, unchanged and unchangeable, and 
 the transcendent phenomenal; it is generally ascetic, desiring to 
 strip off the body that the soul may see. It may be intensely 
 monotheistic with God symbolized and even conceived anthro- 
 pomorphically, but the tendency must always be toward pan- 
 theism. 
 
 He who deals with mysticism is primarily occupied with 
 psychological states, and the division of the mystics should be on 
 the basis of the psychological interest. When the emphasis is 
 upon religion as knowledge of reality, the mysticism is intellectual 
 in its caste. When the emphasis is upon religion as union with 
 reality the type of mysticism may become emotional and ecstatic. 
 On the other hand the emphasis may be so placed that this union 
 is thought of as union of the will with reality, and we have what 
 the writer ventures to call thclemic ^ mysticism. This thelemic 
 mysticism may again in its fundamental character be dominated 
 either by the intellectual or the emotional interest. One char- 
 acteristic of mysticism, as thus defined, is the inevitable monot- 
 ony of its processes. It must be prevailingly passive, and the 
 mental processes are usually fantastic and readily become patho- 
 logical. Ethics cannot be more than a secondary interest, for 
 the heart of ethics is a right relationship to the phenomenal 
 world, while for mysticism abstraction from the phenomenal 
 
 * From rb BfKrffut.. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 343 
 
 world is the necessary means to the goal that is primarily intel- 
 lectual and not ethical, namely, knowledge of fundamental 
 reality. 
 
 The history of Christian mysticism, or, as the writer would 
 prefer to say, of mysticism within Christianity, has yet to be 
 satisfactorily written.* 
 
 Unfortunate misuse of the conception of the Logos in the 
 fourth Gospel, and the linking of Hellenistic Judaism (Philo, 
 etc.) with early Christianity, gave rise to many weird combina- 
 tions. In Victorinus ^ the process may be seen, but was surely 
 older and deeper than his personal influence. In Augustine 
 
 ' For the literature of mysticism, see Vaughan, Robert Alfred: "Hours with 
 the Mystics," 2 vols., London, 1856, 1st ed.; Gorres, Johann Joseph von: "Die 
 christliche Mystik," 5 vols., Regensburg, 1836-1842, new ed., 1879-1880; 
 Helfferich, Adolph: "Die christliche Mystik in ihrer Entwickelung und ihren 
 Denkmalen," 2 vols., Gotha, 1842; Noack, Ludwig: "Die christliche Mystik 
 nach ihrem geschichtlichen Entwickelungsgange im Mittelalter und der neuern 
 Zeit," Konigsberg, 1853; Royce, Josiah: "The World and the Individual," 
 vol. I (Gifford Lectures, 1899), lectures 2, 3, and 5, New York, 1900; Miinster- 
 berg, Hugo: " Psychology and Life," Boston, 1899, pp. 229-282; Cousin, Victor: 
 "Cours de I'histoire de la philosophic moderne," new edition, Paris, 1847, 3 
 vols. (vol. n : Lefon 9), English translation by G. W. Wight ("Course of the 
 History of Modern Philosophy"), 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1852, also New York, 
 1857, 3 vols.; Preger, Wilhelm: "Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittel- 
 alter nach den Quellen untersucht und dargestellt," Leipsic, 1874-1893, 3 vols, 
 (the fourth volume has not yet appeared); HiJgel, Friedrich Baron von: "The 
 Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in Saint Catherine of Genoa and Her 
 Friends," 2 vols, London and New York, 1908; Zahn, Josef: "Einfiihrung in 
 die christliche Mystik," Paderborn, 1908; Recejac, E.: "Essay on the Bases of 
 Mystic Knowledge," translated by Sara Carr Upton, New York, 1899; Inge, 
 William Ralph: "Studies of English Mystics" (St. Margaret's Lectures, 1905), 
 London, 1907. 
 
 ' Victorinus, Cajus Marius. A teacher of rhetoric in Rome, who accepted 
 Christianity in later life and identified it with his Neoplatonic speculation 
 founded upon Plotinus and Porphyry. His commentaries on Galatians, Philip- 
 pians, and Ephesians, as well as his essay, "De generatione verbi divini," some 
 hymns, etc., are preserved. See Migne, "Pat. Lat.," tom. 8, cols. 993-1310 jf.; 
 and some of his influence may be traced to his extreme orthodoxy on the question 
 of the ofioo^ffios. He died about 363. Gore and Harnack regard him as 
 having deeply influenced Augustine, "an ihn hat sich Augustine — wenn ich 
 nicht irre — in der entscheidenen Epoche seines Lebens gebildet." Harnack: 
 "Dogmengeschichte," III, 3d ed., p. 31, English translation, vol. V, 1899, p. 
 33; ed. 1890, p. 30. 
 
344 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 there is identification of God with ultimate reality, and the 
 underlying longing to be lost in God, but speculation is subordi- 
 nated to the religious-ethical interest. This speculative side 
 is not the predominant note in the theology of the Western 
 world which looked to Augustine, and only in the fifth or sixth 
 century do we find, even in the Greek church, a man who com- 
 pletely subordinates the religious-ethical to the speculative 
 knowledge of reality. Through Johannes Scotus Erigena the 
 writings of Dionysiiis the Areopagite^ became the possession 
 of the Latin world. Erigena translated them at the command 
 of Charlemagne, but, as we have seen, had himself but super- 
 ficial contact with the fundamental character of mysticism. 
 Indeed it is hard to believe that the scholastic writers who make 
 so much use of Dionysius really fully understood how completely 
 he stood on pagan and non-Biblical ground. It is scarcely 
 too much to say that mysticism hardly needs an ethics and ulti- 
 mately renders it superfluous. Goodness is for Dionysius not 
 really a moral but a metaphysical attribute. It is "complete- 
 
 ' The Pseudo-Dionysius the Areopagite has given much trouble to the critical 
 world. But it may now be accepted that the writings are forgeries of the fifth 
 or sixth centuries, perhaps on the basis of lost writings more or less incorporated 
 in what we now have. The writings are conveniently collected with Latin 
 translation in Migne, "Pat. Graeca," torn. 3. (The scholia of Maximus and 
 "Vitse," in tom. 4). These writings, irepi ttjs ovpavla^ Upapx^as (De easiest! 
 hierarchia); irepl t^j iKKK-qffiaffTiKiji lepapxl-a-i {De ecclesiastica hierarchia); irepl 
 Oeluu 6vop.dTwv (De divinis nominihus); irepl fivariK^s 6€o\oylai (De myslka 
 theologia); Epistola; and the so-called Liturgia S. Dionysii have been enor- 
 mously influential. De coslesti hierarchia and De ecclesiastica hierarchia 
 have been edited and translated into English by Colct and Lupton (Joannes 
 Coletus super opera Dionysii. Two treatises on the hierarchies of Dionysius, 
 . . . now first published with a translation, introduction, and notes by J. H. 
 Lupton, London, 1869), another translation by John Parker, London, 1894. 
 A translation into German of all the writings by Engelhardt, Sulzbach, 
 1823, and into French by Darboy, Paris, 1845. and Dulac, Paris, 1865. Full 
 literature is given by Bardenhewer, Otto: "Patrologie," Freiburg-in-Baden, '894, 
 pp. 284-290, English translation by T. J. Shahan, St. Louis, 1908, pp. 535- 
 541, and by J. H. Lupton in the article on Dionysius (i) in Smith & Wace's 
 "Dictionary of Christian Biography," vol. I, Boston, 1877, pp. 841-848; see also 
 Siebert, Otto: "Die Metajjhysik und Elhik des Pseudo-Dionysius Areopagita, 
 Dissertation," Jena, 1894; and Harnack's "Dogmcngcschichtc," especially II, 
 pp. 423/., 3d cd., English translation, vol. IV, Boston, 189S, pp. 338/. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 345 
 
 ness," "unity," "freedom from division," "power," "ultimate 
 causality," "light," and "the source of all light," etc' Evil 
 is a non-existent quantity, a weakness, an absence of strength.^ 
 Not even the demons are really evil in themselves and by 
 nature,^ and all being in its phenomenal existence is relatively 
 good, but to become absolutely good must strive to shake off 
 the mutable and separable and become again one with God, 
 from whom all things spring. 
 
 God is therefore "good" as the metaphysical source of all 
 being, and in strict logic there is no evil and there is no good, but 
 only relative grades of existence. The hierarchy is useful, not 
 as an ethical training and teaching organization, but simply as 
 a ladder by which men are led up from the divided and visible 
 to the undivided and invisible. The Scriptures are for Dionysius 
 useful as the revelation of the source of all being, and indeed they 
 are the only source, as all our thinking and acting is vain and 
 empty.* In the "Mystic theology" Dionysius is absolutely out- 
 spoken: salvation is a sinking of the soul in God, a becoming one 
 with God in metaphysical sense. Salvation is the imparting of 
 God to the soul in fuller measure, and Jesus is the intermediary 
 by whom the inexpressible is given expression. All the contra- 
 dictions and extravagances of Neoplatonism, together with its 
 profound longings and almost psychopathic ecstasy are found 
 in Dionysius. 
 
 The mysticism of the pseudo-Areopagite is almost wholly 
 metaphysical and intellectual. But under cover of the developed 
 ritual and organization of the church this metaphysical interest 
 is cleverly substituted for the religious and ethical life. 
 
 The essence of Roman Catholic piety as developed under a 
 monastic papacy was the absolute submission of the soul to 
 authority. This authority was thought of as divine but incor- 
 porated in the hierarchy. The ethics of this development have 
 
 ' irepl Odwv ovoixaruv, IV : ijf. ^ Tcpl Beluv dvo/xdruv, IV : 20. 
 
 3 AW oCre ol dalfj-oves (pv<rei KaKol, and again, E^ 5^ ovk del KaKol, 06 <f>ij(rei 
 KaKol, MPG, III, 724 D. and 725 B, vepl Oeioiv 'Ovofidruv, IV : 23. 
 * irepl edwv dvofidruv, I : 2-3, and irepl ovpavlas lepapx^ii, I : i. 
 
346 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 therefore their specific type. While on the other hand the es- 
 sence of Neoplatonic and mystic piety is the attainment of the 
 divine, and obedience and submission may or may not be means 
 to that end, but do not constitute its life and essence. There 
 is a certain haughty individualism always present in mysticism, 
 and it was a triumph of diplomacy for the Roman hierarchy that 
 as it subdued the intense individualism of the ascetic ideal, and 
 forced it into the modified communism of the monastery, so 
 also it understood how to harness the haughty individual aspira- 
 tions of Neoplatonism, in men like Gregory of Nyssa and the 
 pseudo-Dionysius, to the chariot of a political organization 
 whose formative impulse was obedience. 
 
 Yet this mysticism always remains a foreign and troublesome 
 intrusion. It is profoundly so in Augustine, where the mystic 
 elements clash discordantly with his truly ethical system of 
 thought. The language of Paul, with its ethical dualism and 
 its relative underestimate of the worth of this life, has been the 
 loop-hole by which Neoplatonic mysticism has inserted itself 
 into the Christian synthesis; and profound misinterpretations 
 of the Logos teachings of the fourth Gospel have made the 
 invasion easy. 
 
 At the same time, probably the real hold that mysticism, 
 in its philosophical sense, had upon the Roman hierarchy, 
 came with the rite and cult, whose history is linked, as we 
 have seen, with the pagan mystery. Dionysius and Maximus 
 the Confessor made the rites and worship of the church the 
 commentary upon the dogmatic teaching which was needed by 
 the unlearned and incompletely instructed, and thus introduced 
 Neoplatonic speculation into the life of the church even for those 
 who had no real interest in the speculation.* 
 
 The traditions of the monastery carried out of Egypt an elabo- 
 rate sacramental apparatus. The binding together of the 
 papacy and the monastery thrust these sacramental and cult 
 
 ' For brief discussion, sec article, "Mystagogischc Theologic," by Ferdinand 
 Kattenbusch, in Herzog-Hauck's "Realcncykiopiidie," vol. XHI, Leipsic, 1903, 
 pp. 612-622; with references to his "Lchrbuch." 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 347 
 
 elements into the foreground, and with them the memory of 
 the mystical teaching closely identified with the monastic 
 aspiration.* In this work the main figure for the Western church 
 was also Dionysius the Areopagite. Thus in his "Coelestial 
 Hierarchy" we see the idealized picture of the actual ecclesias- 
 tical system, as it had worked itself out in Syria, in Asia Minor, 
 and the Eastern provinces, toward the close of the fourth and 
 the beginning of the fifth century. 
 
 The triumph of monasticism was marked not only in the 
 reformation of the Roman hierarchy under Hildebrand, but 
 by the rise of the mendicant orders (Dominicans, Franciscans, 
 etc.^). The religious life of the Roman Catholic church re- 
 ceived not only new impulse but a new unity. This unity was 
 gained by the absorption and adaptation into the intellectual 
 structure of scholasticism, of mystical elements, which in them- 
 selves have nothing in common with the intellectually organizing 
 spirit of scholasticism. The work of thus incorporating these 
 elements was much advanced by the really great and interesting 
 Hugo of St. Victor.^ 
 
 When Harnack calls Hugo of St. Victor the most influential 
 
 •For discussion of "Monchthum und Mystik" in the Greek church, see 
 Ferdinand Kattenbusch's "Lehrbuch der vergleichende Konfessionskunde," 
 vol. I, Freiburg-in-Baden, 1892, pp. 522-542. 
 
 ' See for brief ethical estimate, pp. 357, 358. 
 
 ' Hugues de Saint Victor was born about 1097 and died 1141 in either Flanders 
 or Saxony. He was weakly and from the first devoted himself to learning, and 
 was a life-long monk in the Benedictine order. His works are collected (together 
 with much dubious material) in the reprint of the Rouen edition of 1684 in 
 Migne, "Pat. Lat.," tomi 175-177. The biographical material is collected in 
 "Histoire litt^raire de la France," torn. 12, Paris, 1830; O. Zockler's article in 
 Herzog-Hauck's " Realencyklopadie," vol. VHI, Leipsic, 1900, pp. 436-445, 
 English translation, vol. V, New York, 1909, pp. 390-392, is an admirable 
 resume of his work and teaching. The student of ethics will turn with most 
 interest to " Institutiones in Decalogum legis Dominicae," " De sacramentis 
 Christian3efidei,""DearcaNoe moraU," "Dearca Noe mystica," "De vanitate 
 mundi," but cannot afford to neglect his very influential mystical writings, found 
 in Migne, " Pat. Lat.," torn. 176, cols. 881-998. The large literature can be 
 seen gathered in the modern histories of the Christian church (W. Moller, Ph. 
 Schaff, or Kurtz-Bonwetsch-Tschackert). Of the "Victorines," he was the 
 greatest. 
 
348 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 theologian of the twelfth century/ he doubtless is right, but for 
 the student of ethics his interest is almost wholly his place as the 
 formulator and interpreter of a "mystical orthodoxy," and here 
 ethics plays a poor part. 
 
 There is almost no element of Hugo of St. Victor that may 
 not be directly traced to Maximus the Confessor, Dionysius the 
 Areopagite, or Johannes Scotus Erigena. The point of view is 
 that faith must be comprehended, but not with the intellect only, 
 but in the last analysis by direct and immediate vision. That 
 God is one is the truth by which we are illuminated and made 
 perfect.^ Love to our neighbor has two aspects: the one is 
 present and temporal, the other is the sharing with him the 
 vision which is eternal.^ Obedience is the fundamental virtue, 
 because only by obedience do we know the operation of grace.* 
 
 The border line between dogmatics and ethics is not a sharp 
 one, but to dogmatics rather than to ethics belongs the elaborate 
 discussion of the fall of man and angels and God's relation to 
 evil.^ The conclusion is that God is not responsible for man's 
 activity within the rather narrow range left to his free-will,' 
 although, of course, he foresaw the consequences. Original sin 
 is in the fact of inherited lusts, which are always pain, and may 
 be pain and guilt and ignorance which lead us inevitably to 
 offend God.^ 
 
 As in all the mystic scholastics of a certain type the sacraments 
 assume the magic character of a medium by which the soul is 
 
 ' Harnack's "Dogmengeschichte," vol. II, p. 346, 3d ed., English translation, 
 vol. VI, Boston, 1899, p. 44. 
 
 ^ " Institutiones in Decalogum," cap. i. 
 ' " Institutiones in Decalogum," cap. 2. 
 
 * " Obedientiam exhibe, gratiam intellige, vcritatem agnosce." (" Institutiones 
 in Decalogum," cap. i.) 
 
 * "Summa Sententiarum," tract III, cap. 1-15. The genuine character of 
 the sentences is assumed quite uncritically by the present writer; see for a 
 critique, Heinrich Denifle in "Archiv fiir Gcschichte des Mittelalters," vol. Ill, 
 1887, pp. 634-640. 
 
 * Cap. 8-9. 
 
 ' Cap. 10-12. Cf. also "Dialogues de Sacramentis legis," MPL, torn. 176, 
 col. 26. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 349 
 
 cleansed for the spiritual vision. Jesus is baptized by John, 
 not that he needed baptism, but to sanctify the water, so that its 
 use in the name of the Trinity might confer remission of sin/ 
 
 The unethical character of such outward magic means of 
 grace has hardly even yet dawned upon Protestantism, which 
 took over much of the sacramentarianism of mystical scholasti- 
 cism (Hugo, Bernard of Clairvaux, Tauler), because of a sup- 
 posed affinity with the inwardness of mysticism. 
 
 In truth, however, the mysticism of Hugo of St. Victor is not 
 a really Protestant inwardness toward which the logic of Abelard 
 unconsciously moved. Abelard, as we have seen, had the full 
 assurance that faith and reason were in ultimate harmony. 
 Hugo is a mystic because he despairs, in point of fact, with 
 regard to reason reaching the knowledge of God, and would 
 substitute immediate vision for mediating reason. Hence the 
 whole ethics centres about humility, which meant for the Middle 
 Ages surrender to authority.^ The experience upon which the 
 religious life is built is not the reaction of the whole personality 
 upon our world, but the immediate ecstatic vision of ourselves 
 and others, guaranteed to us by church and sacrament.^ This 
 "inwardness" is therefore the very opposite of evangelical 
 freedom, and even when it seems most to resemble it remains a 
 stranger to its spirit.^ 
 
 In such ecstatic experiences assurance of salvation was ob- 
 tained, and in the sacraments the grace is conveyed to the par- 
 taker which makes such experience possible. 
 
 * "Summa Sent.," tract V, cap. i. The whole discussion of sacraments is 
 interesting, but concerns dogmatics rather than ethics. See "De Sacramentis 
 legis naturalis at scriptae " and the "Summa Sententiarum," tractati IV to VII. 
 Cf. also Harnack: "Dogmengeschichte," vol. Ill, p. 488, 3d ed, English transla- 
 tion, Boston, 1899, vol. VI, p. 219. 
 
 * Cf. "De fructibus carnis et spiritus," where love springs from the root 
 humility as luxury springs from pride. Migne, " Pat. Lat.," tom. 176, cols. 997 jf. 
 
 ^ Cf. "De sacramentis," lib. I, pars. Ill, Migne, "Pat. Lat.," tom. 176, 
 cols. 217-234. 
 
 * It was this essential misunderstanding that led Luther to his overestimate of 
 the train of reflection found in the little book called since his day "Teutsche 
 Theologie." 
 
3SO HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 In Hugo is seen also the subtile ascetic quality which makes 
 Middle-Age mysticism attractive to poetic and artistic natures. 
 The rude north was awakening to a new art life. The gloom 
 of the forest was to be idealized in splendid cathedral arches, 
 and the songs of the south, chastened and solemnized, were to 
 stijnulate to an art expression the north has made peculiarly 
 her own. 
 
 As in the sacraments, so in the service. Hugo sees a method 
 by which the emotional life is awakened, and the clothing of 
 the priest and the details of the ritual assume a grea.t importance 
 for him.^ At this point we see again the hierarchy carrying 
 artistic culture to the north, and awakening in the forming 
 national life aspirations for beauty and harmony, which it 
 sought to gratify in ornate service, in splendid churches, and 
 in the high cultivation of monastic solitude. All of this marks a 
 strange contradiction within the message of the Roman church, 
 because contempt of life and world-flight, together with asceti- 
 cism and tears, comport but ill with the splendor and grace the 
 hierarchy unfolded.^ 
 
 At bottom mystic scholasticism has no really original ethical 
 contribution to make. The virtues are the theological virtues 
 expounded in connection with the familiar Aristotelian and 
 Platonic lists. The centre of gravity is shifted to the knowledge 
 of God as ultimate reality, gained not by reason or revelation 
 to the reason, but by immediate contacts of the soul with God, 
 which contacts are historically for Roman Catholic piety only 
 to be genuinely gained within the circle of experiences vouchsafed 
 by the church. 
 
 In the writings of Innocent III,^ for instance, we see the 
 
 ' Cf. "Expositio in Regulam beati Augustini," Migne, " Pat. Lat.," torn. 176, 
 cols. 881-924. 
 
 ' For Hugo's attitude to the world, see "De area Noe morali," lib. I, cap. i, 
 and "De vanitate mundi," Migne, "Pat. Lat.," 176, cols. 619-621 and 703-740. 
 It received classic expression in Innocent III. See p. 353- 
 
 ' Lothar, Count of Conti, 1160-1216 (as Pope Innocent III from 1198-1216), 
 was the guardian of Frederic II. His writings are most numerous; cf. Migne, 
 "Pat. Lat.," tomi 214-217. The works that concern us most are found in the 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 351 
 
 strange admixture of mystical elements, with world-flight as 
 the climax of the religious life on the one side and the outspoken 
 ambition to rule the world and subdue to the papacy all secular 
 thrones on the other. And in no one is this combination seem- 
 ingly more influential and along all the lines upon which Catholic 
 piety moves. 
 
 Any Protestant, for instance, who has stood watching the 
 strange, and to him meaningless, postures and kneelings of the 
 mass would do well to turn to Innocent Ill's " Mysteries of the 
 Altar." ^ For the understanding of Roman Catholic piety on 
 a certain level of culture there is no literature more informing 
 than Innocent III. He is almost as representative of the piety 
 of the Middle Ages as Thomas Aquinas is of its learning. 
 
 Mysticism has deeply affected that type of piety, and the 
 secret is found rather in its sacramentarianism than in its specu- 
 lative philosophy. Speculative mysticism would have had but 
 little influence, probably, upon the Western type of thought 
 had it not been linked with the cult by Dionysius the Areopagite 
 and with the sacramental machinery by Hugo of St. Victor and 
 Innocent III.^ 
 
 That mystic elements in the very narrowest sense were thus 
 incorporated cannot be denied. The goal is to know God as 
 
 fourth volume (torn. 217): "Sermones," cols. 313-690; "Dialogus inter Deum et 
 peccatorem," cols. 691-702; "De contemptu mundi," cols. 701-746; "Libellus 
 de eleemosyna," cols. 745-762; "Encomium charitatis," cols. 761-764; and "De 
 sacrificio missae," cols. 763-916. The other volumes are his letters and decrees 
 and various papers, "Regesta sive Epistolae." For the enormous literature, see 
 the standard church histories, or the article, "Innocenz III," by Carl Mirbt, in 
 Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," vol. IX, Leipsic, 1901, pp. 1 12-122, 
 English translation in the new Schaff-Herzog "Encyclopaedia," vol. V, New 
 York, 1909, pp. 498-502. 
 
 * " Mysteriorum evangelicae legis, et sacramenti eucharistiae," lib. VI, in 
 Migne, "Pat. Lat.," torn. 217, cols. 763-916 (" De sacro altaris mysterio " or 
 " De sacrificio missae "). 
 
 ^ C/. "De sacro altaris mysterio, Prologus": "Tria sunt, im quibus prascipue 
 divina lex consistit: mandata, promissa, et sacramenta. In mandatis est 
 meritum, in promissis est praemium, in sacramentis est adjutorium." The im- 
 portance of the sacrament, therefore, being that it enables us to keep the com- 
 mandments and to obtain the promises. (MPL, tom. 217, col. 773 B.) 
 
352 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ultimate being, and that immediately. The world is evil, God 
 only is really good that is " reality." Thus in " De contemptu 
 mundi" the whole ethics centres about the attempt to slay 
 pride, which is the head and root of all sin,* and by making man 
 humble to exalt him to God. 
 
 The despondency of much literary Christian activity probably 
 misrepresents the average Christian thought and feeling. The 
 oppressed classes in early years were not on the whole, probably, 
 as miserable as the few cultured ones among them, who could 
 alone voice the discontent. For culture makes the soul sensitive 
 to its sorrows. But from Augustine to Innocent III even the 
 prosperous thought it a religious frame of mind to feel contempt 
 for the joys of life and to speak meanly of man. This abnor- 
 mality, based upon Ecclesiastes and misunderstandings of Job 
 and isolated passages of Scripture, is classically formulated by 
 Innocent III and some of the mystics, and has passed over into 
 the quasi-Protestantism of Puritanism in England and Pietism 
 on the Continent.^ 
 
 The test of goodness not being normal and healthy relation- 
 ship to one's world, but metaphysical identification with an 
 eternal reality, man is in a very bad way; for whereas " the stars 
 were made from fire," and the atmosphere and winds from the 
 air, and birds and fishes from water, man and vegetables were 
 made from earth !^ He is utterly corrupt both morally and 
 physically. How utterly physically sin is conceived one sees in 
 the crass coarseness of Innocent III in describing original sin * 
 in its origin. 
 
 All the miseries of life as described by Innocent are not just 
 
 ' Prologus, "De contemptu mundi." 
 
 * The hymnology of the Protestant churches is particularly marred by this 
 fundarruentally irreligious conception. 
 
 ' "De contemptu mundi," lib. I, cap. 2. 
 
 * "De contemptu mundi," lib. I, cap. 5 : ". . . quo cibo conceptus nutriatur 
 in utero. Profecto sanguine menstruo, qui cessat ex femina post conceptum, 
 ut ex eo conceptus nutriatur in femina. Qui fertur esse tarn dctestabilis et 
 immundus, ut ex ejus contactu frugcs non gcrmincnt, arescant arbusta, moriantur 
 hcrbx." etc., etc. (MPL, torn. 217, col. 704 C-D.) 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 353 
 
 so many challenges to a battle with unrighteousness as they 
 are now becoming to the modern worid, nor yet are they evidences 
 of the sure coming of a just judge and ruler as they were to 
 Judaism and apocalyptic types of Christian thought in the eariy 
 days; they are to him but proofs of the necessity to seek in the 
 sacraments and alms-giving certainty that these miseries will 
 buy us eternal joy/ 
 
 The misery of the slave, so graphically described, no more 
 awakens in Innocent than in Aristotle the feeling that the 
 slave would yet be freed by a great deliverer,^ but only forms one 
 more proof that man has to flee the present and seek the future. 
 
 The nearest approach to a systematic ethics in Innocent III 
 is contained in the second book of the "De contemptu mundi." 
 There sins are catalogued and rebuked. Cupidity, avarice, 
 partiality or respect of persons,' selHng of justice, gluttony, 
 drunkenness, luxury," unnatural vice, ambition, pride, arrogance, 
 extravagance in dress and ornaments, uncleanness of heart, and 
 all the evil consequences are discussed and denounced, and the 
 eternal consequences are set forth. At the same time the cata- 
 logue reads rather like an indictment of the Creator than an 
 attempt to overcome the evil by the presentation of the good. 
 The tract belongs, in fact, to the gloomy and despondent view 
 of life so generally found in connection with ascetic religion. 
 The ethics is negative and the morality savors sadly of personal 
 desire for individual extrication. 
 
 ' Cf. the crassness of this conception in the little book, " Libellus de elee- 
 mosyna": "... quia Deus per eleemosynam maculas peccatorum eliminat, 
 et sordes abluit vitiorum. Eleemosyna quidem est indigenti pietatis intuitu 
 subvenire; cujus quantus sit fructus, Scriptura sacra demonstrat. Nam elee- 
 mosyna mundat, eleemosyna liberal, eleemosyna redimit, eleemosyna protegit, 
 eleemosyna postulat, eleemosyna impetrat, eleemosyna perficit, eleemosyna 
 benedicit, eleemosyna justificat, eleemosyna resuscitat, eleemosyna salvat." 
 (MPL, tom. 217, col. 747 A.) 
 
 ^ "De contemptu mundi," lib. I, cap. 17. 
 
 ^"Clamat pauper et nullus exaudit, loquitur dives et omnes applaudunt." 
 "De contemptu mundi," lib. II, cap. 4. (MPL, tom. 217, col. 718 D.) 
 
 * Against which he writes strongly: "Every age, every sex, every grade of 
 society, old and young, it invades and corrupts." Lib. II, cap. 21. (MPL, tom. 
 217, col. 725 B-C.) 
 
354 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Thus also in the tract on alms-giving ^ this virtue is placed 
 before even fasting,^ but not because it has social meaning or 
 aids in the redemption of the world, but because of its saving 
 potency for the individual's soul. True it must be done in 
 love,^ and in purity of life and conduct, for alms-giving in sin 
 does not help us at.all,^ but the end is the soul's own felicity and 
 it must be in obedience to rule.^ 
 
 No wonder that the alms-giving of the Middle Ages corrupted 
 both the givers and the receivers. 
 
 As throughout the Roman Catholic ethics, there is a strange 
 conflict between antagonistic conceptions of life when marriage 
 comes into view. The otherwise beautiful ethics of the marriage 
 state proclaimed by Innocent III,^ like all the subsequent teach- 
 ing of Rome, is marred by really pathological estimates of the 
 natural functions of healthy men and women. 
 
 On the one hand marriage is made a sacrament and treated 
 as the sweetest image of the holiest relationship of God to his 
 church (following Paul), and on the other it is denounced as a 
 sad concession to man's fallen and wicked condition.^ The 
 truth being that the Roman interest in celibacy has always had 
 a political side. To possess an army of men cut off from the 
 natural ambitions of the family and devoted to the maintenance 
 of the Roman imperialism could not but be attractive to men 
 like Gregory VII and Innocent III, whose real faith was in 
 force and power for the organization, however much they might 
 genuinely admire gentleness and meekness in the individual. 
 Hence it was that the imperial ethics of Rome sought eagerly 
 alliance with the ascetic world-fleeing ethics of the monastery. 
 
 To comprehend the development of the mystico-ascetic ethics 
 
 ' "Libellus de eleemosyna." Migne, " Pat. Lat.," torn. 217, cols. 745-762. 
 
 *"Bonum est jcjunium, sed melior est eleemosyna," cap. 4. (MPL, torn. 
 217, col. 752 D.) '"De eleemosyna," cap. 5. 
 
 * "De eleemosyna," cap. 3. * "De eleemosyna," cap. 5. 
 
 •(?/■. "De quadripartita specie nuptiarum." Migne, "Pat. Lat.," tom. 217, 
 cols. 921-968. 
 
 ^ Whether this contradiction is fundamental in Paul is a mooted historical 
 question. See p. 77. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 355 
 
 within the church of the Middle Ages we must glance at the 
 rise of the orders whose compromises with Roman imperialism 
 involved both contracting parties in many contradictions/ 
 Without question the whole development was grounded in a 
 very serious attempt to conform to the supposed ideals of the 
 early church, nor can it be that words of Scripture and distinct 
 positions set forth by Biblical writers (Paul and Apocalypse) 
 seemed to bear out some of the most grotesque perversions of 
 the evangelical message. 
 
 In the tenth century monasticism was moved by the general 
 spirit of reform and became once more a potent force in the 
 hierarchical church. The old Benedictine orders had been re- 
 organized through the efforts of Berno of Clugny, and the rise 
 of the congregations of Cluny, whose work in purifying the 
 monasteries lasted over a century,^ further emphasized the 
 social character of the monastic life. At the same time the 
 attempt to strengthen the cloister by association seemed to 
 weaken discipline, and so a compromise was attempted by the 
 Vallombrosian order (founded in the Vallis umbrosa) which was 
 the first order, as far as we know, to introduce a lay element, not 
 so strictly bound, that the monks proper might live the more 
 strictly contemplative life. This is interesting as pointing to the 
 fact that the motive to founding lay brotherhoods was still 
 rather the vita content plativa than the social purpose. These 
 
 * Besides the standard church histories and the Hterature referred to on p. 216, 
 see special histories of the orders, as by Wadding, Lucas: "Annales Minorum 
 seu trium Ordinum a S. Francisco institutorum," 2d ed., Rome and Naples, 
 25 vols., 1731-1860; Mabillon, Jean: "Acta Sanctorum Ordinis S. Benedicti," 
 Venice, 1733, etc., 9 vols (?); Heimbucher, Max: "Die Orden und Kongrega- 
 tionen der katholischen Kirche," Paderborn, 2d ed., 1907 (all from Roman 
 Catholic point of view); Hospinianus, Rodolphus: "De Monachis: hoc est, De 
 Origine et progressu monachatus, ac ordinum monasticorum, equitumque 
 Militarium," 1609. For abundant literature, see Helyot, Pierre: "Histoire des 
 Odres Religieux et Militaires," Paris, 1714-1721, 8 vols.; new ed., Paris, 1792; 
 also in Migne's "Encyclopedic Theologique," tomi 20-23, 1846 seq. 
 
 * For the work and life of Odo of Cluni, see G. Griitzmacher's article, "Cluni 
 und die Cluniacenser," in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopadie," vol. IV, 1898, 
 pp. 181-186, English translation, vol. Ill, New York, 1909, pp. 146-148, 
 
3S6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 cloisters emphasized for the full membership silence and exceed- 
 ingly strict enclosure. 
 
 But in spite of all new rules and constant reorganization the 
 inevitable result of relative idleness and selfish attempts to save 
 one's own soul reappeared, and so there arose the Cistercians, 
 founded by Robert of Molesme, 1098, at Citeaux, with a still 
 further elaboration of the congregation conception, and some 
 attempt to distribute the responsibility by compelling the attend- 
 ance of all the abbots of the order at a kind of parliament. 
 What might have happened to these powerful and wealthy, 
 yet really corrupted and corrupting oligarchies had they gone 
 on without rivals it is quite impossible to say. Roman imperial- 
 ism feared them while it used them, and Innocent III was 
 directly responsible for the drastic action of the Lateran council 
 in 1215 (Canon 13),* by which the founding of new orders was 
 forbidden, and all wishing to enter the monastic life were com- 
 manded to submit to a rule already approved. 
 
 The force of events, however, was too strong for Innocent III. 
 There had existed from early times what were probably survivals 
 of older types of piety. They were scattered as sects all over 
 the Christian world under various names and no doubt with 
 many shades of doctrine.^ Under the name of the Cathari, 
 or Pure Ones,^ they gathered force in southern France and 
 Lombardy. They sent out missionaries two by two, with 
 preaching and teaching of an undoubtedly mystic piety, with 
 primitive memories, and with the New Testament taken igno- 
 rantly and literally. 
 
 Among them the perjecti were bound to a very strict asceticism, 
 and the teachers enjoyed a high regard in the people's mind. 
 As over against the wealth and aristocracy of both the Roman 
 
 ' Hefele-Knopfler: "Conciliengeschichte," 2d ed., 1886, vol. V, § 647, p. 886. 
 
 * The essentially dualistic type of thought is assumed by most historians 
 (Littledale-Harnack), and is set forth by Hefelc-Knopfle: "Conciliengeschichte," 
 vol. V, 2d ed., 1886, § 645, pp. 827 jf.,on the basis of the researches of Schmidt, 
 Charles: "Histoire et Doctrine de la Secte des Catharcs ou Albigeois," Paris, 
 1849, 2 vols. 
 
 ' KaOapol, whence the German word for heretic, kctzer. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 357 
 
 hierarchy and the alHed monastic system these sectarians threat- 
 ened to become a people's church. Had Peter Waldo's proposals 
 to Alexander III, in 11 79, been accepted, the whole movement 
 might have been as successfully bound to Rome's purpose as 
 the older movement was in the days of Athanasius. But this 
 was not to happen in exactly that way. Under Innocent III, 
 however, the sectarian movement had grown beyond the power 
 of papal persuasion, and Dominic de Guzman began the famous 
 movement, started on a different level and with different inspira- 
 tions, but at the same time by Francis of Assisi, by which the 
 cloistered monk became an itinerant friar and the older Gnostic 
 speculative piety was re-enforced by the new life of the monastic 
 reformation. 
 
 In reading the account of the "errors" and "heresies" of 
 the Cathari and Albigenses as given by Hefele, the ordinary 
 mind is at a loss to see where in its popular presentation the 
 message of these sectaries greatly differed from that of St- 
 Francis of Assisi ^ (i 182-1226), save in the more thorough-going 
 acceptance of the dualism which underlay both. The two 
 orders rose out of social purpose, and had their strength in the 
 missionary zeal with which they sought to advance the interests 
 of the kingdom as they saw it in the hierarchy. Their success 
 was so immediate and their loyalty to Rome was so unquestion- 
 able that in spite of the Canon XIII of Lateran both orders were 
 launched and soon were as petted and as spoiled as all the others. 
 The mystic speculative ethics, as we have seen, was a part of 
 the teaching of the two famous Dominicans, Albertus Magnus 
 and Thomas Aquinas, but did not organize their thought. In 
 the Franciscan teacher Bonaventura the systematic and intellect- 
 ual elements fall into the background and the mystic piety does 
 actually control the system. 
 
 The fact that this mystic type of piety has been from so early 
 a date a possession of the church, and that it has certain aesthetic 
 
 ' CJ. the admirable life by Paul Sabatier: "Vie de S. Franfois d'Assisi," 8th 
 ed., 1894. Exceedingly well translated into English by Mrs. Louise S. Hough- 
 ton, New York, 1894. 
 
358 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 leanings which enable it very readily to ally itself with religious 
 sentiment and feeling, as well as the fact that it has been a 
 feature of many marked religious awakenings, hides from many, 
 even to-day in Protestant circles, its essentially Gnostic charac- 
 ter. On the ethical field nothing is so remarkable as its studiously 
 maintained lack of freshness and originality. 
 
 The two most influential formulators of this method of 
 thought are Bernard of Clairvaux^ and Bonaventura, and 
 though both men were really great souls and most extraordi- 
 narily useful as leaders of the religious life of their day, they 
 are painfully unfruitful in the field of systematic ethics. 
 
 Bernhard, in his five books of pious direction to Pope Eugene 
 III, moves in the conventional lines laid down by the practical 
 life of the monastery. The active life is a concession, the real 
 life is the contemplative one. The mystic elements in Augustine 
 receive some new emphasis, but there is really nothing new in 
 the treatment. The end of life is the love of God for his own 
 sake, which is the third stage of man's progress from selfish love 
 to unselfish love of God, for his own sake.^ The ascetic life 
 
 ' Bernard of Clairvaux (1090-1153), of good family and with an exceedingly 
 pious mother. He was born at Fontaines, near Dijon, and in the " life " given first 
 in Migne, "Pat. Lat.," torn. 185, cols. 225-467 ("Vita," liber primus. Auctore 
 Guillelmo), are related stories of early piety. He became the reformer of the 
 monastic life through his connection with the new monastery at Ctteaux, and he 
 went out from it to found a connected monastery at Clairvaux (Claras-Vallensis), 
 and though he never was the actual head of the order, as he refused to leave 
 Clairvaux and go back to Citeaux, he was the life of the Cistercian movement. 
 He was the adviser of kings and popes, and really seated Innocent H upon the 
 papal throne by his opposition to Anaclet H, who was probably the canonically 
 elected Pope. Of his many genuine wTitings those that interest the student of 
 ethics most are his letters (cf. Epist. XI and XXXIV) and "De consideratione," 
 "De moribus et ofl5cio episcoporum," "Liber ad milites Templi de laudi novae 
 militiae," "Tractatus de gradibus humilitatis et superbiae," and the "Ser- 
 mones." Migne, "Pat. Lat.," tomi 182 and 1S3. For wcllnigh complete 
 bibliography, see the admirable work of Leopold Janauschek: "Bibliographia 
 Bernardina," Vienna, 1S91, and the still useful monograph by Neander: "Dcr 
 hcilige Bernhard und sein Zcitalter," 3d cd., Gotha, 1865; new edition by S. M, 
 Deutsch, Gotha, 1889, English translation by Matilda Wrench, London, 1843; 
 Storrs, R. S., " Bernard of Clairvaux," 1892. 
 
 ' "Non jam propter se, sed propter ipsum." Epist. XI, § 8. (MPL, 182, 1 14 A.) 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 359 
 
 is the ideal, and to be chosen before all other.* Contemplation 
 of the mystery of God in his oneness and threeness is of the 
 highest religious value.^ The Song of Songs mystically inter- 
 preted is the key to heavenly love and its light and meaning, 
 and in Bernhard's sermons on the canticles is gathered up the 
 dreamy, half-sensuous, half-speculative rapturous piety which 
 is so marked a characteristic of the monastery life.^ 
 
 There is a threefold perfection of the soul, as is seen in kissing 
 the feet, the hands, and the mouth of the Master." Rhapsody 
 and absorption in divine exercises form the pinnacle of the 
 religious life,^ and the aesthetic side of the service has great 
 significance and attraction for Bemhard as for Innocent III." 
 It is quite worthy of note how distinct a place the sacraments 
 have in this type of thinking. They are an aesthetic means 
 toward the esctasy which is the goal. In mystic scholasticism 
 the magic elements in the sacramental teaching are variously 
 emphasized. In the more intellectual types they are minimized, 
 but in the aesthetic, sensuous types they almost become central.^ 
 
 Bemhard cannot be classed as among the intellectual organ- 
 izers of mystic scholasticism. Instinctively he feared the rational 
 process, and his attack upon Abelard was, no doubt, a result of 
 that fear. He was an agitator and organizer. His effective 
 work in arousing men for the miserable crusade which cast a 
 shadow over his last days is evidence of his preaching powers. 
 His influence, however, was religious. Like Augustine, he was 
 
 ' Epist. XXIV; c/. also the tract "De gradibus humilitatis." Migne, "Pat. 
 Lat.," torn. 182, cols. 941-972. 
 
 2 "De consideratione," lib. V, cap. 13. Migne, "Pat. Lat.," 182, cols. 804- 
 805. 
 
 * "Sermons in canticae." Migne, "Pat. Lat.," torn. 183, cols. 779-1198. 
 
 * "Sermo," IV. (MPL, 183, 796-797-) 
 ""Sermo.," VII, 806-810. 
 
 * Cf. the interesting little dialogue on the church music, Migne, "Pat. Lat.," 
 torn. 182, cols. 1 153-1166. 
 
 ' This asthetic element is seen in Bernhard's excessive devotion to the Virgin 
 Mary. Cf. the prayer Dante puts into his mouth in " Paradise XXXIII," which 
 Professor Marvin R. Vincent calls " one of the gems of literature." C/., also, 
 Vincent, M. R., "Age of Hildebrand," chaps. XVI and XVII. 
 
36o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 a religious genius of the first class/ but the Platonic-mystic ele- 
 ments are taken unsystematically. 
 
 This is not the case, however, with the great Seraphic Doctor,^ 
 Bonaventura. With him, following in the footsteps of the 
 " Sentences," all is systematized, and everything said under 
 divisions of three or seven or ten, sometimes to the obliteration 
 of all finer shades of difference. From the point of view of 
 ethics he is profoundly disappointing. The Stoic ethics are but 
 feebly warmed by the mystic emotional piety, and there is lack 
 both of intellectual sharpness and of real ethical insight. The 
 scheme of the little ethical treatise, "De decern praeceptis," 
 illustrates his method. 
 
 It is divided into two parts. One of these deals with the 
 motives for keeping the commandments, the other with the 
 commandments themselves in general. Under part one he sets 
 forth four main motives for keeping the commandments. First 
 the authority of the law-giver, because he created us, rules us 
 and saves us. Secondly, the keeping of the commandments 
 has a threefold usefulness, the imparting of the gifts (charismata), 
 the revelation of Scripture, and the assignment of rewards in 
 heaven. Thirdly, there is a threefold peril in transgression, 
 
 ' Harnack calls him "Augustinus redivivus," " Dogmengeschichte," vol. Ill, 
 3d ed., p. 314; English translation, vol. VI, 1899, p. 10. 
 
 -Bonaventura, Giovanni di Fidanza, 1221-1274. Born in Italy of humble 
 parents, and the champion of the Franciscans in their rivalry with the Domini- 
 cans. He is said to have been a pupil of Alexander of Hales, though this is doubt- 
 ful. (Hales died in 1245.) His main teaching was in Paris, and as general of his 
 order he exercised a wide influence for good. The editions of his works most 
 cited are those of Lyons, 7 vols., 1668; that of A. C. Peltier, Paris, 1864-187 1, 
 15 vols., and the new edition, Claras Aquas, 1882-1902, 10 vols. "Opera 
 omnia jussu et auctoritate Fleming, David P." In the tenth volume is an 
 essay on the life of Bonaventura, vol. X, pp. 39-73, with admirable condensed 
 references to all the sources of information. The indices arc in the fifth volume 
 for vols. I to IV. Besides the general ethical interest of the "Sermones," vol. IX, 
 1901, the writings of special interest to the student of ethics are the comments 
 upon the sentences of the Lombard that deal with ethics especially, namely, his 
 commentaries in "Distinctionem XXIII," and on through the cardinal virtues, 
 vol. Ill (Claras Aquas edition), pp. 469-731. And also in vol. V is a neat little 
 ethical treatise on the Ten Commandments, "Opuscula varia," 1891, pp. 307- 
 502. The mystical writings are gathered together in vol. VIII, pp. 3-159. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 361 
 
 namely, we lose the best of good gifts, we rush into degrading 
 sin, and deserve eternal punishment. Fourthly, the legitimate 
 character of the commandments is seen in that they demand 
 nothing that is impossible or burdensome or iniquitous. 
 
 The second part is given up to a general discussion of the 
 duties to our God and our neighbor, and it lacks both grip and 
 freshness. The first table makes three demands, with reference 
 to the triune God, and the second table deals with our relation 
 to man. The ethics are weak and individualistic and ever 
 haunted by the consciousness that the native virtues are in the 
 second place and are a mere means to an end.^ The ethics of 
 the preceding treatise on the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit ^ are 
 even more confused, and mingled with the theological material 
 which is always the first interest. 
 
 The mystical writings ^ reveal nothing new. In the " three- 
 fold way" there is set forth the threefold progress of the soul by 
 purgation and illumination to perfection. The way of reaching 
 this is also threefold, i. e., by reading and meditation, by prayer, 
 and by contemplation.* The "Soliloquium" is a dialogue 
 between a man and his soul, and the exercises suggested remind 
 us painfully of the Indian fakir, only he does the thing more 
 thoroughly and more scientifically. The rules laid down are, 
 in fact, nothing more than the methods for self-hypnotism by 
 concentration and auto-suggestion. 
 
 The cult of "Jesus and Mary," with all its weakening and 
 unethical motivation of life, pervades both the theology and the 
 ethics of these mystic writings. How unreal the ethics are may 
 be seen in the little tract, " Lignum Vitae," ^ which has played a 
 great part in Roman Catholic piety, where sentimental pity ex- 
 hausts itself in vain longing and fruitless tears. Indeed through- 
 
 ' "De decern praeceptis," collatio I, opera vol. V (Claras Aquas edition), pp. 
 
 507-532. 
 
 » "De septem donis spiritus sancti," opera vol. V, p. 457. 
 
 ' These are gathered together in vol. VII, pp. 3 to 159 of the Claras Aquas 
 edition. 
 
 * "De triplici via," vol. VIII, opera omnia, p. 3. 
 
 *"Opuscula mystica," vol. VIII, p. 68. 
 
362 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 out Bonaventura the strong feeling is that mysticism is a mere 
 disturbing element attempting, indeed, a reconstruction of the 
 thought without really reaching it. 
 
 THE ETHICS OF " GERMAN" MYSTICISM* 
 
 The so-called German mystics are in reality simply those who 
 laid hold upon the metaphysical mysticism present from Augus- 
 tine on in Catholicism and worked it out in various degrees and 
 wnth different emphasis. When Harnack identifies mysticism 
 with Roman Catholic piety, "save only in so far as it was not 
 ■jides implicita,^^ ^ he seems to the writer to make the definition 
 of mysticism too wide. 
 
 The simple, sweet trustfulness of Francis of Assisi in his 
 loving attempt to do as Jesus and his apostles had done had no 
 philosophy of ultimate reality in it. This trustfulness and long- 
 ing after God is not "mystic" or "Catholic" or "Protestant" 
 or "German," it is religious, and breathes throughout all medi- 
 aeval piety in its prayers, hymns, and simple works of mercy and 
 devotion. Only when this trustfulness and longing unites itself 
 with a distinct theory of union with the source of all being in 
 some metaphysical sense do we have the basis for the extraordi- 
 
 ' The enormous literature of mysticism sadly needs sifting. For the history 
 of Middle-Age mysticism, see among the older works: Schmid, Heinrich: "Der 
 Mysticismus des Mittelalters in seiner Entstehungsperiode," Jena, 1824; Preger, 
 Wilhelm: "Geschichte der deutschen Mystik im Mittelalter," 3 parts, Leipsic, 
 1874-1893. See also the article, "Mysticism," by Andrew Seth, in "Encyclo- 
 pa:dia Britannica," 9th ed., Scribner's, New York, 1884, pp. 128-135, ^"^ ^^^ 
 article, "Theologie, mystische," by S. M. Deutsch, in Herzog-Hauck's "Real- 
 encyklopadie," vol. XIX, Leipsic, 1907, pp. 631-644, and the several sections 
 in Harnack's "Dogmengeschichte," especially vol. Ill, 3d ed., pp. 392-401; 
 English translation, vol. VI, Boston, 1899, pp. 97-108; Gregory, Eleanor C: 
 "An Introduction to Christian Mysticism," London, 1901; Swainson, William 
 P.: "Christian Mystics," vol. I; "Francis of Assisi, Saint and Mystic," London 
 1903; Langenberg, Rudolph: "Quellen und Forschungcn zur Geschichte der 
 deutschen Mystik," Bonn, 1902. Some material also in Baron Friedrich von 
 Hiigel's "The Mystical Element of Religion as Studied in St. Catherine of 
 Genoa and Her Friends," 2 vols., London and New York, 1909. See also p. 343. 
 
 * "Dogmengeschichte," vol. Ill, p. 392, 3d ed., English translation, vol. VI, 
 1899, p. 98. 
 
SCHOLASTICISM AND ITS ETHICS 363 
 
 nary development which is alike constant in its reappearance 
 and monotonous in its inevitable outcome. 
 
 The "ethics" of the so-called German mystics is not separate 
 from the ethics imported into the north by the church. The 
 only thing that seems in any way characteristic is the over- 
 weening individualism, and the dependence upon Neoplatonism 
 as interpreted by Dionysius the Areopagite, And what is most 
 striking is the monotony of the teaching. Love is thought of as 
 feeling; and emotion, ecstasy, and rapture are means to the 
 ultimate knowledge of and union with the final reality. No 
 genuine ethics could develop out of mysticism so defined, hence 
 the ethics of the mystics is simply what they found in the relig- 
 ious life about them, thought of generally as a means to their 
 end, with the speculation, more or less vague, which gives char- 
 acter to mysticism. 
 
 Two of the earliest works of mysticism on German soil are 
 " Das fliessende Licht der Gottheit," by Mechthild of Magdeburg 
 (about 1273), edited by G. Morel; " Offenbarung der Schwester 
 Mechthild," Regensburg, 1861, in which fantastic piety is 
 mingled with metaphysical phrases, half understood, borrowed 
 from Dionysius. Nor can one say much more of Meister Eck- 
 hart (1260-1329). Like Heinrich Suso (i 295-1366), there is 
 nothing novel in their teaching save that it is in the language of 
 the people. Union with God as essential substance, and the 
 attainment of this union by abstraction and esctasy, form the 
 groundwork of the teaching. In Johannes Tauler (1300-1361) 
 the mysticism proper is mingled with aesthetic and religious ele- 
 ments, and Catholic piety as it developed on German soil, with 
 a strong sense of the worth of the soul and keen feeling of 
 separation from God in conduct, makes itself manifest. The 
 sermons of Tauler are, however, Roman Catholic and not 
 Protestant, nor in any sense a foretaste of real Protestantism. 
 The same may be said of the whole movement of the " Friends 
 of God," identified with Nicholas of Basle, and the "Brethren 
 of the Common Lot," with Gerhard Groot (1340-1384). The 
 teachings of poverty, of communism, of self-denial, etc., have 
 
364 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 underlying them what we have seen was characteristic of mon- 
 astic piety generally. It had no social or ethical significance 
 apart from the general Roman Catholic teaching at this point. 
 The elements of inwardness and trustful relationship with 
 God, which give such books as "Teutsche Theologie" ^ and the 
 "Imitation of Christ" permanent value, are not inseparably 
 connected with the Neoplatonic conceptions which underlie them 
 both, and which in the last analysis they falsely (historically 
 considered) identify with the teachings of the New Testament. 
 In a history of mysticism it would be proper to trace the ethics 
 taught by the several mystics to their source, but mysticism has 
 no important contribution of its own, nor is it in point of fact in 
 a position to render such service, — for reasons already pointed 
 out (see page 350). Hence we pass over what is an important 
 chapter in the history of Roman Catholic piety but which has 
 no special ethical interest.^ 
 
 • Well translated by Susanna Winkworth, "Theologia Germanica," Andover, 
 1856, etc. 
 
 *The reader should recall the author's definition of mysticism (p. 342). It 
 is the failure to keep to some consistent definition of mysticism that renders most 
 discussion of it so irritating and fruitless. Even Baron von Huegel, in his 
 interesting second volume on "The Mystical Element of Religion," is constantly 
 talking of elements common to all religious experience as if they were peculiar to 
 the mystical type of that experience. 
 
CHAPTER VII 
 THE ENGLISH REFORMATION AND ITS ETHICS 
 
 Note of Introdttction.—{a) General Conditions of the Reformation; (6) 
 The Special Conditions in England — I. The Ethics of the Fore- 
 runners of the Reformation— II. The Ethics of Puritanism— III. 
 The Ethics of Anglo-Catholicism— IV. The Ethics of Independency 
 — V. The Ethics of Philosophical Protestantism (in England). 
 
 NOTE OF GENERAL INTRODUCTION 
 
 THE HISTORICAL CONDITIONS OF THE REFORMATION 
 
 It is only for temporary human purpose that history can be 
 divided into chapters and sections. The Reformation, from one 
 point of view so dramatic and sudden, was in reality but the 
 fitting climax to a long series of innovations. There are no 
 single causes and no single effects. The historian can only 
 describe the conditions under which history works itself out. 
 In the description great personalities will always be in the fore- 
 ground, partly because the dramatic element is strong in us all, 
 but chiefly because every historical movement has its highest 
 interest for us when it becomes incarnate n a great personality. 
 
 It is alike vain and unscientific to ask whether history is the 
 creation of great men or of the conditions under which all men 
 work. It is neither one nor the other. It is the story of the 
 actions and reactions of human purposes upon the conditions 
 under which alone those purposes can realize themselves. The 
 age that gives us genius is not the creation of that genius, but 
 an age has only its highest interest for us when some child of 
 genius formulates and incarnates its manifold purpose, and to 
 the outlooker the thousand-and-one conditions which made the 
 
 3^5 
 
366 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 work of genius possible are hidden by the interest of the per- 
 sonality. 
 
 From one point of view the Reformation may be said to have 
 begun with the Council of Constance (1414), or the nailing of 
 Luther's theses to the church door (15 17) over a hundred 
 years later; but these are only important episodes in the birth of 
 a new human spirit, steps which the race in western Europe was 
 taking to a larger, diviner freedom and life. We cannot regard 
 it as our special task to describe the historical conditions that 
 made Wyclif or Luther possible. The standard histories are 
 in a much better position to do this than the special historian of 
 ethics. Nevertheless, we must, however briefly, glance at the 
 outward conditions under which that new world was forming, 
 which sought intellectual and ethical formulation in the Reforma- 
 tion period. 
 
 One of the foremost factors in the determination of Europe's 
 political character was the fundamental struggle between the 
 East and the West. In the growth of Mahometanism the 
 West was challenged, and the crusades bore this special mark 
 because, amid great and growing diversity of tongue, of in- 
 terest as well as of race, religion still gave the largest and 
 firmest basis for united action. Not that the crusades were 
 wholly religious. The most eloquent preaching of Peter the 
 Hermit and the most convincing arguments of the Pope could 
 not have aroused Europe had not material interests, such as 
 a growing trade, increasing population, and political restless- 
 ness given the crusades * an especial significance. As Europe 
 ceased to seem homogeneous and began visibly to separate 
 
 ' For the literature, consult Emerton, Ephraim: "Mediaeval Europe, 814- 
 1300," Boston, 1894, chap. 14, pp. 477-508; Kugler, Bernhard: "Geschichte 
 der Kreuzzuge," Berlin, 1880 (in Wilhelm Oncken's "Aligcmcine Geschichte in 
 Einzeldarstcllungen," abt. II, vol. V); Prutz, Hans: "Kulturgeschichte der 
 Kreuzzuge," Berlin, 1883; Henderson, Ernest P.: "Secret Historical Documents 
 of the Middle Ages," book III pp. i^s> etc., London, 1896 (Bohn's "Antiquarian 
 Library"); Robinson, James H.: "An Introduction to the History of Western 
 Europe," Boston, 1903, chap. 15; Duruy, Victor: "The History of the Middle 
 Ages" (English translation of the 12th edition by Whitney, with notes by 
 Professor Adams, New York, 1891, book VII, pp. 261-304. 
 
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 367 
 
 into organized and differing groups, trade routes and access 
 to the sea became determining elements of the social and politi- 
 cal life. The church, like imperial Rome, had stamped a 
 certain cosmopolitan character upon her agents. She alone 
 was in a position to summon Europe to a defence of Western 
 culture. Yet even while she did this, the crusades both weak- 
 ened Rome and strengthened nationality. They weakened 
 Rome by the exaltation of the military power and by bringing 
 again an Eastern culture into direct contrast and contact 
 with her own life (Arabic scholarship, etc.). Nationality was 
 strengthened by the actual losses on the battle-field of the cos- 
 mopolitan military ruling class. The story of the relationship 
 between commercial Judaism and the crusades, and of the grow- 
 ing power of this intellectually and spiritually highly gifted race 
 from the time of Agobard's first anti-semitic outbursts (see page 
 290) to the time of Reuchlin, who was accused by his Catholic 
 enemies of being paid by the Jews, has yet to be written. In- 
 stinctively ecclesiasticism recognized the Jews as a rival power, 
 in that they offered a commercial cosmopolitanism as a substi- 
 tute for the ecclesiastical bond. The enormous development 
 of trade routes and seaport towns due to the crusades laid the 
 foundation for that new industrial Europe which is even now 
 transforming human thought and ideals. 
 
 The crusaders brought back from the East new science, new 
 art, and many new inspirations, but also new vices and new 
 doubts. On the principle that the best defence is a swift attack 
 the crusades were not wholly failures, although at the end the 
 Holy Sepulchre was still in Moslem hands. The crusades did, 
 in fact, break the power of Mahometan invasion and stay the 
 onward rush of Eastern culture. 
 
 They also shook the imperial papacy, partly by their relative 
 failure, but still more by transferring the power of government to 
 the armed secular force. Heroism and demoralization walked 
 hand in hand. The saint and the runaway serf both fastened 
 the cross to their sleeves, and democracy advanced as the fearful 
 mortality of the Eastern wars carried off the flower of feudalism. 
 
368 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The trading free city grew from the lowly beginnings of fortified 
 camps and centres for protection along the main thoroughfares, 
 until it became a menace to the feudal land-owning nobility. 
 The Middle Ages are full of the struggle for freedom and self- 
 regulation on the part of the city, a struggle which not even the 
 concessions of von Stein ^ have yet quite ended in Germany. 
 The crusades undoubtedly aided the growth of these centres, 
 and the seaport republics, like Venice and Genoa, almost owed 
 their greatest days to the supplying the needs of crusading 
 armies. 
 
 Feudalism was weakened by the encroachments of the free 
 city on its life, and the increasing power of nationalism has 
 never been a strength to cosmopolitan imperial Romanism. 
 True it is that she has at times played of! nation against nation, 
 but in the end she has always lost the game. When one reads 
 of Cardinal Richelieu making war one year on the Huguenots 
 and the next year a treaty with Christian IV to save what 'was 
 left of Protestantism in the north of Europe, one realizes how 
 far the national and dynastic interest, even in Roman Catholic 
 France, outweighed the imperial dreams of Rome. 
 
 With this feudalism Roman Catholicism is firmly knit 
 together. In every land where feudalism has been overthrown 
 her ecclesiastical polity is an exotic (United States, England, 
 France, and even Italy), and the weakening of feudalism in the 
 lands she still dominates goes hand in hand with diminishment 
 of her power. 
 
 The fixing of the final boundary between East and West by 
 the fall of Constantinople (1452) and the recapture of Granada 
 (1492) cleared, as it were, the way for the internal revolution, 
 which we call the Reformation. Men's minds were so far set 
 at rest and the fear of Moslem invasion has never since gravely 
 affected the nerves of Europe. Now men began to seriously 
 ask questions both of nature and of history. The spread of a 
 new spirit of inquiry has been called the Illumination. And 
 
 ' Maurenbrccher, Max.: "Die Hohenzollern-Legende, Kulturbilder . . . aus 
 dem 12 bis zum 20 Jahrhundert»" vol. II, pp. 624-634, Berlin, 1905 and 1906. 
 
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 369 
 
 this " Aufklarung" has its own special literature.^ It is easy to 
 see how bitterly the small nobility felt in the early stages of the 
 Reformation, and both in England and Germany signs were not 
 lacking of a disposition on the part of the smaller aristocracy to 
 make common cause with the proletariat in their revolt against 
 feudalism. It could, indeed, only be a temporary fellowship, and 
 such leaders as Oldcastle in England and Franz von Sickingen 
 in Germany soon found themselves hopelessly outnumbered by 
 the instant alliance of monarchy, middle-class, and larger 
 nobility, overwhelmed by the dread of the proletariat, just as, 
 in the past, all classes at Rome could be instantly united by the 
 dread of a servile war. 
 
 The ignorance of Greek before the Illumination has probably 
 been overdrawn. At the same time the crusades and the fall 
 of Constantinople did undoubtedly greatly increase the interest 
 in Greek and heighten the curiosity as to the sources of the 
 culture possessed only at second hand by the great scholastics. 
 The break with Latin was coincident with the rise of national 
 tongues, giving birth to their own literature. Dante in Italy 
 sang the scholasticism of Thomas of Aquinas in the entrancing 
 strains of a native Italian, and mingled with mediaeval Aristote- 
 lianism something of Cicero's ethics. Petrarch almost frankly 
 tried to substitute the ethics of later Greece and of Rome for 
 what passed as Christian ethics. Boccaccio had still fewer 
 scruples, and, so far as he was at all interested in ethics, those 
 of Stoicism and Epicurus were far more to his mind than 
 Albertus Magnus or Thomas Aquinas. 
 
 Yet the great humanists had no wish to break with the church. 
 Valla, Erasmus, and Reuchlin needed, indeed, more intellectual 
 and artistic atmosphere, but to reform the church from within 
 was their ideal, and the Reformation was the responsibility of 
 the church authorities rather than of humanism. Humanists 
 had, they thought, but one task and high privilege. To human- 
 
 ' In Reuter's "Geschichte der Aufklarung" the older literature is given, and 
 in Robinson's "Introduction to the "History of Western Europe," pp. 352-353. 
 additional English works are given. 
 
37© HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 ism was intrusted the new culture and the new art and the new 
 learning. 
 
 It is impossible now to say whether any reformation of the 
 church could have come out of the scorn and scoff of human- 
 ism alone. Certainly, however, the Reformation in its ethical 
 earnestness and intense, even if often narrow, religiousness, 
 could not have sprung from humanism, and was even on its 
 finer sides misunderstood and suspected by the men trained in 
 humanism. 
 
 It made ready the way, however, for the Reformation. The 
 Greek Testament was its most precious gift to the cause. Save 
 for men like Reuchlin, Hebrew and Old Testament learning 
 would never have stood where they were when Luther and 
 others opened at last the chained Bible. Nor is it just to lay 
 the blame of the paganism, which is all too apparent in the 
 pages of humanist writers, at the door of humanism. Reuchlin 
 was no pagan, nor was Erasmus one. Paganism was found in 
 Rome as well as in humanism. The unnatural vices and the 
 debauchery which soil some of the pages of humanism were, 
 alas, part of the decay and degeneracy which long lack of moral 
 guidance had produced. There is good reason for believing that 
 the monastery system, after the heart had gone out of it, was 
 the home of the foulest sin, and needed no humanism to teach 
 it the vices of Rome and Athens. The Council of Constance 
 is a standing witness to the abuses and debaucheries of the 
 existing ecclesiastical situation. 
 
 The fact was that no intellectual system could save the world. 
 There had to be a new birth, a new baptism of fire and earnest- 
 ness, a new faith in things unseen and eternal. The Reforma- 
 tion has been far too much estimated in theological terms. 
 Protestant theology was a distinct advance upon the scholastic 
 systems, but rather in its negations and omissions than in its 
 positive contribution. And in comparing the best Protestant 
 systems with the best scholastic ones, the student may sometimes 
 feel a distinct sense of disappointment with Protestantism. The 
 fact remains that the Reformation was a new birth and a new 
 
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 371 
 
 baptism, both of what we now call Protestant Europe and of 
 Roman Catholicism. 
 
 Christianity entered upon a chapter in its life's history which 
 is not yet fully written. This chapter is dominated by Protes- 
 tantism, more especially upon its ethical side, and although we 
 shall have to trace ethical development in Jesuitism and the 
 Jansenist movement, the Roman church has more and more 
 identified herself with the scholasticism of the Middle Ages, and 
 the ethical development in her thought has been rather uncon- 
 scious than systematic. 
 
 It only remains to say a word about the morality of the world's 
 life before the Reformation. Were men and women better or 
 worse than in preceding centuries? The question cannot be 
 categorically answered. The outward morality of the days 
 before the Reformation can be painted in very dark colors. 
 There is no question about the existence of a shocking amount 
 of violence and vice. But we have no statistics, and even if 
 we had there is no more difficult and dangerous task than the 
 ethical interpretation of statistics. Increased notice of crime 
 may mean increased sensitiveness to it and not increase of the 
 crime itself. Some things are unquestionably true. Life was 
 cheap. The roads were insecure. Private warfare was com- 
 mon and frightfully cruel and demoralizing. Duelling was uni- 
 versal in the better class, fighting and brawling in both better 
 and lower classes. Monks, friars, and priests were suspected of 
 the lowest passions: and many were the tragic histories wept 
 over in cloistered cell and monastery prison. 
 
 The mere story of Abelard's life shows how darkly the picture 
 may be drawn. Capital punishment, inquiry by torture, brutal 
 injustice, and mad revenge all reflect themselves in the pages of 
 story, poem, and history. However, these things stirred men then 
 as they do now, and must have been in great measure, then as now, 
 exceptional as compared to the great mass of human life. There 
 were, no doubt, thousands upon thousands of happy, peaceful, 
 prosaic lives with unquestionably great limitations; yet limita- 
 tions are relative and the consciousness of them very unequal. 
 
372 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 There are some things that mark themselves powerfully in the 
 ethics and the religion of the days just before the Reformation. 
 Death was markedly premature. Life was burdened by the 
 dread of pest, war, and sudden death through the uncontrolled 
 forces of nature. Probably in a well-ordered community where 
 nine out of ten of the adults lived out life to its full present limit, 
 the fear of death would give way to a distinct sense of its welcome 
 release from weakness and dependence. What weighs on adult 
 minds is only the fear of premature death, with the result of 
 dependent women and children, unfinished work, and capacities 
 for usefulness and enjoyment undeveloped and untried. 
 
 Heaven, hell, and purgatory played a far greater part in the 
 Middle Ages than they do now. They were needed to complete 
 in fantasy the unfinished lives that were all too common. The 
 question, however, is an interesting one, whether they played 
 any really serious part in the encouragement of virtue or the 
 restraint of vice. So far at least as one can observe, their 
 practical disappearance as ethical motives from the lives of 
 educated men and women to-day has not changed the ethical 
 character of the daily life of such. 
 
 To this dread of premature death and judgment may be due 
 the sombre character of so much of the church literature and 
 even of the people's poetry. The northern sagas are full of 
 longing after a fuller and freer life. In this respect both Protes- 
 tantism and Catholicism, after the Reformation had drunk of the 
 spirit of the newly awakened humanity, show a marked improve- 
 ment. There is a note of joy and elation in Chaucer, Spencer, 
 and Shakespeare, as in Boccaccio and Valla, which belongs to 
 the newly found faith in humanity and its future. This note is 
 found, indeed, in almost every religious awakening. Paul cries 
 out, " Rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice," and 
 Francis of Assisi calls upon the little brother birds to help him 
 express his joy. In Tauler, in Erasmus, and in Luther the note 
 is not lacking. The great forward movement of the race began, 
 indeed, with the low, soft note of the nightingale, but the lark's 
 triumphant outburst marks the new day spring from on high. 
 
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 373 
 
 The disappearance, practically, of chattel slavery, an economic 
 advance with which Christianity had little or nothing to do, and 
 its merging into serfdom and then free labor, must have greatly 
 affected the moral standards and the objective morality of the 
 day. But we are not in possession of the facts. The outward 
 face of the matter was at first gravely discouraging. Peasant 
 revolts, dreadful suffering, the breaking of old ties between 
 masters and servants, hate instead of trust, treachery for loyalty, 
 discontent and suspicion, misery and helplessness mark the 
 transition period. 
 
 It is at least doubtful whether on the Continent or in England 
 the immediate effect of the Reformation was not seemingly 
 ethically disastrous. The reaction from liberty to law which 
 marks Calvinism and the Jesuit counter-reformation had the 
 roots of its power in men's fears before the immediate results of 
 the demand for ethical autonomy and the breaking loose from 
 old bonds. It was at this time that the most fearful and dramatic 
 scourge of sexual sin made its appearance and spread misery 
 and suffering all over Europe.^ If, as now maintained, it came 
 back with Columbus on his first return from the West Indies, 
 Europe paid a bitter price for the discovery; for bad as this 
 awful scourge is even now, it is mild compared to the disease on 
 its first appearance.^ The sexual excesses of the days immedi- 
 ately following the Reformation may not have been worse than 
 just before, but undoubtedly sexual standards were changed, 
 and that there was temporary confusion and uncertainty Protes- 
 tantism can well afford to admit. In fact it would have been 
 strange if this were not the case. 
 
 In a view of the world where the married state is regarded 
 as inherently inferior, standards of sexual morality are formed 
 which give way at once when that view is rejected. It takes 
 time to form ethical norms, and that a generation found itself 
 
 ' Cf. Professor Ed. Lesser (Berlin), "Neue Forschungen iiber eine alte Krank- 
 heit," in "Internationale Wochenschrift fiir Wissenschaft, Kunst und Technik," 
 I Year; No. lo, June 8, Munich, 1907, p. 317. 
 
 ^ C/. Ulrich von Hutten's description and the literature cited in Professor 
 Lesser's paper. 
 
374 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 singularly without guidance is evidenced, as we shall see, in 
 Luther's own discussion of the matter. At the same time the 
 rapid spread of the sexual scourge we have noticed shows how 
 loose was the morality of Europe long before the Reformation 
 or even the demoralization of the Thirty Years' War. 
 
 It was upon this world that saw gun-powder enter the actual 
 field of war, that learned of a new continent beyond the seas, 
 that found new freedom in the printing-press and new fields 
 for the individual in the self-government of the Free City that 
 the Reformation broke. Its beginnings lie far back. Wyclif's 
 preachers were suggested, in part at least, by the early Francis- 
 can friars, and as England had longest maintained the forms of 
 the early Bishop's church, so it was chronologically first in 
 England that the elements of the Reformation are apparent. 
 
 THE ETHICS OF THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 
 
 Introductory Note 
 
 One of the great forces at work in the transformation of the 
 Middle Ages was, as we have seen, the rise of the national feeling. 
 As early as the ninth century the division between the language 
 of cultivation (Romance) and the vulgar (Deutsch) speech had 
 begun to be on national rather than class lines. In England the 
 nation rose out of a mingling of many peoples, and the island 
 character of the country contributed to the rapid blending of 
 varied elements. At the same time the amalgamation has never 
 been complete,* although the elements making for unity have 
 been on the whole greater than those telling for division. Eng- 
 land has developed along lines strongly individual on the one 
 hand, and on the other hand has conserved many useful primitive 
 virtues and opinions. That this relative isolation involved loss 
 as well as gain need hardly be disputed. 
 
 One of the marked influences of this separation from conti- 
 nental interests was a strong feeling of nationality, particularly 
 
 ' For amusing evidence of England's conciousness of being a mixed race, see 
 De Foe's "True-bom Englishman, a Satire" (eighteenth century), London, 
 1 701, and other editions. 
 
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 375 
 
 among the plainer people. The aristocratic Norman element 
 still thought of itself as linked with Europe, and England's 
 possessions in France made her aristocracy cosmopolitan, im- 
 perial, and Roman Catholic. For the common man, however* 
 the French wars were often an insufferable burden, and though 
 profoundly Catholic in his faith he felt that there was a British 
 church and an independent tradition. 
 
 When, then, an English ethics begins to emerge as a separate 
 line of thought from mediaeval scholasticism, the dominant note 
 is political and the leading inquiry is as to the foundation of 
 authority and the origin of dominion. Practical religious and 
 political wants mark the progress of England's ethical develop- 
 ment from Wyclif to Wesley. This immediate practical aim 
 as over against the theoretical and scholastic temper may be 
 a result of the national character, though this the writer doubts, 
 but certainly it is bound up with immediate pressing questions 
 which sought insistently for an answer. 
 
 The ethics of English Protestantism has nevertheless its roots 
 deep in scholasticism. The influence of mediaeval culture has 
 nowhere left more permanent memorials than in the centres of 
 English intellectual life, London, Oxford, and Cambridge. More- 
 over, Scottish Protestantism, in spite of its intense reaction along 
 some lines against mediaeval scholasticism, has through the in- 
 fluence of Calvin remained bound hand and foot at important 
 periods of her development to a scholastic, authoritative, and 
 aristocratic view of life. 
 
 Here again some would maintain that the Celtic blood had 
 something akin to Roman Catholicism, but the political and 
 economic factors seem the more influential ones. The habit 
 of practical compromise has been painfully and bloodily forced 
 home upon the English mind. Freedom of opinion has been 
 bought with a bitter price, and thus it happens that in her ethics 
 England exhibits, on the one hand a remarkable independence, 
 and on the other a curious refusal to press home the accepted 
 axioms as a French thinker would be likely to do. 
 
 Then again English thought has had such direct and imme- 
 
376 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 diate relation to political action that a certain conservatism was 
 bred of the responsibility this involves. Up to Fichte, the 
 German intellectual life was almost entirely apart from political 
 activity. It had its own rules and canons, and often seems 
 to have purchased freedom in the things of the spirit by sur- 
 render of the more material liberties. It is almost with im- 
 patience that the English mind views the elaborate speculative 
 systems that France and Germany have given to the world. 
 Intellectual empiricism has been the legitimate offspring of 
 England's system of political compromises, by which alone the 
 heterogeneous elements which constitute her life have been held 
 together for national purpose. 
 
