{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_42865/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_42865","id":"gutenberg_42865","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/42865","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Ancient","Category: History - Religious","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Catholic Church","Church history -- Primitive and early church, ca. 30-600","Marcus Aurelius, Emperor of Rome, 121-180"],"text":"ENGLISH CONFERENCES\n  OF\n  ERNEST RENAN.\n\n  ROME AND CHRISTIANITY.\n  MARCUS AURELIUS.\n\n  TRANSLATED BY\n  CLARA ERSKINE CLEMENT.\n\n  [Illustration]\n\n  BOSTON:\n  JAMES R. OSGOOD AND COMPANY.\n  1880.\n\n\n\n\n  Copyright, 1880,\n  By JAMES R. OSGOOD & COMPANY.\n\n  Franklin Press:\n  Stereotyped and Printed by\n  Rand, Avery, & Co.,\n  Boston.\n\n\n\n\nCONTENTS.\n\n\n                                                         PAGE.\n\n  The Hibbert Conferences.\n\n    _First Conference._ The Sense in which Christianity\n      is a Roman Work                                        9\n\n    _Second Conference._ The Legend of the Roman\n      Church.--Peter and Paul                               39\n\n    _Third Conference._ Rome, the Centre of the Formation\n      of Ecclesiastical Authority                           73\n\n    _Fourth Conference._ Rome, the Capital of Catholicism  103\n\n  The Royal Institution Conference.\n\n    Marcus Aurelius                                        139\n\n\n\n\nNOTE.\n\n\nThe lectures contained in this volume were delivered by M. Ernest Renan\nin London during April of the present year. The first four, upon \"Rome\nand Christianity,\" were given under the auspices of \"The Hibbert\nFoundation,\" in response to an invitation under which the distinguished\nauthor visited England. The fifth, \"Marcus Aurelius,\" was incidental to\nthe visit, and was given before \"The Royal Institution.\" The word\n\"Conferences,\" though somewhat new to English usage in its present\nsense, has been retained as best expressing the author's original title,\n\"_Conferences d'Angleterre_.\"\n\n\n\n\n  ROME AND CHRISTIANITY.\n\n  FIRST CONFERENCE,\n\n  London, April 6, 1880.\n\n  THE SENSE IN WHICH CHRISTIANITY\n  IS A ROMAN WORK.\n\n\n\n\nFIRST CONFERENCE.\n\nTHE SENSE IN WHICH CHRISTIANITY IS A ROMAN WORK.\n\n\nLadies and Gentlemen,--I was proud and happy to receive from the\ncurators of this noble institution an invitation to continue here an\ninstruction inaugurated by my illustrious confr\u00e8re and friend, Max\nM\u00fcller, the usefulness of which will be more and more appreciated. A\nbroad and sincere thought always bears fruit. It is thirty years since\nthe venerable Robert Hibbert made a legacy for the purpose of aiding the\nprogress of enlightened Christianity, inseparable, according to his\nidea, from the progress of science and reason. Wisely carried out, this\nfoundation has become, in the hands of intelligent administrators, the\ncentre of conferences upon all the great chapters of the history of\nreligion and humanity: the promoters of this reform have asked, with\nreason, why the method which has proved good in all departments of\nintellectual culture should not also be good in the domain of religion?\nwhy the pursuit of truth, without regard to consequences, should be\ndangerous in theology, when it is approved of in the entire domain of\nsocial and natural science? You believed the truth, gentlemen, and you\nwere right. There is but one truth; and we are wanting in respect to its\nrevelation, if we allow that the critic ought to soften his severe\nprocesses when he treats of it. No, gentlemen, the truth is able to\ndispense with compliments. I come gladly at your call; for I understand\nthe duties towards the right exactly as you do. With you, I should\nbelieve that I injured a faith in admitting that it required to be\ntreated with a certain softness. I believe with you that the worship due\nfrom man to the ideal consists in independent scientific research,\nwithout regard to results, and that the true manner of rendering homage\nto the truth is to pursue it without ceasing, with the firm resolution\nof sacrificing all to it. You desire that these conferences shall\npresent a great historic _ensemble_ of the efforts which the human race\nhas made to resolve the problems which surround it, and affect its\ndestiny. In the present state of the human mind, no one can hope to\nresolve these problems: we suspect all dogmatism simply because it is\ndogmatism. We grant willingly that a religious or philosophical system\ncan, indeed, or that it ought to, enclose a certain portion of truth;\nbut we deny to it, without examination, the possibility of enclosing the\nabsolute truth. What we love is history. History well written is always\ngood; for, even if it should prove that man in seeking to seize the\ninfinite has pursued a chimera, the history of these attempts, more\ngenerous than successful, will always be useful. It proves, that, in\nreality, man goes beyond the circle of his limited life through his\naspirations. It shows what energy he has expended for the sake of his\nlove of the good and true; it teaches us to estimate him,--this poor\ndisinherited one, who, in addition to the sufferings which nature\nimposes upon him, imposes still further upon himself the torture of the\nunknown, the torture of doubt, the severe resistances of virtue, the\nabstinences of austerity, the voluntary sufferings of the ascetic. Is\nall this a pure loss? Is this unceasing effort to attain the\nunattainable as vain as the course of the child who pursues the ever\nflying object of his desire? It pains me to believe it; and the faith\nwhich eludes me when I examine in detail each of the systems scattered\nthroughout the world, I find, in a measure, when I reflect upon all\nthese systems together. All religions may be defective and incomplete;\nreligion in humanity is nothing less than divine, and a mark of superior\ndestiny. No, they have not labored in vain--those grand founders, those\nreformers, those prophets of all ages--who have protested against the\nfalse evidences of gross materialism, who have beaten themselves\nagainst the wall of the apparent fatality that encloses us; who have\nemployed their thought, given their life, for the accomplishment of a\nmission which the spirit of their age had imposed upon them. If the fact\nof the existence of the martyrs does not prove the exclusive truth of\nthis or that sect (all sects can show a rich martyrology), this fact in\ngeneral proves that religious zeal responds to something mysterious.\nAll,--as many as we are,--we are sons of martyrs. Those who talk the\nmost of scepticism are frequently the most satisfied and indifferent.\nThose who have founded among you religious and political liberty, those\nwho have founded in all Europe liberty of thought and research, those\nwho have labored for the amelioration of the fate of men, those who will\ndoubtless find means for further amelioration, have suffered, or will\nsuffer, for their good work; for no one is ever recompensed for what he\ndoes for the good of humanity. Nevertheless they will always have\nimitators. There will always be some to carry on the work of the\nincorrigibles; some, possessed of the divine spirit, who will sacrifice\ntheir personal interest to truth and justice. Be it so: they have chosen\nthe better part. I know not what assures me that he who, without knowing\nwhy, through simple nobility of nature, has chosen for himself in this\nworld the essentially unproductive lot of doing good, is the true sage,\nand has discovered the legitimate use of life with more sagacity than\nthe selfish man.\n\n\nI.\n\nYou have asked me to retrace before you one of those pages of religious\nhistory which places the thoughts which I come to express in their\nfullest aspect. The origins of Christianity form the most heroic episode\nin the history of humanity. Man never drew from his heart more devotion,\nmore love of the ideal, than in the one hundred and fifty years which\nelapsed from the sweet Galilean vision, under Tiberius, to the death of\nMarcus Aurelius. The religious consciousness was never more eminently\ncreative, and never laid down with more authority the law of the future.\nThis extraordinary movement, to which no other can be compared, came\nforth from the bosom of Judaism. But it is doubtful if Judaism alone\nwould have conquered the world. It was necessary that a young and bold\nschool, coming out of its midst, should take the audacious part of\nrenouncing the largest portion of the Mosaic ritual. It was necessary,\nabove all, that the new movement should be transported into the midst of\nthe Greeks and Latins, while awaiting the Barbarians, and become like\nyeast in the bosom of those European races by which humanity\naccomplishes its destinies. What a beautiful subject he will discourse\nupon who shall one day explain to you the part which Greece took in that\ngreat common work! You have commissioned me to show to you the part of\nRome. The action of Rome is the first in date. It was scarcely until the\nbeginning of the third century that the Greek genius, with Clement of\nAlexandria and Origen, really seized upon Christianity. I hope to show\nyou, that, since the second century, Rome has exercised a decisive\ninfluence upon the Church of Jesus.\n\nIn one sense, Rome has diffused religion through the world, as she has\ndiffused civilization, as she has founded the idea of a central\ngovernment, extending itself over a considerable part of the world. But\neven as the civilization which Rome has diffused has not been the small,\nnarrow, austere culture of ancient Latium, but in fact the grand and\nlarge civilization which Greece created, so the religion to which she\ndefinitely lent her support was not the niggardly superstition which was\nsufficient to the rude and primitive inhabitants of the Palatine: it was\nJudaism, that is to say, in fact, the religion which Rome scorned and\nhated most, that which two or three times she believed herself to have\nfinally vanquished to the profit of her own national worship. This\nancient religion of Latium, which contented a race endowed with narrow\nintellectual wants and morals, among which customs and social rank\nalmost held the place of a religion during some centuries, was a\nsufficiently despicable thing. As M. Boissier has perfectly proved, a\nmore false conception of the divinity was never seen. In the Roman\nworship, as in most of the ancient Italiote worships, prayer was a magic\nformula, acting by its own virtue, independent of the moral dispositions\nof him who prayed. People prayed only for a selfish end. There exist\nsome registers called _indigitamenta_, containing lists of the gods who\nsupply all the wants of men; thus there was no need of being deceived.\nIf the god was not addressed by his true name, by that under which it\npleased him to be invoked, he was capable of misapprehension, or of\ninterpreting capriciously. Now these gods, who are in some degree the\nforces of the world, are innumerable. There was a little god who made\nthe infant utter his first cry (_Vaticanus_); there was another who\npresided over his first word (_Fabulinus_); another who taught the baby\nto eat (_Educa_); another who taught him to drink (_Potina_); another\nwho made him keep quiet in his cradle (_Cuba_). In truth, the good wife\nof Petronius was right, when, in speaking of the Campagna, she said,\n\"This country is so peopled with divinities, that it is easier to find a\ngod than a man.\" Besides these, there were unending series of\nallegories, or deified abstractions, Fear, the Cough, Fever, Manly\nFortune, Patrician Chastity, Plebeian Chastity, the Security of the Age,\nthe Genius of the Customs (or of the _octroi_), and above all (listen,\nthat one who, to say the truth, was the great god of Rome), the Safety\nof the Roman People. It was a civil religion in the full force of the\nterm. It was essentially the religion of the State. There was no\npriesthood distinct from the functions of the State: the State was the\nveritable god of Rome. The father had there the right of life and death\nover his son; but if this son had the least function, and the father met\nhim in his path, he descended from his horse, and bent himself before\nhim.\n\nThe consequence of this essentially political character was, that the\nRoman religion remained always an aristocratic religion. A man became\npontiff as he became pr\u00e6tor or consul. When a man desired these\nreligious functions, he submitted to no examination; he went into no\nretreat in a seminary; he did not ask himself whether he had the\necclesiastical vocation: he proved that he had served his country well,\nand that he had been wounded in a certain battle. There was no\nsacerdotal spirit. These civil pontiffs remained cold, practical men,\nand had not the least idea that their functions should separate them\nfrom the world. The religion of Rome is, in every respect, the inversion\nof theocracy. Civil law rules acts: it does not trouble itself with\nthoughts; thus did the Roman religion. Rome never had the least idea of\ndogma. The exact observation of the rites commanded by the divinity, in\nwhich it did not regard piety or the sentiments of the heart, if the\nrequest was in form, was all that was required. Even more,--devotion was\na fault; calmness, order, regularity, only, were necessary: more than\nthat was an excess (_superstitio_). Cato absolutely forbade that a slave\nshould be allowed to conceive any sentiment of piety. \"Know,\" said he,\n\"that it is the master who sacrifices for all the household.\" It was not\nneedful to neglect what was due to the gods; but it was not needful to\ngive them more than was due: that was superstition, of which the true\nRoman had as much horror as of impiety.\n\nWas there ever, I ask you, a religion less capable of becoming the\nreligion of the human race than that? Not only was the access to the\npriesthood for a long time forbidden to the plebeians, but they were\nalso excluded from the public worship. In the great struggle for civil\nequality which fills the history of Rome, religion is the great argument\nwith which the revolutionists are opposed. \"How,\" say they, \"could you\nbecome a pr\u00e6tor or consul? You have not the right to take the omens.\"\nAbove all, the people were very little attached to religion. Each\npopular victory was followed, as one may say, by an anti-clerical\nre-action: on the contrary, the aristocracy remained always faithful to\na worship which gave a divine sanction to its privileges.\n\nThe matter became still more pressing when the Roman people, by their\nmanly, patriotic virtues, had conquered all the nations upon the borders\nof the Mediterranean. What interest, think you an African, a Gaul, a\nSyrian, took in a worship which concerned only a small number of high\nand often tyrannical families? The local religions were continued\neverywhere; but Augustus, who was still more a religious organizer than\na great politician, made the Roman idea to hover everywhere by the\nestablishment of the Roman worship. The altars of Rome and of Augustus\nbecame the centre of a hierarchical organization of Flamens and Augustan\n_Sevirs_, who served to found, more than one imagines, the divisions of\nthe dioceses and ecclesiastical provinces. Augustus admitted all the\nlocal gods as Lares; he allowed more than the number of Lares in each\nhouse; at each cross-road an additional Lare was placed,--the Genius of\nthe Emperor. Thanks to this fellowship, all the local gods and all the\nspecial gods became \"Augustan gods.\" It was a great advance. But this\ngrand attempt of the worship of the Roman State was notoriously\ninsufficient to satisfy the religious needs of the heart. There was\nelsewhere a god who could not accommodate himself in any way to this\nfraternity: it was the God of the Jews. It was impossible to make\nJehovah pass for a Lare, and associate with the Genius of the Emperor.\nIt was evident that a conflict must be established between the Roman\nState and this unchangeable and refractory God, who did not bend to the\ncomplaisant transformations exacted by the politics of the times.\n\nAh, well! behold the most extraordinary historical phenomenon, the most\nintense irony of all history: it is that the worship which Rome has\ndiffused through the world is not in the least the old worship of\nJupiter Capitolinus, or Latiaris, still less the worship of Augustus and\nof the Genius of the Emperor: it is, in truth, the worship of Jehovah.\nIt is Judaism in its Christian form that Rome has propagated, without\nwishing it, in so powerful a manner, that, from a certain epoch,\nRomanism and Christianity have become almost synonymous words.\n\nTruly, I repeat it, it is more than doubtful if pure Judaism--that which\nis developed under the Talmudical form, and which is still in our day so\npowerful--would have had this extraordinary fortune. Judaism propagates\nitself through Christianity. But one understands nothing of religious\nhistory (some one, I hope, will demonstrate it to you some day), unless\nit is fixed as a fundamental principle that Christianity had its origin\nin Judaism itself,--Judaism with its fruitful principles of alms and\ncharity, with its absolute confidence in the future of humanity, with\nthat joy of the heart of which it has always had the secret,--only\nJudaism freed from some observances and distinctive traits which had\nbeen invented to characterize the special religion of the children of\nIsrael.\n\n\nII.\n\nIf one studies in fact the progress of the primitive Christian missions,\nhe remarks that they are all directed towards the West: in other words,\nthey take the Roman Empire as their theatre and limit. If one excepts\nsome small portions of the vassal territory of the Arsacid\u00e6, lying\nbetween the Euphrates and the Tigris, the empire of the Parthians\nreceived no Christian missions during the first century. The Tigris was\nan eastern boundary which Christianity did not pass under the Sassanid\u00e6.\nTwo great causes--the Mediterranean and the Roman Empire--determined\nthis capital fact.\n\nThe Mediterranean had been, during a thousand years, the great route on\nwhich all civilizations and all ideas had passed each other. The Romans,\nhaving freed it from piracy, had made it an unequalled way of\ncommunication. It was in a sense the railroad of that time. A numerous\nmarine of coasting-vessels rendered the voyages along the borders of\nthis great lake very easy. The relative security which the routes of the\nempire afforded, the sure guaranties found in the public powers, the\nscattering of the Jews over all the coasts of the Mediterranean, the use\nof the Greek tongue in the eastern portion of this sea, the unity of\ncivilization which the Greeks first, and then the Romans, had created,\nmade the map of the empire also the map of the countries reserved to the\nChristian missions and destined to become Christian. The Roman _orbis_\nbecame the Christian _orbis_ in the sense in which it may be said that\nthe founders of the empire were the founders of the Christian monarchy,\nor, at least, that they have drawn its outlines. Every province\nconquered by the Roman Empire became a province conquered by\nChristianity. Let the figures of the apostles be imagined in the\npresence of Asia Minor, of Greece, of Italy divided into a hundred\nlittle republics, of Gaul, of Spain, of Africa, of Egypt, with its old\nnational institutions, and their success can no more be thought of, or\nrather it would seem that their project could never have had birth. The\nunion of the empire was the necessary preliminary condition of all great\nreligious propagandism, placing it above nationalities. The empire\nrecognized this in the fourth century. It became Christian. It saw that\nChristianity was the religion which it had accepted without knowing\nit,--the religion limited by its frontiers, identified with it, capable\nof bringing it a second life.\n\nThe Church, on its side, made itself entirely Roman, and has remained to\nthis day a fragment of the empire. During the middle ages the Church was\nthe old Rome, seizing again its authority over the barbarians, imposing\non them its decretals, as formerly it had imposed its laws, governing\nthem by its cardinals, as it had before governed through its imperial\nlegates and proconsuls.\n\nIn creating its vast empire, Rome imposed, then, the material condition\nof the propagation of Christianity. She raised up, above all, the moral\nstate which served as an atmosphere and a medium for the new doctrine.\nWhile destroying politics everywhere, it created what may be called\nsocialism and religion. At the close of the frightful wars which for\nsome centuries had rent the world, the empire had an era of prosperity\nand of welfare such as it had never known: we may even be permitted to\nadd (without a paradox) liberty. Liberty of thought, at least, increased\nunder this new _r\u00e9gime_. This liberty is often more prosperous under a\nking or a prince than under the jealous and narrow-minded plebeian. The\nancient republics did not have it. The Greeks did great things without\nit, thanks to the incomparable power of their genius; but it must not be\nforgotten that Athens had a fine and noble Inquisition. The king Archon\nwas the inquisitor; the royal Portico was the holy office in which the\naccusations of impiety were adjudged. These were the cases in which the\nAttic orators were most frequently engaged. Not only philosophical\ncrimes, such as the denial of God or of a Providence, but the lightest\nattaint of the municipal worship, the preaching of strange religions,\nthe most puerile infractions of the scrupulous legislation of the\nmysteries, were crimes guilty of death. The gods whom Aristophanes\nmocked on the stage sometimes destroyed. They destroyed Socrates; they\nfailed to kill Alcibiades. Anaxagoras, Protagoras, Diagoras of Melas,\nProdicus of Ceos, Stilpo, Aristotle, Theophrastus, Aspasia, Euripides,\nwere more or less seriously disturbed. Liberty of thought was, in truth,\nthe fruit of the royalties resulting from the Macedonian conquest. It\nwas the Attali, the Ptolemies, who first gave to men of thought the\nfreedom which no one of the old republics had ever offered them. The\nRoman Empire held to the same traditions. There was under the empire\nmore than one arbitrary law against the philosophers; but these always\nresulted from their meddling with political affairs. In the laws of the\nRomans, before the time of Constantine, no clause is found against the\nliberty of thought; in the history of the emperors, no process of\nabstract doctrine. No _savant_ was disturbed in his researches. Men\nwhom the middle ages would have burned, such as Galen, Lucian, Plotinus,\nlived tranquilly, protected by law. The empire inaugurated a period of\nliberty in the sense that it destroyed the absolute sovereignty of the\nfamily, the city, the tribe, and replaced or modified these\nsovereignties by those of the State. Now, an absolute power is as much\nmore vexatious as the circle in which it is exercised is more narrow.