 The ethics of English Protestantism cannot be sharply sepa- 
 rated into those of organized Christianity and purely philosophi- 
 cal systems. We must deal with men like Hobbes and Hume, 
 although to characterize their morality as Christian is to ex- 
 tremely strain this long-suffering predicate. Happily the systems 
 of many of the more distinctly philosophical writers, like those 
 of Hume, Adam Smith, James Mill, etc., are so well expounded 
 in other pages, and so familiar in English literary history, that 
 we can afford to deal with them only as they affect our more 
 immediate interest, namely, the history of ethics within organized 
 Christianity. 
 
 In point of fact, systems of ethics within the church and 
 professedly built upon the teachings of Jesus are often further 
 away from his ideals than noble systems, like that of John 
 Stuart Mill, for example, which are drawn up in conscious 
 antagonism to all revealed religion as that term was generally 
 understood among Englishmen. The philosophical utilitarian- 
 ism of Mill really comes much nearer to the Gospel ideal than 
 the coarse eudaemonistic appeals that have so often marred even 
 high types of Christian thought. 
 
 The character of the national church has also been forced 
 upon it by political exigency. The existence of non-conformity 
 has comijclled the established church on the one hand to empha- 
 size her exclusive claim to be "the" church, and on the other 
 
THE ENGLISH REFORMATION 377 
 
 to make membership within it as easy as possible. We cannot 
 therefore, set aside systems of ethical thought within this all-em- 
 bracing Protestantism simply because they do not carry an 
 ecclesiastical stamp, nor can we make the description ''Chris- 
 tian" depend upon the attitude assumed to some purely theo- 
 logical formula. 
 
 The main lines in the history of our subject are fairly well 
 marked. We shall deal first with the early reformers within the 
 church, although their followers were often driven out, and we 
 have happily in the writings of Wyclif, Tyndale, and Hooper 
 typical examples of the thinking along these early lines. After 
 the political reformation by Henry VIII, which had been only 
 made possible by Wyclif and Lollardism,^ three great separate 
 movements appear in English ethical thinking. Puritanism 
 arose with its peculiar and perhaps unfortunate reflection of 
 Geneva and political Calvinism. On the other hand Anglo- 
 Catholicism rises to the defence of many things Puritanism 
 spurned. With a separate history, and often with another 
 economic background, separatism or Independency begins 
 slowly to come to self-consciousness. It will be only possible 
 to take leading and characteristic examples along these three 
 lines, and we may do this the more cheerfully because the ethics 
 were so often and so unfortunately swamped in theological, 
 ecclesiastical, and political disputations. And lastly there 
 sprang up in ethics the great school of English rationalism, 
 which may be subdivided into those consciously indifferent or 
 hostile to the forms of organized Christianity and those who 
 professed either to defend or to reinterpret Christianity. Here 
 the lines of demarcation are difficult, and there are some whose 
 attitude leaves us seriously in doubt as to where they may be 
 classed. On the other hand there are not wanting brilliant 
 formulators of distinct types of ethics that may claim the name 
 English, and which possess a peculiar practical character, 
 although the representatives are found both within and without 
 organized Christianity. 
 
 ' Contra Gairdner. 
 
378 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 I. THE ETHICS OF THE FORERUNNERS OF THE REFORMATION 
 — WYCLIF, THE LOLLARDS, TYNDALE, HOOPER 
 
 The ethics of Wyclij * are in some respects even more distinctly 
 social and political than those of Luther. Just indignation at 
 the way in which the Romish Curia was exploiting the national 
 church aroused Wyclif as it did the later German reformer. 
 Neither leader ever lost wholly the scholastic turn of mind 
 natural to all highly trained intellects in those days. But 
 Wyclif had the advantage of coming out of a more critical and 
 sceptical type of scholasticism (Duns Scotus. Ockham) than 
 that of Luther's order. Hence his ethics are more homogeneous 
 and more critical than those of Luther, though they lack on the 
 other hand the warmth and religious fire of the great German. 
 
 Following the arguments of Archbishop Richard Fitz-Ralph 
 
 ' Literature. — The English works of Wyclif are made accessible by various 
 editors: Arnold, Thomas: "Select English Works of John Wyclif, Edited from 
 Original MSS."; Oxford, 1869-1871; 3 vols. — Matthew, F. D.: "The English 
 Works of Wyclif, Hitherto Unprinted" (Early English Text Society); London, 
 1880. — Todd, James T.: "Three Treatises by John Wyclif, with Notes and a 
 Glossary"; Dublin, 1851. — The Religious Tract Society: "Writings of John 
 Wyclif" (Selections); being the first volume of their Reformer Series, and con- 
 taining other Lollard writings; London, 183 1; first American reprint, Phila- 
 delphia, 1842. — Wyclif Society (Miss Dorothy G. Matthew, Hon. Sec, yoBelsize 
 Park Garden, London, N. W.): Latin works of John Wyclif, edited by vari- 
 ous scholars and published by the society. — Lechler, Gotthard: "Joannis 
 Wiclif Trialogus cum supplemento trialogi"; Oxford, 1869. — Buddensieg, 
 Rudolf: "Lateinische Streitschriften"; Leipsic, 1883; 2 vols.; English edition 
 under the title: "John Wiclif's Polemical Works in Latin"; London (Wyclif 
 Society); 2 vols.; 1883. — Shirley (Walter Waddington) has published "A Cata- 
 logue of the Original Works of John Wyclif" (Oxford, 1865) that has super- 
 seded that of Bale and others, but itself must be corrected from the more recent 
 research of Loserth, Buddensieg, Matthew, and others. — Lechler, Gotthard 
 Victor: "Johann von Wiclif und die Vorgeschichte der Reformation"; Leipsic, 
 1873; 2 vols, (translated partly in "John Wiclif and his English Precursors, 
 Additional Notes by Peter Lorimer"; London, 1878; 2 vols.) is still most valu- 
 able. — Buddensieg, Rudolf: "John Wiclif, Patriot and Reformer, Life and 
 Writings"; London, 1884. — Buddensieg, Rudolf: "Johann Wiclif und seine 
 Zcit, zum 500 jahrigen Jubilaum"; Halle, 1885; ("Vcrein fiir Reformations- 
 gcschichte, Schriften"). — V'aughan, Robert: "John de WyclifTe, D.D., a Mono- 
 graph"; London, 1853. — Trcvelyan, George Macaulay: "England in the Age 
 
FORERUNNERS OF THE REFORMATION 379 
 
 (Armagh) in his tract " De pauperie Salvatoris," * on to their 
 logical conclusion that the civil government, namely, had supreme 
 control under God of all the temporal possessions of the church, 
 Wyclif even more thoroughly than Luther in his letters to the 
 Protestant princes makes the church dependent upon the civil 
 power. 
 
 The church should, according to Wyclif, have no temporal 
 possessions of her own at all.^ She should be poor and live on 
 the free-will offerings of each parish. These free-will offerings 
 or tithes could then be withheld by official action of the parish 
 from a bad priest.^ Then following up the suggestions of 
 Marsiglio of Padua,^ Wyclif defended the essentially divine 
 character of the State and the social order. He took seriously 
 the doctrine of the two swords, but the State was not to yield 
 the sword up to the church, rather was the church to submit 
 herself loyally even to bad princes. For though only a righteous 
 man can lawfully hold possession of anything, yet God does 
 
 of Wycliffe"; 3d ed.; London and New York, Longmans, 1900. — See also the 
 article: "Wiclif und der Wiclifismus," by G. Loserth, in Herzog-Hauck's 
 "Realencyklopadie"; vol. XXI (1908), pp. 225-244, which is the latest and 
 most critical review of Wyclif 's life. There is a very large literature dealing with 
 Wyclif's work and life, but it is generally uncritical, and often without proper 
 access to his writings. The chronology of Wyclif's tracts and sermons is still 
 much unsettled, and even the separation by critical process of the genuine from 
 the later writings attributed to him leaves much to be desired. The dependence 
 of Huss upon Wyclif is now firmly established by the researches of Loserth, 
 Dziewicki, and others. The date of Wyclif's birth and the exact place he was 
 born are alike unknown. He was born in Yorkshire and died in 1384. He 
 himself escaped a martyr's death, though his bones were dug up, burnt, and cast 
 into the water forty years after his death. 
 
 » Published in part in the series of Wyclif's Latin works (1890), by the Wyclif 
 Society, in the volume containing "De Dominio Divino," edited by R. L. 
 Poole, pp. 257-476, with a useful analysis in the Index, pp. xxxiv-xlvii. 
 
 * In many passages of his sermons; see, for instance. Sermon LXXX, vol. I, 
 p. 268 (Arnold's "Select English Works"), "And goods put in priest's possession 
 is root of all his sin," etc. 
 
 'Arnold's edition "Select English Works," vol. Ill, p. 176. 
 
 ^Marsilius de Padua "Defensor Pacis seu dictiones vel libri tres adversus 
 usurpatam Romani pontificis jurisdictionem" (1324 to 1326, about). Many 
 editions. An old English translation by Wyllyam Marshall, 1553, London (not 
 seen). 
 
38o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 permit unrighteousness to have possessions ^ and passive suf- 
 ferance or resistance are all the weapons a really Christian man 
 may use.^ 
 
 At first this attitude left Wyclif still loyal to the Pope and 
 "the holy mother church," but he could not long maintain this 
 position, and vi'hen the Pope condemned his teachings, like 
 Luther after him, he appealed from Pope and council and tradi- 
 tion to his sole authority, the "Word of God in the Bible." ' 
 
 Up to a certain point that "reverence for the keys," which 
 kept Dante from speaking his whole mind to Pope Nicholas III, 
 concerning that Pope's avarice and the unfortunate so-called 
 "gift of Constantine " ^ kept Wyclif also from fully expressing 
 himself. But this attitude of reserve gave way steadily under 
 the attacks made upon him after his outspoken opposition to 
 Roman supremacy from the time of the so-called "good parlia- 
 ment" (1376-77) and the attempted trial for heresy. This 
 period seems to mark an era in Wyclif 's thinking, and he steadily 
 becomes more radical and more vigorously Protestant. 
 
 As in Luther, so in Wyclif there is a growing freedom from 
 scholasticism as the mother tongue takes the place of Latin. 
 The Latin sermons, and even the Latin controversial tracts, are 
 not only more elaborate, as befitting a more learned circle of 
 readers, but they are in thought and method much more bound 
 in the older modes of thought and feeling. They lack the free- 
 dom of the English sermons. They reveal an interest in ques- 
 tions never raised in the English works. Did all the Trinity 
 come to the world, for instance; or whether it was necessary to 
 have angels to keep the world moving.* So also the ethics of 
 
 ' "De Civili Dominio," London, Wyclif Society, 1885-1904, liber I, cap. 6, 
 pp. 42-44. (R. L. Poole, editor, vol. I.) 
 
 ' For an extreme statement of this position, among many, see Sermon CXLVI, 
 Arnold's edition of "English Works," vol. II, pp. 40-44. 
 
 ' Cf. "De veritate sacrae scriptur.x," edited by Rudolf Buddcnsicg, in 3 vols., 
 Lcipsic, 1904, with much valuable material by the editor. 
 
 *Cj. "Inferno," canto XIX, lines loo-iio. 
 
 '"Nontamcn video quod oportet angclos movcrc orbes celestes (ut fingunt 
 philosophi), etc., etc. "Latin Sermons," Loscrth's edition, vol. I, p. 14. 
 
FORERUNNERS OF THE REFORMATION 381 
 
 the Latin sermons ^ are still much under the influence of scholas- 
 ticism, although breaking away from the authority of the 
 church. 
 
 As with Duns Scotus, so with Wyclif, God is supreme will. 
 He is over-lord by creation.^ But we share his being as the gift 
 of his grace, and sin is a negation for which God is not responsi- 
 ble. He willed not the sin, but only the punishment of it.^ 
 Man is free to sin, and has free-will, and God permits sin because 
 of the ultimate good to mankind.^ 
 
 All power and lordship comes from God and is conditioned 
 upon our right use of it. The prince forfeits his throne and 
 the priest his power of the keys of righteousness by lacking it.^ 
 
 We look then to a threefold "law" as the expression of the 
 terms upon which we hold any authority. Wyclif constantly 
 refers to "natural law," "the law of Scripture," and "the law 
 of conscience," ^ and thus begins the inevitable break with all 
 external authority as final and absolute for the thinking man. 
 
 The authority of the Pope had already been challenged by 
 Ockham in his dispute with John XXII,^ and he had written a 
 small compendium of the errors of that Pope. In fact he denied 
 the need of a pontifex summus for the church.^ Wyclif went on 
 further to call popes and cardinals and associated friars "Anti- 
 christ" and "tares among the wheat."' He strikes at indul- 
 
 ' C}. the exposition of the commandments in the nine sermons, XIII to XXII, 
 vol. I, "Latin Sermons," Loserth's edition, pp. 86-154. 
 
 '". . . sed eo ipso quod creatur, Deus habet de ipso dominium," in "De 
 Dominio Divino," liber I, cap. Ill, p. 16 (Poole's edition, 1890), and many later 
 passages. 
 
 '"De Dominio Divino," liber I, cap. 14, pp. 116-121; c/. Poole's edition, 
 1890. 
 
 * "De Dominio Divino," liber I, cap. 14, pp. 1 21-125, Poole's edition, 1890. 
 
 * "De Civili Dominio," liber I, cap. i, p. 6, Poole's edition, vol. I, 1884, and 
 many passages. 
 
 * C}. Lechler: " Johann von Wiclif,' vol. I, pp. 377-380, an exceedingly just 
 estimate at this point. 
 
 ^ C/. his "Dialogus," Lyons, 1494. 
 
 * "Dialogus," pars III, cap. 25. 
 
 * Sermon XXXVI, vol. I, p. 97, Arnold's edition of "English Works"; cj. 
 Sermon XLVIII, vol. I, p. 138, and many other places. 
 
382 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 gences, auricular confession, the celibacy of the clergy, the 
 worship of images, the magic of the mass, and the power of 
 Rome to absolve from sin and vows. The claim of Rome to 
 over-lordship is heresy,* and indeed Rome by setting up this 
 claim shows she is Antichrist, and these are the last days.^ 
 Wyclif shared a popular view that Satan had been bound a 
 thousand years, but now was loosened and allowed to prey 
 upon the church, but that his doom was fixed and would shortly 
 take place.^ 
 
 Wyclif follows Thomas Aquinas in denying the material 
 transmission of sin through the physical seed/ It is an attitude 
 of man's will, a negation of the good. All sin may become 
 mortal; there is no inherent distinction between venial and 
 mortal sins,^ and in the same sermon in which he brings that out 
 he emphasizes the fact that the flesh is not sin, but only the 
 occasion of sinning, and claims that that is the teaching of Paul. 
 Sin is yielding to the lusts of the flesh as over against higher 
 claims. All that God made is good, but by choosing the lower 
 rather than the higher man sins. 
 
 In the Latin sermons the Judgment Day plays a very impor- 
 tant and solemn role,* and more than once Wyclif emphasizes 
 the fact that we can never be sure of salvation in this life because 
 we may not persevere.'' Indeed there is painfully lacking in 
 Wyclif's message the joyful evangelical note which rings out so 
 often in Luther. On the principle of justification by grace and 
 faith, however, Wyclif had just as clear a hold as any of the later 
 reformers,* but at this point orthodox scholastic Catholicism 
 need have had no quarrel with the Reformation. 
 
 ' Sermon LXIV, vol. I, p. 199, Arnold's edition. 
 
 ° Sermon LXVI, vol. I, p. 206, Arnold's edition "English Works." 
 
 ' Sermon XL, vol. I, p. 112, Arnold's edition. 
 
 * Cj. "Trialogus," III, 26, pp. 218-222, Lcchler's edition, O.xford, 1869, with 
 *' Summa Secunda:," I, Qu. 83, Art. i. 
 
 * Sermon XXIV, vol. I, p. 61, Arnold's edition "English Works." 
 
 • Cj., for example, Sermon II, vol. I, p. 11, of Loserth's edition. 
 ^ Sermon XII, vol. I, p. 85, I.oserth's edition. 
 
 • C}. " Of Faith, Hope, and Charity," p. 347, of Matthew's edition of " English 
 Works." 
 
FORERUNNERS OF THE REFORMATION 383 
 
 In the third book of the Triolog * there is a little compact 
 ethical treatise, but it is in dialogue form, and reflects more of 
 the scholastic method than when Wyclif in his English tracts 
 deals trenchantly with the seven deadly sins,^ and takes strong 
 ground, for instance, against all encouragement of war by the 
 Church as inherently sinful. The crusades of the Pope were 
 wicked per se. War in anger is sinful. All violence even by 
 the State must be in love and righteousness. This is one of the 
 most important ethical distinctions in Reformation literature. 
 There are also, according to Wyclif, seven works of mercy of 
 a spiritual (ghosdy) type and seven of a bodily mercy. Of 
 these the spiritual take the pre-eminence. They are teaching, 
 counselling, reproving, comforting, forgiving, suffering, and 
 prayer, as over against the "bodily" works of mercy, feeding the 
 hungry, giving of drink, hospitality, clothing the naked, visiting 
 the prisoners, the sick, and burying the dead.^ This last being 
 on the authority of the Book of Tobit. 
 
 This is the new "law of love" in Christ Jesus, which demands 
 new rites and ceremonies as Paul shows in Galatians.^ Wyclif 
 does not deny that the life of Christian contemplation is the 
 highest. But, he argues, the life of contemplation does not ex- 
 clude the active life (vita activa). His definition of the con- 
 templative life is therefore essentially non-ascetic.^ Jesus chose 
 according to the same teaching the life of poverty not because of 
 gaining merit, but because it is intrinsically the best and happiest. 
 
 So also true fasting is abstaining from vice,* and actual fasting 
 must never incapacitate the body for Christian service, which is 
 the main thing. 
 
 Wyclif assumes that it was John the Evangelist who was 
 
 * Pp. 128-238 of Lechler's edition. 
 
 * Arnold's "Select English Works," vol. Ill, p. 119. 
 
 » Cf. Arnold's "Select English Works," vol. Ill, pp. 168-182. 
 
 * Sermon VIII, vol. I, p. 57, "Latin Sermons." 
 
 * Sermon VII, vol. I, p. 49, of Loserth's edition of "Latin Sermons," and many 
 passages. 
 
 *". . . Ad jejunium spirituale quod est abstinencia a viciis," "Latin 
 Sermons," VIII, vol. I, p. 56, of Loserth's edition. 
 
384 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 married at Cana of Galilee, and glories in this as a rebuke to 
 those who deprecate marriage in itself.' He refuses to accept the 
 allegorical explanations of texts showing marriage to be a duty. 
 Indeed, although Wyclif maintains in theory the old scholastic 
 "four senses" of Scripture,^ yet in reality he is a great lit- 
 eralist. 
 
 He saw the sexual dangers in celibacy and the temptations of 
 the frequent pilgrimages, and condemns them.^ Such pilgrim- 
 ages and the indulgences granted for them only deceive men, for 
 the Pope is blasphemous when he grants pardons for sin in 
 God's name.* In fact the priest cannot forgive sin, he only 
 declares God's forgiveness in cases of true repentance.^ 
 
 Wyclif's position with regard to the relation of the State to 
 the Church is a weakness in his ethical thinking. The State 
 has not only a right but a duty to root out heresy,' at the same 
 time must keep within God's law. Which, however, assumes 
 that the State knows what is God's law, a knowledge Wyclif 
 has just before generally denied to all prelates, who can no more 
 distinguish between "catholic" and ''heretical" than they can 
 between mortal and venial sins.' Wyclif thought that laymen 
 were better than ecclesiastics,* at the same time at this point 
 Wyclif had no more thought this matter through to a logical 
 Protestant toleration than did Luther or Calvin later on. Per- 
 
 ' "Latin Sermons," S. XI, vol. I, p. 73, Loserth's edition. 
 
 ' "The plain or literal, the allegorical which looks to the future, the tropolog- 
 ical (ethical), teaching how men should live here in virtue, and the anagogic, 
 telling about the future." C}. Sermon XII, Arnold's "English Works," vol. I, 
 p. 30. 
 
 ' Sermon XXXII, vol. I, p. 83, Arnold's edition " English Works." 
 
 * Sermon LXI, vol. I, p. 189, Arnold's edition of "English Works." 
 
 * Sermon XIV, vol. I, p. 35. Cj. also XIX, vol. I, p. 47, Arnold's edition 
 "English Works." 
 
 * C/. "Latin Sermons," XIV, vol. I, pp. 96-97, Loserth's edition, for full 
 statement. 
 
 ^ "Et isto porismatc diaboli stabilito ad tantum cccavit animas prclatorum, 
 quod nesciunt distinguere inter catholicum atque hcrcticum, sicut nesciunt 
 distingucrc inter peccatum venialc hominis ct mortale," etc., etc.. Sermon XIV, 
 p. 96, Loserth's edition of "Latin Works." 
 
 ' Sermon CXL, vol. II, p. 28, Arnold's edition "English Works." 
 
FORERUNNERS OF THE REFORMATION 385 
 
 haps the need for a unified life seemed then more insistent than 
 it does to us. 
 
 It is interesting to note that Wyclif pleads for a German- 
 Anglican alliance against the extortions of the church,* For 
 Wyclif was sure that if the church was poor and not blinded 
 by selfish interests reason and faith would have no conflict.^ 
 
 Of course the temper of the time was hard. Wyclif is far 
 from loving in his fierce and often indiscriminate attacks upon 
 all "cardinals, priests, and other children of the devil." He 
 felt that the joys of the redeemed would be heightened by 
 seeing the pains of the damned, which comports but poorly with 
 his doctrine of the immorality of all unloving violence. Indeed 
 his ethics often sinks back to the level of a stern legalism; and 
 God is in many places, especially in the Latin works, portrayed 
 in terms of the familiar feudal over-lordship of the Anselmic 
 theology. Yet in spite of all this, the more Wyclif is made ac- 
 cessible to us in the printed page the more will he be duly 
 recognized as one of England's greatest Protestants. Nor 
 has English theology fairly realized what a mighty ethical leader 
 she possessed in the simple yet profound priest of Lutterworth. 
 
 As Canon Shirley (Walter W.) says,^ "If Wyclif had died before 
 his denial of transubstantiation ... his name might have 
 come down to us in another form and miracles might have been 
 wrought at the touch of their founder by the brother preachers 
 of St. John Wyclif." But as a fact the Lollard " poor preachers" 
 are the apostolic predecessors of Wesley's circuit preachers and 
 the Salvation Army's lay workers. And they were Wyclif's 
 direct creation in exactly the spirit of John Wesley and General 
 Booth. 
 
 ' " Et quam graciosa foret anglicorum et almanorum confederacio per quam 
 restitueretur in ecclesia Christi ordinacio," Sermon XIX, vol. I, p. 144. 
 
 ^ "Sed Veritas est quod lumen naturale ordinatum a Deo ut inducat in fidem 
 non est contrarium lumini fidei, sed in fidem catholicum inductivum," Sermon 
 XXV, vol. I, p. 170, "Latin Sermons." 
 
 * Introduction to his admirable "Fasciculi Zizaniorum magistri," p. xli, 
 London, i8t;8. 
 
386 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 II. THE ETHICS OF THE LOLLARDS 
 
 It is not the place here to speculate upon the reasons for the 
 relative failure of Lollardism^ in England. The causes lay 
 largely in the economic and political conditions. Nor does the 
 movement show any ethical advance over the conclusions of 
 Wyclif. The writer has failed to discover in the literature 
 accessible to him any single ethical conclusion not already in 
 Wyclif. Seldom does a movement seem so completely ex- 
 pressed by its founder as Lollardism was by Wyclif. The move- 
 ment grew bitter under persecution, but even this is altogether 
 natural, and when one reads the fierce attacks of Wyclif upon the 
 friars one sees the inspiration to the stern denunciations, often 
 no doubt partial and indiscriminate, which Peacock ^ so strongly 
 condemns. Men like Hereford, John Ashton, John Parker, and 
 less-balanced minds like Swynderley, Crampe, and William 
 Smith, simply followed in the wake of their great master. 
 
 The movement was a protest against the cosmopolitan im- 
 perialism of Rome. Had Francis of Assisi been possessed of 
 Wyclif's learning, and set himself as Wyclif did to making 
 translations of the Bible into colloquial Italian, Italian supremacy 
 in the continental church might have been effectively challenged 
 long before Luther. 
 
 The ethics of the Lollard movement were centred about 
 Wyclif's interpretation of the New Testament. For the Lollards 
 
 * LiTERATtniE. — Besides the works of Lechler and Walter W. Shirley already 
 mentioned (p. 378): Peacock, Reginald: "The Repressor of Over Much 
 Blaming of the Clergy," edited by C. Babington, in the "Master of the Rolls" 
 series, 2 vols., 1858, etc. — Wright, Thomas: "Political Poems and Songs Re- 
 lating to English History, Composed During the Period from the Accession of 
 Edward III to that of Richard III," 2 vols., 1859. — Foxe, John: "Book of 
 Martyrs" (many editions). — Gairdncr, James: "Lollardy and the Reformation 
 in England, an Historical Survey," 2 vols., London, Macmillan, 1908. — See also 
 the excellent article, "Lollarden," by Professor Rudolf Buddensicg, in Herzog- 
 Hauck's " Realencyklopadie," vol. XI, 1902, pp. 615-626, where fullest literature 
 is given. 
 
 ' Sec Peacock's "The Repressor of Over Much Blaming of the Clergy," "The 
 Rolls" series, edited by Babington, in two vols., 1858, etc. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE LOLLARDS 387 
 
 Christianity was a fierce protest against rich institutional religios- 
 ity. And without question that is a very distinct note of the 
 early Gospel. In LoUardism Christianity once more allied itself 
 with the cause of the proletariat, but the day of the proletariat 
 was not economically or politically fully come. LoUardism was 
 put down in England by the same forces that suppressed the 
 Anabaptists and revolting peasants in Germany, and for the 
 same reason. 
 
 Several historians have wondered that the final overthrow of 
 such Lollard leaders as Oldcastle did not excite more indignation. 
 But they forget that the indignation of the disinherited does not 
 get into history.^ The members of the possessing class who 
 played with LoUardism or seriously joined themselves to it were 
 like the small aristocracy of Germany who in like manner for a 
 little led the revolting peasants. But in the end the Reformation 
 was to be carried forward by the class and the interests repre- 
 sented by the Free City, and not by the unorganized and rela- 
 tively helpless proletariat. Even the Lollard poems of Piers 
 Ploughman and the fierce invectives of the Oxford leaders 
 failed to stir the great middle class, into whose hands history 
 was slowly but surely passing. 
 
 Hence for the historian of the ethics of the Protestant Reforma- 
 tion the Lollard movement is summed up in Wyclif, and we 
 pass to the new movement as it became personified in one pro- 
 foundly influenced by both humanism and Luther. 
 
 ^ Cf. the curious Latin poem published in the "Roll" series by Thomas 
 Wright, " Political Poems and Songs," 1859, for a hostile estimate of the Lollards. 
 A single verse gives an idea of the poem: 
 
 "Lollardi sunt zizania, 
 Spinae, vepres ac lollia, 
 Quae vastant horum vinae; 
 Nam pejor pestilentia 
 Non fuit in ecclesia, 
 Incedens tam erronea. 
 Quorum linguae viperae 
 Et denies sunt ut frames^ 
 Omni pleni fallacia. 
 Hi telae sunt aranea, 
 Parvis et magnis foveae, 
 Cuntis occultant retia." 
 
388 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 WILLIAM TYNDALE 
 
 Nowhere do we find a better expression of the ethics of the 
 early EngHsh Reformation party than in William Tyndale} He 
 shared the conception of all historical Protestantism that in the 
 Bible an absolute rule of faith and practice was contained, 
 while at the same time making the uncritical subjective personal 
 interpretation of those Scriptures the real norm. Tyndale more 
 than any of the other early reformers, save some of the Ana- 
 baptist leaders (through ignorance of scholasticism), divorced 
 
 Literature. — "The Works of the English Reformers," Tyndale and Frith, 
 edited by Thomas Russell, in 3 vols., London, 1831. (Part of a series entitled 
 "The Works of the English and Scottish Reformers," of which no more than 
 these were ever published. It had also been the publishers' intention to prefix 
 the series with a preliminary volume containing Tyndale's New Testament; 
 this also never appeared; see Preface.). — "Doctrinal Treatises, and Introduc- 
 tions to Different Portions of the Holy Scriptures," by William Tyndale (Parker 
 Society), edited by H. Walter, Cambridge, 1848. — "An Answer to Sir Thomas 
 More's Dialogue, The Supper of the Lord After the True Meaning of John vi 
 and I Cor. xi, and Wm. Tracy's Testament Expounded by William Tyndale and 
 Edited for the Parker Society by H. Walter," Cambridge, 1850. — The Folio 
 Edition (Black letter), "The Whole workes of Wm. Tyndall, John Frith, and 
 Doct. Barnes, three worthy Martyrs, and principall teachers of this Churche of 
 England, collected . . . [with a commendatory preface] by John Fox," 1572, 
 1573, 2 vols. — "Writings of Tindal, Frith, and Barnes." Selections from their 
 works; with biographical notices of each; 2 parts, London, Religious Tract 
 Society, 1830. 
 
 The student of ethics will find his material chiefly in "The Wicked Mammon," 
 "The Obedience of a Christian Man," and the Prologs to his New Testament 
 and Pentateuch. A life is published by R. Demaus ("William Tyndale, a 
 Biography, a Contribution to the Early History of the English Bible," London, 
 187 1 ; new edition, London, 1886), in which Foxe's notice is critically reviewed. 
 See also the valuable Prolegomena in J. R. Mombert's "William Tyndale's 
 Five Books of Moses, Called the Pentateuch, Being a Verbatim Reprint of the 
 Edition of 1530 . . . ," New York, 1884. 
 
 ' William Tyndale, born about 1484, and who died a martyr's death near 
 Brussels in 1536, translated the Bible into English and published the first 
 printed New Testament and Pentateuch in English and with collaboration the 
 whole Bible. His life was spent mainly on the Continent, where he sought 
 refuge. For full bibliography, see the introduction to Mombert's "Critical 
 Reprint of the Pentateuch," New York, 1884; critical abstract of his life in 
 Demaus's "William Tyndale," London, 187 1. 
 
f>^ 
 
 THE ETHICS OF TYNDALE 389 
 
 the reform from metaphysics, and gave it a distinctly political 
 and ethical character. 
 
 How much Tyndale knew of scholasticism does not clearly 
 appear in his works. But he disavows Aristode in words that 
 sound like Luther,^ and in a clever paragraph dismisses the 
 whole scholastic training.^ His theology is simple, uncritical, 
 and formed on lines akin to Luther's middle period. 
 
 It is his ethics that reveal him at his best. And not even in 
 Luther does the ethics of the Reformation rise higher than in '^^ J*/ 
 Tyndale. Faith and good works are not separate, but are 
 organically connected. In a wonderfully beautiful little prologue 
 to "The Wicked Mammon" he condenses his whole teaching 
 of the character of faith.^ Faith is the acceptance of God's love 
 in all conditions and an attitude of trustful dependence in all 
 circumstances.* Good works are the natural fruit of the loving 
 life,^ and must be done without any ulterior purpose, or any 
 vain-glory. " I think not myself better for my working, nor seek 
 heaven, nor any higher place in heaven, because of it." ® Our 
 working love carries with it its own reward. God is the life and 
 beauty of all good deeds, and where good deeds are there is 
 God.' Hence the New Testament was from the beginning of 
 the world,* for God is the source of all right-doing everywhere, 
 and Aristotle's doctrine of free-will is false.^ The whole interest 
 
 ' "The Obedience of a Christian Man," Russell's edition, vol. I, p.191. See 
 his list of scholastics. 
 
 2 "The Obedience of a Christian Man," vol. I, p. 194. 
 
 * "That faith, the mother of all good works, justifieth us, before we can bring 
 forth any good works: as the husband marrieth his wife before he can have any 
 lawful children by her. Furthermore, as the husband marrieth not his wife that 
 she should continue unfruitful as before . . ., but contrariwise to make her 
 fruitful; even so faith justifieth us not, that is to say, marrieth us to God, that 
 we should continue unfruitful as before . . . but to make us fruitful. "—"Works," 
 Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 76. 
 
 * "Prolog to Exodus," vol. I, p. 16, Russell's edition. 
 
 * Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 23. 
 ' Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 24; cf. also p. 43, and many passages, as vol. I, 
 
 pp. 99-100. '' Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 35. 
 
 ' "Prolog to Exodus," Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 24. 
 
 * Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 38. 
 
39© HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 that Tyndale has in " free-will" is ethical and not metaphysical. 
 He wishes to clear faith and right living from every taint of 
 "work righteousness" and coarse hedonism. 
 
 The "rewards" spoken of in the New Testament are not the 
 ends toward which we move, but simply the inevitable accom- 
 paniments of the good life. "Now, then, as after evil living 
 followeth his reward unsought for, even so after good living 
 foUoweth his reward naturally unsought for, or unthought 
 upon.* 
 
 This love has no limits. "I am bound to love the Turk with 
 all my might and power; yea and above my power . . . neither 
 to spare goods, nor body, nor life to win him to Christ." ^ 
 
 As with Luther, so with Tyndale, the common task is holy. 
 " A kitchen page" is equally doing God's service as a " preaching 
 apostle," ' which passage suggests Tyndale's dependence upon 
 Luther, although with great freedom.^ Chastity is of thought 
 and there is hardly any saner treatment of the topic than by 
 Tyndale.^ Asceticism has no place in his ethics at all. Even 
 more thoroughly than Luther has Tyndale stripped his ethics 
 of the sombre dualism of Augustine.® The subjection of the 
 body is only for the sake of rendering more complete and accept- 
 able service to God. Beautifully in passage after passage of 
 "The Obedience of a Christian Man" does Tyndale bring out 
 the nature of the Christian life as service. All things are for 
 man's sake, and all life is giving. Law must be kept, but there 
 are three tempers, fear, hope of reward, and for love's sake. 
 Only the last is Christian, and this love is service unto death.' 
 
 * "The Wicked Mammon," Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 102. 
 
 * Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 132; cj. p. 134 and vol. II, p. 7, in answer to Sir 
 T. More. 
 
 * Russell's edition, vol. I, pp. 136-137. 
 
 * Tyndale spent some time with Luther at Wittenberg between,May, 1524, and 
 April, 1525; cj. Demaus's "Life," p. 93, and pp. 98-101, edition of 1886, and 
 "Prologomena to the Reprint of the Pentateuch," p. xxvii, New York, 1884. 
 He may also have lived for some time there in secret. 
 
 * Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 47. 
 
 * Cj. Russell's edition, vol. I, pp. 112 and 1 27. 
 
 ^ Many passages; see especially Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 216. 
 
THE ETHICS OF TYNDALE 391 
 
 In this service there is a democracy of believers in Christ, where 
 neither equality nor inequality comes into view ^ as in holy 
 wedlock. 
 
 What is common to Tyndale and the whole reforming English 
 group is, however, the mechanical attitude toward the Scriptures. 
 Never does Tyndale rise to the height of faith that gives Luther 
 at times a certainty greater than Scripture, and a norm (the 
 mind of Christ) by which any word of Scripture is to be tried. 
 Hence the ethics, not so much in Tyndale as in the later men, 
 becomes legal and mechanical. 
 
 But a still greater weakness is shared fully by Tyndale. The 
 authority of the Church and State are misapprehended. Tyndale 
 preached that the king was answerable only to God.^ In Eng- 
 land men's interest in this position was to set up king against 
 pope, as Wyclif had also done and to show that the Pope's 
 interference in temporal matters was usurpation.^ True there 
 were, and always had been, evil rulers, but they are sent of 
 God, as signs of God's wrath,^ and must be left to God for pun- 
 ishment. 
 
 This non-resistance doctrine arose not only from literal inter- 
 pretation of Romans xiii, but also from the confusion in men's 
 minds about the postulates "all government is divine," and 
 " therefore any particular government is the final divine form." 
 It took years of sad and bloody experience for the reformers to 
 reach even a working theory of the relation of Church to State; 
 and the direct cause of much Protestant weakness and confusion 
 must still be sought at this point. 
 
 This weakness in the ethics of Tyndale is joined with a kindred 
 misapprehension as to the function of law. The false antithesis 
 
 * "The Obedience of a Christian Man," Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 290. 
 
 * "If the king sin he must be reserved to the judgment, wrath, and vengeance 
 of God . . . hereby seest thou that the king is in this world without law, and 
 may at his lust do right or wrong, and shall give account, but to God only." 
 Even a heathen prince, according to Tyndale, must not be resisted. " Obedience 
 of a Christian Man," vol. I, p. 212, Russell's edition. 
 
 » "Obedience of a Christian Man," Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 220. 
 
 * Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 229. 
 
392 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 between law and grace, based upon Paul's teaching, separates 
 the Old Testament from the New, and yet leaves law in force. 
 While Tyndale had rightly apprehended the Christian man's 
 attitude toward law, he does not find place for the historical 
 unfolding of our ethical experience as to what is the good. 
 Nor was it possible, probably, at that time, for any man to 
 separate himself sufficiently from an absolute view of life to 
 realize the relative character of all ethical standards. 
 
 The Reformation ethics were deeply political. The caustic 
 and not impartial survey of history given by Tyndale in his 
 "The Practice of Prelates" must have been tremendously 
 influential in the later stages of the English Reformation. In 
 this treatise Tyndale disavows and denounces the proletariat 
 revolt as strongly almost as Luther,* at the same time traces the 
 social revolt to bad princes and prelates. Princes and prelates 
 should only rule in a kingdom of service.^ To them is, however, 
 committed the sword, and although the church has the right to 
 use only spiritual weapons, such as exclusion from communion 
 and fellowship with the saints, Tyndale evidently regards, as 
 Wyclif also did, princes as the rightful guardians of the faith. 
 The character of this assumption is not plain to thousands of 
 Protestants yet.^ Kings should, of course, assert righteousness 
 and rule according to Scripture, but if they do not there is no 
 appeal save to God. 
 
 Tyndale's denial of sacramental magic, of work-righteousness 
 and papal usurpation could not be more complete than it is. 
 He is often stern, but seldom so violent as Luther or Wyclif. 
 The Pope is Antichrist, and the whole Roman communion is 
 gone astray and is no church of God. Sometimes Tyndale is 
 witty: "They pray in Latin, they christen in Latin, they bless 
 in Latin, they give absolution in Latin, only curse they in the 
 English tongue." * The language of Tyndale is refined and 
 
 * "The Practice of Prelates," Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 389. 
 
 * Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 396. 
 
 * See discussion by Tyndale, Russell's edition, vol. I, p. 399. 
 
 * Vol. I, p. 305, Russell's edition. 
 
THE ETHICS OF TYNDALE 393 
 
 gentle, and his great learning shines in his translation. With 
 him the ethics of the English Reformation made, indeed, a 
 good beginning. 
 
 Tyndale lived most of his troubled, stormy life away from 
 England. Perhaps because of this the careful reader notices 
 in him a singular indifference to the details of ecclesiasticism in 
 England. The interests in his ethics are, indeed, political but 
 not mainly churchly. 
 
 For this interest one must turn to the writings of another group 
 of men who felt themselves directly responsible for the English 
 church, and whose ecclesiastical interest affects not only their 
 theology, with which we are not concerned, but also their ethical 
 point of view. 
 
 For the purposes of our examination the works of Bishop 
 Hooper ^ sound distinctly this note and practically express 
 accurately the attitude of Cranmer, Ridley, and Latimer, and 
 the great mass of churchly reformers.^ 
 
 These men were churchmen, to whom ethics therefore had 
 practically a twofold basis, for although the church was bound 
 to the Scripture, the traditional interpretations of the (true) 
 
 * John Hooper (Hoper or Houper) was born in Somersetshire. The exact date 
 is unknown. He studied at Oxford (Merton College, according to Foxe), and 
 entered the Cistercian monastery at Gloucester. On the dissolution of the monas- 
 teries he joined BuUinger at Ziirich, whose writings, together with those of 
 Zwingli, had deeply affected him. Upon the establishment of the Reformation in 
 England he returned to be Bishop of Worcester, to which afterward Gloucester 
 was added. During the persecutions of Queen Mary he suffered martyrdom, 
 1555, by burning at the stake. 
 
 His works are collected and edited by the Parker Society in two volumes, the 
 "Early" and the "Later Writings," 1843-1852. The Religious Tract Society 
 has also published "Selections" in their vol. V. The best sketch of his life is 
 attached to the second volume of his works by the Parker Society. A list of 
 Bishop Hooper's writings is given in Tanner's "Bibliotheca Britannica-Hiber- 
 nica." 
 
 The writings that have most interest for the ethical student are : " The Declara- 
 tion of Christ and His Office"; his "Declaration of the Ten Holy Commandments 
 of Almighty God," both in first volume of the "Collected Writings," and "Brief 
 and Clear Confession of the Christian Faith," in the second volume. 
 
 ^ The works of these early reformers are made accessible in the publications of 
 the Parker Society, and selections are published by the British Tract Society. 
 
394 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 church were authoritative. The marks of the true church are 
 "the pure preaching of the Gospel and the right use of the 
 sacraments," ^ and in her spiritual life, though subject to the 
 State, she is to be independent of it.^ The very letter of Script- 
 ure is to control, and yet the rejection of the whole ritual law 
 and the subjective and arbitrary interpretation of even the Ten 
 Commandments goes without protest. 
 
 Over Hooper more than Tyndale fall the shadows of scholastic 
 dualism. Man's total depravity, as taught by Bullinger and 
 Bucer in its extremest form, appears in Hooper. We are "the 
 enemy of God, the image of the devil, the library of lies, the 
 friend of the devil, right heir of eternal death, and the child of 
 damnation, murderers by means of sin, not only of ourselves, but 
 also of the Son of God, that never sinned." ^ 
 
 This low estimate of humanity reacts upon the doctrine of the 
 church. For although the "true" church cannot err, man's 
 depravity is such that any church may err ^ and become a 
 bloody tyranny. This faith in an inerrant transcendental church 
 might be harmless, but no distinction is in point of fact made 
 between the empiric and the transcendental church, and the 
 identification of an existing empiric church with the "true" 
 church leads Hooper and the ecclesiastical group far astray. 
 
 This, in fact, leads their ethics back to a legal and outward in- 
 terpretation of Scripture, and gave rise to all manner of disputes.' 
 
 The church in her bishops, with the sacraments and the 
 Scripture, become the real measure of conduct. The king, 
 although he is not to be resisted, if he disobeys the church is yet 
 to be set right by the church. "As to touching the superior 
 powers of the earth, it is not unknown unto all them that hath 
 readen and marked the Scripture that it appertaineth nothing 
 
 » "Christ and His Office," vol. 1, Parker Society, p. 8i. 
 ' For a typical instance of confused thinking at this point, see "Christ and His 
 Office," chaps. lo and ii, vol. I, pp. 73-87. 
 
 ' "Christ and His Office," chap. 12, vol. I, p. 87. 
 
 * "Christ and His Office," chap. 3, vol. I, p. 23. 
 
 * Bishop Hooper himself refused consecration in certain vestments he declared 
 unscriptural. 
 
THE ETHICS OF HOOPER 395 
 
 unto their office to make any law to govern the conscience of 
 their subjects in religion." ^ Yet this expression of the spiritual 
 character of Christ's kingdom is never really carried through. 
 Christ is head of the church, but the king is head of the State, 
 and the church gives laws to the king and so to the State. This 
 leads Hooper and others into endless ethical confusion. 
 
 There is also in Hooper, in striking contrast to Tyndale, a pre- 
 dominantly aristocratic tone. The Reformation was already in 
 the hands of the upper and middle classes. Even in Tyndale 
 we may see society constantly thought of as made up perma- 
 nently of "estates of men" in substantial dependence one upon 
 another. The husband is as God to the wife, the master as God 
 to the servant, and the parent as God to the child.^ In spite of 
 this, however, Tyndale's ethics are profoundly individualistic 
 and democratic. But Hooper and the churchly group still 
 think of society as made up of dependent castes, with prescribed 
 duties and rights in a fixed and somewhat rigid social order. 
 The church is still a hierarchy, only the relation of the State 
 to the hierarchy is left somewhat undefined. Hooper appeals to 
 Parliament to adjust all religious questions on the basis of the 
 "law and the Gospels,"^ but in the last instance the "reformed" 
 church is to control the interpretation of the "law and the 
 Gospel." " 
 
 The Bible was to be put into English, and then it was fondly 
 hoped that all would agree upon what it taught. Historic 
 Protestantism has, of course, revealed the fact that in essentials 
 and non-essentials disagreements among honest men are inevit- 
 able, and that even on the question of what is essential and what 
 
 ' "A Declaration of the Ten Commandments," vol. I, p. 280. 
 
 ' Tyndale's "Obedience of a Christian Man," vol. i, Russell's edition, p. 172. 
 
 * " Appelatio ad Parliamentum," "Satis enim est christiano homini Christi lex 
 et evangelium: tyrannicum autem et plane satanicum est ad illam religionem 
 christianum hominem compellere, quam lex Christi et evangelium penitus 
 ignorant." Cf. the whole argument that the Turks have their Koran and the 
 Jews are faithful to the Old Testament, and the Roman church alone is afraid 
 of her own book. "Later Writings," Parker Society edition, vol. II, p. 393. 
 
 * "Appellatio ad Parliamentum," vol. II, pp. 396-397. 
 
396 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 non-essential personal subjectivity is ever in control. For men 
 like Hooper, Ridley, and Latimer, however, "the Truth" was 
 so evident, and the pages of the newly opened Scriptures so 
 simple, that only dishonesty of purpose kept men blind. 
 
 Already in this group the influence of political Calvinism can 
 be traced, and the logical outcome of reformed theology only 
 awaited a thorough-going advocacy. It was within the estab- 
 lished church that this logic produced a new school of thinking 
 to which the name Puritanism was given, at first in scorn, but like 
 so many other such names, it became at last an accepted term. 
 
 III. THE ETHICS OF PURITANISM — THOMAS CARTWRIGHT, TRAVIS, 
 
 JOHN KNOX 
 
 The Puritan movement had its real beginnings in the some- 
 what cramped and narrow life of the English foreign colony in 
 Frankfort-on-the-Main. It is probably impossible for us at this 
 distance of time to realize what those conditions must have been. 
 The authorities gave the exiles a warm welcome. But the letters 
 and documents now given us by historians abundantly reveal the 
 hard struggle for mere daily bread, and the great poverty that 
 constantly oppressed them. It is under such circumstances 
 that the smallest differences become reasons for the most serious 
 irritations. 
 
 The reaction from the church at Rome and the growing 
 horror of idolatry were, moreover, gready strengthened by the 
 influence of reformed theologians who had early taken stronger 
 ground along these lines than the Lutherans. 
 
 The seeming success of the new theocracy established at 
 Geneva by Calvin, and the really wise and learned counsels of 
 Calvin, Bullinger, and Bucer, made a deep impression on the 
 wandering English Protestants. When, therefore, they could 
 return under Elizabeth's reign, they came back with a distinct 
 mark upon their thinking and ideals. 
 
 The earliest struggles of the little colony over vestments, the 
 use of a ring at weddings, the sign of the cross at a baptism, the 
 
THE ETHICS OF PURITANISM 397 
 
 right position of the communion table, all mark the inevitable 
 "levitical stagnation" due to a re-establishment of priestly 
 authority under another name. 
 
 The age was not one of easy tolerance of divergence. A more 
 tolerant spirit might have meant at that day in England only 
 laxity and indifference. Even to-day Bishop Paget seems unable 
 to realize the need of great variety in religious expression, and 
 regards the confusions then common in ritual as "discreditable 
 and dangerous,"^ although a visit to the services of the Lon- 
 don churches within the English establishment would probably 
 reveal to-day a divergence of custom and thought even greater 
 than that mentioned in the paper cited by Strype.^ 
 
 The attempt to enforce uniformity, however, raised even 
 more serious questions than those that had divided the church 
 at Frankfort, for they concerned themselves with fundamental 
 issues in regard to the character of both Church and State, and 
 of the legitimacy of the orders and discipline of the reformed 
 establishment. Out of these questions came English Puritan- 
 ism.' Two separate interests more or less divide Puritanism in 
 all its history. On the one hand it stood for "pure," i.e., Calvin- 
 istic doctrine, and on the other for a simple ritual and a severe 
 church discipline. Nor did these two interests always go to- 
 gether. At the same time, just as in the established church of 
 England to-day ritualism and high-churchmanship are usually 
 associated, so in Puritanism Calvinistic doctrine and simple 
 ritual were generally allied. 
 
 Nevertheless, with these we are not primarily concerned. 
 
 Underneath the life of all Puritanism lay certain assumptions 
 and a distinct conception of the world which color their ethics 
 and mark the movement as a whole. We must begin with the 
 
 * Paget, Bishop of Oxford, in his "Introduction to the Fifth Book of Hooker's 
 Ecclesiastical Polity," chap. II, p. 25, 2d. ed., 1907. 
 
 '^ "Life of Archbishop Parker," book II, chap. 5. 
 
 * Neal (Daniel), in his preface to his "History of the Puritans," thus defines 
 a Puritan: "A Puritan therefore was a man of severe morals, a Calvinist in 
 doctrine, and a non-conformist to the ceremonies and discipline of the church." 
 New edition, London, 1837, 3 vols., vol. I, p. v. 
 
398 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 real English formulator of Puritan ideals and Puritan life, 
 Thomas Cartwright.^ 
 
 True it is that Cartwright has left us no systematic ethics. 
 The Puritan movement as a whole, like every movement under 
 the inspiration of reformed theology, is singularly barren in 
 
 * Cartwright, Thomas, born in 1535, in Hertfordshire. Studied in Cambridge 
 and was eminent for attainments in Latin, Greek, and Hebrew. Driven from 
 his professorship by Whitgift for his attacks upon the Anglican church as organ- 
 ized by Elizabeth, he fled to Beza in Geneva, whence he issued his famous 
 "Second Admonition to Parliament," in which English Presbyterianism is 
 plainly outlined. He returned to England, but only again to flee, and became 
 minister to the little English church in Antwerp and Middelburg. From here he 
 wrote his "Replie" to Dr. Whitgift's "Second Answer Touching the Churche 
 Discipline," 1575. Here also he translated Walter Travers's " Ecclesiasticae 
 Disciplinae Explicatio," published Rochelle, 1574, under the title "A full and 
 plaine declaration of ecclesiasticall Discipline owt of the Word off God . . . 
 1574." (Also Geneva, 1580; Cambridge, 1584 and 1617.) He returned in 
 1585 to England, and although arrested and imprisoned for six months, escaped 
 by the protection of powerful friends, and was installed in charge of a hospital 
 in Warwick. He continued his activity for a Presbyterian church discipline, 
 and the "Directory of Church Government anciently contended for, and as 
 farre as the Times would suffer, practiced by the first Non-Conformists in 
 the Dales of Queen Elizabeth," found in his room after his death, is reflected 
 in the Westminster Statements. A reprint of this, from the edition of 1644, 
 appeared from the press of James Nesbit in 1872. And Bishop (Francis) 
 Paget reprints the Latin original (in the British Museum and Lambeth Palace) 
 as appendix HI ("Disciplina Ecclesiae sacra") to his "Introduction to the 
 Fifth Book of Hooker's Polity" (2d ed., 1907). As Cartwright fought the 
 Episcopacy on the one hand, so on the other he was beset by the Brownists 
 and Independents, to whom his reply, published by Browne, is temperate 
 and in fine spirit. Arrested once more and tried before the Star Chamber, 
 he was again protected. He died in peace at Warwick, December 27, 1603. 
 In Latin there are extant a harmony of the Gospels, "Harmonia Evangclica," 
 Elzevir Press, Amsterdam, 1627 and 1647; "Commentaria practica in totam 
 historiam evangelicam," same press, 1630, in three volumes. Several lives have 
 been published. In Cooper (Charles Henry) and Thompson's " Athena; Canta- 
 brigienses," vol. II (Cambridge, 1858), is a short sketch. Hanbury (Benjamin), 
 in his edition of Hooker's " Ecclesiastical Polity," and other works (London, 1830, 
 3 vols.), has given also an outline. Brook (Benjamin), in his "Lives of the 
 Puritans from the Reformation under Queen Elizabeth to . . . 1662" (London, 
 1813, 3 vols.), is uncritical. Nor can Dexter's (Henry Martin) sketch in his 
 "Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years" (New York, 1879), 
 be taken as a wholly just estimate. Sec also Dr. Charles A. Briggs's ".\mcrican 
 Presbyterianism, Its Origin and Early History" (New York^ 1885), pp. 26-86. 
 
THE ETHICS OF PURITANISM 399 
 
 systematic ethical discussion. Nor is the reason far to seek. 
 The Old and New Testaments are for Cartwright inspired 
 codes of divine law. We have only to explicate that law, and 
 church governments, rituals, conduct in private and in public 
 life at once receive normal and final regulation. Not even the 
 apocryphal writings should be read, because only the canonical 
 books have this supreme authority.* The church has been 
 directly established by God, and there is only one true church, 
 which may be known by three notes: ''preaching of the word 
 purely, maintaining the sacraments sincerely, and ecclesiastical 
 discipline which consisteth in admonition and correction of faults 
 severely (sic)."^ Hence the names of officers not warranted by 
 Scripture were unchristian.^ On the basis, therefore, of Script- 
 ure he demanded a church with only pastors, doctors, elders, 
 and deacons, and denied that the office of bishop in the Eng- 
 lish church was Scriptural. All ministers were to be equal, 
 and each chief in his own cure. The ministers were to be 
 chosen by the people, but once chosen seem to have ruled 
 unchecked, save for open sin or heresy.* The church is a 
 theocracy, and should be protected by the State as well as 
 fstablished and endowed. But no pope in Rome could be 
 haughtier or more exacting in his demands for submission by 
 the State to the rule and dominion of the church. Just as in 
 Geneva the old Roman theory of the two swords made the 
 State Calvin's ready tool to strike down Servetus, so Cartwright 
 would have had the State do the bidding of the church, and 
 banish by fire and sword all idolatry, heresy, and rebellion 
 against the church. 
 
 ' "In rcformanda ecclesia necesse est omnia ad apostolicam institutionem 
 revocari," the seventh of Cartwright's "Propositions." "Omnis scriptura 
 pari dignitate et reverentia est habenda, ut ct omnia Dei nomina," the fourteenth 
 "Proposition." 
 
 » An admonition to Parliament (Field and Wilcock), but endorsed by Cart- 
 wright. 
 
 * " Archiepiscopi, decani, archidiaconi," etc., were "officia et nomina impieta- 
 tis," Strype, "Annals," vol. I, part 2, p. 373. 
 
 *C/. Strype's quotations, "Annals," vol. I, part 2, pp. 379-381, and the 
 "Second Admonition to the Parliament." 
 
400 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 As it is not in the great movement to reform the government of 
 the church and its discipline, with which Cartwright and Travers 
 are so nearly concerned; that we are immediately interested, we 
 turn from the controversial work of Cartwright for the present 
 and try to get his point of view from his great work upon the 
 Gospels.* With him as with Calvin, the nobler, sweeter, and more 
 evangelical aspects of his thinking appear in his dealing with the 
 Bible. And yet at the very outset his doctrine of total depravity 
 in its crudest form, and man's utter inability, make ethical system 
 exceedingly difficult.^ Faith is an impartation of God,' in the 
 secret of his own will, and this faith, though but as a grain of 
 mustard-seed, works salvation. The assurance of this salvation 
 can only be found in obedience to law. And Jesus Christ is the 
 revealer of this new law.* The "damnable" heresT of the Pope 
 is to make salvation depend on works, which, howeve.'", give only 
 evidence of the saving faith. Here, as elsewhere, the whole 
 function of the Old Testament is misunderstood. Thi"- ritual 
 law has passed away, it is true, but a higher and in some refcT)ects 
 a more exacting law has its taken place. At this point Puritanism 
 is never quite self-consistent, for certain ritual laws — like I'he 
 Sabbath — are carried over into the new dispensation. Tk e 
 ethics, then, of the new life is obedience — by God's grace — to a 
 new law given by the new law-giver, Jesus Christ. 
 
 And all the Old Testament regulation of life is taken over into 
 the new dispensation. The church is thus made a new theoc- 
 racy which it is the business of the State to protect, establish, and 
 obey in all spiritual things.' This church is not infallible, but 
 must be constantly purged and cleansed by the word of God. 
 All the Old Testament regulations against heresy, idolatry, and 
 
 ' "Harmonia Evangelica, Commentario, Analytico, Metaphrastico, Practico, 
 1647." 
 
 '"Harm. Evang.," p. 208. Comment on Matt. 5 : 1-13 (Praxis). C/. pp. 
 1136-1137. 
 
 * "Harm. Evang.," p. 11 24, and many passages. 
 
 * "Harm. Evang.," 216 6-219 ^^ 
 
 * For the high-church conception of Cartwright, see his "Historia Christi ex 
 IV Evangelistcs," liber secundus, pp. 302-305, edition 1630. 
 
THE ETHICS OF PURITANISM 401 
 
 false doctrine are taken over by the new church, so that the 
 sword of the State is to be at the bidding of the theocracy.^ 
 God is to be praised, not because he is our Father, whom to 
 know in Christ Jesus is to love, as Tyndale and Luther at their 
 best taught, but because he has saved us whom he has in the 
 secret councils of his own will chosen and redeemed.^ Through- 
 out, the permanent relationship between the believer and God is 
 thought of in terms of ruler and subject, of law and obedience to 
 law. 
 
 The kingdom of God is, however, a spiritual and unseen 
 power and does not consist in earthly glory ,^ but is a twofold 
 reign manifesting itself on the one hand in God's creating, pre- 
 serving, and sustaining all things, and on the other in the elect 
 called to life eternal/ The earthly kingdom is in strong contrast 
 with this latter kingdom,^ which may even exist without the 
 pomp and outward circumstance of the civil sword. 
 
 From such premises the ethics of Puritanism were evolved, 
 and splendid as was often the ethical result of personal struggle 
 for an ideal, the total effect was hard, legal, and narrow. 
 
 The literal interpretation of Scripture in that uncritical age 
 gave rise to a thousand differences, and as all were laws from 
 the mouth of God nothing could be of little importance. Details 
 of rite and government were on the same level as essential justice 
 and divine mercy. The intolerance of the Puritan was a direct 
 heritage from Rome. He shared with Rome the false concep- 
 tion of the relation between Church and State, and simply broke 
 from the personal rule of the Pope, to hand over his power to a 
 practically infallible ordained eldership interpreting the final 
 word of God on every subject, from the family's sweetest relation- 
 ships to the borders upon men's garments and the velvet upon 
 their caps. 
 
 • Cf. Passages quoted from his debate with Whitgift by Bishop Paget, in his 
 "Introduction to the Fifth Book of Hooker's Ecclesiastical Polity," pp. 30-31. 
 The 13th of Deuteronomy exercised an unfortunate fascination upon the priestly 
 mind of these centuries. 
 
 2 "Harm. Evang.," pp. 39-40. ' "Harm. Evang.," p. 690. 
 
 *"Harm. Evang.," p. 242. »"Harm. Evang.," p. 1034. 
 
402 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The ethics are not only autocratic, but also, in essence, priestly 
 and aristocratic. The ideal theocracy is a constitutional 
 monarchy with the Bible as the constitution and a ministry and 
 eldership to rule. Civil liberty and freedom of conscience have 
 historically gained a great deal from Puritan struggles and 
 Puritan sufferings, but nothing from Puritan theory. And of 
 nothing were the early Puritans more afraid than any identi- 
 fication of their cause with democracy and individualism.' 
 
 Had they gained the upper hand they would have persecuted 
 as ruthlessly and relentlessly and as self-consistently as Rome. 
 This lay not simply in the spirit of the times, but in the very 
 heart of their theory of theocracy. Cartwright thought that for 
 the civil power to begin death penalties with the second table 
 of the commandments was to reverse the very order of things. 
 
 Naturally the question rose about conformity to the State 
 established church with its unscriptural bishops and its unlawful 
 rites. Here Browne pressed Cartwright very hard, but Cart- 
 wright felt that in protesting and hoping for further reformation 
 the individual was obeying God in staying within the established 
 church. Nor is it easy to see how those who followed the Old 
 Testament rather than the New could well come to any other 
 conclusion. Presbyterianism has always stood historically for 
 an established State church.^ And whether in the New World 
 or the Old, it has always sought alliance with the State after 
 the model of the Jewish theocracy. 
 
 It was a serious embarrassment to Puritanism, representing as 
 it did a middle-class movement, when men identified its hostility 
 to rites and ceremonies with hostility to class privilege, and we 
 find Cartwright and his friends seeking most earnestly to separate 
 themselves from these democratic outbursts.' The mainte- 
 
 ' Most instructive at this point is Cartwright's controversy with Browne. 
 
 ' Even the Scotch Free church broke from the establishment from no sense 
 that the theory of establishment was wrong, but because of what they regarded 
 as oppression in its workings. 
 
 * " Libels at this time were publicly scattered in the schools, viz., that poor men 
 toil and travel, but the prince and the doctors licked up all." Strype, vol. I, 
 part 3, p. 374. 
 
THE ETHICS OF PURITANISM 403 
 
 nance of all ecclesiastical privilege was quite as dear to the heart 
 of Puritanism as it was to the Anglo-Catholics. At the same 
 time the State was not to control these ecclesiastical privileges. 
 "Neither let the magistrate think (although in respect of their 
 civil authority the church be subject unto them) that in this 
 behalf they are to be exempted from this precept and com- 
 mandment of the aposde, who chargeth every one to be subject 
 to those who in the Lord are set over them"; "they must also 
 as well as the rest submit themselves and be obedient to the just 
 and lawful authority of the officers of the church." * 
 
 And as the clerical mind constantly assumes that ecclesiastical 
 privilege is identical with religion, and that the maintenance 
 of the one is the furtherance of the other, so Cartwright demands 
 "that the civil magistrate (the nurse and foster-father of the 
 church) shall do well to provide some sharpe punishment for 
 those that contemn this censure and discipline of the church, for 
 no doubt it is in the degree of blasphemy, of a heathen our 
 Saviour faith, that renounceth God and Christ, and thus much 
 of that." ^ 
 
 While on the other hand the magistrate has his office " which 
 consisteth in those things which belong to our life and our 
 goods, and hath not to do with the holy ceremonies." ' Thus 
 high-church Presbyterianism shares with Gregory the Great the 
 theory of relationship between Church and State now maintained 
 by the Vatican,* and like the Roman Catholic system rested 
 upon the belief in an outward infallible guide in faith and 
 practice. 
 
 In England the Puritan movement never did more than leaven a 
 litde England's life. Presbyterianism never really controlled that 
 life. But it was otherwise in Scotland, where substantially the 
 ethics of Puritanism became the dominant theory of the nation. 
 
 ' Cartwright's translation of Travers's "Discipline," p. 102, of the 1617 reprint 
 (Bodleian). 
 
 * "Second Admonition," p. 60, of the reprint of 1617. 
 
 ' Cartwright's translation of Travers's "Discipline," p. 43, reprint of 1617. 
 
 * Some of the best statements of this position have resulted from Rome's late 
 controversy with France. 
 
404 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 No one did more to bring this about than brave old John 
 Knox. 
 
 The ethical outlook of John Knox * is wholly dominated by 
 his theory of the relationship existing between the Church and 
 State. Under the influence of Calvin he took over with but 
 slight modification the theory as formulated in Roman Catholi- 
 cism by Gregory the Great and which pervades the scholastic 
 development. The Church and State are both subject to the 
 word of God, but the Church is the interpreter of God's word 
 to the State. Nowhere is this more clearly taught than in 
 
 John Knox (1505-1572) was born at Haddington. He was educated for 
 the priesthood, but in 1544 turned to the newer way of thinking, and in 1547 was 
 called to the ministry at St. Andrews. When St. Andrews was taken by the 
 French he was, contrary to the stipulations of surrender, made to serve in a 
 French galley. On his release, probably by the direct request of the English 
 king, he went to England and became preacher at Berwick. Soon after he be- 
 came one of the six chaplains to Edward VI (1551). He declined all preferment, 
 and on Mary's accession fled to the Continent. He acted for a little while as the 
 minister to the colony at Frankfort a. M., and then in Geneva. In 1555 he 
 began his real labors for Scotland, which were only interrupted, and not broken 
 ofiF, by his further visit to Geneva. In 1559 he left Geneva finally and joined the 
 Protestant insurgents in Scotland. He was twice married, and had two sons and 
 three daughters. His ministry in Edinburgh was really to the whole of Scotland, 
 and upon the establishment of the reformed faith as Scotland's religion he was 
 the life and leader not only of the Scottish church but of the Scottish nation. 
 His life, by Thomas McCrie (Edinburgh, 1840), has been republished with 
 critical notes by A. Crichton (Belfast, 1874; later edition, London, 1880 and 
 1889, Nelson & Sons), but still needs critical revision. His collected works are in 
 six volumes by David Laing (Edinburgh, 1846-1864, Woodrow Society). Cj. 
 also Lorimer's (Peter) "John Knox and the Church of England, His Work in 
 Her Pulpit, &c," London, 1875. A recent celebration called out a mass of 
 literature, but of unequal critical value, and some of it of no value at all. 
 
 Among the more important books on Knox are: Stalker, James: "John 
 Knox: His Ideas and Ideals," New York, Armstrong, 1904; Glasse, John: 
 "John Knox: A Criticism and an Appreciation," London, Black, 1905; Lang, 
 Andrew: "John Knox and the Reformation," London, Longmans, 1905; Cowan, 
 Henry: "John Knox, the Hero of the Scottish Reformation" ("Heroes o^ the 
 Reformation" series), New York, Putnam, 1905; Huraut, Eticnne: "John 
 Knox et ses relations avec les ^glises r^form^cs du continent" (Th^se Paris), 
 Cahors, 1902; Rogers, Charles: "Genealogical Memoirs of John Knox and the 
 Family of Knox," London, 1879; Brown, Peter Hume: "John Knox: A 
 Biography," London, 3 vols., 1895. 
 
THE ETHICS OF PURITANISM 405 
 
 Knox's " Confession of Faith " at Edinburgh/ Here we find set 
 forth the foundation of "The Church" in the Protevangelium, 
 and the Old Testament is the history of the church from Adam 
 to Christ. 
 
 In the sixteenth chapter we have the notes of the church. It 
 is a " company of men who, chosen of God, rightly worship and 
 embrace him." It is marked by " true faith in Christ," and " is 
 the body and spouse of Christ Jesus," is Catholic and therefore 
 one Lord, one faith, and one baptism, "and out of the which 
 kirk there is neither life nor eternal felicity," and "therefore we 
 utterly abhor the blasphemy of those that affirm that men which 
 live according to equity and justice shall be saved, what religion 
 soever they have professed." And alas, " this church is invis- 
 ible and known only to God." 
 
 In the eighteenth chapter, however, it is denied that the notes 
 of the true church are either antiquity or usurped title, lineal 
 descent, place appointed, or multitude of men in any error, 
 but are "the true preaching of the word of God," the "right 
 administration of the sacraments," and "ecclesiastical discipline, 
 ministered as God's word does prescribe, whereby vice is sup- 
 pressed and virtue nourished." ^ It is worthy of note that Knox 
 disclaims personal or public interpretation of the Bible, and says 
 that only the spirit of God can rightly interpret it. Councils 
 therefore can err, and although to be treated with respect they 
 must be tested by Scripture. The sacraments are the continu- 
 ance of circumcision and the passover,^ and they are more than 
 signs: by them grace is imparted. We have all the foundations 
 here for a new priesdy structure, which Knox then builds up out 
 of the ordained eldership. Only a "lawful ministry appointed 
 to preach the word" can righdy administer the sacraments, and 
 they must be administered in the "ways of God's appointment." 
 Here we see plainly the conception of sacramental magic in the 
 power of a priesthood coming back into Protestantism, or per- 
 
 1 "Works," vol. II, pp. 95-120. 
 * "Works," vol. II, pp. 109-110. 
 '"Works," vol. II, p. 113. 
 
4o6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 haps more accurately, never having been clearly enough repu- 
 diated, and so again re-establishing themselves.* 
 
 It is now only a step to ask the State (magistrate) to maintain 
 by force this new priestly structure, and this Knox accordingly, 
 following in the footsteps of Calvin, proceeds to do. Knox 
 boldly says that to the civil magistrate pertains "chiefly and 
 most principally the reformation and purgation of religion." 
 They are appointed "for suppressing idolatry and superstition 
 as David" suppressed false teachers. Parliament, therefore, is 
 asked to pass acts forbidding mass, and to place penalties for 
 being either present or saying or hearing of it. These punish- 
 ments are to be punishment of the body and confiscation of 
 goods for a first offence, then banishment or death. 
 
 All doctrine repugnant to the word of God (which in point of 
 fact is alone interpreted by a priestly ministry) is by Parliament 
 to be utterly suppressed " as damnable to man's salvation.^ All 
 teachers of false doctrine "ought not to escape the punishment 
 of the civil magistrate." Only duly "elected, examined, and 
 admitted ministers" are given any real voice in the interpretation 
 of Scripture, so that the State has simply to do again the bidding 
 of the priest. The "office and duty of the godly magistrate is 
 not only to purge the church of God from all superstition and 
 to set at liberty from bondage of tyranny, but to provide . . . 
 how it may abide in the same purity to the posterity." ' 
 
 The bann with all its horrors, including the withholding of 
 baptism from helpless children, is reinstated in the "Book of 
 Discipline," * and although the book with true priestly unction 
 says, " We do not dare to prescribe unto you what penalties shall 
 be required of such . . . , but we affirm that the one and the 
 other deserve death." ' 
 
 As Knox took over the Roman Catholic theory of the two 
 swords, and the practical hegemony of the churchly sword, so 
 he took over the Roman Catholic conception of God. With the 
 
 ' "Works," vol. II, pp. 1 1 5-1 17. = "Works," vol. II, p. 185. 
 
 ' "Works," vol. II, p. 209. * "Works," vol. II, p. 254. 
 
 • "Book of Discipline," "Works," vol. II, p. 254. 
 
THE ETHICS OF PURITANISM 407 
 
 dogmatic structure we are not concerned, but in its ethical 
 significance the God of John KnOx is the God of mediaeval the- 
 ology. In the actual life and piety of Catholicism, however, 
 there is put between the worshipper and the law-giving Creator 
 and Ruler the gentle Virgin Mary, the suffering, crucified man, 
 the babe, the saints, the sacramental forgiveness system. What- 
 ever the dogmatic weaknesses of this may be, the ethical outcome 
 is a thought of God far less hard and inhuman than the God 
 of dogmatical theory. 
 
 In Knox's picture of God all save the cross drops away, and 
 the cross is largely used to bring into sharp relief not the human 
 heart of God, but the wickedness of man. In spite of tender 
 devotion to the Saviour, which beautifully marks the piety of 
 Knox from beginning to end, the thought of God is hard, fierce, 
 and even passionate with profoundly human anger. God is a 
 God of vengeance ^ who visits his wrath in the manner of 
 Jehovah of Chronicles upon the nation for not driving out the 
 "idolatry of the mass." Knox was an Old Testament prophet 
 of the eighth century, but not a proclaimer of the evangel of 
 Jesus Christ. Any one who reads the almost coarse diatribes 
 must remember Knox's experience of the galley and exile to 
 even excuse them.^ 
 
 It is not, therefore, strange that, like Calvin, Knox also took 
 over the intellectualism (Aristotelian) of the mediaeval scholasti- 
 cism. He has a pathetic faith in dialectics, and is sure that a 
 debate would convince Queen Mary of the truth of Protestant- 
 ism, and he assures Mary that God's word is absolutely plain to 
 all but wilful ignorance, and that in the face of the divisions in 
 Protestantism confessedly arising among the best of the leaders.' 
 
 His point of view is the old familiar conception of an absolute 
 external authority, only for Knox it is the letter of Scripture 
 
 » "Works," vol. Ill, p. 166; c}. also vol. IV, p. 33. 
 
 'C/., especially, "Works," vol. Ill, pp. 259-330, or pp. 157-215 of the same 
 volume, or the paganism of the prayer, on p. 286. 
 
 'The dialogue with Mary is reported by himself in his history, "Works," 
 vol. II, book IV, p. 284, and has nothing hard or disrespectful to Mary in it. 
 
4o8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 arbitrarily torn from its literary and historical setting and made 
 almost a fetish of/ 
 
 A regular, god-fearing, lawfully appointed ministry is put in the 
 place of the Pope to direct the civil sword and so secure man's 
 safety by perpetuating sound doctrine and severe discipline. 
 
 A mind still so fettered by scholasticism could not be expected 
 to shake off its superstition, and there is abundant evidence both 
 in Knox and Scottish life of this survival.^ His view of life is 
 shadowed over by the darknesses and dimnesses of a pagan fear 
 of God. The bright evangelical confidence so missing also in 
 Calvin is much lacking in Knox. He takes a naturally dark 
 view of life ^ as evil. One cannot but read with sorrow and 
 pity the sad letter he writes to the dear friend and faithful fellow- 
 sufferer for the faith whom he had in Mrs. Bowes, his mother- 
 in-law. He writes of her that " I have seen her (not for a start, 
 but in long continuance) pour forth tears, and send to God 
 dolorous complaints, oftener than ever I heard man or woman 
 in my life." * The poor woman was troubled by the thought 
 that she might not be of the elect, and in John Knox's letter of 
 "comfort," he practically tells her she cannot know, but must 
 act as if she were although it will have no possible bearing upon 
 the matter, as God's sovereign will and his own glory is the only 
 end.'^ 
 
 His own faith rested really on an intellectual perception of 
 Jesus Christ. He writes: "Except our comfort be grounded 
 upon the foundation which never can be moved, it is not perfect. 
 And that ground is this, that when we understand that presently 
 we believe in Jesus Christ, because we were ordained before the 
 beginning of all times to believe in him; as in him we were 
 elected to the society of eternal life, then is our faith assuredly 
 grounded, and that because the gifts and vocation of God are 
 
 ' C). "Letter of Wholesome Counsel," "Works," vol. IV, p. 136. 
 ' C}., for example, "Works," vol. II; "History," book IV, p. 269, where 
 Mary's landing brought bad weather! 
 
 * Sec his letter to England (1554), "Works," vol. Ill, pp. 259-330. 
 
 * "Works," vol. VI. p. 514. * "Works," vol. VI, pp. 515-520. 
 