\nThe ancient republics, the feudalities, tyrannized over the individual\nmuch more than did the State. Unquestionably the Roman Empire persecuted\nChristianity severely at times; but at least it did not destroy it. Now\nthe republics would have rendered it impossible. Judaism, if it had not\nbeen under the Roman authority, would have stifled it. It was the Roman\nmagistrates who hindered the Pharisees from killing Christianity. Some\nlofty ideas of universal brotherhood--results, in the main, of\nstoicism,--a sort of general sentiment of humanity, were the fruit of\nthe least narrow _r\u00e9gime_ and of the least exclusive education to which\nthe individual was submitted. The people dreamed of a new era and new\nworlds. The public riches were great; and, in spite of the imperfection\nof the economical doctrines of the time, there was general comfort.\n\nGeneral customs were not such as are often imagined. It is true, that,\nin Rome, all the vices were publicly displayed with a revolting\ncynicism: the spectacles, above all, had introduced a frightful\ncorruption. Certain countries, as Egypt, had descended to the lowest\nbaseness. But there existed in most of the provinces a middle class, in\nwhich goodness, conjugal fidelity, the domestic virtues, and uprightness\nwere commonly practised. Does there anywhere exist, in a world of honest\npeople in small villages, an ideal of family life more charming than\nthat which Plutarch has left us? What good fellowship! What sweetness of\nmanners! What chaste and attractive simplicity! Ch\u00e6ronea was evidently\nnot the only place where life was so pure and so innocent.\n\nThe customs, even outside of Rome, were still somewhat cruel, either\nthrough the remaining spirit of ancient manners, everywhere sanguinary,\nor through the special influence of Roman harshness. But there was\nprogress during this period. What sweet and pure sentiment, what feeling\nof melancholy tenderness, has not found expression by the pen of Virgil\nor of Tibullus? The world unbent, lost its ancient severity, and\nacquired some softness and tenderness. Some maxims for humanity were\nspread abroad. Equality and the abstract idea of the rights of man were\nboldly preached by stoicism. Woman became more and more the mistress of\nherself. The precepts for the treatment of slaves were improved. The\nslave was no longer that necessarily grotesque and wicked being which\nthe Latin comedy introduced in order to provoke bursts of laughter, and\nwhom Cato recommended to be treated as a beast of burden. Now, times are\nmuch changed. The slave is morally equal to his master: it is admitted\nthat he is capable of virtue, of fidelity, of devotion, and he gives\nproofs of it. The prejudices concerning noble birth grow less. Some very\nhumane and just laws are made, even under the worst emperors. Tiberius\nwas a skilful financier: he founded upon an excellent basis an\nestablishment of _cr\u00e9dit foncier_. Nero inaugurated in the system of\ntaxation, until then unjust and barbarous, some improvements which shame\neven our own time. Legislation was considerably advanced, while the\npunishment of death was stupidly prodigal. Love of the poor, sympathy\nfor all, and almsgiving, came to be considered virtues.\n\n\nIII.\n\nUnquestionably I understand and share the indignation of sincere\nliberals against a government which diffused a frightful despotism over\nthe world. But is it our fault that the wants of humanity are diverse,\nits aspirations manifold, its aims contradictory? Politics is not every\nthing here below. What the world desired, after those frightful\nbutcheries of the earlier centuries, was gentleness, humanity. They had\nenough of heroism: those vigorous goddesses, eternally brandishing their\nspears on the height of the Acropolis, inspired sentiment no longer. The\nearth, as in the time of Cadmus, had swallowed her most noble sons. The\nproud Grecian races had killed each other. The Peloponessus was a\ndesert. The sweet voice of Virgil gently took up the cry of humanity,\npeace, pity!\n\nThe establishment of Christianity responded to this cry of all tender\nand weary souls. Christianity could only have had birth and expansion in\na time when there were no longer free cities. If there was any thing\ntotally lacking in the founders of the Church, it was patriotism. They\nwere not cosmopolites, for the entire planet was to them a place of\nexile: they were idealists in the most absolute sense.\n\nA country is a composition of soul and body. The soul is the souvenirs,\nthe legends, the customs, the misfortunes, the hopes, the common\nsorrows: the body is the soil, the race, the language, the mountains,\nthe rivers, the characteristic productions. Now, was a people ever more\nwanting in all this than the first Christians? They did not cling to\nJud\u00e6a; after a few years they had forgotten Galilee; the glory of Greece\nand Rome was indifferent to them. The countries in which Christianity\nwas first established--Syria, Cyprus, and Asia Minor--no longer\nremembered the time when they were free. Greece and Rome, it is true,\nstill had a grand national sentiment. At Rome, patriotism survived in a\nfew families; in Greece, Christianity flourished only at Corinth,--a\ncity which, since its destruction by Mummius, and its reconstruction by\nC\u00e6sar, was the resort of men of all races. The true Greek countries,\nthen, as to-day, very jealous, very much absorbed in the memories of\ntheir past, gave little countenance to the new doctrines: they were\nalways lukewarm Christians. On the contrary, those gay, indolent,\nvoluptuous countries of Asia and Syria, countries of pleasure, of free\nmanners, _de laisser aller_, accustomed to receive life and government\nfrom others, had nothing to resign in the way of pride and traditions.\nThe most ancient capitals of Christianity--Antioch, Ephesus,\nThessalonica, Corinth, and Rome--were common cities, so to speak, cities\nof the modern type of Alexandria, in which all races met, where that\nmarriage between man and the soil, which constitutes a nation, was\nabsolutely broken.\n\nThe importance given to social questions is always the inverse of\npolitical pre-occupations. Socialism takes the lead when patriotism\ngrows weak. Christianity exploded the social and religious ideas, as was\ninevitable, since Augustus had put an end to political struggles.\nChristianity, if a universal worship, would, like Islamism, in reality\nbe the enemy of nationalities. Only centuries, only schisms, could form\nnational churches from a religion which was from the beginning a denial\nof all terrestrial countries, which had its birth at an epoch in which\nthere were no longer in the world either cities or citizens, and which\nthe old and powerful republics of Italy and of Greece would surely have\nexpelled as a mortal poison to the State.\n\nAnd here was one of the causes of the grandeur of the new religion.\nHumanity is a multiform, changeable thing, tormented by conflicting\ndesires. _La patrie_ is grand, and the heroes of Marathon and Thermopyl\u00e6\nare saints. But one's country is not all here below: one is a man and a\nson of God, before he is a Frenchman, or a German. The kingdom of God,\nan eternal dream which is never destroyed in the heart of man, is a\nprotestation against a too exclusive patriotism. The thought of an\norganization of humanity, in view of its greatest happiness and its\nmoral amelioration, is legitimate. The State knows, and can only know,\none thing,--to organize a collective egoism. This is not indifference,\nbecause egoism is the most powerful and seizable of human motives, but\nis not sufficient. The governments which have rested upon the\nsupposition that man is composed of covetous instincts only, have\ndeceived themselves. Devotion is as natural as egoism to a true-born\nman. The organization of devotion is religion: let no one hope, then, to\ndispense with religion, or religious associations. Each progression of\nmodern society will render this want more imperious.\n\nA great exaltation of religious sentiment was, then, the consequence of\nthe _Roman peace_ established by Augustus. Augustus realized it. But I\nask, What satisfaction could the institutions which Rome dared to\nbelieve eternal present to the religious wants which were arising?\nSurely almost nothing. All the old worships, of very different origin,\nhad one common trait. They shared equally the impossibility of reaching\na theological teaching, a practical morality, an edifying preaching, a\npastoral ministry truly fruitful for the people. The Pagan temple, in\nits best time, was the same thing as the synagogue and the church: I\nwish to say the common house, the school, the inn, the hospital, the\nshelter in which the poor sought an asylum, it was a cold _cella_, into\nwhich one seldom entered, where one learned nothing. The affectation\nwhich led the Roman patricians to distinguish the \"religion,\" that is to\nsay, their own worship, from the \"superstition,\" that is to say, the\nworship of strangers, appears to us puerile. All the Pagan worships were\nessentially superstitious. The peasant who in our day places a sou in\nthe box of a miraculous chapel, who invokes some saint on account of his\noxen, or his horses, who drinks certain waters for certain maladies, is\nin these acts a Pagan. Indeed, nearly all our superstitions are the\nremains of a religion anterior to Christianity, which that has not been\nable to entirely uproot. If one would find the image of Paganism in our\nday, it must be sought in some obscure village in the depth of some\nout-of-the-way country.\n\nHaving as guardians a popular, vacillating tradition, and selfish\nsacristans, the Pagan religion could but degenerate in worship.\nAugustus, although with a certain reserve, accepted the adoration of his\nsubjects in the provinces. Tiberius allowed, under his own eyes, that\nignoble concourse of the cities of Asia to dispute the honor of raising\na temple to him. The extravagant impieties of Caligula produced no\nre-action: outside of Judaism there was not found a single priest to\nresist such follies. Coming forth, for the most part, from a primitive\nworship of natural forces ten times transformed by minglings of all\nsorts, and by the imagination of the peoples, the Pagan worships were\nlimited by their past. One could never draw from them what had never\nexisted in them,--Deism or instruction. The fathers of the church amuse\nus when they bring to notice the misdeeds of Saturn as the father of a\nfamily, and of Jupiter as a husband. But without doubt, it was still\nmore ridiculous to set up Jupiter (that is to say, the atmosphere) as a\nmoral god who commands, defends, rewards, and punishes. In a world which\naspires to possess a catechism, what could one do with a worship like\nthat of Venus, which arose from an old social necessity of the first\nPh[oe]nician navigation in the Mediterranean, but became in time an\noutrage to that which one regards more and more as the essence of\nreligion?\n\nHere is the explanation of that singular attraction, which, towards the\ncommencement of our era, drew the populations of the Old World towards\nthe worships of the East. These worships had something more profound\nthan the Greek and Latin worships: they appealed, moreover, to the\nreligious sentiment. Almost all were relative to the state of the soul\nin another life, and they were believed to contain some pledges of\nimmortality. From this arose that favor which the Thracian and Sabasian\nmysteries enjoyed, the worshippers of Bacchus, and brotherhoods of all\nsorts. There was less of coldness in these little circles, in which one\npressed against another, than in the great glacial world elsewhere. Some\nminor religions, like that of Psyche, destined solely to console for\ndeath, had immense popularity. Those noble Egyptian worships which\nconcealed the emptiness within by grand splendor of ceremonies counted\ntheir devotees throughout the empire. Isis and Serapis had their altars\nat the extremities of the world. In visiting the ruins of Pompeii, one\nwould be tempted to believe that the worship of Isis was the principal\none practised there. Those little Egyptian temples had some assiduous\ndevotees, among whom were counted a large number of persons of the class\nof the friends of Catullus and Tibullus. There was a service each\nmorning,--a sort of mass, celebrated by a tonsured and beardless priest;\nthere were some sprinklings of holy water, and perhaps an evening\nservice: it occupied, amused, and quieted. What more is necessary?\n\nBut, more than all others, the Mithraic worship enjoyed in the second\nand third centuries an extraordinary popularity. I sometimes allow\nmyself to say, that, had not Christianity taken the lead, Mithraicism\nwould have become the religion of the world. Mithraicism had mysterious\nre-unions, and chapels which strongly resembled little churches. It\nestablished a very solid bond of brotherhood between its votaries; it\nhad the Eucharist, the Lord's Supper, and bore such a resemblance to the\nChristian mysteries, that the good Justin the Apologist saw only one\nexplanation of these resemblances: it is that Satan, in order to deceive\nthe human race, sought to mimic the Christian ceremonies, and committed\nthis plagiarism. The Mithraic tomb of the Catacombs of Rome is as\nedifying and deeply mysterious as the Christian tombs. There were some\ndevoted Mithraists, who, even after the triumph of Christianity,\ndefended the sincerity of their faith with courage. The people grouped\nthemselves around these foreign gods: around the Greek and Italiote gods\nthere were no gatherings. We must say a good word for it: it is only the\nsmall sects that lay the foundation and build up. It is so sweet to\nbelieve one's self a little aristocracy of truth, to imagine, that, in\ncommon with a very few, one owns the repository of truth! Such a foolish\nsect in our own time gives to its adherents more consolation than a more\nhealthy philosophy. In his day, Abracadabra secured some joyous\nfollowers, and, by means of a little good-will, a sublime theology has\nbeen found in him.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe shall see, however, in our next conference, that the religious reign\nof the future belonged neither to Serapis, nor to Mithra. The\npredestined religion grew imperceptibly in Jud\u00e6a. This would have\ngreatly astonished the most sagacious Romans, if it had been announced\nto them. It would have been shocking to them in the highest degree. But\nso often in history have improbable predictions become true, so often\nhas wisdom been mistaken, that it is not best to rely too much upon the\nlikes and dislikes of enlightened men, of _bons esprits_ as we say, when\nthey undertake to predict the future.\n\n\n\n\n  SECOND CONFERENCE,\n\n  London, April 9, 1880.\n\n  THE LEGEND OF THE ROMAN CHURCH.--PETER\n  AND PAUL.\n\n\n\n\nSECOND CONFERENCE.\n\nPETER AND PAUL.\n\n\nLadies and Gentlemen,--At our last meeting we attempted to show the\nsituation of the Roman Empire in regard to religious questions during\nthe first century. There was in the vast gathering of populations which\ncomposed the empire a pressing want of religion, a true moral progress,\nwhich called for a pure worship without superstitious practices or\nbloody sacrifices; a tendency to Monotheism, which made the old\nmythological recitals appear ridiculous; a general sentiment of sympathy\nand of charity, which inspired the desire of association, of assembling\ntogether for prayer, for support, for consolation, for the assurance\nthat after death one would be interred by his brethren, who would also\nmake a little feast in his memory. Asia Minor, Greece, Syria, and Egypt\ncontained masses of the poor,--very honest men, after their manner,\nhumble, and without distinction; but revolted at the spectacle which the\nRoman aristocracy made, full of horror at those hideous representations\nin the theatres, in which Rome made a diversion of suffering. The moral\nconscience of the human race sent up an immense protestation, and there\nwas no priest to interpret it, no pitying God to reply to the sighs of\npoor suffering humanity. Slavery, in spite of the protestations of the\nsages, remained very cruel. Claudius thought to do a grand and humane\nact in making a law that the master who should drive from his house an\nold and sick slave should lose his right in that slave, if he were\ncured. How could gods without compassion, and born of joy and the\nprimitive imagination, be expected to console for such evils? A Father\nin heaven was required, who kept a record of the efforts of man, and\npromised him a recompense. A future of justice was desired, in which the\nearth belonged to the feeble and the poor. The assurance was necessary,\nthat, when a man suffered, it was not an entire loss, and that beyond\nthose sad horizons, veiled by tears, there were happy fields in which\none day he should console himself for his sorrows. Judaism indeed had\nall that. By the institution of the synagogues (do not forget,\ngentlemen, that it is from the synagogue that the church comes), it\nestablished association in the most powerful form in which it had ever\nbeen realized. In appearance, at least, the worship was pure Deism; no\nimages, only scorn and sarcasm for idols. But that which above all\ncharacterized the Jew was his confidence in a brilliant and happy\nfuture for humanity. Having no idea based upon the immortality of the\nsoul, nor upon the remunerations and punishments beyond the tomb, the\nJew, disciple of the ancient prophet, was as if intoxicated with the\nsentiment of justice: he wished justice now upon earth. Having little\nconfidence in the assurances of the eternity which made the Christians\nso easily resigned, the Jew grumbled at Jehovah, reproached him with his\nignorance, and demanded how he could leave the earth so long in the\npower of the impious. As for himself, he did not doubt that the earth\nwould one day be his, and that his law would make love and justice to\nreign therein.\n\nIn this struggle, gentlemen, the Jew will be victorious. Hope, that\nwhich the Jew calls the _Tiqva_, that assurance of something which\nnothing proves, but to which one attaches himself with so much the more\nfrenzy because it is not sure, is the soul of the Jew. His psalms were\nlike the continuous sound of a harp, filling life with harmony and a\nmelancholy faith: his prophets held the words of eternity. For example,\nthat second Isaiah, the prophet of the captivity, pictured the future\nwith more dazzling colors than man had ever seen in his dreams. The\nThora, besides that, gives the recipe for being happy (for being happy\nhere below, I mean), by observing the moral law, the spirit of the\nfamily, and the spirit of duty.\n\n\nI.\n\nThe establishment of the Jews at Rome dated nearly sixty years before\nJesus Christ. They multiplied rapidly. Cicero represented it as an act\nof courage to dare to oppose them. C\u00e6sar favored them, and found them\nfaithful. The people detested them, thought them malevolent, accused\nthem of forming a secret society whose members were advanced at any\nprice, to the detriment of others. But all did not approve these\nsuperficial judgments. The Jews had as many friends as detractors:\nsomething superior was noticeable in them. The poor Jewish colporter of\nthe Trastevere often in the evening returned home rich with the\ncharities received from a pious hand. Women, above all, were attracted\nby these missionaries in rags. Juvenal counts the weakness towards the\nJewish religion among the vices of the ladies of his time. The word of\nZachariah was verified to the letter: the world seized upon the garments\nof the Jews, and said, \"Lead us to Jerusalem.\"\n\nThe principal Jewish quarter of Rome was situated beyond the Tiber, that\nis to say, in the poorest and dirtiest part of the city, probably near\nthe present _Porta Portese_. There, or rather opposite to the foot of\nthe Aventine, the gate of Rome was formerly situated, where the\nmerchandise brought from Ostia in barges was discharged. It was a\nquarter of Jews and Syrians,--\"nations born for servitude,\" as Cicero\nsaid. The nucleus of the Jewish population at Rome was formed, in truth,\nof freedmen, descended, for the most part, from those prisoners whom\nPompey had carried there. They had passed through slavery, without\nchanging their religious customs in the least. That which is admirable\nin Judaism is that simplicity of faith which makes the Jew, transported\na thousand leagues from his country, at the end of several generations,\nalways a very Jew. The intercourse between the synagogues of Rome and\nJerusalem was continual. The first colony had been re-enforced with\nnumerous emigrants. These poor men disembarked by hundreds at the Ripa,\nand lived together in the adjacent quarter of the Trastevere, serving as\nstreet-porters, engaged in small affairs, exchanging matches for broken\nglasses, and showing to the proud Italiote populations a type which\nlater became too familiar to them,--that of the beggar accomplished in\nhis art. A Roman who respected himself never placed his foot in these\nabject quarters. It was as a suburb given up to despised classes and to\ninfectious employments: the tanneries, the gut-works, the rotting vats\nwere banished there. These unhappy people lived tranquilly enough in\nthis remote corner, in the midst of bales of merchandise, low inns, and\nporters of manure (_Syri_), who had there their general headquarters.