THE ETHICS OF PURITANISM 409 
 
 without repentance." * And again, as " therefore faith springeth 
 from election, so it is estabHshed by the true knowledge of that 
 doctrine only, which this day is most furiously oppugned by 
 those who do not understand the same." ^ 
 
 For Knox, God's glory is the end of all life, and all means 
 therefore to that end are justifiable.^ It is tremendous faith, but 
 divorced from the kingdom of God as his truest glory it makes 
 sad shipwreck of the Gospel. To the political student must be 
 left the services of Knox to Scotland which were very great in- 
 deed. But the student of ethics comes away from the study of 
 Puritan thought as seen in Knox with the profound conviction 
 that whatever gains the Reformation made in systematic ethics 
 were not made by Puritanism, but rather in spite of it; and that, 
 however splendid its record as a religious force, as an ethical 
 teacher it was too fast bound in scholasticism to advance our 
 ethical freedom in Christ Jesus. 
 
 The aristocratic character of the whole tone of Puritan thought 
 is bound up with its very conception of an elected few to whom 
 God has given the governance of this life and the keys of the 
 kingdom. Exactly as the hierarchy of Rome is fundamentally 
 incompatible with democracy, so the whole ethical outlook of 
 Puritanism presupposes an aristocratic structure of society, and 
 cannot cherish equal opportunity for every man as even an ideal. 
 Exactly as the Roman church opened a door of hope to the 
 economically oppressed by which to enter the ranks of special 
 privilege, so Puritanism by its doctrine of election and its open 
 appointed ministry made the basis of aristocracy broader than 
 birth or possession; but the structure of its life remains the 
 dominance of the many by the few, its faith is in the elect, and 
 through its teaching there breathes almost a contempt for the 
 common unprivileged man. 
 
 ' "Works," vol. V, p. 27. 
 2 "Works," vol. V, p. 28. 
 ' "Works," vol. V, pp. 405-406. 
 
4IO HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 IV. THE ETHICS OF ANGLO-CATHOLICISM 
 
 However violent and outrageous the conduct of Henry VIII 
 was in his rude separation from Rome, and in his confiscation 
 of the property of the Roman church, at least this must be said 
 for him, that he succeeded in gathering about him strong men 
 and women, who were genuinely loyal to the new and somewhat 
 anomalous ecclesiastical creation. Cranmer, Ridley, Latimer, 
 Hooper had able successors in Whitgift, Jewel, Hooker, and 
 Laud. With all its faults the church Henry VIII founded and 
 gave substantially character to has enlisted the passionate de- 
 votion of countless thousands in generation after generation 
 of earnest men and women ever since. 
 
 This Anglo-Catholicism has also produced a distinct type of 
 both ethical thought and feeling. It is true that the main out- 
 lines are taken over bodily from mediaeval thinking, and that it 
 has no very constant or normal type, nay, it boasts often of its 
 very comprehensive character. The true significance of this 
 catholicity is the fact that the centre of its organizing life, and 
 its really dominant interest, is not chiefly either intellectual nor 
 yet emotional, but political and cultural. This has given it an 
 exceedingly definite character, and many things otherwise quite 
 inexplicable in its history are plain when this fact is remem.bered. 
 Hence this special character and interest must be studied in 
 any examination of the ethics of the Reformation period. 
 
 The story of the rapid shifts and changes in the ecclesiastical 
 world from Henry VIII up to the revolution (1688) is a sad 
 and humiliating one. The pages of history are dark with 
 evasions and cowardice, with brutal violence and mad fanaticism. 
 But there were also hosts of men and women, both Protestant 
 and Roman Catholic, who vindicated the essential nobility of 
 conscience and the strength of moral feeling by dying rather 
 than betray the faith in which they had found peace. Martyr- 
 dom does not prove the truth of the martyr's opinions, but it 
 does demonstrate the truth of the martyr. And through all the 
 strife and turmoil there were, no doubt, also hundreds of quiet. 
 
THE ETHICS OF ANGLO-CATHOLICISM 411 
 
 earnest persons whose substantial working faith remained un- 
 touched by all the outward changes. 
 
 Lollardism as such had early become identified with the pro- 
 letariat struggle for political and social recognition. This 
 proletariat movement was seemingly crushed. The Reforma- 
 tion tended temporarily to advance local and national despotism. 
 For the appeal to Rome against despotism had been an ever- 
 present threat and was sometimes a most effective weapon. 
 Such appeals to be effective had to tally, no doubt, with Rome's 
 political interest, but the mere danger of appeal kept a check on 
 tyranny. Rome and local despotism had, however, combined 
 to root out Lollardism as a political and religious movement. 
 Dr. Gairdner ^ assumes that therefore Lollardism had but little 
 to do with the Reformation. He surely forgets that the crush- 
 ing of an organized movement does not by any means imply 
 the destruction of the ideals and fundamental faiths that un- 
 derlie it. 
 
 Henry VIII, with all his power, would have been perfectly 
 helpless in the face of Rome had not a large minority, at least, 
 of the nation been with him, and had not the ideals of Lollardism 
 really undermined the unity of opinion upon which alone Rome 
 can stand her ground. The crushing out of Swynderly and his 
 following, and the burning of men like Sawtre (sometimes spelt 
 Chatrys), and indeed the workings of the whole evil statute de 
 HcEretico Comhurendo,^ might put Lollardism as an organized 
 movement outside the pale, but no such measures could stop 
 men thinking along Lollard lines. 
 
 The real weakness of Wyclif's movement was that it seemed 
 most dangerous to the newly rising middle-class and the recently 
 created nobility. For a glance at the history of England's great 
 families shows how rapid had been the changes there.^ This 
 
 'Gairdner, Dr. James: "Lollardy and the Reformation in England," an 
 historical essay, 2 vols., London, Macmillan, 1908. 
 
 "^ Stat. 2, Hen. IV, cap. 15 (1401). 
 
 ' The story of these changes has yet to be satisfactorily written. The under- 
 lying economic causes are hinted at by Rogers (James Edwin Thorold) in his 
 " Six Centuries of Work and Wages . . . ," 3d ed., London, Swan Sonnenschein, 
 
412 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 new aristocracy was hungry and did not mind gobbling up the 
 possessions of the monasteries, although as over against the 
 proletariat it was exceedingly sound upon the rights of property. 
 
 When, therefore, Henry VIII proclaimed a national Catholic 
 church he addressed himself not only to a deep national feeing, 
 and profited by the hopes he awakened for freedom and new life 
 amidst dogmatic and material oppressions by the Roman hier- 
 archy, but he also gave material re-enforcement to this new 
 aristocracy. 
 
 Men had, alas, become accustomed to associate the head of the 
 church with vice and untruthfulness, so that as compared with 
 some of the popes even Henry VIII was not too shocking. Nor 
 had men as carefully considered the basis of Church and State 
 as they were compelled to do in the later years of Edward VI, 
 Mary and Elizabeth, and later still under the Stuarts. The 
 expansion of England's power was so great that many funda- 
 mental questions could wait for their answer. It was in intense 
 action that Anglo-Catholicism formulated its ethical ideals. 
 
 In those days every religious movement followed in the wake 
 of Rome and sought immediate political expression. Anglo- 
 Catholicism found it in Laud and the Stuarts; Presbyterian 
 Puritanism in John Knox and the Westminster Assembly; Inde- 
 pendency in the Commonwealth and Oliver Cromwell, and even 
 Quakerism in William Penn and Pennsylvania. 
 
 So it happened that the great founders of Anglo-Catholicism, 
 Whitgift, Parker, Jewel, Bilson, Bancroft, Hooker, Laud, were 
 rather statesmen and ecclesiastics than students of systematic 
 ethics. Yet they were students, and remarkably gifted and 
 learned students. 
 
 No organized movement stood at that day openly for toleration 
 of differences in religious opinion.' Toleration has always had 
 
 1890, and "The Economic Interpretation of History, Lectures, etc.," London, 
 T. F. Unwin, 1888. See also Marx's (Karl) "Das Kapital," English translation, 
 edited by Frederick Engels, Chicago, Kerr & Co., 1907-1908 (the opening 
 chapters). 
 
 ' Individual voices were indeed raised in behalf of toleration. So far as the 
 writer's knowledge goes, the earliest expressions in England are Busher (Leonard), 
 
THE ETHICS OF ANGLO-CATHOLICISM 413 
 
 its bounds fixed by supposed social expediency. To-day those 
 bounds are as inexact and in some respects as inconsequent as 
 they were in the days of Henry VIII, Mary, and Elizabeth. 
 
 It was as much political necessity as ethical insight that stayed 
 the hand of persecution. The leaders of Anglo-Catholicism 
 placed in the very foreground of their teaching the unity of the 
 church, by which they and men generally understood uniformity 
 of dogmatic opinion and conformity to the cult. It was both 
 logical and historical for them to push for that unity by political 
 force. Puritan Presbyterianism within the established church 
 was pressing for exactly the same ideal of uniformity on the 
 basis of other dogmatic conceptions and another cult, and with 
 exactly the same conception of exclusive claim to absolute truth. 
 In the controversy between Travers and Richard Hooker ^ the 
 spirit of tolerance is more apparent in Hooker than in Travers. 
 At the same time Anglo-Catholicism could not be true to itself 
 and be really tolerant of that which seemed to it to threaten the 
 vital things of both Church and State. 
 
 In Whitgift's controversy with Cartwright ^ the attempt is 
 made to identify Cartwright's position with the Anabaptist 
 movement, but this was a real misunderstanding of the Puritan 
 
 "Religious Peace, or, a plea for liberty of conscience. . . . Presented to King 
 James . . . printed 1614 reprinted 1646, and 200 years later (1846) by the 
 Hanserd Knollys Society," London. Murton (J.), "Objections answered by way 
 of dialogue, wherein is proved by the Law of God, by the Law of the Land, etc., 
 that no man ought to be persecuted for his religion, so he testifie his allegiance 
 by the oath appointed by law." Published anonymously 1615 (reprinted 1846). 
 Williams (Roger), "The bloudy Tennant of Persecution for cause of conscience 
 discussed," London, 1655 (edited by Edward B. Underbill, reprinted 1846-1867 
 by the Hanserd Knollys Society). Richardson (Samuel), "The necessity of 
 Toleration in matters of religion, or, certain questions propounded to the Synod. 
 . . . ," London, 1647 (reprinted, 1846, by the Hanserd Knollys Society, edited 
 by E. B. Underbill). And then, of course, the celebrated letters of Locke (John) 
 on "Toleration" closed the battle for larger freedom. 
 
 ' Cj. "A Supplication Made to the Council by Master Walter Travers," re- 
 printed in Hooker's "Works" (Keble's edition, 1845), vol. HI, pp. 548-569, 
 with Hooker's answer following it. 
 
 * See p. 421 for Whitgift's answers; see his "Works," edited by the Rev. Mr. 
 Ayre for the Parker Society, in three volumes, 1851-1853, vol. I to vol. HI, pp. 
 1-564. 
 
414 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 spirit, although there were some reasons for thinking them alike. 
 It was a struggle for political supremacy between two kindred 
 spirits that gave to Anglo-Catholicism its organized body of 
 thought. This systematic presentation of its case was classic- 
 ally given by Richard Hooker ^ in his famous work upon eccle- 
 siastical polity. 
 
 Hooker's theology and ecclesiastical polity have only indi- 
 rectly interest for the student of ethics, and directly systematic 
 ethical treatment is almost lacking.^ At the same time the ground 
 is so cleared and foundations are so laid that the ethical thinking 
 within the English church has been deeply influenced and fore- 
 shadowed by the "Polity" (as in Butler and Paley). 
 
 Hooker is a most attractive writer, and has a charm and grace 
 of character that shows in all his utterances. In fact few writers 
 seem so completely to reveal themselves as does Hooker in his 
 " Polity." There we see the patient, painstaking, gentle scholar, 
 timorous in almost every relation of life, save on his own field of 
 inquiry, and even there greatly hampered by excessive reverence 
 for the past, and the submissive deference of an unworldly man 
 for strong and seemingly triumphant conditions. 
 
 ' Richard Hooker {1553-1600) was educated in Oxford. On his marriage he 
 had to resign his fellowship there, and after a short ministry became the Master 
 of the Temple, where Walter Travers, the Puritan leader, was a "reader." 
 Controversy was inevitable. As Fuller writes: "The pulpit spake in the morn- 
 ing pure Canterbury and in the evening Geneva." Travers thus aroused Hooker 
 to his great defence, and after a few years at the Temple he begged for a quiet 
 parish in order to finish what he deemed his life's work. This request was 
 granted to him, but the last three books of his "Polity" have never seen the 
 light, although he must have finished them. What purports to be the con- 
 clusion has not the full authority of undoubted authorship. For its character, 
 see Keblc's preface to his edition of Hooker's "Works" (7th ed., in 3 vols., 
 O.xford, 1888, a revised edition by Church and Paget). The editio Princeps is 
 of the first four books in 1594 and of the fifth book in 1597. (Books 6 to 8, 
 purporting to be by Hooker, were not published until 1618.) 
 
 Lives of Hooker have been written by Walton, J., in Gauden's (J., Bishop of 
 Exeter) edition of the "Polity" in 1666, London, and sketches by Keble and 
 Paget in their introductions. Very helpful for the student of Hooker is Paget's 
 (Francis, Bishop of Oxford) "Introduction to the Fifth Book of Hooker's 
 Treatise of the Laws of Ecclesiastical Polity," 2d ed., Oxford, 1907. 
 
 ^ See, however, book V, cap. 76 ff. 
 
THE ETHICS OF ANGLO-CATHOLICISM 415 
 
 Not the most bigoted defender of the estabHshment would 
 now attempt to maintain the ideal character of those conditions. 
 They were the outcome of rude, far-seeing, but impetuous 
 tyranny. In God's good grace strong men of earnest life, such 
 as we have already mentioned, and lesser ones like Thirlby, 
 Bonner, Goodrich, Cox, Grindal, Coverdale, Sandys, Fox, made 
 an apostolic succession to whom even these conditions came as 
 opportunity. Yet one cannot but feel as one reads Hooker's 
 noble plea that it is often special pleading and lacks both histor- 
 ical background and philosophic thoroughness. His justified 
 impatience with much in the Puritan's position blinded him 
 unduly to the great ethical questions to which they were giving 
 their fiercely dogmatic answer. There is much in Hooker that 
 reminds the reader of Melanchthon, and like Melanchthon, 
 Hooker took refuge again in the essential a prioriism of the 
 scholastics. 
 
 We have seen in our former chapters how scholasticism is 
 essentially an attempt to superimpose upon the rational founda- 
 tion supplied by pagan culture a supernatural structure born 
 of tradition, with its two component parts of Scripture and the 
 traditional creeds of the church. The quiet assumption was 
 that this system was rational and could be thoroughly rational- 
 ized. This is the foremost presumption of Hooker.^ For him 
 the curious historical compromise that resulted in the estab- 
 lished church of England was a fixed system built upon reason. 
 Scripture, and church tradition; his task was to rationalize that 
 system, and within it he sought room for all that world of modern 
 doubt and difficulty that had just been opened to men's excited 
 hopes and fears. 
 
 It is difficult, as we have seen, to contrast objectively the mo- 
 rality of one age with another, but in the literature of the period, 
 and particularly in Hooker, one sees reflected the ethical conf u- 
 
 > "Some things she (Wisdom) openeth by the Sacred Scriptures; some things 
 by the glorious works of Nature; with some things she inspireth them from above 
 by heavenly influence; in some things she leadeth and traineth them only by 
 worldly experience and practice," book II, i : 4. 
 
4i6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 sion of the new era. The Puritan party had Geneva, with its 
 stern attempt at legal suppression, ever in view. The ethical 
 aims were undoubted, the means for reaching those aims Hooker 
 exposes to a searching and prolonged criticism.^ He does not 
 deny that men need authority and indeed has a somewhat ar- 
 istocratic contempt for the common herd. He no doubt sym- 
 pathized with Calvin when, as he writes, that great Geneva 
 preacher, "considered how dangerous it was that the whole 
 estate of that church should hang still on so slender a thread as 
 the liking of an ignorant multitude is." ^ He takes, however, 
 issue with the Puritan demand that Scripture should be the one 
 sole rule for the determination of all things great and small in the 
 common life, " For in every action of common life to find out some 
 sentence clearly and infallibly setting before our eyes what we 
 ought to do (seem we in Scripture ever so expert) would trouble us 
 more than we are aware." ^ Hence in a certain range of moral 
 action, as well as in ecclesiastical government, men's common 
 sense must govern them. It is alike injurious to Scripture to claim, 
 as Rome does, that it is insufficient without tradition for salvation, 
 or to do as the Puritans do, and claim that it suffices for life without 
 the use of men's reason.* With these two guides mankind has all 
 that is needed for "everlasting felicity." "It sufficeth therefore 
 that nature and Scripture do serve in such full sort that they 
 both jointly and not severally either of them be so complete 
 that unto everlasting felicity we need not the knowledge of any- 
 thing more than these two may easily furnish our minds on all 
 sides." ' 
 
 Hooker is thus deeply influenced by the somewhat loose 
 theory of knowledge fashionable in humanistic circles. He 
 would maintain the thorough-going trustworthiness of reason 
 in a way Puritanism has always regarded as distinctly irreligious.' 
 Authority must never be either against or above reason. At 
 
 * Preface, chaps, i and 2, pp. 125-142, Keble's 3d cd., 1855. 
 
 ' Preface, chap. 2, i. * Book II, chap. 8. § 7. 
 
 * Book II, chap. 8, § 7. * Book I, chap. 14, § 5. 
 
 "See, as illustrative of many passages, particularly book 11, chap. 7, §§ i-io. 
 
THE ETHICS OF ANGLO-CATHOLICISM 417 
 
 the same time we notice that it is the reason of the expert in the 
 higher matters of life and in the fields of more erudite inquiry. 
 The apostolic tradition is not always binding, as in the case of 
 the oscula sancta, or holy kiss, which was harmless in apostolic 
 times, but would now be scandalous, though commanded.^ 
 Hence there is need of a strong final and authoritative decision 
 in matters of dispute, and these things are found by Hooker in 
 either the submission to the public order or to a general synod.^ 
 
 He then devotes his first book to a discussion of what law 
 really is and what are the kinds of law and its various effects. 
 It is characteristic of Hooker that he neglects the discussions 
 which were having such powerful influence upon men's minds 
 in relation to the degree and character of secular authority.' 
 He goes back to Aristotle, and even Aristotle is, of course, inter- 
 preted and supplemented in true scholastic fashion by sayings 
 from the Old Testament. 
 
 Law, Hooker defines broadly as "any kind of rule or canon 
 whereby actions are framed." * God is thus by his perfection 
 an eternal law unto himself, and this law he imposes upon his 
 creation. Upon natural agents as the law of their kind, which 
 they keep unwittingly as individuals and as societies. Upon 
 angels, who are bound by it in their being, their relations to one 
 another in a hierarchy, and in this relation to us. Then also 
 it is imposed upon men as a law of perfection, or progress 
 toward perfection, by the knowledge of truth and the exercise 
 of virtue.* These laws again are natural laws of reason; 
 supernatural laws revealed by God, to teach men how to reach 
 the final goal of perfect felicity in God; and human laws, which 
 are imposed by societies, and rest upon consent, express or 
 
 > Rom. 16 : 16; II Cor. 13 : 12; I Thess. 5 : 26; I Pet. 5 : 14. Cf. Tertullian, 
 "Lib de Oratione," chap. 14. ^ Preface, chap. 6, §§ 3-6. 
 
 * It is natural to seek, in Hooker's first book some reference to Wyclif's "De 
 Dominlo Divino," or Fitz-Ralph's " De Pauperie Salvatoris," or Marsilius of 
 Padua's "Defensor Pacis," or Machiavelli's "Prince," but there are no such 
 references. In book V, chap. 2, § 4, there is a reference to MachiaveUi's 
 "Prince," but it is slight and contemptuous. 
 
 * Book I, chap. 3, § i. ' Book I, chaps. 3-7. 
 
4i8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 implicit, and are binding by reason of the natural law God has 
 implanted in societies for binding them together/ 
 
 All of these laws are either pure, i. e., have reference to perfect 
 nature, or they are mixed, i. e., have their reference to corrupted 
 nature. 
 
 Man's highest good is communion with God thought of in 
 terms of Augustine's Platonism,^ and reason alone cannot give 
 us the conception of eternal "felicity and bliss." A desire for 
 happiness is natural, but this happiness may be either sensuous, 
 intellectual, or spiritual and divine, unto which latter "we tend 
 by supernatural means here, but cannot here attain unto them." 
 , These are the familiar scholastic evangelical virtues of faith, 
 ^ hope, and charity, with the supernatural duties they bring in 
 their train.' 
 
 Thus into Hooker's ethics and into the ethics of the whole 
 Anglo-Catholic school down to Newman is introduced the fatal 
 intellectual dualism, so destructive of clear thinking, between the 
 natural and the supernatural claims upon conscience.* This 
 confusion is abundantly obvious in Hooker. "When super- 
 natural duties are necessarily exacted, natural are not rejected 
 as needless," ^ and so Hooker goes on to attempt a reasonable 
 separation between things essential and non-essential. 
 
 He does this under the category of natural and positive, and 
 all laws supernatural as such are positive. But all the laws of 
 Scripture are not immutable. " Positive laws are either perman- 
 ent or else changeable, according as the matter itself is concern- 
 ing which they were first made." The church is a "supernatural 
 society" and "doth differ from natural societies in this, that the 
 persons unto whom we associate ourselves, in the one are men 
 simply considered as men, but they to whom we be joined in 
 the other are God, angels, and holy men." ® At the same time 
 
 ' Book I, chaps. 5-1 1. 
 
 * Book I, chap. 11, § 3, and other passages. ' Book I, chap. 11. 
 
 * In the appendix to the fifth book Hooker elaborates this point, and rightly 
 cites Calvin as holding substantially the same position. 
 
 * Book I, chap. 12. 
 
 * Book I, chap. 15, § 2. 
 
THE ETHICS OF ANGLO-CATHOLICISM 419 
 
 the church is also a society serving the social instincts of men 
 and under natural laws. 
 
 In spite of the care and shrewdness of Hooker's discussion at 
 this point he cannot and does not really draw the lines between 
 Church and State, and leaves the reader considerably confused 
 as to the relative weights of both in case of conflict. 
 
 In the second book, Hooker has no difficulty in showing that 
 the Puritans cannot maintain the thesis that Scripture is the 
 rule for the whole of life, nor need we stay to consider the con- 
 tention of the third book, that Scripture does not supply a 
 polity in its details complete de jure divino; * and the fourth book 
 is equally unimportant from our point of view, in which the 
 special form of polity in the established State church is defended 
 with both learning and acumen. 
 
 The famous fifth book is almost complete in itself as an 
 apology for the existing ecclesiastical status as Hooker found 
 it, and its ethics presuppose the acceptance of the prevalent 
 scholastic definitions. It is full of good sense and many of its 
 propositions have ethical bearing, but it does not deal directly 
 with systematic ethics. 
 
 He establishes four first principles for knowing what is accept- 
 able to God. The external religious life must comport with the 
 greatness of God and the dignity of religion; in doubtful cases 
 the judgment of antiquity must establish a presumptive claim; 
 the authority of the church, though but recently appointed, 
 must have due weight with obedient children, where no law 
 divine or invincible argument or notable public inconvenience 
 stays that obedience; and lastly, the orders of the church are 
 greater presumption in favor of certain courses than private 
 opinion, particularly when the latitude is given which is proper. 
 Hooker does not carry his reasoning much further than the polity 
 of the church, but it is easy to see along what lines he would 
 have had to develop his ethics. His whole position is still that 
 
 ' The arguments here and elsewhere seem so contradictory of much appearing 
 in book VII on this subject that one rather gladly dismisses it as either not 
 Hooker's or not his maturest thought. 
 
420 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 of substantial scholasticism, only with somewhat diflferent data 
 upon which to work. The ministry is, of course, an order and 
 indelible even after heresy/ 
 
 The death of even saints is "punishment."^ Contingency 
 as Aquinas understood it, on the mediaeval Aristotelian basis is 
 defended,' and foreknowledge does not, Hooker thinks, involve 
 necessity. 
 
 On the power of the keys, however, Hooker seems to regard 
 the end of church discipline to be repentance, and to limit the 
 church's action to this life.^ At the same time he held high 
 doctrine with regard to the sacraments. " Sacraments serve as 
 the instruments of God to that end and purpose," i. e., imparting 
 the saving grace which Christ originally is, "moral instruments 
 the use whereof is in our hands, the effect in his; for the use we 
 have his express command, for the efifect his conditional prom- 
 ise." ^ And " Baptism is an action in part moral, in part 
 ecclesiastical, and in part mystical : moral as being a duty which 
 men perform toward God; ecclesiastical, in that it belongeth 
 unto God's church as a public duty; finally, mystical, if we 
 respect what God doth intend thereby to work." ® 
 
 This being the high-church position of the reformed theology, 
 and substantially representing Calvin's position, yet having in 
 it the assumption of grace linked to outward and non-moral 
 actions in a way that comes painfully near to sacramental magic 
 with all its unethical concomitants. 
 
 As over against the Puritan's position, though hardly the 
 equal of some of the best of the Puritan theologians (Calvin, 
 Bucer, BuUinger) in either logic or fearless dialectic. Hooker 
 is singularly effective. At the same time the modern mind 
 recoils from some of his most favorite assumptions, and the 
 
 ' Book V, cap. 77, § 3. 
 
 ' Appendix i, to book V, p. 570, Keble's 3d ed. 
 ' Appendix i to book V, p. 559, Keble's 3d ed. 
 
 <This from book VI, chap. 3, § i. Fairly certainly from Hooker's pen, 
 though perhaps not in place. 
 » Book V, 57, § 5. 
 • Book V, 62, § XV. 
 
THE ETHICS OF ANGLO-CATHOLICISM 421 
 
 impression of special pleading for the existing condition just 
 because it did exist weakens the book as a whole. 
 
 The logic of the book would be a new absolutism, without 
 some of the historic safeguards that checked the papacy as an ec- 
 clesiastical power or the spiritual independency that made Cathol- 
 icism more than once a protection against political tyranny. 
 
 That this is true may be gathered from the struggle for abso- 
 lute power of the party to whom Hooker's plea came with great- 
 est force. The turmoil and confusions of the years from the 
 death of Hooker to the revolution (1688) can only be under- 
 stood when we remember that high-church Puritanism and 
 high-church Episcopacy were struggling for supreme and abso- 
 lute power. Neither of them sought any strengthening of 
 democracy, nor did any real democracy ever become supreme, 
 but the platform upon which English political life was built up 
 was greatly widened. Democracy gained ground amid the 
 disputes between the various parties. 
 
 Were we studying the polity of Anglo-Catholicism it would 
 be our duty to take up in detail the answer of Whitgijt ^ to Cart- 
 wright in its bearings upon Hooker and the Anglo-Catholic 
 movement in general, but systematic ethics was only indirectly in- 
 volved in the question of church polity. It was directly involved 
 in the attempt to translate the movement into political reality. 
 
 This attempt was made by the strong hand of Archbishop 
 Laud,^ whose horizon was narrow and unlit by historical spirit. 
 
 * The works of John Whitgift, D.D., Archbishop of Canterbury, in three 
 volumes, published by the Parker Society, Cambridge, 1851-1853; "Lives," by 
 Sir George Paule (the " Life ... of John Whitgift, Lord Archbishop of Canter- 
 bury," London, 161 2, 1699; also in Wordsworth, Christopher: "Ecclesiastical 
 Biography," etc., vol. IV, London, 1818), and a sketch in vol. Ill of "Works," 
 by the editor. Rev. John Ayre. 
 
 ^ Laud, William, was bom at Reading, 1573, died 1644. He was educated 
 at O.xford, was rapidly advanced. President of St. Johns 161 1; Deanery of 
 Gloucester, 1616; Bishop of St. Davids, 1621; Bishop of London, 1628; Arch- 
 bishop of Canterbury, 1633. Impeached by the Long Parliament, and, after 
 long waiting, condemned and executed in 1644 at the age of seventy-one. His 
 works are published (Oxford) in seven volumes (nine parts), 1847-1860. William 
 Scott, editor of vols. I and II, and James Bliss, editor of the other volumes. His 
 
422 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 His were the legal ethics of absolutism and authority. He was 
 content with a somewhat loose appeal to Scripture and tradition, 
 "whereas," he writes, "according to Christ's institution, the 
 Scripture, where it is plain, should guide the church, and the 
 church, where there is doubt or difficulty, should expound the 
 Scripture; yet so as neither Scripture should be forced, nor 
 the church so bound up as that upon just and further evidence 
 she may revise that which hath slipped by her." ^ 
 
 Laud's one demand was outward uniformity. In theory he 
 recognized that this was only a secondary matter, but he in 
 reality thrust it into the foreground as the one essential for 
 England's religious life. He sees in the separations from the 
 church and the restlessness of the time but one demand, namely, 
 decent order and uniform service.^ Hence he laid the emphasis 
 just upon those things which were most likely to inspire hate 
 in the Puritan mind and awaken distrust in the minds of those 
 who, though not Puritan, greatly dreaded the political power of 
 Rome. " Ceremonies," he wrote, " are the hedge that fence the 
 substance of religion from all indignities which profaneness and 
 sacrilege too commonly put upon it.'" 
 
 life has been written by Peter Heylen under the title: "Cyprianus Anglicus: or 
 the History of the Life and Death of . . . William [Laud] . . . Archbishop of 
 Canterbury . . . Also the Ecclesiastical History of . . . England . . . ," 
 London, 1668, and also by W. H. Hutton ("William Laud," in "English Leaders 
 of Religion" series, London, Methuen, 1895), by Arthur Christopher Benson 
 ("William Laud, Sometime Archbishop of Canterbury, a Study," London, 1887 
 and 1897), and by Samuel Rawson Gardiner in the "Dictionary of National 
 Biography" (edited by Leslie Stephen [continued by Sidney Lee], in 67 vols., 
 London and New York, Macraillan, 1885-1903), vol. XXXH (1892), pp. 185- 
 194. Uncritical invective in William Prynnc's "Canterburies Doom; or the First 
 Part of a Complete History of the Commitment, Charge, Tryall, Condemnation, 
 Execution of William Laud, late Archbishop of Canterbury," London, 1646. 
 The materials for a life and estimate of the man are contained in his works, and 
 his "Defence" and "Diary" are candid and patently sincere. See also the 
 standard histories of England, and especially Gardiner (Samuel Rawson), 
 "History of England from James 1. to the Outbreak of the Civil War," London, 
 Longmans, 1863-1882, in 10 vols. 
 
 ' "Epistle Ded. Works," vol. H, p. xvi. 
 
 ^ "Epistle Ded. Works," vol. H, p. xvi. 
 
 » "Epistle Ded. Works," vol. U, p. xvi. 
 
THE ETHICS OF ANGLO-CATHOLICISM 423 
 
 He was unquestionably a bad adviser for both James and 
 Charles, and they found in him an able defender of their theories 
 of absolutism. Laud taught the doctrine of an absolute sub- 
 ordination of the clergy to the State/ and that non-resistance 
 was a Christian duty even in the case of bad princes. To the 
 newly awakened ethical sense of England he seemed morally 
 utterly callous, and he had no real perception of the evils of his 
 day. 
 
 Of course his point of view brought with it an entirely different 
 emphasis. The intimate friend of men of the moral stamp of 
 the Buckinghams and Strafford could only wink at their conduct 
 because like Rome he placed heresy before all other sin, and saw 
 in faithful subordination to the outward demands of church far 
 too great a make-weight against serious transgression of the 
 Ten Commandments.^ Laud was in no sense in touch with the 
 real feeling of the great middle-class movement in England and 
 Scotland. In Scotland he said: "For the present troubles in 
 Scotland novations in religion are so far from being the true 
 cause, as that it is manifest to any man that will look upon it 
 with single eye, that temporal discontent and several ambitions 
 of great men which had long been working were the true cause 
 of these troubles." ^ No doubt the land hunger of the newly 
 risen nobility had much to do with Scotland's unrest, but the 
 awakened religious and ethical life was a factor for which Laud 
 had no understanding. 
 
 In the canons (1635) Laud handed over supreme power to the 
 king in the church, and the ever-constant dread of a return by 
 the king to Rome made such a power fateful in the last degree.^ 
 That Laud was as sincere as he was narrow need not be denied. 
 In his pathetic ** Defence" and ''Diary" we see the earnest, 
 pious, and energetic nature of the man at its best. He was not 
 learned as were Whitgift and Hooker, nor was he a man of 
 
 ' Conference with Fisher. "Works," vol. II, p. 228. 
 2 See Conference with Fisher. "Works," vol. II, p. 164. 
 ' "History of Laud's Troubles and Tryals," edition 1695, p. 87. 
 * "Troubles and Tryals," edition 1695, p. 100; c/. cap. I, i. 
 
424 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 supreme force like Cahin or John Knox, and he was least of 
 all a thinker; but he sought resolutely to translate again Anglo- 
 Catholic absolutism into political terms. He was firmly per- 
 suaded " that my order as a bishop and my power of jurisdiction 
 is by divine apostolic right, and unalterable (for aught I know) 
 in the church of Christ. But all the power I or any other bishop 
 hath to exercise, any the least power of order or jurisdiction 
 within the realm of England, is derived wholly from the crown, 
 and I conceive it were treasonable to derive it from any other 
 power foreign or domestic." ^ 
 
 Laud mistook uniformity for unity; he indeed called Aristotle 
 "his old master,"^ but he had not learned from him either 
 scientific method or political good sense. That Laud should 
 go to the scaffold in his seventy-second year on charges that 
 were, to say the least, not proven, is another blot upon the page 
 of history. But, alas, despotism had taught Parliament that 
 the surest way with opposition was death, and Strafford and 
 Laud were both skilled and courageous opponents. 
 
 Within the Anglo-Catholic world of thought systematic ethics 
 has little scope for development. Mediasvalism was the real 
 ideal and inspiration, although the primitive church was sup- 
 posed to be the model. Lack of historical sense and critical 
 insight has crippled the undoubted learning and devotion of 
 those who simply desired to nationalize the Roman hierarchy 
 and restore the Byzantianism of the fourth and fifth centuries. 
 
 V. THE ETHICS OF INDEPENDENCY 
 
 Note of Introduction. — If Anglo-Catholicism was born of the 
 political and economic situation, no less is it true that Indepen- 
 dency had its origin in the demand on the part of a rising class 
 for a new atmosphere in which to breathe. Independency fought 
 for the things it needed for its life and thus demanded toleration, 
 not on the basis of theory, that came later, but on the ground of 
 
 ' "History of Troubles and Tryals," edition 1695, P- ^SS- 
 '"History of Trouljlcs and Tryals," edition 1695, p. 159. 
 
THE ETHICS OF INDEPENDENCY 425 
 
 vital necessity. Independency, Puritanism, and Anglo-Cathol- 
 icism are sharply divided points of view, but intellectual clear- 
 sightedness and self-consistency are not common gifts, so that 
 as a matter of fact the lines are not drawn sharply in the English 
 or American history of Independency— perhaps least sharply in 
 the American historical congregational development of it/ In 
 fact it is quite impossible to say with accuracy how the theory 
 of Independency grew up. That Browne had much to do with 
 it is perfectly true. But not only did he die in the established 
 church, but he was not himself clear in his teachings. And 
 when Independency took root in American soil Puritanism and 
 its thinking had already invaded its life, and to this day Puritan- 
 ism is most constantly confounded with a type of Independency 
 as abhorrent to many of the leaders of Puritanism as was Rome 
 itself. 
 
 Yet the ethical outlook was in this period largely determined 
 by the definition of the relation of the Church to the State. No 
 one thought of life without a final and absolute external author- 
 ity both in doctrine and in morals. No one questioned seriously 
 the supremacy of the State in temporal things or the supremacy 
 of the church in spiritual things. But what was the church? 
 Where were the boundaries between secular and spiritual con- 
 
 1 The literature is very large, and although the bibliography in Dexter's 
 (Henry Martin) "Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years as Seen 
 in its Literature," New York, 1880, is now far from complete, it is a most valua- 
 ble aid. See especially Fletcher, Joseph: "The History of the Revival and 
 Progress of Independency in England Since the Period of the Reformation," 
 4 vols., London, 1847, etc.; Hanbury, Roger: "Historical Memorials Relating 
 to the Independents," 3 vols., 1839-1844; Vaughan, Robert: "English Non- 
 conformity," London, 1862; Skeats, Herbert S.: "History of the Free Churches 
 of England from 1688 to 1851," London, 1869; Dexter, Henry Martin: "Con- 
 gregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years as Seen in its Literature," 
 New York, 1880; Price, Thomas: "History of Protestant Nonconformity in 
 England, from the Reformation under Henry VIII," 2 vols., London, 1836-1838; 
 Wilson, Walter: "The History and Antiquities of the Dissenting Churches . . . 
 in London, Westminster, and Southwark, Including the Lives of Their Minis- 
 ters, from the Rise of Nonconformity to the Present Time . . . ," 4 vols., 
 London, 1808-1814; Waddington, John: "Survey of Congregational History, 
 1200-1567," London, 1866 and 1869. 
 
426 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 cerns ? Who was in the last analysis to draw the lines between 
 these provinces ? Rome still maintained her spiritual supremacy 
 even over the State by demanding the right to define the duties 
 of the State. Anglo-Catholicism resisted that claim, but gave 
 in practice the spiritual supremacy to the State by making a 
 national church with the secular ruler as its head, " as far as the 
 law of Christ permitted," it is true, but with no organ save the 
 State to decide finally what was "the law of Christ." Puritan- 
 ism found the "law of Christ" in the Bible binding both Church 
 and State, but it had also no organ for finally and with authority 
 determining just what the Bible meant. Hence as Protestant- 
 ism came to self-consciousness there were inevitably restless 
 spirits who would be bound by neither Church nor State, as they 
 then existed, in the interpretation of what all men nominally 
 bowed to as a final authority, namely, the Bible. 
 
 Independency rose thus as the assertion of the individual 
 over against not only the existing group, but as over against the 
 past history of the group. Nor could it itself be really self- 
 consistent. It in fact appealed quite as fundamentally as did 
 Romanism or Anglo-Catholicism to tradition. It accepted the 
 Bible as the "word of God written" on what? — on the tradition 
 of the church which fixed the canon, so far as it ever has been 
 fixed. Its real appeal was to subjective religious experience, 
 but it neither realized this nor saw the full significance of its 
 revolt from the ecclesiastical tradition and the intervention of 
 the physical power of the State in spiritual things. 
 
 The ethics of Independency no more received a systematic 
 treatment than did the ethics of Puritanism, but they have their 
 own special color and in the writings of Browne ^ may be said 
 
 ' Browne, Robert, born about 1550, died 1633. He was the third child of 
 Anthony Browne, and of good family, being connected with Cecil, Lord Burgh- 
 Icy, who took deep interest in him as a kinsman. He was educated at Corpus 
 Christi College, Cambridge (B.A. in 1572). In 1580 founded an independent 
 congregation at Norwich (but soon after at Bury St. Edmunds) to realize the 
 apostolic church along the lines of the separatists and Lollards of previous 
 generations. But in the autumn of 1581 he immigrated (congregation and all) 
 to Middelburg, in Zeland (Cartwright's old church), to gain the freedom he 
 
THE ETHICS OF INDEPENDENCY 427 
 
 to have their beginnings. It is not easy to hold the balance in 
 judging of the life and ethical teachings of a man so strange 
 and in some ways so inconsistent. It seems to the writer extrava- 
 gant to say with T. G. Crippen, in his interesting introduction 
 to the "Treatise of Reformation Without Tarrying for Any," 
 that Browne formulated the principle of a " Free church in a free 
 State." After reading all the extant writings of Browne save 
 one to which the writer could not get access, no such formula 
 seems even to be supposed as a groundwork of the thinking. 
 In the very treatise itself Browne says, after alleging that the 
 Pope was Antichrist and had no authority over Queen Eliza- 
 beth, that her power was civil, "and that power she hath as 
 highest under God within her dominions, and that over all 
 persons and causes. She has power of death by law, and none 
 may resist her or the magistrate under her by force or wicked 
 speeches, when they execute the laws." 
 
 required. At the close of 1 583 he, however, returned, and although Elias Thacker 
 and John Coppin (or Copping) were hanged (1583) for simply possessing and 
 distributing his writings (Thomas Gibson imprisoned for the crime of binding 
 them! — for contrary view see "Dictionary of National Biography," article 
 "Browne"), he could go to Scotland, and was in 1584 in Edinburgh, and only 
 in 1586 was he finally excommunicated formally by Rowland, the Bishop of 
 Peterborough. He then made his submission, and received the mastership of the 
 Stamford Grammar School (St. Olaf's) under exceedingly humiliating condi- 
 tions. After five years became rector of Achurche-cum-Thorpe (in Northamp- 
 tonshire) for more than forty years. Throughout his life he was protected by 
 Lord Burghley, who perhaps thought him insane. He died in jail at Northamp- 
 ton, after having been arrested for assaulting a constable. This was in 1633, 
 or soon after. He was strange and erratic at all times, and disappointment, 
 suffering, and unsuitable intellectual and spiritual surroundings may well have 
 unbalanced an undoubtedly fine mind. A bibliographical list of his works is 
 given by Crippen (T. G.) in his edition of "A Treatise of Reformation Without 
 Tarrying for Any," published for the Congregational Historical Society, 1903. 
 Besides this he wrote "A Book which showeth the life and manner of all true 
 Christians, and how unlike they are unto Turks and Papists and heathen folke," 
 printed Middelburg, 1582; "A Treatise upon the XXIH of Matthew"; also 
 "A True and Short Declaration," and "An answer to Stephen Bridewell, his 
 first Book against the Brownists." For further details, see Dexter's (Henry M.) 
 account in his "Congregationalism of the Last Three Hundred Years," although 
 the present writer finds much to dissent from in the account and estimate of the 
 man. 
 
428 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 At the same time he argues that the spiritual reformation of 
 the church must be the work of the preachers who, however, 
 have broken their spiritual swords and now call upon the State 
 to reform the church. The pastor should have oversight of the 
 magistrate, but only as spiritual guide, and though he has power 
 of cutting off, it should only be with a spiritual weapon. At the 
 same time the magistrate is really supreme, for Browne claims 
 that when the pastors are cold the magistrate may "remove me 
 from church and withhold me from preaching. Indeed the 
 magistrate may force him (the preacher), but it is his shame to 
 tarry till he be forced. Neither durst Moses nor any of the 
 good kings of Juda force the people by law or by power to 
 receive the church government, but after that they received it, 
 if they fell away and sought not to the Lord, they might be put 
 to death." The church is to be pure and then the magistrates 
 will "abase themselves unto God before the face of the church." 
 But given what Browne would call a pure church, and there 
 were for him practically no limits to its despotism. This pure 
 church he defines thus: "The church planted or gathered, is a 
 company or number of Christians or believers which by a will- 
 ing covenant made with their God are under the government 
 of God and Christ, and keep his laws in one holy communion: 
 because Christ hath redeemed them unto holiness and happiness 
 forever, from which they were fallen by the sin of Adam." * 
 
 Cartwright had written a really beautiful and broad-minded 
 letter to Harrison in defence of a Presbyterian staying in the 
 established church, and to this Browne rejoined. There he 
 plainly says that the courts of the land are to be praised for 
 passing and enforcing laws for punishing "Idolatries, for- 
 swearing, usurping of lordship, rebellion, murder," and all 
 "outward gross wickedness." So that "the laws are a wall to 
 the church round about" and "whereas the law doth bind us 
 to come to church, it doth well, for no man ought to refuse the 
 church of God, yet if when we come to church wc Imd there an 
 unlawful minister, and a wicked confusion of all sorts of people, 
 
 * "Book Which Showcth the Life and Manners of All True Christians." 
 
THE ETHICS OF INDEPENDENCY 429 
 
 the fault is not now in the law, but in the bishops which place 
 such ministers." 
 
 Browne's objections, therefore, were not to an established 
 church but to the established church. The church is marked 
 by three things: "preaching of the word, ministration of the 
 sacraments, and reformation of life, which is the chiefest thing 
 of all to set forth Christ and his kingdom." 
 
 The church has power to loose and bind, and must keep the 
 table of the Lord pure from the defilement of unworthy mem- 
 bers. " And if one man could make an assembly a true church, 
 he has power to bind and loose." ^ 
 
 Moreover, in Browne's constant appeal to the Old Testament 
 theocracy one sees that he had no hold upon the modern theory 
 of spiritual independence of the State. The sacraments are for 
 him the continuance of the sacrifices. "For if it be true that 
 as all sacrifices then so all sacraments now are rebellion against 
 the Lord, being ministered without the visible church of God." ^ 
 Indeed Browne makes much of the "outward discipline," and 
 he regarded the persecutions of Mary as a judgment upon the 
 half-hearted reformers of the preceding reigns. The unfortu- 
 nate priestly story of Korah, Dathan, and Abiram ^ plays its 
 part in Browne, and he has his share of priestly blood-thirstiness. 
 "Wherefore I would say there were holiness in the dumb min- 
 istry, if all the dumb ministers were hanged up in the churches 
 and public assemblies, for a warning and terror to the rest, that 
 they are ready to enter such a function." ^ He disclaims the 
 error of the Donatists, who wished an absolutely sinless church, 
 but "if in any church such gross sinner be incurable, and the 
 church hath not power to redress them, or rebelliously refuseth 
 to redress them, then it ceaseth to be the church of God, and 
 so remaineth till it repent and take better order." The sacra- 
 ments are disfigured "when dogs and swine do communicate 
 therein," when "papists and atheists, drunkards, May-game- 
 
 * p. 7 of tract against Cartwright; cf. also p. 15. 
 
 ^"Answer to Cartwright," p. 19; cf. p. 18. 
 
 ' Num. 16 : 1-40. * "Answer to Cartwright," p. 23. 
 
430 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 sters, and such like are presented as sweet bread at the table 
 of the Lord." ' 
 
 The interest with Browne was ethical rather than theological. 
 His ideal was a pure church, and purity involved, of course, 
 pure doctrine and sacraments, but mainly pure life. This pure 
 life was based upon a covenant relationship entered into with 
 God by the believer, and was conditioned upon keeping the 
 commandments. "The second point of discipline is that the 
 covenant promises and Gospel of Christ, and the sacraments 
 of his kingdom, being established among the worthy, then that 
 they keep the covenant and sacraments unpolluted." 
 
 This covenant conception gives to both the theology and 
 ethics of Browne a hard and legal character, which is a bond 
 between him and Puritanism; and like the Puritans the sacra- 
 ments depend upon a "lawful ministry." And for Browne 
 the lawfulness of a minister is the essence of a ministry." 
 After discussing at some length the decline of the church, he 
 says: "By all these places it is evident that though preaching 
 may sometimes be without the present act of ministering the 
 sacraments, yet the sacraments might never be ministered but 
 of preachers and with preaching." ^ 
 
 Yet the strong individualism of the man and his confidence 
 in the individual's judgment makes him give really destructive 
 powers of inquisition to every church member. "The individ- 
 ual must watch, and if offence arise must ask the church to join 
 him in condemnation, but if the church will not do so, then he 
 must proceed himself," and he thinks that "Christ hath given 
 power to every Christian to retain the sins of every brother whom 
 he knoweth to trespass against him, and not to forgive him 
 unless he repent." 
 
 If Browne is to be historically classed, his independency and 
 ethical outlook is rather of latter-day Plymouth brethren than 
 American Congregationalism. And like the Plymouth brethren 
 he was very impatient with a good deal of organized churchly 
 Christianity. "For the sacraments," he said, "which the read- 
 
 ' "Answer to Cartwright," p. 34. ^"Answer to Cartwright," p. 54. 
 
THE ETHICS OF INDEPENDENCY 431 
 
 ing ministry do give us are neither his (sic) sacraments, neither 
 the Lord's, as we proved before, but are polluted pledges of a 
 wicked communion." ' ' 
 
 In a series of questions and answers, Browne gives the gist 
 of his teaching in " A Book which showeth the Life and Manners 
 of All True Christians, and how unlike they are unto Turks and 
 Papists and heathen folke" (printed Middelburg, 1582). He 
 grounds the whole Christian life upon the voluntary covenant 
 relationship with God. And we should lead a godly life "By 
 knowing God and the duties of godliness, and by keeping those 
 duties." " The covenant is mutual. God on one side, we on 
 the other, and baptism is the seal of the covenant.^ 
 
 "We must watch one another and try out all wickedness. 
 We must privately and openly rebuke the private and open 
 offenders. We must also separate the wilful and more grievous 
 offenders and withhold ourselves from them, and gather the 
 righteous together." 
 
 The sections 88 to 182 is a little ethical treatise as well as a 
 little treatise on polity. In it Browne claims that elders should 
 not only have gifts, but also "parentage and birth," for in a note 
 he adds: "Birth and parentage is a gift whereby they have 
 greater authority as by natural desert of kindred and blood or 
 of begetting and bringing up, if so be that they answer in worthi- 
 ness otherwise." * In point of fact Browne was neither a 
 modern democrat nor a very radical independent. The 
 phrases which are sometimes quoted to show his modern spirit, 
 such as that "for the civil magistrate there must be an agreement 
 of the people or commonwealth," are not so modern, taken in 
 their connection, where he shows that the consent is a matter 
 of antiquity, and that their real authority comes from God, 
 "they are received" of the people and come from God "by 
 birth and succession." ^ 
 
 Yet Browne undoubtedly exercised a large influence. He 
 was an erratic, seemingly quarrelsome man whose strong 
 
 * "Answer to Cartwright," p. 85. ^ § 2. ' § 36. 
 
 * This is not the only passage pointing the same way. * § 117. 
 
 J 
 
432 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 personality made him an intense individualist. He was probably 
 often temporarily insane. Not simply as Dexter suggests 
 toward the close of his carreer, but all through it, with the pride 
 and egotism that often marks the neurotic patient. But he was 
 a man of acute mind. His ethics are in the foreground, and 
 consist of duties faithfully performed in a covenant relation to 
 a somewhat harsh and unforgiving God. Though Independency 
 repudiated him, it, no doubt, learnt much from him, and reveals 
 in its history some of both his virtues and his blemishes. From 
 our point of view, however, it can hardly be claimed that his 
 extant writings would do much to spiritualize and deepen the 
 morality of Independency, or to properly separate between 
 ethical autonomy and one-sided individualism. 
 
 To be a "Brownist" became a reproach. At the same time 
 the influence of Browne, was felt for long in the various sects that 
 now began to arise. The spread of such bodies as the Baptists, 
 Quakers, and groups of people with fantastic names, sometimes 
 given them as nicknames, sometimes taken seriously by them- 
 selves, mark two things: first, the rise of individualism due to 
 the bpeaking up of the old authoritative group centres; and, 
 secondly, the gradual coming to self-consciousness of a religious 
 life apart from the masterful leadership of a hierarchy. 
 
 These independent and separatist modes of thought found, 
 no doubt, much in the Brownist movement that was fundament- 
 ally sympathetic, more particularly as it developed its life and 
 emphasized the more constructive ideas flung out by Browne, 
 so that the strange and erratic leader brought forth spiritual 
 followers who did not know how far they had departed from the 
 real teaching of the man who gave his name to the movement. 
 
 Nor is it possible to speak of any ethical system as common 
 to the innumerable sects that sprang up on the Continent and 
 especially in England, as a result of the breaking down of 
 centralized authority.* The religious view of the world inherited 
 
 ' A most fascinating account of this ecclesiastical chaos is given by Mr. Robert 
 Barclay in his large volume, "The Inner Life of the Religious Societies of the 
 Commonwealth." We have used the 2d edition, 1877. 
 
THE ETHICS OF INDEPENDENCY 433 
 
 from the mediaeval church was now supposed to be held upon 
 the authority of Scripture, and had to be read into its pages. 
 Even when men like George Fox and Robert Barclay denied 
 the primary significance of Scripture and put the Living Spirit 
 in its place/ they also proceeded to give back much the same 
 message only ennobled by a little greater freedom, although also 
 often made fantastic by the intrusion of an utterly unhistorical 
 and uncritical subjectivism. 
 
 The Anabaptist movement had its distinct echoes in England. 
 The cry for toleration and freedom in causes of conscience, 
 which, so far as the writer knows, was first raised by Dr. 
 Balthasar Hubmaier,^ found a ready response, no doubt, in 
 many hearts in England. But the first expression was in 1614, 
 by Leonard B usher, in a letter to King James,^ in which even 
 higher ground is taken for toleration than that by Balthasar, 
 who would suffer the wheat and tares to grow together until the 
 harvest because the Master said so,* whereas Busher demanded 
 it on the ground of each man's duty to think for himself. But 
 on the whole the "Ranters," the "Seekers," and the strange 
 sects that sprang up were as narrow and as intolerant as their 
 persecutors. To this Roger Williams ^ is a noble exception, and 
 
 * "An Apology for the True Christian Divinity," by Robert Barclay, 1675. 
 We have used the nth edition, London, 1849. Cf. "Prop." Ill, 1-3. 
 
 ^"Von Ketzern und iren verbrennern vergleichung der gschufften zesamen- 
 zogen durch doctor Balthaser ein fridbergen pfarrern zu Waldschut zu gefallen 
 bruder Anthoniu vicarin zu Costantz den ausserlesne thorwachter on am Pusanne. 
 Die warheit ist untodtlich. Anno M. D. 24. yar." 
 
 ' "Religious Peace or a Plea for Liberty of Conscience," 1614. Reprinted in 
 1846 by the Hansard KnoUys Society, together with other tracts. This society 
 has also reprinted pleas set out in 1615 and 1620 anonymously. 
 
 * "Der acht Artickel." 
 
 * Born probably in London (1604 ?). B.A. of Pembroke College, Cambridge, 
 1626. Sailed for America December i, 1630, and visited Salem, Plymouth, and 
 Boston. He was immersed as a Baptist but soon became "a seeker." The 
 literature is given in Samuel L. Caldwell's admirable edition of his great 
 work, "The BIoudyTenent of Persecution for Cause of Conscience" (ist ed., 
 London, 1644), and his answer to Cotton, "The Bloody Tenent yet more 
 Bloody by Mr. Cotton's Endeavor to wash it White" (ist ed., London, 1652). 
 Publications of the Narragansett Club, first series, vol. Ill, IV, V, and VI. 
 (Containing also his letters and other writings, as against Fox.) 
 
434 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 his pleas are based on the sacred character of man's liberty in 
 the Holy Spirit/ 
 
 The chief difficulty was that all parties still regarded some 
 absolute external authority as necessary. Only men like Roger 
 
 'The preface to Roger Williams's "Bloudy Tenent" is as follows: 
 
 " First, That the blood of so many hundred thousand souls of Protestants and 
 Papists, spilt in the wars of present and former ages for their respective con- 
 sciences, is not required nor accepted by Jesus Christ the Prince of Peace. 
 
 "Secondly, Pregnant Scriptures and arguments are throughout the worke 
 proposed against the Doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience. 
 
 "Thirdly, Satisfactory answers are given to Scriptures, and objections pro- 
 duced by Mr. Calvin, Beza, Mr. Cotton, and the ministers of the New England 
 Churches and others former and later, tending to prove the Doctrine of persecu- 
 tion for cause of conscience. 
 
 "Fourthly, The Doctrine of persecution for cause of conscience is proved 
 guilty of all the blood of the souls crying for vengeance under the Altar. 
 
 " Fifthly, All civil States with their officers of justice in their respective constitu- 
 tions and administrations are proved essentially civil, and therefore not Judges, 
 Governors, or Defenders of the Spiritual or Christian State and Worship. 
 
 "Sixthly, It is the will and command of God, that, since the coming of His 
 Son the Lord Jesus, a permission of the most paganish, Jewish, Turkish or Anti- 
 christian consciences and worships be granted to all men in all Nations and 
 Countries: and they are only to be fought against with that sword which is only 
 (in soul matters) able to conquer, to wit the sword of God's Spirit, the Word of 
 God. 
 
 "Seventhly, The State of the land of Israel, the kings and people thereof in 
 Peace and War is proved figurative and ceremonial, and no pattern nor precedent 
 for any Kingdome or civil State in the world to follow. 
 
 "Eighthly, God requireth not an uniformity of religion to be inacted and 
 inforced in any civil State; which inforced uniformity (sooner or later) is the 
 greatest occasion of civil war, ravishing of conscience, persecution of Christ 
 Jesus in his servants, and of the hypocrisy and destruction of millions of souls. 
 
 "Ninthly, In holding an inforced uniformity of Religion in a civil State, we 
 must necessarily disclaim our desires and hopes of the Jews' conversion to Christ. 
 
 "Tenthly, An inforced uniformity of Religion throughout a Nation or civil 
 State, confounds the Civil and Religious, denies the principles of Christianity and 
 civility, and that Jesus Christ is come in the flesh. 
 
 "Eleventhly, The permission of other consciences and worships than a State 
 professeth, only can (according to God) procure a firm and lasting peace (good 
 assurance being taken according to the wisdom of the civil State for uniformity 
 of civil obedience from all sorts). 
 
 "Twelfihly, Lastly, true civility and Christianity may both flourish in a State 
 or Kingdom, notwithstanding the permission of divers and contrary consciences, 
 either of Jew or Gentile." 
 
 Preface to the reprint from the Hanserd-Knollys Society, edition of 1848. 
 
THE ETHICS OF INDEPENDENCY 435 
 
 Williams and George Fox had confidence in the subjective 
 leading of the Holy Spirit in the interpretation of the external 
 authority, and had learnt that violence only begot violence. 
 The unhistoric subjectivism of men like Fox and even Barclay 
 made a consistent ethical system impossible, and splendid as 
 were the religious-ethical results of the Quaker movement, it was 
 always hampered by an almost childish literalism — like saying 
 "ye" and not taking off the hat to men — on the one hand, and 
 an unrestrained subjectivism on the other, as when it was 
 "opened" to Fox that he should go barefoot in Lichfield and 
 cry, "Woe to bloody Lichfield," because forsooth one thousand 
 martyrs had been killed there by Diocletian.^ This lack of his- 
 toric sense and feeling for the continuity of history and tradition 
 made Quakers bold in proposing great innovations. They op- 
 posed war, slavery, persecution, all unloving violence; they were 
 foremost in the reform of schools and prisons. They strove for 
 simple worship and the unworldly life; but they still had an 
 absolute authority to be used uncritically and unhistorically. 
 They still placed the Old Testament on the same ethical level in 
 all its parts with the New, while recognizing an equally uncrit- 
 ically accepted "inner voice," with many times a dash of very 
 unethical magic in its utterances. 
 
 On the whole, the ethics of an intelligent Independency is 
 best formulated by John Milton.^ He stood for toleration as 
 between the Protestant bodies in the interpretation of Scripture. 
 Each man who went to the Bible must be free to find out what 
 was there, but he had no toleration for papists or atheists, or 
 any who did not acknowledge the Scriptures as the one sole 
 source of authority. In fact Milton was a very hard and very 
 inconsistent literalist. On the one hand he attacks all Sab- 
 batarianism on the ground that the Decalogue is not binding, 
 
 * "Journal," 3d ed., 1765, pp. 48-49- 
 
 "The classic life by Masson, 6 vols., 1859-1880, gives all the details; cf. 
 also Masson's own condensation, in "Encyclopaedia Britannica," article 
 "Milton." 
 
436 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 and on the other pleads the second commandment as excuse for 
 suppressing the " idolatry of the mass." * 
 
 In fact all the difficulties which a half-way Protestantism 
 always must face appear in Milton's ethics. Yet his " Doctrina 
 Christiana" ^ is the most able and complete system of Indepen- 
 dent ethics which we possess. It is divided into two parts. 
 With the first part we are not mainly concerned,^ and our 
 review of the second part must be hurried. The attempt is 
 most interesting. The ethics are summed up in the second 
 book.^ The true service of God is especially the study of good 
 works. But good works are by faith and not of the Decalogue 
 (p. 388). They are wrought by the Holy Spirit through faith 
 to God's glory and our hope of salvation and the edification of 
 our neighbor (p. 390). The primary efficient cause of good 
 works is God; the secondary are ''habits of good." ^ These 
 virtues are general or special. The general are in the intellect 
 
 ' The quotations are from Symmon's edition of the prose work, 6 vols., 1806. 
 See vol. IV, p. 265, and his "Doctrina Christ.," 1825, Cantab, edition, Hb. II, 
 cap. VII, pp. 446-454. 
 
 'Published posthumously, Cantab., 1825, and Bronswiga, 1827. 
 
 ' Milton thought he drew his system wholly from the Bible. The theologian 
 who reads the subjects can judge whether he did or not. He deals in thirty-three 
 chapters with the doctrine of God; the divine decree; predestination; the Son 
 of God; the Holy Spirit; creation; providence of God and his general govern- 
 ment; the special ministration of angels; the government of men before the 
 fall; whence the Sabbath and marriage; the fall and sin; the punishment of 
 sin; about death called mortal; the restoration and redemption of Christ; the 
 mediatorial office in its threefold character; renewal and vocation; regeneration; 
 repentance and faith; about saving faith; renewal in Christ; justification and 
 adoption; the mystical or invisible church; glorification, and assurance of faith 
 and perseverance; the free covenant, or concerning the law of God; the Gospel 
 and Christian liberty; the external signs of the free covenant (under the law 
 circumcision and passover, under the Gospel, baptism and the Lord's supper); 
 the visible church; the sacred Scriptures; particular churches; ecclesiastical 
 discipline; the perfect glory and the second coming of Christ; the resurrection 
 of the dead and the conflagration of the world. 
 
 All of this is so evidently the old Aristotelian scholasticism in framework and 
 organizing interest that it is plain Milton was really only deceiving himself. 
 
 * Liber II, Cantab., edition 1825, pp. 387-536. 
 
 * "Habitus boni qua: virtutes nominantur." 
 
THE ETHICS OF INDEPENDENCY 437 
 
 or the will. The intellectual are wisdom and prudence. In 
 the will are sincerity, promptness, and constancy. 
 
 The special virtues pertain either to our duty (officium) to 
 God or man. So that a knowledge of God as one versus atheism 
 or polytheism is a first duty. Then come love, fidelity, hope, 
 gratitude, fear, humility, patience, obedience, and Milton 
 describes these with their opposing vices in Aristotelian or Stoic 
 terms and Scripture texts. The external duties are the cult 
 and prayer; sacred days and places, which last two he rejects, 
 are dealt with. 
 
 Then come immediate duties to our neighbor, with a good 
 deal of repetition, but an admirable discussion of love and 
 justice. There are indirect duties to our neighbor as to our- 
 selves. At this point Milton seems confused, and indeed the 
 whole last part is condensed and unorganized, and closes with 
 duties political and ecclesiastical. Religion is to be defended 
 but not enforced by the magistrate.* The ecclesiastical duties 
 are hurriedly summed up in closing. 
 
 The dependence upon Aristotle and Cicero is apparent 
 throughout, in spite of the elaborate Scripture quotation. The 
 Old Testament is on the same level with the New Testament. 
 The exegesis is painstaking and daring, but both uncritical and 
 subjective. And what is remarkable throughout is the slavish 
 acceptance of the letter. 
 
 Within the scholastic Protestantism of churchly thinking there 
 was no chance for any real unification of ethics. The acceptance 
 of a whole vast range of literature as a standard gave each man 
 his chance to pick out what suited him, and the denial by Protes- 
 tantism of a living absolute authority left unhistorical subjectiv- 
 ism to do its work. That in the confusion and in part as a result 
 of it men should at last come to see the need of a larger Hberty 
 was inevitable. Jeremy Taylor's " Liberty of Prophesying" was 
 no clearly thought-out platform any more than Milton's,' but 
 
 • Lib. II, cap. 17, p. 528. 
 
 ' Both men get credit for a larger measure of toleration than they possessed. 
 Neither of them, for instance, would have wanted the mass permitted in England. 
 
438 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 was the voicing of a felt need of a larger atmosphere. The 
 sense that all external authority had in the last analysis, whether 
 men believed it or no, to submit to the more or less critically 
 trained reason and feeling had to grow up outside of organized 
 ecclesiastical Protestantism. 
 
 VI. THE ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 
 
 Outside organized ecclesiastical Protestantism there arose a 
 mighty force. It was a true child of the protest against usurped 
 authority, and belongs therefore to Protestantism. It was 
 essentially an empiric philosophy with an ultimate faith in 
 man's capacity for co-operation with God. It must be included 
 in any history even of organized Protestantism because the 
 church is never so inclusive in Protestantism as in Roman 
 Catholicism. There is a Protestantism of the stoutest kind 
 whose home is in none of the churches, but whose work and 
 development have deeply affected the religious thinking of all 
 the churches, whether they realized it or not. Our history 
 seeks indeed to follow the history of ethics rather within the 
 organized church and to deal more particularly with ethics of 
 the church, so that these last sections upon the ethics of philo- 
 sophical Protestantism can only scan the field. This is the less 
 to be regretted because a large literature already deals with 
 philosophical ethics with a minuteness impossible in these 
 pages.^ 
 
 One of the first tasks of Protestantism should have been to 
 free thought from the arrogant claims of ecclesiasticism," but 
 
 Even Lccky seems to exaggerate their breadth at this p)oint. C/. "History of 
 .Rationalism," vol. II, 79-80. 
 
 ' An admirable sketch of English ethics is given by Sidg^nck, H., in his article 
 in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica," and published in enlarged form as a book, 
 "Outlines of the History of Ethics," 3d ed., 1892. 
 
 ' The well-known books of Draper and Andrew D. White on the struggle for 
 a real scientific freedom against the ghosts of ecclesiastical tyranny that even now 
 still haunt the churches to their great hurt should be read and gravely pondered 
 by all really thoughtful ecclesiastical leaders. Particularly the work of Andrew 
 D. White deserves more especial attention, because of the temperate, reverent 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 439 
 
 this was not only exceedingly difficult but also exceedingly 
 delicate. The unity of life is such that no one phase of it can 
 be touched without a potential alteration all along the line. We 
 may hold mutually exclusive positions for a long time in our 
 minds until some action depends upon our thought-process, and 
 then at once the contradiction is made clear and one or other 
 position must in fact be surrendered. 
 
 A great deal of Protestant thinking has been done under the 
 shelter of forms its thinking really undermined. Men have 
 bought the boon of inner freedom at the price of outward con- 
 formity in all ages. In Protestantism, however, the conformity 
 has been, perhaps, generally sincere and unaffected, because 
 Protestantism unconsciously but no less really moved the 
 emphasis in the Christian life from the contemplative and the 
 intellectual to the active and voluntary elements. The only 
 possible basis for ecclesiastical unity is capacity for co-operation, 
 and this capacity is conditioned by many other things than 
 intellectual agreement. 
 
 In the theory of Rome, life was divided into a religious and a 
 secular sphere. The doctrine of the two swords expressed this 
 faith on the political field. This distinction early Protestantism 
 sought to take over into the field of intellectual inquiry. It was 
 assumed that the two had separate instruments but that the 
 outcome must be the same. The faith of scholasticism that the 
 closed system could be completely rationalized was handed over 
 to the new Protestantism, but the contents of the closed system 
 were different and the religious authority was, in fact, far less 
 concrete and vital. 
 
 In England the political situation dominated all examination 
 of ethics, and when philosophical Protestantism began inde- 
 pendent research it was inspired by this interest. The founder 
 of speculative ethical philosophy upon this new Protestant 
 
 spirit of his very severe criticism. The quarrel between "science" and "relig- 
 ion" is the inevitable readjustment of human life to new truth. Neither 
 "science" nor "religion" can be more than a tentative formulation of human 
 experience. 
 
440 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 English soil may be, without much fear of dispute, named as 
 Francis Bacon.^ 
 
 The excessive praise of Bacon has led to criticism and perhaps 
 underestimates of his work and teaching. It can hardly be 
 denied that his method has not taught the modern scientific 
 laboratory how to work.^ It was Newton and Galileo and 
 Harvey who really did that. At the same time Bacon saw 
 clearly that real knowledge of experience and its laws was what 
 men needed to gain power. He made familiar the thought of 
 
 * Francis Bacon, Baron Verulam and Viscount of St. Albans, was born in 
 York House, in London, January 22, 1561. He spent his life in official service 
 under Elizabeth and James, eventually having to retire with diminished fortune 
 on charges of corruption from which he could not clear himself. He died April 
 9, 1626. The best edition of his works is that collected and edited by James 
 Spedding, Robert Leslie Ellis, and Douglas Denon Heath, London, Longmans, 
 in 14 vols., 1857-1874 (the same in Boston in 15 vols, 1861; other editions are in 
 progress); Methuen's "Standard Library," "The English Works of Francis 
 Bacon, Lord Verulam," vol. I, "Essays and Counsels," and "The New Atlantis," 
 appeared March, 1906 (no more appeared up to December, 1908); "World's 
 Classic" series, Clarendon Press; and "New Universal Library." 
 
 For most extensive literature, see the last edition of Ueberweg-Heinze, " Grund- 
 riss der Geschichte der Philosophie," Berlin, vol. IH, § X. Besides the well- 
 known and oft-edited "Essays" (with annotations by Richard Whately, 6th 
 ed., revised and enlarged, London, 1864, is especially well known), the works 
 that have most interest for the student of ethics are " Colors of Good and Evil," 
 "The New Atlantis" (in H. Morley's "Universal Library," vol. XXHI, 1885, 
 edited by A. T. Flux, Macmillan, 1899; by D. W. Bevan, "Royal Standard" 
 series, London, 1899; and in Methuen's series mentioned above, 1905), and the 
 ethical sections of the "Advancement of Learning" (Cassell's "National Libra- 
 ry," vol. CLXXHI, 1889, books I and H, edited with notes by F. G. Selby, in 
 2 vols., Macmillan, 1892 and 1895), which corresponds to the enlarged treatment 
 in his "De Dignitate et Augmentis Scientiarum" (London, 1623, Argentorati, 
 1635, Amsterdam, 1662, etc.). The literature about Bacon is enormous, and a 
 classified bibliography is much needed. The " Catalogue of the British Museum" 
 (its section upon Bacon can be had separately) would furnish the basis. Espe- 
 cially important is Kuno Fischer's final (loth) volume in his "Geschichte der 
 neueren Philosophie," 3d ed., Heidelberg, 1904 ("Bacon und seine Schule"; 
 cf. also his "F. Bacon. Die Realphilosophic und ihr Zcitalter," Leipsic, 1856; 
 in English: "Francis Bacon. Realistic Philosophy and Its Age," translated by 
 J. Oxenford, London, 1857). 
 
 * On this {)oint sec the controversy raised by Liebig in Germany and the replies 
 of Sigwart and Kuno Fischer. The literature is given by Kuno Fischer, p. 335 
 of the tenth volume of his "History of Modern Philosophy," 31! ed., 1904. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 441 
 
 experiment as the only pathway to firm assurance. He raised 
 most important issues and asked most searching questions to 
 which the modern world is still trying to give an answer. He 
 also created an atmosphere within which a wholesome sceptical 
 empiricism could do its work while retaining a working faith in 
 an intelligible world, and a good God; and in most unexpected 
 places, and in many ways his influence may be traced, not only 
 on the philosophical, but also upon the scientific and practical 
 thinking of the world. 
 
 His first and quite impossible demand was that ''divine" and 
 "human" knowledge should be kept apart. He thought their 
 intermingling " hath filled the one full of heresies, and the other 
 full of speculative fictions and vanities." ^ 
 
 Thus Bacon sought to free science from troublesome intru- 
 sions of a dogmatic character, because he did not realize how 
 sweeping the research of science was bound to be. All knowl- 
 edge was to be limited by "religion" and was "to be referred to 
 use and action." ^ Bacon thought this pragmatic test would 
 keep the two spheres of inquiry separate. And that the Script- 
 ures could be cheerfully trusted " to reveal the will of God, and 
 then the creatures expressing his power," and that in these two 
 books we might be "secured from all error." ^ So in the "New 
 Atlantis" a divine miracle brings the Old and New Testaments 
 to the people of the happy land Bensalem. 
 
 Not, indeed, that Bacon would have had religion thus relegated 
 to a sphere by itself to get rid of it, as Hobbes wished to do. 
 Bacon deprecated all merely intellectual curiosity that had no 
 element of service of mankind in it, or that did not aim at the 
 making "goodness" real in life.* Knowledge was ever to be 
 tested by its utility for mankind, and its function is to restore 
 man's lost sovereignty over the world. 
 
 ' "Of the Interpretation of Nature," vol. Ill, p. 219, of Spedding's edition, 
 London, 1857-1874, to which all references are made unless otherwise noted. 
 
 ^ "Interpretation of Nature," vol. Ill, p. 218; "Works." 
 
 ' "Interpretation of Nature," vol. Ill, p. 221. 
 
 * "Interpretation of Nature," vol. Ill, p, 222; cf. p. 218 and "De Augmentis," 
 book VII, chap. I. 
 
442 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 While this is true, however, Bacon's interest was primarily 
 neither religious nor ethical, but intellectual. He was himself 
 not a man of high moral tone. No apologist has been able to 
 do more than teach us to condone and excuse his ingratitude to 
 Essex and his faithlessness in office. His own letters abundantly 
 reveal the self-seeking, ambitious, marvellously gifted and self- 
 conscious time-server. Hence not only have we no systematic 
 ethics, but in all Bacon's elaborate plans for advancing men's 
 knowledge, religious and ethical advance have but little part. 
 
 The nearest approach to a systematic treatment of ethics is 
 in the "Advancement of Learning" * and in the corresponding 
 Latin sections of his treatise "De Dignitate et Augmentis 
 Scientiarum." ^ He deals there with the "good," but not in the 
 "heathen" sense of the highest good, but on the lower plane 
 of man's utility. He divides ethics into two parts: "The 
 Exemplar or Platform of Good, and the Regiment or Culture 
 of the Mind; the one describing the nature of the good, the other 
 prescribing rules how to subdue, apply, and accommodate the 
 will of man thereunto." ^ He thinks the ancients and the 
 church divines have handled, under the head of the Nature of 
 Good, Positive and Simple, and under Virtue and Duty, the 
 content of ethics well, but that the examination concerning the 
 roots of good and evil has been neglected, and that they ought 
 to have more "consulted with nature" and been less "prolix 
 and profound." He thinks there is in everything a double 
 nature of good, according as the purpose is within the object 
 or is referred to the object's relation to the larger whole. The 
 larger whole is the nobler purpose, which decides for Bacon the 
 controversy between the advantages of the vita activa and the 
 vita content plativa, and against Aristotle he contends that the 
 active life is the higher one. Only "God and the angels" have 
 a right to be lookers on. And Bacon says that only the real 
 
 ' "Works," vol. Ill, pp. 419-444. 
 
 ' Book VII, chaps. 1-3; cf. book V, chap, i, and book VI, chap. 3; "Works," 
 vols. IV and V. 
 
 * "Advancement of Learning," book II; "Works," vol. Ill, p. 419. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 443 
 
 services the monastery rendered and not the contemplative life 
 commended it to the church.^ On this principle are to be decided 
 all the ethical issues between Zeno and Socrates on the one hand, 
 and the Cyrenaics and Epicureans on the other. The larger 
 social good and not individual happiness is the moral end. 
 Hence the moral man is not frightened from his social service by 
 indignity and perturbations. 
 
 The private or particular good falls into two divisions of good, 
 active and passive. Every creature is animated by the desire 
 of self-preservation and of "dilating" or multipiying itself. 
 And here again the active good is the higher. Passive good 
 is conservative and perfective; of these, however, to perfect 
 while conserving is the nobler ambition. 
 
 The real ethics of Bacon rest upon " the good of man which 
 respecteth and beholdeth society, which we may term duty," 
 and a man cannot understand " virtue without some relation to 
 society, nor duty without an inward disposition." Duty may 
 be either the common duty of every man, as a man or a member 
 of the State, and the particular duty of every man in his profes- 
 sion, vocation, or place. This last division, Bacon says, can 
 only be dealt with in special and particular treatment by experts, 
 and the failings and temptations should, he thinks, be treated 
 less cynically and more seriously. 
 
 Ethics should also deal with the culture of the mind, which 
 never works independently of feelings and will. Man must 
 prepare himself for the moral decisions and the moral strains of 
 the active social life. Bacon, however, does not really get rid 
 of authority in ethics by his complete separation of religion as a 
 matter of revelation from the science of conduct based upon 
 experience. He denies that theology can be founded upon the 
 light of nature.^ In point of fact Bacon's social state was a 
 monarchy of the type of Henry VIII or Elizabeth, in which the 
 will of the king was practically supreme. He claimed that he 
 
 * "Advancement of Learning," book II; "Works," vol. Ill, p. 422, and other 
 passages. 
 
 " " Advancement of Learning," book II; "Works," vol. Ill, p. 478. 
 
444 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 had separated the science of "civic knowledge" from ethics,* 
 but in reahty his treatments overlap as they were bound to do. 
 Of the content of his ethical teaching it is difficult to speak, 
 because it is so various in character. Much is taken from 
 Seneca and Cicero, who seem to have profoundly influenced him. 
 From time to time a lofty inwardness marks his thinking, but 
 he often falls to a much lower level of merely shrewd worldly 
 wisdom. In his " Meditationes Sacrae" he emphasizes the fact 
 that "if evil overtake your enemy from elsewhere, and you in 
 the inmost recesses of your heart are grieved and distressed, and 
 feel no touch of joy, as thinking that the day of your revenge 
 and redress has come; this I account to be the summit and 
 exaltation of charity." He shakes himself loose from the preva- 
 lent theological disparagement of humanity, and claims that 
 " the inclination of goodness is imprinted deeply in the nature 
 of man; insomuch that if it issue not toward men, it will take 
 unto other living creatures." ^ Man is on one side akin to the 
 beasts and on the other related to God, and to deny God is to 
 wrong man. In such an essay as that on superstition one may 
 see the spirit which later issued in English empiricism in both 
 ethics and religion. But nowhere does Bacon follow up his 
 clews. He was, indeed, himself a fine example of the failure of 
 speculation apart from experiment and facts, as the mere collec- 
 tion of facts is barren without speculative hypothesis of which 
 facts must be the tests. 
 
 In spite of the lofty inwardness, of which we have spoken, and 
 the social character of his fundamental ethics, the general im- 
 pression is rather that of the noble paganism of the Roman 
 Stoics and Cynics than of the sweet gentleness and yet stern 
 severity of New Testament ethics. Bacon did litde to develop 
 his system, but it is at least doubtful whether had he done so 
 
 ' "Ilia duas habct partes, easque notissimas ct consensu receptas; Logicam 
 et Elhiram: nisi quod Doctrinam Civilem, quae vulgo ut pars ethical collocatur, 
 jam ante emancipaverimus," "Do Augmentis," liber V, cap. I; "Works," vol. 
 I, p. 614. 
 
 » Essay XIII; see also Essay XVI. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 445 
 
 we should have had any marked advance in a truly Christian 
 morality. 
 
 Another English thinker is dominated from the beginning of 
 his thought by the political situation and by the peculiar intel- 
 lectual position the transformation of English life created. 
 Thomas Hobbes ^ was, however, quite far removed from Bacon, 
 though influenced, of course, by him in a measure not now easy 
 to determine. 
 
 It is hard to read the brilliant and clever work of Hobbes with- 
 out a sense that cynicism and an overweening self-estimate to a 
 very great degree lowers all his work, and gives it, even though 
 the work of genius, a certain unreality and artificial character. 
 He was so sure of his ground that he was careless about making 
 sure of his facts; and his wonderful command of language made 
 him, at times, the victim of his own cleverness. His work is a 
 curious admixture of the old and the new in thought, and 
 represents a more or less serious attempt to retain the old under 
 new forms of expression. 
 
 For the actual ethics of the New Testament he had no com- 
 prehension, and the wonder is rather that he was listened to at 
 all than that he was violently attacked. 
 
 Yet Hobbes has had great influence both direct and indirect, 
 and there are so many points of contact between his thinking 
 and later types of English empiricism that even Christian 
 ethics must take account of him. 
 
 Like Bacon, Hobbes wished absolutely to separate religion 
 
 ' Hobbes, Thomas (April 5, 1588-December 4, 1679), student at Magdalen 
 Hall, Oxford, 1603, B.A. in 1608 (Feburary 5). His works are collected in 
 eleven volumes of English and five of Latin writings by Sir William Molesworth 
 (1839-1845). Those of special ethical interest are "Human Nature, or the 
 Fundamental Elements of Policy" (1650), and "De Corpore Politico, or the 
 Elements of Law, Moral and Politic " (1650, republished in 1889 by Dr. Ferdinand 
 Tonnies). Hisown translation of his "De Cive" (Paris, 1642; Amsterdam, 1647, 
 as "Elementa Philosophise de Cive"), under the title "Philosophical Rudiments 
 Concerning Government and Society" (165 1), and then especially his "Levia- 
 than, or the Matter, Form and Power of a Commonwealth, Ecclesiastical and 
 Civil" (1651, edited by A. R. Waller, Cambridge, 1904). An elaboration of his 
 doctrine of the will appears in his debate with Bramhall (vol. V of his "English 
 Works"). 
 
446 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 from philosophy. God was no object of speculative thought, 
 and religion as an outward exercise was a State matter. Any one 
 who was a loyal citizen accepted what the State established and 
 that became his (outward) religion; to attempt any additions 
 or alterations was superstition. Of course Hobbes thus really 
 sheltered all kinds of private scepticisms under the guise of 
 conformity. For Hobbes's own philosophy is quite destructive 
 of the forty-nine articles. 
 
 His metaphysics and epistemology are secondary to his ethics 
 and politics. His metaphysics is a mechanical realism, in the 
 sense that all real substance has body and all knowledge is of 
 effects produced by one body on another. Our knowledge is, 
 however, of the effect upon us, thus giving a subjective character 
 to all ultimate knowledge. Words are mere signs of arbitrary 
 character for holding together things with no necessary or inher- 
 ent common character (nominalist). 
 
 He came under the influence of Bacon, but his interest in 
 mathematics and his conception of the subjective reconstruction 
 of experience separates him from the stiff phenomenalism of 
 of the "Novum Organum." There is therefore an element 
 again of rationalism in Hobbes. 
 
 His ethics come together with his politics, and represent an 
 attempt to rationalize Byzantianism. Ethics and government 
 have grown out of the demand for the peace and safety of the 
 individual. Unlike bees and ants, the natural state of man, 
 who is selfish and pleasure-loving, is war. The only way, how- 
 ever, to escape the horrors of war is the voluntary subjection of all 
 to a chosen instrument of government (hint of social contract- 
 theory of Rousseau). There is no good or evil in itself, but 
 what now the central authority declares to be for the good of all 
 is good and what is bad is evil. The whole basis, therefore, of 
 good or evil is the determination of the central power. This 
 power may be an assembly, but is better a king. Once chosen, 
 this central power can only function if made absolute. If 
 not made absolute we will quarrel as we did as barbarians. 
 This doctrine falls in with the absolutism of the religious 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 447 
 
 party (Hooper, etc.). Men are absolutely determined by their 
 sense of pain and pleasure, and when these things are in the 
 future they represent desire and aversion. The State seeks by 
 playing on desire and aversion, by rewards and punishments, 
 to maintain the social bond, so that the higher values of life may 
 be conserved for the individual. 
 
 This determinism was attacked by the religious world, but is in 
 point of fact the kind of teaching made popular in the eighteenth 
 century. Religion serves the State's purpose by heightening 
 the sense of rewards and punishment, and so the State is really 
 put by Hobbes in the place of God. There is no good in itself, 
 but what maintains peace comes to be called good, and the 
 really good man is the good citizen (hint of Bentham). All 
 knowledge must have practical end, but especially ethics has as 
 its end simply the experience of how we may best live together. 
 The central State is therefore the necessary outcome of experi- 
 ence. And reason can show that it always must be the outcome. 
 
 Just as nominalism really was digging its own grave in the 
 Middle Ages, so Hobbes's "Leviathan" was actually the reduc- 
 tion of Toryism to an absurdity. Under the cloak of an intense 
 mediaeval Byzantianism the reader sees, however, a really 
 modern view of the world skilfully hiding itself. There is a 
 half-concealed empiricism and a private rationalism which 
 remind us of the political apologies of a Cicero. 
 
 More than to either Bacon or Hobbes, English ethics owes its 
 character to the work of John Locke,^ whose contributions to 
 the progress of human thought are hardly sufficiently recognized. 
 To him we owe the revolution in education commonly accredited 
 to Rousseau, and his defence of representative government has 
 cogency yet.^ 
 
 ' Locke, John, born in August, 1632, and died October, 1704. He studied 
 at Oxford, and afterward came deeply under the influence of Descartes. He 
 shared the fortunes of Lord Shaftesbury, and so lived with him for lengthened 
 periods on the Continent of Europe until the accession of William of Orange 
 (1688). He was the apostle of constitutional liberalism. In 1690 appeared his 
 great essay, "Concerning Human Understanding." 
 
 ^ Cf. Windelband, "Geschichte der Neueren Philosophic," vol. I, pp. 273-274, 
 4th ed., 1907. 
 
448 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 His ethics are not worked out in any systematic way, yet he 
 laid the foundation for modern ethical empiricism, although he 
 himself never developed his theory even as far as did Hume. 
 Yet his negative work is all important.^ He in these chapters 
 opened the way for the scepticism, so-called, of Hume. 
 
 Locke, in accordance with his fundamental postulate, denied 
 that there were any innate practical ideas. All our knowledge 
 comes from sensation and reflection. More particularly is this 
 true in morals. That there are no innate moral ideas is proved 
 by the actual practice of men and by the different courses of 
 conduct which they defend. "Virtue is generally approved, 
 not because innate, but because profitable." ^ 
 
 "The true ground of morality, which can only be in the will 
 and law of a God, who sees men in the dark, has in his hands 
 rewards and punishments, and power enough to call to account 
 the proudest offender. For God having, by an inseparable 
 connection, joined virtue and public happiness together, and 
 made the practice thereof necessary to the preservation of society, 
 and visibly beneficial to all with whom the virtuous man has to 
 do; it is no wonder that every one should not only allow, but 
 recommend and magnify, those rules to others, from whose 
 observance of them he is sure to reap advantage himself." ' 
 And the very fact that men cry up what they do not themselves 
 practice shows " that they very little consider the Law-giver that 
 prescribed these rules, nor the hell he has ordained for the 
 punishment of those that transgress them." * 
 
 " Conscience is nothing else but our own opinion or judgment 
 of the moral rectitude or pravity of our own actions,^ and so 
 some follow what others avoid. 
 
 Thus Locke regards a revealed law as a necessity, and thinks 
 that "Moral laws are sent as a curb and a restraint to these 
 exorbitant desires, which they cannot be but by rewards and 
 
 ' Book I, chaps. 3 and 4 of the "Essay." Sec vol. I of the edition of 181 2, pp. 
 
 ' Chap. 3, § vi. • Book I, chap. 3, § vi. 
 
 * Ibid. • Book I, chap. 3, § viii. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 449 
 
 punishments that will overbalance the satisfaction any one shall 
 propose to himself in the breach of the law," and "there is a 
 great difference between an innate law and a law of nature," 
 for "we may know the law of nature by the light of nature." * 
 
 In the fifteenth section he gives a most complete and damaging 
 criticism of Lord Herbert's doctrine of innate principles, as he 
 set them forth in his chapter on " De Veritate." ^ 
 
 Locke shows very easily that these things, however true, are 
 not innate, and that many things seem to us innate which exam- 
 ination proves to be only impressions produced in various ways. 
 " For such who are careful (as they call it) to principle children 
 well (and few there be who have not a set of those principles for 
 them which they believe in), instil into the unwary and as yet 
 unprejudiced, understanding (for white paper receives any 
 characters) these doctrines they would have them retain and 
 profess." ' 
 
 It was Locke also who set English ethics distinctly on the 
 ground of a common social advantage. Bacon had already 
 drawn the distinction between the good of the individual and the 
 good of the community, but Locke developed the conception 
 of an ethical political commonwealth, with the majority ruling. 
 In his treatise on "Toleration"* Locke defines a common- 
 wealth as " a society of men constituted only for the procuring, 
 the preserving, and the advancing their own civil interests," and 
 these civil interests are "Life, liberty, health, and indolency of 
 body," ^ which is the forerunner of the more modern "Life, 
 liberty, and the pursuit of happiness," as well as the caring for 
 
 ' Book I, chap. 3, § xiii. 
 
 ^ These "notes" of Lord Herbert's have played quite a part in English and 
 Scotch thinking. He defines them as "Prioritas, Independentia, Universalitas 
 Certitudo, Necessitas, i. e., faciunt ad hominis conservationem," and then gives 
 the five points of Deism, i. e., " (i) Esse aliquod supremum numen; (2) Numen 
 illud coli debere; (3) Virtutem cum pietate conjunctam optimam esse rationem 
 cultusdivini; (4) Resipiscendum esse b. peccatis; (5) Dari praemium vel poenam 
 post hanc vitam transactam." Cf. "De Veritate," 3d ed., 1656, p. 79. 
 
 * "Essay," book I, chap. 3, § xxii. 
 
 * The letters on "Toleration" are in vol. VI, of the edition of 1812. 
 
 * "A Letter Concerning Toleration," vol. VI, p. 10, of edition of 1812. 
 
4SO HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 those property interests which commercial and feudal England 
 has always valued so highly. 
 
 The ethics of Locke reflect also the extreme individualism that 
 has always marked English thought. Beyond the protecting 
 life and property the State has but little function, and the 
 church should be a voluntary society within the State, for "the 
 care of a man's soul belongs unto himself and is to be left unto 
 himself." ' 
 
 Like Hobbes, he thought " the pravity of mankind being such 
 that they had rather injuriously prey upon the fruits of other 
 men's labors than take pains to provide for themselves," govern- 
 ment becomes a necessity. Locke, however, has limits for his 
 toleration. Men are not to be tolerated " who deny the being of 
 God," but it is because such an one cannot be "bound by oath," 
 and thus the foundation of society is shaken.^ 
 
 The thorough-going empiricism of Locke leads him to turn 
 to historical experience for the data of ethical postulates, and 
 so he rendered an untold service in making ethics an historical 
 as well as a systematic study. On this account he regarded 
 ethics as a science in which demonstration was as possible as in 
 mathematics.^ 
 
 Thus Locke furnished the basis for a thorough-going rational- 
 ism in ethics, and more than any one else did he prepare the way 
 for the inevitable separation in Protestant thought between 
 authoritative theology and empiric ethics. And even while 
 proclaiming the traditional basis in a "revealed religion" he was 
 actually on the side of a pronounced historic empiricism. Thus 
 he differed distinctly from the men whom he greatly influenced, 
 and who are generally but somewhat loosely called the English 
 deists. 
 
 It is hard to find more than a general agreement amidst men as 
 different as Clarke is from Lord Shaftesbury or Wollaston from 
 Collins. But for all that there is a spirit that unites the English 
 
 ' "Letter on Toleration," vol. VI, of edition of 1812. 
 - " Letter on Toleration," vol. VI, edition of 18 12. 
 " "Essay," book I, chap. 3, § xiii. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 451 
 
 deists.^ They all reacted in various ways against the interpre- 
 tation of Bacon's empiricism, made fashionable by Hobbes. 
 Already the Cambridge Platonists sought an "immutable 
 morality," and in his preface to Ralph Cudworth's posthumous 
 work on ethics the Bishop of Durham singles out Hobbes as the 
 one against whom this whole reaction was aimed.^ It was 
 clearly recognized that with the breaking up of a central eccle- 
 siastical authority upon which to build a religious and moral 
 structure another basis had to be found for these values. 
 
 The so-called Cambridge Platonists, among whom Cudworth 
 and More ^ stand out as representatives, seek in the permanent 
 objective reality of ideas given in "reason" a basis for an im- 
 mutable morality. In them, as in the whole deist movement 
 of a later day, a source of endless confusion is the failure to ask 
 themselves what was meant by "reason" or to hold fast to any 
 clear theory of knowledge. With the Cambridge Platonists, as 
 with Lord Herbert of Cherbury* there was a natural religion 
 
 * Besides the works of the men themselves, see: Leland, John: "A View of the 
 Principal Deistical Writers," 2 vols, 4th ed., 1764; also Longmans, 1807; 
 Lechler, Gotthard Victor: "Geschichte des englischen Deismus," Stuttgart and 
 Tubingen, 1841; Stephen, Leslie: " History of English Thought in the Eighteenth 
 Century," 2 vols., London, 1876; TuUoch, John: "Rational Theology and 
 Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth Century," 2 vols., Edin- 
 burgh, London, and New York, 1872. 
 
 2 Cudworth, Ralph, 1617-1688. This treatise is published in the third volume 
 of the edition of 1845 of Cudworth's "True Intellectual System of the Universe," 
 and the preface by the Bishop of Durham is on p. 519. 
 
 ^ More, Henry (1614-1687). A profuse writer whose work, "Enchiridion 
 Ethicum praecipua Moralis Philosophic Rudimenta complectens ..." (Lon- 
 don, 1667, 1668, 1669, 1679, 1695, nova editio, Amsterdam, 171 1, 4th London 
 edition), is the one of interest to the student of ethics. Cf. Tulloch's (John) 
 "Rational Theology and Christian Philosophy in England in the Seventeenth 
 Century," 2 vols., Edinburgh, London, and New York, 1872, vol. II, chap. 5, 
 pp. 303-409. The second volume is given up to the so-called Cambridge 
 Platonists, of whom More was a leader. 
 
 * Edward, Lord Herbert of Cherbury, born March 3, 1583 (1582-3), died 
 August 20, 1648, his autobiography edited and completed by Solomon Lazarus 
 Lee, London, 1886. He was a statesman and courtier. His main work for the 
 student of ethics is "De Veritate prout distinguitur h. Revelatione, a Verisimili, h. 
 Possibili et a Falso," Paris, 1624, 1633, 1639, London (ist London edition), 1645, 
 1656, 1659. A French translation, Paris, 1636. See also the tract, " De Religione 
 
452 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 and a moral content which was really "given" in human life. 
 The main question was how was it given? 
 
 To this question the general answer was based upon the as- 
 sumption that there was a content of morals accepted as true, 
 and as all of them were steeped in pagan culture this content is 
 largely the later Roman Stoicism with Platonic elements. 
 
 Lord Herbert of Cherbury was not a man of very high moral 
 attainments in some ways. He was vain and pushing, with an 
 overweening love for playing the part of court gallant. But 
 he clearly saw that amidst the confusions of the Reformation 
 some other basis for morals and religion must be found than the 
 divided authorities of organized ecclesiasticisms. 
 
 The subsequent deist movement accepted almost as their 
 platform Lord Herbert's definition of religion,* and sought to 
 build up a universal religion which should contain the essentials 
 of all. In this universal religion morals and conduct were to be 
 the best service rendered to God.^ We therefore should natu- 
 rally expect a distinct contribution in ethics from the deist move- 
 ment. But though they do devote a great deal of time to ethical 
 discussion, two circumstances render their work on this field 
 relatively unfruitful. First, they failed to properly examine the 
 epistemological and psychological postulates with which all 
 ethics must begin. Secondly, they failed to really appreciate 
 the positive contribution the empiricism of Bacon and Hobbes 
 was capable of making. They, in fact, only recognized the 
 negative side of this movement in English thought. 
 
 Laici," in "De causis errorum: una cum tractatu De religione laici, et appendice 
 ad sacerdotes," 3 parts, London, 1645, and "De Religione Gentilium, errorum- 
 que apud eos causis," Amsterdam, 1663, 2d ed., Amsterdam, 1700; English 
 translation, "The antient religion of the gentiles and causes of their errors con- 
 sidered . . . ," translated by W. Lewis, London, 1705. An exceedingly appre- 
 ciative monograph is by Rdmusat (Charles Francois Marie de), "Lord Herbert 
 de Cherbury sa Vie et ses Qiluvres, ou les Origines de la Philosophie du sens 
 commun et de Theologie naturelle en Anglcterre," Paris, 1874. 
 
 'See p. 449 for Locke's critique of it. Cf., also, "Autobiography," Lee's 
 edition, pp. 60-62. 
 
 'So Shaftesbury, "Characteristicks," vol. II, book I, i : i; WoUaston, "The 
 Religion of Nature," sec. I, p. 8, 7th ed. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 453 
 
 Shujtesbury * has an interesting attempt to find in harmony 
 and adjustment a rational basis for ethics. He sees that " Man- 
 kind (is) alarmed by the freedom of some late pens,"^ and attrib- 
 butes it to the general collapse of authority. He then seeks the 
 nature of virtue as consisting "in a certain just disposition, or 
 proportionate affection of a rational creature toward the moral 
 objects of right and wrong." ' But important as was his 
 theistic argument, the ethics seems to have had no such influence 
 as was exercised by Wollaslon,* He has an interesting discus- 
 sion of moral good as essentially a correspondence with the facts 
 of the universe.^ Truth is the good because it corresponds to 
 God's nature,® and all human acts are statements affirming or 
 denying in various degrees God's eternal truth.' " Every intelli- 
 gent, active, and free being should so behave himself as by no 
 act to contradict truth, or that he should so treat everything as 
 being what it is." * But Wollaston leaves an unresolved anti- 
 nomy between the "ought" and happiness. He says plainly 
 that " to make itself happy is a duty which every being, in pro- 
 portion to its capacity, owes to itself, and which every intelligent 
 being may be supposed to aim at in general," ° but as to a 
 correspondence between duty (truth) and happiness he can only 
 say: "Now present pleasure is for the present indeed agreeable, 
 but if it be not true and he who enjoys it must pay more for it 
 than it is worth, it cannot be for his good or good for him. This, 
 therefore, cannot be happiness." ^° And he has a robust faith 
 that the practice of truth cannot make any being ultimately 
 
 ' Anthony Ashley Cooper, third Earl of Shaftesbury (1671-1713). "Character- 
 isticks of Men, Manners, Opinions, Times," 3 vols., 171 1, 1714, 1723, 1732; 
 6th ed., 1 737-1 738 (of edition 1870, edited by Rev. W. M. Hatch, only one 
 volume appeared). The student of ethics should turn to vol. II, treatise IV, 
 "An Inquiry Concerning Virtue or Merit." 
 
 * " Characteristicks," vol. II, book I, i : i. 
 ' "Characteristicks," vol. II, book I, 3 : i. 
 
 * Wollaston, William, born March 26, 1660 (1659-60), died October 20, 1724. 
 "The Religion of Nature Delineated," privately printed in 1722; 7th ed., 1746. 
 
 ' Sec. I, 4 : I (p. 19 of 7th ed.). 
 
 ' Sec. I, 4 : 3. ' Sec. I, 2 : 5. * Sec. I, 11. 
 
 * Sec. II, 9. '" Sec. II, 7, and sec. II, 11. 
 
454 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 unhappy, but his own doctrine of probabilism, " where certainty 
 is not to be had," ' reveals the fact that the correspondence 
 between truth and happiness is not so easy to prove as his 
 theory demands. 
 
 The deists were active-minded men, and faced real questions, 
 but in the advancement of ethics their work was often more 
 fruitful of doubt than productive of certainty. 
 
 Some did good critical work in showing as did Blount - the 
 untenable character of much prevalent scholastic apologetic, but 
 Blount had nothing to put in its place, and he did his work 
 lightly and offensively. And so far as this work was positive it 
 did little more than reinstate an eclectic pagan morality as the 
 substance of both religion and ethics. Thus, for instance, in the 
 ethics of Tindal ^ the primary postulate is that "natural religion" 
 is perfect, and that in point of fact as "the ])crfection of any 
 nature, whether human, angelical, or divine, consists in being 
 governed by the law of its nature," ^ it was open to the pagan 
 world to live on the highest plane of morality. There is no 
 room for historical development in Tindal's scheme, and the 
 scheme itself is Stoic intellectualism in search of personal hap- 
 piness. The way he uses history is to try to strip off from it the 
 mistakes and errors of the past, in perfect confidence that the 
 whole truth has always been present. God is unchangeable, 
 man's nature remains the same, hence religion and morals must 
 always have the same character and content. Christianity 
 brought, according to Tindal, and with him the deists generally, 
 no new morality, but a message of repentance from sin and 
 of freedom from superstition. Christianity is thus a higher 
 phase of natural religion. It is this negative work alone that 
 has had such great and sweeping influence. Deism began the 
 
 • Sec. Ill, 16. 
 
 ' Blount, Charles, 1654-1693. Collected works in 1695. 
 
 ' Tindal, Matthew, born 1653, died August 16, 1733. Fellow of Oxford. He 
 went from the Anglican church over to Romanism and then back again. His 
 last and best-known work is "Christianity as Old as Creation, or the Gospel; a 
 Republication of the Religion of Nature." London, 1730, 1731; 4th ed. in 1733. 
 
 * "Christianity as Old as Creation," p. 14, 2d ed. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 455 
 
 critical examination of the accepted content of Christianity and 
 its morahty, but it can hardly be said to have pushed its exam- 
 ination into the fundamental postulates with the thoroughness 
 of Locke or Hume, nor yet to have really given any valuable 
 reconstruction of ethics as a system of conduct. And in all of 
 them there is a curious mingling of formalism and freedom, of 
 dogmatism and rationalism. Herbert of Cherbury prayed for 
 a sign from heaven as to whether he should publish his book 
 "De Veritate," and a voice or sound answered him out of a 
 clear sky.* And Tindal is very insistent upon retaining the 
 word Christian for a system which he shows long preceded 
 Christ. 
 
 Such an examination as Toland gave to the canon, to show 
 that it could not be made the sole foundation for morals, was 
 too superficial to do more than raise serious questions, and 
 Samuel Clarke and afterward Dr. Lardner, had the best of the 
 argument even where, as critical opinion now knows, they were 
 wrong. 
 
 The extremely modern note that rings throughout the Eng- 
 lish deists is rather suggestive of the coming freedom than an 
 actual herald of it. And although it is not fair to undervalue 
 many of their most useful protests, as that of Shaftesbury 
 against what we would now call, with George Eliot, "other- 
 worldliness," ^ yet even these protests were mingled with the 
 acceptance of so much inconsistent matter that they gave undue 
 advantage to their critics. Shaftesbury, for instance, bases the 
 acceptance of the Christian religion upon the enactment of the 
 State exactly in the spirit of Hobbes, and while he himself 
 professes his acceptance of the "holy mysteries of our religion 
 even in the minutest particulars, notwithstanding their amazing 
 
 * "Autobiography," Lee's edition, p. 249. 
 
 = "Where infinite rewards are thus enforced {i. e., by fear of hell and hope of 
 heaven) and the imagination strongly turned toward them, the other common 
 and natural motives to goodness are apt to be neglected and lose much by dis- 
 use. ... On this account all other affections to our friends, relations, or man- 
 kind are often lightly regarded, as being worldly, and of little moment in respect 
 of the interests of our souls." " Characteristicks," vol. II, p. 68 of the 5th ed. 
 
4S6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 depth," ' the modern student cannot but feel that ecclesiastical 
 intolerance was reaping its just reward of contemptuous out- 
 ward conformity as the demoralizing price paid for an inner 
 freedom of spirit.^ 
 
 At the same time there was a churchly reaction on the basis 
 of the practical acceptance, however, of rationalism against the 
 empiricism of Bacon and Hobbes. Cumberland,^ the Bishop of 
 Peterborough, boldly challenged Hobbes's theory of universal 
 war as the natural state of mankind, and self-interest as the law 
 of human nature.* Rejecting the easy-going intuitional method 
 of the Platonists, who solve the whole difficulty at once by sup- 
 posing that there are innate ideas,' Cumberland prefers the 
 rationalism of Descartes, by whom he is deeply influenced/ 
 He seeks universal propositions from which all else can be 
 deduced. This universal principle is benevolence, and in 
 seeking the welfare of the greater whole the individual finds, 
 or may find, his own individual happiness.' Amidst much loose 
 and pedantic reasoning Cumberland searches out some of the 
 
 ' " Characteristicks," vol. Ill, pp. 315-316. 
 
 ^ No history of English thought would be complete without a review of such 
 men as Chillingworth, Jeremy Taylor, and Bishop Tillotson, with an estimate 
 of their relationship to the rationalistic movement. But their contribution to 
 ethics within Christianity as an organized system of thought is simply nothing. 
 So completely had doctrinal and metaphysical questions overshadowed thought 
 that even the sermons of the period neglect ethics in exact proportion as they are 
 "orthodox." 
 
 ^ Cumberland, Richard, Lord Bishop of Peterborough, born July 15, 1631 (or 
 1632, according to Willis), died October 9, 17 18. "De legibus naturae dis- 
 quisitio philosophica in qua earum forma, summa capita, ordo, promulgatio et 
 obligatio h rerum natura investigantur; quinetiam elementa philosophia: 
 Hobbianae, cum moralis tum civilis, considerantur et refutantur." London, 1672: 
 Dublin reprint, 1720. Two English translations: "A treatise of the Laws of 
 Nature. Made English from the Latin by John Maxwell . . . ," London, 1727; 
 "A philosophical Enquiry into the laws of Nature . . . translated into English 
 . . . with notes and an appendix by . . . John Towers," Dublin, 1750. 
 
 * "The moral writer may very justly say that he has faithfully discharged the 
 oflTice of moralist if in the beginning of his book, if in settling his principles, he 
 briefly tells you that all possible cases which can happen are comprehended under 
 the most general, the most diffusive benevolence." Part I, i : 9, English trans- 
 lation of Towers, p. 26. ' "Prolegomena," sec. V. 
 
 • Part I, I : 9. '' Part I, i : 14, and I, i : 16. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 457 
 
 weakest points in Hobbes's ethics/ and he anticipates the later 
 utilitarians in their analysis of the character and origin of 
 moral good. This moral good may be discerned by right 
 reason,^ and happiness is the reward attached by the will of 
 God to the conduct of the individual in seeking the general 
 good.' The work of Cumberland has been somewhat neglected 
 and the confusions of his style do not make him easy reading.* 
 
 Substantially upon the same ground, and also influenced 
 by Descartes is Samuel Clarke/ who bases morality upon the 
 general fitness of things, and like Cumberland and Descartes, 
 he confuses himself with false analogies between the moral 
 sphere and conceptual mathematics.* His interests were meta- 
 physical rather than ethical, and nowhere does he really system- 
 atize his ethics. 
 
 In fact the ecclesiastical reaction against the philosophic 
 currents spent itself rather in dogmatic and apologetic work 
 than in ethical defence. At the same time the issue was not 
 wholly neglected. One of the acutest minds in English history, 
 the famous author of the "Analogy," Bishop Butler,'' began a 
 correspondence while he was yet a quite unknown young man 
 with Clarke, in which, though he professed himself convinced, 
 he raised the objections which seem now to the general mod- 
 ern mind overwhelming against Clarke's general ontology. He 
 makes the remarkable criticism that "space and duration are 
 
 » As in I, I : 28; III, 6:2. 
 
 =» I, 2, §§ I to XXX (whole chapter). 
 
 ' II, 5 : 1-58 (whole chapter). 
 
 * The author depended on Tower's translation, but since then has found the 
 Dublin reprint of the Latin version much clearer, and the student is recom- 
 mended especially to caput IX of the original Latin for the best summary of his 
 teaching. 
 
 ^Clarke, Dr. Samuel, 1675-1729. Into the metaphysics we cannot go. In 
 spite of his denial his whole reasoning is the most dogmatic a prioriism. 
 
 * Cf., for instance, preface to his "Discourse Concerning the Unchangeable 
 Obligations of Natural Religion," 8th ed., 1732, pp. 133-146. 
 
 ^ Butler, Joseph, Bishop of Durham, 1692-175 2. His ethics are contained 
 in his famous sermons, often reprinted, and in an "Ethical Dissertation." The 
 latest edition of his works is by Bernard, in two volumes, 1900. There are many 
 editions. 
 
4S8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 very abstruse in their natures, and, I think, cannot properly 
 be called things, but are considered rather as affections which 
 belong, and in the order of our thoughts are antecedently neces- 
 sary to the existence of all things." ^ This re-examination of the 
 psychological basis of knowledge was the crying need of ethical 
 reflection, and Butler's whole attitude was deeply psychological. 
 
 He himself entered, unfortunately, upon no re-examination of 
 Locke, or we might have had an English Kant, but he contented 
 himself with seeking in the facts of life such analogies as would 
 justify the reasonable man in holding on to the Christian faith. 
 
 So also in his ethics he substantially accepts the premises of 
 Locke, and anticipates Hume in his doctrine of good and evil 
 rising out of pain-pleasure sensations, and so resolving morality 
 ultimately into utility along the lines of Cumberland. 
 
 Man, Butler shows, is to be thought of as in a system "the 
 whole nature of man, and all the variety of internal principles 
 which belong to it." ^ And man is found in two relations— to 
 himself; "the nature of man as respecting self, and tending to 
 private good, his own preservation and happiness; and the 
 nature of man as having respect to society, and tending to pro- 
 mote public good, the happiness of that society." ^ These ends 
 coincide and mutually promote each other. There is a natural 
 principle of benevolence in man which is in some degree to 
 society what self-love is to the individual. Butler takes direct 
 issue with Hobbes and denies that this can be resolved into love 
 of power, etc. 
 
 These appetites and affections make for public good and are 
 a mark of our Maker's care for the species. 
 
 There is also a principle in men which leads them to reflect 
 on themselves. "This principle in man, by which he approves 
 or disapproves his heart, temper, and actions, is conscience." 
 This is the strict sense of the word. Conscience approves of 
 our good conduct toward society, and thus shows " that wc were 
 made for society, and to promote the happiness of it, as that 
 
 ' Second letter to Dr. Clarke. 
 
 * Sermon I. » Sermon I. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 459 
 
 we were intended to take care of our own life and health for 
 private good." ' 
 
 Butler takes a more hopeful view of human nature than the 
 traditional theology of post- Reformation times. Man has no 
 inherent "love of injustice, oppression, treachery, ingratitude; 
 but only eager desires after such and such external goods." 
 True, man may be without such natural affection for the social 
 good, but he is also -found without natural affection for himself. 
 " But the nature of man is not to be judged of either of these, but 
 what appears in the common world, in the bulk of mankind."^ 
 
 The real difficulty is that men lack "cool and reasonable 
 concern enough for themselves to consider wherein their chief 
 happiness in the present life consists; or else, if they do consider 
 it . . . reasonable concern for themselves or cool self-love is 
 prevailed over by passion and appetite." This conscience is a 
 "natural faculty" and "bears its own authority of being so." ^ 
 " Self-love is in human nature a superior principle to passion," 
 to act conformably to the economy of man's nature, "reasonable 
 self-love must govern." "The natural supremacy of reflection 
 or conscience being thus established," * we get some idea of 
 human nature as a system. Buder assumes that the plain man 
 knows his duty, his obligation to do it springs from the internal 
 obligation. "Your obligation to obey this law is its being the 
 law of your nature." ^ Yet "self-love then, though confined to 
 the interests of the present world, does in general perfectly 
 coincide with virtue, and leads us to one and the same course 
 of life." « 
 
 So that at last Butler traces ethics to the public and private 
 functions of the individual and to his self-love and desire for 
 social peace. There is also an intellectual reflective element 
 brought in. Conscience is really moral intelligence. It declares 
 what is good and what is evil as well as lends sanctions to con- 
 duct. In the sermons on compassion, Buder teaches that it 
 belongs to man's nature to rejoice with them that do rejoice, etc., 
 
 » Sermon I. = Sermon I. ^ Sermon II. 
 
 * Sermon III. * Sermon III. ® Sermon III. 
 
46o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 and that a man must act up to his "nature," by which Butler 
 means the ideal system from which alone we can judge of human 
 conduct. 
 
 In all the men from Cumberland to Butler it is assumed that 
 not only are there postulates of right moral reason common to 
 all men in all ages, but also an ethical content that can easily 
 be examined. They loosely identify this with the "ethics of 
 revealed religion," as if there were not many " ethics" in revealed 
 religion. Not even the work of one like Collins * could call men 
 back to real study of the actual Scriptures. All was still seen 
 through the mists of a priori dogmatism or equally dogmatic 
 indifference. 
 
 The movement of thought had seemingly been caught in a 
 whirlpool without escape. The work of John Locke fell really 
 upon barren ground among the deists. Only his negations and 
 critical work had caught their attention and they vainly attempted 
 to substitute an unexamined tradition half pagan and half 
 scholastic for the faith in Christian morals that had once rested 
 upon the church. 
 
 It remained for one to awake men both on the Continent and 
 in England from their dogmatic slumbers, and by scepticism 
 with regard to the whole accepted psychology of knowledge to 
 call men to a larger basis for the ethical life. 
 
 This voice was that of David Hume,- whose epistemology is 
 substantially based upon that of Locke. The mind is thought 
 of primarily as passive and receptive. Impressions give rise to 
 
 ' Collins, Anthony, born June 21, 1676, died December 13, 1729. See particu- 
 larly his " Scheme of Literal Prophecy Considered . . . ," printed anonymously, 
 London, 1727. 
 
 * Hume, David, born Edinburgh, April 26 (O. S.), 171 1, died August 25, 1776. 
 He wrote a short sketch of his own life and Adam Smith completed it by an 
 account of his death. Both arc published in Green (T. H.) & Grose's (T. H.) 
 edition of his philosophical works, Edinburgh, 4 vols., 1875-1878, in vol. HI 
 (1875) or vol. I of the "Essays." A complete edition of his philosophical works 
 first appeared in 4 vols., Edinburgh, 1826. His life and correspondence are 
 edited by John Hill Burton in 2 vols., Edinburgh, 1846, reprinted 1854. Fried- 
 rich Jodl has described his philosophy in" Lebcnund Philosophic David Hume's" 
 Halle, 1872. George von Gizycki has elaborated his ethics, "Die Ethik David 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 461 
 
 "simple ideas," and complex ideas are worked up by reflection. 
 The more or less " lively" character of these ideas determine their 
 reality for us. 
 
 On this basis Hume begins his study of "man." All science 
 will depend primarily on its correct estimate of man and human 
 nature. We must examine the extent and force of the under- 
 standing, the nature of ideas, and the operations in reasoning. 
 Knowledge can only rest upon the solid foundation of experience 
 and observation. The ultimate essence of the mind is, like 
 the ultimate essence of the external bodies which constitute the 
 world, utterly unknown. It must therefore' be equally im- 
 possible to form any notion of its powers and qualities otherwise 
 than from careful and exact experiments.^ It is at this point 
 that the fruitful scepticism of Hume made way for a more 
 modern positivism. 
 
 Hume then discusses how the raw material given in sensation 
 is worked up by the mind under the head of the relation of ideas, 
 and thus formulates his famous contribution on the connection 
 or association of ideas.^ The law of this association he formu- 
 lated under resemblance, contiguity, and cause and effect. 
 "These qualities," he says, "produce an association among 
 ideas" and "upon the appearance of one idea naturally intro- 
 duce another." All philosophical relations he thus groups under 
 seven heads: Resemblance, Identity, Space and Time, Quan- 
 tity or Number, Degree, Contrariety, Cause and Effect.' Into 
 his discussion of these principles we must not go, although they 
 have important bearing upon his ethics. All our knowledge, 
 including of course moral knowledge, springs from habit or 
 custom founded upon observation and experience, and "all 
 
 Hume's in ihrer geschichtlichen Stellung," Breslau, 1878. Clear but somewhat 
 shallow is Leslie Stephen's account in his " English Thought in the Eighteenth 
 Century," vol. I (1876). The essay by Thomas H. Green that precedes his 
 edition of the philosophical works is of great interest, but calls for critical exam- 
 ination at almost every page. 
 
 * Introduction to "Treatise on Human Nature," p. 308, vol. I, Green's edition. 
 
 * "Treatise on Human Nature," book I, p. i, § IV. 
 
 ' "Treatise on Human Nature," book I, § V, and book III, § I. 
 
462 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 knowledge resolves itself into probability." ^ But we must 
 think and know; hence by a "law of nature" we are saved from 
 any undue scepticism.^ Hume was assured that "all probable 
 reasoning is nothing but a species of sensation. 'Tis not solely 
 in poetry and music we must follow our taste and sentiment, but 
 likewise in philosophy. When I am convinced of any principle 
 'tis only an idea which strikes more strongly upon me. When 
 I give the preference to one set of arguments above another, I do 
 nothing but decide from my feeling concerning the superiority of 
 their influence." ' 
 
 Hume begins his moral treatise by a discourse on the passions, 
 which are impressions arising within the body, and are secondary 
 or reflective impressions, "such as proceed from some of these 
 original ones, either immediately or by the interposition of its 
 idea." These passions he rather apologetically divides into 
 "calm" and "violent," "direct" and "indirect." The whole 
 book (II) is full of keen and shrewd psychology. But it is in 
 the third book that morals are more especially dealt with. 
 Morals are based upon perceptions, " to approve of one character, 
 to condemn another, are only so many different perceptions." * 
 But as perceptions may be ideas or impressions, we ask in which 
 class do morals come? And Hume answers that reason is 
 inert, and that therefore it is not in the region of ideas that 
 morals must be sought, and they are not derived from reason, 
 but our "passions, volitions, and actions are not susceptible of 
 any such agreement or disagreement; being original facts and 
 realities complete in themselves." ^ Thus "vice and virtue may 
 be compared to sounds, colors, heat, and cold, which according 
 to modern philosophy are not qualities in objects, but percep- 
 tions of the mind." ' What we now know as a "judgment of 
 value" thus goes back under a rather complicated terminology 
 
 ' "Treatise on Human Nature," book IV, § I. 
 ^ "Treatise on Human Nature," book IV^, § I. 
 
 ' "Treatise on Human Nature," book I, part 2, § VII. The whole section is 
 very instructive — and modern! 
 
 * "Treatise on Human Nature," book III, i : I. 
 
 ' B.K.k III, part I, § I. 8 Book III, jnirt i, §1- 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 463 
 
 to Hume. These sentiments produced by impressions are 
 either agreeable or disagreeable. "That arising from virtue is 
 agreeable, that from vice is disagreeable." * Thus this pleasure 
 is of a peculiar kind, each pleasure has its own character, and 
 so the pleasure of virtue has its own character. Wine is not 
 harmonious nor is music of a good flavor, though both give 
 pleasure after their kind.^ This peculiar form of pleasure-pain 
 sensation has its roots, not in an original quality nor primary con- 
 stitution, nor yet in that ambiguous thing "Nature"; nor yet 
 in self-love, which rather produces evil, nor in any "love of 
 mankind," as that is not really existent as such, nor even directly 
 in sympathy, but its origin is social, "in that justice creates 
 force, ability, and security. And it arises primarily from prop- 
 erty considerations, so that justice is a convention founded upon 
 "a general sense of common interest." ^ Thus "'tis only from 
 the selfishness and confined generosity of men, along with the 
 scanty provision nature has made for his wants that justice 
 derives its origin." * So justice is not founded on our ideas, but 
 on our impressions, and these are not natural (/. e., innate), but 
 arise from artifice and human conventions. 
 
 " Thus self-interest is the original motive to the establishment 
 of justice; but a sympathy with public interest is the source of 
 the moral approbation which attends that virtue." ^ 
 
 Hume thinks that although politicians in order to govern men 
 more easily " have endeavored to produce an esteem for justice and 
 an abhorrence for injustice," but that at the same time certain 
 writers on morals have gone too far in "efforts to extirpate all 
 sense of virtue from among mankind." These discriminations 
 rise "naturally" out of the situation. Property and justice 
 rise together. Before property there was "no such thing as 
 justice or injustice." " Hence Hume enters upon questions of 
 legal casuistry in connection with property rights in attempting 
 to define the ethics of property. 
 
 ' Book III, I, § II. ^ Book I, part i, § III. ' Book III, part 2, § II. 
 
 * Book III, part 2, § II. ' Book III, 2 : II. 
 
 • Book III, 2 : II. 
 
464 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 So keeping of promises is not a "natural" but a conventional 
 virtue, it is an invention "founded on the necessities and inter- 
 ests of society." * Men being naturally selfish and very limited 
 in our kindness and affection, the keeping of promises is not 
 based on this, but on the necessity for insuring a return for any 
 favor I do. "Hence I learn to do a service to another without 
 bearing him any real kindness." ^ Here, as elsewhere, " public 
 interest, education, and the artifices of politicians" effect the 
 same in all cases. 
 
 So the peace and security of society depend on keeping three 
 laws, "that of stability of possession, of its transference by 
 consent, and of the performance of promises." And "society is 
 absolutely necessary for the well-being of men; and these are 
 necessary to the support of society." ' 
 
 So this legal-ethical system is built up on public utility and 
 "the propensities of the imagination." * 
 
 In Hume's discussion of the rise of government we have sub- 
 stantially Hobbes's theory that it arises out of the necessity on 
 the part of all to maintain peace for the good of all. 
 
 In tracing the history of the other virtues and vices that do 
 not depend upon the "artifice and contrivance" of men, the 
 principle of sympathy is brought in.^ All virtue and vice depend 
 upon our pleasure-pain sensations. Utility gives pleasure and 
 the associations with utility tend to suggest pleasure (assthetics). 
 There are four sources of moral distinctions, "for we reap a 
 pleasure from the view of a character which is naturally fitted 
 to be useful to others or to the person himself, or which is 
 agreeable to others or to the person himself." 
 
 There are, as any one may see, confusions in Hume's most 
 acute discussion, nor are these cleared up in his later thinking. 
 But Hume rendered immortal service in once and for all com- 
 pelling ethics to leave its old scholastic authoritative basis and 
 seek its basis in faith's view of the world as rational and good, 
 while it confesses that this cannot be demonstrated; and to 
 
 • Book III, part 2, § V. » Book III, part 2, § V. 
 
 » Book III, 2 : VI. * Book III, 2 : VI. » Book III, 3 : I. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 465 
 
 seek its content in an examination of the actual experiences of 
 men with social utility as the measure at hand for the empiric 
 testing of special lines of conduct. 
 
 In all its strength and weakness the ethical system of Hume 
 was most elaborately and clearly formulated by his great friend 
 and fellow-student Adam Smith,^ who thereby laid the founda- 
 tion for all empiric utilitarianism in its various shapes. It is 
 a wonderfully shrewd analysis of the moral psychology of the 
 existent humanity. Like Hume, Adam Smith does not dog- 
 matize upon the metaphysics of the moral nature, but simply 
 analyzes it. "Upon whatever," he says, "we suppose that our 
 moral faculties are founded, whether upon a certain modifica- 
 tion of reason, upon an original instinct called moral sense, or 
 upon some other principle of our nature, it cannot be doubted 
 that they were given us for the direction of our conduct in this 
 life." =* 
 
 He comes to the conclusion that the basis of the moral life 
 is sympathy, or fellow-feeling with the natures akin to ours. 
 This is, however, not a resolution of morality into selfish feeling, 
 for what we do is not to transfer his feeling to us, but our feeling 
 to him. We feel his resentment against oppression or his joy 
 at the success of an enterprise. When we see our fellow-man 
 exult or resent, we put ourselves in his place (as far as we can 
 do so), and now we approve or disapprove of his exultation or 
 
 * Smith, Adam, born June 5, 1723, died July 17, 1790. Famous for his 
 creation of modern English political economy by his book, "An Inquiry Into 
 the Nature and Causes of the Wealth of Nations," published March 9, 1776, 
 after a delay of nine years; with a life of the author by J. R. McCulloch, 1828; 
 edited by E. G. Wakefield, 4 vols., 1835-1839; Edinburgh, 1846; reprinted 
 (Sth edition) 1863. Recent editions are those edited by James Edwin Thorold 
 Rogers, Oxford, 1869, 2 vols., 2d edition, 1880, by J. T. Nicholson, 1884; and 
 by E. Cannan, New York, Putnam, 1904, in 2 vols. Previously he had published 
 his "Theory of the Moral Sentiments" in 1759; 2d edition, 1759; 3d edition, 1767; 
 6th revised edition, 1790; a 12th edition in 1809. The best life is by John Rae, 
 London, Macmillan, 1895, which is founded upon the sketch by Dugald Stewart, 
 "Account of the Life and Writings of Adam Smith, LL.D., F.R.S." in Smith, 
 Adam, "Essays on Philosophical Subjects," London, 1795; also in Smith's 
 "Works," 5 vols., London, 1811-1812. 
 
 * "The Theory of the Moral Sentiments," III, 3 : 3. 
 
466 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 his resentment, according as the situation as we conceive it 
 seems to us to demand exultation or resentment. Then by a 
 third step we know our own conduct in the mirror of other 
 people's conduct, and we judge ourselves as an "impartial 
 spectator" might be supposed to judge us; thus we construct 
 moral maxims by which we rule our life. These maxims are 
 thus rational. "The general maxims of morality are formed 
 like all other general maxims from experience and induction." * 
 At the same time the first moral perceptions are not based upon 
 reason but upon "sense and feeling." Nor is utility primary. 
 "Originally, however, we approve of another man's judgment 
 not as something useful, but as right." ^ In what is undoubtedly 
 a critique of his friend Hume,^ he draws a clear and in the main 
 correct line between utility as a test of moral conduct and as 
 a source for moral feeling. The moral faculties "carry along 
 with them the most evident badges of this (moral) authority" 
 and "were set up within us to be the supreme arbiters of all our 
 actions." * Man is social in his nature. He gets his standards 
 of taste from seeing and judging other men, then judging him- 
 self as he thinks others see him and judge him. We look at 
 ourselves in the mirror of public opinion. Thus we adapt our- 
 selves to life by gradual process. "It is thus that man who can 
 subsist only in society, was fitted by nature to that situation for 
 which he was made." ^ 
 
 At the same time Adam Smith is, like all the empiric school 
 even after Bcntham, fundamentally individualistic. He recog- 
 nizes no organic unity as underlying the social sameness. All 
 things are adjusted in nature for the "support of the individual 
 and the propagation of the species." " 
 
 One of the serious blemishes, apart from the false place given 
 sympathy in the discussion, is the confusion in his treatment of 
 justice. Justice is, according to Adam Smith, an exact science 
 as the grammar is in speech exact, while moral rules are loose 
 and appeal to the individual instinct. He then confounds 
 
 ' VI, 3. » I, 2 : 2. ' IV, 4 : 2. 
 
 * III, 3:3. •11,3:2. •11,2:2. 
 
ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 467 
 
 justice with law in a way that again has been fruitful of many 
 other confusions in English thinking. 
 
 The little sketch of the unfolding of ethics in the sixth book 
 is still interesting and instructive. His criticism of Hutcheson, 
 his old teacher, is both acute and instructive; and some of his 
 criticism still has force against some modern ethics. 
 
 The main lack is Adam Smith's failure to consider the meta- 
 physical elements involved, and to follow up Hume's theory of 
 knowledge to its logical issue. 
 
 At the same time this was not wholly a misfortune. From 
 Adam Smith an ethics stood forth to claim a place as a science 
 as separate from dogmatic religion as philosophy is from theol- 
 ogy. From this time on consciously or unconsciously theology 
 recognized the fact that given, on the basis of a religious faith, 
 the postulates of a Christian life, the contents of that life, so 
 far as they are ethical, must be worked out empirically. 
 
 From Hume on there is no ecclesiastical ethics worth discuss- 
 ing. Protestantism was freed from the bonds of scholastic 
 authoritarianism. The closed system was broken up by 
 Hume's merciless critique, and a new freedom found. The- 
 ologians like frightened children have hardly yet dared to enter 
 into the higher and nobler freedom of redemptive love. But 
 from Hume on the history of Christian ethics is no longer con- 
 fined "within organized Christianity." 
 
CHAPTER VIII 
 
 THE CONTINENTAL REFORMATION AND ITS 
 
 ETHICS 
 
 I. The Ethics of Luther, (i) The Protestant Elements in Luther's 
 Ethics. (2) The Scholastic Elements in Luther's Ethics. (3) The 
 Practical Ethics of Luther— II. The Ethics of Melanchthon— III. 
 The Anabaptist Movement and Its Ethics— IV. The Ethics of the 
 Reformed Churches— V. The Ethics of John Calvin— VI. The 
 Ethics of the Creeds— VII. The Epigones and Their Ethics— VIII. 
 The New Protestant Casuistry— IX. The Ethics of Pietism— X. 
 The Ethics of Post-Tridentine Roman Catholicism — XL The Ethics 
 of Philosophical Protestantism on the Continent. 
 
 I. THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 
 
 The systematic attempt at churchly reorganization was effec- 
 tively carried through by two men, Martin Luther * and John 
 Calvin, although on different principles. They were not, 
 indeed, alone, nor did they lack forerunners, like Wyclif and 
 Wyclif s translator Huss. But neither Wyclif nor Zwingh left 
 
 ' Luther, Martin, born November 10, 1483, at Eisleben, where he also died, 
 February 18, 1546. The outline of his life is too familiar and accessible to 
 warrant condensation here. Of the seven relatively complete editions of his 
 works (Wittenberg, 1539-1558; Jena, 1555-1558; Altenburg, 1661-1664; 
 Leipsic, 1729-1740, Halle [Walsch], 1740-1753; Erlangen-Frankfurt, 1826-1857 
 [Latin works and letters later as supplement, in all more than one hundred 
 volumes]; Weimar, 1883 [and yet in progress, some thirty-eight quarto volumes 
 having appeared]), the only ones of importance to us are the last three. (Our 
 citations are all from the Erlangen-Frankfurt or Weimar editions, or from 
 Endcrs's edition of the "Letters".) A useful cheap selection is the edition 
 edited by Buchwald, Kawerau, Kostlin, Rade, and Schneider, in eight duodecimo 
 volumes (with index separate by R. Sell, 1899), 2d edition, Berlin, C. A. Schwet- 
 schke, 1898. A fairly good translation into English of some of his chief works 
 ("A Short Catechism," "The Greater Catechism," "Address to the Christian 
 Nobility," "Concerning Christian Liberty," " On the Babylonian Captivity of the 
 Church," "The Ninety-five Theses) is "Primary Works, Translated into English 
 by Henry Wace and C. A. Buchheim, with Theological and Historical Essays," 
 London, Hodder & Stoughton, 1896, 2d edition. Until the "Tabletalk" has 
 been carefully re-edited, as it no doubt will be in the Weimar edition, it can only 
 
 468 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 469 
 
 behind them organizations reflecting their special type of 
 thought and feeling. It is doubtful whether, even had Zwingli 
 lived, the Swiss reformation would have lasted had not Calvin 
 joined it. It is also perfectly true that neither Luther nor 
 Calvin fully realized the complete implications of their break 
 with Rome. In various degrees they both moved within a 
 closed system contained in the Bible, and handed down to the 
 church for safe-keeping.^ In this sense they were both as much 
 scholastics as Anselm or Thomas Aquinas, It was only the 
 claim to judge the church by the Bible rather than the Bible by 
 the church that separated them from the scholastic period. And 
 
 be cited in support of positions otherwise clear, for much that passes as Luther's 
 talk was no doubt utterly irresponsible gossip. The best "Life" is that of 
 Julius Kostlin, "Martin Luther, sein Leben und seine Schriften," 2 vols., 3d 
 edition, Leipsic, 1883, 5th edition, edited by G. Kawerau, Berlin, 1903; English 
 translation of the first edition by E. P. Weir, London, 1883, and another, London, 
 Longmans, 1895. Another good "Life" from a different point of view is by 
 Adolf Hausrath, "Luther's Leben," Berlin, 2 vols, 1904-1905. Kostlin's 
 "Luther's Theologie in ihrer geschichtlichen Entwickelung, und ihrem inneren 
 Zusammenhange," etc., Stuttgart, 1863, is translated from the 2d edition by 
 C. E. Hay, Philadelphia, 2 vols., 1897. Theodor Harnack's " Luther's Theologie 
 mit besonderer Beziehung auf seine Versohnungs und Erlosungslehre," 2 vols., 
 Erlangen, 1862, 1886, gives a mass of valuable material for the student of ethics. 
 For Luther's ethics, see Luthardt, Christoph Ernst: "Die Ethik Luthers in ihren 
 Grundziigen," 2d edition, Leipsic, 1875, and "Luther nach seiner ethischen 
 Bedeutung," Vortrag, Leipsic, 1883; Lommatzsch, Siegfried Otto Nathanael: 
 "Luther's Lehre vom ethisch-religiosen Standpunkte aus und mit besonderer 
 Beriicksichtigung seiner Lehre vom Gesetze dargestellt," Berlin, 1879; Hering, 
 Hermann: "Die Mystik Luthers im Zusammenhange seiner Theologie und in 
 ihrem Verhaltniss zur alteren Mystik," Leipsic, 1879. From a hostile point of 
 view, Denifle, Heinrich Suso, O.Pr.: "Luther und Lutherthum in der ersten 
 Entwicklung quellenmassig dargestellt," Mainz, 1904-1906, 3 vols, in 4. But 
 see also Walther, Wilh. M.: "Fur Luther wider Rom . . . ," Halle, 1906, and 
 Janssen, Johannes: "Geschichte des deutschen Volkes seit dem Ausgang des 
 Mittelalters," Freiburg, 1876, seq., 8 vols., 15th to i8th eds.; Freiburg i.B., 1897- 
 1904; English'translation by M. A. Mitchell and A. M. Christie, London and St. 
 Louis, 14 vols., 1900-1909. Special literature will be noticed in the discussion. 
 ' Luther in 1520 wrote: "Und das thun sie darumb, den die weyl sie wissen, 
 und war ist, das die gemeyne christliche kirche (das ist alle christen sempthich 
 in aller welt) nit yrren mag," Weimar edition, vol. VI, p. 615. C/., also, 
 "Adversus execrabilem Antichristi bullam," Weimar edition, vol. VI, p. 607. 
 Calvin speaks of truth as "thesaurum hunc apud ecclesiam deposuit," "Instit. 
 Christ," book IV, i : i. 
 
470 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 more particularly upon the field of ethics did Luther shrink 
 from being considered either revolutionary or an innovator.* 
 
 Both Luther and Calvin estimated highly the task to vi^hich 
 scholasticism had addressed itself, namely, the systematic 
 formulation and defence of revealed truth. And both regarded 
 correct thinking as of more fundamental importance than con- 
 duct.^ The reason is also plain. Correct conduct depends, in the 
 view of scholasticism, on holding in all its fulness the conception 
 of the world revealed by God once and for all, and handed down 
 to a church for safe-keeping, proclamation, and explication. 
 
 The highest service Luther rendered was his placing, with 
 magnificent inconsistency, the ethical-religious interest distinctly 
 in the foreground, and that on the basis of his personal religious 
 experience. Like Paul, Luther based his message upon a 
 tremendous religious experience of catastrophic character. Like 
 Paul, his quarrel with the organized religious life of his day was 
 its ethical ineffectiveness. It is absurdly unhistorical to charge, 
 as some have done, that Luther simply sought license.^ This 
 was also charged against Paul by the organized religious life 
 of his day. Luther put life before doctrine, and vital righteous- 
 ness before formal correctness whenever the issue was really 
 raised. They were supreme with him. 
 
 Nowhere is this more plainly seen than in his famous ninety- 
 five theses. Here the whole underlying thought is that the really 
 repentant man does not seek to escape his punishment but his 
 sin; and that the whole system of indulgences blurred the 
 vision of sin. Luther's movement began in no revolt against 
 Rome, but against local abuse, and thus Luther became the 
 
 ' Preface to the "Little Catechism," (enchiridion), 1529. 
 
 ^ In 1523 Luther wrote: "Ich hab vorhynn gesagt, das eyn ander ding ist 
 die Lere und das leben. Darumb sollt yhrs gar wol untcrscheydcn, denn Gott 
 ist nicht pzo (so) viel gelegen am leben als an'der Lere, darumb lest er die scyncn 
 oft strauchlen ym leben, wie wyr lesen. Aber was die lere angehet, da hatt cr 
 sic Keyn har dreyt fallen lassen. Deun eyn boses leben ist nyrgent pzo shedlich 
 als bose lere," "Predigt am Johannistage 24tcn Jnui, 1522," Weimar edition, 
 vol. X, part 3, p. 201. Cj. with this also Calvin's "Institutions," book IV, i : 12. 
 
 ' So Dcnifle, "Luther and Luthcrthum," pp. 90-97, 2d edition, vol. I, part 
 I, and ullramontanism generally. 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 471 
 
 leader in a revolt more far-reaching than he could realize or 
 than some of his professed followers realize to-day. The world 
 of his thought remained to the end colored by scholasticism, and 
 his Protestantism only became pronounced when a practical 
 issue forced him to face outworn formulae and to deny them. 
 Then in this denial he forced the issue and bravely maintained 
 the authority and moral supremacy of the spiritual man. 
 
 To the end his own personal religious experience was shad- 
 owed over by the morbidness of a substantially dualistic and 
 often despondent view of life. He was here at one with Augus- 
 tine and Francis of Assisi and St. Bernhard. The sharp con- 
 trasts between the lights and the shadows grew deeper as time 
 went on. Indeed in the whole Reformation movement one sees 
 the conflict constantly emerging within the movement itself 
 between the now muddy waters of a lifeless scholasticism and 
 the clearer springs of a new fountain. 
 
 The Roman Catholic position was weakened by the same 
 conflict. Humanism within had made her resistance weak. It 
 was only when the newer elements had been absorbed or driven 
 out that she presented a strong united front, in the counter- 
 reformation, to a still divided and immature Protestantism. 
 
 This divided world Luther reflected with extraordinary exact- 
 ness in his life and his teachings. That was in part his tre- 
 mendous power. Although Luther, unlike Calvin, never en- 
 gaged in the actual task of reconstructing a new theocratic state, 
 his ideal was such a state. He, however, called the German 
 princes to this task. He regarded them as the God-sent instru- 
 ments for doing that work. His mission was political as well 
 as religious, and in this work there is in Luther none of that 
 intellectual aloofness which marks Calvin. 
 
 He was a product of the social struggle and political readjust- 
 ments born of a thousand new conditions, among which we 
 have seen were the new commerce; the wider world (America 
 discovered, 1492); the triumph of imperialism (Charles V, 
 Francis I); the flowering of the Germanic free city; the spread 
 of new learning; the opening up of a world-wide system of 
 
472 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 roads; the fixing of European boundaries (the fall of Constanti- 
 nople, 1453, ^^^ the fall of Granada, 1492); the reformation 
 of the Roman communion within (Council of Constance, 1414) 
 and the establishment of the Inquisition; the rise of definite 
 national tongues with national literatures — French, High Ger- 
 man, Low German, English, Italian; the beginning of the strug- 
 gle of the bourgeoisie with feudalism; the real democratization of 
 learning by the printing-press; the invention of gunpowder; the 
 founding of a new astronomy (Copernican) ; the practical use 
 of the compass; in a word, the beginning of the new world, with 
 a slowly growing consciousness of the value of organized expe- 
 rience and the futility of a priori speculation without the con- 
 stant testing of every hypothesis by such organized experience. 
 
 It is perfectly vain to claim that Luther belonged wholly to 
 our modern world. There are wonderfully radical notes in 
 him, and he united great insight into the weaknesses of mediaeval- 
 ism with boldness and even daring in speech and thought. Yet 
 he remained essentially conservative and even scholastic in 
 temper and method. He never completely reacted from the 
 cloister type of ethics, and in him reactionary forces have found 
 strength and comfort ever since. 
 
 The supreme service Luther rendered was that as he actually 
 did put life before dogma, and the religious-ethical interest in 
 the foreground instead of scholastic speculation, he once more 
 made religion a vital factor in social reconstruction. He was 
 not democratic in his thought or mood. He belonged rather to 
 the forceful middle-class not yet come to full self-consciousness, 
 but which was feeling its way to power, and was resisting on the 
 one hand the pressure of the landed aristocracy and on the other 
 the claims of the landless proletariat. Thus the free cities of 
 North Germany accepted Luther and his form of the Reforma- 
 tion almost without any struggle, and Lubeck, Hamburg, 
 Bremen, and most of the northern trading centres became the 
 unwavering friends of the new movement. In part this came 
 from the new ethical revolt against Roman rapacity and un- 
 clcanncss (Tetzel and his indulgences), in part the new national 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 
 
 473 
 
 feeling was beginning to stir men. And Luther in all his some- 
 what coarse strength was the very incarnation of this new 
 Germanism. He voiced its eagerness for knowledge, for inde- 
 pendence, for action, and self-development. Some of Luther's 
 writings reached a circulation of four thousand in a few weeks, 
 which meant thousands of hearers and readers, for the printed 
 page went from hand to hand and was read to eager groups. 
 He took the side of the Germanic home group against the ascetic 
 monkish individualism. He incarnated the new longing for 
 life as a good in itself and for self-expression as having its own 
 peculiar value. He voiced with fierce directness the northern 
 revolt against powerful oppression. We hear, surely, something 
 familiar in such words as these: "Yes, we might well let the 
 little thieves alone, if we could stop the great powerful arch- 
 thieves, with whom the princes and rulers combine, and who 
 daily plunder not a town or two, but all Germany. Yes, what 
 would happen to the head and chief protector of all thieves, the 
 papal power at Rome, with all that belongs to it, and which has 
 robbed us of our material goods and keeps them until now? 
 In fact it is the world's way that he who can steal and plunder 
 openly goes safe and free, unpunished by any one, and expecting 
 to be honored; but little secret thieves, though they may have only 
 once done wrong, must bear the shame and penalty." ^ Thus 
 he stood out as the greatest figure of an age in which many shone. 
 The difference between Roman Catholicism and the Teutonic 
 religious movement which we call the Reformation was not 
 even mainly about authority. All at that time moved, or thought 
 they moved, in the atmosphere of authority. Nor was it even 
 mainly between the authority of church versus the Bible. The 
 reformers all acknowledged the authority of a church, and 
 Rome might easily have compromised that quarrel. Nor was 
 it on such abstractions as "justification by faith" or "transub- 
 stantiation." Here again the Council of Trent leaves litde to 
 be desired. The real difference was a different estimate of the 
 really pious life. And Luther was the incarnation in actual 
 
 * " Greater Catechism," the Seventh Commandment. 
 
474 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 feeling and conduct of the Reformation type. Rome could 
 adjust herself to the semi-paganism of humanism (Erasmus), but 
 Luther she could not away with. The ethical freedom of son- 
 I ship with God, the moral supremacy of the spiritual man 
 \^ brooked in the last analysis no earthly over-lordship. It was not 
 so much a matter of intellectual antithesis as of profound and 
 far-reaching spiritual intuition that separated once and for all 
 the really Protestant forces from Rome and the papacy. 
 
 The very excesses of the Reformation which have been glossed 
 over far too much by Protestant historians were the almost 
 inevitable outcome of the new liberty.* For the "laity" in the 
 Roman communion there are no adult years. All are "children 
 of mother church," with prescribed reading and father-confessors 
 to the end. As this authority broke down all manner of evils 
 showed themselves. The records of Reformation society are 
 exceedingly dark with violence, drunkenness, sexual excesses, 
 and low forms of vice. It is impossible to give comparative 
 estimates of any value, but the indications are that in the break- 
 ing up of feudalism the ethical standard to which it had contrib- 
 uted also gave way. This decay is not, of course, wholly the 
 result of the Reformation freedom, because the Council of 
 Constance witnesses abundantly to decay, or at least to the belief 
 in decay, before the Reformation. It was one of the conditions 
 of the times out of which the Reformation sprang, in part, no 
 doubt, as reaction against it. It is not fair even to ascribe the 
 horrors of the Anabaptist revolts or the Thirty Years War to 
 religious bigotry. They were in large part the results of the 
 economic clash between the new merchant class with its com- 
 mercial morality and the old land-owning aristocracy with other 
 ideals in their struggle still going on in Europe for the control 
 of the productive forces of life. 
 The ethics of Luther have the divided character of the period. 
 
 ' Luther never blinked the facts and perfectly understood the underlying 
 reasons. Cj. his preface to the "Little Catechism." He himself was so dis- 
 turbed by the dreadful disorders at Wittenberg that the last days of his life were 
 seriously embittered, and he even threatened to leave his beloved universitv. 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 475 
 
 Nor is it easy to do justice to their influence when they are re-f 
 garded simply as systems of thought. Luther was emphatically 
 a man of action who often justified his right instincts by wrong 
 reasons. His life was a constant struggle between the shadows 
 of a mind overcast by temperament, by training, and probably 
 by improper diet in fasting when he should have been nourished 
 and nourished when he should have been fasting. His ethics, 
 like his theology, retain a mediaeval character to the end. 
 
 In order to bring out the contrast in Luther, which lies on the 
 surface, and which is neither a chronological matter nor yet a 
 conscious accommodation, it may be well to treat of his ethics 
 under the three heads: his Protestant ethics and his scholastic 
 or Roman Catholic ethics and his practical ethics. 
 
 I. THE PROTESTANT ELEMENTS EST LUTHER's ETHICS 
 
 I. Luther sounded the key-note of every real ethical advance 
 in his defence of the moral supremacy of the spiritual man. He 
 and Tyndal, alone of all the reformers, grasped firmly this 
 supreme truth. He sets it forth best and most boldly in his 
 wonderful treatise, "Von der Freiheit eines Christenmenschen." * 
 *' A Christian man is a free master over all things, and no man's 
 subject (untertan). A Christian man is a useful servant (ein 
 dienstbar knecht) of all things and every one's subject;^ this 
 freedom he bases upon love.^ And for Luther at his best love 
 is the dynamic for all good works.^ This power is the union of 
 the Christian man's spiritual life with Christ in which union 
 Christ becomes sin for us and we share his righteousness.^ 
 Just as in Paul, so in Luther it is indeed possible to interpret 
 this mystic union with Christ metaphysically, i. e., as an actual 
 
 * Erianger edition, vol. XXVII, p. 173. 
 
 2 Erianger edition, Vol. XXVII, p. 176. 
 
 ' "Lieb aber die ist dienstbar und unterthan dem, das sie lieb hat" (loc. ci't.). 
 
 * " Aus dem Allen folget, der Beschluss, dass ein Christen mensch lebt nit ihra 
 selb, sondern in Christo und seinem Nahsten: in Christo durch den glauben; im 
 Nahsten durch die Liebe" (loc. cit.). 
 
 * "Hie hebt sich nu der frohliche Wechsel und Strait," Erianger edition, vol, 
 XXVII, p. 183. 
 
476 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 losing of our being in the being of Christ. At the same time 
 the far simpler explanation is that both Paul and Luther were 
 thinking along the line of their main interest, and treat of the 
 union as really ethical. It is identity of life's purpose and aim 
 that forms the basis of the union. The image of the bridegroom 
 is not conclusive in either case, but it is perfectly evident that 
 Luther's mind was intensely practical,^ and even the attraction 
 that mysticism had for him was its ethical content rather than 
 its metaphysical basis.^ Luther was the child of a tremendous 
 spiritual reaction against the false and weary legalism of the 
 monkish view of life. At every point one is compelled to recog- 
 nize this reaction as the explanation of both good and evil in 
 Luther's ethical system. He had actually found God as his 
 Father in Christ Jesus, and from that on all that is best in his 
 thinking grows out of this sense of new relationship to God. 
 "We should fear love and trust God above all else." ' And all 
 obedience is as child to father, who "entices us to trust him." * 
 With Luther this was the actual power that made in him for 
 righteousness. What the law and the church and the Pope 
 could not do, this vision of God in Christ Jesus actually did for 
 him. Hence he became a Protestant against all authority save 
 as it made its appeal directly to his soul. 
 
 2. Faith is thus for Luther a liberating principle. It sets 
 us free to know and do the truth.^ And although he is not always 
 
 '"Die Theologia stehet im Brauch und Ubung nicht im Speculiren und 
 Gottes Sachen nach denken nach dcr Vernunft. ... In sutnma: ein iglichc 
 Kunst, beide im Haus- und Weltrcgiment, so nur mit Speculiren umbgchit und 
 nicht ins Werk bracht wird, ist verlorn und taug nichts," Tischreden, Erlanger 
 edition, vol. LIX, p. 182. 
 
 *C/. "Vorreden zu dem Biichlein; Ein dcutsch Theologia," Erlanger edition, 
 vol. LXIII, p. 235 #. 
 
 '"Wir sollcn Gott iiber alle Ding fiirchten, lieben und vertrauen," "Der 
 Kleinc Kat.," Erlanger edition, vol. XXI, p. 10. 
 
 * "Gott will uns damit locken, dass wir Gliiuben sollcn, er sie unscr rechter 
 Vatcr, und wir seine rechte Kinder; auf das wir getrost und mit aller Zuversicht 
 ihn bitten sollen, wie die lieben Kinder ihren lieben Vater," Erlanger edition, vol. 
 XXI, p. 14. 
 
 ' " Aber Glaube ist ein gottlich Werk in uns, das uns wandelt und ncu gebiert 
 aus Gott (John i : 13) und tddet den altcn Adam, machet uns ganz ander 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 477 
 
 true to this principle, yet he asserts it often enough to show that 
 it was no accident. The spiritual man is lord of the Sabbath. 
 "We are lords of the Sabbath, and we should insist that we 
 are lords of the Sabbath and other days and places, and do not 
 place particular holiness or divine service in them as do the Jews 
 and papists." "The church is not a particular church, as if 
 it were better than other places where one preaches God's 
 word." ' 
 
 Our lordship is only limited by love, and the happy conven- 
 iences of life — order, etc. But the sum and substance of all 
 preaching is the freedom of faith and love. "Love is our 
 captain." ^ This freedom he taught so that from time to time 
 he has to defend himself against antinomianism,^ and on the 
 other hand attacks Carlstadt for infringing liberty by " forbid- 
 ding," as the Pope has infringed it by commanding.^ 
 
 3. Thus Luther has a firm basis for his ethics in the freedom 
 of the loving life, and recognizes frankly that faith cannot be 
 forced.^ It cannot even be forced by eternal pains and penalty. 
 Luther rejects in so many words all hedonistic ethics, even with 7 
 heaven and hell as the basis, if the works are done to gain heaven I 
 
 Menschen, von Herzen, Muth, Sinn und alien Kraften, und bringet den heiligen 
 Geist mit sich. O es ist ein lebendig, schaftig, thahig, machtig Ding umb den 
 glauben, dass ummoglich ist, dass er nicht ohn unterlass sollte Guts wirken," 
 "Vorrede auf die Epistle S. Paul an die Romer" (1522), Erlanger edition, vol. 
 LXIII, p. 124. 
 