\nThe police only entered there when affrays were bloody, or occurred too\noften. Few quarters of Rome were so free: politics had nothing to do\nthere. Worship was not only practised there in ordinary times without\nobstacles, but its propagation was also accomplished with great\nfacility.\n\nProtected by the disdain which they inspired, caring little, moreover,\nfor the railleries of the men of the world, the Jews of the Trastevere\nled a very active religious and social life. They had some schools of\n_hakamin_: nowhere was the ritual and ceremonial of the law observed\nmore scrupulously: the organization of the synagogue was the most\ncomplete ever known. The titles of \"father and mother\" of the synagogues\nwere much prized. Some rich converts took biblical names; they brought\ntheir slaves into the church with them, they had the Scriptures\nexplained by the doctors, built places of prayer, and manifested their\npride of the consideration which they enjoyed in this little world. The\npoor Jew found the means, while begging with a trembling voice, to\nwhisper in the ear of the great Roman lady some words of the law, and\nfrequently won over the matron who opened to him her hand full of small\ncoin. To observe the sabbath and the Jewish feasts was to Horace the\ntrait which classed a man in the crowd of weak minds. The universal\nbenevolence, the happiness of reposing with the just, the assistance of\nthe poor, the purity of manners, the gentle acceptance of death\nconsidered as a sleep, are some of the sentiments which are found in the\nJewish inscriptions, with that particular accent of touching unction, of\ncertain hope, which characterizes the Christian inscriptions. There have\nbeen many rich and powerful Jews in the world, such as Tiberius\nAlexander, who arrived at the greatest honors of the empire, who\nexercised two or three times the strongest influence upon public\naffairs, and even had, to the great grief of the Romans, his statue in\nthe Forum; but those were not good Jews. The Herods, though practising\ntheir worship at Rome with much show, were also far from being true\nIsraelites, even if their only sins were their relations with the\nPagans.\n\nA world of ideas was thus set in motion on the vulgar quay where the\nmerchandise of the whole world was piled up; but all that would be lost\nin a great city like Paris. Undoubtedly the proud patricians, who, in\ntheir promenades on the Aventine, cast their eyes upon the other side of\nthe Tiber, did not imagine the future that was forming itself in that\nlittle cluster of poor houses at the foot of Janiculum.\n\nNear the port was a sort of lodging-house well known to the people and\nthe soldiers under the name of _Taberna Meritoria_. In order to attract\nthe loungers, a pretended spring of oil coming out of a rock was shown\nthere. From a very early time this spring of oil was considered by the\nChristians as symbolic: it was pretended that its appearance was\ncoincident with the birth of Jesus. It seems that later the _Taberna_\nbecame a church. Under Alexander Severus we find the Christians and the\ninn-keepers in a contest over a place which formerly had been public:\nthat good emperor gave it to the Christians. This is probably the origin\nof the Church of the Santa Maria of the Trastevere.\n\nIt is natural that the capital should have fully accepted the name of\nJesus before the intermediate countries could be evangelized, as a high\nsummit is lighted up while the valleys between it and the sun are still\nobscure. Rome was the rendezvous for all the Oriental worships,--the\npoint upon the coast of the Mediterranean with which the Syrians had the\nmost intercourse. They arrived there in enormous bands. Like all the\npoor populations rising for the assault of the great cities to which\nthey come to seek their fortunes, they were serviceable and humble. All\nthe world spoke Greek. The ancient Roman plebeians, attached to the old\ncustoms, lost ground each day, drowned as they were in this wave of\nstrangers.\n\nWe admit then, that towards the year 50 of our era, some Syrian Jews,\nalready Christians, entered the capital of the empire, and communicated\nthe faith which rendered them happy to their companions. At this time no\none suspected that the founder of a second empire was in Rome,--a second\nRomulus, lodging at the port in a bed of straw. A little band was\nformed. These ancestors of the Roman prelates were poor, dirty, common\npeople, without distinction, without manners, clothed with fetid\ngarments, having the bad breath of men who are badly fed. Their\ndwellings had that odor of misery which is exhaled from persons grossly\nclothed and nourished, and huddled together in narrow rooms. We know the\nnames of two Jews who were the most prominent in these movements. They\nwere Aquila, a Jew, originally from Pontus, who was like St. Paul an\nupholsterer, and Priscilla his wife,--a pious couple. Banished from Rome\nthey took refuge at Corinth, where they soon became the intimate friends\nof St. Paul, and zealous workers with him. Thus Aquila and Priscilla are\nthe most ancient known members of the Church of Rome. There is scarcely\na souvenir of them there. Tradition, always unjust, because it is always\nruled by political motives, has expelled these two obscure workmen from\nthe Christian Pantheon in order to attribute the honor of the foundation\nof the Church of Rome to a name more in keeping with its proud\npretensions. We do not see the original point of the origin of\nOccidental Christianity in the theatrical Basilica consecrated to St.\nPeter: it is at that ancient _Ghetto_, the _Porta Portese_. It is in\ntracing these poor vagabond Jews, who bore with them the religion of the\nworld,--these suffering men, dreaming in their misery of the kingdom of\nGod,--that we shall find it again. We do not dispute with Rome its\nessential title. Rome was probably the first point in the Western World,\nand even in Europe, where Christianity was established.\n\nBut, instead of these lofty basilicas, in place of these insulting\ndevices,--_Christus vincit_, _Christus regnat_, _Christus imperat_,--it\nwould be better to raise a poor chapel to these good Jews who first\npronounced on the quay of Rome the name of Jesus.\n\nA capital trait, which it is important to note in any case, is, that the\nChurch of Rome was not, like the churches of Asia Minor, Macedonia, and\nGreece, a foundation of the school of Paul. It was fundamentally\nJud\u00e6an-Christian, re-attaching itself directly to the Church of\nJerusalem. Paul here will never be on his own ground: he will find in\nthis great church many weaknesses which he will treat with indulgence,\nbut which will wound his exalted idealism. Attached to circumcision and\noutward observances, Ebionite through its taste for abstinences, and by\nits doctrine concerning the person and death of Jesus more Jewish than\nChristian, leaning strongly towards Millenarianism, the Roman Church\nshowed, since its first days, the essential traits which will\ndistinguish it through its long history. Own daughter of Jerusalem, the\nRoman Church will always have an ascetic, sacerdotal character, opposed\nto the Protestant tendencies of Paul. Peter will be its veritable head;\nthen, the political and hierarchical spirit of old Rome penetrating it,\nit will indeed become the new Jerusalem, the city of the Pontificate, of\nthe hieratic and solemn religion, of the material sacraments which\njustify of themselves, the city of the ascetics of the manner of Jacques\nOhliam with his callous knees and his plate of gold upon his brow. It\nwill be the authoritative church. If we can believe it, the only mark of\nthe apostolic mission will be to show a letter signed by the apostles,\nto produce a certificate of orthodoxy. The good and the evil which the\nChurch of Jerusalem did in giving birth to Christianity, the Church of\nRome will do for the Universal Church. It is in vain that Paul will\naddress to it his beautiful epistle to explain the mystery of the cross\nof Jesus and of salvation by faith alone. The Church of Rome will\nscarcely comprehend it; but Luther four and a half centuries later will\ncomprehend it, and will open a new era in a secular series of the\nalternate triumphs of Peter and Paul.\n\n\nII.\n\nAn important event in the history of the world took place in the year\n61. Paul was led a prisoner to Rome in order to follow up the appeal\nwhich he had made to the tribunal of the emperor. A sort of profound\ninstinct had always made Paul desire this journey. His arrival at Rome\nwas almost as marked an event in his life as his conversion. He believed\nthat he had attained the summit of his apostolic life; and doubtless he\nrecalled the dream in which, after one of his days of struggle, Christ\nhad appeared to him, and said, \"Be of good cheer, Paul; for as thou hast\ntestified of me in Jerusalem, so must thou bear witness also at Rome.\"\n\nYou will not forget the wide divisions which separated the disciples\nof Jesus during the first century from the foundation of\nChristianity,--divisions so broad, that all the differences which to-day\nseparate the orthodox, the heretics, and the schismatics of the whole\nworld, are nothing beside the dissensions of Peter and Paul. The Church\nof Jerusalem, obstinately attached to Judaism, refused all intercourse\nwith the uncircumcised, however pious they might be. Paul, on the\ncontrary, thought that to maintain the ancient law was an injury to\nJesus, since thus it might be supposed, that, outside the merits of\nJesus, such or such a work could serve for the justification of the\nfaithful. However strange it may appear, it is certain that the\nJud\u00e6an-Christians of Jerusalem, with James at their head, organized some\nactive contra-missions in order to combat the effect of the missions of\nPaul, and that the emissaries of these ardent conservatives followed in\nsome sort the lead of the apostle of the Gentiles. Peter belonged to the\nparty at Jerusalem, but showed in his conduct that sort of timid\nmoderation which seems to have been the foundation of his character. Did\nPeter also come to Rome? Formerly, gentlemen, this question was one of\nthe most exciting which could be agitated. Formerly the history of\nreligion was written, not to recount it, but in order to prove it:\nreligious history was an annex of theology. During the grand revolt, so\nfull of courage and of ardent conviction, which, during the sixteenth\ncentury, placed one-half of Europe in opposition to Rome, the negation\nof the sojourn of Peter at Rome became a sort of dogma. The Bishop of\nRome is the successor of St. Peter, said the Catholics, and as such the\nhead of Christendom. How could that reasoning be more strongly refuted\nthan by maintaining that Peter never placed his foot in Rome?\n\nAs for us, we are permitted to regard this question with the most\nperfect disinterestedness. We do not believe, in any sense, that Jesus\nintended to give any head whatever to his church; and above all, it is\ndoubtful whether the idea of such a church as developed later had\nexisted in the mind of the founder of Christianity. The word _ecclesia_\noccurs only in the Gospel of St. Matthew. The idea of the _episcopos_,\nas it existed in the second century, had no place in the mind of Jesus.\nHe himself was the living _episcopos_ during his brief Galilean\nappearance: from that time it is the Spirit who inspires each one until\nhe may return. In any case, if it had been possible that Jesus should\nhave had any idea whatever of the _ecclesia_ and _episcopos_, it is\nabsolutely beyond doubt, that Jesus never thought of giving the future\n_episcopos_ of the city of Rome to be the head of his church,--that\nimpious city, the centre of all the impurities of the earth, of whose\nexistence he perhaps knew scarcely any thing, and of which he should\nhave entertained the gloomy opinions which all the Jews professed. If\nthere is any thing in the world which was not instituted by Jesus, it is\nthe Papacy, that is to say, the idea that the Church is a monarchy. We\nare, then, perfectly at liberty to discuss the question of Peter's\ncoming to Rome. This question is absolutely without consequence for us;\nand from our solution the only result will be to say whether Leo XIII.\nis or is not the head of the Christian conscience. Whether Peter was or\nwas not in Rome, it has for us no political nor moral bearing. It is a\ncurious question of history: it is useless to pursue it further.\n\nFirst, let us say, that the Catholics have laid themselves open to the\nperemptory objections of their adversaries by their unfortunate\nreckoning of the coming of Peter to Rome in the year 42,--a reckoning\nborrowed from Eusebius and St. Jerome, which extends the duration of the\npontificate of Peter to twenty-three or twenty-four years. There is\nnothing more inadmissible. In order to leave no doubt in regard to this,\nit is sufficient to consider that the persecution of Peter at Jerusalem\nby Herod Agrippa occurred in the year 44. It would be superfluous to\noppose longer a thesis which can have no one reasonable defence. It is\npossible, in fact, to go much further, and to affirm that Peter had not\nyet come to Rome when Paul was taken there, that is to say, in the year\n61. The Epistle of Paul to the Romans, written about the year 58, is a\nvery considerable argument here. One can scarcely imagine St. Paul\nwriting to the faithful, of whom St. Peter was the head, without making\nthe least mention of the latter. The last chapter of the Acts of the\nApostles is still more demonstrative. This chapter, especially from the\nseventeenth to the twenty-ninth verse, cannot be explained, if Peter\nwas at Rome when Paul arrived there. Let us, then, consider it\nabsolutely certain that Peter did not come to Rome before Paul, that is\nto say, before or about the year 61.\n\nBut did he not come there after Paul? This has never been positively\nproved; this late journey of Peter's to Rome was not only probable, but\nthere are strong arguments in its favor. Besides the testimony of the\nFathers of the second and third centuries, there are three reasons which\ndo not appear to me unworthy:--\n\n1st, It is indisputably certain that Peter suffered a martyr's death.\nThe testimony of the fourth evangelist, of Clement Romanus, of the\nfragment which is called the \"_Canon de Muratori_,\" of Denis of Corinth,\nof Caius, of Tertullian, leave no doubt in this respect. Let the fourth\nGospel be apocryphal, allow that chapter xxi. has been added in later\ntimes, it makes no difference. It is clear, that, in the verses in which\nJesus announces to Peter that he shall die by the same suffering as his\nown, we have the expression of an opinion established in the Church\nabout 120 or 130, to which allusions are made as to a fact known to all.\nNow, it is not possible to imagine that Peter died a martyr outside of\nRome. It was only at Rome, in fact, that the persecution of Nero was\nviolent. At Jerusalem, at Antioch, the martyrdom of Peter would have\nbeen much less probable.\n\n2d, The second reason is found in the Epistle attributed to St. Peter\n(v. 13): \"The church that is at Babylon ... saluteth you.\" Babylon, in\nthis passage, evidently indicates Rome. If the Epistle is authentic, the\npassage is decisive: if it is apocryphal, the conclusion to be drawn\nfrom the text is not weakened. The author, in short, whoever he may be,\nwishes it to be regarded as the work of Peter. He was consequently\nforced, in order to give an appearance of truth to his fraud, to arrange\nthe circumstances which he related, according to what he knew, or\nbelieved was known in his time, of the life of Peter. If, in such a\nspirit, he dated the letter at Rome, it shows, that, in his day, it was\nthe general opinion that Peter had resided at Rome. But, in any case,\nthe First Epistle of Peter is a very ancient work, and had very early a\nhigh authority.\n\n3d, The theory which is founded upon the Ebionite Acts of St. Peter is\nalso worthy of much consideration. This theory represents St. Peter as\nfollowing Simon the Magician everywhere (according to St. Paul), in\norder to dispute his false doctrines. M. Lipsius has shown an admirable\ncritical sagacity in his analysis of this legend. He has shown that the\nbase of all the different versions of it which have come to us was\nwritten about the year 130. It seems improbable that an Ebionite author\nof such early date could have given so much importance to Peter's\njourney to Rome, if this journey had not taken place in reality. The\ntheory of the Ebionite legend must contain some truth at the bottom, in\nspite of the fables which are mingled with it. It is quite admissible\nthat St. Peter might have come to Rome, as he went to Antioch, following\nSt. Paul, and in part to neutralize his influence. The missions of St.\nPaul, and the facility which the Jews had acquired in their voyages had\nmade long expeditions quite the custom. The apostle Philip is even\nrepresented by an ancient and persistent tradition as having settled\nhimself in Hierapolis, in Asia Minor.\n\nI regard, then, as probable, the tradition of the sojourn of Peter at\nRome; but I believe that this sojourn was short, and that Peter suffered\nmartyrdom soon after his arrival in the Eternal City.\n\n\nIII.\n\nYou know the mystery which hovers above the history of primitive\nChristianity, which we might desire to know more in detail. The death of\nthe apostles Peter and Paul remains enveloped in a veil which will never\nbe penetrated. That which appears the most probable is, that they both\ndisappeared in the great massacre of Christians commanded by Nero.\n\nOn the 19th of July, in the year 64, a violent fire burst out at Rome.\nIt originated in that portion of the great Circus near to the Palatine\nand C[oe]lian Hills. In this quarter there were many little shops,\nfilled with inflammable matter, in which the flames spread with\nprodigious rapidity. Thence it made the turn of the Palatine, ravaged\nthe Velabra, the Forum, the Carin\u00e6, ascended the hills, greatly injured\nthe Palatine, descended again to the valleys, devouring compact\nquarters, and piercing tortuous streets, continuing six days and seven\nnights. An enormous pile of houses which were torn down near the foot of\nthe Esquiline, arrested its progress for a time; then it again broke\nout, and endured three days more. A considerable number of people\nperished. Of the fourteen portions which composed the city, three were\nentirely destroyed; of seven, only blackened walls remained. Rome was an\nextremely compact city, and the population very dense. This disaster was\nfrightful, and the like of it had never before been seen.\n\nWhen the fire broke out, Nero was at Antium. He returned to the city\nabout the time when it approached his \"transitory\" house. It was not\npossible to arrest the flames. The imperial houses of the Palatine, the\n\"transitory\" house itself with its dependencies, and the whole\nsurrounding quarter, were destroyed. Nero did not seem much to regret\nthe loss of his house. The sublime horror of the spectacle transported\nhim. Later it was said that he had watched the fire from a tower, where,\nin a theatrical costume, with a lyre in his hand, he chanted the ruin of\nIlion to the rhythm of an ancient elegy.\n\nThis was a legend, the fruit of a period of successive exaggerations;\nbut one point upon which the universal opinion was decisive from the\nfirst was, that Nero had commanded this fire, or at least had revived it\nwhen it seemed about to die out.\n\nThese suspicions were confirmed by the fact, that, after the fire, Nero,\nunder pretext of removing the ruins at his own cost, in order to leave\nthe place free to the proprietors, undertook to clear away the _d\u00e9bris_;\nand the people were not allowed to approach. This seemed worse when it\nwas seen that he drew from the ruins what belonged to the country, when\nthe new palace, that \"golden house\" which had been the plaything of his\ndelirious imagination, was seen rising upon the site of the ancient\nprovisory residence, enlarged by the spaces which the fire had cleared.\n\nIt was believed that he had desired to prepare the place for his new\npalace, to justify the reconstruction which he had long contemplated, to\nprocure money by appropriating the wreck of the fire, in short, to\nsatisfy his mad vanity, which led him to desire to rebuild the whole of\nRome, so that it might date from him, and be called Neropolis.\n\nAll the honest men of the city were outraged. The most precious\nantiquities of Rome, the houses of the ancient leaders, decorated with\ntriumphal spoils, the most holy objects, the trophies, the ancient\n_ex-votos_, the most revered temples, all the belongings of the old\nworship of the Romans, had disappeared. It was as if they mourned the\nsouvenirs and the traditions of the whole country. They celebrated\nexpiatory services; they consulted the books of the Sibyl: the ladies\nespecially observed various _piacula_. But the secret consciousness of a\ncrime and infamy still remained.\n\nThen an infernal idea took possession of the mind of Nero. He cast about\nto see if he could find anywhere some miserable wretches, still more\ndetested by the Roman plebeians than himself, upon whom he could rest\nthe odium of the incendiarism. He thought of the Christians. The horror\nwhich they testified towards the temples and the most venerated edifices\nof the Romans made the idea plausible, that they should have been the\nauthors of this fire, the result of which was the destruction of these\nsanctuaries. Their air of sadness in regarding the monuments appeared\nlike an injury to the nation. Rome was a very religious city, and\nwhoever protested against the national worship was at once remarked. It\nshould be remembered that certain rigorous Jews went so far as to refuse\nto touch money which bore an effigy: they even saw a great crime in\nbearing or looking at an image, unless engaged in the occupation of\ncarving. Others refused to pass beneath a city gate surmounted by a\nstatue. All this excited the ridicule and ill-will of the people.