 1 "Ein weihungs predigt uber Luc. 14 : i-ii " (1544), Erlanger edition, vol. 
 XVII, pp. 239-252. 
 
 2 Cf. the eight "Fast Sermons," Weimar edition, X, 3, pp. 1-64. 
 
 ' Erlanger edition, vol. LV, p. 115; vol. LI, p. 415, and many passages. 
 
 * "Aber es hat hierinnen mit dem Rottengeist eine andere Nasen, denn mit 
 dem Papst, sie brechen beide die christliche Freiheit, und sind beide Wider- 
 christisch; aber der Papst thuts durch Gebot, D. Carlstadt durch Verbot; der 
 Papst heisst thun, D. Carlstadt heisst lassen; wie denn die christliche Freiheit 
 durch die zweierlei gebrochen wird, wenn man gebeut, zwingt und dringt zu 
 thun, das doch nicht Geboten noch erzwungen ist von Gott," "Wider die 
 himmelischen Propheten" (1524-1525), Erlanger edition, vol. XXIX, p. 189. 
 
 ' "Summa Summarum predigen will ichs, sagen will ichs, schreiben will ichs, 
 aber zwingen und dringen mit Gewalt will ich niemand; denn der Glaube sei 
 willig und ungenotigt sein, und ohne Zwang angenommen werden," Weimar 
 edition, vol. X, 3, p. 18 (Erlanger edition, vol. XXVIII, p. 219). 
 
478 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 or evade hell.' All good works must spring from an inner 
 principle. It cannot be said that he really built his ethics con- 
 sciously in opposition to a refined eudaemonism (" God rewards 
 with heaven, etc., etc.), but he prepared the way. 
 
 We serve God in serving our neighbor, and by the loving life 
 make heaven on earth, and by the loveless life make earth a 
 helL^* 
 
 4. Intensely "other-worldly" as Luther was in his main 
 interest, he nevertheless felt keenly the wrongs done to Germany 
 by Rome, and he did more than any man of his generation to 
 kindle the fire of national enthusiasm and foster national self- 
 respect. Luther constantly denounced the rapacity of Rome, 
 and urged the rulers of Germany to sweeping social reforms. 
 He reveals not only a keen interest in the political and social 
 struggle of his day, but also far-seeing vision as to its significance. 
 Thus although in theory Luther remained entangled in the 
 other-worldliness of the monastic conception of life, he in point 
 of fact was the foremost herald of the new message, that is yet 
 as old as the Old Testament prophets of the eighth century, and 
 the prayer of Our Lord, that God's kingdom is to come to this 
 earth and that here his perfect reign is to be made clear in the 
 moral and political worlds. 
 
 5. Most especially useful was Luther's defence of a non- 
 ascetic wholesome type of ethics. Scholastic Romanism taught 
 that the highest perfection was only open to the priest, monk, or 
 nun. Luther insisted with anxious and repeated care upon the 
 sanctity of the daily task.' The housemaid was engaged in as 
 sacred a task in properly cleaning a room as the preacher in the 
 
 • "Predigt von den gutcn Werken" (1520), Erianger edition, vol. XX, p. 218. 
 
 *"Denn gleich wie du dir hie ein Paradies und Himmel machcn konntest, 
 wenn du deinem Nahesten dienetest (denn dassclhige heizt Gott im Himmel 
 gedicnct): also, wenn du deinem Nahesten nicht dienest, machcst du dir selbst 
 eine Holle auf Erden; denn du dienest dem Tcufel, der die Holle gehoret." 
 "Predigt" (1533), Erianger edition, vol. V, p. 138. 
 
 ' Erianger edition, vol. II, pp. 133, 137, 139; vol. IV, 300, 343, 344; vol. V, 
 pp. 57, 84, 87, 104, 137, 148, 160-162; vol. VII, p. loi; vol. X, pp. 160, 272, 233, 
 339; vol. XXI, pp. 60, 80, etc., etc. 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 479 
 
 pulpit or the priest at the altar. The poor housemaid can say 
 when cooking for her master and mistress that she is cooking 
 for God in heaven. 
 
 This was to that day a new point of view and struck at the 
 very roots of the Roman theory of a twofold standard of holi- 
 ness, and in its logic swept away all real distinctions between 
 civil and religious virtues.* 
 
 Quite consistently, therefore, Luther taught the priesthood of 
 all believers. It was only a matter of order and opportunity 
 that a clergy should exist at all.^ The distinct type of piety 
 taught was throughout non-ascetic. Thus Luther not only him- 
 self married, but took strong and rational ground on the subject 
 of celibacy and the married state.^ He became the incarnation 
 of the wholesome Teutonic feeling for the family group as 
 against the ascetic oriental intrusion, and he rightly passed over 
 the fathers of church history and turned to the equally sane and 
 rational traditions of the Old and New Testaments for his 
 authority as over against the Hellenized traditions of early 
 Christianity. 
 
 6. It cannot be said that Luther freed himself from sacra- 
 mental magic and from mechanical views of grace. But he is 
 nevertheless the real father of an ethical estimate of grace. The 
 character of grace is the ethical imperative within man's soul. 
 Luther at his best rises to wonderful heights when dealing with 
 grace as the gift of ethical freedom from law that we may be 
 free to righteousness.* So that grace is strength for the vitally 
 
 ' Luther is not self-consistent nor thorough-going even here. "Tres enim 
 hierarchies ordinavit Deus contra diabolum, Scilicet oeconomiam, politicum, 
 ecclesiam," Erlanger edition, vol. IV, 394, and of these house and state are 
 "worldly" and "the church" is "spiritual." 
 
 * Erlanger edition, vol. XI, 304, 318, and many passages. 
 
 ' "Hochzeit predigt iiber Heb. 13 : 4" (first print, 1531, and in other version, 
 1536), Erlanger edition, vol. XVIII, pp. 269-302; Tischreden, Erlanger edition, 
 vol. LXI, pp. 164-304; two sermons, "Vom Ehestande" and "Vom Ehelichen 
 Leben," Erlanger edition, vol. XX, pp. 45-89, and many other passages. 
 
 * " Denn in dem Stand und Wesen, dadurch wir Christen werden, da horen 
 auf unsere und aller menschen Werke; also auch alle Gesetze. Denn wo kein 
 Werk ist, da kann auch kein Gesetz seyn, das das Werk fordere, und spreche: 
 
48o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 righteous life, and ethics are logically the test of indwelling 
 grace.' It is with this ethical character of grace that Luther's 
 doctrine of determinism is linked. It is the religious necessity 
 for surety against the ultimate victory of sin and death that makes 
 all, or nearly all, great religious leaders determinists — Paul, 
 Augustine, Luther, Calvin, Knox, and Cromwell. Exacdy as 
 to-day, socialism turns to economic determinism from religious 
 rather than really scientific necessity, so religious reformers 
 found in determinism a refuge from life's confessed uncertainties. 
 Of course one may believe that it were better to rest the matter 
 upon an ultimate faith in our estimate of God and the world 
 than on metaphysical and economic speculations which are 
 always subject to correction and revision on the one hand and 
 abuse on the other. Yet the hunger of the human heart for even 
 bad reasons for its fundamental faiths has also its message to us. 
 It may seem a thousand pities that the work of the Reformation 
 was rent by the sad jumble of metaphysics and faith involved 
 in Luther's controversy with Erasmus.^ At the same time the 
 habit of mind was such that it is hard to see how Luther could 
 have taken any other position. And after all the modern 
 scientist, socialist, or religious thinker is a determinist on exactly 
 the same ground. They all need, that is to say, the hypothesis 
 in the work they have in hand, and all or nearly all maintain 
 their position with quite as bad reasoning as Luther. 
 
 7. It is thus not too much to say that Luther laid the foun- 
 dation securely for a modern Christian ethics yet to be worked 
 out in the living, thinking, and feeling of a really Christian 
 community, in which the supremacy of the spiritual man will be 
 no one-sided anarchistic individualism, but the finding of the 
 highest individuality in a social world of mutual service. Luther 
 also prepared the way for that modern psychological subjectiv- 
 
 Das sollst du thun, das sollst du lassen; sondern wir sind schlechts durch die 
 Taufe und Christi Blut frei von alten Werken,aus lauter Gnade und Barmherzig- 
 kcit gcrecht, und leben auch allein derselben vor Gott." "Zweit Predigt am 
 dritten Sonntage nach Trinitatis." Erlanger edition, vol. XIII, p. 35. 
 
 ' Erlanger edition, vol. XIII, 289 if., and many passages. 
 
 ' "Dc servo arbitrio," 1525, Erlanger edition, "Opera Lat," vol. \'II, p. 113. 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 481 
 
 ism formulated by Kant in which the ultimate ethical authority- 
 is found in the human soul. He also saw more or less clearly 
 that this subjectivism becomes moral insanity if separated from 
 the traditional historical community in which it can alone have 
 its healthy growth. Church history became a necessity in a 
 new sense on the basis of Luther's teaching, for the spiritual man 
 must inform himself about the ethical experiences of the past 
 in order that he may meet in his spiritual freedom the world he 
 must subdue, and meet it with intelligence and wisdom. Thus 
 also Luther stripped faith of its artificial character as a holding 
 of opinions on the basis of external authority. Faith was for 
 Luther, as for Paul, a dynamic for righteousness, an inward 
 power and not an external opinion. Sacramental magic logic- 
 ally falls away, for union with the purpose of God is not spas- 
 modic magic but a definite and permanent trend of the soul's 
 life. Magic and ethics are sworn enemies, and in spite of all ' 
 appearances to the contrary Luther is on the side of ethics. J 
 
 And lastly, in spite of temporary depressions and profound 
 despondency at times, Luther awoke Protestantism to a new 
 and profounder joy in life than even humanism could inspire. 
 His faith that God's will for mankind was ethical perfection, 
 joy, peace, and love, and that God's will was the predestined 
 outcome of life's struggle, nerved men for the new social organ- 
 ization which was yet to cost such untold sufferings and which 
 stretches itself from the Thirty Years' War (161 8-1648) on into 
 our own day. 
 
 ii. the scholastic and roman catholic elements in 
 Luther's ethics 
 
 I. It is a peculiarly ungrateful task to have to point out the 
 weaknesses and failures in the work of the heroic figures who 
 have fought in the forefront for an ethical life. More particu- 
 larly ungrateful is it for the Protestant historian to have to 
 acknowledge how imperfect was often the criticism of the Roman 
 Catholic position. Both Luther and Calvin carried over into 
 
482 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 historic Protestantism many elements which have been a serious 
 hindrance in our struggle with the principle of authority on 
 which the papal claims rest. It is easy for us to see these things 
 now. On the other hand we must ever remember that to some 
 degree Luther's very usefulness depended upon his honestly 
 sharing some of the narrowness and superstition of his genera- 
 tion. Luther was intensely human and intensely Teutonic. 
 His genius summed up his age and gave, as it were, reality to 
 its ideals. It was impossible for the really religious spirit of 
 that day to wholly escape the bondage to the letter. Luther's 
 position was, of course, wholly untenable. On the one hand 
 he could freely reject whole books of the Bible on the strength 
 of his own subjective impression, as when he called James "a 
 strawy (strohern) book," ^ and rejected Revelation because it 
 did not seem to him to have the mind of Christ,^ and on the 
 other hand he could stake the Reformation unity on his interpre- 
 tation of "Hoc est meum corpus." Luther in reality supremely 
 trusted the subjective impression, and felt that so far as we can 
 hear God at all it must be in such final personal impressions. 
 I The next step, namely, that though we know these impressions 
 are not infallible we yet must trust them as final, Luther did not, 
 and in his age could not, take. He, with all the other reformers, 
 sought refuge from the false infallibilities of the church in an 
 equally false claim of infallibility for the letter of Scripture. It 
 is vain for the modern theologian to gloss Luther's maintenance 
 of the infallibility of the letter of Scripture. The case is all 
 too clear. In 1520 he thought the universal church could not 
 err.^ But as he was pushed further and further back he took at 
 last refuge in the word of God. So far as the writer knows, 
 the world infallibility (unfehlbarkeit, infaflibilitatis) occurs nei- 
 ther in the Latin nor German works of Luther. But the idea 
 
 ' "Vorrcdcn," Erianger edition, vol. LXIII, p. 115. 
 
 ^ Erianger edition, vol. LXIII, p. 169. 
 
 ' "Und das thun sie darumb, dcnn diewcil sic wisscn, und wahr ist, dass die 
 gemcinc christlichc Kirchc (das ist, allc christen siimptlich in aller Welt) nit 
 irren mag, etc. " " Wider die Bullc des Endchrists," Erianger edition, vol. XXI\', 
 p. 36. 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 483 
 
 is there in a thousand passages, where the word of God is 
 identified with the text of Scripture as we have it/ And again 
 and again Luther warns against setting up reason against the 
 letter of Scripture.^ He was ready at any time to struggle with 
 what became rationalism. Nor did he clearly see the strength 
 and the weakness of the Roman Catholic position. What may 
 now be regarded as the assured gain of Protestant thinking — 
 namely, faith in human intellectual processes as essentially 
 divine — would in all probability have been as much a stumbling- 
 block to Luther as it is to that Protestantism still under the bann 
 of Roman Catholic thinking. To have said to Luther, "Ye 
 believe in God, believe also in the reality of an ethical humanity," 
 would have startled and aroused him, no doubt, because he was 
 still hampered by Augustinianism with its heathen estimate of 
 the relationship between God and man. 
 
 2. In like manner Luther did not widely differ from his 
 scholastic opponents in his conception of the church. In his 
 theory he had but litde quarrel with them. Luther defines it 
 as a holy communion of saints,^ an ecclesia Christiana with a 
 twofold nature, an invisible spiritual Christianity, and also an 
 outward natural Christianity, which, however, are related to 
 one another as body and spirit, and must not be separated. Or, 
 as the apostle says, an inner and an outer man.^ This church 
 holds the keys, and has the power of spiritual bann in its proc- 
 
 * C/. "Vorrede zum Alten Testament," Erlanger edition, vol. LXIII, pp. 
 7-25, (1523); Tischreden, Erlanger edition, vol. LVII, pp. 1-107, etc., etc. 
 
 * "Kirchenpostile iiber Matt. 20 : 20-23," Erlanger edition, vol. XV, pp. 
 419-427, and many passages. 
 
 ^ C/. "Von den Conciliis und Kirchen," 1539, Erlanger edition, vol. XXV, 
 pp. 219-388. The whole tract is of the greatest importance, as both in time and 
 purpose marking his maturest thought. 
 
 ■• " Drumb, und mehres Vorstands und dcr Kurz willen wollen wir die zuo 
 Kirchen nennen mit unterscheidlichen Namen. Die erste, die naturlich, grund- 
 lich, wesentlich und wahrhaftig ist, wollen wir heissen ein geistliche, innerliche 
 Christenheit. Die andere, die gemacht und ausserlich ist, wollen wir heissen 
 ein leibliche ausserlich Christenheit: nit dass wir sie von einander scheiden 
 wollen; sondern sogleich, als, wenn ich von einem Menschen rede, und ihn 
 nach der Seelen ein geistlichen," etc. "Vondem Papstthum zu Rom," 1520, 
 Erlanger edition, vol. XXVII, p. 102. 
 
484 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 lamation/ although its limits are too sharply defined.^ This 
 church is also a myskrium mystically linked with Christ and 
 sharing his experiences.^ It is likened to an ark of safety 
 amidst the destructions of life/ in which are clean and unclean, 
 but all outside get drowned (denn die andern die es nicht 
 horen, sind nicht im Kasten, sondern ersaufen im Wasser). 
 Hence it is enormously important to know which is the right 
 church. For there is no forgiveness without,^ and we must 
 distinguish between the true church and the devil's exact imita- 
 tion of it.° Hence the notes of the true church are to be found 
 in the preaching of the Word and the right administration of the 
 sacraments.' And when the question is raised about what is the 
 preaching of the Word, the answer is again in terms of an intel- 
 lectual system. And this teaching is of more importance than 
 life,' because it is at the root of life. The church is then to 
 maintain the true tradition, and in her the Bible (Schrift) and 
 not reason is to control,® and when the whole church has taught 
 anything it is dangerous to reject it." So Luther is led to take 
 over the truth of all the ages in establishing the true church so 
 that in it all may find safety." 
 
 With Luther himself the message for which the church stood 
 was so much more than any ecclesiastical organization, and in 
 the overwhelming confusion of the day the church as an organ iza- 
 
 ' "Sermon am Tage St. Petri und Pauli," Erlanger edition, vol. XV, p. 395. 
 ^ "Tischreden," Erlanger edition, vol. LIX, p. 132; cf., also, the collected 
 sayings of Luther on the church in the same volume, pp. 131-180. 
 ^ Loc. cit., Erlanger edition, vol. XXV, 374. 
 
 * "Predigt iibcr das Sechste Capitel des ersten Buch Moses," Erlanger edition, 
 vol. XXXIII, p. 175. 
 
 ' "Von der Beichte," Erlanger edition, vol. XXVII, p. 351. 
 " Erlanger edition, vol. XXV, p. 380; vol. XXXI, p. 339, etc. 
 ^ Erlanger edition, vol. XXV, p. 362; vol. XXVII, p. 108; vol. XL, p. 161; 
 vol. XLIV, p. 253; vol. XLV, p. 103; vol. LXII, p. 46, and many other passages. 
 
 * "Die drei Symbola," 1538, Erlanger edition, vol. XXIII, pp. 252-254; also 
 loc. cit., Erlanger edition, vol. XXV, p. 241. 
 
 * Erlanger edition, vol. XVIII, p. 117. 
 '» Erlanger edition, vol. LIV, p. 288. 
 
 " C/. most interesting passage in 1541," Wider Hans Wurst," Erlanger edition, 
 vol. XXVI, pp. 1-75. 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 485 
 
 tion counted for so little, that the danger of a dead ecclesiasticism, 
 precious as the symbol of various class privileges, and over- 
 burdened with all sorts of theological opinions, was hardly real. 
 Yet just such an ecclesiasticism can, alas, find in Luther all that 
 it needs to defend its position and to identify itself with the 
 permanent and necessary guardianship of the truth. It is vain, 
 moreover, to charge, as some have done, the work of establish- 
 ing such a theory upon Melanchthon. The ecclesiasticism of 
 Luther belongs to all stages of his thought, and is quite as pro- 
 found and self-conscious as that of Melanchthon. At this point 
 Luther is even more Roman Catholic and scholastic than 
 Calvin. For in point of fact reformed theology has valued the 
 church rather as the organ for discipline than as the organ for 
 the discovery of truth. Augustine's acceptance of the church 
 as the guarantee of truth has never been seriously taken as a 
 point of departure in reformed theology, not even in the highest 
 church Presbyterianism, as, for instance, in the theology of 
 Breckinridge. And this for the very reason that reformed 
 theology has so emphasized the Scriptures as the only source of 
 truth. The church is only receptive of the truth, and not 
 either its guarantor nor even its final interpreter. Luther's 
 theoretical ecclesiasticism conflicts with the teaching of the 
 moral supremacy of the spiritual man. But Luther was most 
 glorious in his inconsistency. 
 
 3. The world of Luther remained in an astonishing way 
 the world of scholasticism with its all-pervading dualism. The 
 devil plays a large part in Luther's thought and teaching. He 
 struggles with our "guardian angels," who protect us,* and who 
 are ever on the watch to guard us from harm.^ The devil is the 
 
 ' "Erste Predigt von den Engeln," 1532, Erlanger edition, vol. VI, pp. 397-407. 
 
 ' "Denn as ist ein stetiger Kampf zwischen Engeln und Teufeln. Der Teufel 
 wollte gern alles Ungliick anrichten; wie wir taglich sehen und erfahren, dass 
 mancher ein Bein bricht auf ebener Erde; mancher fallt einen schweren gefahr- 
 lichen Fall die Treppen oder Steigen ab, dass er selbst nicht weiss, wie ihm 
 geschehen ist. Solches und anders wiirde der Teufel wohl immerdar anrichten, 
 wenn Gott durch die lieben Engel nicht wehrete," loc. cit., Erlanger edition, vol. 
 I. P- 399- 
 
486 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 real present ruler of this world, and this world is his principality 
 still, even though Christ has signally defeated him once/ And 
 hence, as to a sort of magic we must go to the sacrament. The 
 coarse superstitions of his age Luther entirely shared.* The 
 most foolish old wives' tales he apparently accepted and in 
 his "Tabletalk" seriously discussed, together with witchcraft, 
 sorcery, etc. He makes the devil responsible for all plagues, 
 sickness, accidents, etc., and the world is for him full of the 
 weird terrors of the ignorant superstitious northland. No really 
 self-consistent system of Christian ethics could long prosper 
 in such an atmosphere. Nor did it in point of fact. Thus 
 the sacraments are debased to magic against these evil powers,^ 
 and throughout the whole of the post-Lutheran development 
 the ethics are hampered by this dualism. The rude anthropo- 
 morphism of Luther contrasts unfavorably with the treatment 
 of the angel and devil superstitions at the hands of reformed 
 theologians. This may not be wholly due to conscious rejection 
 of these superstitions by reformed teacliers, for that was seldom 
 done; it is due to the more speculative and less concrete forms 
 in which reformed theology conveyed its teaching. Luther's 
 great force with the people rested, perhaps, in some degree upon 
 the fact that he shared with them the rude and almost pagan 
 conception of the world inherited from the past. 
 
 4. Luther's doctrine of the relation of the Church to the State 
 is full of inconsistency, and lacks even the elements of strength 
 possessed by the relatively consistent scholastic view as developed 
 by Thomas Aquinas and later by Calvin. In the passages re- 
 ferred to on pages 483-485 we have the doctrine of the church 
 
 ' "Demnach sprich: wahrlich der Teufel ist noch ein Furst in der Welt, 
 und ich bin ihm noch nicht entrunnen, so lange ich aber in sinnen Furstenthum 
 bin, bin ich sein nicht sicher; darumb muss ich zum Sacrament gehen," etc. 
 "Vermahnung zum Sacrament des Lcibes und Blutes unsers Herrn," 1530, 
 Erlanger edition, vol. XXIII, 199. 
 
 ^ Cj. "Tischreden vom Teufel und seinen Werken," Erlanger edition, vol. 
 LIX, pp. 289-348, and vol. 60, pp. 1-75. 
 
 ' C/. Erlanger edition, vol. XXIII, p. 165; vol. XXII, p. 160, and many 
 passages. 
 
THE ETHICS OF LUTHER 487 
 
 as a spiritual force developed. But Luther has no really de- 
 fensible view of the State. It has an existence apart from the 
 kingdom of God/ is heathenish ^ and absurd.' Yet it is not 
 taken away by the Gospel but rather strengthened.^ 
 
 Moreover, it is God's arrangement for "secular" affairs, but 
 should not meddle with "spiritual" affairs,^ for these two worlds 
 (weltlich und christlich Reich) are not to be mingled." But 
 Luther had no hesitation himself in telling prince, king, and 
 kaiser in the name of God just what they should do in all manner 
 of situations. In his very declaration to the Protestant princes 
 of this freedom from ecclesiastical tyranny, he really would 
 only change the nature of it, and it was no fault of Luther's that 
 a new churchly organization did not undertake the reconstruction 
 of Germany, much as Calvin undertook the reconstruction of 
 Geneva. This was, in fact, impossible in Germany, and Luther 
 bowed to the necessity of the case, but the result was a compro- 
 mise in which the church became the mere handmaid of the 
 State, and often her most subservient and ignoble tool. 
 
 It is hard to blame Luther for this. Not since Paul wrote 
 Romans 13, with its eminently practical but easily misunder- 
 stood assumptions of the divine character of all governments, 
 has the Christian world had any clear doctrine of the relation of 
 the kingdom of God to the State. The scholastic identification 
 of the church with the kingdom of God is the real cause of the 
 trouble. The result is with Luther that the real church is for 
 him a transcendental "other-worldly" quantity, which gives 
 again even to the great human Luther a certain monkish flavor 
 when dealing with the Christian life. The " other-worldliness " 
 is thus, reflected in his ethics to their great disadvantage. 
 
 5. The sombre mediaeval despondency, with its world-flight 
 and fundamental despair, is never wholly absent from any 
 
 * "Auslegung des loi Psa.," 1534, Erlanger edition, vol. XXXIX, p. 328. 
 ^ Loc. cit., Erlanger edition, vol. XXXIX, p. 331. 
 
 ' Loc. cit., Erlanger edition, vol. XXXIX, p. 329. 
 
 * Erlanger edition, vol. XIV, p. 239; vol. XX, p. 28. 
 
 * Erlanger edition, vol. XXVII, p. 336. 
 
 * "Predigt am heiligen Christtagc," 1532, Erlanger edition, vol. I, pp. 254-255. 
 
488 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 period of Luther's life, though it deepens toward the close. 
 The world is a "vale of tears" * ( Jammertal) , and is intended 
 by God to be only a preparation for his other world, as a car- 
 penter builds a scaffold for the house.^ 
 
 In sermons preached between 1537 and 1540 Luther looks 
 forward to a speedy end to the world,^ and he takes a most 
 gloomy view of the increasing drunkeness, gluttony, usury, ex- 
 travagance, and excesses of the time. He constantly thinks in 
 terms of two worlds or kingdoms wrestling with one another.^ 
 
 This " other- worldliness " did not prevent Luther from in- 
 culcating cheerfulness upon believers, and in his "Tabletalk" 
 he expressly enjoins music and cheerfulness as good remedies 
 against the devil.^ 
 
 III. THE PRACTICAL ETHICS OF LUTHER 
 
 I. When we look at the practical reforming activities of 
 Luther the reason at once appears why he takes so large a place 
 in history. He was inferior to Melanchthon in knowledge of 
 the scholastic system within which the intellectual life of both 
 was cast. He was far less in touch with the really modern 
 world at many points than was Erasmus. He had no such 
 profound and exhaustive scholarship as Reuchlin. But no one 
 of these made history as Luther made it. The identification of 
 Church and State was a commonplace of human thought at 
 
 * Erlanger edition, vol. XL\'I, p. 25. 
 
 ^ "Diese Welt ist Gott nur eine Vorbereitung und Geriiste zu jener Welt. 
 Gleich als ein reicher Bauherr muss viel Geriists haben zu einem Hause." 
 "Tischreden," Erlanger edition, vol. LXII, p. 345. 
 
 ^ "Die Wel(t) hat nun gestanden funf tausend funf hundert und etliche Yahr, 
 nun soil im sechs tausend Yahre das Ende kommen, und wird dasselbige letztc 
 tauscnde Yahr nicht erfullet werden," " Uber das 24 capital Matthiii," Erlanger 
 edition, vol. XLV, p. 196. 
 
 * "Das sind die zwei widervvartige Reiche die raufen sich mit einander fiir 
 und fiir urn die Krone," Erlanger edition, vol. VIII, p. 216, and many passages. 
 
 *"Der Teufel ist ein trauriger Geist und macht traurige Lente, darumb 
 kann er Frohlichkeit nicht leiden. Daher kompts auch, dass er von der 
 Musica aufs Weiteste fleuget; bleibt nicht wenn man singet, sonderlich geist- 
 liche Lieder," Erlanger edition, vol. LX, p. 60. 
 
THE PRACTICAL ETHICS OF LUTHER 489 
 
 that time. Luther's practical sense flung itself upon a far- 
 reaching reform of the State. Germany should be an inde- 
 pendent power apart from Rome, and thus his letter to the 
 Protestant princes became, together with his treatise on the 
 Babylonian captivity, the Magna Charta of German liberty.' 
 
 Luther looked upon the State as ordained of God for certain 
 purposes, and the Christian man had no right but that of passive 
 resistance. So he deprecated force, and yet he also realized that 
 the German princes had the right of self-defence.^ His attitude 
 toward the peasants in 1525 was along the lines of his thought 
 and influence. He saw in the twelve articles only a caricature of 
 the teaching he himself would have died for. And in exactly 
 the same spirit in which he refused co-operation with Zwingli 
 he refused co-operation with Thomas Miinzer. It is unhistoric 
 to attempt to gloss the mistake in both instances. The Reforma- 
 tion was again and again betrayed by the same princes who so 
 savagely put down the peasants. We must remember, however, 
 that at the same time Luther as sternly demanded humanity and 
 justice at the hands of the princes as he did submission on the 
 part of the peasants. That was his point of view. It was the 
 point of view of the rising middle-class with the stamp of the free 
 city upon it. 
 
 2. In his view life was still in reality divided into religious and 
 secular, and the State was still "Christian." He could not see — 
 many do not yet see — that no social order has ever been really 
 "Christian." Hence Luther's treatment of law as twofold or 
 threefold is exceedingly confused and confusing.^ Here scholas- 
 ticism is apparent in a most pronounced form. There are 
 offences against "common morality" which are given over to the 
 State. There is "essential" sin, i. e., original, which needs the 
 "justicia" of regeneration, and there is actual transgression 
 (quod est fructus originalis) which only faith can overcome. 
 
 ' English readers will find the translation of Luther's primary works by Wace 
 and Buchheim fairly well done. (London, 1896.) 
 
 ^ Erlanger edition, vol. LXV, pp. 83-86. 
 
 '"Triple.x est pecatum, cui triple.x apponitur justicia," "Sermo de triplici 
 Justicia," Weimar edition, vol. II, p. 59. 
 
490 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 This dealing with the State as "secular" and yet as "Chris- 
 tian" and from God is further confused by Luther's relegating 
 the State and its government to reason/ while the church is 
 governed by the "word," conceived of as a something external 
 to reason. 
 
 This separation rendered him at times despondent about the 
 State. "Government changes and government reform," he 
 says, "are two different things, as far apart as heaven and earth. 
 To change is easy, to improve is uncertain and dangerous. 
 Why ? Because this does not rest on our will or power, but 
 belongs alone in God's will and hand." ^ Government is God's 
 ordinance and the Christian man, who must not himself fight, 
 must fight if commanded by God's servant the "secular" prince.^ 
 And this prince may himself be a Christian, but in that case 
 governs "not as a Christian but as a prince." * Thus Luther 
 not only recognized, as all must, the prevailing double morality, 
 but sanctions it in a way fatal to the highest ideals. In the 
 advice that Luther gave to Philip of Hesse comes out plainly the 
 practical effect of a theoretical defect in Luther's ethics.^ He, in 
 point of fact, fell back into the double morality which the com- 
 promise between Church and State has always made necessary." 
 
 3. On the other hand, it is absurd to charge Luther with 
 theoretic looseness in regard to sexual purity. There clung to 
 him some of the unfortunate casuistical weaknesses born of the 
 
 ' "Von wcltlicher Obrigkeit," 1523, Erlanger edition, vol. XXII, p. 105. 
 
 ^"Ob Kriegslcute auch in seligem Stande sein Konnen," 1526, Erlanger 
 edition, vol. XXII, pp. 244-290. The whole treatise is exceedingly suggestive. 
 
 ^ C/., also, Erlanger edition, vol. XLII, iii; vol. Ill, 280; vol. LII, 298, 
 and many passages. 
 
 * "Ein Fiirst kann woU ein Christen sein, aber als ein Christ muss er nicht 
 regieren; und nach dem er regiert heisst cr nicht ein Christ, sondern ein Furst." 
 "Postelle," Erlanger edition, vol. XLIII, 211. 
 
 ' See "Die Doppclehe des Landgrafen Philipp von Hessen," Rockwell, W. W., 
 Marburg, 1904; also Luther's "Lchre von dcr Ehe " Salfcld, Ernest, 1882, 
 "Luther und die Ehc," Fuchs, G., Stuttgart, 1891. 
 
 " Where the head of the State is the head of the Church, and the church has no 
 power to depose the chief ruler, it must either secure a saint for the secular prince 
 or wink at the sins and follies high position makes exceedingly easy to the 
 average man. 
 
V 
 
 CF 
 
 THE PRACTICAL ETHICS OF LUTHER 491 
 
 unnatural relationship established by the Roman confessional. 
 It is, however, as unfair to charge him with these as to assert that 
 the notorious sexual laxness of special Roman Catholic com- 
 munities is the fault of the confessional.^ 
 
 4. With growing admiration one must study the fine Chris- 
 tian wisdom and almost unfailing common-sense of Luther as he 
 addressed himself to the work of re-establishing the churches of 
 Germany. He is in the line of apostolic succession with Paul, 
 Augustine, and Wesley. He felt himself righUy to be a conserver 
 of the historical past. He did not sympathize with the thorough- 
 going radicalism of Carlstadt, and only pressed for reform where 
 he thought some ethical or religious value endangered by the 
 old custom. 
 
 In his letter to the Protestant princes he brings out plainly the 
 ethical test of the true church, and we have already seen how he 
 recognized the priesthood of all believers, so that even in the 
 administration of the sacraments it is only a matter of order that 
 some function and others do not.^ For all men he demanded 
 the highest attainment in grace, and the church is the " holy 
 community," and so far as it Is not " holy" it is not a true church. 
 
 The most serious practical weakness in the ethical reconstruc- 
 tion as regards the church was the magical intrusion. The 
 sacraments were too often thought of, not in the categories of 
 ethics but of magic and externalism. Thus sacramental grace 
 becomes a "treasure" which "the church possesses" and "dis- 
 tributes." So he adopts Augustine's "accedat verbum ad ele- 
 
 ^ Cf. Denifle, Heinrich, "Luther und Lutherthum," 2d ed., 1904, in two 
 parts, which is an unfair and one-sided criticism of Luther. The mere mis- 
 use of itahcs (gesperrter Druck) enables the author again and again to utterly 
 misrepresent Luther. The present writer has no brief in Luther's defence. 
 Protestantism is for him far too much an ideal of the future to make him willing 
 to stake his faith in it on the character of any man. But after careful examina- 
 tion of all that has been recklessly charged against Luther, the admiration for 
 the man has steadily grown. He used frank, coarse language. He is never 
 impure. He spoke slightingly of good works done to gain heaven, never of good 
 works. His own life, by historic testimony Denifle himself quotes, was pure 
 simple, and of good report. Could Denifle say that of all the popes ? 
 
 * Erlanger edition, vol. XI, pp. 304 and 318. 
 
492 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 mcntum ct fit sacramentum,''^ and baptismal water becomes a 
 "divine and holy thing," * And he says " the whole force, work, 
 necessity, fruit and end of baptism is to confer salvation," or 
 "faith clings to the water and believes that baptism confers 
 life." For infant baptism he has no defence save the incorrect 
 one that God commanded it. This high sacramentarianism 
 sooner or later reacts to the disadvantage of the church thought 
 of as a religious-ethical force. At the same time Luther himself 
 guarded with insistent faithfulness the conception of the church 
 as God's messenger of salvation to all men. The church was 
 the proclaimer of God's truth and the educator of her own 
 children. 
 
 5, Thus Luther's practical common-sense taught him the 
 bad policy of expecting reformation by the sword and by force. 
 At the same time he had no really consistent theory of the 
 church, and based his right conclusions upon a false and fitfully 
 held theory of non-resistance to princes. Seldom does Luther 
 engage in weaker arguments than in his dealing with the peasant 
 revolt, even though he had good reason for denouncing the folly 
 of staking the Reformation upon the fanaticism of the Anabap- 
 tists and the revolting serfs and peasants.^ 
 
 In his practical teaching he was here as elsewhere almost al- 
 ways right, although he made mistakes, and his sermons against 
 the unfortunate peasants are no more to be defended than 
 Gregory XIII's Te Deum for the massacre of St. Bartholmew, or 
 Calvin's complicity in the death of Servetus. He also, with the 
 other reformess, made a mistake in even seeming to give a dis- 
 pensation to the Landgrave. That again was an intrusion of 
 Roman Catholic casuistry upon the reformed thinking. No real 
 Protestant is the lord over another man's conscience. He was 
 also mistaken in his defence of the "not-luge" (lie of necessity), 
 but he took it over from the legal morality of the past, and the 
 church of Rome should be the last to throw stones at him in the 
 
 ' "Greater Catechism" upon baptism. 
 
 ''Cj. "Sermons to the Peasants," in 1525, and in 1522 his "Wrmahnung an 
 alle Christen." 
 
THE PRACTICAL ETHICS OF LUTHER 493 
 
 matter. It is as untrue to accuse Luther of defending impurity 
 or untruth as it would be to assert that Rome defends murder/ 
 
 6. Equally coarse is the frequent assertion that Luther was 
 drunken and a defender of excess. Again and again he de- 
 nounces his own people for their drunkeness. It is "sin,"^ 
 although a less vice than uncleanness. It makes the service of 
 God impossible.^ A Christian "should be such a man as will 
 keep his body temperate in eating and drinking, and will not 
 spoil it by intemperate gluttony and excess, that he may be 
 constant, sensible, and skilled in prayer." * No drunkard can be 
 a Christian, and it leads to all other vices. Such was the constant 
 teaching of Luther.^ That he took wine, as all then did, was 
 not even an infringement of the rules of his order. 
 
 7. In the matter of personal truthfulness Luther's discus- 
 sion compares favorably with the general treatment in scholas- 
 tic ethics. The distinction common in casuistry between the 
 mendacium perniciosum and the mendacium officiosum Luther 
 accepts,' in order to shield some of the Old Testament characters, 
 but he was himself too bold, fearless, and outspoken to have 
 patience with lying. He pours out his contempt upon it, as the 
 cause of half the sin of the world.'' No lie that injures any one 
 can have any defence, although a lie to help may at times be 
 permitted. But it is even here very dangerous, and grows like 
 a snowball,^ and is to be classed with murder. 
 
 Luther discusses the doctrine of non-resistance, and most 
 
 * Besides works quoted, see Luther's teaching on marriage set forth in von 
 Stumpf, "Martin Luther iiber die Ehe," BerHn, 1857. 
 
 ^ Sermon on the ninth chapter of Genesis, Erlanger edition, vol. XXXIII, p. 
 
 215- 
 
 ' "Am zwanzigsten sonntage nach Trin," Erlanger edition, vol. IX, p. 331. 
 
 * "Am Sonntage nach Himmelfahrt," Erlanger edition, vol. VIII, pp. 280- 
 286. The sermon is an excellent temperance tract. 
 
 'The lines "Wer nicht liebt Wein, Weib, Gesang" are not by Luther, but 
 by Voss. He never said anything of the kind. 
 8 Erlanger edition, vol. XXXV, p. 18. 
 ' "Am neunzehnten Sonntage nach Trin," Erlanger edition, vol. IX, p. 313- 
 
 314- 
 
 ' "Tischreden," Erlanger edition, vol. LVIII, p. 308. 
 
494 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 clearly, in a sermon upon Matt. 26 : 56.^ He who takes the 
 sword will die by the sword. Yet resistance to evil-doing is 
 proper, so long as it is without anger or hatred and along the 
 given lines of legal remedy. Moreover, any one attacked by a 
 murderer in the woods has a right to defend himself, but it is 
 only in extreme cases, and all must be done under the general 
 law of love to our neighbor. Nor must we ever forget how 
 passive and unresisting Jesus was, even under illegal treatment.^ 
 Luther felt so deeply that personal revenge was out of place that 
 he urges the injured one to abstain from pressing his own suit.^ 
 He should rather "ask and hinder" any one revenging him. 
 Thus punishment would be carried out in a spirit of brotherly 
 love.^ 
 
 Luther saw the evils plainly enough of the commercial middle- 
 class spirit which was to so soon rule the progressive West. He 
 denounces fiercely, although of course indiscriminately, greed, 
 usury, and the commercial hardness of his day.* He goes back to 
 Aristotle and Roman law for his arguments against all interest,^ 
 but fails to really put his finger on either the economical or the 
 ethical weakness of the new development. Indeed that would 
 have been too much to expect of him." He traces the revolt of 
 the peasants to their ignorance of the Gospel and to the un- 
 wisdom of the land-owners.' For Luther the revolting peasants 
 were "breakers of the peace, forsworn, traitors, blasphemers 
 against God," but he demanded of the triumphant land-owners 
 that they should not press their advantage, and pled for mercy 
 for those who gave way. His sympathies were wholly with his 
 class, and the proletariat, he knew, were deceived by the un- 
 
 ' Erlangcr edition, vol. Ill, pp. 49-60. 
 
 ■ "Grosser Sermon vom Wucher," 1509, Erlangcr edition, vol. XX, pp. 89-92. 
 
 * Erlangcr edition, vol. XX, p. 93. 
 
 * Erlangcr edition, Vol. XLV, p. 6 ff. 
 
 * "An die Ffarrherrn, wider den Wucher zu prcdigen," 1540, Erlangcr edition, 
 vol. XXIII, p. 282-338. The whole sermon is most interesting, with its bad 
 political economy but clear insight into the evils of the commercial spirit. 
 
 * The classic passages will be found in his sermons against usury. Cf. vol. 
 XX, pp. 89-122 and 122-127; v"'- XXIII, pp. 282-338; vol. XLV, pp. 158-160. 
 
 ^ Erlangcr edition, vol. XXIV, p. 267; also vol. LXV, pp. 1-46. 
 
THE PRACTICAL ETHICS OF LUTHER 495 
 
 doubtedly fanatical "prophets." On the whole Luther could 
 hardly have been expected to act otherwise. Where would the 
 sympathies of any white Southern minister of the Gospel have 
 been in case of a temporarily successful rising of the slaves 
 before 1865 in America? For Luther serfdom was as much a 
 divine institution as slavery was for Southern Presbyterianism.^ 
 
 The ethical process is a twofold one. On the one hand we 
 extract from our experiences the general principles which must 
 rule our conduct, and on the other in the application of those 
 principles to conduct we correct and enlarge them. Luther awoke 
 the world to a new and larger conception of the Christ life as 
 springing from the Christ purpose. He saw that "good works do 
 not make a good man," but that "a good man does good works." 
 The full Christian obligation he laid upon all : "I will give myself 
 as a sort of Christ to my neighbor as Christ has given himself to 
 me, and will do nothing in this life except what I see will be 
 needful, advantageous, and wholesome for my neighbor." 
 
 Nowhere, perhaps, does Luther sum up better his religious 
 ethics than in the beautiful tract " Tessaradecus." ^ There are 
 in it many touches of a distinctly Roman Catholic piety, but the 
 general outline is above and beyond the narrow limits of sectarian 
 dispute. The truth as it is in Christ Jesus is life's highest good. 
 The goal is the vision of God, because that vision will separate 
 us forever from sin. Death is, in so far, for the Christian man a 
 good. Life has two kinds of hope, one negative, the termination 
 of evil, the other positive, the attainment of the good.^ There is 
 here a beautiful refinement in the treatment of heaven and hell in 
 pleasing contrast to the ordinary thought of that day, even as 
 reflected in Luther's other writings. Separation from sin is 
 heaven, abandonment by God is hell. Hell is sin, heaven is love 
 within us. God is our friend and communion with him and 
 co-operation with him in his work is heaven. More than once 
 
 • Erlanger edition, vol. XXXVI, p. 175 if., and many passages. 
 
 * "Fourteen Sources of Comfort for the Weary and Heavy-laden." In Latin 
 and German (Spalatin's translation), 1520, and revised 1536-1537. 
 
 ^ "Spes mali amovendi, et spes boni accessuri." 
 
496 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Luther is reported in his "Tabletalk" as saying that the devil 
 cheats men with the false syllogism : " You are a sinner. God is 
 the sinner's enemy. God is your enemy." Luther denounces 
 the assertion that God is the sinner's enemy. The power of the 
 priest in all ages has been men's fear of God. Loving children 
 do not need a priest between them and their Father. Thus 
 Luther struck a deadly blow at the power of the priesthood. 
 
 But most especially did Luther teach men, as no one had 
 taught them hitherto, that the daily task was sacred. This 
 became the watchword of a new ethical life. He himself never 
 quite shook off the shadows of priesdy misrepresentation of God. 
 In this Denifle is quite right. But the fault was not Luther's 
 but the popular religion fostered by the hierarchy. He was 
 often afflicted by physical depression. Yet in hymn and sermon, 
 in work and life, the greatest of the reformers taught the new- 
 old lesson, rejoice in the Lord always, again I say rejoice ! 
 
 II. THE ETHICS OF MELANCHTHON. 
 
 If Luther was the man of action, and the adviser of ac- 
 tion on the part of those who had the political responsibility 
 for the Reformation on their hands, no less was Melanchthon the 
 formulator of the churchly system of thought which took the 
 place of the discredited Roman Catholic theology. This may be 
 deemed unfortunate. Certainly Melanchthon was dogmatic and 
 reactionary in the outlines of his thought; at the same time it is 
 unhistorical to contrast too strongly the two men. As we have 
 seen, there was in Luther a scholastic and reactionary trend 
 which only some immediate ethical or religious interest could 
 make him override.* It is often overlooked, however, that here 
 
 ' In Ritschl's "Lehre von der Rechtfertigung und Versohnung," and particu- 
 larly in the third volume there is a running critique of Melanchthon's theology 
 (pp. 7, 97, 107-108, no, 136-137, 273, 370, etc.), 4th cd., 1895, which pro- 
 duces often the impression that Ritschl laid upon Melanchthon the blame of the 
 reactionary character of post-Reformation theology. This was, certainly, the 
 impression he also left upon his students of dogmatics, but how fairly he held 
 the historical balance may be seen in his first volume, 3d ed., 1889, pp. 185-203. 
 
THE ETHICS OF MELANCHTHON 497 
 
 as elsewhere, the age determined to a large degree the limits 
 of the intellectual revolution. The disorders of the time de- 
 manded constructive statesmanship. This was sadly lacking. 
 Conservatism has always definite and material interests to give 
 unity to its activity. It stands for the defence of vested privileges, 
 of class, of property, of education, of Church, and of State. Re- 
 form and a really progressive idealism has little but promises of 
 a better future; and the faith of even its most sturdy defender is 
 sadly tried by the vagaries of the camp-followers, who range 
 from dogmatic one-sidedness to fanatical, unhistorical radicalism 
 all along the line. 
 
 Luther never sought to cut himself off from history. Even his 
 denunciation of Aristode is explicable on the line of his own 
 intellectual development (nominalist). He was always at one 
 with Melanchthon in seeking to maintain the intellectual unity 
 of history. The immediate pressing need of some definite 
 reconstruction of the intellectual basis of life called into play the 
 great powers of thought and feeling possessed by the gentle and 
 learned Melanchthon.^ 
 
 * Melanchthon, Philipp, born February i6, 1497, died April 19, 1560, the son 
 of Georg Schwarzerd, but he wrote his name later in Greek, and himself used 
 from 1 53 1 on the shortened form Melanthon. The "complete edition" of Carl 
 Gottlieb Bretschneider and Heinrich Ernst Bindseil in the "Corpus Reforma- 
 torum," vols. I-XXVIII, Halle, 1834-1860, has been supplemented by Bindseil, 
 Hartfelder, and others, but the student of ethics will find his material mainly in 
 vols. XI, XII, XVI, XXI, XXII, XXIII, and XXVHI. The "Loci" have been 
 very carefully edited by Plitt-Kolde with most useful introductory matter ("Die 
 Loci Communis Philipp Melanchthons in ihrer Urgestalt nach G. L. Plitt; in 
 zweiter Auflage von neuem herausgegeben und erlautert von Theodor Kolde," 
 Erlangen and Leipsic, 1890). The best life is by Karl Schmidt, "Philipp 
 Melanchthon, Leben und ausgewahlte Schriften," ("Vater der lutherischen 
 Kirche" series, vol. Ill), Elberfeld, 1861, and James William Richard, "Philipp 
 Melanchthon: The Protestant Preceptor of Germany," 1497-1560 ("Heroes of 
 the Reformation" series). New York, 1898. His ethical work is especially 
 treated by Christoph Ernst Luthardt, "Die Arbeiten Melanchthons im Gebicte 
 der Moral," Leipsic, 1884. See also " Theologische Studien und Kritikcn," 
 1897, for estimates by Gustav Kawerau, "Melanchthon neben Luther," pp. 
 668-686, and Friedrich Loofs, "Melanchthon als Humanist und Reformator," 
 pp. 641-667; also Adolf Harnack, in "Revue Chretienne," vol. XLIV, 1897, 
 "Philippe Melanchthon," Discourse 16, February, 1897, University of Berlin, 
 
498 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The outline of Melanchthon's ethics is set out in his "Philoso- 
 phiae Moralis Epitome," ^ which appeared in the first edition in 
 1538, and under different wording remains substantially the 
 basis of all his later thought. He defines moral philosophy as 
 that part of the divine law which concerns itself with external 
 action,' and then goes on to distinguish between philosophy and 
 the Gospel, any confusion of which produces "horrible errors." 
 The Gospel is a revealed promise of God on account of Christ of 
 the free forgiveness of sin, of reconciliation and the gift of the 
 Holy Spirit, and of life eternal. This could not be discovered by 
 reason. Yet in the exact spirit of the scholastics he accepts 
 reason as the blurred impress of the law of God upon the human 
 soul.^ This revelation (ethical) is a remnant of the divine light, 
 and the dignity of human nature consists in the fact that it is a 
 glass in which the wisdom of God is reflected. Philosophia has 
 a distinguished place therefore, although it is not on a level with 
 the Gospel Evangelium. It deals with demonstrations from 
 principles, and he rejects the Academy position that these 
 principles are simply probable. 
 
 Thus Melanchthon sets before himself the task of scholasti- 
 cism, namely, the rationalization of human conduct within a 
 closed system. /The law of nature, he teaches with the older 
 \ Stoics, is the law of God._^ But moral philosophy concerns itself 
 with civil custom, and at this point Melanchthon confuses 
 ethics with statute law. Law is a school-master to bring us to 
 Christ, he quotes from Paul, and as such has its rewards and 
 penalties. It has also its assured principles, and the moral 
 
 translated by Rene Puaux, pp. 161-177. The scholasticism of Melanchthon 
 has been treated by W. Bornemann, "Melanchthon als Schulmann," Magde- 
 burg, 1897. See also Franz Koltzsch, "Melanchthons philosophische Ethik," 
 Freiburg, 1889, and § III in Christoph Ernst Luthardt's "Geschichte der 
 Ethik seit der Reformation" (vol. II of his "Geschichte der christlichcn Ethik"), 
 Leipsic, 1893, pp. 38-53. 
 
 ' Vol. XVI, "Corpus Reformatorum," pp. 20-163. 
 
 ' "Scd cruditissima definitio est haec: Philosophia moralis est pars ilia legis 
 divinze, qua; de externis actionibus praicipit." 
 
 ^"Nam lex divina hominum mentibus impressa est, scd in hac imbecillitate 
 naturx obscurata est," etc. 
 
THE ETHICS OF MELANCHTHON 499 
 
 extravagances of the race are due to ignorance of these. Thus 
 Melanchthon again divides ethics into natural and supernatural, 
 with the ultimate assumption that there can be no real conflict 
 between them. 
 
 The uses of moral philosophy are educational, and it has the 
 advantage of written law in so far that written law is concise, 
 while philosophy can and should explicate the reasons for the 
 conduct it commands. 
 
 It sets forth also the foundations of jurisprudence, for as 
 Aristotle showed of old the best law is that which follows nature. 
 Hence the lawyer should be a student of moral philosophy. 
 
 The theologian also must study it, for although the Gospel has 
 a different place from law and philosophy, nevertheless the 
 theologian must discourse about the dignity of civil affairs, of 
 political laws, of magistrates and rulers, and the morals necessary 
 in the civil State. 
 
 The main difference, however, between the laws of the magis- 
 trates and the conclusions of the philosophical dispute Melanch- 
 thon sees in the fact that the laws are bare, naked precepts with- 
 out assigned cause or reason. Philosophy explicates the reasons 
 for conduct. 
 
 Moral philosophy deals with ends and must ask what is the end 
 of human life. The answer is to know God and to reveal his 
 glory. ^ In nature all things obey the law of their being, the sun 
 hastens to its goal, but man has lost by original sin the power of 
 obedience, and the goal must be reconstructed according to the 
 law of God and a true and sound philosophy. The Stoics were 
 right in seeing God in the notions of justice and social order. 
 Following the Gospel, however, the end of human life is to know 
 Christ the son of God, and to accept the gracious offering and to 
 glorify God by obedience to it. 
 
 There then follows a criticism from this point of view of the 
 "end" of human life as set forth by Aristotle, and of the Epicu- 
 reans, whose doctrines he sets forth in syllogisms, which he then 
 
 * "Ergo finis hominis est agnoscere Deum, et patefacere ejus gloriam." Cj. 
 "Westminster Cat.," Q. i. 
 
500 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 refutes, but without true appreciation of the real position of 
 Epicurus. He defends the Stoic position that the only real good 
 is virtue, and at the same time shows that there are inferior 
 goods and that the dispute is about words. 
 " If, then, as Aristotle has shown, virtuous action is the end of 
 human life, moral philosophy must concern itself with the nature 
 of virtue. He then follows Aristotle. Virtue is a habit, which 
 inclines the will to obedience of right reason.^ At the same time 
 Plato was right so far that in defining virtue as justice, he marks 
 the fact that virtue is harmony in which all parts co-operate and 
 the inferior obey the superior. 
 
 Melanchthon then seeks the causes of virtue both primary and 
 secondary, and here again he stands upon the old scholastic 
 position of a closed system revealed in nature and in revelation 
 from which right reason deduces the principles of conduct. 
 The secondary causes conducing to virtue are teaching (doc- 
 trina), the natural impulse, and discipline. Rites and cere- 
 monies are often God's method of discipline. So far philosophic 
 ethics goes, but the Christian adds the conception of the Gospel 
 and the Holy Spirit aiding and impelling human nature; and 
 when we see the weakness of philosophy in the midst of man's 
 helplessness, then the more ardently do we embrace the Christian 
 teaching which oflfers aid in this weakness. There then follows 
 a bit of choice schoLasticism in a distinction between "causa 
 formalis" and "causa finalis." 
 
 Classic for the post-Reformation ethics is now Melanchthon's 
 discussion of the freedom of the human will.* He rejects the 
 Stoic teaching of fate, and shows that both philosophy and Paul 
 teach a degree of freedom for the human will in external and 
 civil affairs. This he does in a series of arguments with "solu- 
 tions" and in an acute and learned critique of (Roman) Stoi- 
 cism. Then he takes up Aristode, whose position as to the grades 
 of action he accepts,' and distinguishes between "common" and 
 
 ' "Virtus est habitus, qui inclinat voluntatem ad obcdiendum recta; rationi." 
 ' "Estne voluntas humana libera?" "Corpus Reform.," vol. XVI, p. 42. 
 '"Sunt igitur hi gradus actionum. Alia; sunt i5(r« tales, alia; W^, aliie 
 ^ouXi}ff«t, alia; irpoapiati,'" "Corpus Reform.," vol. XVI, p. 57. 
 
THE ETHICS OF MELANCHTHON 501 
 
 "heroic" virtues. Heroic virtues are only reached by the help 
 of divine inspiration. This was the case in even classic times, 
 and such are the virtues of the saints, who were sustained by 
 the Holy Spirit, like Abraham, David, Paul, and others. Nor 
 is this inconsistent with Aristotle's definition of virtue as a mean 
 between extremes, when that definition is rightly interpreted. 
 Nor does Plato, when properly understood, stand upon any 
 other ground. 
 
 In the division of the virtues the Decalogue is Melanchthon's 
 convenient guide. At this point there is no real advance upon 
 the classic scholastic distinctions between duties to God, to man, 
 and the evangelical virtues. The discussion of the virtues is also 
 disappointing, falling far below Luther's estimate of the rounded 
 Christian life of common tasks. Indeed as an ethical treatise it 
 is below the level of Thomas Aquinas's work.* 
 
 It is not so much, however, his conclusions as his method that 
 did harm to the development of a genuine Protestant ethics. 
 Even humanism, although primarily so pagan in its ethical 
 outlook, might have given rise within Protestantism to a genuine 
 religious rationalism, with a unified and consistent ethical philos- 
 ophy, but upon the vain and outworn distinctions of the mixed 
 culture of scholasticism there was no chance to build securely. 
 Thus into post-Reformation ethics Melanchthon reintroduced 
 the authority of an external code, the quasi-authority of classic 
 philosophy, the confusions of metaphysical discussions from the 
 standing ground of a priori dogmatism; and thus he lost himself, 
 and post-Reformation Lutheranism followed him back into the 
 wilderness of dreary scholastic unreality. 
 
 It would not be profitable here to take up in detail Melanch- 
 thon's acute and learned reviews of Aristotle and Cicero's 
 ethics. He is not always self-consistent, nor has the writer been 
 able to trace consistent chronological development in his ethical 
 thought. He seems rather to have readily yielded to the force 
 of particular writers with whom he was busy. In the second 
 redaction of the " Epitome" in 1550, under the heading " Ethical 
 
 ' "Pars Secunda Secundae," of the "Summa." 
 
502 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 doctrinae elementa," * there is, for instance, a marked increase 
 in the influence of Cicero, perhaps as seen through Ambrose, and 
 also greater scholastic refinement. 
 
 In the "Loci" and the ethics of his middle and later periods 
 there is wavering and uncertainty, and after Luther's death, 
 which came to him both as a shock and yet also as a relief from 
 masterful pressure,^ the scholastic interest is ever in the fore- 
 ground. He increasingly inclined to the impossible intellectual 
 mediation which has been the bane of Protestantism. Perhaps 
 this wavering character was the constitutional weakness of a 
 scholar thrust into an unwelcome leadership in action. Perhaps 
 Melanchthon recognized the fact that he had many intellectual 
 bonds with the mediaeval past.^ 
 
 This especially reveals itself in a field from which this history 
 has tried to keep aloof, namely, the dogmatic presuppositions of 
 I an authoritative ethical system. The relations, for instance, of 
 {grace to the renewed man and the place in the ethical life of the 
 I whole sacramental system become, for post-Reformation ethics, 
 important questions. In the unio mystica of the redeemed man 
 with Christ the questions arise. Is the mystical union with his 
 manhood or with his will? Does the sacrament complete the 
 process, or is it only a "seal" upon the completed event or an 
 aid to its completion? etc., etc.? These and like school ques- 
 tions were again thrust upon the Reformation by the acceptance 
 
 ' "Corpus Reform.," vol. XVI, p. 165. 
 
 ^ C/. the oft-quoted letter to Carlowitz: "Tuli etiam antea servitutem paene 
 deformem, cum saepe Lutherus magis sua: natura; in qua (pCKoveiKla. erat non 
 exigua, quam vel personae suae, vel utilitaticommuni serviret," "Corpus Reform.," 
 vol. VI, p. 880. 
 
 'In the "Schriften des Vereins fiir Reformations-geschichte," No. 73 (19th 
 year, 1901-1902), Dr. Gustav Kawerau has published a most interesting account 
 of Melanchthon's relations to the Curia, "Die Versuche Melanchthon zur 
 katholischen Kirche zuriickzufiihren (1902)." Here we see the purely human- 
 istic and literary tastes of Melanchthon struggling with the religious and dog- 
 matic interests, and although it may be unfair to press too far expressions of 
 Melanchthon's used in politeness in his correspondence with Roman Catholics, 
 or in temporary fits of disgust with the rawness of the new Protestantism, at the 
 same time such expressions would have been perfectly impossible for such self 
 conscious Protestants as Luther and Zwingli. 
 
THE ETHICS OF MELANCHTHON 503 
 
 of the scholastic Aristotelian philosophy as a quasi official inter- 
 pretation of the evangelical ethics.' 
 
 In the " Loci " (3d form) ^ the sections that have ethical interest 
 are those dealing with sin and the lavv.^ Luther was still living, 
 but the change in emphasis wrought by scholastic disputation is 
 apparent. In both method and matter there is distinct reversion 
 to the ethics of the schools and deep and fundamental confusion 
 with regard to law and grace. 
 
 The sinner has freedom of the will for civil virtues and in 
 regard to outward actions. He is free to commit or abstain from 
 committing the grosser sins. And youth should be taught that 
 God punishes in this life infractions of the outward morality. 
 At the same time, against sin and death all are helpless without 
 grace. This is given freely together with penitence and contri- 
 tion. Then enters again the old scholastic distinctions between 
 kinds of grace and the confusions grouped generally under the 
 head of "synergism)" The grace that redeems gives penitence 
 and renewal, and then sustaining grace enables, by the continu- 
 ous merits of Christ, the sinner to please God by the imperfectly 
 sanctified works of the redeemed man. If a student of ethics 
 may be allowed an opinion in dogmatics as between the ultimate 
 position of the Council of Trent and Melanchthon's last edition 
 of the "Loci," the dogmatical position of Trent is ethically 
 clearer and less objectionable. 
 
 The practical outcome of Melanchthon's position would be a 
 twofold ethical relation, a rather coarsely eudaemonistic ethics for 
 the unredeemed in his civil relations, and a religious ethics for 
 the redeemed, in which, however, the Decalogue is fundamental 
 and the legal element is never overcome. 
 
 The threefold division of the law into moral, ceremonial, and 
 
 * Even down to Julius Miiller, as one may see in his chapters upon "Hilfsatze 
 aus der Dogmatik," in the ethical work published after his death by Julius 
 Leopold Schultze ("Dr. Julius Muller ^s Ethiker und die Glaubensfrage mit 
 Bezug auf das Apostolicum," etc., Bremen, 1895). 
 
 ^ "Corpus Reformatorum," vol. XXI, pp. 560-1106. 
 
 ' "De causa peccati et de contingentia (III), De humanis viribus seu de libero 
 arbitrio (IV), De peccato (V), De lege divina <VI)," pp. 643-731. 
 
504 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 judicial or civil is not self-consistently carried out.* Nor does 
 Melanchthon grasp the subject of law as firmly as the older 
 scholasticism, and at the same time he brings in the creeds and 
 the church as equal authorities with the law in a way self- 
 conscious Protestantism can never do.^ And although Melanch- 
 thon distinctly refused to identify faith with the acceptance of 
 "history," ^ in both his definition of faith as "acceptance of the 
 Gospel that sin is forgiven" in "real fright and terror before the 
 anger of God," as well as in his definition of law, there are weak 
 and beggarly elements. 
 
 While making these criticisms and deploring the subsequent 
 confusions into which Melanchthon led the ethics of Lutheran- 
 ism, from which they did not emerge until Kant, it is at the same 
 time true that Melanchthon saw the need of both intellectual 
 formulation of ethics and greatly stimulated the interest in 
 moral philosophy. Perhaps it is to him that German philosophy 
 owes in large part its tremendously ethical interest, and the very 
 confusions of Melanchthon compelled religious thought restlessly 
 to seek a firmer ground upon which to stand. 
 
 Melanchthon's interest in humanism also prepared the way 
 for that union of religious Protestantism with the intellectual 
 awakening, which, in spite of all the protests of Roman Catholic 
 imperialism within Protestant orthodoxy, so-called, has steadily 
 compelled Protestantism to shake off the grave-clothes of 
 scholasticism and to seek God in humble dependence upon the 
 only means he has given us to find him. 
 
 ' The third commandment is a lex natura, and for all time and for all men. 
 "De tertio praecepto," vol. XXI, p. 700, "Corpus Reformat orum." 
 
 *"Und nach dem die Kirche zur Apostles Zeit die Hauptstucke christlicher 
 Lehre in das symbolum Apostolorum gefasset hat, und ist hernach im Symbolum 
 Niceno und Athanasii, dcr vorigen Symbol! warhafftige Klerunge trculich 
 gemacht worden, will ich im Anfang hie meine Ewige Bekentniss mit warhaff- 
 tigcm Hertzen setzen, das ich warhafTtiglich alle Artikel in demselbigcn symbolis 
 gefasset, gleube, und als gottlichc Warheit anneme, und mit Gottes Gnaden 
 ewiglich also halten wil, und sage dabey das alle Engcln und Menschen 
 diesclbigen Symbola mit warhafftigene glauben an zu nemen schuldig sind." 
 "Loci German," "Corpus Reform.," vol. XXII, p. 58. 
 
 "Cf. "Kxamin. Ordinandorum," "Corpus Reform.," vol. XXIII, p. 50-51. 
 
THE ANABAPTIST MOVEMENT 505 
 
 III. THE ANABAPTIST MOVEMENT AND ITS ETHICS 
 
 No movement has been more misrepresented and learnedly 
 misconstrued than the so-called Anabaptist movement. Those 
 vi^ho are classed as Anabaptists have often no common bond at 
 all. Munzer did not reject infant baptism. Hiibmaier did not 
 teach communism. Denck wsls a mystic v^ith almost no interest 
 in social reconstruction. Storch had almost no other interest 
 than the proletarian uprising, than which nothing could have 
 been more abhorrent to the learned and gentie Schv^^enckfeld. 
 The prophets of Zwickau were premillenarians, but this no 
 more organized the thought of many of them than it did Luther's 
 thought. To represent the whole movement as a socialistic, 
 
 Literature. — Newman, . Albert Henry: "A History of Anti-pedobaptism 
 from the Rise of Pedobaptism to A. D. 1609," Philadelphia, 1897 (with exceeding 
 good and full bibliography up to 1896, p. 395).— Vedder, Henry Clay: "Bal- 
 thasar Hubmaier, the Leader of the Anabaptists" ("Heroes of the Reformation" 
 series), New York, 1905. — Arnold, Gottfried: " Unparteyische Kirchen und 
 Ketzer-Historien vom Anfang des Neuen Testaments biss auf das Jahr Christi, 
 1688," 3 vols., Schaffhausen, 1688; later editions in 4 vols., with additional 
 matter, published as late as 1740. — Beck, Joseph von: "Geschichtsbiicher der 
 Wiedertaufer in (Esterreich-Ungarn in der Zeit von 1526 bis 1785, gesammelt, 
 erlautert und erganzt," Vienna, 1883.— Brenz, Johann: "Bedenken etlicher 
 dass weltliche Obrigkeit der Wiedertaufer mit leiblicher Strafe zu wehren 
 schuldig sei," 1536.— Bax, Ernest Belford: "Rise and Fall of the Ana- 
 baptists" (Social Side of the Reformation in Germany), London, Swan Son- 
 nenschein, 1903.— Heath, Richard: "Anabaptism; From Its Rise at Zwickau 
 to Its Fall at Miinster, 1521-1536," London, 1895.— Bullinger, Heinrich: "Von 
 dem unverschampte Frafel, ergerlichem verwyrren, unnd unwarhafftem leeren, 
 der selbsgesanndten Widertouffern vier gesprach Bucher," Zurich, 1531; "Der 
 Widerteuffern ursprung, fiirgang, secten, wasen, fiirneme und gemeine jrer leer 
 Artickel ... mit widerlegung und antwort . . . ," Zurich, 1560.— Burrage, 
 Henry Sweetser: "A History of the Anabaptists of Switzerland," Philadelphia, 
 American Baptist Publication Society, 1881; "The Anabaptists of the Sixteenth 
 Century," in "American Society of Church History Papers," vol. Ill, New York 
 1891.— Erbkam, Heinrich Wilhelm: "Geschichte der protestantischen Sekten 
 im Zeitalter der Reformation, Hamburg und Gotha," 1848.— Loserth, Johann: 
 "Balthasar Hubmaier und die Anfange der Wiedertaufer in Mahren," Brunn, 
 1893.— Keller, Ludwig: "Geschichte der Wiedertaufer und ihres Reichs zu 
 Miinster . . . nebst ungedruckten Urkunden," Miinster, 1880; "Ein Apostel 
 der Wiedertaufer (Hans Denck)," Leipsic, 1882.— Ritschl, Albrecht: "Ge- 
 schichte des Pietismus," vol. I, Bonn, 1880, pp. 22-36. _ 
 
5o6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 communistic proletarian uprising is as false as to deny with 
 others that primitive communism had no proper place in their 
 teachings. The literature is happily growing, for a really 
 balanced and historically objective estimate of the movement is 
 much needed. 
 
 The hypothesis of Ritschl that the movement is the outcome 
 of the Tertiary order of the Franciscans cannot be maintained. 
 Indeed, he wavered himself. At the same time it is true that 
 many of the things that gave strength to the reforming orders 
 found also expression in the Anabaptist movement. Nor was 
 it in any degree a truly Protestant movement, if by Protestantism 
 one means moral and religious autonomy. It was thoroughly 
 under the Roman Catholic conception of external authority, only 
 it was the authority of a book and a written law rather than 
 a tradition and a pope. 
 
 Everything we find among the Anabaptists one also finds in 
 the New Testament. It is simply a matter of emphasis. If to 
 take the New Testament literally is Protestantism, then as over 
 against Luther, Calvin, and Zwingli the Anabaptists were the 
 real Protestants. They based their teaching upon Luke's esti- 
 mate of poverty or upon the communism of Acts, or the freedom 
 of the spirit in the Pauline sense, or upon the premillenarianism 
 of the early church and the early Gospels. They took the Sermon 
 on the Mount literally, and they rejected with more or less con- 
 sistency all things not commanded by the Bible. They saw, 
 generally, as the reformers did not see, that primitive Christian- 
 ity was inherently opposed to the existing and non-Christian 
 social order. They found, of course, no warrant in the New 
 Testament for sacramental magic, because it is not there. 
 
 All this is not new in church history. From the time of Jovin- 
 ian and Claudius of Turin, from the days of primitive British 
 Christianity to the Waldensians and Lollards, the New Testament 
 has always raised up men who took it seriously and tested by it 
 at one point or another the traditional dogmatic Christianity. 
 And as dogmatic Christianity is not, in fact, built upon the New 
 Testament, it has never stood the test. The Anabaptist move- 
 
THE ANABAPTIST MOVEMENT 507 
 
 ment, however, has no real unity. Some rejected the Old 
 Testament ^ or believed it completely fulfilled in the New Testa- 
 ment. Some, like Thomas Miinzer, held up the bloody pages 
 of the Old Testament for imitation in the style of Calvin and 
 John Knox. 
 
 What made the movement obnoxious was its prevailingly 
 rude proletarian character. It is extreme to say, with Bax and 
 Heath,^ that they were "socialists." They were mainly of the 
 oppressed small-town trading class, in union with the discon- 
 tented peasants, and led by educated and even learned teachers 
 like Count Schwenckfeld von Ossig or the devout and temperate 
 Hiibmaier. 
 
 Indeed the revolt of Miinster and the peasant wars were made 
 the most of by the small nobility and the reform leaders to ac- 
 complish their own purpose of re-establishing their power on the 
 basis of national and provincial churches as heirs of the rejected 
 imperialism. The cold-hearted callousness of Zwingli in tortur- 
 ing his former friend Balthasar Hiibmaier and forcing from him 
 on pain of death a humiliating and false confession is of a piece 
 with Calvin's attitude toward Servetus or Luther's to Carlstadt.^ 
 
 There is nothing in the teachings of the Anabaptists that can- 
 not be shown to at one time or another have had the support of 
 the orthodox reformers. Mysticism mingled with Luther's 
 teaching, legalism and bloody rebellion with that of Calvin and 
 Knox. Zwingli was staggered by infant baptism, and did emas- 
 culate to the end the magic sacramentarianism of the Lord's 
 Supper. It was a question of power, order, and submission to 
 the new heirs of Catholic imperialism and not a question of 
 ** evangelical purity" or "dogmatic correctness" that separated 
 the reformers from their persecuted and despised brethren. 
 
 It is of no use speculating upon the possible effects of another 
 course of conduct. The triumph of Anabaptism would not 
 
 ' BuUinger, "Der Wiedertaufer Ursprung," IV, pp. 139-140. 
 ' In the books cited in the "Bibliography," and in articles in the "Contempo- 
 rary Review" from the pen of Heath. 
 
 ' Cj. Jackson, S. M.: "Huldreich Zwingli," New York, 1891, pp. 243-265. 
 
5o8 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 have given us "evangelical Protestantism" any more than Purl 
 tanism did. Puritanism was as near to .\nabaptism — with the 
 exception of the detail of adult baptism, which is not of the 
 essence of the movement at all — as it could be. Puritanism 
 was the direct heir to Lollardism in England. Anabaptism was 
 legal, under the authority of the letter of Scripture, and yet so 
 excessively individualistic that agreement as to what Scripture 
 taught was impossible. Save under the tyranny of strong 
 leadership, all united political action was impossible. On that 
 rock Anabaptism split and went to pieces. The favorite doc- 
 trine of the Holy Spirit guiding each individual to an infallible 
 interpretation of the letter of the New Testament was not 
 conducive to harmony, nor did it make submission to a common 
 compromise easy. 
 
 True it is that the orthodox reformers also professed to take 
 the letter of the Scriptures as their guide and also claimed the 
 guidance of the Holy Spirit. But they neither took it so seriously 
 as the Anabaptists, nor did they permit themselves to be led by 
 Scripture too far away from the interpretations and ideals of the 
 Protestant princes in Germany or the military Bourgoisie in 
 Switzerland. They were, in fact, all unconsciously no doubt, 
 yet completely and always the expression of the sober-minded, 
 well-balanced national, rising middle-class. The Anabaptists 
 represented the unorganized, and often vague and ill-ordered 
 aspirations of discontent both religious and social. 
 
 It is vain, therefore, to take up Schwenckfeld, Thomas Hun- 
 ger, Balthasar Hiibmaier, Carlstadt, and the others to search for 
 their ethics. They had rude social ideals of a primitive Chris- 
 tian character. They took the New Testament very seriously 
 and very literally, but they made no important contribution to 
 systematic Christian ethics, save that as a persecuted minority 
 some of them learned to believe in a real liberty of conscience 
 as over against the power of the State. Thus Hiibmaier de- 
 manded liberty of conscience in his well-known tract on the 
 "Heretics and Their Burners." * But this was not the attitude 
 
 ' Sec page 433. 
 
ETHICS OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 509 
 
 of all. Indeed, the Anabaptists generally held that the church 
 must be "pure" and that discipline even to the complete bann, 
 shutting the unrepentant completely off from all intercourse, was 
 a Christian duty. It is also claimed that Schwenckfeld was 
 on the side of complete freedom of conscience,* but the evidence 
 is not given, and certainly Schwenckfeld believed in the bann. 
 Nor does liberty of conscience lie generally along the line of 
 an outward authority, even when interpreted by an infallible 
 spirit, for each one deems his particular spirit the infallible one, 
 and the others are only "lying spirits." Hence the great fanati- 
 cism and the endless divisions and absurd and even dangerous 
 positions taken up (bigamy, strange dresses, etc., etc.) by many 
 of the Anabaptists. Nearly all the reformers talked at one 
 time or another about Christian liberty. But that meant the 
 liberty to accept the new evangelical doctrines. And all really 
 approved heartily of persecution, including Zwingli, Bucer, and 
 Luther. They themselves of course suffered most frightfully. 
 No mercy was shown them by either Protestants or Roman 
 antagonists; and, divided and distracted by the countless differ- 
 ences of opinion as to what the Spirit spoke or the Scriptures 
 really taught, the Anabaptist movement lost ground steadily 
 and directly. It failed to capture the Reformation, and it sank 
 back into the humble but not unfruitful, though narrow, secta- 
 rian life in which it still survives wherever circumstances favor 
 its survival. The great Baptist movement in England and 
 America can hardly be called its direct outcome, for it is a 
 child of the evangelical revival and has only superficial resem- 
 blance to the Anabaptist religious-social struggle. 
 