\nPerhaps the idea that the Christians were incendiaries gained force from\ntheir manner of talking about the final conflagration, their sinister\nprophecies, their love of reiterating that the world would soon be\nended, and ended by fire. It is even admissible that some of the\nfaithful might have committed imprudences, and that there were pretexts\nfor accusing them of having wished, by anticipating the celestial\nflames, to justify their oracles, at any price. Four and a half years\nlater the Apocalypse was to present a chant upon the burning of Rome,\nfor which the event of 64 probably furnished more than one feature. The\ndestruction of Rome by fire had been a Christian and Jewish dream; and\nit was not merely a dream: the pious sectaries were pleased to see in\nspirit the saints and angels applauding from the heights of heaven what\nthey regarded as a just expiation.\n\nA certain number of persons suspected of belonging to the new sect were\narrested, and thrown into prison, which was of itself a punishment. The\nfirst arrests were followed by many others. The people were surprised at\nthe multitude of converts who had accepted these gloomy doctrines: it\nwas only spoken of with alarm. All sensible men considered the\naccusation of having caused the fire as extremely weak. \"Their true\ncrime,\" said they, \"is hatred of the human race.\" Although persuaded\nthat the burning was the crime of Nero, many serious Romans saw in this\nwork of the police a mode of delivering the city from a dreadful\nnuisance. Tacitus, in spite of his pity, was of this opinion. And\nSuetonius counted the sufferings which Nero heaped upon the partisans of\nthe new and mischievous superstitions as among his laudable measures.\n\nThese sufferings were something frightful. Such refinements of cruelty\nhad never been seen. Almost all those arrested were of the _humiliores_\n(the poorest classes). The sentence of these unfortunates, when it\nconcerned high treason or sacrilege, was to be thrown to the beasts, or\nto be burned alive in the amphitheatre. One of the most hideous traits\nof Roman manners was that of making a _f\u00eate_, a public amusement, of\nthese tortures. The amphitheatres had become places of execution: the\ntribunals furnished the victims. The condemned of the entire world were\nforwarded to Rome for the provisionment of the circus and the amusement\nof the people. At this time derision was added to the barbarism of these\ntortures. The victims were kept for a feast day, to which was given,\nwithout doubt, an expiatory character. \"The morning spectacle,\"\nconsecrated to the combats of animals, presented an appearance hitherto\nunknown. The condemned, covered with the tawny skins of beasts, were\nhurried into the arena, where they were torn by dogs. Some were\ncrucified: others, reclothed with tunics steeped in oil, wax, or resin,\nwere bound to posts, and reserved to light up the evening _f\u00eates_. When\nthe day lowered, these living torches were ignited. For this spectacle,\nNero offered his magnificent gardens beyond the Tiber, which occupied\nthe site of the present Borgo, the Square, and the Church of St. Peter.\nNear by was a circus commenced by Caligula, in which the middle of the\n_Spina_ was marked by an obelisk brought from Heliopolis (the same one\nwhich in our day stands in the centre of the Square of St. Peter). This\nplace had already been the scene of massacres by the light of torches.\nCaligula, in one of his walks, decapitated a certain number of consular\npersonages, senators, and Roman ladies, by the light of torches. The\nidea of replacing lanterns by human bodies impregnated with inflammable\nsubstances had occurred to the ingenious Nero. Burning alive was not a\nnew mode of suffering; it was the ordinary penance of incendiaries: but\nit had never been made a system of illumination. By the light of these\nhideous torches, Nero, who had established the custom of evening\nentertainments, showed himself in the arena, sometimes mingling with the\npeople in the dress of a charioteer, sometimes conducting his chariot\nand seeking applause. Women and young girls were involved in these\nhorrible games: a _f\u00eate_ was made of the nameless indignities which they\nsuffered. Under Nero, the custom was established of compelling the\ncondemned to play in the amphitheatre some mythological part entailing\nthe death of the actor. These hideous operas, where mechanical science\nattained to prodigious effects, were very popular. The miserable wretch\nwas introduced into the arena, richly costumed as god or hero devoted to\ndeath. He then represented by his suffering some tragic scene of the\nfables consecrated by sculptors and poets. Sometimes it was the furious\nHercules burned on Mount [OE]ta, tearing the waxed tunic from his skin;\nsometimes Orpheus torn in pieces by a bear; D\u00e6dalus thrown from heaven,\nand devoured by beasts; Pasiph\u00e6 struggling in the embraces of the bull;\nAttys murdered. Sometimes there were horrible masquerades, in which the\nmen were dressed like priests of Saturn with a red cloak, the women as\npriestesses of Ceres with fillets on the brow; finally, at other times,\nsome dramatic work of the time, in which the hero was really condemned\nto death as Laureolus; or the representations were those of such tragic\nacts as that of Mucius Sc\u00e6vola. At the end of these hideous spectacles,\nMercury, with a red-hot iron wand, touched each corpse to see if it\nmoved. Some masked valets, dressed like Pluto or Orcus, dragged away the\ndead by the feet, killing with hammers all who still breathed. The\nChristian ladies of the highest respectability even suffered these\nmonstrosities. Some played the _r\u00f4le_ of the Dana\u00efdes, others that of\nDirce. It is difficult to say what fable furnishes a more bloody picture\nthan that of the Dana\u00efdes. The suffering which all mythological\ntradition attributes to these guilty women was not cruel enough to\nsuffice for the pleasure of Nero and the _habitu\u00e9s_ of his amphitheatre.\nSometimes they were led out bearing urns, and received the fatal blow\nfrom an actor figuring as Lynceus. Sometimes these unhappy beings went\nthrough the series of the sufferings of Tartarus before the spectators,\nand only died after hours of torments. The representations of Hell were\nquite _\u00e0 la mode_. Some years previous (the year 41), some Egyptians and\nNubians came to Rome, and made a great success in giving evening\nperformances, in which they displayed in order the horrors of the\nsubterranean world, conforming to the paintings of the burial-places of\nThebes, notably those of the tomb of Seti I.\n\nAs for the sufferings of the Dirces, there was no doubt about them.\nPeople know the colossal group now in the Museum of Naples, called the\n_Toro Farnese_,--Amphion and Zethus attaching Dirce to the horns of an\nunmanageable bull, which is to drag her over the rocks and briers of\nCith\u00e6ron. This mediocre Rhodian marble, brought to Rome in the time of\nAugustus, was the object of universal admiration. How could there be a\nfiner subject for the hideous art which the cruelty of the time had made\nin vogue, and which consisted in reproducing the celebrated statues in\nliving tableaux? An inscription and a fresco of Pompeii seem to prove\nthat this terrible scene was frequently repeated in the arenas, when a\nwoman was the sufferer. Naked, attached by the hair to the horns of a\nfurious bull, these poor wretches glutted the eyes of a ferocious\npeople. Some of the Christians immolated in this way were feeble in\nbody: their courage was superhuman. But the infamous crowd had eyes\nalone for their torn bowels and lacerated bosoms.\n\nAfter the day when Jesus expired in Golgotha, the _f\u00eate_ day in the\nGardens of Nero (it may be fixed about the first of August, 64) was the\nmost solemn in the history of Christianity. The solidity of any\nconstruction is in proportion to the sum of virtue, of sacrifices, and\nof devotion which has been laid down at its base. Only fanatics lay\nfoundations. Judaism endures still on account of the intense frenzy of\nits zealots; Christianity, on account of its first witnesses. The orgy\nof Nero was the grand baptism of blood which set Rome apart as the city\nof martyrs in order to play a distinct _r\u00f4le_ in the history of\nChristianity and to be the second Holy City. It was the taking\npossession of the Vatican Hill by conquerors hitherto unknown there. The\nodious, hair-brained man who governed the world did not perceive that he\nwas the founder of a new order, and that he signed a charter for the\nfuture, the effects of which would be claimed after eighteen hundred\nyears.\n\n\nIV.\n\nAs we have said, it is allowable, without improbability, to connect the\ndeaths of the apostles Peter and Paul with the account which we have\njust given. The only historical incident known, by which the martyrdom\nof Peter can be explained, is the episode recounted by Tacitus. Some\nsolid reasons also lead us to believe that Paul suffered the death of a\nmartyr at Rome. It is then natural to suppose that he also died in the\nmassacre of July and August, 64. As to the manner of death of the two\napostles, we know with certainty that Peter was crucified. According to\nsome ancient writings, his wife was executed with him, and he saw her\nled to the sacrifice. One accepted account of the third century says,\nthat, too humble to equal Jesus, he suffered with his head down. The\ncharacteristic trait of the butchery of 64 having been the search for\nodious rarities in torture, it is possible that in truth Peter was shown\nto the crowd in this hideous attitude. Seneca mentions some cases in\nwhich tyrants have been known to turn the heads of the crucified towards\nthe earth. Christian piety has seen a mystical refinement in that which\nwas indeed an odd caprice of the executioner. Perhaps this extract from\nthe Fourth Gospel--\"Thou shalt stretch forth thy hands, and another\nshall gird thee, and carry thee whither thou wouldest not\"--includes\nsome allusion to a peculiarity in the suffering of Peter. Paul, in his\nquality of _honestior_, had his head cut off. It is also probable that\nhe was judged regularly, and that he was not included in the summary\ncondemnations of the victims in the _f\u00eate_ of Nero. All that, I repeat,\nis doubtful, and of little importance. True or not, the legend is\nbelieved. At the commencement of the third century, near Rome, there\nwere already seen two monuments bearing the names of Peter and Paul. One\nwas situated at the foot of the Vatican Hill, that of St. Peter: the\nother, in the way to Ostia, was that of St. Paul. They were called in\noratorial style the trophies of the apostles. In the fourth century two\nbasilicas were raised above these trophies. One of them is the present\nbasilica of St. Peter: the other, St. Paul-without-the-Walls, has\nretained its essential features until our own century.\n\nDid the trophies which the Christians venerated about the year 200\ndesignate the spots upon which these apostles suffered? It is possible.\nIt is not unlikely that Paul, toward the end of his life, dwelt in the\nsuburb which extended beyond the Lavernal gate as far as the pine of the\nSalvian springs in the way to Ostia. The shade of Peter, on the other\nhand, wanders always, according to the Christian legend, towards the\nturpentine-tree of the Vatican, not far from the gardens of the Circus\nof Nero, and especially about the obelisk. It may be that the ancient\nplace of the obelisk in the sacristy of St. Peter, now indicated by an\ninscription, is nearer to the place where St. Peter upon the cross of\nhis frightful agony surfeited the eyes of a populace greedy to see him\nsuffer. However, that is a secondary question. If the basilica of the\nVatican does not really cover the tomb of St. Peter, it points out not\nthe less for our remembrance one of the spots most truly hallowed by\nChristianity. The place which the seventeenth century surrounded with a\ntheatrical colonnade was a second Calvary; and, even supposing that\nPeter was not crucified there, at least we cannot doubt the sufferings\nof the Dana\u00efdes and the Dirces.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nWe shall show in our next assembly how tradition disposes of all these\ndoubts, and how the Church consummates reconciliation between Peter and\nPaul, which death perhaps began. This was the price of success. The\nJud\u00e6an-Christianity of Peter and the Hellenism of Paul, apparently\nirreconcilable, were equally necessary to the success of the future\nwork. The Jud\u00e6an-Christianity represented the conservative spirit\nwithout which nothing is solid; Hellenism, advance and progress, without\nwhich nothing truly exists. Life is the result of a conflict between two\ncontrary forces. The absence of all revolutionary spirit is as fatal as\nthe excess of revolution.\n\n\n\n\n  THIRD CONFERENCE,\n\n  London, April 13, 1880.\n\n  ROME,\n  THE CENTRE OF THE FORMATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL\n  AUTHORITY.\n\n\n\n\nTHIRD CONFERENCE.\n\nROME THE CENTRE OF THE FORMATION OF ECCLESIASTICAL AUTHORITY.\n\n\nI.\n\nAlmost always the nations created to play a part in universal\ncivilization, like Jud\u00e6a, Greece, and the Italy of the renaissance,\nexercise their full action upon the world, only after becoming victims\nto their own grandeur. They must first die; then the world lives on\nthem, assimilates to itself that which they have created at the price of\ntheir fever and their sufferings. Nations ought to choose in fact\nbetween the long, tranquil, obscure destiny of that which lives for\nitself, and the troubled, stormy career of that which lives for\nhumanity. The nation which works out social and religious problems in\nits own bosom is almost always weak politically. Every country which\ndreams of a kingdom of God, which lives for general ideas, which pursues\na work of universal interest, sacrifices through the same its individual\ndestiny, enfeebles and destroys its _r\u00f4le_ as a terrestrial country.\nOne can never set himself on fire with impunity. Since Jud\u00e6a made the\nreligious conquest of the world, it was necessary that she should\ndisappear as a nation. A revolution of extreme violence broke out in\nthis country in the year 66. During four years, this strange race, which\nseemed created to defy equally that which blessed and that which cursed\nit, was in a convulsion before which the historian should pause with\nrespect as he would before all mystery.\n\nThe causes of this crisis were very old, and the crisis itself was\ninevitable. The Mosaic law, a work of exalted Utopians possessed of a\npowerful socialist ideal,--the least politic of men,--was, like the\nIslam, exclusive of a civil society parallel with a religious society.\nThis law, which appears to have been drawn up, as we now read it, in the\nseventh century before Jesus Christ, would have been the means of\ndestroying the little kingdom of the descendants of David, even without\nthe Assyrian conquest. Since the preponderance assumed by the prophetic\nelement, the kingdom of Judah--embroiled with all its neighbors, seized\nwith a permanent rage against Tyre, hating Edom, Moab, and Ammon--could\nno longer survive. I repeat, a nation which devotes itself to social and\nreligious problems neglects its politics. The day in which Israel became\n\"a peculiar people of God, a kingdom of priests, a holy nation,\" it was\nwritten that she should no longer be a nation as other nations.\nContrary destinies cannot be united: an exaltation is always expiated by\nan abasement.\n\nThe Achemenidean kingdom gave Israel little repose. This grand\nfeudality, tolerant towards all provincial differences, almost analogous\nto the Califat of Bagdad and to the Ottoman Empire, was the rule under\nwhich the Jews found themselves most at ease. The Ptolemaic rule in the\nthird century before Jesus Christ seemed equally sympathetic to them:\nthere were even no Seleucid\u00e6. Antioch had become an active centre of\nHellenic propagandism. Antiochus Epiphanus felt it necessary to set up\neverywhere the image of Jupiter Olympus as the sign of his power. Then\nbroke out the first great Jewish revolt against profane civilization.\nIsrael had patiently supported the disappearance of its political\nexistence since Nebuchadnezzar. It retained no measure in which it saw a\ndanger to its religious institutions. A race, in general not military,\nwas seized with an access of heroism; without a regular army, without\ngenerals, without tactics, it conquered the Seleucid\u00e6, maintained its\nrevealed rights, and created a second period of autonomy. The Asmonean\nroyalty, nevertheless, was always distracted by profound interior vices.\nIt endured but one century. The destiny of the Jewish people was not to\nconstitute a separate nationality. That people dreamed always of\nsomething international. Its ideal was not the city, it was the\nsynagogue, the free congregation. The same is true of the Islam, which\nhas created an immense empire, but has destroyed all nationality, in the\nsense in which we understand it, among the peoples which it has\nsubjugated, and leaves them no other country than the mosque and the\n_Zaouia_.\n\nThe name of theocracy is often applied to such a social condition, and\nrightly so, if we mean by it that the profound idea of the Semitic\nreligions, and of the empires which came out from them, is the kingdom\nof God considered as the master of the world, and universal suzerain.\nBut theocracy with these nations was not synonymous with the domination\nof priests. The priest, properly speaking, plays an unimportant _r\u00f4le_\nin the history of Judaism and Islamism. The power belongs to the\nrepresentative of God,--to him whom God inspires, to the prophet, to the\nholy man, to him who has received his mission from Heaven, and who\nproves his mission by a miracle, that is to say, by success. In default\nof a prophet, the power belongs to the author of apocalypses, and of\napocryphal books attributed to the ancient prophets, or, better, to the\ndoctor who interprets the divine law, to the head of the synagogue, and,\nstill more, to the head of the family who guards the depository of the\nlaw, and transmits it to his children. A civil power, a royalty, has\nlittle to do with such social organization. This organization never\nworks better than among spread-out peoples, under the rights of\ntolerated foreigners, in a grand empire where uniformity does not rule.\nIt is the nature of Judaism to be politically subordinate, since it\ncannot draw from its own bosom a principle of military power. Its\n_animus_ has been to form communities with their own laws and their own\nmagistrates in the midst of other states, until modern liberalism\nintroduced the principle of the equality of all before the law.\n\nThe Roman rule, established in Jud\u00e6a sixty-three years before Christ by\nthe armies of Pompey, seemed at first to realize some of the conditions\nof Jewish life. Rome at this epoch did not pursue the policy of\nassimilating the countries which she annexed to her vast empire. She\nrobbed them of the right of peace and war, and arrogated to herself only\nthe arbitration in great political questions.\n\nUnder the degenerated remains of the Asmonean dynasty and under the\nHerods, the Jewish nation preserved a half independence, in which its\nreligious state was respected. But the interior feeling of the people\nwas too strong. Beyond a certain degree of religious fanaticism, man is\nungovernable. It should be said that Rome strove without ceasing to\nrender her power in the East more effective. The little vassal kingdoms\nwhich she had at first preserved, disappeared day by day, and the\nprovinces made returns to the empire pure and simple. The administrative\ncustoms of the Romans, even in their most reasonable aspects, were\nodious to the Jews. In general, the Romans showed the greatest\ncondescension to the fastidious scruples of the nation; but that was not\nsufficient: things had come to a point where nothing could be done\nwithout touching upon a canonical question. These absolute religions,\nlike Islamism and Judaism, allow no participation: if they do not reign,\nthey call themselves persecuted. If they feel themselves protected, they\nbecome exacting, and seek to render life impossible to other worships\nabout them.\n\nI should depart from my plan if I recounted to you that strange struggle\nof which Josephus tells us,--the terror in Jerusalem, Simon Bar-Gioras,\ncommandant in the city, John of Giscala with his assassins, master of\nthe temple. Fanatical movements are far from excluding hate, jealousy,\nand defiance, from those who take part in them. Very decided and\npassionate men associated together ordinarily suspect each other, and in\nthis there is a force; for reciprocal suspicion establishes terror among\nthem, binds them as with an iron chain, hinders defections and moments\nof weakness. Interest creates the _coterie_. Absolute principles create\ndivision, and inspire the temptation to decimate, to expel, to kill\nenemies. Those who judge human affairs superficially believe that a\nrevolution is quelled when the revolutionists \"eat one another,\" as it\nis expressed. It is, on the contrary, a proof that the revolution has\nall its energy, that an impersonal ardor presides over it. This is\nnowhere more clearly seen than in the terrible drama at Jerusalem. The\nactors seem to have entered into the compact of death like some infernal\nrounds, in which, according to the belief of the middle ages, Satan was\nseen forming a chain to draw into a fantastic gulf numbers of men,\ndancing, and holding each other by the hand. So revolution allows no one\nto escape from the dance which it leads. Terror is behind the lukewarm.\nTurn by turn, exalting some, and exalted by others, they rush into the\nabyss. None can recede; for behind each one is a concealed sword, which,\nat the moment that he wishes to draw back, forces him to advance.\n\nThe strangest thing of all is that these madmen were not wholly wrong.\nThe fanatics of Jerusalem, who affirmed that Jerusalem was eternal even\nwhile it was burning, were nearer the truth than those who regarded them\nas mere assassins. They deceived themselves upon the military question,\nbut not upon the distant religious result. These troubled days point\nout, in fact, the moment when Jerusalem became the spiritual capital of\nthe world. The Apocalypse, a burning expression of the love which she\ninspired, has taken its place among the religious writings of humanity,\nand has there consecrated the image of the beloved city. Ah, how\nimportant it is never to predict the future of a saint or a villain, a\nfool or a sage! Jerusalem, a city of common people, would have pursued\nindefinitely its uninteresting history. It is because it had the\nincomparable honor of being the cradle of Christianity, that it was the\nvictim of the Johns of Giscala, of the Bar-Gioras,--in appearance the\nscourges of their country, in reality the instruments of its apotheosis.\nThese zealots, whom Josephus treats as brigands and assassins, were\npoliticians of the highest order, but unskilful soldiers: still they\nlost heroically a country which could not be saved. They lost a material\ncity: they established the spiritual reign of Jerusalem, sitting in her\ndesolation far more glorious than she was in the days of Herod and of\nSolomon. What did these conservatives, these Sadducees, really desire?\nThey wished something mean,--the continuation of a city of priests like\nEmesa, Tyane, Comane. Assuredly they did not deceive themselves when\nthey declared that the surging enthusiasm was the ruin of the nation.\nRevolution and Messianism destroyed the national existence of the Jewish\npeople; but revolution and Messianism were the true vocation of this\npeople,--that by which they contributed to the universal civilization.\n\n\nII.\n\nThe victory of Rome was complete. A captain of our race, of our blood, a\nman like us, at the head of legions in whose roll, if we could read it,\nwe should meet many of our ancestors, had come to crush the fortress of\nSemitism, to inflict upon the revealed, accepted law the greatest injury\nwhich it had received. It was the triumph of Roman right, or rather\nrational right, a creation utterly philosophical, presupposing no\nrevelation, above the Jewish Thora, the fruit of a revelation. This\nright, whose roots were partly Greek, but in which the practical genius\nof the Latins made so fine a part, was the excellent gift which Rome\nbrought to the vanquished in return for their independence. Each victory\nfor Rome was a victory for right. Rome bore into the world a better\nprinciple in several respects than that of the Jews: I mean the profane\nstate, reposing on a purely civil conception of society.\n\nThe triumph of Titus was then legitimate in many ways, and still there\nnever was a more useless triumph. The deplorable religious nothingness\nof Rome rendered its victory unfruitful. This victory did not retard the\nprogress of Judaism a single day: it did not give the religion of the\nempire an added chance to struggle against this redoubtable rival. The\nnational existence of the Jewish people was lost forever; but that was a\nblessing. The true glory of Judaism was Christianity, about to be born.\nThe ruin of Jerusalem and the temple was an unequalled good for\nChristianity.\n\nIf the reasoning of Titus according to Tacitus is correctly reported,\nthe victorious general believed that the destruction of the temple would\nbe the ruin of Christianity as well as that of Judaism. No one was ever\nmore completely deceived. The Romans imagined, that, in tearing up the\nroot, they should eradicate the shoot at the same time; but the shoot\nwas already a shrub that lived its own life. If the temple had survived,\nChristianity would certainly have been arrested in its development. The\nsurviving temple would have continued to be the centre of all Judaic\nworks. It would always have been regarded as the most holy place of the\nworld: pilgrims would have come there, and would there have brought\ntheir tributes. The Church of Jerusalem, grouped around by consecrated\nparvises, would have continued, by the strength of its primacy, to\nreceive the homage of all the world, to persecute the Christians of the\nChurch of Paul, to exact, that, in order to have the right to call one's\nself the disciple of Jesus, one should practise the circumcision, and\nobserve the Mosaic code. All effectual propagandism would have been\ninterdicted: letters of obedience signed at Jerusalem would have been\nexacted from the missionary. A centre of irrefragable authority, a\npatriarchate composed of a sort of college of cardinals under the\npresidency of men like James, pure Jews belonging to the family of\nJesus, would have been established, and would have constituted an\nimmense danger for the new-born Church. When one sees St. Paul after so\nmany mishaps remaining always attached to the Church of Jerusalem, one\nunderstands what difficulties a rupture with these holy personages would\nhave presented. Such a schism would have been considered as an enormity.\nThe separation from Judaism would have been impossible; and this\nseparation was the indispensable condition of the existence of the new\nreligion. The mother was about to kill the child. The temple, on the\ncontrary, once destroyed, the Christians thought no more of it: very\nsoon, indeed, they will consider it a profane place: Jesus will be every\nthing to them. The Christian Church of Jerusalem was by the same stroke\nreduced to a secondary importance. It was re-organized around the\nelement which made its force, the _desposyni_, the members of the family\nof Jesus, the sons of Clopas; but it will reign no more. This centre of\nhate and exclusion once destroyed, the reconciliation of the opposing\nparties in the Church of Jesus will become easy. Peter and Paul will be\nbrought into accord, and the terrible duality of the new-born\nChristianity will cease to be a mortal sore. Lost in the depth of the\ninterior of the Batan\u00e6a and the Hauran, the little group which attached\nitself to James and Clopas becomes the Ebionite sect, and slowly dies.\n\nThese relatives of Jesus were pious, tranquil, mild, modest,\nhard-working men, faithful to the severest precepts of Jesus concerning\npoverty, but at the same time very exact Jews, considering the title of\n\"Child of Israel\" before every other advantage. From the year 70 to\nabout the year 110, they really governed the churches beyond the Jordan,\nand formed a sort of Christian senate. There is no need to demonstrate\nthe immense danger which these pre-occupations, with genealogies, were\nto the new-born Christianity. A sort of nobility of Christianity was\nabout to be formed. In the political order the nobility is almost a\nnecessity to the state. Politics having elements of gross struggles\nwhich render it more material than ideal, a state is very strong only\nwhen a certain number of families has, by tradition and privilege, the\nduty and interest of guarding its welfare, representing and defending\nit. But, in the order of the ideal government, birth is nothing: each\none is valued in proportion to the truth he shows, and the good he does.\nThe institutions which have a religious, literary, moral end, are lost,\nwhen considerations of family, caste, heredity, prevail in them. The\nnephews and cousins of Jesus would have ruined Christianity, if the\nchurches of Paul had not already been strong enough to act as a\ncounterpoise to this aristocracy, the tendency of which would have been\nto proclaim itself alone respectable, and to treat all converts as\nintruders. Some pretensions analogous to those of the Alides in Islam\nwere established. Islamism would certainly have perished under the\nembarrassment caused by the family of the prophet, if the result of the\nstruggles of the first century of the Hegira had not been to reject,\nupon second thought, all those who were too near the person of the\nprophet. The true heirs of a great man are those who continue his work,\nand not his relatives by blood. Considering the tradition of Jesus as\nhis own possession, the little _coterie_ of the Nazarenes, as they are\ncalled, would certainly have stifled it. Happily this narrow circle\ndisappeared in good season: the relatives of Jesus were soon forgotten\nin the interior of the Hauran. They lost all importance, and left Jesus\nto his true family, the only one which he has recognized,--those of whom\nhe said, \"They hear the word of God, and keep it.\"\n\n\nIII.\n\nAccording as the Church of Jerusalem sank, the Church of Rome rose, or,\nrather, a phenomenon was evidently manifested in the years which\nfollowed the victory of Titus. It was that the Church of Rome became\nmore and more the inheritor and the substitute of the Church of\nJerusalem. The spirit of the two churches was the same: what was a\ndanger at Jerusalem became an advantage at Rome. The taste for tradition\nand the hierarchy, and the respect for authority, were in some sort\ntransplanted from the parvises of the temple to the Occident. James, the\nbrother of the Lord, had been a sort of pope at Jerusalem. Rome is about\nto take up the part of James. We shall have the pope at Rome. Without\nTitus, we should have had the pope in Jerusalem, but with this great\ndifference, that the pope at Jerusalem would have extinguished\nChristianity in about one or two hundred years, while the Pope of Rome\nhas made it the religion of the universe.\n\nHere appears a very important person, who seems to have been the head of\nthe Roman Church in the early years of the first century, concerning\nwhom I am happy to find myself in accord with one of your most scholarly\nand enlightened critics, Mr. Lightfoot. I speak of Clement Romanus. In\nthe penumbra in which he remains, enveloped and almost lost in the\nluminous dust of a beautiful far-off history, Clement is one of the\ngrand figures of early Christianity: one would say that it was the head\nof an old effaced fresco of Giotto's, recognizable still from his golden\naureola, and some dim features of striking purity and sweetness. One\nthing is beyond doubt: it is the high rank which he held in the utterly\nspiritual hierarchy of the church of his time, and the unequalled credit\nwith which he sustained it. His approval made the law. All parties clung\nto him, and wished to shield themselves under his authority. It is\nprobable that he was one of the most energetic agents of the grand work\nthat was about to be accomplished: I mean the posthumous reconciliation\nof Peter and Paul, without which union the work of Christ could only\nhave perished. His high personality, aggrandized by tradition, was,\nafter that of Peter, the most holy figure of the primitive Christian\nRome.\n\nAlready the idea of a certain primacy in the Church of Rome began to\nshow itself. The right of advising the other churches and of settling\ntheir differences was accorded to this church. It is believed that like\nprivileges had been allowed to Peter among the disciples. Now a still\ncloser bond was established between Peter and Rome. In the time of\nClement, great dissensions divided the Church at Corinth. The Roman\nChurch, being applied to in these troubles, replied by an epistle,\nwhich has been preserved to us. The epistle is anonymous; but a very\nancient tradition teaches that Clement was the author of it. The Church\nat Corinth had changed but little since St. Paul. It had the same proud,\ndisputant, feeble spirit. It is evident that the principal opposition to\nthe hierarchy was found in this Greek spirit, always mobile, because it\nwas always full of life, undisciplined (and for my part I like it), not\nknowing how to form a flock from a crowd. The women and the children\nwere in full revolt. Some superior doctors imagined that they possessed\na profound sense in every thing, and mystic secrets analogous to the\ngift of tongues and the discernment of spirits. Those who were honored\nwith these supernatural gifts scorned the ancients, and aspired to\nreplace them. Corinth had a respectable presbytery, which, however, did\nnot receive the highest mysticism. The advanced pretenders cast it in\nthe shade, and put themselves in its place. Some of the _presbyteri_\nwere even dismissed. The struggle between the established hierarchy and\npersonal revelations began, and this struggle fills the history of the\nChurch; the privileged soul complaining, that, in spite of the favors\nwith which it is honored, a gross clergy, wanting in spiritual life,\ndominates it officially. We see that this was the heresy of individual\nmysticism, maintaining the rights of the spirit against authority,\npretending to rise above common mortals and the ordinary clergy by right\nof its direct intercourse with divinity.\n\nThe Roman Church was always the church of order, of subordination, and\nof rule. Its fundamental principle was that humility and submission were\nof more value than the most sublime gifts. Its epistle is the first\nmanifestation in the Christian Church of the principle of authority.\n\nA few years since, there was much surprise when a French archbishop,\nthen a senator, said in the Tribune, \"My clergy is my regiment.\" Clement\nhad said this before him. Order and obedience were the supreme laws of\nthe family and the church. \"Let us consider the soldiers who serve under\nour sovereigns. With what order, what punctuality, what submission, they\nobey their commands: all are not prefects, nor tribunes, nor centurions;\nbut each one in his rank executes the orders of the emperor and of his\nchiefs. The great cannot exist without the small, nor the small without\nthe great. In every thing there is a mingling of diverse elements, and\nby this mingling all advances. Let us take, for example, our bodies. The\nhead is nothing without the feet; the feet are nothing without the head.\nThe smallest of our organs are necessary, and serve the whole body: all\nconspire, and obey the same principle of subordination for the\npreservation of the whole.\"\n\nThe history of the ecclesiastical hierarchy is the history of a triple\nabdication; the community of the faithful first placing all its powers\nin the hands of the ancients, or _presbyteri_; the presbyteral body at\nlength delegating its authority to one person who was the _episcopos_;\nthen the _episcopi_ of the Latin Church recognized as their head one of\nthemselves, who became the pope. This last progress, if we may call it\nso, was not accomplished until our time. The creation of the episcopate,\non the contrary, was the work of the second century. The absorption of\nthe church by the _presbyteri_ was accomplished before the year 100. In\nthe Epistle of Clement Romanus it is not yet with the episcopate, but\nwith the presbytery, that he deals. We find there no trace of a\n_presbyteros_ superior to the others, and entitled to dethrone them; but\nthe author proclaims positively that the presbytery and the clergy are\nabove the people. The apostles, in establishing churches, chose through\nthe inspiration of the Spirit the \"bishops and the deacons of the future\nbelievers.\" The power emanating from the apostles has been transmitted\nby regular succession. No church has then the right to dethrone its\nseniors. The privilege of the rich is nothing in the church.\nAccordingly, those who are favored with mystic gifts, instead of\nbelieving themselves above the hierarchy, should be the more submissive.\nThis involves the great problem, \"Who exists in the church? Is it the\npeople? Is it the clergy? Is it inspiration?\" This problem was already\ngiven in the time of St. Paul, who resolved it in the true manner by\nmutual charity. One epistle trenches upon the question in the sense of\npure Catholicism. The apostolic title is every thing: the right of the\npeople is reduced to nothing. We may then safely assert that Catholicism\nhad its origin at Rome, since the Church of Rome laid down its first\nrules. Prescience pertains to spiritual gifts, to science and\ndistinction: it belongs to the hierarchy, to the powers transmitted\nthrough the medium of the canonical ordination, which attaches itself to\nthe apostles by an unbroken chain. The free church as Christ conceived\nit, and as St. Paul also regarded it, was a Utopia which held nothing\nfor the future. Evangelical liberty had destroyed it; and it was not\nrealized, that, with the hierarchy uniformity and death would come in\ntime.\n\n\nIV.\n\nClement had probably not seen either Peter or Paul. His great practical\nsense showed him that the salvation of the Christian Church demanded the\nreconciliation of the two founders. Did he influence the author of the\nActs which represent to us this reconciliation as accomplished, and with\nwhom he seems to have had some intercourse, or did these two pious souls\nspontaneously fall into accord on account of the bias which he had given\nto Christian opinion? We are ignorant for want of proofs. One thing is\nsure, the reconciliation of Peter and Paul was a Roman work. Rome had\ntwo churches,--one coming from Peter, the other from Paul. Those\nnumerous converts who came to Jesus--some through the school of Peter,\nand some through that of Paul--were tempted to exclaim, \"What! Are\nthere, then, two Christs?\" It was necessary to be able to reply, \"No:\nPeter and Paul understand each other perfectly: the Christianity of one\nis the Christianity of the other.\" Perhaps (this is an ingenious\nhypothesis of M. Strauss) a light cloud was introduced for this purpose\ninto the evangelical legend of the miraculous fishing. According to the\nrecital of Luke, the nets of Peter would not contain the multitudes of\nfish which could easily have been taken; Peter was obliged to make a\nsign to his co-workers to come to his aid. A second bark (Paul and his\nfriends) was filled as the first, and the fishing of the kingdom of God\nwas superabundant.\n\nThe life of the apostles begins to become obscure. All those who have\nseen them have disappeared: most of them left no writings. One had\nentire liberty to embroider on this virgin canvas still. Friends and\nenemies profited by the unknown to set up arguments in support of their\ntheses, and to satisfy their hates. Towards the year 130, that is to say\nabout sixty-six years after the death of the apostles, a vast Ebionite\nlegend was produced at Rome, and designated by the title of the\npreaching, or the travels, of Peter. The missions of the chief of the\napostles were recounted there, principally those along the coast of\nPh[oe]nicia; the conversions which he had made; above all, his struggles\nagainst the great anti-Christ, Simon the Magician, who was at this epoch\nthe spectre of the Christian conscience. But frequently under this\nabhorred name another person was concealed: it was the false apostle\nPaul, the enemy of the law, the veritable destroyer of the Church. The\ntrue Church was that at Jerusalem, presided over by James, the brother\nof the Lord. No apostolate was of any value, if it could not show\nletters emanating from this central college. Paul had none: therefore he\nwas an intruder. He was the \"man enemy,\" who came behind to sow the\ntares in the steps of the true sower. With what fury Peter gave the\ndenial to his impostures, to his false allegations of personal\nrevelations, his ascension to the third heaven, his, pretension of\nknowing about Jesus some things which the hearers of the gospel had not\nunderstood, the exaggerated manner in which he and his disciples\ninterpreted the divinity of Jesus!\n\nThese strange ideas of half ignorant sectaries would have been without\nconsequences outside of Rome; but every thing which related to Peter\nassumed importance in the capital of the world. In spite of its\nheresies, \"The Preachings of Peter\" had much interest for the orthodox.\nThe primacy of Peter was there proclaimed. St. Paul was thus injured;\nbut a few retouches extenuated what was shocking in these attacks.\nSeveral attempts were made to diminish the peculiarities of the new\nbook, and adapt it to the Catholics. This mode of re-modelling books to\nsuit the sect to which one belonged was the order of the day. Little by\nlittle the force of things was understood: all sensible men saw that\nthere was safety for the work of Jesus only in the perfect\nreconciliation of the two heads of the Christian doctrine. Paul had,\neven in the sixth century, some bitter enemies: he had always some\nenthusiastic followers like Marcion. Outside of these obstinate men of\nthe right and left, there was a union of the moderate masses, who,\nbefore their Christianism in one of the schools, fully recognized the\nright of the other to be called Christian. James, the partisan of\nabsolute Judaism, was sacrificed, although he had been the true chief of\nthe circumcision. Peter, who was much less objectionable to the\ndisciples of Paul, was preferred before him. James retained no devoted\npartisans outside of the Jud\u00e6an-Christians.\n\nIt is difficult to say who gained the most in this reconciliation. The\nconcessions came principally from the side of Paul: all Paul's disciples\nreceived the others without difficulty, while those of Peter repulsed\nthe followers of Paul. But concessions usually come from the strong. In\ntruth, each day confirmed Paul's victory.\n\nEach Gentile convert weighted the balance on his side. Outside of Syria,\nthe Jud\u00e6an-Christians were swallowed up by the wave of new converts. The\nchurches of Paul prospered: they had good judgment, solidity of mind,\nand some pecuniary resources which the others had not. The Ebionite\nchurches, on the contrary, grew poorer each day. The money of the\nchurches of Paul was spent in the support of some glorious poor men, who\nwere unable to earn any thing, but who possessed the traditional life of\nthe primitive spirit. The elevated piety and severe manners of these\nlast were admired by the Christian communities of Pagan origin, who\nimitated and assimilated themselves to these customs. It soon happened\nthat no distinction was manifest: the sweet and conciliatory spirit of\nSt. Luke and Clement Romanus prevailed. The compact of peace was sealed.