 IV. THE ETHICS OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 
 
 Luther's instinct that Zwingli was a man of another spirit 
 was undoubtedly right. Whether the difference was so great 
 that co-operation was impossible is another question. The 
 
 'Professor Hartranft, in "Corpus Schwenckfeldianorum," vol. I, p. xxii of 
 introduction (very badly done). 
 
5IO HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 moment we enter upon the examination of the ethics of the 
 reformed churches as distinguished from the Lutheran churches 
 we enter into a quite different atmosphere. 
 
 The essential being of Protestantism cannot be sought in any 
 theological formula?. The later creeds of Protestantism are 
 both too various in character and too unprotestant and scholastic 
 in spirit to be regarded as really expressing the true inward 
 character of the Reformation. Cult was, also, never a bond 
 of unity but rather a cause of division. Neither in England 
 nor on the Continent has Protestantism succeeded as yet in 
 expressing herself in any satisfactory way in a cult. The later 
 movements in Protestantism, Pietism in Germany and evangeli- 
 calism in England, sought to define Protestantism in terms of 
 feeling, using that term broadly; but the analysis was incor- 
 rect, and so far as success was attained the church simply 
 reverted to types of expression long familiar in the Roman 
 communion. 
 
 The reformers themselves hardly clearly realized what sepa- 
 rated them so widely from Rome. They were so much engaged 
 in concrete struggles against visible evils that the inner quality of 
 the revolt was hidden in large part from themselves. In point 
 of fact Protestantism was a long step forward toward spiritual 
 and intellectual autonomy. It was a rebellion against external 
 authority in the spiritual realm; and a splendid attempt to 
 relate the spiritual adult as a self-conscious member in the 
 family of God to the great spiritual experiences of the past. 
 The essence of Protestantism is not its elements of immediacy in 
 experience of God (mysticism as generally defined, and the 
 sentimental phases of evangelicalism), but personal access to 
 him and experience of him in all life and all history. 
 
 As Protestantism, therefore, has come more and more to self- 
 consciousness it has become increasingly historical and critical. 
 It has definitely widened its conceptions of God in history. It 
 has slowly come to recognize the need for vast variety of experi- 
 ences and the legitimacy of great varieties of interpretation of 
 them. 
 
ETHICS OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 511 
 
 From this point of view it was a fortunate thing that Protes- 
 tantism had many roots in the past and that from various direc- 
 tions leaders came to give form to her energies. Humanism had 
 as such no quarrel with the Roman imperialism, although 
 exceedingly critical of her ways. But humanism gave a Protes- 
 tant leader who was more than a humanist ere he had done his 
 work. Huldreich Zwingli,* though primarily religious, remained 
 
 * Zwingli, Huldreich or Ulrich, the great reformer of German Switzerland, was 
 born January i, 1484, in Wildenhaus, in the Toggenburg Valley, about forty 
 miles from Zurich. His parents were well-to-do and their connections good. 
 He was almost raised in Protestantism. His patriotism carried him completely 
 over. He died on the battle-field at Cappel, October 11, 1531, where Zurich lost 
 the day to Rome's Forest Cantons. 
 
 A critical edition of his works is in preparation, but will not be completed for 
 some time to come. ("Huldreich Zwingli's samtliche Werke unter Mitwirkung 
 des Zwingli-Vereins in Zurich herausgegeben von Emil Egli und Georg Finsler" 
 ["Corpus Reformatorum," vol. LXXXIX, etc.], Leipsic, Heinsius, 1908, seq.; 
 third volume appearing in parts, 1910.) The best edition (accessible) is that of 
 Melchior Schuler and Johannes Schulthess, 8 vols., in 11 parts, with a supple- 
 ment (1861), Zurich, 1829-1842. The best English biography is that of Samuel 
 M. Jackson ("Huldreich Zwingli, the Reformer of German Switzerland, 1484- 
 1531" ["Heroes of the Reformation" series]. New York, 1901); a somewhat 
 smaller handy biography is that by Samuel Simpson ("Life of Ulrich Zwingli, 
 the Swiss Patriot and Reformer," New York, 1902). The best in German is 
 that of Rudolph Staehelin, "Huldreich Zwingli, sein Leben und Wirken nach 
 den Quellen dargestellt," Basel, 1895-1897, 2 vols. A good life, though older, 
 is that in the series "Vater der Reformirten Kirche," by Raget Christoffel 
 "Huldreich Zwingli, Leben und ausgewahlte Schriften," Elberfeld, 1857, of 
 which the first part, the "Leben," has been translated into English by J. Choch- 
 ran, "Zwingli; or, the Rise of the Reformation in Switzerland," a life of the 
 reformer, with some notices of his time and contemporaries, Edinburgh, T. 
 and T. Clark, 1858. Other literature is: Baur, August: "Zwingli's Theologie, 
 ihr Werden und ihr System," Halle, 1885, 1889, 2 vols. Sigwart, Christoph: 
 "Ulrich Zwingli: der Character seiner Theologie mit besonderer Riicksicht auf 
 Picus von Mirandula dargestellt," Stuttgart und Hamburg, 1855. Zeller, 
 Eduard: "Das theologische System Zwingli's in seinen Grundziigen darges- 
 tellt," in "Theologische Jahrbiicher," edited by F. Chr. Baur and E. Zeller, 
 Tubingen, vol. XH, 1853, pp. 94-144, 245-294, 445-560, and "Uber den Ur- 
 sprung und Character des Zwinglischen Lehrbegrififs, mit Beziehung auf die 
 neueste Darstellung derselben" in "Theologische Jahrbiicher," vol. XVI, 1857, 
 pp. 1-59. Schweizer, Alexander: "Die Entwickelung des Moralsystems in der 
 Reformirten Kirche," in "Theologische Studien und Kritiken," 1850, pp. 5-78, 
 288-327, 554-580; "Zwingli's Bedeutung neben Luther, Festrede," Zurich, 
 January i, 1884. Usteri, Johann Martin: "Initia Zwinglii: Beitrage zur 
 
512 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 under the influence of humanism even after the religious, 
 ethical, and patriotic elements had gained the hegemony in his 
 practical activity. The patriotic character of Zwingli's Protest- 
 antism has often been pointed out. But this was characteristic 
 of all the early reformers. Wyclif stood out for England against 
 the papal cosmopolitan imperialism. The appeal of Luther 
 was to Germany against papal exploitation, and Zwingli was 
 aroused by the abuses of conscription and indulgences to give 
 new ethical and religious life to his nation. i 
 
 Zwingli nowhere works out any systematic ethics, and the 
 writings in which he most systematically unfolds his thought, 
 like "De vera et falsa Religione," ^ reveal a penetrating and 
 splendidly furnished, but not a philosophically organizing mind. 
 His exegetical works reveal the earnestness of his ethical interest, 
 and much ethical insight ^ but not ethical system. 
 
 Zwingli's thought starts from his conception of God.^ With 
 him the greatness and the power of God, his righteousness and 
 justice, his creative power, and his constant preserving activity 
 are the leading notes.'* It is not just to charge him with leaning 
 toward philosophical pantheism except in so far as all reformed 
 theology, under the distinct influence of Stoicism, exalts God as 
 all in all, and emphasizes rather his power than his goodness. 
 This power shines as well in the election of men to life as in 
 creation.^ At the same time Zwingli had a firm grasp of the 
 fact that Jesus Christ had taught love as the final and only 
 possible fulfilment of law.® Following Paul in his argument in 
 Romans, but still in somewhat too scholastic dress, he develops 
 
 Geschichte der Studien und der Geistesentwickelung Zwingli's in dcr Zcit vor 
 Beginn der reformatorischen Thatigkeit, nach bishcr zum Teil unbekannten 
 Quellen," in "Theologische Studien und Kritiken," 1885, pp. 607-672, and 1886, 
 pp. 95-159. For other literature, see: Jackson's "Life," pp. xxi-xxvi, or Simp- 
 son's, pp. 280-291. 
 
 ' In vol. Ill, p. 145, opera omnia. 
 
 ' His e.xcgetical works are contained in vols. V, VI, parts i and 2, opera omnia. 
 
 ' "De vera ct falsa Religione," vol. Ill, pp. 155-165, opera omnia. 
 
 * Cf. "Sermones in Psalmos" (German), vol. IV, particularly pp. 216-219. 
 
 * "De vera ct falsa Religione," vol. Ill, p. 178, opera omnia. 
 
 ° "Do vera ct falsa Religione," vol. Ill, pp. 205 fl, opera omnia. 
 
ETHICS OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 513 
 
 the conception of Christian freedom. Law is the eternal will \ 
 of God/ but this law is deeper than the civil or ceremonial laws 
 that concern themselves with the external man, and which 
 change; in the true sense law never changes. Love alone ena- 
 bles us to keep this law, whose substance is contained in the 
 injunction to love God and one's neighbor. There is in Zwingli, 
 as in reformed theology later, a general confusion introduced by 
 the Stoic conception on the one hand of a "natural law," eternal 
 and unchangeable, and on the other of "a supernatural law," 
 as in the written word. 
 
 Zwingli laid great stress on the written word as the sole 
 authority, but even here he is not always clear. In 1522 he 
 could write: "For who would not joyfully accept what was de- 
 cided by the concurrent opinion of all Christians," ^ although 
 he was constantly laying stress upon the inward witness of the 
 Spirit as needful even for the acceptance of Scripture. Nor 
 is he clear in regard to the authority of the Old and the New 
 Testaments.^ At times he seems ready to reject the Old Testa- 
 ment, but in fact it often is the real basis of his thinking, and 
 through it there enters into his ethics a certain legalism which 
 still haunts all ethics within Protestantism. The Old Testa- 
 ment is, in point of fact, taken over even in its ceremonial 
 phases. For baptism is the continuation of circumcision, and 
 the Lord's Supper of the Passover.* 
 
 It is, indeed, a mistaken judgment that Zwingli was the most 
 protestant of the reformers. He had a wider outlook in some 
 respects than the others, due to his early humanistic training 
 and the fact that he never was really Roman Catholic in his 
 
 ' "Lex nihil aliud est, quam sterna dei voluntas," vol. Ill, p. 203, opera omnia 
 (Augustinian). 
 
 * "Letter to Erasmus Fabricius," vol. Ill, pp. 7-16, opera omnia. 
 3 C}. " De delectu et libero ciborum esu," vol. I, p. 8. 
 
 * See for the first the argument in " In catabaptistarum strophas elenchus, 
 "Opera," vol. Ill, pp. 357-437 (translated from the Latin into English by Henry 
 Preble and George William Gilmore, pp. 123-258, in "Selected Works of Huld- 
 reich Zwingli, . . . translated for the first time from the originals . . . edited 
 by Samuel Macauley Jackson," New York, 1901), and for the second, see "Ein 
 klare underrichtung vom Nachtmal Christi," "Opera," vol, II, p. 458- 
 
514 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 / 
 
 deeper religious life. But for Zwingli human nature was as 
 corrupt as for Luther or Cah'in, only Zwingli and Calvin empha- 
 sized the will of God in such a way as to make the "election" 
 possible for heathen. There was no "natural goodness" for 
 Zwingli. All came by grace, but grace was the free gift of the 
 sovereign secrecy of the divine will. Men were born diseased, 
 although not "sinful" or "guilty" until the disease (morbus) 
 i^ asserted itself in activity.* 
 
 In Zwingli scholastic Aristotelianism is indeed largely dis- 
 placed by the great ethical conceptions of Paul, but Augustine 
 is still Paul's interpreter and Stoicism is still influential in his 
 ethics. It is true that sacramental magic disappears more 
 largely from Zwingli's thought than from some other reformed 
 types. This is, however, because he pressed home, as even 
 Calvin did not, the sovereign character of God's elective grace. 
 In reformed theology there is really no room logically for sacra- 
 mental magic. 
 
 Nor was Zwingli any more modern than Luther, Calvin, or 
 Melanchthon in his treatment of opponents. With the Ana- 
 baptist radicals he was as cruel and severe as Luther with the 
 peasants, Melanchthon with the "false prophets," or Calvin with 
 Servetus; and for the same reason they seemed to him to dis- 
 credit and endanger the whole reformatory movement." Even 
 Luther seemed to Zwingli too violent and bitter.^ 
 
 ' "Sic ergo diximus originalem contagionem morbum esse, non peccatum, 
 quod peccatum cum culpa conjunctum est: culpa vero ex commisso vel admisso 
 ejus nascitur qui facinus desegnavit." " De peccato originali declaratio ad urba- 
 num Rhegium," vol. Ill, opera omnia, p. 629 (in year 1526). 
 
 * It is interesting to analyze the charges Zwingli makes against the Anabap- 
 tists. They were guilty of (i) going unbelted or girded with ropes to proph- 
 esy in the market-places and squares. (2) They boasted that they had all 
 things in common, and threatened with God's anger those who did not. (3) 
 They cried out, " Woe to Zurich." (4) They reviled the ministers of both Church 
 and State. (5) They only went where the Gospel had already been preached 
 and made confusion. (6) They had an unpaid ministry. (7) They proclaimed 
 salvation by obedience to the law. (8) They had wives in common and deserted 
 
 ' C/. the tone of the "Am ica exegesis . . . ad Martinum Lutherum," vol. Ill, 
 opera omnia, pp, 459 f], especially pp. 462 and 561. 
 
ETHICS OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 515 
 
 Zwingli was national in his thought and feeling. This colors 
 his ethics and his theology. His ambition was an elected holy 
 nation for the establishment of God's purpose. Plato's " Repub- 
 lic" exercised here undoubted influence/ for the visible church is 
 for Zwingli a mixed assembly. Only the invisible church is 
 inerrant and holy.^ 
 
 This visible church, therefore, is in parts, and is set apart in 
 God's council for the manifestation of his will. If, therefore, the 
 cantons were to rise to their opportunity they must exhibit their 
 election by their works. Thus Zwingli's preaching took on a 
 national ethical character. He attacked the sale of Swiss 
 soldiers and the exploitation of the cantons by Rome. The 
 cantons become practically for Zwingli the visible church, be- 
 cause State and Church (visible) cannot be separated. Nor does 
 Zwingli think highly of any higher unity among the churches. 
 He prefers a unity of spirit binding together national churches,^ 
 and any outward unity has for him but little meaning. At this 
 point Zwingli marks distinctly the national character of the 
 whole Reformation movement. 
 
 His fierce attacks upon the Anabaptists were again largely 
 national and political. The maintenance of civil authority was 
 one of the functions of the visible church, and the purity of the 
 visible church was one of the direct responsibilities of the civil 
 government.* Like a good many religious leaders, he had little 
 objection to centralized authority in religion as long as he was 
 
 their children. (9) That they were lazy and had only other people's goods in 
 common. (10) They forbade oaths and appeals to the magistrates. (11) They 
 rejected the whole Old Testament. (12) Preached excommunication for all 
 who fell into sin. (13) That men should not carry arms and weapons. (14) 
 That excommunication should be the limit of churchly punishment. (15) That 
 Christians had no citizenship here. 
 
 ' Sigwart . seems to overestimate the influence upon Zwingli of Picus von 
 Mirandula and to ignore too much the direct influence of Plato. Cj. Sigwart, 
 "Ulrich Zwingli," 1855. 
 
 * Zwingli's doctrine of the church he sets forth clearly and at large in the 
 ■'Antibolum," "Adversus Emserum," vol, III, opera omnia, pp. 125-135. 
 
 ' Cf. Epist. CLIII, vol. VIII, p. 549, opera omnia. 
 
 *Cf. "Ein Kurze christenliche ynleitung," etc., vol. I, pp. 549-582, opera 
 
5i6 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 the authority. For, although Zwingli stoutly protested against 
 interfering with the freedom of the congregation, in point of 
 fact, the Swiss autocracy, which was supreme, was at Zwingli's 
 own advice exceedingly tyrannical/ Zwingli, like Luther and 
 Calvin, accepted the situation created by Constantine as the 
 permanent relation between Church and State, and he and they 
 were quite blind to the interminable confusion this ecclesiastical 
 Byzantianism wrought and still produces. 
 
 On the other hand, Zwingli was an admirable leader. Warm, 
 loving, and fearless, he appealed to many hearts to whom even 
 Luther might not have found access. And although his work 
 was to some extent swallowed up in the Calvinistic movement 
 of a later day, it is an honorable fact in Swiss history that 
 Zwingli was an outspoken and fearless Protestant quite as early 
 as Luther. He maintained his peace with the Vatican longer 
 than Luther could do, because at Rome he was not only feared, 
 but he was confused with the humanists,^ with whom Rome 
 ever felt itself in a certain sympathy, if only as a counterbalance 
 in Rome's complicated policy to the monks and orders who gave 
 the curia great trouble. 
 
 The outcome of the reformed position in ethics can, however, 
 be better studied in Bucer and Calvin. 
 
 Butzer or Bucer ' was a remarkable figure as counsel for and 
 helper of the early churches. He came first under the influence 
 
 ' C/. "Ratschlag von den Bildern und der Mess," vol. I, pp. 583/"., opera 
 omnia. 
 
 * C}. vol. I. p. 354, and vol. VII, p. 178 i}. 
 
 ^ Butzer, Martin, born 1491, in Schlettstadt, Alsace, and died in Cambridge in 
 1551- He spent most of his life in Strasburg, and is connected in his way of 
 thinking with the Swiss Reformation. In Baum's book, "Capito und Butzer, 
 Strassburgs Reformatoren. Nach ihrem handschriftlichcn Briefschatze, ihrcn 
 gedruckten Schriften und andcren glcichzeitigen Quellcn dargcstellt" (Johann 
 Wilhclm Baum), Elberfeld, i860 ("Vater der reformirten Kirche," vol. Ill), is 
 a catalogue of Butzer's printed works (pp. 586-611). There is good reason for 
 accepting him as the author of the wonderfully popular book, " Ain schener Dialog 
 un gcsprech zwischen aim Pfarrer vnd aim Schulthayss bctreffend alien ubel 
 Stand der gaystlichen. Vnd dcss handlijg der weltlichen," which went rapidly 
 through thirteen eriitions; cj. "Archiv fur Reformationsgeschichte," Nr. 13, IV, 
 Jahrgang, Heft i (1906), Alfred Gcitzc's article, pp. 1-64. 
 
ETHICS OF THE REFORMED CHURCHES 517 
 
 of Luther (15 18) and then under the influence of the Swiss 
 reformers, and sought without much success to mediate between 
 the two types of thinking. His ethics have only significance in 
 that he sought to establish theoretically the right relation 
 between Church and State. Undoubtedly his work at this point 
 greatly influenced the English Reformation. His work, "De 
 Regno Christi Jesu," in two books, addressed to the English 
 king in 1557, struggles with the question of the two swords. 
 The two things, he finds, that are among all men are a divine 
 cult and a civil government.* He seeks then, somewhat vainly, 
 to distribute the power and the responsibility. The attempt was 
 worth making, but is not very successful. There is a constant 
 dualism maintained between "The Kingdom of Christ" and 
 ''The Kingdom of the World"; both are from God, but as in all 
 reformed thinking, in the last analysis the church is really 
 supreme.^ There is also the same terrible failure to grasp the 
 real significance of the Old Testament. On the basis of exces- 
 sive literalism and traditional interpretation there arose an 
 ethics which was of the law rather than of the Gospel. 
 
 On the transformation of the bread and wine Bucer held 
 rather with the Swiss, but he had very high notions about the 
 significance of the partaking. His position is the high-church 
 position of Calvin. And with Calvin he shares an almost slavish 
 conception of the authority of Scripture. Like the English 
 reformers, he was really more interested in the political than the 
 dogmatic or ethical side of the Reformation. He was clear- 
 sighted enough to see into what failures and disasters a divided 
 Protestantism must enter. He was not clear-sighted enough to 
 recognize the fact that only on the foundation of a broad, com- 
 prehensive organization could the Reformation rest. He was 
 as hard and bitter against the poor Anabaptists as any of the 
 leaders, although he was willing to take Zwingli, Calvin, and 
 Luther under one roof. 
 
 ' "Cultus divinus et civilis gubernatio," preface to the treatise, "De Regno 
 Christi Jesu." 
 ' Cj. p. 12 with its scene between Ambrose and Theodosius. 
 
^ 
 
 518 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The type of his thinking is allied to the Swiss reformers, 
 because he uses the Bible in the same way, and with a mechan- 
 ical literalism which at times makes it a very misleading book. 
 
 V. THE ETHICS OF JOHN CALVm 
 
 The ethics of reformed theology received an almost classic 
 formulation at the hands of Calvin.^ There is a certain lofty 
 simplicity about the ethics that has made them exceedingly 
 influential, although the ethics are generally lost sight of in the 
 dogmatics. 
 
 On the ethical side Calvin introduced the reformed churches 
 again to scholasticism with its closed system given on authority, 
 and its rationalizing methods. He, like the scholastics, re- 
 garded the explication of the closed system of truth as of primary 
 importance. 
 
 His ethics are contained in the "Institutions" ^ as well as in 
 his commentaries upon the Ten Commandments and numer- 
 ous tracts and sermons. The outline is clear and convincing. 
 
 ' The literature is scant and unsatisfactory. The classic histories, i. e., C. F. 
 Staudlin, W. M. L. de Wette, W. Gass, C. E. Luthardt, Th. Ziegler, either make 
 no contribution or confuse the subject by failing to grasp Calvin's central thought. 
 There remain only: Lobstein, Paul: "Die Ethik Calvin's in ihren Grundziigen 
 entworfen," Strasburg, 1877. Schweizer, Alexander: "Die Entwickelung des 
 Moralsystems in der Reformirten Kirche," in " Theologische Studien und 
 Kritiken," XXIII (1850), pp. 5-78, 288-327, 554-580. Kuyper, Abraham: 
 "Calvinism: Si.x lectures (on the Stone Foundation) delivered (1898-1899) in 
 the Theological Seminary at Princeton," 1899. A singularly worthless book 
 of indiscriminate misjudgments. The Calvin celebration is bringing a great 
 and welcome addition to the literature of Calvin, but so far his ethics 
 seem neglected. C/. the author's article in the " Hibbard Journal " for October, 
 1908, of which, by permission, large use has been made. Kampschulte, F. 
 Wilhelm: "Calvin, seine Kirche und sein Staat in Genf.," Leipsic, 1869, 1899 
 Oast vol. posthumous). Choicy, Eugfene: "La theocratic k Geneve au temps de 
 Calvin," Geneva, 1897. Troeltsch, Ernst: "Der Calvinismus," in "Die Kultur 
 der Gegenwart," teil I, abteilung IV, "Die christliche Religion," pp. 333-361, 
 Berlin and Leipsic, 1906. Doumergue, E.: "Le Protestantisme au Moyen 
 Age," Montauban, 1889. Doumergue, E.: "Jean Calvin, Ics hommes et les 
 choscs de son temps," Lausanne, 1899, sq. (3 vols, appeared up to 1905). 
 
 '"Institutio ChristianoE Religionis," books III and IV. 
 
THE ETHICS OF JOHN CALVIN 519 
 
 It is throughout a theological ethics. The whole scheme is 
 worked out on the basis of man's relation to an omnipotent and 
 holy God. Man is utterly sinful and hostile to God, and practi- 
 cally, for Calvin, can sustain no ethical relation to him at all. 
 Man is cut off from God as completely as a country at war with 
 another is cut off from it. Ethics can therefore only be spoken 
 of after regeneration. "The object of regeneration is to bring 
 the life of believers into harmony with God." * Thus we are 
 restored to the image of God and are made "ethically free." 
 Only after regeneration do the Scriptures really fulfil their 
 function of instilling and "implanting in our minds" the amor 
 justiticB "or love of righteousness" which we lost at the fall. 
 Thus there must be restored to us the active ethical principle, 
 and in the written word, but particularly the Ten Command- 
 ments, we have a norm^ which will prevent us going astray if 
 we use it properly. 
 
 But the Scriptures are not the basis of the ethical life which 
 is thus founded upon authority. That basis is the Scriptural 
 church. For the Roman imperialism Calvin simply substitutes 
 a Scriptural imperialism. The Biblical church is the ultimate 
 and final authority over the really regenerate man. Hence the 
 theory of the church is very important in Calvinism, and Calvin 
 devotes a great deal of space to it.^ In the church God has 
 sought to secure the effectual preaching of the Gospel by 
 depositing this treasure with the church." Calvin's ethics are 
 therefore based upon a church of divine right.^ God has ap- 
 pointed her teachers and given her the sacraments. God is 
 Father and the church is mother.' Beyond her pale there is 
 not only ordinarily no salvation, but no really ethical life, for the 
 forgiveness of sins is a "benefit so peculiar to the church that 
 we cannot enjoy it unless we continue in the communion of the 
 
 ' "Scopus regenerationis," "Ins.," Ill, 6 : i. 
 
 ^ "Norma praescripta," "Ins.," Ill, 6 : 2. 
 
 ^ "Ins.," book IV, i, 2, 4, 8, 9, 11-14, and many passages in "Sermons," etc. 
 
 * "Thesaurum hunc apud ecclesiam deposuit," "Ins.," IV, i : i. 
 
 * "De jure divino." 
 
 * "Ut, quibus ipse est pater, ecclesia etiam mater sit," "Ins.," IV, i : i. 
 
520 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 church." ^ To this church are committed the "keys," and the 
 ministers of a true church are constantly not only shutting out 
 the unrepentant, but continually opening the doors by "the 
 preaching of the Gospel or the administration of the sacra- 
 ments." ^ 
 
 The Christian is bound by the creed (!) to believe " the church," 
 for the word "in" is an interpolation,^ and in the bosom of this 
 church we must abide at the peril of eternal death. It is this 
 visible sacramental church that is our mother, "since there is no 
 other means of entering into life unless she nourish us at her 
 breast, and unless we remain under her care and pilotship until 
 stripped of our flesh we become as angels. For our weakness 
 does not allow us to leave school until as scholars we have done 
 with life. Moreover, outside her bounds there is no hope of the 
 forgiveness of sin nor any other salvation." * 
 
 No really Protestant, i. e., autonomous ethics can flourish on 
 this basis. The church officers controlling the sacraments and 
 the preaching of the Gospel become the directors of men's 
 consciences. "As anciently he did not confine himself merely 
 to the law, but added priests as interpreters, ... so in the 
 present day he would have us not only be attentive to this reading 
 but has appointed masters to give us aid. In this there is a 
 double advantage, for on the one hand he by an admirable test 
 proves our obedience when we listen to his ministers just as to 
 him," etc., etc.^ 
 
 This is exactly the substructure of the Roman Catholic ethics 
 of authority. For having convinced ourselves that we are 
 dealing with a true Biblical church, we are then to listen to its 
 "priests" or ministers exactly as to God himself. This is a test 
 of our obedience, and these "ministers" have the power of the 
 keys to open and close to us the doors of forgiveness. This is 
 simply Roman Catholicism without the name Roman. 
 
 '"Ins.," IV, I : 22. '"'Im.," IV, i : 22. ^"Ins.," IV, i : 2. 
 
 *"Adde quod extra ejus grcmium nulla est spcranda peccatorum remissio, 
 ncc alia salus," "Ins.," book IV, i : 4. 
 ""Ins.," IV, I .-5. 
 
THE ETHICS OF JOHN CALVIN 521 
 
 The interest of all high-church Calvinism in the sacraments 
 is in obtaining a guarantee of a true and therefore authoritative 
 church. Thus Calvin in 1544, in an address to the Imperial 
 Diet, sums up Christianity in practically four things: a knowl- ] 
 edge of the way in which God must be duly worshipped; the i 
 knowledge of the source from which salvation is to be obtained ; 
 the right method of administering the grace-imparting sacra- 
 ments; and the maintenance of a duly authorized ministry. 
 To this ministry is committed the care and preservation of this t 
 sacred knowledge and the administration of the grace-imparting 
 sacraments. 
 
 This church, therefore, of Calvin's thought is no longer the 
 family circle gathered about Jesus the elder Brother in the pres- 
 ence of the Father. It is no democracy of believers banded 
 together for the establishment of the kingdom, but a divine 
 sacramental organization for the avowed purpose of ruling men's 
 thoughts and conduct. 
 
 As ethics, therefore, is taught on the basis of the Ten Com- 
 mandments by an authoritative church, it is all-important to 
 know what is the true church. The notes as given by Calvin are 
 quite clear. It is the whole body of mankind scattered over the 
 world, who (i) profess to worship one God and Christ, (2) who 
 by baptism are initiated into the faith, (3) who by partaking of 
 the common table profess unity in doctrine and love, (4) who 
 have agreement in the word of the Lord, and (5) lastly, who 
 conserve the ministry for the preaching of this word. In this 
 church there are hypocrites whom our ignorance of the heart 
 must tolerate; but as we must believe the invisible church, so we 
 must seek the communion of this visible one.* In lieu of full 
 certainty as to the election we must accept as true members of 
 the church all who (i) confess the faith, (2) are regular in con- 
 duct, (3) who participate in the sacraments, and (4) unite in 
 acknowledging with us the same God and Christ.^ Hence the 
 form of the church is wherever we see the word of God sincerely 
 preached and the sacraments duly administered.' Where this 
 
 1 IV, I : 7. 2 IV, I : 8. ' IV, i : 9. 
 
522 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 is the case, no one should separate himself from the church or 
 question her authority. To impair her authority is to impugn 
 the authority of God himself. No crime is more atrocious or 
 sacrilegious than to break this bond.* We must even put up 
 with minute errors of doctrine, for "we must either have no 
 church at all, or we must condone hallucinations in such things 
 as one may be ignorant of without injury to the substance of 
 faith.' In conduct our tolerance must be even larger, for doc- 
 trine is even more important.' In this church we have constant 
 forgiveness of sin, and to impart this blessing Christ gave the 
 keys of the church;^ these are committed to the presbyters and 
 bishops, who dispense forgiveness to us in the preaching and the 
 sacraments.^ This ministry has power as it is vested in the 
 church in spiritual matters, and consists in doctrine, in jurisdic- 
 tion, and making laws. The place of doctrine has two parts — 
 *' the handing down of authoritative dogma ^ and the expounding 
 of these dogmas. 
 
 The hard mechanical way in which men may come to the 
 knowledge of ethical truth is, however, not confined to the lay- 
 man. "Whatever authority or dignity the Holy Spirit confers 
 in the Scriptures upon priests, prophets, apostles, or their suc- 
 cessors, is given to them not as men, but to them as (members of) 
 the ministry to which they are appointed, or, to put it more 
 clearly, to the word, to whose ministry they are appointed. . . . 
 For whenever they are called to office they are enjoined not to 
 bring anything of their own, but to speak by the mouth of the 
 Lord." ' There can therefore be no "progressive revelation," 
 nor any autonomous ethics nor any interpretation of personal 
 experience. The "word" is a law. "Surely God here pro- 
 claims a law to all, and it is a law which does not permit any one 
 to teach more than he has been ordered.* 
 
 'IV, i:io. «IV. i:i2. » IV, 1:13. « IV, i : 22. 
 
 » IV, I : 22. 
 
 • " Authoritatem dogmatum tradendorum ct corum applicationem," "Ins.," 
 IV, 8 : 8. 
 
 '"Ins.," IV, 8 :2. 
 •"Ins.," IV, 8:3. 
 
THE ETHICS OF JOHN CALVIN 523 
 
 Even the relative freedom of Old Testament times is gone. 
 The old prophets had new and important ethical revelations 
 made to them, but now no new light can be expected, for, "con- 
 tented with the perfection of Christ's doctrine, we may learn to 
 frame no new doctrine for ourselves or admit any one devised 
 by others." * Hence the Gospel is but a new and more final 
 and more exacting law. The Messias has so spoken "as to 
 leave nothing to be spoken by any others coming after him." ^ 
 
 The law governs not only the church but also the State. 
 Calvin reintroduces the lofty dream of Gregory the Great of a 
 theocracy, with the two swords, and the magistrates as having 
 "a commission from God and invested with a divine authority, 
 and in fact representing the person of God, as whose vice- 
 regents they, as it were, act." ^ The form of government is 
 relatively immaterial if all are equally obedient to the divine 
 word as taught by the church. But, as one might suspect, 
 Calvin leans to centralization and power. In the French of 
 the "Institutes'/' he says: "One may reckon with three types of 
 civil government: There is monarchy, which is the domination 
 of one alone, whether he bear the name of king or duke or other 
 title; aristocracy, which is the domination by princes and 
 families of note who govern; and there is democracy, which is 
 the domination of the people, in which each of the people has 
 power.* 
 
 These all have dangers, and Calvin inclines to aristocracy. 
 "I, for my part, do not deny that the form surpassing all others 
 is aristocracy, either pure or tempered by popular government." ^ 
 
 '"Ins.," IV, 8:7. « "Ins.," IV, 8:7. 
 
 ^"Ac omnino Dei personam sustinere cujus vices quodammodo agunt," 
 "Ins.," IV, 20 : 4. 
 
 * "On conte trois especes do regime civil; c'est assavoir Monarchic, qui est 
 la domination d'un seul, soit qu'on le nomme Roy ou Due, ou autrement; Aristo- 
 cratic, qui est une domination gouvern^e par les principaux et gens d-apparence; 
 et Democratic, qui est une domination populaire, en laquelle chacun du peuple a 
 puissance," "Ins," IV, 20 : 8. 
 
 * " Nam si illi visum est, reges regnis prjcficerc, liberis civitatibus senatores aut 
 decuriones, quoscumque locis prajfecerit in quibus degimus nostrum est iis nos 
 morigeros ac obedientes praestare " (IV, 20 : 8). 
 
524 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHIC^S 
 
 But the Lord has assigned the forms of government, and the 
 wish to change the form is not only superfluous but pernicious. 
 In whatever form he has appointed, our duty is to submit and 
 obey. The church may not put to death, but the magistrate acts 
 as God and puts to death. "It is not the part of the pious to 
 afflict or hurt, but to avenge the injuries done to the pious is not 
 to afflict or hurt. All is done in obedience to God." ^ We ought 
 indeed to obey God rather than men, but in obeying our rulers 
 we are obeying God and not man.^ 
 
 Holiness plays a large part in Calvin's thought, just as it 
 does in that of Thomas Aquinas and Ignatius Loyola, whose 
 ethical systems are most nearly akin to that of Calvin. Holi- 
 ness becomes a bond between us and God, "because it is 
 greatly pertinent to his glory" that he should not be associated 
 with iniquity and foulness.^ To arouse us to this new purity 
 the Scriptures exhibit God the Father, who has reconciled us to 
 himself in Christ, that in him we may have the image to which 
 he would have us conformed. "Since Christ has purified us 
 with his blood, and communicated this purification through 
 baptism, it is not fitting that we should soil ourselves with new 
 wrong-doing." We are engrafted into his body and should not 
 stain it; we are temples of God and should not defile them; 
 we are destined to immortality and should not live the corruptible 
 life.* Doctrine is not of the tongue but of the life,' It must 
 possess the whole soul and the innermost heart. To doctrine, in 
 which our religion is contained, the first place must be given; 
 but it must pass into conduct, and so transform us." 
 
 Calvin does not insist upon perfection in this life, but on 
 the life being directed toward perfection, and upon progress 
 being daily made.' The law of God contains the most perfect 
 method of life, but the celestial Magistrate has been pleased to 
 adopt a more accurate way of training us to this rule, which is 
 by making us present our bodies a living sacrifice; hence we 
 
 ' IV, 20 : lo. MV, 20:32. » "Ins.," Ill, 6 : 2. MIL 6 : 3. 
 
 * " Non enim lingucc est doctrina, scd vitx," III, 6 : 4. 
 
 • " Atquc in mores transcal oportct," "Ins.," Ill, 6:4. ' III, 6 : 5. 
 
THE ETHICS OF JOHN CALVIN 525 
 
 should not think, speak, design, or act without a view to his 
 glory. Philosophy gave the first place to reason, but Christian 
 philosophy bids her (reason) give place and yield complete sub- 
 mission to the Holy Spirit.^ We seek only God's will and act for 
 his glory. Hence Scripture enjoins us to lay aside all excessive 
 longing for wealth or power or human favor. We are to 
 follow good for its own sake and not for the love of praise. 
 Even the philosophers who most taught this were swallowed 
 up by arrogance.^ We deny ourselves and renounce reason. 
 
 Thus the two obstacles to virtue are taken away in us — 
 ungodliness {impietas) and worldly lust (mundancB cupidilates) — 
 and our lives are reduced to sobriety, denoting chastity and 
 temperance as the pure and frugal use of temporal goods 
 and the patient endurance of want; righteousness (juslitia), 
 comprehending all the duties of equity in rendering to every 
 one his due; and godliness (pietas), which connects us with 
 God in true holiness. To aspire to these things Paul sets 
 before us immortality, "because as once Christ appeared as 
 our Redeemer, so on his final advent he will give full effect to 
 the salvation he has obtained for us." ^ 
 
 Our abnegation has a twofold aspect — first to fellow-men, 
 and secondly and chiefly toward God. Only divine grace can 
 pluck out the pest of contentiousness and self-love.^ We are 
 only the stewards of any endowments God has given us, and 
 we are to see, even in the most unworthy, the image of God, 
 and show it honor and love, especially to those in whom that 
 image has been restored in Christ. Is any one mean or un- 
 worthy, or has any one done us injury, we are to love in him 
 the image of God.^ No arrogance should mark our service, 
 for we are only paying a debt due from us."* Toward God we 
 must assume an attitude of absolute dependence upon his bles- 
 sing, and endure all things as from him with tranquillity and 
 thankfulness.' 
 
 *ni, 7 :i- 'III, 7 :2. »III, 7 :3. 
 
 * " TTJi (piKoveiKtas Kal (piKavrlas," III, 7 : 4. 
 
 "HI, 7 :6. "Ill, 7 :7. Mil, 7 : 10. 
 
526 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The pious mind must aspire. We must take up the cross. 
 "Those whom God has chosen and has honored by his fellow- 
 ship (consortia)'' must prepare for a hard, laborious, troubled 
 life, ... it being the will of the Father to exercise them by 
 making them endure the test. It was thus he began with his 
 first-born, Christ, and thus he continues with all his children. 
 It should, therefore, sweeten the cross to think that we share it 
 with Christ, and that our sufferings are not only blessed to us, 
 but bring many aids to the much furtherance of our salvation.* 
 The only reason Jesus had to bear the cross was to demon- 
 strate his obedience to his Father. There are many reasons why 
 we should bear it constantly. It teaches us humility and 
 patience and obedience. So the cross reveals the ^'irtues God 
 himself bestows.^ Thus also it separates between sons and 
 bastards. The sons are not condemned with the world, the 
 bastards are hardened by the punishment.^ And to suffer for 
 righteousness' sake is to increase our real joy; if driven from our 
 homes, we have a higher place in the kingdom of God." The 
 endurance is not, however, insensibility to pain or mere Stoic 
 endurance, but the believer acquiesces in the spiritual conso- 
 lation of God.' So the difference between philosophy and 
 Christianity is the attitude toward the will of God. Philosophy 
 says: "Yield because you must." The believer says: "We 
 yield because God's will is right." * 
 
 The end, therefore, is to reach a contempt for the present life, 
 and to exercise ourselves in contemplation of the future, for 
 there is no medium between the two: the world must either 
 seem vile to us, or it will detain us as slaves by intemperate love 
 
 * " Sed ad promovendam quoque nostram salutem multuni afferunt adjuva- 
 menti," III, 8 : i. 
 
 Mil, 8:2-5. Mil, 8:8. Mil, 8:7. 
 
 * " In spiritual! Dei consolatione acquicscit," III, 8 : 8. 
 
 lam vero quia illud dcmum amabile nobis est, quod saluti ac bono esse 
 nobis agnoscimus, hac etiam parte consolatur nos optimus pater, dum asserit, 
 se eo ipso quod nos crucc affligit, saluti nostrae consulere" (III, 8:11). "Which 
 leads us to the thought, if afflictions are salutary, why should we not bear them 
 in patience, for thus we are resting satisfied with our own good?" 
 
THE ETHICS OF JOHN CALVIN 527 
 
 of it. It is, therefore, of the highest importance that we be 
 convinced by experience of the miserable character of this life.' 
 At the same time we must not be led into ingratitude to God. 
 The world, ever abounding in all kinds of wretchedness, is yet 
 jusdy classed among the divine blessings which are not to be 
 despised, and it contains foretastes of the heavenly felicity.^ 
 Yet we are to ardently long for death and constantly meditate 
 upon it.^ We are to use the world without abusing it, and fixed 
 laws are out of place in so doing. The Scriptures lay down 
 general rules, and we should keep within these limits.* The 
 natural quality of things indicates to us their use, but they must 
 never hinder our progress to eternal life.^ Therefore, while the 
 liberty of the Christian is not to be bound to external things, he 
 is bound by the law — he must indulge as little as possible.* He 
 must be patient and content, and treat all things as a trust con- 
 fided to him. And every man's mode of life is a station assigned 
 to him, and all is to be subject to the will of God. 
 
 Such in brief are the foundations upon which Calvin raises 
 his ethics. Many phrases, like "liberty of conscience," "re- 
 sponsibility of the soul to God," are used, as countless passages 
 demonstrate, exactly as any Roman Catholic schoolman would 
 use them. The essential difference between Calvin and Trent 
 consists not in the definition of the church, but in the historic 
 answer to the question. Is the Roman church the true church ? 
 For Calvin the church was a sacramental organization with an 
 authoritative ministry of the word, watching over the State in 
 spiritual things, while the State did its behests in material things. 
 The State only had authority in the word of God, and the church 
 had the word of God as its priceless possession. 
 
 The glory of Protestant ethics as founded by Luther and 
 developed by Kant is the autonomous, democratic, unpriesdy 
 character stamped upon it. All men should be kings and priests 
 to God. The ministry according to Luther was purely func- 
 tional. He did not carry out the logic of his assumption at all 
 
 ' III, 9 : 2. 
 
 »III,9:3. 
 
 >III, 9:4. 
 
 * III, 10 : I. 
 
 » III, 10 : 2-3. 
 
 •Ill, 10:4, 
 
528 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 times, yet in the main he was true to them. In the last analysis 
 for Luther the soul must stand alone for truth and trust that it 
 will not be forsaken. In the last analysis for Calvin the soul 
 finds out w^hich church has the sacrament and the word and 
 submits wholly to it. The difference is world-wide. For true 
 ethical development there is no more room in logical Calvinism 
 than in logical Romanism, Ethics has been swallowed up in 
 dogmatics and systematic theology. This is no accident. 
 That is exactly where Calvin put ethics — inside dogmatics. 
 
 Reformed systems of ethics have, as a matter of fact, sprung 
 up almost in defiance of theology. The vital principle of a 
 real Protestant ethics is the logical and thorough-going accept- 
 ance of the relative character of all casuistical judgment. As 
 the moral character of any judgment depends upon the motive, 
 and only God can know the motive, we can only apply the 
 objective test, and ask in utilitarian terms for the ultimate 
 effect of any action; but for the agent the moral attitude and 
 not the outcome is the determining element. For Roman 
 Catholic scholasticism and for Calvin there is an absolute norm 
 by which all actions can be truly and thoroughly tested, and 
 Church and State must apply the tests. Even opinions and 
 doctrines held by the individual are thus subject to an infallible 
 review. It was therefore no hasty or ill-considered action for 
 Calvin to hand Servetus over to the State for proper punishment. 
 Calvin would have been false to his fundamental convictions had 
 he acted otherwise. Rome was only wrong in shedding the 
 blood of the martyrs because Rome was not a true church. 
 Given a true church and her duty was to insist that the State 
 protect pure doctrine. Calvin's ethics is thus based on an out- 
 ward authority. 
 
 Over Calvin's ethics are flung the shadows of the twofold 
 view of life that did so much damage to Christian thinking. 
 For Jesus all life was under God's hand — the sparrow did not 
 fall without his consent, and the hairs of our head are all num- 
 bered. For Luther at his best there is always the glorious 
 assurance that life is good. That all life, all days, all places 
 
THE ETHICS OF JOHN CALVIN 529 
 
 are sacred, if only we use them in the joyful service of God. 
 So that the housemaid sweeping out a room was engaged, says 
 Luther, in as sacred a task as the priest at the altar. For 
 Calvin the world was primarily evil — human nature was in itself 
 corrupt. The world must seem vile to us and we are to ardently 
 long for death.^ All the mediaeval morbidness that has so often 
 corrupted Scotch piety has its legitimate roots in the essentially 
 Roman Catholic scholasticism of Calvin. His conception is in 
 essence dualistic, and the world is per se evil. Of course, 
 Protestantism has largely overcome this taint of Manichaeism, 
 which historically Calvin got, in the writer's judgment, not from 
 Paul, but from Augustine. At the same time the phrases in 
 which the oriental intrusion historically asserted itself have never 
 been banished from the Reformed creeds. 
 
 The most serious blunder of all was Calvin's acceptance of 
 the Roman Catholic theory of the two swords. To mistake 
 Calvin's theory of the State for democracy, and that in spite of 
 his own statement, is so wildly far from the truth that we may 
 assert on the contrary that all the services Calvinism has ren- 
 dered democracy have been by indirection. Presbyterianism 
 has, on the whole, been most true to Calvin's conception and 
 has never been truly democratic. It is essentially aristocratic 
 in organization and feeling. To a selected ministry (minister, 
 elders, and deacons) are handed over all the spiritual interests 
 of the church. To this ministry the congregations owe not co- 
 operation, but obedience. That the tide of Protestant feeling 
 in the Presbyterian church has happily been too strong for 
 Calvinism and its logic should not blind us to the real state of 
 the facts. 
 
 Calvin's ethics partake also of the legal character common 
 to all the scholastic systems. He founds his ethics on an exposi- 
 tion of the law of the Old Testament. Luther plainly saw that 
 ethics was an inner compulsion, and that the Christian man was 
 free from all merely external law just so far as he was Christian. 
 So in his dealing with the Ten Commandments in his catechisms 
 
 ' IV, 9 : 4- 
 
530 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 there is a world-wide difference between his method and that of 
 Calvin. For Luther the law of Christian freedom delights to 
 expand in the atmosphere of loving submission. For Calvin 
 the Christian life is bounded by an almost pharisaic attempt to 
 determine the exact letter of written law. His comments on 
 Romans are often painful reading for any really clear-thinking 
 Protestant. Submission to legal requirement would be Calvin's 
 interpretation of the Protestant Magna Charta in Gal. 4:2,1- 
 5:12. For this submission is in true Roman Catholic spirit 
 made an act of faith. For the Christian man rejoices in the 
 legal enactment, but, crushed and humbled by his inability 
 to meet the requirement, flees in his weakness to the mother 
 church and the sacraments, as sealing ordinances for his assur- 
 ance of forgiveness. In Calvin the sacraments are essential to 
 the Christian ethical life. Baptism is the mortification of our 
 corrupt nature, and without it there is ordinarily no ethical life 
 possible. He simply puts it in the place of circumcision. One 
 has only to read the Institutio, IV, 16, to see that to-day we as 
 Protestants really hold with the Anabaptists at nearly all points 
 as against Calvin, except in circles on the side of Roman Catholic 
 scholasticism (high-church Presbyterianism, Lutheranism, and 
 Anglicanism). In spite of Luther's most unfortunate realism 
 in his interpretation of Hoc est meum corpus, he remains sub- 
 stantially unaffected in his ethics (though not wholly) by the 
 element of sacramental magic. For Calvin the imparted grace 
 of the sacrament is an ethical element of first importance. The 
 superstitious regard of the older Scottish thought for the Lord's 
 table is the direct outcome of what is an essential element in 
 Calvin's teaching. For Calvin there was sacramental magic, 
 and although it was by no muttered incantation that the elements 
 became the bearers of special grace, yet by the clear spoken word 
 they do.^ 
 
 The Protestantism of to-day can hardly understand how 
 large a part this sacramental element played in the Calvinistic 
 system. Under the influence of a Protestant thought that has 
 
 •IV, 14:4. 
 
THE ETHICS OF JOHN CALVIN 531 
 
 developed independently of the theological and ecclesiastical 
 intrusions, the average Protestant has an aesthetic and ritual 
 interest in the sacraments, but almost no ethical or metaphysical 
 interest whatsoever. Very different was the case with Calvin. 
 As every one may see in his fierce attacks upon Anabaptists, 
 he clearly saw that his system was profoundly interested in the 
 metaphysics and ethics involved. 
 
 The whole conception of the Christian life, as Calvin draws 
 it, is Roman Catholic rather than Protestant. The essential 
 feature of Luther's message was that in Christ we were free 
 to live more and more unto righteousness, and that that freedom 
 was joy and peace and a sense of security and sonship, and that 
 all might have it who claimed it. Thus, again, Luther's unfort- 
 unate incursion into the realm of metaphysical speculation on 
 the freedom of the will had a genuine ethical interest, and can 
 be resolved into a relatively harmless though unfortunate 
 psychological determinism. This is not the case with Calvin's 
 doctrine of decree. It is part of the warp and woof of a system 
 of thought whose dominant note is God as law-giver and not 
 as redeeming Father. Hence no more for Calvin than for 
 the Roman Catholic can there be logically, in spite of the 
 doctrine of perseverance, any assurance of faith. The secret 
 decree of God by which corruption is changed to incorruption 
 can only be known in the final glory. Fear and trembling is the 
 note of the Christian life and not joy and peace. Over Luther's 
 faith flits the clouds of medieval morbidness, as the scurrying 
 clouds that follow on a storm well past. With Calvin we descend 
 again into the twilight darkness of valleys the glad sunshine 
 scarcely touches. The relatively gloomy, despondent type of 
 piety which is connected with Calvin's memory is part of his 
 fundamental thinking. It is the outcome of his essential con- 
 ception of the Christian life. 
 
 Hence on ethical grounds we may say that Calvin was one 
 of the last, though not one of the greatest, of the schoolmen. 
 The ethical services of Calvinism have been indirect and in 
 spite of his scholasticism. In breaking with the Roman sacra- 
 
532 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 mental system, Calvin happily failed in his attempt to establish 
 an effective rival Protestant sacramental system; and in Calvin's 
 tremendous and crushing attacks on the Roman hierarchy he 
 made the establishment of a Protestant rival hierarchy impossi- 
 ble. We are still cursed by the attempts — made in the great 
 name of Calvin — to establish again a Protestant priestly sacra- 
 mentalist organization, with the power of the keys, interpreting 
 again an infallible legal code. 
 
 The great service Calvin rendered the Reformation was the 
 organizing of a movement strong enough to stand up against the 
 Roman hierarchy, and yet utterly separated from it by the 
 rejection of celibacy, five of the seven sacraments, the authority 
 of the Pope, the whole monastic system, penance, purgatory, 
 auricular confession, the mass, the sacred Latin tongue, bishops 
 in the technical sense, and the magic of the real presence. He 
 gave men a central conception of great power, as one sees in the 
 history of Mahomet, where the same conceptions organized the 
 religious thought and overthrew corrupted Christianity. The 
 Puritan state became the fighting force of the Reformation. 
 Perhaps the very fact that legal discipline and hard, unyielding 
 authority took the place of leadership gave it its power and its 
 success, but also led to its ultimate failure and defeat. 
 
 The crystalline clearness with which the trained political 
 lawyer set forth his views leaves no excuse for the wide-spread 
 misunderstanding of Calvin. The tremendous force of his 
 argument must be felt by any one who goes carefully through his 
 " Institutes," with his letters as a commentary. He organized 
 the Reformation, gave it a fighting theology and a political creed. 
 The Puritan state arose. It was another aristocratic, highly 
 organized theocracy, and its great services should never be for- 
 gotten, when as more thorough-going Protestants we recognize 
 its weaknesses and see that it took over the great conceptions of 
 Calvin and treated them as final and ultimate, whereas they are 
 in fact foreign to the spirit of Protestantism. 
 
THE ETHICS OF THE CREEDS 533 
 
 VI. THE ETHICS OF THE CREEDS OF THE CONTINENTAL 
 REFORMATION 
 
 There is but little in any of the creeds that can be said to 
 advance systematic ethics. Increasingly as time went on the 
 creeds occupied themselves with dogmatic discussion and 
 scholastic refinements. Even the discussion of justification by 
 faith, whose immediate interest was ethical, lost itself, for 
 instance, in the Formula of Concord, in unreal and scholastic 
 abstractions. To an increasing degree the doctrines of sin, 
 total depravity, free-will ceased to be matters of genuine per- 
 sonal experience, or rather the hypothetical explanation of such 
 experience, and they became items in a system given on external 
 authority. The Augsburg Confession falls back upon " God's 
 will " as the reason of good works. The sacraments are exalted, 
 and although the definition of the sacramental elements varied 
 in the Lutheran and Reformed churches, the high-church doc- 
 trine prevailed in all of them. The Augsburg Confession 
 regards baptism as necessary to salvation,^ and the Helvetic 
 Confession and the Heidelberg Catechism both take high ground 
 about salvation being only possible in the church, and baptism 
 is a requisite for church membership.^ The reformed churches, 
 indeed, rejected the thought of any change in the bread and wine, 
 but though symbols, they are grace-imparting symbols. Thus 
 a real sacramental' magic found its way back into Protestantism. 
 The ethical import of this is by no means small. It was one of 
 the important factors in the hardening and legalizing process 
 that began so soon. 
 
 The thought of the kingdom of God on earth previously to 
 the general resurrection is categorically denied by the Augsburg 
 Confession,^ and the dangerous but convenient distinction 
 between " civil " and "spiritual " righteousness is asserted. The 
 
 » "De Baptismo decent, quod sit necessarius ad salutem, quod que per Bap- 
 tismum o£feratur gratia Dei," art. IX. 
 
 2 "Second Helvetic Conf.," cap. XX; 3-5. C/., also, "Damnamus Anabaptis- 
 tas, qui negant baptizandos esse infantulos recens natos a fidelibus," etc., etc. 
 
 ' "We condemn others also, who now scatter Jewish opinions, that before the 
 resurrection of the dead the godly shall occupy the kingdom of the world," 
 art. XVII. 
 
534 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 writers of the confession claimed that they taught nothing 
 hostile to "Scripture or the church, or the Roman church, so far 
 as it was informed from the Scriptures." ' 
 
 At one point the Lutheran symbols are all plain and definite. 
 The service of God is along the line of the ordinary avocation. 
 Whatever a man does, in that he is to serve God, and true 
 perfection is in attending to our calling and not in "beggary and 
 vile apparel." ^ And even the Lord's day is a matter of Chris- 
 tian liberty, "that men might know that the observation neither 
 of the Sabbath, nor of any other day, was of necessity." ^ 
 
 The Formula of Concord is so swallowed up in dogmatics and 
 speculative theology that the ethics is formal, conventional, and 
 a simple iteration of positions common to all the churches. 
 
 Neither in the Lutheran nor the Reformed symbols is there 
 any real development of a Protestant autonomous ethics, on 
 the basis of the indwelling living spirit; and in the Reformed 
 symbols the Ten Commandments are frankly accepted as the 
 written norm of Christian conduct. The ethical vigor of Luther, 
 Calvin, and the Council of Trent is sadly missing from the 
 Reformed creeds. However much the student of dogmatics 
 may delight in them, the student of ethics from his point of view 
 will find them only a source of discouragement and perplexity.^ 
 The ethics are in the background, and the Roman Catholic mis- 
 conceptions of the relation of the Church to the State reflect 
 themselves increasingly in the creeds. The Helvetic Confession 
 in its XXVth article demands that the State shall punish and 
 suppress heresy. The Gospel is a new "law," the ministry a 
 new priesthood, and the church an ark of safety for the believer. 
 There is therefore here little vantage-ground for advance to real 
 Christian ethical freedom.^ 
 
 ' Nothing "quod discrepet a scriptis vel ab ecclesia Catholica, vel ab ccclesia 
 Romana quatenus ex Scriptoribus nota est," art. XXII. 
 ' "Aug. Conf.," pars secunda (Apologie), Art. VI. 
 
 * "Aug. Conf.," pars secunda (Apologie), art, VII. 
 
 * For a different estimate, see Luthardt, "Gcschichte dcr christ. Ethik," 1893, 
 PP- 53-58 and 81-84. 
 
 * For literature, see Schafl's "Creeds of Christendom," vol. Ill; Uhlhorn, 
 Johann Gerhard Wilhclm: "Exponuntur librorum symbolicorum, maximc 
 eorum, qui in ccclesia Lutherana obtinucrunt, cthica argumenta," etc., Gottin- 
 
THE EPIGONES AND THEIR ETHICS 535 
 
 VII. THE EPIGONES OF THE SIXTEENTH AND SEVENTEENTH 
 
 CENTURIES 
 
 Both in England and in Germany the Reformation was fol- 
 lowed by a period of great instability, which affected the entire 
 European world. It was not wholly the result of the religious 
 awakening nor yet of the rise of nationality, but was also condi- 
 tioned by the economic changes that followed hard upon the 
 struggle of the middle-class for recognition in the political life. 
 The absorption of the energies of the Protestant churches in 
 self-defense and in dogmatic and economic reorganization was 
 such that the men who now began to lead seem pigmies in 
 comparison to men like Luther, Bucer, Bullinger, Calvin, 
 Bugenhagen, Zwingli, not to speak of such pronounced per- 
 sonalities as Carlstadt, Schwenckfeld, and Thomas Munzer. 
 
 The counter-reformation had the advantage that reaction 
 always has. It defended existing vested interests; it appealed 
 from the unknown and the untried to the familiar and time- 
 honored; it was centralized and worked as a resolute unified 
 body, whereas Protestantism was split, irresolute, and only half 
 roused to self-consciousness. The counter-reformation used 
 force, but that did not distinguish it from the reformers. It 
 had, however, some great advantages in using force. It was 
 consistently imperialist; Protestantism was not. It had a clear- 
 cut theory of the Church and State; Protestantism did not. It 
 voiced the new religious life that awoke in the Roman Catholic 
 church, and gave it new directness and power. 
 
 As over against the counter-reformation, Protestantism did not 
 have men of great power within the ecclesiastical organization. 
 The intellectual work was done for Protestantism in political 
 science and philosophy sometimes by men actually hostile to 
 the ecclesiastical organization. 
 
 The ethics are dominated by Melanchthon, whose Loci are 
 
 gen, 1848; Troeltsch, Ernst: "Dcr Alt-Protestantismus (I-II) (i6. und 17. 
 Jahrhundert)," pp. 315-361 in "Die Kultur der Gcgenwart," teil I, abt. 4, 
 part I. 
 
536 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 the subject at once of elaborate commentary/ without any real 
 advance, and sometimes, as in the treatment of the Decalogue, 
 with a distinct decline of vigor and vitality. 
 
 This decline is even more marked when Venatorius of Nu- 
 renburg ^ attempts an independent ethics, and starting with 
 Luther winds up with Cicero. The attempt to combine Stoi- 
 cism with the evangelical teaching of Luther reveals the entire 
 misconception both of paganism and Christianity that pre- 
 vailed. 
 
 In fact for Venatorius apparently the pagan ideal is good 
 enough, only it needs Christian faith to live up to it. Thus 
 "faith" is a new Christian philosophy. And in the law and 
 Gospels all is contained. 
 
 Melanchthon had done his work so well that again Aristo- 
 telian intellectualism and individualism occupy the centre of 
 the stage, and the ethics of the New Testament are swamped 
 in the cardinal virtues and Melanchthon's distinctions between 
 virtues and duties. The whole treatment is so scholastic and 
 so confused that the reader is set wondering where the Gospel 
 really has any place. 
 
 Much more truly reformed and Christian seems to be the work 
 of Weller,^ who deals at length, and in the sense of Luther, with 
 the service of God in the round of daily duty, and especially 
 
 ' Strigel, Victorinus: "Locorum theologicorum . . . V.S. enchiridion ad 
 methodum Locorum ... P. Melanthonis . . . ," Wittenberg, 1591; Chemni- 
 tius, Martinus: "Locorum theologicorum . . . Francofurti, 1604." Cf. Pelt, 
 L. : Die christliche Ethik in der lutherischen Kirche vor Cali.xt und die Trcn- 
 nung von der Dogmatik durch denselben," in "Theologische Studien und Kriti- 
 ken," XXI, 1848, pp. 271-319. 
 
 * Venatorius, Thomas: "De virtute Christiana libri tres, Norinbergae [isJag." 
 Cf. Luthardt, Chr. Ernst: "Geschichte der christlichcn Ethik scit der Refor- 
 mation," Leipsic, 1893, pp. 89-90, who gives a good summary but a very poor 
 critique of the work; also Schawarz, J. C. E.: "Thomas Venatorius und die 
 ersten Anfiingc der protestantischen Ethik im Zusammen hange mit der Ent- 
 wickelung der Rechtfertigungslehre," in "Theologische Studien und Kritikcn," 
 XXIII, 1850, pp. 79-142. 
 
 ' Weller, Hieronymus: " De officio ccclesiastico, politico et ceconomico libellus 
 pius et eruditus," Noribergx, 1552. The Latin the present writer has not seen. 
 Justus Jonas produced a paraphrase of it. 
 
THE EPIGONES AND THEIR ETHICS 537 
 
 defends the taking up of office by Christians as over against the 
 Anabaptists, who often attacked the holding of State office by 
 the "regenerate." In fact the popular preached ethics was 
 probably superior to that of the schools. The systematic 
 treatise by Chytraeus * deserves attention from his attempt to 
 adjust the claims of law and Gospel by postulating the Decalogue 
 as the norm of the Christian life, because in it the final will of 
 God is revealed; but God wants freedom and sonship of us, and 
 not merely legal obedience, so Christ appears to enable us 
 freely to accept and live up to the commandments. Virtue is 
 doing the things commanded in the Decalogue, but they must 
 be done from the heart, hence the need of regeneration, that the 
 heart may move us to loving obedience. Thus the ethical life 
 moves within a given closed system, and we have the old scholas- 
 tic method in the fulness of its fruitage. Thus ethics are also 
 lost in a theological description of regeneration. 
 
 The outcome of Melanchthon and Chytraeus may be seen in 
 the ethical scholasticism of Johann Gerhard,^ who, after treating 
 of Scripture in the first volume as the perfect norm, develops a 
 speculative system of theology akin to Thomas Aquinas, from 
 whom it is hard to believe that he has not borrowed much 
 material. In the fifth volume he enters upon a controversy 
 with Bellarmine upon the subject of free-will, and all the con- 
 fusions of Melanchthon are repeated. Ethical material is also 
 contained in the sixth volume, where he deals with the relation 
 of ceremonial law to the ethics of the new dispensation,^ with 
 the character of the Gospel as given to us in Christ Jesus, and 
 with penitence. It is illustrative of his method to turn to page 
 142 of this volume, where he asks the question, whether and in 
 
 ' Chytrffius, David (the elder) : " Regulae vitae. Virtutum descriptiones me- 
 thodicae . . . recens recognitse . . . ac exemplis . . . illustratae," etc., Leipsic, 
 1558; other editions, Wittenberg, 1570 and 1573. 
 
 2 Gerhard, Johann: "Loci theologici, denus edidit variique generis observat 
 . . . ed. Jo. F. Cotta. 20 torn, et index generalis," Tubingen, 1 762-1 789; 
 "TheSummeof Christian Doctrine written originally in Latine . . . and trans- 
 lated by R. Winterton," Cambridge, 1640. 
 
 ' In Tomo sexto, locus XIV, tracts II and III. 
 
538 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 what sense Christ may be called a new law-giver/ The Council 
 of Trent had anathematized all who said that Christ Jesus was 
 not a law-giver/ and after reading all the arguments in refutation 
 of this position the reader is left wondering where exactly Gerhard 
 disagrees with Trent, for in point of fact the Gospel is a new 
 law, and Christ Jesus came to enable us to keep it.^ With vast 
 scholastic learning we are led into all the legal casuistry of the 
 Middle Ages, and even while maintaining in name the evangel- 
 ical freedom, the substance is sacrificed to a new legalism. Even 
 the machinery for the maintenance of this new spiritual tyranny 
 is elaborately supplied. We have all the apparatus of reproof, 
 minor excommunication and major excommunication,* and with 
 the State magistrate to enforce the spiritual decisions.^ It was 
 not the fault of these new scholastics that a national spiritual 
 imperialism did not take the place of the old international 
 imperialism, with the Church and State as the two pillars.' 
 Although with patent inconsistency Gerhard denies that the 
 State should put heretics to death. 
 
 Nor is the work of Calixtus ' one whit better. Here he deals 
 with the regenerate as the subjects of a new ethics in exactly 
 the same spirit. Even Luthardt has to admit the confused and 
 scholastic character of this greatly overestimated work. Of 
 really original work there is from the ethical point of view in 
 neither Calixtus, Paul v. Eitzer, or Diirr any trace. The same 
 old material borrowed at third hand from Aristotle is worked 
 over in bad Latin, and then the vain attempt is made to distin- 
 guish between this product as philosophic on the one hand and 
 as "theological" on the other. 
 
 ' As throughout, this question is treated as controversial, with the Roman 
 Catholics on one side and the Anabaptists on the other. 
 
 ' "Se quis dixerit, Christum Jcsum a Deo hominibus datum esse, ut redem- 
 toreum, cui fidant, non etiamut legislatoreum cui obediant, anathema fit," Coun- 
 cil Trid., VI, 21. » Cf. vol. V, locus, XIII. 
 
 * "De Ecclesia," tom. XI, cap. VI, §§ II and IV. 
 » Tom. XIII, locus XXV. 
 
 • Sine ecclesiastico ministerio commode quidem sed non pie, sine politica 
 potestate pie quidem sed non commode vivi potest," locus XXV. 
 
 ' Calixtus, Gcorg: "Epitome thcologiiu moralis," Hclmstadt, 1634. 
 
THE EPIGONES AND THEIR ETHICS 539 
 
 The influence of renewed legal study and political theory 
 shows itself in the second part of Buddeus's work/ who deals 
 with the difference between the divine and natural law.^ At the 
 same time the discussion is hopelessly scholastic. Practical 
 theology, he says, is the science which teaches regenerate men, 
 following the leading of divine writings, how they shall live so 
 that they shall grow in the divine image, and at death leaving all 
 imperfections become participants in the eternal and highest 
 felicity.^ The closed system within which we are supposed to 
 move is the Bible. In reality it is only the traditional mediaeval 
 theology slightly tinged by the new colors of the Reformation. 
 Life and the end of life are thought of in the peculiarly narrow 
 and selfish individualism characteristic of the post-Reformation 
 men. The thinking of Malebranche is somewhat reflected in 
 places, and the psychological discussions of the period are taken 
 into account. Regeneration does not change our faculties, but 
 the affections, inclinations, and propensities are changed.* 
 
 A large part of the book is a polemic against the rationalism 
 of this period, but it is really exceedingly unintelligent and has 
 only authority to set up over against it. Learned and clear, then, 
 as Buddeus undoubtedly is, the outcome is in the last degree 
 unsatisfactory and cannot carry us out of the dogmatism and 
 unreality of the ecclesiastical ethics of that day. 
 
 The same may be said of Dannceus,^ who does not seem to 
 the present writer to be so nearly the father of reformed ethics 
 as Schweitzer seems to think. Certainly Melanchthon is the 
 
 ' Buddeus, Johann Franz: "Institutiones Theologias Moralis variis observa- 
 tionibus illustrat£e," Leipsic, 171 1 and 1727. 
 
 *"Non enim ex ratione, quod Puffendorf fecit, sed ex revelatione, nostra 
 probamus quod theologiae proprium est, et si subinde, illustrationis caussa, 
 rationis Scita in subsidium vocemus," preface, p. 3. 
 
 * "Proleg. de nat. et indole," § V, p. 6. 
 
 * Cap. I, § XXXVII, p. 36. 
 
 *Dannaeus (Daneau), Lambert, 1530-1595. Cf. Alexander Schweizer: "Die 
 Entwickelung des Moralsystems in der Reformirten Kirche," in " Theologische 
 Studien und Kritiken," XXIII, 1850, pp. 5-78, 288-327, 554-580. Luthardt, 
 Chr. Ernst: "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik seit der Reformation," Leipsic, 
 1893, p. 99. 
 
540 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 organizing spirit in the "Ethica Christiana," ' and although the 
 legal studies of Danna^us give the ethics, as they give those of 
 Calvin, a certain form, the underlying assumptions are just those 
 of the Lutheran ethics which we have been considering. His 
 interest in the theocracy is not greater than that of Buddeus, 
 nor is the Bible any more of a closed system for him than for 
 Gerhard or Calixtus. The Puritanism that so markedly dom- 
 inated reformed ethics in Calvin and those who followed in his 
 footsteps does indeed not characterize the Lutheran systems 
 to the same degree. At the same time it is there, nor does it 
 seem to the present writer historical to make it so exclusively an 
 introduction from the Netherlands as Ritschl does.* 
 
 VIII. THE NEW PROTESTANT CASUISTRY 
 
 By casuistry one may mean the application of general prin- 
 ciples to particular cases. But such a definition is so wide that 
 it really ceases to mean what casuistry has historically meant. 
 In a narrower sense it is the attempt in cases of conscience, 
 where pleasure conflicts with duty, or seeming duty with seeming 
 duty, to resolve the conflict on the basis of authoritative decisions. 
 In this sense Roman Catholic morality had a final code in the 
 decisions of the church. Where she had spoken the case was 
 closed. It was inconceivable for faith that there should be any 
 conflict between her decisions. An elaborate casuistry thus 
 grew up out of the simple faith that through appointed ofl[icers 
 the Christian could come into direct contact with a final and 
 definite authority, and that all cases of conscience could be 
 resolved in the confessional. 
 
 Protestantism by several stages broke with priest and bishop, 
 with pope and even general council, but stopped at the pages of 
 the New Testament. Here in the words of Scripture are laws 
 which are the final rules of faith and practice. This law is 
 binding on each conscience, hence it becomes eternally impor- 
 
 ' Published in 1577 and appearing in many editions. 
 * In his "History of Pietism." 
 
THE NEW PROTESTANT CASUISTRY 541 
 
 tant to know just what the law says. Roman Catholic exegesis 
 could afford to be general and inexact. The symbolic meanings 
 were many, and the letter was relatively unimportant. Could 
 not mother church at any time give a final and definite interpre- 
 tation of the letter, or an authoritative answer on the basis of 
 the Scripture, that in fact superseded Scripture? Not so in 
 Biblical Protestantism. Here only the most careful exegesis 
 could elucidate the meaning of the text, and the text alone had 
 authority. At the same time it was the business of the church 
 to elucidate the text through her pastors and theological teachers. 
 At this point the elucidation may again be the relatively sim- 
 ple and always necessary application of general principles to 
 special cases, and on such a basis one can have no casuistry, 
 properly speaking. All systematic instruction amounts to just 
 that. Quite otherwise is it, however, when it becomes necessary 
 to collect important decisions, and to balance them one against 
 another to discover the authoritative voice in these decisions. 
 The beginnings, but only the beginnings, of a casuistry appear 
 when Luther and Melanchthon and the evangelical universities 
 were summoned to give, not advice, but authoritative decisions 
 binding upon the conscience. 
 
 All the credal statements were apologetic in character. They 
 attempted to set forth and explain wherein they agreed with the 
 past and wherein they differed with Rome. Neither in ethics 
 nor in social theory did any of the creeds dream of a break with 
 the historic past. And yet they expressed under old formulae 
 new life, new hopes, and called attention to new situations. 
 New situations, however, demand a new ethics. The ethical 
 confusion of the Reformation period has already had our atten- 
 tion. It is hard at the best of times for even a well-inten- 
 tioned, ethically trained man to know what in complicated 
 circumstances he ought to do. But the generations of the 
 Reformation had been treated as children. The confessional, 
 so far as it has significance, discourages autonomy and inde- 
 pendent judgment. This timidity born of moral dependence is 
 reflected in the period. The great leaders were overwhelmed 
 
542 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 with all sorts of moral questions. The doctrinal questions were 
 answered in great fulness in creeds that at once began to take 
 a place of authority. And corresponding to these there was no 
 system of ethics that more nearly fulfilled the same function 
 than that of Melanchthon. At the same time to collect the 
 authorities and give categorical answers in the forms of the old 
 casuistry became seemingly increasingly necessary as the Protes- 
 tant movement gradually began to rest rather on authority than 
 upon the great primary enthusiasms. 
 
 It is hardly casuistry that we find in Luther's letters and 
 "Tabletalk." He, like his master, taught as one having au- 
 thority, and not as the casuists. This advice only becomes casu- 
 istry when some one like Petzel gathers it together in the sayings 
 of Melanchthon,' and these decisions become quasi-authoritative, 
 and men like Amesius and Baldwin begin to lecture upon 
 them.^ The first Thesaurus seems to have been that of Dedc- 
 ken,^ but from that on the literature began to multiply. Hap- 
 pily casuistry in this sense was out of place even where 
 Protestantism had only come to half self-consciousness. The 
 only real basis for casuistry must be a central authority. The 
 wide range of the Biblical literature shut out any thorough- 
 going use of it as such authority. We will only take up as an 
 illustration the work of Osiander.* 
 
 He discusses at considerable length the meaning and function 
 of conscience, but gives us only the old worn-out material. The 
 most original note is where he discusses the "signs" of the kind 
 of conscience a man has. These are found in physical character, 
 
 ' " Berathschlagungen und Bedenken," 1601. 
 
 * Amesius, G. (William Ames): "De conscientia et ejus jure vel casibus, libri 
 quinque, . . . 1630," Ed. nova, Amsterd., 1634, 1654, Oxford, 1659. "Con- 
 science, with the power and cases thereof. Divided into V. bookes . . . Trans- 
 lated out of Latine," etc., 3 parts, portr. (London, 1639), and Baldwin (Baldui- 
 nus), F.: "Casus Conscientiae," 1621-1627. 
 
 ^ Dedeken, M.: "Thesaurus consiliorum decisionum," edited by Gerhard, 
 167 1, in 3 vols. 
 
 * Osiander, Johann Adam: "Theologiaj casualis, in qua quaestiones, dubia et 
 cauus conscientia; circa credenda et agenda enucleanlur," Tubingen, 1680. 
 
THE NEW PROTESTANT CASUISTRY 543 
 
 and the list is careful and painstaking, but of course futile/ 
 for the psychology is really misleading. 
 
 Then follows a discussion of law as the norm of conscience.^ 
 All the various types of law, natural law, the law of nations, 
 ecclesiastical law, and human laws, etc., etc. The discussion 
 is inconsequent for lack of really distinguishing between the 
 types. Next follows a discussion on the examination of con- 
 science,' which is interesting as dealing with the dispute 
 about probabilism. Of course the "Gospel" is exalted as the 
 sole source of truth, and Augustine quoted for this position.^ 
 The cure of conscience forms the next theme. Since man's 
 fall he has needed a remedy, and the satisfaction of Jesus' 
 death is set forth. This is applied in the Gospel, baptism, 
 and the Lord's Supper. The theology of the treatise is that of 
 Melanchthon, and Calvin's doctrine of perseverance is rejected.^ 
 From this on the book is theological, and along the lines of 
 Melanchthon' s Loci, with much scholastic material, as in the 
 treatment of angels.® The second part deals with the moral law 
 and the Decalogue.' Here the treatment becomes distinctly 
 scholastic and casuistical. Very sharp and interesting are many 
 of the discussions, but Scripture words and the interpretations 
 of Scripture words and the decisions of the church fathers are 
 the means of getting at authoritative answers to the various 
 questions of conscience given. Nor is there actually any advance 
 upon the material which was already common possession. 
 More interesting, although again deeply disappointing, is the 
 treatment of Christian liberty^ in the section dealing with 
 incorruption.® This liberty is freedom from bondage to sin, 
 from the curse of the law, from the traditions of men and 
 churchly rites, which are by their nature indifferent. When, how- 
 ever, this liberty is set forth more at length, distinct limitations 
 are noted and the doctrine is guarded against the claims of the 
 "Anabaptists, Libertines, Quakers, and such like." On the 
 
 »pp. 31-40. 
 