\nIt was agreed that Peter had converted the first-fruits of the\nGentiles, that he had first absolved them from the yoke of the law. It\nwas admitted that Peter and Paul had been the two heads, the founders of\nthe Church of Rome; Peter and Paul became the halves of an inseparable\ncouple,--two luminaries, like the sun and moon. What one taught, the\nother taught also. They had always been in accord: they had opposed the\nsame enemies, had been victims of Simon the Magician. At Rome they lived\nlike brothers; the Church of Rome was their common work. The supremacy\nof this church was established for ages.\n\nThus, from the reconciliation of these parties, the settlement of these\nprimitive struggles, there came forth a grand unity,--the Catholic\nChurch, the Church of Peter and of Paul, a stranger to the rivalries\nwhich had marked the first century.\n\nIt was, above all, the death of the two apostles which pre-occupied the\nparties, and gave an opportunity for the most diverse combinations. The\ntissue of tradition grew in this respect, by an instinctive travail,\nalmost as imperious as that which had presided at the construction of\nthe legend of Jesus. The end of the life of Peter and of Paul was\ncommanded _\u00e0 priori_. It was maintained that Christ had predicted the\nmartyrdom of Peter, as he had announced the death of the sons of\nZebedee. The need was felt of associating in death the two persons who\nhad been reconciled by force. It was hoped, and perhaps this was not far\nfrom right, that they died together, or at least as the consequence of\nthe same event. The places which were believed to have been sanctified\nby this bloody drama were early fixed upon, and consecrated by\n_memori\u00e6_. In each case, whatever the people desired came in the end to\nbe true. Tradition makes history, retrospectively, as it ought to have\nbeen, and as it never is. Not long ago the portraits of Victor Emmanuel\nand Pius IX. hung side by side in every frequented place in Italy; and\nthe people desired that these two men, who represented principles whose\nreconciliation was generally considered necessary to Italy, should be in\nreality completely united. If, in our time, such views impose themselves\non history, it will one day appear, in documents reputed to be serious,\nthat Victor Emmanuel and Pius IX. (probably Garibaldi will be added) met\neach other secretly, understood and loved each other. During the middle\nages, at different times, similar attempts were made to appease the\nhatreds of the Dominicans and Franciscans; to prove that the founders of\nthese two orders were two brothers living together in the most\naffectionate intercourse; that at first their rules were the same; and\nthat St. Dominic girded himself with the cord of St. Francis.\n\nConcerning Peter and Paul, the increase of the legend was rich and\nrapid. Rome and all its environs, above all the way to Ostia, were full\nof souvenirs which were pretended to be connected with the last days of\nthe two apostles. A crowd of touching circumstances; the flight of\nPeter; the vision of Jesus bearing his cross, _iterum crucifigi_; the\nfinal adieu of Peter and Paul; the meeting of Peter with his wife; Paul\nat the Salvian waters; Plautilla sending the handkerchief which bound\nher hair to bandage the eyes of Paul,--all this presented a beautiful\nensemble, to which was only wanting an ingenuous and skilful writer. It\nwas too late; the vein of the first Christian literature was spent; the\nserenity of the narrator of the Acts was lost; his voice was raised no\nmore in story or in romance. It is impossible to choose between a crowd\nof equally apocryphal writings: in vain one seeks to shield these\nrecitals with the most venerable names (pseudo-Linus, pseudo-Marcellus);\nthe Roman legend of Peter and Paul remains always in a sporadic state.\nIt was more often recounted by the pious guides than seriously read. It\nwas a local affair: no text concerning it has been consecrated and made\nauthoritative for reading in the churches.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nMany among you, ladies and gentlemen, will go to Rome, or will return\nthere. Ah, well! if you preserve any good remembrance of these\nconferences, go, in memory of me, to the Salvian waters, _alle tre\nfontane_, to St. Paul-without-the-Walls. It is one of the most beautiful\nparts of the Roman Campagna,--deserted, damp, green, and sad. There, in\na deep depression in the soil, crowned by those grand horizontal lines,\ndisturbed by no living detail,--there are some clear and cold springs.\nThe fever and mouldiness of the tomb are inhaled there. Some Trappists\nare there established, conscientiously practising their religious\nsuicide. When you are there, sit down a moment, not too long (one\nquickly catches the fever there), and, while the Trappists give you to\ndrink the water which gushes from the three bounds which the head of\nPaul made, think of him who came here to talk of these legends with you,\nand to whom you have listened with so much courtesy and kind attention.\n\n\n\n\n  FOURTH CONFERENCE,\n\n  London, April 14, 1880.\n\n  ROME,\n  THE CAPITAL OF CATHOLICISM.\n\n\n\n\nFOURTH CONFERENCE.\n\nROME, THE CAPITAL OF CATHOLICISM.\n\n\nLadies and Gentlemen,--It is plain that the importance of the churches\nin the primitive Christian community was in proportion to their\napostolic nobility. The guaranty of orthodoxy was in the succession of\nthe bishops, by which the great churches were linked to the apostles. A\ndirect line appeared to afford a very strong assurance of conformity of\ndoctrine, and it was jealously maintained. Now, what can be said of a\nchurch founded by both Peter and Paul? It is clear that such a church\nought to endure in order to have a veritable superiority over others.\nThe _chef-d'[oe]uvre_ of the competency of the Roman Church was the\nestablishment of this superiority. That once assured, the ecclesiastical\ndestiny of Rome was established. When this city should have cast off her\nsecular character, she would have another,--a sacred capacity,\ncorresponding to that of Jerusalem.\n\nShe would know how to confiscate to her profit this Christianity which\nshe had so cruelly combated,--so much had humanity suffered, to escape\nfrom those whom fate had designed for this great secular task, _regere\nimperio populos!_\n\nUnder Antonine and Marcus Aurelius, Rome reached its highest grandeur;\nits rule of the whole world seemed to be undisputed; no cloud could be\nseen upon its horizon. The emigration from the provinces, above all from\nthe Orient, was augmented rather than lessened. The Greek-speaking\npopulation was larger than it had ever been. All who desired a place in\nthe world aspired to come to Rome: nothing was sanctioned until it had\nreceived the stamp of this universal exposition of the products of the\nentire universe.\n\nThe centre of a future catholic orthodoxy was evidently there. The\nwell-developed germ of the Papacy existed under Antonine. The Church of\nRome showed itself more and more indifferent to those crude Gnostic\nspeculations which occupied some minds filled with the intellectual\nactivity of the Greeks, but tainted with the reveries of the Orient. The\norganization of Christian society was the principal labor at Rome. This\nextraordinary city applied to this object the energetic moral strength\nand the practical genius which she has employed in the most diverse\ncauses. Careless of speculation, decidedly hostile to dogmatic\ninnovations, she presided there,--a mistress already trained by all the\nchanges which had been brought about in discipline and in the\nhierarchy.\n\n\nI.\n\nFrom the year 120 to 130 the Episcopate was elaborated in the Christian\nChurch, and the creation of the Episcopate was eminently a Roman work.\nAll _ecclesi\u00e6_ imply a little hierarchy,--a bureau as it is called\nto-day,--a president, some assessors, and a small staff of men in its\nservice. Democratic associations are careful that these functions shall\nbe limited as far as possible as to power and duration; but from this\narises that precarious something which has prevented any democratic\nassociation from outlasting the circumstances which have created it. The\nJewish synagogues have had more continuity, although the synagogical\nbody has never come to be a clergy. This is the result of the\nsubordinate place which Judaism has held during several centuries: the\npressure from without has counteracted the effects of internal\ndivisions. If the Christian Church had been left with the same absence\nof directorship, it would doubtless have missed its destiny.\n\nIf its ecclesiastical powers had continued to be regarded as emanating\nfrom the Church itself, it would have lost all its hieratic and\ntheocratic character. It was written, on the contrary, that a clergy\nshould monopolize the Christian Church, and substitute themselves for\nit. Acting as its spokesman, presenting itself as having the sole power\nof attorney in every thing, this clergy will be its strength, and at the\nsame time its gnawing worm,--the principal cause of its future falls.\n\nI repeat, that history has no example of a more complete transformation\nthan that which occurred in the government of the Christian Church about\nthe time of Hadrian and Antonine. What happened in the Christian Church\nwill happen in any association in which the subordinates could resign in\nfavor of the bureau, and that again in favor of the president; so that\nafterwards the subordinates and the seniors would have no deliberative\nvoice nor influence, nor any control in the management of the funds, and\nthe president would be able to say, \"I alone, I, am the association.\"\nThe _presbyteri_ (seniors) or _episcopi_ (superintending officers)\nbecame very soon the only representatives of the Church; and almost\nimmediately another still more important revolution took place. Among\nthe _presbyteri_ or _episcopi_, there had been one, who, through the\nhabit of occupying the principal seat, absorbed the power of the others,\nand became pre-eminently the _episcopos_ or the _presbyteros_. The form\nof worship contributed powerfully to the establishment of this unity.\nThe eucharistic act could only be celebrated by one person, and gave to\nthe celebrant an extreme importance. That _episcopos_, with a surprising\nrapidity, became the head of the presbytery, and, consequently, the\nentire Church. His _cathedra_ was placed apart, and, having the form of\nan arm-chair, became the seat of honor, the symbol of primacy. From this\ntime, each church has but one chief _presbyteros_, who is thus called to\nthe exclusion of the other _episcopi_. Beside this bishop, there were\ndeacons, widows, and a council of _presbyteri_: but the great step has\nbeen taken; the bishop is the sole successor of the prophets, his\nassociates have disappeared. Apostolic authority, reputed as transmitted\nby the laying-on of hands, suppressed the authority of the community.\nThe bishops of the various churches soon placed themselves in\ncommunication with the others, and formed of the Universal Church a sort\nof oligarchy, which held assemblies, censured its members, decided\nquestions of faith, and was in itself a true sovereign power. On one\nside, the shepherds; on the other, the flock. Primitive equality no\nlonger existed: in fact, it had endured but a single day. The Church,\nhowever, was only an instrument in the hands of those who guided her;\nand these held their power, not from the community, but from the\nspiritual inheritance of a transmission claiming to date back to the\napostles in a continuous line. It is evident that the representative\nsystem will never be in any degree whatever the law of the Christian\nChurch.\n\nIt was the Episcopate, without the intervention of civil power, with no\nsupport from the tribunals, which thus established order above liberty\nin a society originally founded upon individual inspiration. This is why\nthe Ebionites, who had no Episcopate, had also no idea of Catholicity.\nAt first sight, the work of Jesus was not made to last. Founded upon a\nbelief in the destruction of the world, which, as years rolled on, was\nproved an error, it seemed that his congregation could only dissolve in\nanarchy. The prophetic book, the _charismes_, the speaking of tongues,\nindividual inspiration, were no more than were necessary to bring all\nagain into the proportions of a common chapel. Individual inspiration\ncreated, but immediately destroyed what it created. After liberty, law\nis necessary. The work of Jesus might be considered as saved the day in\nwhich it was admitted that the Church has a direct power, a power\nrepresenting that of Jesus. Since then the Church dominates the\nindividual, drawing him to her bosom through his need. Inspiration\npasses from the individual to the community. The clergy is the dispenser\nof all pardons, the intermediary between God and the faithful.\nObedience, first to the Church, then to the bishop, becomes the highest\nduty. Innovation is the sign of error: schism, henceforth, will be for\nthe Christian the worst of crimes.\n\nIn a certain regard one may say that this was a decadence, a diminution\nof that spontaneity which had been eminently creative until now. It was\nevident that ecclesiastical forms were about to absorb, to stifle, the\nwork of Jesus, that all free manifestations of Christian life would soon\nbe arrested. Under the censure of the Episcopate, the speaking of\ntongues, prophecy, the creation of legends, the making of new sacred\nbooks, would soon become withered powers, the _charismes_ would be\nreduced to official sacraments. In another sense, however, such a\ntransformation was the essential condition of the strength of humanity.\nAnd, moreover, the centralization of powers became necessary when\nchurches were more numerous: intercourse between these little pious\nsocieties would be impossible, unless they had representatives appointed\nto act for them. It is undeniable, moreover, that, without the\nEpiscopate, the churches, re-united for a time by the souvenirs of\nJesus, would gradually have been dispersed. The divergences of opinion,\nthe difference in the turn of imagination, and, above all, the\nrivalries, and the unsatisfied _amours-propres_, would have operated by\ntheir infinite effects of disunion and disintegration. Christianity\nwould have expired at the end of three or four centuries, like\nMithraicism and so many other sects which were not allowed to endure.\nDemocracy is sometimes eminently creative; but it is upon the condition\nthat the democracy comes forth from conservative institutions which\nprevent the revolutionary fever from prolonging itself indefinitely.\n\nHere was the greatest miracle of the new Christianity. It drew order,\nhierarchy, authority, and obedience from the free subjection of desires:\nit organized the crowd; it disciplined anarchy. What does this miracle\naccomplish other than to strike at the pretended derogations to the laws\nof physical nature? The spirit of Jesus strongly inoculated in his\ndisciples that spirit of sweetness, of abnegation, of forgetfulness of\nthe present; that unique pursuit of interior joys which kills ambition;\nthat strong preference given to childhood; those words repeated without\nceasing, as from Jesus, \"Whoever is first among you, let him be the\nservant of all.\" The influence of the apostles was not less in that\ndirection. The apostles lived and ruled after their death. The idea that\nthe head of the Church held his command under the members of the Church\nwho had elected him never once occurs in the literature of this time.\nThe Church thus escaped through the supernatural origin of its power,\nthat element of decay which exists in delegated authority. A legislative\nand executive authority may come from the people; but sacraments and\ndispensations of celestial pardons have nothing in common with universal\nsuffrage. Such privileges come from heaven, or, according to the\nChristian formula, from Jesus Christ, the source of all pardon and of\nall good.\n\nThe religion of Jesus thus became something solid and consistent. The\ngreat danger of Gnosticism, which was to divide Christianity into\nnumberless sects, was exorcised. The word \"Catholic Church\" resounded\neverywhere, as the name of that great body which would thenceforth\nsurvive the ages unbroken. The character of this catholicity is already\nseen. The Montanists are regarded as sectarian; the Marcionites are\nconvinced of the falseness of the apostolic doctrine; the different\nGnostic schools are more and more driven from the bosom of the general\nchurch. Something had arisen which was neither Montanism, nor\nMarcionism, nor Gnosticism; which was Christianity, not sectarian,--the\nChristianity of the majority of bishops, resisting sects, and using them\nall, having, if you will, only negative characters, but preserved by\nthese negative characters from the pietist aberrations, and from\ndissolving rationalism. Christianity, like all parties who wish to live,\ndisciplines itself, and restrains its own excesses. It unites to\nmystical exaltation a fund of good sense and moderation which will kill\nMillenarism, Charisms, Glossolaly, and all the primitive phenomenal\nspirits. A handful of excited men, like the Montanists, running into\nmartyrdom, discouraging penitence, condemning marriage, are not the\nChurch. The _juste milieu_ triumphs. Radicals of any sort will never be\nallowed to destroy the work of Jesus. The Church is always of a medium\nopinion: it belongs to all the world, and is not the privilege of an\naristocracy. The pietist aristocracy of the Phrygian sects and the\nspeculative aristocracy of the Gnostics are equally stripped of their\npretensions.\n\nIn the midst of the enormous variety of opinions which fill the first\nChristian age, the Catholic opinion constitutes a sort of standard. It\nwas not necessary to reason with the heretic in order to convince him.\nIt was sufficient to show him that he was not in communion with the\nCatholic Church, with the grand churches which trace the succession of\ntheir bishops to the apostles. _Quod semper, quod ubique_ became the\nabsolute rule of truth. The argument of prescription to which Tertullian\ngave such eloquent force reviews all the Catholic controversy. To prove\nto any one that he was an innovator, a disturber, was to prove that he\nwas wrong,--an insufficient rule, since, by a singular irony of fate,\nthe doctor himself who developed this method of refutation in so\nimperious a manner, Tertullian, died a heretic.\n\nCorrespondence between the churches was an early custom. Circular\nletters from the heads of the great churches, read on Sunday in the\nre-unions of the faithful, were a sort of continuation of the apostolic\nliterature. The ecclesiastical province, questioning the precedency of\nthe great churches, appeared in germ. The Church, like the synagogue and\nthe mosque, is essentially a citadel. Christianity, like Judaism and\nIslamism, is a religion of cities. The countryman, the _paganus_, will\nbe the last resistance which Christianity will encounter. The few rural\nChristians came to the church of the neighboring city. The Roman\nmunicipality thus enclosed the church. Among the cities, the _civitas_,\nthe grand city, was alone a veritable church, with an _episcopos_. The\nsmall city was in ecclesiastical dependence on the great city. This\nprimacy of the great cities was an important fact. The great city once\nconverted, the small city and the country followed the movement. The\ndiocese was thus the unity of the conglomerate Christians. As for the\necclesiastical province, it corresponded to the Roman province: the\ndivisions of worship of Rome and Augustus were the secret law which\nruled all. Those cities which had a flamen, or _archiereus_, are those\nwhich later had an archbishop: the _flamen civitatis_ became the bishop.\nAfter the third century, the flamen held the rank in the city which was\nlater that of the bishop in the diocese. Thus it happened that the\necclesiastical geography of a country was very nearly the geography of\nthe same country in the Roman epoch. The picture of the bishops and the\narchbishops is that of the ancient _civitates_, according to their line\nof subordination. The empire was as the mould in which the new religion\nwas formed. The interior framework, the outlines, the hierarchical\ndivisions, were those of the empire. The ancient archives of the Roman\nadministration, and the church-registers of the middle ages, and even\nthose of our own day, are nearly the same thing.\n\nThus the grand organisms which have become so essential a part of the\nmoral and political life of European nations were all created by those\n_na\u00efve_ and sincere Christians, whose faith has become inseparable from\nthe moral culture of humanity. The Episcopate under Marcus Aurelius was\nfully ripe: the Papacy existed in germ. [OE]cumenical councils were\nimpossible. The Christian Empire alone could authorize great assemblies;\nbut the provincial synod was used in the affairs of the Montanists and\nof the Passover. The bishop of the capital of the province was allowed\nto preside without contest.\n\n\nII.\n\nRome was the place in which the grand idea of Catholicity was conceived.\nRome became each day more and more the capital of Christianity, and\nreplaced Jerusalem as the religious centre of humanity. Its church had a\ngenerally recognized precedence over others. All doubtful questions\nwhich disturbed the Christian conscience demanded an arbitration, if not\na solution, at Rome. This very defective reasoning was used,--that,\nsince Christ had made Cephas the corner-stone of his church, this\nprivilege ought to extend to his successors. By an unequalled stroke,\nthe Church of Rome had succeeded in making itself at the same time the\nChurch of Peter and the Church of Paul, a new mythical duality,\nreplacing that of Romulus and Remus. The Bishop of Rome became the\nbishop of bishops, the one who admonished others. Rome proclaims its\nright (a dangerous right) to excommunicate those who do not entirely\nagree with her. The poor Artemonites (a sort of anticipated Arians) had\nmuch to complain of in the injustice of the fate which made them\nheretics; while, even until Victor, all the Church of Rome thought with\nthem; but they were not heard. From this point, the Church of Rome\nplaced itself above history. The spirit which in 1870 could proclaim the\ninfallibility of the Pope might see itself reflected at the end of the\nsecond century by certain clear indications. The writing made at Rome\nabout 180, of which the Roman fragment known as the \"_Canon de\nMuratori_\" makes a part, shows us Rome already regulating the canon of\nthe churches, making the passion of Peter the basis of Catholicity, and\nrepulsing equally Montanism and Gnosticism. Iren\u00e6us refutes all\nheresies by the faith of this church, \"the grandest, the most ancient,\nthe most illustrious, which possesses by continuous succession the true\ntradition of the apostles Peter and Paul; to which, on account of its\nprimacy, all the rest of the Church should have recourse.\"\n\nOne material cause contributed much to that pre-eminence which most of\nthe churches recognized in the Church of Rome. This Church was extremely\nrich: its goods, skilfully administered, served to succor and propagate\nother churches. The heretics condemned to the mines received a subsidy\nfrom it: the common treasury was in a certain sense at Rome. The Sunday\ncollection, practised continually in the Roman Church, was probably\nalready established. A marvellous spirit of tradition animated this\nlittle community, in which Jud\u00e6a, Greece, and Latium seemed to have\nconfounded their very different gifts, in view of a prodigious future.\nWhile the Jewish Monotheism furnished the immovable base of the new\nformation, while Greece continued through Gnosticism its work of free\nspeculation, Rome attached itself with an astonishing readiness to the\nwork of the government. All its authorities and artifices served well\nfor that. Politics recoils not before fraud. Now, politics had already\ntaken up its home in the most secret councils of the Church of Rome.\nSome veins of apocryphal literature, constantly refilled, sometimes\nunder the name of the apostles, sometimes under that of apostolic\npersonages, such as Clement and Hermas, were received with confidence to\nthe limits of the Christian world on account of the guaranty of Rome.\n\nThis precedence of the Church of Rome continued to increase up to the\nthird century. The bishops of Rome showed a rare competency, evading\ntheological questions, but always in the first rank in matters of\norganization and administration. The tradition of the Roman Church\npasses for the most ancient of all. Pope Cornelius took the lead in the\nmatter of substitution. This was particularly seen in the dismissal of\nthe bishops of Italy, and the appointment of their successors. Rome was\nalso the central authority of the churches of Africa.\n\nThis authority was already excessive, and showed itself above all in the\naffair of the Passover. This question was much more important than it\nappears to us. In the early times all Christians continued to make the\nJewish Passover their principal feast. They celebrated this feast on the\nsame day as the Jews,--on the 14th of Nisan, upon whatever day of the\nweek it happened to fall. Persuaded, according to the account of all the\nold gospels, that Jesus, the evening before his death, had eaten the\nPassover with his disciples, they regarded such a solemnity as a\ncommemoration of the last supper, rather than as a memorial of the\nresurrection. As Christianity became more and more separated from\nJudaism, such a manner of regarding it was very much questioned. At\nfirst a new tradition was promulgated,--that Jesus, being about to die,\nhad not eaten the Passover, but had died the very day of the Jewish\nfeast, thus constituting himself the Pascal Lamb. Moreover, this purely\nJewish feast wounded the Christian conscience, especially in the\nchurches of Paul. The great feast of the Christians, the resurrection of\nJesus, occurred in any case the Sunday after the Jewish Passover.\nAccording to this idea, the feast was celebrated the Sunday which\nfollowed the Friday after the 14th of Nisan.\n\nIn Rome this custom prevailed, at least since the pontificates of Xystus\nand Telesphorus (about 120). In Asia there were great divisions. The\nconservatives, like Polycarp, Meliton, and all the ancient school,\nbelieved that the old Jewish custom conformed to the first Gospels and\nto the usage of the apostles John and Philip. This was the object of the\nvoyage to Rome which Polycarp undertook about the year 154, under the\nPope Anicetus. The interview between Polycarp and Anicetus was very\ncordial. The discussion of certain points appears to have been sharp,\nbut they understood each other. Polycarp was not able to persuade\nAnicetus to renounce a practice which had been that of the bishops of\nRome before his time. Anicetus, on the other hand, hesitated when\nPolycarp told him that he governed himself according to the rule of John\nand the other apostles, with whom he had lived on a familiar footing.\nThe two religious leaders remained in full communion with each other;\nand Anicetus showed Polycarp an almost unprecedented honor. In fact he\ndesired that Polycarp, in the Assembly of the Faithful at Rome, should\npronounce, in his stead and in his presence, the words of the\neucharistic consecration. These ardent men were full of too lofty a\nsentiment to rest the unity of their souls upon the uniformity of rites\nand exterior observances.\n\nLater, unhappily, Rome took the stand of insisting upon its right. About\nthe year 196 the question was more exciting than ever. The churches of\nAsia persisted in their old usage. Rome, always enthusiastic for unity,\nwished to coerce them. Upon the invitation of Pope Victor, convocations\nof bishops were held: a vast correspondence was exchanged. But the\nbishops of Asia, strong in the tradition of two apostles and of so many\nillustrious men, would not submit. The old Polycrates, Bishop of\nEphesus, wrote in their name a very sharp letter to Victor and to the\nChurch of Rome. The incredible design which Victor conceived on account\nof the acrimony of this letter proves that the Papacy was already born,\nand well born. He pretended to excommunicate, to separate from the\nUniversal Church, the most illustrious province, because it had not bent\nits traditions before the Roman discipline. He published a decree by\nvirtue of which Asia was placed under the ban of the Christian\ncommunity. But the other bishops opposed this violent measure, and\nrecalled Victor to charity. St. Iren\u00e6us, in particular, who, through the\nnecessity of the country in which he lived, had accepted for himself and\nhis churches in Gaul the Occidental custom, could not support the\nthought that the mother-churches of Asia, to which he felt himself bound\nin the depths of his soul, should be separated from the body of the\nUniversal Church. He energetically persuaded Victor from the\nexcommunication of the churches which held to the traditions of their\nfathers, and recalled to him the examples of his more tolerant\npredecessors. This act of rare good sense prevented the schism of the\nOrient and the Occident from occurring in the second century. Iren\u00e6us\nwrote to the bishops on all sides, and the question remained open to the\nchurches of Asia.\n\nIn one sense, the process which brought about the debate was of more\nimportance than the debate itself. By reason of this difference, the\nChurch was brought to a clearer idea of its organization. And first it\nwas evident that the laity were no longer any thing. The bishops alone\nhandled questions, and promulgated their opinions. The bishops collected\ntogether in provincial synods, over which the bishop of the capital of\nthe province presided (the archbishop of the future), or, at times, the\noldest bishop. The synodal assembly came out with a letter, which was\nsent to other churches. This was then like an attempt at federative\norganization,--an attempt to resolve questions by means of provincial\nassemblies, presided over by bishops agreeing among themselves. Later,\nquestions concerning the presiding over synods and the hierarchy of the\nChurch sought solution in the documents of this great debate. Among all\nthe churches, that of Rome appeared to have a particular initiative\nright. But that initiative was far from being synonymous with\ninfallibility; for Eusebius declares that he read the letters in which\nthe bishops severely blamed the conduct of Victor.\n\n\nIII.\n\nAuthority, gentlemen, loves authority. The authoritaires, as we say\nto-day, in the most diverse ranks, extend the hand to each other. Men as\nconservative as the leaders of the Church of Rome must be strongly\ntempted to favor public force, the effect of which is often for good,\nas they must admit. This tendency had been manifest since the first days\nof Christianity. Jesus had laid down the rule. The image of the money\nwas for him the supreme criterion of its lawfulness, beyond which there\nwas nothing to seek. In the height of the reign of Nero, St. Paul wrote,\n\"Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power\nbut of God: the powers that be are ordained of God. Whosoever,\ntherefore, resisteth the power, resisteth the ordinance of God.\" Some\nyears later, Peter, or the person who wrote in his name the Epistle\nknown as the First of Peter, expresses himself in an identical manner.\nClement was an equally devoted subject of the Roman Empire.\n\nIn fine, one of the traits of St. Luke (according to my idea there was a\nbond between St. Luke and the spirit of the church at Rome) is his\nrespect of the imperial authority, and the precautions which he took not\nto injure it. The author of the Acts evaded every thing which would\npresent the Romans as the enemies of Christ. On the contrary, he seeks\nto show, that, under many circumstances, they defended St. Paul and the\nChristians against the Jews. Never a disparaging word against the civil\nmagistrates. Luke loved to show how the Roman functionaries were\nfavorable to the new religion, sometimes even embracing it; and how\nRoman justice was equitable, and superior to the passions of the local\npowers. He insists upon the advantages which Paul owed to his title of\nRoman citizen. If he ends his recital with the arrival of Paul at Rome,\nit is perhaps in order not to recount the monstrosities of Nero.\n\nWithout doubt, there were in other parts of the empire devoted\nChristians who sympathized entirely with the anger of the Jews, and\ndreamed only of the destruction of the idolatrous city which they\nidentified with Babylon. Such were the authors of apocalypses and\nsibylline writings. But the faithful of the great churches were of quite\na different way of thinking. In 70, the Church of Jerusalem, with a\nsentiment more Christian than patriotic, left the revolutionary city,\nand sought peace beyond the Jordan. In the revolt of Barkok\u00e9bas, the\ndivision was still more pronounced. Not a single Christian was willing\nto take part in this attempt of blind despair. St. Justin in his\nApologies never combats the principle of empire. He desired that the\nempire should examine the Christian doctrine, approve and countersign it\nin some way, and condemn those who calumniated it. The most learned\ndoctor of the time of Marcus Aurelius, Meliton, Bishop of Sardis, made\nstill more decided advances, and undertook to show that there is always\nin Christianity something to recommend it to a true Roman. In his\nTreaty upon Truth, preserved in Syriac, Meliton expresses himself in the\nsame way as a bishop of the fourth century, explaining to one Theodosius\nthat his first duty is to establish by his authority the triumph of\ntruth (without telling us, alas! by what sign one recognizes truth). Let\nthe empire become Christian, and the persecuted of to-day would find\nthat the interference of the state in the domain of conscience is\nperfectly legitimate.\n\nThe system of the apologists, so warmly sustained by Tertullian,\naccording to which the good emperors favored Christianity, and the bad\nones persecuted it, was already full blown. \"Born together,\" said they,\n\"Christianity and the empire have grown up together, and prospered\ntogether.\" Their interests, their sufferings, their fortunes, their\nfuture,--all was in common. The apologists were advocates; and advocates\nin all orders resemble each other. They have arguments for every\nsituation and all tastes. Nearly a hundred and fifty years rolled on\nbefore these sweet and half sincere invitations were understood. But the\nonly impression they made in the time of Marcus Aurelius upon the mind\nof one of the most enlightened leaders of the Church was as a prognostic\nof the future. Christianity and the empire will become reconciled. They\nare made for each other. The shade of Meliton will tremble with joy\nwhen the empire becomes Christian, and the emperor takes in hand the\ncause of truth.\n\nThus the Church already took more than one step toward empire. Through\npoliteness, without doubt, but only as a very legitimate consequence of\nhis principles, Meliton does not allow that an emperor can give an\nunjust order. It was easy to believe that certain emperors had not been\nabsolutely opposed to Christianity. It is pleasant to relate that\nTiberius had proposed to place Jesus in the rank of the gods: it was the\nsenate which objected. The decided preference of Christianity for power\nwhere it hopes for favors is already very transparent. It is shown,\ncontrary to all truth, that Hadrian and Antonine sought to repair the\nevil done by Nero and Domitian. Tertullian and his generation say the\nsame thing of Marcus Aurelius. Tertullian doubted, it is true, whether\none could be at the same time a C\u00e6sar and a Christian; but this\nincompatibility a century later struck no one, and Constantine proved\nthat Meliton of Sardis was a very sagacious man when he discerned so\nwell--a century and a half in advance, seeing through the proconsular\npersecutions--the possibility of a Christian Empire.\n\nThe hatred of Christianity and of the empire was that of men who must\none day love them. Under the Severi, the language of the Church remained\nplaintive and tender, as it had been under the Antonines. The\napologists affixed a species of legitimism, a pretension that the Church\nhad always from the first saluted the emperor. \"There were never among\nus,\" said Tertullian, \"partisans of Cassius, partisans of Albinus,\npartisans of Niger.\" Foolish illusion! Certainly the revolt of Avidius\nCassius against Marcus Aurelius was a political crime, and the\nChristians did well not to be involved in it. As for Severus, Albinus,\nand Niger, it was success that decided between them; and the Church had\nno other merit in attaching itself to Severus than that of seeing\nclearly who would be the strongest. This pretended worship of legitimacy\nwas in truth only the worship of a fixed fact. The principle of St. Paul\nbore fruit: \"All power comes from God: he who holds the sword holds it\nfrom God for good.\"\n\nThis correct attitude in regard to power clung to exterior necessities\nas much as to the principles which the Church had received from its\nfounders. The Church was already a powerful association. It was\nessentially conservative. It needed order and legal guaranties. This was\nadmirably shown in the act of Paul of Samos, Bishop of Antioch, under\nAurelian. The Bishop of Antioch had become a powerful personage at this\nepoch. The goods of the Church were in his keeping: a crowd of men lived\non his favors. Paul was a brilliant man, somewhat mystical, worldly, a\ngreat secular lord, seeking to render Christianity acceptable to men of\nthe world and authority. The Pietists, as might be expected, considered\nhim heretical, and dismissed him. Paul resisted, and refused to quit the\nEpiscopal house. See into what the most exalted sects are led! They were\nin possession, and who could decide a question of proprietorship and\npossession, if not the civil authority. Aurelian, about this time,\npassed on his way towards Antioch; and the question was referred to him.\nHere was seen this original spectacle of an infidel sovereign and\npersecutor deputed to decide which was the true bishop. Aurelian showed\nunder these circumstances remarkably good sense for a layman. He\nexamined the correspondence of the two bishops, took note as to which\nwas in relation with Rome and Italy, and decided that he was the true\nBishop of Antioch.\n\nAurelian made some objections to the theological reasoning used on this\noccasion; but one fact was evident: it was, that Christianity could not\nlive without the empire, and that the empire, on the other hand, could\nnot do better than adopt Christianity as its religion. The world desired\na religion of congregations, of churches, or of synagogues and\nchapels,--a religion in which the essence of the worship should be\nre-union, association, and fraternity. Christianity answered to all\nthese conditions. Its admirable worship, its well-organized clergy,\nassured its future.\n\nSeveral times in the third century this historical necessity fell short\nof realization. This is seen most plainly under those Syrian emperors\nwhom their quality of foreigners and base origin placed beyond\nprejudices, and who, in spite of their vices, inaugurated a largeness of\nideas and a tolerance hitherto unknown. Those Syrian women of\nEmesa,--Julia Domna, Julia M\u00e6sa, Julia Mamm\u00e6a, Julia Soemia,--beautiful,\nintelligent, perfectly fearless, and held by no tradition or social law,\nhesitated at nothing. They did what Roman women would never have dared.\nThey entered the Senate, deliberated there, and governed the empire\neffectively, dreaming of Semiramis and Nitocris. The Roman worship\nseemed cold and insignificant to them. Not being bound by any family\nreasons, and their imagination being more in harmony with Christianity\nthan with Italian Paganism, these women amused themselves with the\nrecitals of the deed of the gods upon earth. Philostratus enchanted them\nwith his \"Life of Apollonius Tyane.\" Perhaps they had more than one\nsecret affinity with Christianity. Certainly Heliogabalus was mad; and\nyet his chimera of a central, Monotheistic worship, established at Rome,\nand absorbing all the other worships, proved that the narrow circle of\nideas of the Antonines was broken. Alexander Severus went still farther.\nHe was sympathetic with the Christians: not content with according them\nliberty, he placed Jesus in his lararium with a touching eclecticism.\nPeace seemed to be made, not, as under Constantine, by the defection of\none of the parties, but by a large reconciliation. The same thing was\nseen again under Philip the Arab, in the East under Zenobia, and\ngenerally under those emperors whose foreign origin placed them beyond\nRoman patriotism.\n\nThe struggle redoubled in rage when those grand reformers, Diocletian\nand Maximian, animated by the ancient spirit, believed themselves able\nto give new life for the empire by holding it to the narrow circle of\nRoman ideas. The Church triumphed through its martyrs. Roman pride was\nhumbled. Constantine saw the interior strength of the Church. The\npopulation of Asia Minor, Syria, Thrace, and Macedonia, in a word the\neastern part of the empire, was already more than half Christian. His\nmother, who had been a servant in an inn at Nicomedia, dazzled his eyes\nwith the picture of an Eastern empire having its centre near Nic\u00e6a or\nNicomedia, whose nerves should be the bishops and those multitudes of\npoor matriculates of the Church who controlled opinion in large cities.\nConstantine made the empire Christian. From the Occidental point of\nview, that was astonishing; for the Christians were still but a feeble\nminority in the West: in the Orient, the politics of Constantine was not\nonly natural, but commanded.\n\nWonderful thing! The city of Rome received from that politics the\nheaviest blow it had ever suffered. Christianity was successful under\nConstantine; but it was Oriental Christianity. In building a new Rome on\nthe Bosphorus, Constantine made the old Rome the capital of the West\nalone. The cataclysms which followed, the invasions of the barbarians\nwho spared Constantinople, and fell upon Rome with all their weight,\nreduced the ancient capital of the world to a limited and often humble\ncondition. That ecclesiastical primacy of Rome which burst with so much\neffect upon the second and third centuries flourished no longer when the\nOrient had an existence and a separate capital. Constantine was the real\nauthor of the schism of the Latin Church and the Church of the Orient.\n\nRome took its revenge, principally by the seriousness and depth of its\nspirit of organization. What men were St. Sylvester, St. Damasus, and\nGregory the Great! With an admirable courage they labored for the\nconversion of the barbarians, attached them to themselves, and made them\ntheir friends and subjects. The master-work of its politics was its\nalliance with the Carlovingian house, and the bold stroke by which it\nre-established in that house the empire which had been dead three\nhundred years. The Church of Rome rose again more powerful than ever,\nand became again the centre of all the grand affairs of the Occident\nduring eight centuries.\n\n       *       *       *       *       *\n\nHere my task is ended, gentlemen. You will confide to others the care of\nrecounting the prodigious history of the feudal church, its grandeurs\nand its abuses. Another still will show you the re-action against these\nabuses,--Protestantism returning to the primitive idea of Christianity,\nand dividing, in its turn, the Latin Church. Each one of these grand\nhistorical pages will have its charm and its instruction. What I have\nrecounted to you is full of grandeur. One is impartial only to the dead.