 2 Pp. 43-64- 
 
 3 Pp. 68-149. 
 
 *P. 117. 
 
 *p. 163. 
 
 'Pp. 169-714. 
 
 'Pp- 725-1472- 
 
 ' P- 1473 
 
 ' "De Adiaphoris," 
 
 1473-1540- 
 
 
 
544 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 whole the position is that rather of Luther than of Melanchthon, 
 although this is a question rather for dogmatics than ethics. 
 The treatise closes with discussions of temptations, penitence, 
 confession, and absolution. 
 
 It cannot be said that the Pars Secunda is really fruitful. Its 
 method precludes the highest fruitfulness. It is, however, an 
 honest attempt to deal with the situation and to gather authori- 
 tative decisions on ethical questions. That casuistry did not 
 flourish is due to the fact that increasingly the genius of Prot- 
 estantism and the new spirit of ethical autonomy and spiritual 
 maturity makes itself felt in the church and in the nations in 
 which Protestantism maintained itself. 
 
 IX. THE ETHICS OF PIETISM IN THE CONTINENTAL CHURCHES 
 
 One function of all organization is the conservations of values 
 attained by hard struggle and which w^ould be lost unless fixed 
 in definite forms. The hardening of life into institutions and 
 traditions is needful if the acquirements of the past are to be 
 handed down to the succeeding generations. At the same time 
 the process is attended by grave dangers. No formulation of 
 a great vital movement is ever complete. How miserably the 
 primitive church formulated the teachings of Jesus or of Paul! 
 
 Thus it happened that the Protestant formulation of the 
 great awakening was exceedingly incomplete. In the first place 
 important elements, such as were represented by the Anabap- 
 tist movement, were either ignored or trampled upon. That 
 these despised Anabaptists had definite and most important 
 contributions to make is beyond all doubt. That they were 
 often wrong and that the bonds of an excessive literalism fet- 
 tered them may be admitted. But Protestantism was a poorer, 
 meaner thing because they were excluded from its active fellow- 
 ship. 
 
 In the second place far too much stress was laid upon intel- 
 lectual formulation, for which in fact the world was not ready. 
 For this reason the creeds are heavy with a half-digested scholas- 
 
THE ETHICS OF PIETISM 545 
 
 ticism, and are in bondage to a view of the world from which 
 men were eagerly preparing to emancipate themselves. 
 
 It was also the misfortune of the Reformation that wars and 
 political struggle both in England and on the Continent robbed 
 her of energy and absorbed her strength. The cold, bare 
 dogmatic Protestantism of the sixteenth and seventeenth cen- 
 turies sends a chill down the back of the modern man. The 
 forms of her piety seemed to have lost so much in the struggle 
 to barely exist. Nearly all £esthetic values were gone. The 
 ministry of feudal Romanism to the hunger of human life for 
 color, for art expression in singing, acting, and painting was a 
 real and very beautiful ministry. Nearly all of this seemed 
 hopelessly swept away. 
 
 In the Middle Ages the burden of life's responsibility had been 
 much lightened, whether wholesomely or not, by the willingness 
 of mother church to take some of the most burdensome of these 
 upon herself. The Reformation left every man alone, face to 
 face with God, and the God of the Reformation was not always 
 the forgiving Father of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
 And perhaps the worst of the situation was that the inwardness 
 of faith which had pervaded the teachings of Luther, Calvin, 
 Bucer, Bullinger, Zwingli, and the others was all too often lost 
 in post-Reformation times in formal intellectualism and ritual 
 correctness. The pure word became intellectual orthodoxy and 
 the right administration of the sacraments became sacramental 
 magic. 
 
 Slowly there came, however, over the face of Protestantism 
 a change. Albrecht Ritschl does not think very highly of the 
 change,' and in an exceedingly careful analysis of the movement 
 has shown beyond much question the survival in it of types of 
 thinking neither essentially Christian nor modern. When, 
 however, he goes on to demonstrate that this type of thinking has 
 its origin in the reformed theology and is a strange element in 
 Lutheranism,^ it is harder to follow him. The Roman Catholic 
 
 ' Ritschl, Albrecht: "Geschichte des Pietismus," 3 vols., Bonn, 1880. 
 ^ "Geschichte des Pietismus," vol. II, pp. s~33- 
 
^ 
 
 \ 
 
 546 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 forms of piety never really disappeared from either Luther or 
 reformed thought. The ascetic mysticism that marks certain 
 phases of Roman Catholic piety survived in hymn and sermon 
 and in the thought and feeling of both communions. 
 
 Whether Ritschl is right in tracing the actual spread of Pietism 
 to the work of men like Gisbert Voet, Johann Coccejus, Jodocus 
 van Lodenstyn, de Labadie, and others, the present writer does 
 not know. The works of these men are obscure, and first-hand 
 knowledge is difficult and demands theological expertness as a 
 systematic theologian. The student of ethics will, therefore, 
 soon find himself lost in the minutiae of dogmatic discussion. 
 What, however, does at once appear when typical pietistic 
 thought is examined from the ethical point of view is that the 
 pietistic movement had a distinct and valuable contribution to 
 the advancing spirit of Protestantism. This contribution is, 
 nevertheless, not chiefly theological, but ethical and religious. 
 The fact that controversy forced it into theological forms was 
 unfortunate, for theological formulation was entirely contrary to 
 its genius. No doubt Ritschl is right in his main contention 
 that the theological formulation is reactionary. At the same 
 time Ritschl's error is the resolving of Pietism into a theological 
 movement. It became this, so far as it was this, only because 
 of radical misunderstanding of its fundamental interest. 
 
 Just as in regard to the evangelical movement in England,^ 
 which was so nearly related to Pietism, the awakening was only 
 accidentally theological. It really aff"ected various types of 
 mind and thought. It was itself never consciously an attempt 
 to engage in theological reformation. In the work of Spcner,^ 
 
 ' Cf. author's " Social Significance of the Religious Movements of the Seven- 
 teenth and Eighteenth Centuries in England." 
 
 * Spener, Philip Jakob (1635-1705), was born in Rappoltstein, at the foot of 
 the Volgesian Mountains, in Alsace. He was preacher in Strasburg and in 
 Frankfurt -a. -M., as well as in Dresden and Berlin, where he died. His life and 
 work has been best described by Griinberg (Paul) in three volumes (Gottingen, 
 1893-1906). In the third volume, pp. 205-388, is a wonderfully complete 
 bibliography, in three parts: i. A complete list of Spener's own writings; 2. 
 A systematic list of the literature referring to Spener; 3. A chronological list of 
 the literature of Spener. The only English work referred to of importance is by 
 
THE ETHICS OF PIETISM 547 
 
 what most strikes us is the practical goal. He wanted to make 
 the church life religious and ethical. He regarded himself as 
 the interpreter again to the church of Luther, and he was to a 
 great extent right. His catechism^ is in immediate connection 
 with the main thought of Luther, namely, faith as an inner life 
 enabling us to keep the commandments. He begins, to be sure, 
 where reformed theology would also be likely to begin, namely, 
 with the Bible. Yet on the other hand in his practical use of 
 the Bible he shows great freedom and at times even critical 
 vigor, and his attitude is not one of slavish literalism. 
 
 The ethics of Spener are distinctly a religious individualism. 
 The relations of the regenerate man to his neighbor reveal the 
 reality of his relations to God. The traditional orthodoxy 
 sought the evidence for regeneration in "pure doctrine" and the 
 proper use of the sacraments. For all practical purposes the 
 church guaranteed to the believer the reality of his faith by 
 setting forth this pure doctrine and by obedience to the sacra- 
 mental institution. Against this Spener protested. And in 
 
 Richard, Marie E.: "Philip Jacob Spener and His Work," Philadelphia, 1897, 
 154 pages. (This work contains also "Augustus Hermann Francke and His 
 Work.") The English reader will find a short article on him in the "Encyclo- 
 paedia Britannica." A real service might be rendered by an adaptation of 
 Griinberg's work for English readers. Spener is best studied in his numerous 
 sermons. C/., also, "Pia Desideria: oder hertzliches Verlangen, nach Gotte- 
 fiilliger Besserung der wahren Evangelischen Kirchen . . . ," Frankfurt-a.-M., 
 1676, a good edition appeared in Leipsic, 1841, a revised edition with notes by 
 F. W. P. L. Feldner, Dresden, 1846: "Das geistliche Priesterthum aus gott- 
 lichen Wort kurtzlich beschrieben, und mit einstimmenden Zeugnissen gottsel- 
 iger Lehrer bekrafftiget," etc., Frankfort, 1677; and Herrn D. P. J. Spener's 
 "... Letzte theologische Bedencken und andere briefHiche Antworten, welche 
 von dem seel, autore, erst nach seinem Tode zu ediren, anbefohlen . . . nebst 
 einer Vorrede," Hr. Baron C. H. von Canstein, etc., 3 Theile, Halle, 1711; a 
 good little book is Spener's (Philip Jakob) "Hauptschriften, bearbeitet und 
 eingeleitet von Paul Griinberg," in 220 pages, Gotha (Perthes), 1889 ("Biblio- 
 thek theologischer Klassiker," vol. XXI). 
 
 ■ "Einfache Erklarung der christlichen Lehre nach der Ordnung des kleinen 
 Katechismus Dr. Martin Luther's in Frage und Antwort verfasst," various 
 editions. Third edition, edited by J. A. Detzer, Erlangen, 1846, another in the 
 same year at Berlin; the latter is the edition the present writer has used, being 
 the one accessible to him. 
 
548 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 his protest he reasserted the inward character of faith, and 
 seemed to his critics unchurchly and anti-ecclesiastical. Yet 
 Spener was never a separatist/ and when the "collegia" began 
 to separate he ceased to organize these "collegia."^ Yet they 
 rested upon his own most highly prized teaching of the universal 
 priesthood of believers, and they were a protest in the interests 
 of Christian democracy against the usurpation of professional 
 religious teachers. 
 
 In general his ethics are divided into " Duties to God." First, 
 those virtues that have their seat in the heart, and secondly, the 
 duties that spring from these virtues, and thirdly, our attitude 
 to the means of grace. Then duties to the neighbor, in 
 general and in particular social position. And then lastly, 
 duties to one's self, in general and particular. This fulfilment 
 of duties is evidence of regeneration. 
 
 It was not Spener's individual fault that he carried over a 
 certain tone of world-flight into his thinking. Puritanism has 
 its roots in the thinking of the earliest reformers, and the some- 
 what dualistic conception of life that underlies Protestantism, 
 / in many of its forms, was indeed Roman Catholic, but came over 
 with Luther, Calvin, and nearly all the great reformers into the 
 more modern world. It is interesting to note that Pietism was 
 often a strong and effective protest against a priestly church in 
 its intolerance and excessive claim to have authority. It took up 
 the struggle against intellectualism and based itself on the claim 
 of the priesthood of all believers. Religion, said Spener con- 
 stantly, was not knowledge but practice, it was a habitus prac- 
 iicus.^ 
 
 It is interesting to note the things that his most vigorous 
 critic, Valentin E. Loescher, charges against Spener. He notes 
 his indifference to the "doctrine," his undervaluation of the 
 
 ' Cf. Griinberg's careful citation of passages, vol. Ill, p. 187. 
 
 * The "Collegia pietatis," as the forerunners of the evangelical prayer meeting 
 and the Methodist class meeting, are full of interest. "Pious," i. e., "reawak- 
 ened," persons gathered together outside the regular church services for self- 
 examination, instruction, reading of the Bible, prayer, and singing. 
 
 '"Des geistige Priestestum," and in many sermons. 
 
THE ETHICS OF PIETISM 
 
 549 
 
 means of grace (of course the sacraments) , the underestimate of 
 orders, for only converted men are in true orders, that work- 
 righteousness is mingled with faith. Of course he also took I 
 issue with his qhiliasm, i his mysticism, and his relative indif- 
 ference to many things important to ecclesiasticism, Ritschl, j 
 indeed, does not regard Spener as a thorough-going pietist, at 
 the same time Spener almost summed up the movement, and it 
 is quite evident that the dogmatic weakness of Pietism blinded 
 Ritschl to many of its religious and ethical values. With many 
 weaknesses Pietism was yet a call to greater inwardness and to 
 a less dogmatic and more practical Christian life. Systematic 
 ethics can hardly be said to have made distinct advance. The 
 foundation laid was too narrowly individual, the "religiosity" 
 was too much modelled after the contemplative piety of Tauler 
 and the "Teutsche Theologia." The development of its life ^ 
 was influenced, undoubtedly, by unwholesome traditions with ) / 
 regard to the undervaluation of this world and overestimate of 
 what George Eliot cleverly called " other- worldliness." If the 
 student of systematic ethics goes to Pietism or to the evangelical 
 revival, which was its daughter, expecting to find advance toward 
 ethical autonomy and a more scientific and systematic treatment 
 of the great problems of a really Protestant ethics, he will be 
 disappointed. The formal ethics are still too much in the bonds 
 of a traditional and scholastic view of the world to constitute a 
 basis even for advance. If, however, he on that account under- 
 estimates the social service of Pietism, it is because he has fallen 
 into the mistake which Ritschl seems to have made, and deals 
 with it too exclusively as an intellectual movement. 
 
 How little it was this is seen in the life and work of one who 
 next to Spener may be said to have given Pietism its historic 
 form, the great leader of Pietism, Francke} As a theological 
 
 * Francke, August Hermann (1663-1727). In 1692 (January 7) he came to 
 Halle-a.-S. and there really gave Pietism a new direction as pastor and professor. 
 His works are numerous: "Offentliches Zeugniss vom Werk, Wort und Dienst 
 Gottes," 3 vols., 1702, also Halle, 1739; "Segensvolle Fussstapfen des noch 
 lebenden und waltenden, liebreichen und getreuen Gottes," 1709, also Halle, 
 1769; "Epicedia," Halle, 1727; "Idea studiosi theologise," Halle, 1712; "Mo- 
 
550 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 thinker he is even less eflective than Spener, and Ritschl's judg- 
 ment on this side of his life and thought seems all too just. At 
 the same time this is not the whole of Francke's life and thought. 
 He not only aimed at a measure of inwardness for the Christian 
 life, which the scholastic orthodoxy sadly missed, but he found 
 in Christian activity the proper test of the reality of that inward- 
 ness. Prayer was for Francke communion with a living God. 
 It is hardly fair to Francke to find in his emphasis upon prayer 
 anything like the mechanical magic which marks the lowest 
 estate of Roman Catholic prayer.* The reproach is, however, 
 just that it was often an emphasis upon the individual relation- 
 ship with God apart from relationship to him in the social 
 activities of the church life. At the same time Francke never 
 really underestimated the church. His missionary zeal was the 
 dawning of a better day for German missionary activity. His 
 orphan schools and students' homes were in direct contact with 
 the church, and by his long and faithful pastorate he raised the 
 whole conception of the privilege and calling of the ministry. 
 His theology abounds, no doubt, in remembrances of scholastic 
 
 I Roman theology, but so does all Protestant theology. We have 
 done very little save clear away some of the more offensive 
 intrusions. Where Francke advanced was in his conception of 
 
 -^a dynamic faith revealing itself in personal piety and in social 
 service. That the type of personal piety had many false lines 
 in it, and that the social service was neither as intelligent nor as 
 thorough-going as it might have been, is simply true of Francke 
 and some of the rest of us. 
 
 His ethics were, however, still very individualistic, sometimes 
 sentimental, and often moved too much in the heavy armor of 
 theological formulae, as those of regeneration and penitence, 
 
 nita pastoralia," Halle, 1717; "Methodus studii theologici," Halle, 1723; etc., 
 etc. Kramer's (Gustav) "A. H. Francke, ein Lebensbild," in two volumes 
 (Halle-a.-S., 1880, 1882), is the best biography, although not critical. Cj. 
 also Marie E. Richard's ".\ugustus Hermann Francke and His Work under 
 Spener . . ." Sec also Ritschl, Albrecht: "Geschichte des Pietismus," Bonn, 
 1880, vol. II, pp. 249-294. 
 ' As in Ritschl, vol. II, pp. 259,^. 
 
THE ETHICS OF PIETISM 551 
 
 without seriously facing the great ethical questioning of even his 
 own day. While all this is true, the outcome of Francke's 
 activity was of the greatest benefit to both the church and the 
 nation, and his own services should never be underestimated 
 because of the feeble caricatures of the pietistic epigonen. 
 
 The chief ethical weakness of the pietistic movement was its 
 failure to formulate an ethical principle for the judgment of 
 life's actual situations, and the consequent relegation to law and 
 convention of some of the most important and educative of 
 moral decisions. It is very easy to set up a law, "Thou shalt not 
 do so and so"; it is far harder but also far more important to 
 teach men to apply fundamental principles to the constantly 
 changing and shifting circumstances of life. The ethics, of 
 Pietism shared with monasticism and Puritanism an element 
 of world-flight. The world danced, therefore the Christian 
 must not dance. The world played cards, therefore the Chris- 
 tian must not play cards. The world went to the theatre, there- 
 fore the Christian must not go to the theatre. The world 
 amused itself with games and f^^tes, therefore the Christian must 
 play no games and attend no fetes. The fatal compromises 
 made with the world were so abhorrent to Pietism, it so rightly 
 judged a lukewarm Christianity as more harmful than actual 
 opposition, that it sought to cut the knot and get out of any 
 danger even of compromise. The result was the hypocrisy, the 
 sense of unreality, the pharisaism that haunts all legalism and 
 all attempts at world-flight. 
 
 The men we have been considering did not leave the church. 
 They did not even try to construct an imperium in imperio, but 
 they gave the inevitable basis upon which such attempts should 
 be made. Some sought in inner circles within the church to 
 realize the dream of a purer type of Christian living for them- 
 selves at least,^ and free from the amusements and the tempta- 
 tions of the world. 
 
 * Johann Georg Walch: "Historische und theologische Einleitung in die 
 Religionsstreitigkeiten der evangelisch-lutherischen Kirche, von der Reformation 
 an bis auf jetzige Zeiten," 5 vols., Jena, 1733, especially vol. II, pp. 357-400. 
 
552 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Others again found this hard or uncongenial, and pushed by 
 the logic of the situation began to separate themselves from 
 organized Christianity and to found brotherhoods for the culti- 
 vation of their life and the speedy furtherance of their central 
 purpose. Such an attempt was made with the greatest success 
 by Zinzendorj} 
 
 He found the old Moravian church which had taken refuge 
 on his estates the foundation for a brotherhood within the 
 Lutheran church. The missionary purpose was his and their 
 controlling and central ideal. The ethics of the movement 
 exhibit the type of religious individualism made familiar in 
 Spener, but the religious life represents even more strongly a 
 reversal to mediaeval piety. The person and physical sufferings 
 of the Saviour are in the foreground, and mystic devotion and 
 even ecstasy were cultivated. The missionary zeal and self- 
 sacrificing devotion to social service (nursing, teaching, etc.) 
 saved the situation, but the theology and ethics are not in any 
 sense pronouncedly Protestant. The Scriptures are the external 
 authority, with, however, that dash of subjectivism that has 
 always made this type of Roman Catholic devotion difficult to 
 manage even face to face with the imperial hierarchy (Tauler, 
 Suso, etc.). As over against State Lutheranism it had a very 
 hard time, and never has flourished save where it commanded 
 the situation absolutely, as at Herrnhut. 
 
 ' Zinzendorf, Count Nicholas Lewis (1700-1760), who gave the refugees from 
 Moravia not only a home, but also a new organization. His works are numerous. 
 Godfrey Clemens has collected some of his sermons: "Ausziige aus des seligen 
 Ordinarii der Evangelischen Briiderkirche, sowol ungedrukten als gedrukten 
 Rcden iiber biblische Texte nach Ordnung der Biicher heiliger Schrift . . . 
 etc.," 10 vols., Barby, 1763, etc. His hymns are collected by A. Knapp: 
 "Geistliche Gedichte, . . . gesammelt und gesichtet . . . mit einer Lebens- 
 skitze," etc., Stuttgart and Tubingen, 1845. Bengcl (Johann Albrecht) has a 
 critique of the movement: " Abriss der sogenannten Briidergemeine, in welchem 
 die Lehre und die ganze Sache gcprufet," Stuttgart, 1751, neucr unvcriinderter 
 Abdruck, Berlin, 1858. The most quoted life is that of Spangenberg (August 
 Gottlieb): "Leben des Herrn N. L. Grafen und Hcrrn von Zinzendorf und 
 Pottendorf," Barby, 1773-177S, 8 parts (the pagination is continuous throughout) 
 The Life of N. L. Count Zinzendorf . . . translated Cin an abridged form) 
 by S. Jackson, London, 1838; a still ijricfcr edition by J. Jackson, London, 1844. 
 
THE ETHICS OF PIETISM 553 
 
 Zinzendorf lived to see his movement floating on the tide of 
 triumphant Pietism that swept over Germany. He had been 
 banished from Saxony in the early days, but now was recalled 
 and loaded with tokens of confidence and recognition. Pietism 
 was never a proletariat movement in the strict sense in Ger- 
 many. It never even had a large proletariat following such as 
 Methodism won in England. It affected the smaller trades- 
 people and the urban population at a certain middle-class stage, 
 and appealed strongly, like Whitefield's movement, to the aristoc- 
 racy. Zinzendorf was himself brought up by his titled grand- 
 mother, and she had been one of Spener's personal friends and 
 supporters. Neither in theology nor in ethics was there any 
 original note or any great advance, save only as religious zeal 
 enforced a measure of inwardness and broke down formalism 
 and dogmatic correctness as a measure of life. 
 
 The pietist was taught to do a quite unwholesome amount of 
 introspection, and the feelings were most unduly worked upon 
 and emphasized. Fanaticism lay often close on the border 
 line, and Puritanism was the outcome, with its almost inevitable 
 deadness and mechanical religiosity. Hypocrisy is always an 
 easier charge to make than to prove. But beyond question the 
 pietistic movement produced in its later stages on the minds of 
 many the impression of hypocrisy. 
 
 The separation of groups of pietists from the State church was 
 made necessary by the foolish narrowness of State governments 
 as in Wurtemberg,^ and the usual results of such separations 
 appeared. Fanaticism is the child of persecution and intoler- 
 ance breeds narrowness and extravagance. These all appear 
 in the history of the little sects and divisions that sprang up in 
 the wake of the great pietistic revival. With them, however, 
 the main stream of history can hardly reckon. 
 
 ' Systematic ethics finds little new in the teachings of these groups. For an 
 account of them, see Luthardt's "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik," vol. Ill, 
 pp. 248-331, of the edition (in one vol.), 1893, but the details are too local to 
 interest the English student. 
 
554 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 X. THE ETHICS OF POST-TRmENTESfE ROMAN CATHOLICISM 
 
 It is a false assumption often made by Protestants that the 
 great awakening was wholly a break with Rome. The Council 
 of Constance (1414) began a distinct reformation, which, how- 
 ever, seemingly defeated resulted in many most important 
 changes in the Roman policy. The attitude of the University 
 of Paris was significant. It made a steady demand for exactly 
 the step which at first marked Luther's attitude. Already in 
 1409 Gersoti^ asked for a council, and he took the high ground 
 of the supremacy of a council over the Pope.^ Gerson's mysti- 
 cism was not metaphysical, but rather a religious and sentimental 
 emotionalism. It included the "contemplation, ecstasy, rap- 
 ture, melting, transformation, union, exultation, joy, joy to be 
 in the spirit," etc.,^ and is not exclusive of the discursive reason. 
 Gerson was a nominalist, but sought to avoid the scepticism of 
 nominalism far short of resting simply on authority. We have 
 immediate knowledge of God, and the powers of the mind are 
 discussed under the two heads of "cognitive and effective." * 
 At the same time his ethics does not mark any advance upon 
 mystical scholasticism of the type of Bonaventura, for example; 
 and Dionysius and the Fourth Gospel are used uncritically. 
 
 * Gerson, Jean Charlier, born December 14, 1365, died July 12, 1429. The 
 founder, in a sense, of Gallicanism. Chief works (from our point of view) are: 
 "Espistola de Reformatione Theologiae" (1400); "De Monte Contemplationis"; 
 "De Mystica theologia speculativa"; "De Mystica theologia practica." Edi- 
 tions of his works, Paris, 1606 ("Opera . . . auctiora et castigatiora, inque 
 partes quatuor distributa . . . Accessit vita Gersonis . . . ," edited by E. 
 Reicher, in four parts). An edition by M. L. Ellies Du Pin, Antwerp, in 5 vols., 
 1706. The best monograph said to be that of Schwab (Johann Baptist): "Jo- 
 hannes Gerson. Eine Monographic," Wiirzburg, 1858. The writer has not 
 seen it. 
 
 * Opera omnia, Antwerp edition, 1706, torn. II, pars 2, p. 161. 
 
 ^ "Consideratio prima dc triplici Theologia," pars i, consid. 2, p. 366; vol. Ill, 
 Antwerp edition. 
 
 * "Expcdit ad ipsius Theologia; mysticae cognitionem speculativam acquircn- 
 dam, naturam animaj rationalis, et ejus potentias, tarn cognitivas, quam affcct- 
 ivas cognoscere," "De mystica Theol.." pars 2, consid. 9 (p, 369, Antwerp 
 edition). 
 
POST-TRIDENTINE CATHOLICISM 555 
 
 At one point, however, he rises to a high level. He asserts in 
 true Neoplatonic sense the immediate vision. Intelligence is 
 unified, and is capable of receiving light immediately from God 
 in which and through which the first principles are known to 
 be true.^ Then he brings this immediate knowledge in the 
 "Theologia Practica" into direct relationship with morals. It 
 is a pity that tradition blinded him to the ultimate logic of this 
 position, and that thus he oscillates between reason and authority, 
 between freedom and casuistry. He was, however, a thorough- 
 going Catholic, and his persecution of Huss and maintenance 
 of orthodoxy was the outcome of his real basis in authority. 
 At the same time he was an exceedingly independent critic of 
 the existent authority and one of the great forces making for 
 actual living righteousness. Both the councils of Pisa and 
 Constance were earnest and to some degree markedly successful 
 attempts at reformation. It is noteworthy that Gerson under- 
 took popular expositions of the Ten Commandments^ very 
 much in the spirit of the later Lutheran exposition. 
 
 When, therefore, the great awakening came, Rome became 
 again profoundly conscious of what was at stake. At first the 
 insurrection in the north was treated with contempt. Then as 
 the revolt spread it was forced home upon Rome that her 
 imperial ambition was endangered, and she began the work 
 of reconstruction. In this work Ignatius de Loyola^ (Don 
 
 > "In qua et per quam principia prima cognoscuntur esse vera at certissima, 
 termini es apprehensis," "De mystica Theologia," pars 2, consid. 10 (p. 371, 
 Antwerp edition). 
 
 2 "Opusculum Tripertium, de prseceptis Decalogi," Antwerp edition, torn. I, 
 p. 426. 
 
 ^ Ignatius Loyola, was born 1491, and his work bears the stamp of his Spanish 
 birth and his military training. His religious experience was profound and real. 
 He dedicated himself to the church before he knew of her danger through 
 Protestantism, and only his experience at Venice seems to have awakened him to 
 his real mission. For full literature, see Otto Zockler's article, " Jesuitenorden," 
 in Herzog-Hauck's "Realencyklopiidie," vol. VIII, Leipsic, 1900, pp. 742-7S4, 
 and V. Frins's article, "Jesuiten," in Wetzer and Welte's "Kirchenlexikon," 
 vol. VI, Freiburg-i.-B., 1889, cols. 1364-1424. The popular "life" by Bouhours, 
 Dominique. "La vie de S. Ignace, Fondateur de la Compagnie de Jesus," 
 Paris, 1679, Nouvelle edition, "revue et corrigee," 2 vols., Avignon, 1821. An 
 
556 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Inigo Lopez de Recalde of Loyola) was a chief instrument. 
 In a most remarkable manner he reflected the nobler side of 
 Roman Catholic ethics and faith. His own experience of ex- 
 cessive asceticism led him to rational views of its value, such 
 views as modern and intelligent Roman Catholicism holds to- 
 day.^ He became the father of modern missions and the 
 foundation of a thorough-going view of life from the point of 
 view of authority, absolute and final.^ Moreover, the Jesuitism 
 which he founded drew firmly and consistently the only conclus- 
 ion open to Roman Catholic reasoning from the premises, and 
 
 English translation "by a person of quality," London, 1686. The 6th book is 
 added by Butler (Alban) to his "Life," Dublin, 1841. The writer has not seen 
 Genelli's "Das Leben des heiligen Ignatius von Loyola . . . Mit Benut- 
 zung der authentischen Acten, besonders seiner eigenen Briefe," Innsbruck 
 1848; "The Life of St. Ignatius of Loyola . . . Translated from the German of 
 Christoph Genelli by C. Sainte Foi; and Rendered from the French by T. Mey- 
 rick, London, 187 1. Nicolini's (Giovanni Battista) "History of the Jesuits, 
 Their Origin, Progress, Doctrine and Designs," London, 1854, in Bohn's 
 "Illustrated Library," is intemperate in tone. Dollinger (Ignaz) and Reusch 
 (F. H.): "Moralstreitigkeiten in der romisch-katholischen Kirche seit dem 
 XVI. Jahrhundert mit Beitragen zur Geschichte und Charakteristik des 
 Jesuitenordens," Nordlingen, i88q, 2 vols., mentioned later, is invaluable. 
 
 ' Asceticism is an "exercise" to promote efficiency. "Since soul and body both 
 come from the Creator you should take both into account, and for his sake not 
 weaken the bodily nature, for if this is weakened the inner (spirit) cannot be 
 cfTective." Quoted by Huber from Genelli, pp. 382 ff., of "Das Leben des 
 hi. Ignatius von Loyola." 
 
 ' The literature is gathered in the two articles mentioned already, p. 555 (note). 
 Luthardt (Chr. Ernst) has also a most valuable collection of bibliography in his 
 "Geschichte der christlichen Ethik seit der Reformation," Lcipsic, 1893, pp. 
 1 1 5-1 5 1. The writer has found most useful Ruber's (Franz) "Der Jesuiten 
 Orden nach seiner Verfassung und Doctrin, Wirksamkeit und Geschichte," 
 Berlin, 1873 (c/., also, his " Jcsuitenmoral, aus den Quellen dargestellt," Bern, 
 1870), and Gothein's (Eberhard) "Ignatius von Loyola und die Gegenreforma- 
 tion," Halle, 1895. Cf., also, Blaise Pascal's "Les Provinciales" (many editions 
 and translations, the writer has used the edition of M. Prosper Fangere, "Les 
 Provinciales, D'apr^s les manuscrits autographes les copies authentiques et les 
 Editions originales," Paris, 1886, 1895, 2 vols.). But it is most important that 
 some one of the Jesuits, like Gury or Escobar, be studied at first hand to avoid 
 the caricature of their teachings easily made possible by even lengthy quotations. 
 No better guide can be found for the material than Dollinger and Reusch's 
 "Geschichte der Moralstreitigkeiten in der romisch-kalholischcn Kirche seit 
 dem XVI. Jahrhundert," etc , Nordlingen. 1889, 2 vols. 
 
POST-TRIDENTINE CATHOLICISM 557 
 
 accepted the Pope as the final and living voice of the sacramental 
 institutional church. They did exactly what the Puritan State 
 also did, they took their authority seriously and tried to apply 
 it to actual human life. It seems almost absurd to accuse 
 Jesuitism of "lowering the ethical standards of the confessional" 
 by their lax casuistry. They found every man of power and 
 prominence with a "pocket chaplain," and they, in the real 
 interests of morality, supplanted these by trained and experi- 
 enced casuists. 
 
 The sympathy of Protestantism for Jansenism is really greatly 
 misplaced. Pascal's^ wonderfully clever attacks upon the 
 Jesuits should not blind us to the fact that from the Roman 
 Catholic point of view Jesuitism was right and Jansenism was 
 not only wrong, but dangerously and divisively wrong. 
 
 Probabilism is the only logical outcome of the authoritarian 
 position. The Pope has only spoken infallibly upon a few 
 main doctrines. His administrative authority is final, but not 
 infallible. In the confessional the priest has not the advantage 
 of access to infallibility. He has access only to authorities and 
 not to authority. In the actual guidance of complex human 
 life it is not only important but absolutely necessary that no 
 single human authority bind the conscience save that of the one 
 infallible voice where it has spoken, and that the confessor have 
 a flexible rule that he can adapt to every personal need where he 
 has only authorities. That such flexibility can be, nay, will be, 
 abused is undoubted; but all such responsibility can be abused. 
 The Jesuits were not the only father confessors to abuse this 
 trust. But Jesuitism taught in season and out of season that 
 it was a trust. The abuses that grew up pertain to all casuistry. 
 It is the authoritarian system that is wrong and not the probabil- 
 ism which grew logically out of it. 
 
 This probabilism consisted in weighing all the various authori- 
 ties, and Jesuitism, perfectly correctly, contended that these 
 authorities could not be weighed simply by being numbered, 
 
 ' Pascal's ethics are intelligently discussed by Bornhausen, Karl: "Die Ethik 
 Pascals," Giessen, 1907. 
 
558 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 but that any one grave doctor's opinion might form a basis of 
 judgment. That this opened the door to all sorts of extrava- 
 gances Pascal has shown. But no one really gets from his pages 
 a conception of the earnest and sincere though mistaken work 
 the Jesuits were doing in trying to reorganize the confessional 
 as a vital moral force. And the proof is that they did reinstate 
 the confessional. The Jesuit order, like all orders, no doubt 
 became corrupt, and its condemnation, and suspension, 1773, 
 was thoroughly well deserved, although it is also well to remem- 
 ber that it was the unspeakable House of the Bourbons that 
 forced the issue upon Clement XIV and made it a condition of 
 the return of the Papal States.* Instead of being an instrument 
 of imperial power, the Jesuits had cherished the ambition to 
 wield the power, with the Pope as a puppet and with kings and 
 nations as their real subjects. Imperial ambition has always 
 been unscrupulous whether it has been ecclesiastical or political, 
 and Jesuitism was no exception to the rule. 
 
 At the same time the casuistry which they defended must be 
 the outcome of any legal ethics. The letter of the law is inequit- 
 able and unjust, and having been made to fit one set of conditions 
 works intolerable hardship under any other conditions. To 
 make the law really work, and to use "authority" without in- 
 humanity, was, without question, the real goal of probabilism. 
 Jesuitism had exactly the same questions before it with which 
 Pharisaism had to deal, and dealt with them in much the same 
 way and for the same reason — both had substituted the letter 
 for the spirit. The Pharisee said "Corban" (it is devoted) to 
 escape the rigor of rules for filial duty, and the Jesuit sought the 
 way out of impossible positions made actual by legalism, and in 
 trying to do so stumbled into more impossible positions. 
 
 Nevertheless, many Protestant critics have been unjust to the 
 ethical discussions of Jesuitism. They occupy, for instance, no 
 peculiar position on the question as to whether the end justifies 
 the means; and for the simple reason that they, like ethical 
 teachers in all ages, are divided on the subject. But this turns 
 
 ' The calmest account and discussion of this alTair, by Huber, pp. 529 Jf. 
 
POST-TRIDENTINE CATHOLICISM 559 
 
 on the use of words. It is most certainly not "right" to do evil 
 that good may come, but that raises the previous question what 
 is "evil." Is it a "lie" in any real sense if a man saves his life 
 by telling a man in a drunken fury an untruth? Is it "evil" in 
 any real sense — to take Gury's illustration' — when a man 
 is unjustly held a prisoner, and whose escape is a social good, 
 to use trickery to effect his escape? These are questions no 
 abstract letter of the law can answer. And in the discussions 
 with Jesuits carried on by Pascal and lesser writers since, the 
 real attitude should have been a wholesale rejection of any and 
 all merely external laws as binding upon the moral man. 
 
 Moreover, in these controversies most of the Protestant critics 
 have permitted themselves to be led off really ethical ground. 
 There are always two considerations in any action: First, the 
 attitude of the agent; his morality is determined by his intent. 
 Secondly, the social outcome of the action, which is inevitable 
 apart from all intent, and may be "bad" or "good." 
 
 The Jesuits were often fanatic men of hard, rigid, and some- 
 times fierce morality. They were willing to die ad majorem 
 Gloriam Dei. To call them "bad" men is ambiguous. So far 
 as fanaticism, hardness, pride, bigotry mingle with our actions 
 we are all "bad." But Melanchthon and Calvin in rejoicing 
 over Servetus's death were mistaken, misled men and not "bad" 
 men. Jesuits were often misleading guides and have a quite 
 undeserved reputation for political cleverness, but they were 
 not "bad" men, and their morality is not worse and not better 
 than any legal morality, whether pharisaic or Puritan. They 
 blundered most shamefully. Far from being really clever, they 
 have been bad political advisers of the papacy. They lost the 
 North American continent for France and Catholicism. They 
 gave Protestant Germany the hegemony of Europe by forcing 
 on the war of 1870. They lost France to the papacy by stupid 
 intrigues of no meaning, and are now in danger of destroying 
 even the papacy by absurd insistence upon lost positions. But 
 
 * Gury: "Casus conscientiae I de peccatis," c. 17 : 2, rv 181 : 2, pp. 55 and $6, 
 quoted by Huber, p, 119 op. cit. 
 
,560 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 these things have resulted rather from their single-minded 
 devotion to the lost cause of the Pope's imperial supremacy than 
 from any moral crookedness. Their tragic failure is only one 
 more evidence of the futility of attempting to force the living 
 present into the forms and modes of the dead past. 
 
 While this is all true, the Jesuits are not really responsible 
 for the foundations upon which they tried to build. Casuistry 
 begins always as soon as authority, final and definite, is pro- 
 claimed. Hence we find the beginnings of it even in St. Augus- 
 tine,^ and we have already seen the necessary development of 
 it in the books of penitence. The Jesuits really deserve great 
 credit for their having by careful systematic elaboration reduced 
 the whole thing to an absurdity. They found it, as father con- 
 fessors of really good religious people, of the utmost importance 
 to tell exactly a deadly from a venial sin. But only authority 
 makes this plain. Now in the balancing of authority there are 
 four main theories: i. Probabilismus, the less certain may be 
 followed if a grave doctor can be cited on that side. 2. Aequi 
 probabilismus, the less certain opinion may be followed if they 
 seem equally well supported by authority. 3. Probabiliorismus, 
 the less certain opinion may only be followed when a weight of 
 authority makes it more probable. 4. Tutiorismus, i. e., the 
 rigorous following of the best-supported authority, against which 
 no probability can be urged. There are again here shades of 
 difference.^ It must be remembered that these discussions are 
 to train father confessors. 
 
 So also the discussion of the degree and motive of penitence 
 became for the Jesuit confessors a burning one. Attritio 
 formidolosa or attritio servilis was repentance from fear of 
 punishment, and casuistry had to decide how far such penitence 
 had validity. It was agreed that the highest penitence was 
 only contritio perfecta, which meant penitence because of love 
 to God only.' 
 
 ' As in his books, "De Mendacio" and "Contra Mendacium ad Consentium." 
 ^ * Cf. Gury's "Compendium theologiae Moralis," particularly the opening 
 sections. 
 
 ' Cf. Dollinger and Rcusch, "Moralstreitigkeiten," pp. 68-94, edition 1889. 
 
POST-TRIDENTINE CATHOLICISM 561 
 
 The Council of Trent dealt with this question, accepting 
 attritio as sufficient if accompanied by resolve to forego the 
 sin and to do penance, but added that the contritio was higher/ 
 Now here again the Jesuits as the confessors of half of the 
 Catholic world were deeply interested and again out of practical 
 grounds took the more flexible rule. This was not because they 
 were "laxer" as father confessors than others had been, but 
 because they had greater need of elasticity in working an im- 
 possible position. They were becoming the confessors of the 
 European courts and princes, and these had never been noted 
 for any strict morality. Exactly the same reasons that controlled 
 Luther and Melanchthon in their unfortunate advice to the 
 elector controlled the individual Jesuits, and they were com- 
 pelled to defend flexibility to make the system of authority work. 
 That it involved theoretic laxity was inevitable, and that sooner 
 or later the evil effects of this would appear is beyond dispute. 
 
 But when we turn to Jansenism all that is found is a stricter 
 legalism, an unflinching application of an external morality. 
 It was a Puritan, though individualistic Puritan, movement. 
 The men and women of Port Royal bowed to authority and to 
 the Pope, and although persuaded that Augustine taught a 
 doctrine of grace very different from the semi-pelagianism of 
 historic Roman Catholicism, they were as much afraid of 
 Protestantism as the Jesuits themselves. One must have deep 
 personal sympathy with the sufferings of the faithful few at 
 Port Royal, and the intrigues of the Jesuits^ are exceedingly 
 contemptible. But even the convinced Protestant must carry 
 away the impression that, as a matter of papal imperial policy, 
 the Jesuits were right and Port Royal was wrong. 
 
 Liguori ^ is often confused with the Jesuits, and his rules and 
 
 ' Cf. 4 cap. of 14th Session, 1651. and the discussion of it in Dollinger, "Mor- 
 alstreitigkeiten," p. 71. 
 
 ^ The best account is in the book already mentioned, Joh. Huber, "Der 
 Jesuiten Orden," pp. 438-495. He was of the school of Dollinger, so stands 
 between extreme views on either side. 
 
 ' Alfonso Maria de Liguori (1696- 1787) was the founder of the Redemptorists, 
 who are often confused with the Jesuits. He was a most prolific writer, and the 
 
562 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 his main interests closely coincide with those of the Society of 
 Jesus. He began as a probabilist but ended as an aequi 
 probabilist. His casuistry is open to all the objections that can 
 be urged against a legal formal system stretched to try and meet 
 actual life. He was himself forever tormented by scruples and 
 the fear of offending, and as in all such cases tries to justify all 
 manner of really immoral ways of escape from the letter of 
 law. His tricks with ^quivocatio and Restriclio mentalis are 
 certainly demoralizing. Yet here again they are the outcome 
 of the system, and it is hard to escape Liguori's conclusions 
 starting with his assumptions. The outcome is hideous, it al- 
 ways must be. It was so in Christ's time and always will be. 
 It is the bankruptcy of an external morality on the basis of out- 
 ward authority. 
 
 The Council of Trent made no advances in systematic ethics, 
 but simply fixed the discipline. The papacy has always been 
 practical and political in its aims rather than theoretical or 
 systematic. It reformed the Catholic system and made it at 
 once more simple and more highly authoritative and centralized. 
 The young Jesuit movement already made its devotion felt, and 
 the new religious vigor of the great awakening found expression 
 in a revived Catholicism. But it made no great contribution to 
 the systematizing of ethics. It indeed regulated the discipline 
 and carefully defined indulgence and sought to guard against 
 abuses, but beyond that it did not go. 
 
 Thus in theory and in its teachings the ethics of Thomas 
 Aquinas are the authorized statement of the Roman position. 
 
 cult of Mary was his special message. His "Gloria di Maria" ("Glories of 
 Mary," many editions and translations) and his "Moralia Theologia" are still 
 powerful books of propaganda. The best life is by Carl Dilgskron, "Leben 
 des heiligen Bischofs und Kirchenlehrers Alfonsus Maria de Liguori," 2 vols., 
 Regensburg, 1887. There are many Italian editions of his works and a new 
 French edition ("CEuvres completes du S. Alphonse Marie de Liguori. Tradui- 
 tes par les Peres L. Dujardin et Jules Jacques," Tournai, 1855 ^.,' nouv. ddit., 
 1895 jf.), and a German edition in 42 vols. ("Siimmtliche Wcrke von Alphonsus 
 Maria von Liguori," Regensburg, 1842-1847). An English edition by R. A. 
 Cofi^, of which, however, only six volumes appeared, London, 1854-1868. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 563 
 
 Nor did any philosophic system up to the time of Kant seem to 
 make any impression upon the revived and invigorated Roman 
 Catholic imperialism. 
 
 XI. THE ETHICS OF PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM ON THE 
 
 CONTINENT 
 
 The controversy between Arminius and the Calvinistic party 
 was ethically singularly barren. Although in fact the heart of 
 the question was the ethical character of God and his govern- 
 ment, the dispute was carried on on scholastic lines, and dealt 
 with the metaphysics and exegetical questions involved, without 
 due consideration of the ethics. So that the protest of Arminius, 
 like that of Socinus, with whom his opponents sought to identify 
 him, never really gave ethics the help that discussion along 
 more fruitful lines might have rendered. But one man came 
 out from the Arminian ranks, or rather from the atmosphere 
 which made Arminius possible, who did much to give ethics an 
 independent place in human thinking. 
 
 Hugo Grotius^ is the real father of modern international 
 ethics. But the basis of his international ethics is really pagan 
 and not Christian. Not that he was not himself a most devout 
 believer. On the contrary he, like Bacon, still attempted the 
 
 * Grotius (or de Groot), Hugo (1583-1645), was alike scholar and statesman. 
 He was condemned by Prince Maurice of Orange to life-long imprisonment, but 
 escaped after two years, and, fleeing to Paris, became later the Swedish ambassa- 
 dor to France. Many editions of his works, and translations of his great work, 
 "De jure belli ac pacis," libri tres, Paris, 1625; "The Illustrious Hugo Grotius 
 of the Law of Warre and Peace; with Annotations, III Parts, and Memorials of 
 the Author's Life and Death," translated by Clement Barksdale, 2 parts, London, 
 1654; "On the Rights of War and Peace: an Abridged Edition," translated by 
 W. Whewell," 1853; "Drei Bucher iiber das Recht des Krieges und Friedens," 
 in Kirchmann's "Philosphische Bibliothek," vols. XV and XVI, Berlin, 1868 sq. 
 This and his "De Veritate Religionis Christianse," Paris, 1627; editio novissima, 
 1669, many English translations and editions; "Truth of the Christian Religion, 
 Literally Translated by T. Sedger," London, 2d ed., 1859, form our chief 
 source for the ethics. His life has been written by Charles Butler ("The Life 
 of Hugo Grotius; with . . . Minutes of the Civil, Ecclesiastical and Literary 
 History of the Netherlands," London, 1826), and a large literature concerning 
 the legal aspects of his work exists. 
 
S64 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 impossible task of separating the fields of knowledge, and ad- 
 mitting the relative and progressive character of "secular" 
 knowledge while still retaining the "absolute" character of 
 knowledge that has been "revealed." 
 
 Thus Grotius has a threefold standard in ethics. There is 
 first the law of nature/ which is fixed and quite unchangeable 
 from the beginning of time/ and then following Aristotle there is 
 the given law/ and then besides these there is the law of custom 
 and habit.^ God's law is twofold. There is a general law 
 given at creation, again at the flood, and then by the revelation 
 of Jesus Christ. There is also a special law given only to the 
 Jews and only binding upon them.^ From these complicated 
 premises Grotius strives to build up an ethics that should have 
 international sweep and validity. But in point of fact the 
 foundation has to be laid in natural law (jus naturale) and never 
 rises higher than the old Stoic ethics in its Roman dress. As the 
 student reads the complicated argument of Grotius, wearisome 
 in a degree from being overburdened by quotation after quota- 
 tion from relevant and irrelevant authors, one is at first sur- 
 prised at the place and influence assigned to the work. It never 
 really rises higher than Roman Stoicism at its best, and is often 
 on lower planes, as in the defence of private war.^ Then, how- 
 ever, there is forced upon us the historic significance of such 
 an effort at a time when the old "imperium," whether ecclesias- 
 tical or military, had given way, and some basis had to be found 
 for the existence side by side of independent national units. 
 If ever the world sees a great federation of nations, as doubtless 
 it will, men will look back upon Grotius as the historical student 
 who first tried to construct an ethics for such a federation. 
 
 ' "Jus belli ac pacis," Prol. i. 
 
 * "Jus belli ac pacis," lib. I, cap. I, X : 1-7. 
 
 ^ "Juris ita accepti optima parlitio est, quie apud Aristotelem exstat, ut fit 
 aliud jus naturale, aliud voluntarium, quod illc legitimum vocat, Icgis vocabulo 
 strictius posito: interdum ct t6 tv iri^ei, (sic) constitutum," "Jus belli ac pacis," 
 lib. I, cap. I, IX : 2. *"Jus belli ac pacis," Prol. I. 
 
 ' "Jus belli ac pacis," lib. I, cap. I, XV : 2, and XVII : 1-8. 
 
 • "Jus belli ac pacis," lib. I, cap. Ill, § II. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 565 
 
 There are ethical sections in his other best-known work, "De 
 Veritate," * in which Grotius attempts to define the relation of 
 natural law to the Gospel and to revelation. And the outcome 
 of his discussion is a real separation between "reason" and 
 "revelation," and what Grotius did not really intend, an empha- 
 sis upon "reason" which makes all revelation superfluous. 
 
 The failure with Grotius as with all the seventeenth and 
 eighteenth century men up to Kant is the unquestioned accept- 
 ance of a system of absolute truth on the basis of revelation, and 
 of a world of perception apart from the mind perceiving. For 
 Grotius the senses never really deceive the healthy mind,^ but 
 there is an antinomy between "reason" and "revelation" which 
 can only be solved by separating their spheres. And in this 
 separation practically everything in which a healthy man is 
 interested is relegated to the field of "reason," and religion is 
 left to deal with questions of but very secondary importance. 
 That such a rationalism should be religiously barren was no 
 wonder, and not even the exceedingly religious cosmogonies of 
 Descartes, Spinoza, or Leibnitz could give back again what re- 
 ligion thus lost. 
 
 The assumption by Descartes^ of a universal doubt, and then 
 of a reconstruction on the basis of the assurance of personality 
 
 • Lib. II, §§ XII-XVII, and lib. V, §§ VI-XIV. 
 
 ^ "De Jure Belli ac Pads," Prol. § XXXIX. 
 
 ^Descartes or Des Cartes, Rene (Renatus Cartesius), 1596-1650. Born at 
 La Haye, Touraine, and of old noble family. The best edition of his works is 
 that of Victor Cousin ("CEuvres . . . publiees par Victor Cousin," 11 vols., 
 Paris, 1824-1826), and the Latin edition ("R. Des Cartes Opera philosophica, 
 Editio secunda ab Auctore recognita," Amsterdam, 1650). The best bibliog- 
 raphy is that of the last edition of Ueberweg-Heinze, " Grundriss der Geschichte 
 der Philosophic," theil 3, § XIII. The life has often been written', but one of 
 the most lively and sympathetic summaries is that of Kuno Fischer's "Descartes' 
 Leben, Werke und Lehre (Geschichte der neueren Philosophic Band I), Heidel- 
 berg, 1897, vierte neubearbeitete Auflage," pp. 149-272. English translation 
 of 3d ed. by J. P. Gordy, London, 1887. Kuno Fischer has also admirably 
 translated into German the chief philosophical works, "R. Descartes' Haupt- 
 schriften zur Grundlegung seiner Philosophic. Ins Deutsche iibertragen und 
 mit einem Vorwort versehen," Mannheim and Darmstadt, 1863. English trans- 
 lation by J. Veith ("The Method, Meditations, and Selections from the Principles 
 
566 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 of all life, is neither a real nor possible position. No theoretical 
 doubt ever really more than temporarily shakes the actual basis 
 of our conduct or judgments of conduct. And these judgments 
 are not the result either of the rational process pure and simple, 
 nor of a process of revelation apart from human psychological 
 process and moral experience. 
 
 Thus Descartes' analysis of the foundation for ethical advance 
 is a mixture of authority and rationalism,* but his treatment 
 is still really in the bonds of an unpsychological method. Mathe- 
 matical processes have still something magically superior to 
 the material given in the sense-perception,^ and the process of 
 introspection gives us an assurance higher than that gained by 
 observation,' and in spite of Descartes' suspicion of the syllogistic 
 reasoning of logic,^ and his rejection of it in the province of 
 physical science for theology and ethics as well as metaphysics, 
 it remains in essence his method. So that even his science never 
 frees itself from a hampering theological metaphysics,^ and 
 there is set up a dualism of mind and body which is really fatal 
 to an examination of either,^ and this because a knowledge of 
 the soul is more certain than any knowledge of the body.' This 
 knowledge Descartes would gain by introspection and reflection. 
 
 of Descartes. Translated from the original texts . . . ," Edinburgh and Lon- 
 don, Blackwood, iithed., 1907), as well as by others, but generally only of 
 extracts from the "Principles" with the "Discourse" and the "Meditations" in 
 full. The ethics have been especially treated by Max Heinze ("Die Sittenlehre 
 des Descartes," Vortrag (28 pp.), Leipsic, Hinrichs, 1872. 
 
 ' " La premiere etoit d'ob^ir aux lois et aux coutumes de mon pays, retenant 
 constamment la religion en laquelle Dieu m'a fait la grice d'etre instruit dhs 
 mon enfance," etc. "Discours de la Methode," Cousin's edition, vol. I, p. 147 
 
 (1824). 
 '" Discours de la Methode," Cousin's edition, vol. I, p. 128 (1834). 
 
 * "Meditation seconde," Cousin's edition, vol. I, pp. 246-262 (1824). 
 
 * "Discours de la Methode," Cousin's edition, vol. I, p. 140. 
 
 •"Et ainsi je reconnois tr^s clairement que la certitude et la v^rit^ de tout 
 science depend de la seule connoissance du vrai Dieu," etc., "Meditation cin- 
 quieme," Cousin's edition, vol. I, p. 321 (1824). 
 
 *"Les principes de la philosophie, Premifere partie," Cousin's edition, vol. 
 II, p. 67. 
 
 * "Les principes de la philosophie. Premiere partie," Cousin's edition, vol. II, 
 p. 69. 
 
\ 
 
 PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 567 
 
 The ethics of Descartes revolve about the question of the 
 Highest Good.* This divides itself into two great divisions. 
 God is of course the absolute Highest Good,^' but there is a realm 
 less than God in which man seeks his "good," and this is not 
 that of the material things, nor of intellect, because these lie 
 outside our immediate control, but man must seek his highest 
 well-being in the will to virtue.^ And this will is free, or at least 
 may be free, and rule over the sensuous elements. This control 
 of the passions is the end of human life,'' therefore the life of 
 virtue is not in becoming passionless, but in proper control of 
 the passions and their right direction, so that we long for the 
 things worth while.^ These things Descartes very beautifully 
 expounds in his third part of the "Passions," separating the 
 noble from the ignoble with great beauty and insight. 
 
 Descartes would have the ethical man seek indeed happiness, 
 but a certain kind of happiness, namely, peace and contentment, 
 "vivere beate,'' is "to have a spirit perfectly contented and 
 satisfied," ' and to do this knowledge and a measure of intelli- 
 gence is necessary, so that every one is bound to cultivate knowl- 
 edge and intelligence to the extent of his capacity.' At the same 
 time the seat of the ethical life is in the will and not in the 
 intelligence, so that often when we stray we have peace in remem- 
 bering that we willed to do the good. The relation between the 
 "good will" or virtue and "peace" Descartes leaves almost as 
 undecided as between soul and body. But in his letter to the 
 Queen of Sweden^ he seems to assume a necessary relationship. 
 
 ' The correspondence must be largely relied upon, but besides the "Medita- 
 tions" (rather religious and metaphysical than ethical, yet containing the foun- 
 dation of his ethics), see also, "Les Passions de I'Ame," Cousin's edition, vol. 
 
 IV, pp. 3-163. 
 
 ^ On peut consid^rer la bonte de chaque chose en elle-meme, sans la rapporter 
 a autrui, auquel sens il est evident que c'est Dieu qui est le souverain bien," etc., 
 Cousin's edition, vol. X, p. 60. 
 
 3 "A la Reine de Suede," Cousin's edition, vol. X, p. 62. 
 
 * "Les Passions de I'Ame," art. CXLVIII, Cousin's edition, vol. IV, p. 161. 
 
 » "Les Passions de I'Ame," art. CLX, Cousin's edition, vol. IV, p. 171. 
 
 •""Lettre a Mde. Elisabeth," Cousin's edition, vol. IX, p. 211. 
 
 ^ "Lettre ^ A. M," Cousin's edition, vol. VI, p. 310. * Op. cit. 
 
S68 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 At bottom the ethics of Descartes are little more than Roman 
 Stoicism, but with vagueness and irresolution introduced by 
 traces of Christian feeling. 
 
 It remained, therefore, for Spinoza^ to work out the Cartesian 
 dualism to a monistic system on the basis of the will. Already 
 in Aristotle there is raised the problem of how the will is related 
 in ethics to the intellect, and the answer is not clear, but as the 
 will must be informed the intellect, as in all Greek ethics, has the 
 place of prominence. This intellectualism is not overcome in 
 Descartes, although distinctly disavowed, and yet the unresolved 
 dualism which haunted the Cartesian system is as troublesome 
 in ethics as it is in the metaphysics. Malebranche^ had pre- 
 
 ' Spinoza (Despinoza, De Spinoza), Baruch (or Benedict) de (1632-1677). 
 Bibliography in full in Ueberweg-Heinze, " Grundriss der Geschichte der Philoso- 
 phic, Dritter Theil §§ 16 and 17," and in Antonius van der Linde's "Benedictus 
 Spinoza, Bibliografie," Gravenhage, 187 1 (in Dutch), and "Zur Litteratur des 
 Spinozismus in Zeitschrift fiir Philosophic," vol. XLV, 1864, pp. 301-305. The 
 best edition by van Vloten and Land ("Benedicti de Spinoza Opera quotquot 
 repcrta sunt. Recognoverunt J. van Vloten et J. P. N. Land. Editio altera," 
 3 vols., La Hague, 1895). The "Ethica" appears as a separate volume taken 
 from this edition of 1895. Excellent introduction to Spinoza is Kuno Fischer's 
 "Spinozas Leben, Werke und Lehre," vol. II of his "Geschichte der neuern 
 Philosphie"), Filnfte Auflage, Heidelberg, 1909. His life is beautifully inter- 
 woven into a novel by Berthol Auerbach in his "Spinoza, ein Denkerleben," Neu 
 bearbeitet, Mannheim, 1854 (in Gesammelte Schriften, vols. X, XI, Stuttgart, 
 Cotta, 1863, 1864). The early life in the tongue of the Netherlands by Jean 
 Coler (Johann Kohler), Lutheran pastor at Amsterdam, is known in the French 
 translation, "La Vie de Spinosa" ("The life of Benedict de Spinoza . . . 
 Drawn out of French," p. 92, London, 1706), but must be corrected from the 
 studies of later students, especially van Vloten's. Very sympathetic, yet critical, 
 is Kuno Fischer's sketch, pp. 1 21-195, i" the volume already referred to. 
 
 ^ Malebranche, Nicolas (1638-1715), of the Congregation of the Oratoria in 
 Paris, wrote, besides his famous "De la Recherche de la Veritd; ou Ton traitte de 
 la nature de I'Esprit de I'Homme, et de I'usage qu'il en doit faire pour 6viter 
 I'erreur dans Ics Sciences" (Paris, 1674-1678), which estranged him alike from 
 the Jesuits and the 'Jansenists, a treatise on morality, "Traits dc Morale, par 
 I'autcur de la Recherche de la v^rite" (2 parts, Rotterdam, 1684); both of these 
 appeared anonymously. The latter is found in the first volume (p. 400) in 
 "O^uvres completes de Malcbranche. Ouvrage public par MM. de Genoude 
 et Lourdoneix," 2 vols., Paris, 1837. Here he proclaims man's unity with the 
 reason of God, chap, I : 1. This final divine substance is God, and God is 
 reason (raisf)n). The love of order is the fundamental virtue, chap. II : i. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 569 
 
 pared the way for a pantheistic monotheism on the basis of Des- 
 cartes' metaphysics, and now Spinoza deliberately sought a 
 resolution of the dualism upon the basis of intellectual love, 
 whose seat is really in the will. 
 
 The one substance is God, who is, however, not personal and 
 is under no constraint, but acts according to his own being. He 
 is not the supreme cause of the universe, if by that is meant a 
 separation between cause and effect, but is the immanent reason 
 for all being existing as it is/ God is the cosmical substance, 
 and the cosmos is God. Everything, therefore, acts in strict 
 conformity to its own nature.^ Substance has infinite variety 
 in its attributes, but human intellect knows God under two 
 aspects, that of thought and extension. These are as inde- 
 pendent of each other as in Descartes' system, but find their 
 union in God. That is to say, Spinoza is no materialist deriving 
 thought from matter, nor is he an idealist like Malebranche or 
 Berkeley in that he derives material from thought. So far 
 as attributes have independent existence, both extension and 
 thought represent the inner being of God, but they are not 
 opposed to each other. We are only interested in Spinoza's 
 elaborate metaphysics so far as they affect our problem, and it 
 must be confessed that within the confines of Spinoza's panthe- 
 ism there is no room for a really Christian ethics. All the 
 relations under which Jesus thought of man and God are made 
 impossible symbols in which to interpret Spinoza's world. 
 
 It has two divisions, one of union and the other of benevolence, chap. Ill : 8, 
 and this love of order or harmony is the basis for our unity with God in free and 
 loving co-operation, chap. IV : 10-19. And yet this freedom in any real sense 
 is a gift of God's grace, chap. VII : 1-3, and the means of grace are Jesus Christ 
 and the sacraments of the church, chap. VIII : 1-4, and motives to right-doing 
 are the fear of hell and the desire for happiness, chap. VIII : 13-16, and hence 
 he develops a somewhat mystical version of Augustine's ethics with intrusions 
 from Descartes in exceedingly beautiful French, but with skilful evasion of the 
 principal problems and much real confusion of the issues. 
 
 * "Deus est omnium rerum causa immanent, non vero transiens. Eth. I : 
 Prop. 18 and in the demonstration Spinoza points out, "Deinde extra Deum 
 nulla potest dari substantia, hoc est res quas extra Deum in se fit." 
 
 ^ " Ethica pars," IV, prop. 59. 
 
570 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The modes under which we know matter are motion and rest, 
 the modes of thought are intellect and will. These are infinite 
 like the attributes and have neither beginning nor end. Spinoza 
 is bound up with a determinism that carried over into the sphere 
 of conduct is fatalism; from this Spinoza vainly tries to escape 
 by intellectualism of a thorough-going character.* Man can 
 only be free through thought. Any affection {affectus) which is 
 a passion ceases to be a passion so soon as we have a clear and 
 distinct idea of it.^ To understand the world is to mark its 
 necessary inevitable character and to cease to be weak and fear- 
 ful and indeed to realize that there is nothing either good or 
 bad, but that things simply are. Religion is this sense of com- 
 plete acquiescence in the nature of things, and it is hard to see 
 how it differs much from the Stoic resignation of later Roman 
 days. Nor is it easy to see why it should be a joyful resignation. 
 The certainty that substance is infinite and imperishable will 
 fill us with joy or sorrow according to our experience of its 
 painful or pleasurable character. We may as philosophers sur- 
 render gracefully to the inevitable because it is "of the nature of 
 things," but our opinion "of the nature of things" may then 
 be either that of Leibnitz or Schopenhauer, and there can be no 
 room in Spinoza's ethics for a duty to trust or believe, for the 
 essence of his morality is to see things as they are. We may 
 rejoice that the despised, poor, fear-haunted Jewish outcast 
 rose to such heights of peace and faith, but one distrusts his 
 analysis of the groundwork of that philosophic calm and gentle, 
 loving, simple life as given in the Pars Quinta of his ethics. 
 
 Moreover, throughout the metaphysics and ethics of Spinoza 
 runs the great fundamental fallacy that in the method of mathe- 
 matics the human mind has access to a type of certainty more 
 stable than that based upon phenomenal experience. 
 
 Upon this assumption there was built up a new philosophical 
 scholasticism, which reached its climax in the school philosophy 
 that dominated the thinking world up to Kant's critical examina- 
 
 ' "Elhica," pars IV, de servitutc humana, and pars V, de libertatc humana. 
 * "Ethica," V, prop. 3, and demonstration. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 571 
 
 tion of it. This school philosophy was under the influence of 
 Leibnitz^ and Christian Wolff. Leibnitz was more interested in 
 metaphysics and the metaphysical assumptions that precede 
 ethics than in ethics itself. But Christian Wolff formulated the 
 ethics on the basis of Leibnitz's metaphysics and gave to rational- 
 ist Protestantism an almost final ethical statement. Wol]j ^ and 
 Leibnitz felt the influence of the tremendous services that 
 mathematics was rendering to invention. It was not Bacon's 
 method, but the application of mathematics as a conceptual 
 short-hand to physics and to chemistry, enabling invention to 
 
 'Leibniz (or Leibnitz), Gottfried Wilhelm von (1646-1716), was born in 
 Leipsic, where he also began his studies. For full details of a most useful and 
 interesting life, see Guhrauer's "Life" ("Gottfried Wilhelm, Freiherr von 
 Leibnitz, Eine Biographic von Gottschalk Eduard Guhrauer, 2 Theile, Breslau, 
 1842, mit Nachtrage, 1846"). He did much for higher education by the found- 
 ing and conducting of the Berlin Academy, whose first president ke was. His 
 correspondence is preserved in the library at Hanover, not all of which has 
 been published. The philosophical works are edited by Paul Janet, 2d ed., 
 Paris, 1900, and there is an older edition (" G. G. Leibnittii opera philosophica 
 quae exstant Latina Gallica Germanica omnia. Editio recognovit e temporum 
 rationibus disposita, pluribus ineditis auxit, introductione critica atque indicibus 
 instruxit J. E. Erdmann cum Leibnitii effigie," 2 vols., Berlin, 1839, 1840). 
 The philosophical works have been translated by G. M. Duncan, New Haven, 
 1890. The Open Court Publishing Company in Chicago has published his 
 important works, in 1902 ("Discourse on Metaphysics, Correspondence with 
 Arnaud, and Monadology," with an introduction by Paul Janet, Member of the 
 French Institute, translated from the original by George R. Montgomery). 
 Very full bibliography in Ueberweg-Heinze : "Grundriss der Geschichte der 
 Philosophie," Dritter Theil, § XXIII, and in Alfred Weber's " History of 
 Philosophy," translated from the French by Frank Thilly, New York, Scribner, 
 1903; also in Kuno Fischer's third volume of his "Geschichte der neueren 
 Philosophie," "Gottfreid Wilhelm Leibniz, Leben, Werke und Lehre," 4th 
 ed., Heidelberg, 1902. 
 
 * Wolff (Wolf), Christian, Freiherr von (1679-1754), born in Halle as the 
 son of an artisan. His works are most numerous, and his philosophy appears 
 both in his exceedingly discursive Latin and in admirable German text-books 
 (various editions, see Ueberweg-Heinze: " Grundriss der Geschichte der Philoso- 
 phie," Dritter Theil, § XXVI). The student of ethics will find nearly all he 
 needs in the "Ethica," five parts. The edition cited is "Philosophia moralis, 
 sive Ethica, methodo scientifica pertractata," etc., Halae Magdeburgicas, 1750- 
 1 753. But a study of his German works is a good introduction to the terminology 
 of Kant, who never shook off entirely the influence of Wolff upon his ethical 
 thought. 
 
572 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 overcome the limitations of human senses, and extending almost 
 indefinitely the potential reach of human observation that 
 marks the era from Descartes to Kant. Both Leibnitz and 
 WollT were distinguished mathematicians, and the philosophy of 
 the period may almost be called the period of almost pathetic 
 faith in mathematics as the key to the absolute. 
 / On the field of ethics Wolff is, however, as scholastic as 
 'Thomas Aquinas, only "reason" gives the content as well as 
 its analysis. And by reason is meant the discursive analysis 
 of the conceptional machinery. The quiet assumption made by 
 Descartes, Leibnitz, and Wolff, as well as by the English deists, 
 was that the traditional content of the religious-ethical life 
 could all be taken somehow out of the discoursive reason by 
 rational process. And however indefinite its limits, this content 
 is for them still a closed system as much as the closed systems 
 which Biblical Protestantism thought were given in the Script- 
 ures and Roman Catholicism in the traditions of the church. 
 
 Wolff in the prolegomena to his ethics claims for philosophy, 
 rightly handled, an absolute certainty.* The end of ethics is 
 man's happiness,^ and he foresaw the reach and scope of the 
 future science.^ But he only takes the theory of knowledge of 
 Leibnitz and rationalizes the traditional ethical-religious content, 
 and that in extremely wordy manner, though with great clearness 
 and learning, and with a useful widening of the German termi- 
 nology.* 
 
 This brings us to the close of our study of systematic ethics 
 within organized Christianity. From the Reformation on the 
 stream widens. Authority is shifting. The ecclesiastical im- 
 
 '"Ita in philosophia morali quoque demonstranda sunt omnia, ut certam 
 habeamus, praxin," Proleg. to " Ethica," p. 3, edition 1750. 
 
 ' Proleg. to " Ethica," p. 5, edition 1750. 
 
 ^ He says in the Prolegomena that it presupposes ontology, psychology 
 (empirical), natural theology, practical philosophy, universal and the law of 
 nature and of nations, and even cosmology. 
 
 * Students of Kant in the English-speaking countries would do well to study 
 some of Wolff's German works as a preparation for the understanding of Kant's 
 complicated terminology. 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 573 
 
 perialism built up so carefully on dogmatic unity has given way. 
 Biblical Protestantism has utterly failed to find in the author- 
 ity of so wonderfully diverse a literature as the Scriptures a 
 sufficient basis for re-establishing intellectual unity. National- 
 ism and individualism swept away the weak barriers Protestant 
 ecclesiasticism sought hurriedly to erect. The seventeenth and 
 eighteenth centuries sought in "reason" a sufficient apology for 
 the maintenance of the traditional religious-ethical life. The 
 services that mathematics had rendered the cause of human 
 progress made it the natural ally to which men turned. Two 
 names are linked in our history as the destroyers of this false 
 hope. Hume and Kant turned men's gaze in upon the nature of 
 the whole conceptual machinery and compelled Protestantism 
 to reckon at last with the limits of the human mind. From that 
 hour the struggle for an absolute knowledge in theology as in 
 ethics has been a losing battle. 
 
 At that hour, however, ethics began to really come to her own. 
 Not now as an absolute content given on authority and within 
 the limits of a closed system of human duty, but as a science of 
 human conduct working like any other science on the material 
 given in human experience and limited like all science by the 
 capacity of the human mind. As physics is the study of the laws 
 of force and matter, that we may adjust our life to our surround- 
 ings, and by knowledge of the laws of force and matter may 
 master our surroundings, so the science of ethics is the study of 
 the laws of human life and conduct that we may adjust our lives 
 to our changing surroundings and become masters of those sur- 
 roundings. This involves the creation and exploitation of ever 
 new ethical ideals. The false assurance of an absolute in ethics 
 has been a hinderance to the formation of new ideals. They have 
 had to shelter themselves almost sneakingly under the cover of 
 misinterpretations of the past. Thus almost every battle against 
 slavery, feudalism, private war, the duel, persecution for faith's 
 sake, for freedom and toleration has been waged in the face of 
 an absolute ethics that claimed a completed and divinely given 
 content sanctioned by a revealed authority. 
 
574 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The new Protestantism from Hume and Kant placed at last 
 faith in the room and stead of authority, and thus came back 
 again to the divine ethical autonomy of Jesus, who promised a 
 Holy Spirit guiding men step by step into all truth, but who 
 himself felt that the only real basis was the experience of the 
 loving individual heart working on and with the experience of all 
 the ages. All authoritative absolutism, whether ecclesiastical 
 or Scriptural or rationalist, has gone. Even those who think 
 they still maintain it flee daily to the modern workshop and use 
 the tools furnished by the modern study. In law and ethics, in 
 theology and philosophy, the ghosts of the absolute still haunt us, 
 but they are shadowy with the twilight of a rising day. And 
 as that day breaks we enter with joy upon the study of the past. 
 It is, indeed, no longer a storehouse of infallible revelations, but 
 it is a history of a steadily unfolding revelation, of God to man, 
 and of man to humanity. Augustine, Bernhard of Clairvaux, 
 Francis of Assisi, Luther, Calvin, and Tyndal become voices 
 of God to us speaking, not indeed in infallible tones as Paul 
 and Aristotle were thought by the schoolmen to speak, but all 
 the more clearly and wonderfully because they speak as divinely 
 illumined men to men seeking divine guidance. 
 
 The history of ethics is not more and not less a weary struggle 
 with human limitations than are the histories of astronomy and 
 chemistry. They, too, had to shake off the chilling hands of an 
 authoritative past, that in the very sense of their helplessness 
 they might gain strength. 
 
 On no field of human activity is the realization of the limited 
 and relative character of all our knowledge at first more painful 
 and more depressing than upon the field of ethics. And yet a 
 moment's thought should show us human life struggling at every 
 moment with just that half-darkness. No matter how absolute 
 and final the commandment. Thou shalt do no murder! may at 
 first appear, the moment we ask, what is murder? all the 
 doubt and uncertainty of a thousand differing voices besets us. 
 Is capital punishment " murder " ? Was Servetus " murdered " ? 
 Was the beheading of King Charles " murder " ? Was Hamilton 
 
PHILOSOPHICAL PROTESTANTISM 575 
 
 " murdered " by Burr ? Is modern warfare wholesale " murder " ? 
 What is the good of an "absolute" authority that cannot answer 
 these most pressing questions? No two churches, no two 
 councils, no two ecclesiastical courts, no two popes would 
 probably answer all these questions alike. What, then, is the 
 good of an "absolute" authority that leaves a poor erring soul 
 to take his choice between answers, one of which must be wrong, 
 and with only the individual experience to guide him ? 
 
 Christian faith replies that the process is more than the im- 
 mediate product. Our mistakes and wanderings are our train- 
 ing for communion and fellowship with a Father of free as well 
 as loving children. Only the truth can make us free, and that 
 truth, in ethics as in all other sciences, can only be won by hard 
 work on the materials of human experience. In that struggle 
 for truth Christian faith gives us assurance that in spite of all 
 mistakes, nay, because of them and through them we may yet 
 enter the kingdom of God's loving fulfilled purpose. In this 
 spirit we have tried to faithfully and as objectively as possible 
 follow the struggles and splendid victories of God's army of 
 chosen spiritual and ethical leaders. If our judgments have 
 often been one-sided and wrong, as they like enough have been, 
 it has been through no lack of respect for those who have done 
 such yeoman's service in the discovery of truth. And even when 
 the emphasis has often been, perhaps, rather on the failings than 
 the successes, it has only been so because it is so largely from the 
 failures of great men that we lesser ones learn to steer our 
 smaller way aright. 
 
CHAPTER IX 
 
 THE MERGING OF CHURCHLY WITH PHILOSOPH- 
 ICAL ETHICS— A SUMMARY 
 
 Note of Introduction. — I. Kant and Post-Kantian Thought; Fichte; 
 Schelling; Hegel; Schleiermacher — II. Kant and Empiricism; 
 Fechner; Lotze; Wundt — III. Rationalism in France; Voltaire 
 Rousseau; The Encyclopaedists; Cousin; Comte — IV. The Eng- 
 lish Reaction upon Hume; Price; Reid and Uncritical Intuitional- 
 ism; Coleridge; Green — V. English UtiHtarianism; Bentham; Mills; 
 Darwin; Spencer. 
 
 INTRODUCTORY NOTE 
 
 This chapter can only be a hasty summary of the history of 
 ethics from Hume and Kant to the present time, for the history 
 of ethics within Protestant organized Christianity so merges 
 with philosophic ethics that there is no distinguishing line. It is 
 imi)ossible to write a history of Protestant ethics and omit 
 Bentham and Herbert Spencer, but it is equally impossible to 
 regard them as constituent elements of organized Christianity. 
 Protestantism, in its denial of the ever-present authority of an 
 ecclesiasticism to determine thought and conduct, failed happily 
 to really establish any past authority as final in ethics. It 
 would have been fatal to moral progress if it had succeeded in 
 doing so. The faith of Christianity in all ages has been that a 
 Holy Spirit is guiding us into all truth. Moreover, in Protestant- 
 ism the distinction between the religious and the secular has 
 broken down. It is a false antithesis. Ethical advance is 
 always religious in the highest sense, and it is not in ecclesiastical 
 Christianity alone that ethical advance has had its rise. In a 
 really Protestant ethics dogmatism has no proper place. The 
 science of Christian ethics is, like all other sciences, a science of 
 experience with its advancing organization of thought. The 
 
 576 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 577 
 
 destruction of dogmatic ethics on the basis of authority was 
 complete with the work of Immanuel Kant,^ whose services on 
 the ethical field are largely the examination and rejection of the 
 last traces of dogmatic rationalism. The critical rationalism 
 which he sought to substitute in ethics must, however, be 
 seriously challenged. The weakest point of Kant's philosophy 
 is his formal attempt at ethical reconstruction. 
 
 I. Kantianism is the reaction upon the dogmatism of such 
 as Wolff and an attempt to again assert faith in its proper 
 sphere. Kant himself was roused, as he explains, by the 
 necessity laid upon him of meeting the doubts and the negations 
 of Hume; he entered upon his critique of pure reason in order 
 to get a basis for faith. His style is overladen by the terminol- 
 ogy of dogmatic rationalism; his schemes of classification are 
 artificial and by their elaboration defeat his own end. He never 
 frees himself completely from the superstition that mathematical 
 conceptualism has something superhuman in it and can be 
 divorced from sense-perception. The influence at this point of 
 Descartes, Leibnitz, and Spinoza, not to speak of Plato, is 
 apparent. Moreover, some of his most fruitful conceptions are 
 either not worked out at all, or they are implicitly contradicted 
 by the formal outcome. At the same time he is the founder of 
 the new Protestantism which looks out upon a world of science 
 with a faith large enough to trust scientific analysis as by divine 
 
 * Immanuel Kant, born April 22, 1724, died February 12, 1804. His whole 
 life was spent in Konigsberg. The best life is still that by Schubert, F. W., in 
 Schubert and Rosenkranz's edition of his works, although corrections in details 
 are being constantly made, as in Arnoldt's (E.) "Excursen zur Kantforschung," 
 1894. The completest English life is that of Stuckenberg, J. H. W.: "The Life 
 of Immanuel Kant," London, 1882. The edition of his works undertaken by the 
 Berlin Academy of Science is not yet finished. The ethical works are trans- 
 lated (unequally) by Abbott, Thomas Kingsmill, the 5th ed. in 1898. Max 
 Miiller has translated the "Critique of Pure Reason." An excellent popular 
 introduction to Kant is Paulsen, Friederich: "Immanuel Kant, His Life and 
 Doctrine," admirably translated by Creighton and Lefevre (1902), who have 
 added the English works of chief importance to the bibliography. Schopen- 
 hauer's criticisms upon Kant are among the best in the literature, but the system 
 of Schopenhauer forbids any serious development of his own ethical thought 
 as a proper substitute. 
 
57^ HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 right in its own sphere, and at the same time to demand the 
 recognition of a world of supersensuous values which scientific 
 analysis can neither give nor take away. 
 
 The main interest for the student of ethics in the "Critique of 
 Pure Reason" is its demonstration of the possibility of a concept 
 of freedom not found in the phenomenal world. This freedom 
 is the moral spontaneity needed for the world of moral activity. 
 This freedom which analysis of our world of knowledge shows 
 is possible, the ethical man asserts as a first necessity of his 
 rationality. The moral man asserts as a postulate of his moral 
 will, God, freedom, and immortality.^ He lives in a world that 
 belongs essentially to supersensuous reality, as well as in a 
 world of phenomenal appearances held together in the category 
 of causality. The basis, therefore, of his moral world is intuition, yV^ 
 but it is a critical intuitionalism made necessary by a metaphys- 
 ical examination of the world of experience.^ Only that con- 
 duct is really moral which is dictated by respect for the categor- 
 ical imperative of the law within each rational creature. All 
 conduct that has pleasure or happiness as its motive may be 
 legal and appropriate, but it is not moral.^ The end of moral 
 conduct is perfection, and faith in its attainment makes the 
 postulate of immortality a necessity. God is needed to unite 
 worthiness and happiness, which cannot be identified in the 
 world of our experience as the Epicureans and Stoics would from 
 different stand-points do.'* The characteristic of this moral law 
 must be its universality. Hence Kant gives as a rule for conduct 
 the possibility of willing that that conduct should be a universal 
 law.^ It is at this point that Kant's greatest service to ethics 
 
 ' "Kritik der praktischen Vernunft (v. Kirchmann's edition, vol. II, pp. 38 jf. 
 and 146-158), II : 2; V, I, § 8; IV and II : 2; III. 
 
 ^Carried on in "Kritik der reinen Vernunft," and in "Grundlegung zur 
 Metaphysik der Sitten," v. Kirchmann's edition, vols. I and III. 
 
 '"Kritik der reinen praktischen Vernunft," 1:3, v. Kirchmann's edition, 
 vol. II, pp. 86-107. 
 
 * "Grundlegung zur Metaphysik der Sitten," v. Kirchmann's edition, vol. Ill, 
 
 PP- 67-73- 
 
 *"Der Analytik der praktischen Vernunft II," v. Kirchmann's edition, vol. 
 II, pp. 83-84. 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 579 
 
 ends. His destructive criticism of dogmatic rationalism by 
 revealing the complex character of "ratio," and his forceful 
 attacks upon all types of eudaemonism and hedonism that claim 
 to exhaust the content of our moral reactions, stand to this day. 
 At the same time Kant is not true in his ethics to the analogy 
 he sets up between the categories of the pure reason and those I 
 of the practical reason. He is still haunted by the ghost of the 
 slain absolute, and vainly seeks to escape the relative character 
 his critiques make inevitable for all knowledge whether in the 
 fields of metaphysics or ethics. The will to do the moral thing M 
 is according to Kant the final essence of morality. He rightly 
 rejects all final authority outside of ourselves as capable of 
 giving content to the moral life; he fails to draw the inevitable 
 conclusion that the content must ever be a relatively correct 
 interpretation of human experience. The concept of "ought- 
 ness" is empty until experience gives it content; but experience 
 without the concept "oughtness" could never produce the moral 
 life but would move in the realm of mechanical causation. 
 Even the Golden Rule, of which Kant's formula is but a modi- 
 fication, is an empty concept until intelligent interpretation of 
 our own experience gives it content. We simply do not yet 
 intelligently know what we want others to do to us. It 'is taking 
 us centuries of ethical experience to find out. 
 
 Thus Kant does no proper justice to eudaemonism as a test > 
 of empiric morality. And this was because he failed to catch 
 the genetic point of view already on the horizon. He for the 
 same reason utterly failed to grasp either the meaning and dig- 
 nity of the morality of the Old Testament or the gentle gracious- 
 ness of the ethics of Jesus and Paul. His own actual ethical 
 thinking was hard and cold, though lofty and imposing. His 
 own mental world was a reaction, not only upon the dogmatic I 
 rationalism of the schools, but upon the Pietism of his early 
 training. And yet he saved Protestant ethical thinking from ^ 
 being lost once more in a rationalistic scholasticism on the one 
 hand, and from seeking its salvation from that fate in ascetic 
 and mystic emotionalism on the other. 
 
58o HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The ethics of Fichte^ reveal a strong emotional reaction from 
 the world of Kant's interest on the basis of that side of his 
 thinking in which the "thing-in-itself" was the important ele- 
 ment. Kant disowned Fichte, just as Fichte disowned Kant; 
 but it is none the less true that Kant left an unresolved discord 
 between the noumenal and phenomenal. Fichte instinctively 
 turned with his keen ethical interest to the noumenal, where Kant 
 had placed ethics. And on the basis of the autonomous "I" 
 in its relation to the "not-I," evolved a fantastic but most inter- 
 esting rationalism. The meeting-place of the objective and the 
 subjective is the "'I' the intelligence, the Reason."^ The 
 freedom of the "I" is the essential postulate not only for moral 
 action, but for any action at all, and the outcome of the extensive 
 dialectic of the whole first two parts^ is the simple Kantian 
 formula, "Act always according to your best persuasion of your 
 duty." The universality of the command links us with the 
 unchanging intelligible world, whereas the wavering obedience 
 to nature's impulses links us with the changes in time,* in the 
 world of time. The correctness of our persuasion must come 
 from within, and the guarantee is not given in theoretical knowl- 
 edge but as a "practical" (moral) judgment. 
 
 The rationalistic character of the ethics is seen in the three 
 moral laws which Fichte formulates: "i. Negative: never sub- 
 ordinate your theoretical reason as such, but investigate (forsche) 
 with absolute freedom without reference to anything but your 
 knowledge (Erkenntniss). (Set no goal [Ziel] for yourself 
 beforehand, for where should it come from?) 2. Positive: 
 Cultivate (bilde) your capacity for knowledge as far as you can: 
 
 ' Fichte, Johann Gottlieb, 1762-1814. Collected works in eight volumes, by 
 J. H. Fichte, Berlin, 1845-1846. Those of special interest to the student of 
 ethics are "Grundlage des Naturrechts nach Principien der Wissenschaftslehre," 
 vol. Ill, pp. 1-385; "Die Staatslehrc, oder iiber das Verhaltniss des Urstaates 
 zum Vcrnunftreiche," vol. IV, pp. 396-600, and, particularly, "System der 
 Sittenlehre nach den Principien der Wissenschaft," vol. IV, pp. 1-365, and 
 "Rcden an die deutsche Nation," vol. VII, pp. 259-516. 
 
 ' "Die Ichheit, die Intelligenz, die Vcrnunft," "Works," vol. IV, p. i. 
 
 ' First and second "HauptstQck," "Works," vol. IV, 1-156. 
 
 *"Works,"vol. IV, p. 169. 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 581 
 
 learn, think, investigate, as far as it is possible for you. 3. 
 Limiting : relate all your reflection, however, formaliter to your 
 duty. — Investigate as a matter of duty and not from simple 
 intellectual curiosity, or to simply occupy yourself. — Do not 
 think in order to discover this or that as your duty — for how 
 could you before your own personal knowledge know your 
 duty? — but in order to recognize what your duty is." * 
 
 The extreme individualism that would naturally result from 
 Fichte's ethical fundamental postulate he modifies by his inter- 
 posed state, which plays a great part even in his ethics,^ but into 
 which space forbids us to enter. 
 
 His practical ethics comes to light in his "Reden," or "Ad- 
 dresses to the German Nation," in which, amidst a good deal 
 of confusion and much that is extravagant and fantastic, a high 
 ideal is set forth, and produced great social and political effect.^ 
 
 So also the church has a place in Fichte's ethics, as the place 
 of union about simple symbols of a common purpose,^ but not 
 in such a way as to form a tyranny over our own free thought 
 as to what the symbol stands for. 
 
 The final sections of the third division^ of his system are given 
 up to his discussion of duties, which is a rather disappointing 
 treatment and has less originality than in the "Reden," more 
 particularly as the social order is treated unconsciously as Stoic. 
 
 The ethics of Schelling present no material advance upon 
 Fichte, as one might assume from his predominant interest. As 
 in Spinoza, the metaphysico-cosmical swallows up the ethics. 
 
 A real advance was, however, made by Hegel,^ in his intro- 
 duction of the historic genetic point of view. The ethics are not 
 
 * "Das system der Sittenlehre," "Works," vol. IV, p. 218. 
 
 'Besides his "Grundlage des Naturrechts," "Works," vol. Ill, 1-385, see 
 "Der geschlossene Handelsstaat," vol. Ill, pp. 385^-513, and "Das System der 
 Sittenlehre," "Works," vol. IV, pp. 238^. 
 
 ' There are many editions. In the collected works in vol. VII, pp. 259-499. 
 
 * Among many passages, see "Das System der Sittenlehre," "Works," vol. IV, 
 pp. 241-245. 
 
 * "Works," vol. IV, pp. 254-365. 
 
 * Hegel, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich, 1770-1831. Collected works in nineteen 
 volumes, by the " Hegel Verein," Berlin, 1832 jf. Most of the volumes have been 
 
582 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 fully developed, but the social character is marked, and is in 
 many respects a development of and advance upon Kant's 
 "Kingdom of Ends." The moral ideal unfolds itself in the 
 family, the citizenship, and the State, and the philosophy of his- 
 tory is the explication of this unfolding. The conception of 
 liberty as taught by Rousseau is now delineated under the familiar 
 formulae of thesis, antithesis, and synthesis. But the idealism 
 is the unfolding of an objective absolute in very dififerent terms 
 from those of Fichte and Schelling. Nor does Hegel succeed 
 in keeping morality and legality as far apart as the underlying 
 Kantian thought demands. In fact morality consists largely 
 in adjusting the relations of free personalities on the basis, it 
 is true, of an unfolding of personal moral obligation. 
 
 The influence of Hegel has been remarkable, and no one hav- 
 ing once come under the influence of his thought ever seems 
 wholly to escape the forms in which he did his thinking. The 
 social character of his ethics and theory of law has been pro- 
 foundly influential. The State, as Hegel conceived it, being the 
 phenomenal reality of the unfolding moral purpose, and hence 
 the constantly increasing realization of God's will on earth. 
 
 In Protestantism Hegelianism gave rise to two great move- 
 ments: the one the critical school now known as the Baur- 
 Tiibingen school, the ethics of which remain in the framework 
 of Hegel's earlier thought; the other the reaction upon Hegel 
 in the extremely influential ethics of Schkiermacher} 
 
 The ethics of Schleiermacher have a twofold character. He 
 separates philosophical from Christian ethics. On the philo- 
 
 since re-edited. Those of most interest to the student of ethics are vol. VIII, 
 containing the "Grundlinie dcr Philosophic des Rechts," etc., and vol. IX, 
 "Vorlesungen liber die Philosophic der Geschichte," 2d cd., by Hegel's son. 
 But to understand Hegel the student must master the extremely diflScult vol. II, 
 " Phaenomenologie des Geistcs." "The Philosophy of Right" is translated by 
 Dyde, S. W. London, 1896. A "System der Sittlichkeit," published from the 
 manuscripts after death, and without the author's revision, was published by 
 Georg Mollat, 1893, but adds little light upon his ethical system. 
 
 ■Schleiermacher, Friedrich Ernest Daniel, 1 768-1834. Collected works in 
 three divisions: I, "Zur Thcologie"; II, "Predigten"; III, "Zur Philosophic 
 und Vcrmischtc Schriften," Berlin, 1835-1864. 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 583 
 
 sophic side he attempts on the basis of Kant to escape the mo- 
 nastic determinism of Spinoza by postulating in the world of 
 determined causality, moral beings acting as well as being acted 
 upon. It is at this point that Hegel's thought merges with 
 Spinoza. Every part of our world is both acting (tatig) and 
 suffering action (leidend) . As acting we feel ourselves free and 
 are justified in this feeling. As suffering action we feel our- 
 selves dependent. When we raise these primary experiences 
 into the world of ultimate reality we have morality and religion. 
 For religion is the sense of dependence and morality the sense 
 of free activity. But this free activity is not emancipation from 
 the chain of causation, but the development of each according 
 to the law of its being. Man being a moral being with the sense 
 of dependence must be alike moral and religious in order to 
 reach full manhood. Sin is eventually traced to lack of (moral) 
 intelligence. The "lower" forces are not mastered by the moral 
 will and brought into harmony with the dominating aim. Sin 
 is "ugly" and unaesthetic. This (moral) intelligence must be 
 combined with "nature," and the process gives us "goods." 
 The discussion of these "goods" or values forms the first part 
 of his ethics. The absolute unity of reason and nature in a 
 mastery of nature by reason is the highest good. And in this 
 discussion the influence of Platonic intellectualism is apparent. 
 In order to attain the highest we must have inward power, and 
 this is virtue, whose discussion is the second point of view from 
 which the whole field of ethics may be seen. These virtues may 
 be divided according as reason (moral) is directed upon nature 
 to attain harmony with it. But a third point of view from 
 which again the whole ethical field may be viewed is that of 
 " Duty," which represents the relation of the moral being in the 
 variety of his actions to the end or goal of his moral purpose. 
 This involves a relation to the moral law, and the various atti- 
 tudes give us the various duties. Thus we have in ethics a 
 Doctrine of Values, a Doctrine of Virtues, and a Doctrine of 
 Duties.* 
 
 * Giiterlehre; Tugendlehre; Pflichtenlehre. 
 
584 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 Rather complicated divisions mark the application of Schlei- 
 ermacher's ethics. He has two regions of marked social sig- 
 nificance; these are our relations with one another in systematized 
 contact (verkehr) and systematized thought and speech. But 
 we have also morals growing out of our unfolding personalities, 
 in property and in our personal feelings. All these are spheres 
 of moral activity. They give rise respectively to law, to faith, 
 to social activities, and to revelation, which must ever remain 
 therefore individual. These find their appropriate expression 
 in the State, the church, the social association, and the school. 
 All have a common basis in the family in which personality and 
 the "other personality" are brought into unity. On this basis 
 also he tries to classify both the virtues and the duties, and 
 inspirational and edifying as much of his treatment is, it is too 
 much an artificial scheme to be really satisfactory. 
 
 Schleiermacher must be still classified in the field of ethics 
 as a rationalist; he is indeed a critical rationalist, under the 
 distinct influence of Kant, but the concept is after all the 
 essence of the ethical reality, and the unfolding of the concept 
 is the key to truth. The genealogy of his thought is to be 
 traced through Spinoza to Plato; and his influence in the 
 thought of the more recent men like Pfleiderer is always on 
 the side of this somewhat barren even if most fascinating 
 intellectualism.* 
 
 2. Kantianism had, however, another line of development. 
 As Fichte and Hegel caught at the transcendental elements of 
 his system, and by giving them the emphasis worked out philo- 
 sophic structures which were most perilously near the very thing 
 against which he felt himself born to protest, so the empiric 
 elements of his thought called into being systems in which 
 the transcendental was distinctly ignored, or dealt with as gen- 
 tle and even useful but wholly unscientific dreaming and 
 speculation. Such was the attitude of one of the most strik- 
 
 ' This intellectualism appears also in the work of Schopenhauer and von 
 Hartmann, whose ethics are based on "pity" defined in terms of Buddhism 
 rather than Christianity, but which lie beyond our scope. 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 585 
 
 ing and attractive figures in all German philosophy, Gustav 
 Fechner/ 
 
 Fechner is patently dependent upon Kant in his theory of 
 knowledge, and the use he makes of it is to separate sharply 
 between the two worlds of our experience — that of empiric 
 sensational experience and that of experience with the super- 
 sensual values. These two are equally valid experiences but 
 give quite different types of assurance. We may, and indeed 
 must, deal honestly with both, but we cannot at our peril confuse 
 them. Most amusing is one of Fechner's skits in which he 
 holds up to ridicule this confusion in "A comparative anatomy 
 of the angels" (1825). We may seek, for instance, from the 
 physical study of plants to determine the type of their phenom- 
 enal existence, but having determined the type only analogy 
 with our own psychical life can give us any clew to its character. 
 When Fechner, therefore, turns to transcendental metaphysics, 
 he lets his beautiful fantasy and imagination have full sway. 
 He is poet and mystic and seer by highest divine right, for here 
 we are not bound by sensational empiricism, but by experience 
 in the field of aesthetic, moral, and religious values. He has no 
 organized ethics on this basis, but its constitution would not be 
 a difficult task. 
 
 In many respects seeking the same aim is one of the greatest 
 of post-Kantian thinkers, Lotze? 
 
 On the basis of critical intuitionalism, Lotze seeeks to over- 
 
 * Fechner, Gustav Theodor, 1801-1887. The writings of interest to us are 
 especially: "Die Tagesansicht gegeniiber der Nachtansicht," 1879; "Nannaoder 
 iiber das Seelenleben des Pflanzen," 2d edition, 1899, and "Zendavesta oder 
 iiber die Dinge des Himmels und des Jenseits," 2d edition, 1901, and "Das 
 Btichlein vom Leben nach dem Tode," 4th edition, 1900. 
 
 * Lotze, Rudolph Hermann (1817-1881). His interest was religious and 
 ethical throughout. The student of ethics will find the best statement in his 
 " Mikrokosmus, Ideen zur Naturgeschichte und Geschichte der Menschheit," 
 3 vols., 5th edition in 1896, and particularly in book V, chap. 5, and book VI, 
 chaps. 1-5 (both in vol. H). The English translation is in two volumes (1885). 
 See also "Grundziige der praktischen Philosophie," notes taken in his class- 
 room and published, second edition, 1884. Professor Rehnisch has collected 
 the most complete list of Lotze's writings. They are published as an appendix 
 to "Notes on Psychology," published in the same series, 1881-1884. 
 
586 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 come the dualism which unquestionably remains in Kant. As 
 in Schleiermacher and Fechner certain elements are taken over 
 from the metaphysics of Spinoza, but the mechanical determin- 
 ism of Spinoza is rejected and in Kantian terms. The ethical 
 man has as a fundamental experience the sense of "ought." 
 Against determinismus, "theoretically there is nothing to be 
 said. The motive to the denial of such views lies in the wholly 
 undemonstrable but strong and immediate conviction that they 
 are false, and that the conception of an 'ought' and 'obligation,' 
 which has no place in this view (deterministic), is on the contrary 
 of the most sure and the most unquestioned validity." ^ 
 
 But on the other hand Lotze subjects Kant's categorical 
 imperative and his "naked sense of obligation," without reference 
 to pleasure and pain, to a searching and destructive criticism. 
 He shows that in truth such an abstract emotionless moral 
 sense is impossible. All we can postulate is the capacity for a 
 moral ideal; the working out of that moral ideal must be under 
 the conditions of pleasure and pain. Then we are confronted 
 by the task of determining the worth or value of different types 
 of pleasure and pain, and these estimates of worth or value depend 
 upon the constitution of the individual who estimates; and the 
 estimates again take place under the complex conditions of 
 varied human life in its inter-relations with other human lives 
 and with nature. "Pleasure in itself is, then, that light in which 
 existing reality first displays its own objective excellence and 
 beauty." ^ Thus the content of all traditional morality grows 
 out of experience and is not the unfolding of universal prin- 
 ciples; and experiences are of pleasure and pain, of worth and 
 worthlessness. Conscious principles of action are slowly 
 formed, and their application to complex situations tests their 
 validity and gives them ever greater hold over us as they justify 
 themselves in experience. Thus in ever greater degree the 
 intellect is called in to co-operate with the moral, volitional, and 
 emotional elements in our nature to formulate moral concepts 
 whose binding force upon our life is their appeal to our whole 
 
 ' "Grundzijge der praktischen Philosophic," 1884, p. 25. 
 
 * Mikrokosmus, book I, chap. 5 (the fourth section in the translation). 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 587 
 
 nature, and their ever greater justification in the widening 
 moral experience of the race. 
 
 In this way Lotze seeks to make room for the empirical ele- 
 ments in the totality of any given morality. His idealism is 
 therefore also teleological, because the morality of an action is 
 determined not only by the abstract sense of obligation as Kant 
 defined it, but also by the degree of value or worth that the end 
 possesses which the moral agent sets before himself. 
 
 In marked independency this line of thought reflects itself in 
 the work of such recent men as Paulsen, Wundt, and Hoffding; 
 and it forms also the basis of the ethics of Albrecht Ritschl, 
 whose dogmatic interest, however, prevented him from ever 
 organizing his ethics in the same full way. 
 
 Thus the systematic ethics of modern Protestantism has 
 broken the bounds of its ecclesiastical organization. In an ever- 
 increasing degree organized religious life must restrict itself to 
 inspiring men to seek the highest ethical ideals and to give 
 strength and consolation to them in the search, but refuses to 
 dogmatically formulate the content of that ideal. Thus the 
 formal concept of the kingdom of God must receive its content 
 from the advancing political, social, and ethical experiences of 
 the race, and these experiences must be interpreted into all 
 manner of new social and ethical experiments. The family 
 group that gave form and color to the ethical ideals of Jesus 
 still maintains itself in the Christian consciousness as the pro- 
 foundest basis for the ethical life; and in the exaltation of the 
 moral autonomy of each member of the group as the aim of the 
 group, both the high individualism of the New Testament, and 
 the exalted social ideals of the Old Testament, on its highest 
 levels, are resolved into a higher unity. 
 
 How completely modern empiric ethics has united itself with 
 an ideal philosophy which may or may not be interpreted in a 
 Christian sense is seen in the theory of ethics held by Wundt} 
 
 ' Wundt, Wilhelm M., 183a. The student of ethics should get first an intro- 
 duction to his system either by reading his "Einleitung in die Philosophic," 4th 
 ed., 1906, or his "System der Philosophic," 2d ed., 1889. His ethics he has 
 
588 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 The philosophic substructure is based upon the critical psychol- 
 ogy of Kant, and the influence of Spinoza and Fechner are appar- 
 ent. Like Fechner and Lotze, Wundt has flung himself upon 
 the psycho-physical questions, but with a perfectly clear under- 
 standing of the limitations of this method. His ethics also are 
 a severe and most instructive application of the historical method 
 to the content of the ethical experience, but again with a clear 
 perception of the fact that the original impulses are not explained 
 in the fullest unfolding of their content. "How out of the con- 
 struction of the nervous system moral perceptions (Anschauun- 
 gen) should arise is and remains a mystery." * At the same 
 time philosophy is given its full place in the inquiry concerning 
 the rise and development of the categories of the understanding 
 and the place of what Kant would call the "pure reason." 
 With this a thorough-going, undogmatic Protestantism is gladly 
 content. Under the inspiration of Luther a good Protestant 
 takes his vitalizing faith into all life, and the legitimate processes 
 of the laboratory and the historical study become God's guidance 
 to his feet, even though he recognizes the relative character of 
 all rational process and finds his ultimate finalities in the realm 
 of the transcendent hope and faith. 
 
 3. The rationalism of France grew up within the limits of 
 Roman Catholicism, but in varied degrees of open warfare with 
 its authority. The results upon the ethical life and ethical 
 thought cannot, from a Protestant point of view, be regarded 
 as fortunate. True it is that the humanitarian idealism of 
 Rousseau, and to a lesser degree Montesquieu and Voltaire, never 
 wholly disappears. But values seem at times irrecoverably lost 
 in the shipwreck of authority, and all such attempts at again 
 rationalizing the authority, as those of Lamennais, met with 
 little success. The church as a cultural institution remarkably 
 
 given in his "Ethik," 2 vols., 3d ed., 1903 (English translation of early edition). 
 His "Vorlesungen uber die Mcnschen und Ticrseelen," 4th ed., 1906, are also 
 of deep interest. His pupil and friend. Dr. Rudolph Eisler, has condensed his 
 philosophy into a small volume, " Die Philosophie und Psychologie W. Wundt," 
 1902. 
 
 ' "Ethik," p. 344 of edition 1886. 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 589 
 
 reasserted herself, but she failed to really dominate the moral 
 and intellectual situation. We have therefore hardly any excuse 
 for touching French philosophical ethics in connection with 
 organized Christianity, save the general one that Protestantism 
 is a demand for spiritual maturity and adult autonomy, and that 
 French thought has powerfully contributed to that end. Voltaire 
 based his thought upon Newton and Locke, and far from being 
 an "atheist" maintained not only the being of God, but that it 
 was capable of rational proof by the cosmological and teleolog- 
 ical arguments. His life-long struggle was with the dogmatic 
 authority of the church. His ethics were substantially again 
 those of the English rationalists, but his powerful and artistic 
 interpretation make them still exceedingly attractive reading, 
 although the English student of the Deist movement will find 
 surprisingly little that is novel in Voltaire. 
 
 He interpreted English rationalism to the Continent, and his 
 three years' residence in London had put him in touch with all 
 that was best in English rationalism. 
 
 Nor will the student of ethics find much in Jean Jacques 
 Rousseau which is essentially an advance upon Locke, who is 
 far more systematic than Rousseau, but lacks the wonderful 
 artistic glow that gives Rousseau his power and has led to such 
 great overrating of the content of his thought. He, the supreme 
 artist, raves at art, and he himself the most artificial product of 
 the scientific education of his day, dreams of a return to bar- 
 barism as the ideal. Even Rousseau's democracy is a good 
 deal like the china shepherd and shepherdesses to which the 
 fashion he set gave rise — it is a democracy without real human 
 needs moving in wig and high-heeled shoes. 
 
 His influence for good, however, was enormous. Education, 
 art, literature, statecraft, as well as the great popular movement 
 that culminated in the blessings of the French Revolution, owed 
 great debts to him. To him also, as well as to Voltaire, the en- 
 cyclopaedists were much indebted. And one has only to look 
 back at the great encyclopaedia of Diderot and d'Alembert to 
 realize what a giant's task he inspired these men to. 
 
590 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 If the physiocrats owed their fundamental philosophy to 
 English philosophy, they repaid the debt in the way they influ- 
 enced and fructified in their turn the thought of Adam Smith. 
 The ethics of all these men is based on a crass materialism only 
 at times softened and modified by an almost equally crass pan- 
 theism. But when it is remembered against what intrenched 
 dogmatism they were fighting, much can and must be forgiven 
 them. 
 
 Nor will the student of ethics find much of original interest 
 in Victor Cousin, whose philosophy lies between Hume and 
 Hegel and whose ethical interest was swallowed up in the 
 metaphysical. Some idea of his exceedingly interesting thought 
 may be gained from his admirable work on Abelard, which has 
 been already noted, but his strength was rather in brilliant crit- 
 ical insight than in profound constructive development. 
 
 Protestantism, using the term in the broad sense indicated 
 above, has felt deeply the impact of a writer now more talked 
 about than actually read. The student of John Stuart Mill will 
 always turn to find out the secret of the great influence exercised 
 upon that cool intellect by Auguste Comte,^ whose "religion" 
 has rather discredited his philosophy. Comte traces three stages 
 in man's history, called respectively: (i) The theological (2) 
 the metaphysical, and (3) the positive. This evolution is 
 deeply ethical and culminates in the science of sociology. The 
 emotional nature should be supreme, but the intellect is no longer 
 the slave of the heart but should be its servant. The ethical 
 man is the man who subordinates the lower to the higher, and 
 who therefore makes his passions and lower life subject under 
 love to his reason. Society will be moral when science reigns 
 supreme in the organization of human life, and the motive to 
 
 'Comte, Auguste (1798-1859). His ethics are embraced in his "Syst^me 
 de politique positive, ou trait^ de sociologie instituant la religion de I'humanit^," 
 4 vols., Paris, 1851-1854. English translation 1875-1877. Cf., also, Harriet 
 Martineau's "The Positive Philosophy of Auguste Comte Freely Translated 
 and Condensed," London, 1871. See, also, Comte'sown "Catechisme Positiviste, 
 ou Sommaire Exposition de la Religion universelle," Paris, 1852, 3d ed., 1890 
 (also English translation). 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 591 
 
 well-doing will be a deeply religious life centring in a cult about 
 ideal humanity. This will always be progressive, for Comte 
 considers Leibnitz's optimism shallow and based on a false 
 theology. Even the heavenly bodies do not work perfectly, and 
 improvements could easily be suggested upon the "laws of 
 nature." We have no reason for believing either that moral 
 perfection is within our reach, but the highest rationality is the 
 highest morality and to that we should progressively move. 
 For Comte regards it as the great error of all science, but par- 
 ticularly of history and sociology, that the fields of inquiry have 
 been regarded statically. Comte denounces the undue praise of 
 antiquity. According to him, the mediaeval is better than the 
 classic period and modernism an advance upon both. Nor is 
 sufficient attention paid to the fact that both observer and thing 
 observed are in a constant state of change. One cannot but 
 notice the Hegelian forms of thought in the discussion of history, 
 although the men had almost nothing in common, and the present 
 writer knows of no interchange of thought Moral advance is a 
 constant synthesis of the elements of advance, and action and 
 reaction follow one another. Comte is a pure phenomenalist. 
 We know nothing but laws of activity, and all this knowledge is 
 relative. This is as true in the field of ethics as in any other 
 field. He has no satisfactory discussion of the subordination 
 of the individual to the group, but always assumes it. He sees 
 in the working class and in women the receptive elements in 
 society for the new religion. 
 
 This last stage of Comte's thought suggests the disordered 
 mind, so extravagant are its pretensions and so fanciful its pro- 
 visions. He suffered mentally in younger years and was confined 
 in an asylum; perhaps sorrow and overwork strained his mental 
 faculties. Whether this be so or not, his influence on English 
 thought has not been on the side of religion. Mill and Spencer 
 are unquestionably deeply influenced by Comte,* and we owe 
 much to him for his social ethics and the remarkably modern 
 classification of the sciences, in which, however, one fatal omis- 
 
 * Herbert Spencer's disavowal to the contrary notwithstanding. 
 
592 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 sion removes it from the most modern world, for Comte never 
 realized what Kant had made necessary upon the fields of both 
 speculative and experimental psychology. 
 
 4. Dissent in England had its intellectual lights and shadows. 
 On the one hand it separated thoughtful men from the in- 
 telligence and culture of Oxford and Cambridge to a degree 
 alike bad for them and for the historic universities. On the 
 other hand it needed strength of mind and individuality to 
 maintain the separation, and it bred a detachment of mind 
 most useful for launching out into new fields. A man like Joseph 
 Priestley (i 733-1804) stands out as an intellectual worker of the 
 first class, but with defects born of his relative isolation. He was 
 a follower of Hartley in his insistence upon psychology being 
 made a branch of physiology, while still asserting the indepen- 
 dence of metaphysics and the immortal character of the soul. 
 For the student of ethics he is mainly interesting only in con- 
 troversy with another great dissenter, Richard Price. ^ Both 
 had learnt scientific method not from Bacon, but from Newton, 
 and both were intensely interested in metaphysics. Indeed the 
 battle was now hot between the immaterialism of Berkeley 
 (1684- 1 753) and the materialism in various shades held by men 
 influenced deeply by Hartley and Priestley. Price follows 
 Plato's distinction between sense and understanding,^ and then 
 treats duration and space and reality, etc., as necessary elements 
 of the understanding. Power and causation are also ideas the 
 understanding brings with it. Experience has only a secondary 
 place in our knowledge. " Experience and observation are only 
 of use when we are ignorant of the nature of the object and 
 cannot in a more perfect . . . way determine . . . the uses of 
 
 ' Price, Richard (1723-1791). For the student of ethics his main works are 
 "A Review of the Principal Questions in Morality," 1757, and later editions. 
 "Four Dissertations," 1767, of which only the first, "On Providence," has 
 ethical interest, save as side lights on his philosophy are found in the third on 
 immorality for virtuous men. And then his correspondence with Dr. Priestley 
 on materialism and necessity (London, 1778). C/., also, Priestley's sermon on 
 Price's death, 1791. 
 
 ' He refers especially to Plato's "Theatctus," p. 22, note, edition 1787. 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 593 
 
 particular objects." * Hence Price is an intuitionalist, but he 
 comes remarkably near the later critical intuitionalism, but just 
 misses the point through failure in psychological analysis. 
 Morality is eternal and immutable. Right and wrong denote 
 what actions are, and they are this by nature and necessity. 
 Man has certain ideas that baffle further analysis. ** Virtue is 
 essentially a proper object of favor, vice of discouragement." 
 These "ideas arise in us immediately," and there is no possible 
 resolution of them into rational consideration of public utility 
 and inutility. 
 
 Good and evil are not even matters God's will can determine. 
 They are independent of him in the same sense that his own 
 existence and attributes cannot be changed by him. Knowledge 
 rests upon "feeling," which can give no reason: upon "intu- 
 ition," which is " the mind's survey of its own ideas, and relations 
 between them," and "argumentation or deduction."^ 
 
 The morality of an action depends upon the will of the actor 
 to conform to the law of absolute right. "Virtue is a law" and 
 is "an unalterable and indispensable law," and almost in antici- 
 pation of Kant he says, "the repeal, suspension, or even relaxa- 
 tion of it, once for a moment, cannot be conceived without 
 contradiction.' When therefore he discusses the subject-matter 
 of virtue he turns away from Butler's rule of general benevolence. 
 His treatment is based like Kant's upon duties. These we owe i^ 
 first to God. Subjection and homage we owe him, but these 
 cannot be possibly paid to him from motives of "general benevo- 
 lence." We render him no service in our worship nor should 
 we worship him to secure our own felicity. We worship. Price 
 claims, as an "instance of immediate duty intuitively perceived." 
 Not even in duty to self is self-love a sufficient guide. We must 
 act from sense of obligation to ourselves. So also beneficence 
 is a "duty to others." Price then discusses what he seems to 
 
 * "Morals," p. 34, edition 1787 
 
 * For discussion, see "Review of Principal Questions in Morals " pp. 158-167, 
 edition 1787. 
 
 * "Review of Principal Questions in Morals," p. 178 
 
594 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 regard as the intuitive virtues, and at this point appeals as Reid 
 does later to " common-sense." The discussion is most valuable 
 but inconclusive. The exalted tone, and often extremely acute 
 reasoning cannot hide the fact that the place for empiric ethical 
 experience is not properly defined and that the analysis of " in- 
 tuition" is imperfect.* 
 
 The strongest reaction upon Hume was that of the uncritical 
 intuitional school of which Reid^ was the principal leader. 
 
 Reid's influence has been very great although really exceed- 
 ingly baleful. For in point of fact his attitude is a dogmatic 
 acceptance of the "material reality" of the external world which 
 exists as perceived without reference to the perceiving mind. 
 Hence he is fundamentally an agnostic whenever serious ques- 
 tions are asked about the character of either the external world 
 or the perceiving mind, or the relations between the two. 
 
 His morality is really slipshod. Moral truths, he says, " may 
 be divided into two classes, to wit, such as are self-evident to 
 every man whose understanding and moral faculty are ripe, and 
 such as are deduced by reasoning from those that are self- 
 evident. If the first be not discerned without reasoning, the 
 last never can be so by any reasoning." ' " Some first principles 
 must be immediately discerned," and the "evidence of these 
 fundamental principles of morals, and of others that might be 
 named, appears then to me to be intuitive rather than demon- 
 strative." Reid places five main moral intuitions as the basis 
 
 ' Price took the side of the struggling colonists in America during the war for 
 independence; he also regarded the National Assembly of France as the first note 
 of man's ultimate song of complete freedom, and in practical matters may be 
 regarded as the father of exact actuary work in insurance. Cf. Priestely's sermon 
 on his death in 1791. 
 
 ' Reid, Thomas, D. D., 17 10-1796. His works have been edited by Dugald 
 Stewart, Edinburgh, 1804, and re-edited by Sir William Hamilton, 1837. An 
 American reprint of Dugald Stewart's edition in 1813-1814 in four volumes. 
 His chief contribution is "An Inquiry into the Human Mind on the Principles 
 of Common Sense," London, 1764. His ethics are contained in the "Essays on 
 the Active Powers of Man" (1788) in the collected works by Sir William Hamil- 
 ton, and the 4th volume of the American edition 
 
 • Essay VII, chap. 2 ("Essays on the Intellectual Powers of Man"). 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 595 
 
 of what then becomes a rationalistic system, namely, the obliga- 
 tion to consult one's own present and future happiness; to be 
 faithful to engagements; to obey one's maker; to injure no 
 man; to do to others what we approve in other men, and vice 
 versa. In point of fact he admits the relative character of all 
 moral conduct, for "prudence" must apply these first principles, 
 and prudence can "very rarely use demonstrative reasoning, but 
 must rest in what appears most probable." Throughout Reid 
 argues from what must be "necessary" as "the knowledge that 
 is necessary to all must be attainable by all." ^ In]spite of much 
 good sense and even acute reasoning, Reid never really meets 
 the main question, and his morality is not a real advance upon 
 the systems of rationalism which he opposes. 
 
 Nor can it be said that Dugald Stewart in his "Outlines of 
 Moral Philosophy" makes any great addition. He adopts the 
 moral sense of Hutcheson, but his analysis is sadly lacking in 
 coherence and clearness. 
 
 Sir William Hamilton follows in the way and in spite of 
 great learning and a most attractive method of presentation he 
 leaves the reader with a sense of his utter failure to grasp the 
 real question at issue, and Hume remains really unanswered. 
 
 Coleridge (1772-1834) brought to England the inspirations 
 of critical idealism, but only as they had been worked out more 
 particularly by Schelling, and his work is too scattered and un- 
 systematic to be called a serious contribution to organized ethics. 
 The chief representative upon English soil of idealism was 
 Green (Thomas H., 1836-1882), who in his introduction to 
 the philosophical works of Hume and his "Prolegomena to 
 Ethics" (2d ed., 1884), applied the critical method learned 
 from Kant, but more especially from Kant as read by the light 
 or darkness of Hegel. It cannot be claimed that Green's ethics 
 are a closely interrelated whole. Many questions are left 
 seeking an answer, and the impression left is often of searching 
 and destructive questioning than of any great success in con- 
 structive rearrangement. The powerful and beautiful mind is, 
 
 ' Essay V, chaps, i and 2. 
 
596 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 however, still inspiring men by his bold challenge t© further 
 psychological analysis as a basis for ethical reconstruction. 
 
 5. English utilitarianism has had a long and honorable 
 history, but it has been mainly outside of or even in avowed in- 
 difference or antagonism to organized Christianity/ 
 
 There are exceptions. It may be really said to arise within 
 Christianity, for it can be traced in its beginnings to Bishop 
 Cumberland (1632-17 19) and appears in Butler, where the 
 social type of utilitarianism is found. But its classic formulation 
 was carried through by Bentham? 
 
 The principle that all legislation should seek the greatest 
 happiness of the greatest number is also the foundation of the 
 moral life. Bentham is an extreme individualist. For his 
 thought society is really an aggregate of disparate units. He 
 misses altogether the organic connection of the group life, so 
 that both his legal and ethical contributions have an air of un- 
 reality about them. He tries also to group under pain and 
 pleasure psychological reactions in which we must recognize both 
 quantitative and qualitative differences so great that to transpose 
 them is impossible or to measure them with a common standard 
 is impossible. 
 
 John Stuart Mill,^ whose great influence is well deserved 
 intellectually, began with Bentham's single criterion for moral 
 diflferentiation but soon had to recognize a "higher" and 
 "lower" pleasure and pain, and at length to really abandon 
 morality as a science and treat it as an art. Then under the 
 influence of Comte he abandoned the extreme individualism 
 of Bentham, but too late to ever wholly reorganize his thought 
 
 ' For full bibliography and history, see Ernest Albee'e " History of English 
 Utilitarianism," 1902. 
 
 » Bentham, Jeremy, 1748-1832. Complete works edited by Sir John Bowring, 
 in II vols. The student of ethics needs to know his "Deontology" (edited 
 by Bowring, in 2 vols., 1834) and his "Introduction to the Principles of Morals 
 and Legislation," many editions. 
 
 *Mill, John S., 1806-1873. His "Logic" represents his formal philosophy. 
 Book VI treats of "The Logic of the Moral Sciences." In his later writings Mill 
 defends positions that represent a distinct departure from his early thought. 
 
CHURCHLY AND PHILOSOPHICAL ETHICS 597 
 
 on this basis. Indeed the whole character of English empiric 
 utilitarianism was to receive a great change in the introduction 
 of systematic organic evolution into modern thinking by Charles 
 Darwin^ and Herbert Spencer. 
 
 The derivation of morality from feelings needed to preserve 
 the species, and their development by a process of natural 
 selection, appealed most powerfully to many foremost minds. 
 In Herbert Spencer's philosophy ethics is treated as a pait of 
 the process from the homogeneous and undifferentiated to the 
 heterogeneous and differentiated, and its laws are discussed in 
 his social statics. But perhaps the most attractive statement is 
 in John Fiske's "Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy."^ 
 
 The fullest statement of Darwin's thesis is by Sutherland.^ 
 
 Into an examination of the evolutionary utilitarianism space 
 forbids us to go. The social basis is recognized and to some 
 degree a scale of values is accepted. It can only be pointed out 
 that the life of moral faith has as yet never been fully rational- 
 ized, and that what evolutionary utilitarianism always does 
 is to give us an account of the unfolding of that which in point 
 of fact is always assumed as inherent in the situation. Given the 
 occasional occurrence of a moral variation amidst unmoral sen- 
 sations, and evolution can do all the rest; but how to account for a 
 moral variation amid non-moral changes is as baffling as ever. 
 Nor does evolutionary utilitarianism give us any key to the scale 
 of values by which we measure life's complex experiences and give 
 to the moral feelings an unquestioned hegemony, and compels 
 us to say with Darwin: "It is the most noble of all the attributes 
 of man." Why should we call that which is simply the most 
 useful factor in the preservation of the species the most noble ? 
 
 Once the life of moral faith has appealed to us as the most 
 noble, then indeed content may be given that life through an 
 
 'Darwin, Charles, 1809-1882. "Descent of Man," part i, chap. 3, deals 
 with his explanation of the rise of the moral sense. 
 
 ^ Vol. II, part 2, chap. 22, p. 324, edition 1874. 
 
 ' Sutherland, Alexander: "The Origin and Growth of the Moral Instinct," 
 2 vols., i8g8. 
 
598 HISTORY OF CHRISTIAN ETHICS 
 
 examination of our empiric experiences with social and indi- 
 vidual utility is a guide. So ethics becomes not only an historic 
 but an experimental science, with its examination of empiric 
 experience as an essential element. We must under the im- 
 perative of a sense of "oughtness" or obligation seek our ideal, 
 but the content of our ideal can never be given a priori, but only 
 as the result of historical and experimental science. For the 
 sense of moral obligation we may claim categorical finality, 
 for the content of moral experience a relative approach to truth 
 is all that is open to the finite mind. 
 
 With this hasty survey our examination of the rise of a 
 modern Christian ethics from the systems of the past must 
 close. May the survey enable us to enter more freely and 
 more intelligently into the ethical plan of Our Father, the God 
 of Our Lord Jesus Christ. 
 
INDEX 
 
 Aaron, Moses and, 41. 
 
 Abba, 56. 
 
 Abelard, Peter, 334/- 
 
 Absolute, the, in ethics, 573; Kant 
 and the, 579. 
 
 Acedia, 248. 
 
 Action, prophets of, 36. 
 
 Africa, Council of, 244. 
 
 Agobard of Lyons, 289/.; supersti- 
 tion and, 290. 
 
 Albertus Magnus, 309 ff.; and mystic 
 thought, 357. 
 
 Alcuin, 274/"., 283. 
 
 d'Alembert, 589. 
 
 Alexander the Great, 19. 
 
 Almsgiving, in Hermas, in; in the 
 Didache, 120. 
 
 Ambrose, 23, 204 jf., 232. 
 
 Amesius, 542. 
 
 Amos, 34. 
 
 Anabaptists, 433; ethics of, 505; 
 Franciscans and, 506; proletariat 
 character of, 507; liberty of con- 
 science and, 509; Baptists of Eng- 
 land and, 509. 
 
 Anablatha, 233. 
 
 Anglo-Catholicism, ethics of, 410 jf. 
 
 Anselm, 9; ethics of, 302 ff.\ satisfac- 
 tion theory, 305. 
 
 Anskar, Bishop of, 293 ff. 
 
 Anthony, St., 196. 
 
 Aquinas, Thomas, 309, 316; ethics 
 of, 319 #.; Church and State in, 
 328; service and, 329; aristocratic 
 temper of, 329; attitude toward 
 war, 330; property and, 332. 
 
 Arabic, scholarship and literature, 
 
 307- 
 
 Areopagite, Dionysius the, 275. 
 
 Arianism, 197, 203, 232, 244. 
 
 Aristotle, influence of, 11, 19; Aqui- 
 nas and, ^iSff- 
 
 Arminians, Calvinism and, 563. 
 
 Asceticism, Jesus' attitude toward, 
 64; meaning of, 199, 201; monas- 
 tery and, 215. 
 
 Assisi, Francis of, 357. 
 
 Athanasius, monasticism and, 193 ff.; 
 literature of, 193; St. Anthony and, 
 194; service of, 202. 
 
 Athens, population of, 19. 
 
 Attritio, contritio and, $(iO ff. 
 
 Aufklarung, 369. 
 
 Augsburg Confession, 533. 
 
 Augustine, 236 /.; the church and, 
 238; morals of, 239; confessions 
 of, 239; Pelagius and, 240; psy- 
 chology of, 240; fides implicita and, 
 241; love and, 242. 
 
 Authority, infallible, uselessness of, 
 254- 
 
 Babylon, cosmogony, 44, 108. 
 Bacon, Francis, 440 ff.; conduct to 
 
 Essex, 442. 
 Ban, communal, loi. 
 Baptism, in "Recognitions," 141; in 
 
 Erigena, 299. 
 Baptist, John the, 36. 
 Barclay, Robert, 433. 
 Bardesanes, 138. 
 Barnabas, letter of, 113. 
 Basil, life and literature of, 209 ff.; 
 
 coenobium and, 21a. 
 Basilides, 135. 
 Baur-Tvibingen, 97, 127. 
 Bede, the venerable, 267 ff., 272. 
 Bentham, Jeremy, 596. 
 Bernard of Clairvaux, 358^.; attack 
 
 on Abelard, 359. 
 Berno of Clugny, 355. 
 Bestmann, 7. 
 Blount, Charles, 454. 
 Boethius, m. 
 
 S99 
 
6oo 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Bonaventura, 357, 360 ff.; mysticism 
 
 of, 361. 
 Bonifacius, Winfred, 272. 
 Breckinridge, theology of, 485. 
 Browne, Robert, 402, 426 ff. 
 Bucer, Martin, ethics of, 516^. 
 Buddeus, Johann F., 539; Male- 
 
 branche and, 539. 
 Busher, Leonard, 433. 
 Butler, Bishop, 457. 
 Byzantianism, 287. 
 
 Cainites, 133. 
 
 Calixtus, Georg, 183, 538^. 
 
 Calvin, John, 469; ethics of, 518^.; 
 theory of church, 519; sacraments 
 and, 521; notes of true church, 521; 
 theories of State and, 523; signifi- 
 cance of the cross, 526; Servetus 
 and, 528; services of, 532; Puritan 
 State and, 532; canon law, 301. 
 
 Canons of Basil, 213; law, 213^.; of 
 Nice, 230; of Elvirae, 230, 250. 
 
 Carlstadt, 491. 
 
 Carlovingian books, 287. 
 
 Carpocrates, 138. 
 
 Cartwright, Harrison and, 428. 
 
 Cartwright, Thomas, ethics of, 398; 
 literature, 398. 
 
 Cassianus, Johannes, 245^.; fasting 
 and, 250; Cicero and, 250. 
 
 Cassiodorus, 231, 272^. 
 
 Casuistry, the new Protestant, 540^.; 
 definition of, 540. 
 
 Cathari, 356. 
 
 Celibacy, iggff-; democracy and, 276. 
 
 Celsus, 159. 
 
 Cenobium, origin of, 215, 248. 
 
 Chajvemon, Abbot, 245. 
 
 Charlemagne, 275; hierarchy and, 
 285/. 
 
 Charles the Bald, 293; tolerance and, 
 300. 
 
 Chillingworth, 456. 
 
 Christianity, linked with Jesus, 3. 
 
 Chrysostom, slavery and, 183, 209, 
 232; life of, 207; service of, 208. 
 
 Church, Old Catholic or Bishop's, 9, 
 221^.; Christian beginnings of, 10; 
 functions of, 106; basis of, for Paul, 
 106. 
 
 Churches, the building of, 232. 
 
 Chytraeus, D., 537. 
 
 Cicero, his empire of thought, 20; 
 
 ethics of, 30; Ambrose and, 205. 
 Cistercians, 356. 
 City, the free, 368. 
 City of God, Augustine's, 242. 
 Clarke, Samuel, 457. 
 Claudius, Bishop, 288/. 
 Clement of Alexandria, 148. 
 Clement XIV and the Jesuits, 558. 
 Clement, letter of, 115. 
 Clementine literature, pseudo, 139. 
 Coleridge, 595. 
 Collegia, piestistic, 548. 
 Collins, Anthony, 460. 
 Commandments, the ten, 37. 
 Communism, churchly, 182, 220. 
 Community, the holy, 39. 
 Comte, Auguste, $9° ff- 
 Concord, formula of, 533. 
 Constance, Council of, 366, 554. 
 Constantine, interest in church, 222; 
 
 protection of church, 224, 234. 
 Constantinople, capture of, 286. 
 Councils, ethics of, 251 ff. 
 Counter-reformation, 535. 
 Cranmer, 393. 
 Creeds, ethics of, 533 ff. 
 Criticism, literary or higher, 42. 
 Crusades, literature of, 366; effect 
 
 upon Roman imperialism, 367; and 
 
 commercial Judaism, 367. 
 Cud worth, Ralph, 451. 
 Cult, the oriental, 25; fourth Gospel 
 
 and, 89. 
 Cumberland, Bishop, 456. 
 Cumont, 27. 
 Cyprian, 172. 
 
 Dahn, Felix, 270. 
 
 Dalman, 57. 
 
 Damascus, John of, 259. 
 
 Daniel, 46. 
 
 Dannieus, L., 539. 
 
 Dante, 369, 380. 
 
 Darwin, Charles, 597. 
 
 Decalogue, 171. 
 
 Decretals, the Isidorian, 300. 
 
 Dedeken, M., 542. 
 
 Deists, the English, 450. 
 
 Denck, 505. 
 
 Deniflc, H. and Luther, 491 (note). 
 
INDEX 
 
 6oi 
 
 Descartes, Ren^, 565 ff.; Queen of 
 
 Sweden and, 567. 
 Deuteronomists, school of, ^tVt ethics 
 
 of, 41. 
 Diderot, 589. 
 Dionysius, pseudo, the Areopagite, 
 
 275 jf.; so-called liturgia of, 344. 
 Dionysus, cult of, 25. 
 Doceticism, fourth Gospel and, 88. 
 Doctrine, sound, 99. 
 Donatists, 212, 238. 
 Droysen, Hellenism and, 20. 
 Duns Scotus, 9, 338^. 
 
 Ebionites, the, 127. 
 
 Ecclesia, 51, 60. 
 
 Eckhart, Meister, 363, 
 
 Ehrenfeuchter, 8. 
 
 Elvira, canons of, 182, 230. 
 
 Encyclopaedists (French), 589. 
 
 Ephraem, his hymns, 232. 
 
 Epictetus, 23. 
 
 Epicureanism, Christian feelingand, 2 1 . 
 
 Epigones of sixteenth and seventeenth 
 
 centuries, 535. 
 Epiphanius, 135, 233. 
 Erigena, Johannes Scotus, 296 j/". 
 Essenes, 36, 128, 200. 
 Eusebius, 222 /f. 
 Evangelicalism in England, 546. 
 Experience, Christian, 6. 
 
 Fasting, 64; in Hermas, 112. 
 
 Fechner, Gustav, 585 _/. 
 
 Feudalism, church and, 261; rise and 
 
 nature of, 277. 
 Feuerlein, 8. 
 Fichte, J. G., 580. 
 Fides implicita, 241, 308. 
 Fiske, John, 597. 
 Fitz-Ralph, Archbishop, 378. 
 Flora, Ptolemaeus to, 135. 
 Fourth Gospel, 51. 
 Fox, George, 433, 435. 
 France, post-Protestant, 588. 
 Francis, St., 340. 
 Francke, A. H., 549. 
 Free city, relation to crusades, 368; 
 
 relation to feudalism, 368. 
 
 Galatia, church of, 73. 
 Gass, ethics of, 7. 
 
 Gehenna, 176. 
 
 Gerhard, Johann, 537. 
 
 Germanic tribes, 270^. 
 
 Gerson, J. C, 554. 
 
 Gnosticism, fourth Gospel and, 88, 
 
 129, 132, 134- 
 
 God, kingdom of, 57; reign of, 58; 
 Jesus' attitude toward, 66; confi- 
 dence in, 68; Paul and, 71; Clem- 
 ent and, 151. 
 
 Gottschalk, 292 jf. 
 
 Greece, cosmopolitanism of, 20. 
 
 Green, Thomas H., 595. 
 
 Gregory, Nazianzen, 195. 
 
 Gregory of Nyssa, 226. 
 
 Gregory, Pope I, 260, 263 ff.\ music 
 of, 266; Gregory VII, 306. 
 
 Groot, Gerhard, 363. 
 
 Grotius, Hugo, ethics of, 563. 
 
 Guyot, Yves, 279. 
 
 Guzman, Dominic de, 357. 
 
 Hamilton, Sir William, 595. 
 
 Hammurabi, code of, 38. 
 
 Harnack, 131, 135, 156, 164. 
 
 Hartmann von, 584. 
 
 Hatch, 24, 179. 
 
 Hebrews, ethics of, 93. 
 
 Hegel, G. W. F., 581. 
 
 Heidelberg Catechism, 533. 
 
 Hellenism, Paul and, 10; Christian- 
 ity and, II. 
 
 Helvldlus, 229. 
 
 Helvetic Confession, 533. 
 
 Henry VIII, and the English church, 
 410; Lollardism and, 411. 
 
 Herbert, Lord of Cherbury, 449; 
 works of, 451/., 455. 
 
 Hermas, 107, no; and baptism, 112. 
 
 Heron, story of, 246. 
 
 Herrnhut, 552. 
 
 Hierarchy, Paul's relation to, 86; 
 Roman, and authority, 284. 
 
 High places, 42. 
 
 Hippolytus, 131, 133. 
 
 Historia Lausiaca, 226. 
 
 Hobbes, Thomas, 445 Jf. 
 
 Hoeffding, 587. 
 
 Hooker, Richard, ^1^ ff. 
 
 Hooper, Bishop, ethics of, 393. 
 
 Horace, 230. 
 
 Horus, 201. 
 
6o2 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Hosea, .^5. 
 
 Hiibmaier, Balthasar, 433, 505. 
 
 Hugo of St. Victor, 349. 
 
 Humanists, the, 369 jf. 
 
 Hume, David, 448, 460^.; property 
 
 and justice, 463. 
 Hymns, churchly, 232. 
 
 Iconoclasts, 255, 258. 
 
 Ignatius, letters of, 167. 
 
 Illumination, the, 368; effect upon 
 native literature, 369. 
 
 Image worship, 233. 
 
 Imperialism, Roman, 108. 
 
 Independency, ethics of, 424. 
 
 Individualism, Christianity and, 22; 
 Congregationalism and, 425; liter- 
 ature of, 425. 
 
 Innocent III, 350 ff.; and slavery, 
 353; and marriage relation, 354. 
 
 Inspiration of Scriptures, 103. 
 
 Irenaeus, 127, 133; life of, 169. 
 
 Isaiah, 45. 
 
 Isidor, 135. 
 
 Isidorian decretals, 300. 
 
 Isis cult, 190, 192. 
 
 Jahwe, prophetic picture of, 36. 
 
 James, 95. 
 
 Jansenism, 557. 
 
 Jerome, 218; his "lives," 227; life of, 
 
 227^.; heresy and, 228; marriage 
 
 and, 228. 
 Jesuitism, 556; political failures of, 
 
 559- 
 
 Jesus, relation to Christianity, 3; 
 ideals of, 4; misconception of, 5; 
 God in Christ, 6; as central figure 
 in history, 48; historical character 
 of, 48 (note); ethics of, 49; Jewish 
 character of, 50; literary style of, 
 53; deification of, 178. 
 
 Jews, Agobard against the, 290. 
 
 Job, 45. 61. 
 
 Jodl, ethics of, 8. 
 
 John, fourth Gospel, 87; ethics of, 87 
 ff.\ Jewish character of, 92 (note). 
 
 Josephus, II, 44, 47, 125. 
 
 Josiah, 41. 
 
 Jovinianus, 229, 236. 
 
 Judaism, unorganized character of, 11; 
 not exclusive, 40, 43; Hellenized, 
 
 43; Jesus' relation to, 67; Paul's 
 relation to, 72; Gnostic, 257; influ- 
 ence of on Christianity of M. A., 290. 
 
 Julian of Eclana, 239, 241, 244. 
 
 Julian the apostate, 191, 203. 
 
 Jiilicher, 66. 
 
 Justinian, pseudo, tracts, 148. 
 
 Justin Martyr, 144. 
 
 Kant, Immanuel, 9, 577; works and 
 literature, 577 # 
 
 Kiss, the holy, 417. 
 
 Knox, John, ethics of, 404 jf.; litera- 
 ture, 404; Knox and the bann, 
 406; and Mrs. Bowes, 408. 
 
 Kostlin, 8. 
 
 Laodicea, canons of, 256. 
 
 Lapsi, 207. 
 
 Lateran council, 356. 
 
 Latifundia, effects of, 277. 
 
 Laud, Archbishop, 420 ff.; attitude 
 toward Scotland, 423. 
 
 Law, canon, 301. 
 
 Leibnitz, G. W., 571. 
 
 Leo, Pope, 252; Leo IX, 257, Leo 
 I, 260. 
 
 Leviticus, laws of, 39. 
 
 Libri pcenitentiales, 296. 
 
 Lignori, A. M., 561. 
 
 Locke, John, 447 ff., 449. 
 
 Loescher, V. and Spener, 548, 
 
 Logos, 46; Johannine literature and, 
 91. 
 
 Lollards, ethics of, 386; literature of, 
 386. 
 
 Lombard, Peter, 2>d& ff. 
 
 Lotz, Rudolph H., 585. 
 
 Louis the Pious, 292. 
 
 Loyola, Ignatius de, 555. 
 
 Luke, universalism of, 56; proletariat 
 character of, 100. 
 
 Luthardt, 7, 8. 
 
 Luther, Martin, ethics of, 468 ff.; 
 world of, 471; free cities and, 472; 
 Protestant elements in, 475 ff.; 
 scholastic elements in, 481; infal- 
 libility and, 482; church and, 4S2; 
 doctrine of the State, 486; practical 
 ethics of, 488; attitude to peasants, 
 489; Philip of Hesse and, 490; 
 intemperance and, 493. 
 
INDEX 
 
 603 
 
 Mackintosh, 9. 
 
 Magic, the church and, 302. 
 
 Magna Mater, 190, 192. 
 
 Mahometanism, eastern church and, 
 280; limits of, 286. 
 
 Malebranche, Nicholas, 568. 
 
 Manicheans, Augustine and, 238. 
 
 Marcion, 135, 136, 137, 162. 
 
 Marcus Aurelius, 144. 
 
 Marheinecke, 7. 
 
 Mark, chronology of, 60. 
 
 Marsiglio of Padua, 379. 
 
 Martineau, 8. 
 
 Martyrdom, church and, 183, 200, 
 223. 
 
 Mater Dolorosa, 201. 
 
 Matthew, Gospel of, 100. 
 
 Maurice, F. D., 7. 
 
 Maximus the Confessor, 259, 348. 
 
 McGiffert, 139. 
 
 Mechthild of Magdeburg, 363. 
 
 Meiners, C, 8. 
 
 Melanchthon, 250; ecclesiasticism and, 
 485; ethics of, 496 Jf.; Ritschl and, 
 496; life of, 497 (note); free will 
 and, 500. 
 
 Meritum, 200, 241. 
 
 Mill, John Stuart, 591, 596. 
 
 Milton, John, 435 #. 
 
 Missionary, the movement and mon- 
 astery, 269. 
 
 Mithras, cult of, 26; church and, 190. 
 
 Molesme, Robert of, 356. 
 
 Monastery, the hermit and, 200; as- 
 ceticism and, 215; ideals of, 216; 
 literature of, 216; its learning, 229; 
 missions and, 269 ff.; in the tenth 
 century, 355. 
 
 Monotheism, ethical and metaphys- 
 ical, 15. 
 
 Montanists, 161. 
 
 Morality, relation to ethics, 5; su- 
 preme importance of, 62. 
 
 Moralium, Gregory I and the, 265. 
 
 More, Henry, 451. 
 
 Moses, 37, 41. 
 
 Mount, sermon on, 58, 59; tempta- 
 tion on the, 68. 
 
 Miinzer, Thomas, 505. 
 
 Musonius, 149. 
 
 Mysticism, Erigena and, 299^.; scho- 
 lastic, 341 ff.\ definition of, 342; 
 
 types of, 342; literature of, 343; Bo- 
 naventura and, 361; German mysti- 
 cism, 362. 
 
 Neander, 7. 
 
 Neoplatonism, 28. 
 
 Neopythagoreanism, 29. 
 
 Newman, Cardinal, 418. 
 
 New Testament, Jewish in thought, 
 
 10. 
 Nica;a, its orthodoxy, 203, 204; 
 
 theme of, 193; council of (787), 255, 
 
 257- 
 Nietzsche, Fr., challenge of, 6. 
 Nominalism, 341. 
 Novatians, 206. 
 
 Ockham, William, 340/.; and Pope 
 John XXII, 381. 
 
 Oldcastle, 387. 
 
 Old Testament, relation to Christian- 
 ity, 10; preparation in, 32. 
 
 Ophites, 131. 
 
 Optatus, 201. 
 
 Organum, the, of Aristotle, 307. 
 
 Origen, 155. 
 
 Orthodoxy, Johannine Gospel and, 
 90. 
 
 Osiander, J. A., 542. 
 
 Pachomius, Athanasius and, 198; mon- 
 astery and, 215. 
 
 Palladius, 226. 
 
 Papacy, militant, and its ethics, 258^.; 
 infallibility of, 341. 
 
 Paradisus Animae, 310, 313. 
 
 Parousia, 126. 
 
 Pascal, 557. 
 
 Paul, inward authority of, 3; mission 
 of, 10; relation to Jesus, 51; ethics 
 oi,6gff.; letters of, 72; doctrine of 
 flesh and spirit, 77; letter to Rome, 
 74; letters to Corinth, 79; kingdom 
 of God and, 80; letter to Thessa- 
 lonians, 8i; letters of captivity, 81; 
 slavery, 83; Plato and, 84; sense 
 of infallibility, 98; and marriage, 
 179. 
 
 Paulsen, 587. 
 
 Paulas, life of, 218. 
 
 Peacock and Wycliff, 386. 
 
 Pelagius, Augustine and, 340, 344. 
 
6o4 
 
 INDEX 
 
 Penance, types of, 212. 
 
 Penitence, books of, 196. 
 
 Pentecost, Nicaea and, 223. 
 
 Peratac, 133. 
 
 Peter, Apocalypse of, 181. 
 
 Petzel, casuistry of, 542. 
 
 Phiio, II, 44, 46, 47, 125, 128. 
 
 Phocas, Gregory I and, 263. 
 
 Photius, 257, 261. 
 
 Piers Ploughman, 387. 
 
 Pietism, ethics of, 544 ff.; Ritschl 
 
 upon, 545. 
 Plato, influence of, 11; cult and, 13; 
 
 immortality and, 13; "idea" and, 
 
 14; despondency and, 15; monas- 
 
 ticism and, 16. 
 Platonists, the so-called Cambridge, 
 
 451- 
 Pliny, 179, 232. 
 Plymouth brethren, 430. 
 Polycarp letter of, 123. 
 Port Royal, 561. 
 Post-Tridentine Catholicism and its 
 
 ethics, 554. 
 Prayer, Lord's in the Didache, 121; 
 
 Tertullian and, 164; Cyprian and, 
 
 176. 
 Price, Richard, 592. 
 Priestly development, 37, 40. 
 Priestley, Joseph, 592. 
 Probabilism, 557; grades of, 560. 
 Propheticism, ethics of, 34. 
 Protestantism, ethics of philosophical, 
 
 438, 563/- 
 
 Ptolemasus, 135. 
 
 Purgatory, 193. 
 
 Puritanism, Tertullian and, 166; eth- 
 ics of, 396 ff.\ interests of English, 
 
 397- 
 Pythagoras, 233. 
 
 Quakers, 435. 
 
 Queen of heaven, 256. 
 
 Rabbinism, 52. 
 
 "Recognitions," 140. 
 
 Redemption, vision of, 46. 
 
 Reformation, the English, 365 jf.; joy 
 of, 372; immediate effects of, 373; 
 practical character of, 375; divis- 
 ions of, 377; continental, and its 
 ethics, 468 _^.; morals of, 474. 
 
 Reformed church, ethics of, 509. 
 
 Rcid, Thomas, 594. 
 
 Relativity, essential, of Protestantism, 
 
 6. 
 Relics, 233, 255; Bonifacius and, 273. 
 Renan, on Mithras, 27. 
 Revelation to John, 95, 96. 
 Reward, Jesus' attitude toward, 65. 
 Richelieu, Cardinal, 368. 
 Righteousness, character of, 63; Paul's 
 
 conception of, 70, 73; christology of , 
 
 70. 
 Ritschl, Otto, 5. 
 Rohde, 21. 
 Roman, the church cosmopolitanism 
 
 of, 293; relation of feudalism, 368. 
 Rome, military organization of, 116, 
 
 117; contribution to church, 30; 
 
 church of, 189. 
 Roscelin, Abelard and, 335; Nomin- 
 alism of, 340. 
 Rousseau, J. J., 589. 
 
 Sacrifice, Hebrews and, 94. 
 Satan, 44. 
 
 Satyrus, brother of Ambrose, 306. 
 Schelling, 581. 
 
 Schleiermacher, F. E. D., 582. 
 Scholasticism, ethics of, 282 jf.; defi- 
 nition of, 282 and 295; history and, 
 
 332- 
 Schopenhauer, 584. 
 Schultz, H., 55. 
 Schwenkfeld, 505. 
 Second temple, prophets of, 36. 
 Seneca, 96, 173. 
 Serapion, story of, 246. 
 Serapis, monks of, 217, 218. 
 Serfdom, rise of, 277. 
 Servant, suffering, 59. 
 Sethians, 133. 
 Sexual fanaticism, 235. 
 Shaftesbury, Anthony, Earl of, Miff- 
 Shirley, Canon, judgment of VVyclif, 
 
 385.. 
 Sidgwick, 8. 
 Simon, 142. 
 
 Sins, venial and deadly, 246. 
 Slavery, Jesus' attitude toward, 65; 
 
 Essenes and, 136; church and, 182, 
 
 276, 277; church fathers and, 278; 
 
 Southern Prcsbytcrianism and, 495. 
 
INDEX 
 
 60s 
 
 Smith, Adam, 465 jf.; critique of 
 Hutcheson, 467, 590; physiocrats 
 and, 590. 
 
 Social Democrats (German), 185, 
 
 311. 
 
 Socrates, demon of, 12; the history 
 
 of, 225. 
 Song of songs, 229. 
 Sophocles, Qidipus of, 235. 
 Sozomen, 222, 225. 
 Spencer, Herbert, 591. 
 Spener, P. J., 54^ ff-', ethics of, 
 
 547- 
 Spinoza, Baruch, 53, 568^. 
 Staudlin, 7. 
 Stewart, Dugald, 595. 
 Stoicism, composition of, 20; two-fold 
 
 character of, 33; and redemption, 
 
 25; character of, 71. 
 Suso, Heinrich, 363. 
 Sutherland, Alexander, 597. 
 Syllogism, Aquinas and, 322. 
 Synagogue, brotherhood of, 40. 
 Synoptic, the question of, 52. 
 
 Tauler, Johannes, 363. 
 
 Taylor, Jeremy, 437, 456. 
 
 Teaching of twelve apostles, 118; 
 
 "two ways" relation to, 119. 
 Temple, the second, 45. 
 Tertullian, 133, 160; slavery and, 
 
 183; and Mithra cult, 191. 
 Teutsche theologie, 364. 
 Thelemic, 54. 
 Theodoret, 225, 231. 
 Thessalonians I and II, 72. 
 Thomas, see Aquinas, 316. 
 Tillotson, Bishop, 456. 
 Timothy, 72, 99. 
 Tindal, Matthew, 454. 
 Titus, 72. 
 
 Torah, 39; Paul and, 72. 
 Trades-unions, 185. 
 Travers, Walter, 400, 413. 
 Trent, Council of, 332, 503. 
 Tyndale, William, ethics of, 388 /.; 
 
 literature, 388. 
 Tyre, Eusebius's discourse at, 231. 
 
 Unity, 102, 106. 
 
 Valens, 123. 
 
 Valentine, Emperor, 330. 
 
 Valentinus, 133. 
 
 Vallombrosian order, 355. 
 
 Values, doctrine of, 583. 
 
 Venatorius, Thomas, 536. 
 
 Victorinus, 343 ff- 
 
 Vigilantius, 236, 255. 
 
 Vincentius of Lerins, 245. 
 
 Virgil, 230. 
 
 Virginity, 198, 199, 205. 
 
 Virtues, Aquinas's classification of, 
 
 325- 
 Voltaire, 589. 
 Vulgate, Jerome's, 230. 
 
 Waldensian church,Claudius and, 289. 
 
 Waldo, Peter, 357. 
 
 Ward, Osborne, 28. 
 
 Weller, H., 536. 
 
 Wellhausen, estimate of Jesus' place, 4. 
 
 Wendland, 149. 
 
 Wendt, 66. 
 
 de Wette, 7. 
 
 Weiss, J., 5. 
 
 White, Andrew D., 438. 
 
 Whitgift, John, 421. 
 
 Wilamowitz, Moellendorf Hellenism, 
 
 24. 
 Williams, Roger, 233 ff. 
 Wisdom, the literature, 2,yy its method, 
 
 46; Jesus and, 52. 
 Wolfif, Christian, 571. 
 Wollaston, William, 453 jT- 
 Wundt, 8. 
 
 Wundt, W. M., 587. 
 Wuttke, 7. 
 Wyclif, ethics of, 378 ff.; literature, 
 
 378, 379; and German Anglican 
 
 alliance, 385. 
 
 Zeno, 233. 
 
 Ziegler, 4, 7. 
 
 Zinzendorf, Count, 552; life and 
 works, 552. 
 
 Zwickau, prophets of, 505. 
 
 Zwingli, H., 469; ethics of, 511; life 
 and works, 511 (note); Protestant- 
 ism of, 513; national character of, 
 515; Vatican and, 516. 
 
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