\nSince Catholicism was an inimical power, a danger to the liberty of the\nhuman mind, it was right to oppose it. Our age is the age of history,\nbecause it is the age of doubt upon dogmatic matters: it is the age in\nwhich, without entering into the discussion of systems, an enlightened\nmind says to itself, \"If, since right exists, and so many thousand\nsymbols have made the pretension of presenting the complete truth, and\nif this pretension is always found vain, is it indeed probable that I\nshall be more happy than so many others, and that the truth has awaited\nmy coming here below in order to make its definite revelation?\" There is\nno definite revelation. It is the touching effort of man to render his\ndestiny supportable. But its reward is not disdain, it is gratitude.\nWhoever believes that he has something to teach us concerning our\ndestiny and our end should be welcome. Recall the account in your old\nhistories of the judicious and discreet words of the Saxon chief of\nNorthumbria, in the assembly where the question was discussed concerning\nthe adoption of the doctrine of the Roman missionaries.\n\n\"Perhaps thou rememberest, O king! something which happens sometimes in\nthe winter days, when thou art seated at table with thy captains and thy\nmen-at-arms; that a good fire is lighted, that thy chamber is very warm,\nwhile it rains, snows, and blows without. There comes a little bird,\nwhich crosses the chamber on the wing, entering at one door, and going\nout by the other. The moment of this passage is full of sweetness for\nhim: he no more feels the rain nor the storm. The bird is gone in an\ninstant, and from the winter he passes again into the winter. Such seems\nto me the life of men on this earth, and its course of a moment,\ncompared to the length of time which precedes and follows it. The time\nbefore birth and after death is gloomy. It torments us by its\nimpossibility of comprehension: if, then, the new doctrine can teach us\nany thing a little certain, it deserves to be considered.\"\n\nAlas! the Roman missionaries did not bear this minimum of certainty,\nwith which the old Northumbrian chief, sage as he was, declared himself\ncontent. Life always appears to us a short passage between two long\nnights. Happy those who can sleep in the empty noise of menaces which\ntrouble at times the human conscience, and should no more than cradle\nit! One thing is certain: it is the paternal smile which at certain\nhours pierces nature, attesting that one eye regards us, and one heart\nfollows us. Let us guard ourselves from all absolute formula which might\nbecome one day an obstacle to the free expansion of our spirits. There\nis no religious communion which does not still possess some gifts of\nlife and pardon; but it is on the condition only that an humble docility\nsucceeds sympathetic adhesion. The comparison of the regiment, invented\nby Clement Romanus, and since so many times repeated, ought to be\nutterly abandoned.\n\nYou wished that I should recall to you the grandeurs of Catholicism in\nits finest epoch. I thank you for it. Some associations of childhood,\nthe most profound of all, attach me to Catholicism; and, although I am\nseparated from it, I am often tempted to say, as Job said (at least in\nour Latin version), \"_Etiam si occideret me, in ipso sperabo._\" This\ngreat Catholic family is too numerous not to have still a grand future.\nThe strange excesses which it has supported during fifty years, this\nunequalled pontificate of Pius IX., the most astonishing in history,\ncannot be terminated in any ordinary way. There will be thunders and\nlightnings such as accompany all the great judgment-days of God. And\nwill she have much to do in order to still remain acceptable to those\nwho love her,--this old mother, who will not die so soon? Perhaps she\nwill find, in order to arrest the arms of her conqueror, which is modern\nreason, some magician's arts, some words such as Balder murmured.\n\nThe Catholic Church is a woman: let us distrust the charming words of\nher agony. Let us imagine that she says to us, \"My children, every thing\nhere below is but a symbol and a dream. In this world there is only one\nlittle ray of light which pierces the darkness, and seems to be the\nreflection of a benevolent will. Come into my bosom, where one finds\nforgetfulness. For those who wish fetishes, I have them; to those who\nwish works, I offer them; for those who wish intoxication of heart, I\nhave the milk of my breast, which will make drunk; for those who desire\nlove, I have an abundance; to those who crave irony, I pour out freely.\nCome all: the time of dogmatic sadness is past. I have music and incense\nfor your funerals, flowers for your marriages, the joyous welcome of\nbells for your new-born ones.\" Ah, well! if she should say that, our\nembarrassment would be extreme. But she never will.\n\nYour great and glorious England has resolved, gentlemen, the practical\npart of the question. It is as easy to trace the line of conduct which\nthe state and individuals should follow in the same matter, as it is\nimpossible to arrive at a theoretic solution of the religious problem.\nAll this may be conveyed in a single word, gentlemen,--_liberty_. What\ncould be more simple? Faith does not control itself. We believe what we\nbelieve true. No one is bound to believe what he thinks false, whether\nit is false or not. To deny liberty of thought is a sort of\ncontradiction. From liberty of thought to the right to express one's\nthought, there is but one step; for right is the same for all. I have no\nright to prevent a person from expressing his mind; but no one has the\nright to prevent me from expressing mine. Here is a theory which will\nappear very humble to the learned doctors who believe themselves to be\nin possession of absolute truth. We have a great advantage over them,\ngentlemen. They are obliged to be persecutors in order to be consistent;\nto us it is permitted to be tolerant,--tolerant for all, even for those,\nwho, if they could, would not be so to us. Yes, let us even make this\nparadox: liberty is the best weapon against the enemies of liberty. Some\nfanatics say to us with sincerity, \"We take your liberty, because you\nowe it to us according to your principles; but you shall not have ours,\nbecause we do not owe it to you.\" Ah, well! let us give them liberty\nall the same, and we do not imagine that in this exchange we shall be\nduped. No: liberty is the great dissolvent of all fanaticisms. In giving\nback liberty to my enemy, who would suppress me if he had the power, I\nshall really make him the worst gift. I oblige him to drink a strong\nbeverage which shall turn his head, while I shall keep my own. Science\nsupports the strange _r\u00e9gime_ of liberty: fanaticism and superstition do\nnot support it. We do more harm to dogmatism by treating it with an\nimplacable sweetness than by persecuting it. By this sweetness we even\ninculcate the principle which destroys all dogmatism at its root, by\nunderstanding that all metaphysical controversy is sterile, and that,\nfor this reason, the truth for each one is as he believes it. The\nessential, then, is not to silence dangerous teaching, and hush the\ndiscordant voice: the essential is to place the human mind in a state in\nwhich the mass can see the uselessness of its rage. When this spirit\nbecomes the atmosphere of society, the fanatic can no longer live. He is\nconquered by a pervading gentleness. If, instead of conducting\nPolyeuctus to punishment, the Roman magistrate had dismissed him\nsmiling, and taken him amicably by the hand, Polyeuctus would not have\ncontinued: perhaps even in his old age he would have laughed at his\nescapade, and would have become a man of good sense.\n\n\n\n\n  CONFERENCE,\n\n  Royal Academy, London, April 16, 1880.\n\n  MARCUS AURELIUS.\n\n\n\n\nCONFERENCE AT THE ROYAL INSTITUTION.\n\nMARCUS AURELIUS.\n\n\nLadies and Gentlemen,--I have accepted with great pleasure the\ninvitation to address you in this illustrious institution devoted to the\nnoblest researches of science and of true philosophy. I have dreamed\nsince my childhood of this island, where I have so many friends, and\nwhich I visit so tardily.\n\nI am a Briton of France. In our old books, England is always called the\nIsland of the Saints; and, in truth, all our saints of Armorican\nBrittany, those saints of doubtful orthodoxy, who, if they were again\nalive, would be more in harmony with us than with the Jesuits, came from\nthe Island of Britain. I have seen in their chapel the trough of stone\nin which they crossed the sea. Of all races, the Britain race is that\nwhich has ever taken religion the most seriously. Even when the progress\nof reflection has shown us that some articles among the catalogues of\nthings which we have always regarded as fixed should be modified, we\nnever break away from the symbol under which we have from the first\napproved the ideal.\n\nFor our faith is not contained in obscure metaphysical propositions: it\nis in the affirmations of the heart. I have therefore chosen for my\ndiscourse to you, not one of those subtleties which divide, but one of\nthose themes, dear to the soul, which bring nearer, and reconcile. I\nshall speak to you of that book resplendent with the divine spirit, that\nmanual of submissive life which the most godly of men has left us,--the\nC\u00e6sar, Marcus Aurelius Antonine. It is the glory of sovereigns that the\nmost irreproachable model of virtue may be found in their ranks, and\nthat the most beautiful lessons of patience and of self-control may come\nfrom a condition which one naturally believes to be subject to all the\nseductions of pleasure and of vanity.\n\n\nI.\n\nThe inheritance of wisdom with a throne is always rare: I find in\nhistory but two striking examples of it,--in India, the succession of\nthe three Mongol emperors, B\u00e2ber, Hoom\u00e2yoon, and Akbar; at Rome, at the\nhead of the greatest empire that ever existed, the two admirable reigns\nof Antonine the Pious and Marcus Aurelius. Of the last two, I consider\nAntonine the greatest. His goodness did not lead him into faults: he was\nnot tormented with that internal trouble which disturbed without\nceasing the heart of his adopted son. This strange malady, this restless\nstudy of himself, this demon of scrupulousness, this fever of\nperfection, are signs of a less strong and distinguished nature. As the\nfinest thoughts are those which are not written, Antonine had in this\nrespect also a superiority over Marcus Aurelius. But let us add that we\nshould be ignorant of Antonine, if Marcus Aurelius had not transmitted\nto us that exquisite portrait of his adopted father, in which he seems\nto have applied himself, through humility, to painting the picture of a\nbetter man than himself.\n\nIt is he who has sketched in the first book of his \"Thoughts,\"--that\nadmirable background where the noble and pure forms of his father,\nmother, grandfather, and tutors, move in a celestial light. Thanks to\nMarcus Aurelius, we are able to understand how these old Roman families,\nwho had seen the reign of the wicked emperors, still retained honesty,\ndignity, justice, the civil, and, if I may dare to say it, the\nrepublican spirit. They lived there in admiration of Cato, of Brutus, of\nThrasea, and of the great stoics whose souls had never bowed under\ntyranny. The reign of Domitian was abhorred by them. The sages who had\nendured it without submission were honored as heroes. The accession of\nthe Antonines was only the coming to power of the society of sages, of\nwhose just anger Tacitus has informed us,--a society of wise men formed\nby the league of all those who had revolted against the despotism of the\nfirst C\u00e6sars.\n\nThe salutary principle of adoption made the imperial court of the second\ncentury a true cradle of virtue. The noble and learned Nerva, in\nestablishing this principle, assured the happiness of the human race\nduring almost a hundred years, and gave to the world the best century of\nprogress of which any knowledge has been preserved. The sovereignty thus\npossessed in common by a group of choice men who delegated it or shared\nit, according to the needs of the moment, lost a part of that attraction\nwhich renders it so dangerous.\n\nMen came to the throne without seeking it, but also without the right of\nbirth, or in any sense the divine right: men came there understanding\nthemselves, experienced, having been long prepared. The empire was a\ncivil burden which each accepted in his turn, without dreaming of\nhastening the hour. Marcus Aurelius was made emperor so young, that the\nidea of ruling had scarcely occurred to him, and had not for a moment\nexercised its charm upon his mind.\n\nAt eight years, when he was already _pr\u00e6sul_ of the Salian priests,\nHadrian remarked this sad child, and loved him for his good-nature, his\ndocility, and his incapability of falsehood. At eighteen years the\nempire was assured to him. He awaited it patiently for twenty-two years.\nThe evening when Antonine, feeling himself about to die, after having\ngiven to the tribune the watchword, _\u00c6quanimitas_, commanded the golden\nstatue of Fortune, which was always in the apartment of the emperor, to\nbe borne into that of his adopted son, he experienced neither surprise\nnor joy.\n\nHe had long been sated with all joys, without having tasted them: he had\nseen the absolute vanity of them by the profoundness of his philosophy.\n\nThe great inconvenience of practical life, and that which renders it\ninsupportable to a superior man, is, that, if one carries into it the\nprinciples of the ideal, talents become defects; so that very often the\naccomplished man is less successful in it than one who is fitted by\negotism or ordinary routine. Three or four times the virtue of Marcus\nAurelius came near being his ruin. The first fault into which it led him\nwas that of sharing the empire with Lucius Verus, to whom he was under\nno obligation. Verus was a frivolous and worthless man. Prodigies of\ngoodness and delicacy were necessary in order to prevent his committing\ndisastrous follies. The wise emperor, earnest and industrious, took with\nhim in his _lectica_ (sedan) the senseless colleague whom he had given\nhimself. He persisted in treating him seriously: he never once revolted\nagainst this sorry companionship. Like all well-bred men, Marcus\nAurelius discommoded himself continually: his manners came from a\ngeneral habit of firmness and dignity. Souls of this kind, either from\nrespect for human nature, or in order not to wound others, resign\nthemselves to the appearance of seeing no evil. Their life is a\nperpetual dissimulation.\n\nAccording to some, he even deceived himself, since, in his intimate\nintercourse with the gods, on the borders of the Granicus, speaking of\nhis unworthy wife, he thanked them for having given him a wife \"so\namiable, so affectionate, so pure.\" I have shown elsewhere that the\npatience, or, if one chooses, the weakness, on this point, of Marcus\nAurelius, has been somewhat exaggerated. Faustina had faults: the\ngreatest one was that she disliked the friends of her husband; and, as\nthese friends wrote history, she has paid the penalty before posterity.\nBut a discriminating critic has no trouble in showing the exaggerations\nof the legend. Every thing indicates that Faustina at first found\nhappiness and love in that villa at Lorium, or in that beautiful retreat\nat Lanuvium upon the highest points of the Alban mount, which Marcus\nAurelius described to his tutor Fronto as an abode full of the purest\njoys. Then she became weary of too much wisdom. Let us tell all: the\nbeautiful sentences of Marcus Aurelius, his austere virtue, his\nperpetual melancholy, might have become tiresome to a young and\ncapricious woman possessed of an ardent temperament and marvellous\nbeauty. He understood it, suffered it, and spoke not. Faustina remained\nalways his \"very good and very faithful wife.\" No one succeeded, even\nafter her death, in persuading him to give up this pious lie. In a\nbas-relief which is still seen in the Museum of the Capitol at Rome,\nwhile Faustina is borne to heaven by a messenger of the gods, the\nexcellent emperor regards her with a look full of love. It seems that at\nlast he had deceived himself, and forgotten all. But through what a\nstruggle he must have passed in order to do this! During long years, a\nsickness at heart slowly consumed him. The desperate effort which was\nthe essence of his philosophy, this frenzy of renunciation, carried\nsometimes even to sophism, concealed an immense wound at the bottom. How\nnecessary it must have been to bid adieu to happiness in order to reach\nsuch an excess! No one will ever understand all that this poor wounded\nheart suffered, the bitterness which that pale face concealed, always\ncalm, always smiling. It is true that the farewell to happiness is the\nbeginning of wisdom and the surest means of finding peace. There is\nnothing so sweet as the return of joy which follows the renunciation of\njoy; nothing so keen, so profound, so charming, as the enchantment of\nthe disenchanted.\n\nSome historians, more or less imbued with that policy which believes\nitself to be superior, because it is not suspected of any philosophy,\nhave naturally sought to prove that so accomplished a man was a bad\nadministrator and a mediocre sovereign. It appears, in fact, that Marcus\nAurelius sinned more than once by too much lenity. But never was there a\nreign more fruitful in reforms and progress. The public charity founded\nby Nerva and Trajan was admirably developed by him. New schools were\nestablished for poor children; the superintendents of provisions became\nfunctionaries of the first rank, and were chosen with extreme care;\nwhile the wants of poor young girls were cared for by the Institute of\n_Jeunes Faustiniennes_. The principle that the state has duties in some\ndegree paternal towards its members (a principle which should be\nremembered with gratitude, even when it has been dispensed with),--this\nprinciple, I say, was proclaimed for the first time in the world by\nTrajan and his successors. Neither the puerile pomp of Oriental\nkingdoms, founded on the baseness and stupidity of men, nor the pedantic\npride of the kingdoms of the middle ages, founded on an exaggerated\nsentiment for hereditary succession, and on a simple faith in the rights\nof blood, could give an idea of the utterly republican sovereignty of\nNerva, Trajan, Hadrian, Antonine, and Marcus Aurelius.\n\nNothing of the prince by hereditary or divine right, nothing of the\nmilitary chieftain: it was a sort of grand civil magistracy, without\nresembling a court in any way, or depriving the emperor of his private\ncharacter. Marcus Aurelius, in particular, was neither much nor little a\nking in the true sense of the word. His fortune was immense, but all\nemployed for good: his aversion for \"the C\u00e6sars,\" whom he considered as\na species of Sardanapali, magnificent, debauched, and cruel, burst out\nat each instant. The civility of his manners was extreme. He gave to the\nSenate all its ancient importance: when he was at Rome, he never missed\na session, and left his place only when the Consul had pronounced the\nformula, \"_Nihil vos moramar, patres conscripti_.\" Almost every year of\nhis reign he made war, and he made it well, although he found in it only\n_ennui_. His listless campaigns against the Quadi and Marcomanni were\nvery well conducted: the disgust which he felt for them did not prevent\nhis most conscientious attention to them. It was in the course of one of\nthese expeditions, that, encamped on the banks of the Granicus, in the\nmidst of the monotonous plains of Hungary, he wrote the most beautiful\npages of the exquisite book which has revealed his whole soul to us. It\nis probable, that, when very young, he kept a journal of his secret\nthoughts. He inscribed there the maxims to which he had recourse in\norder to fortify himself, the reminiscences of his favorite authors, the\npassages of the moralists which appealed most to him, the principles\nwhich had sustained him through the day, sometimes the reproaches which\nhis scrupulous conscience addressed to him. \"One seeks for himself\nsolitary retreats, rustic cottages, sea-shore, or mountains: like\nothers, thou lovest to dream of these good things. To what end, since it\nis permitted to thee to retire within thy soul each hour? Man has\nnowhere a more tranquil retreat, above all, if he has within himself\nthose things, the contemplation of which will calm him. Learn, then, how\nto enjoy this retreat, and there renew thy strength. Let there be those\nshort fundamental maxims, which above all will give again serenity to\nthy soul, and restore thee to a state in which to support with\nresignation the world to which thou shouldest return.\"\n\nDuring the sad winters of the North, this consolation became still more\nnecessary to him. He was nearly sixty years old: old age was premature\nwith him. One evening all the pictures of his pious youth returned to\nhis remembrance, and he passed some delicious hours in calculating how\nmuch he owed to each one of the virtuous beings who had surrounded him.\n\n\"Examples of my grandfather Verus,--sweetness of manners, unchangeable\npatience.\"\n\n\"Qualities which one valued in my father, the souvenir which he has left\nme,--modesty, manly character.\"\n\n\"To imitate the piety of my mother, her benevolence; to abstain, like\nher, not only from doing evil, but from conceiving the thought of it; to\nlead her frugal life, which so little resembled the habitual luxury of\nthe rich.\"\n\nThen appeared to him, in turn, Diagnotus, who had inspired him with a\ntaste for philosophy, and made agreeable to his eyes the pallet, the\ncovering made of a simple skin, and all the apparel of Hellenic\ndiscipline; Junius Rusticus, who taught him to avoid all affectation of\nelegance in style, and loaned him the Conversations of Epictetus;\nApollonius of Chalcis, who realized the Stoic ideal of extreme firmness\nand perfect sweetness; Sextus of Chaeroneia, so grave and so good;\nAlexander the grammarian, who censured with such refined politeness;\nFronto, \"who taught him the envy, duplicity, and hypocrisy of a tyrant,\nand the hardness which may exist in the heart of a patrician;\" his\nbrother Severus, \"who made him understand Thrasia, Helvidius, Cato,\nBrutus, who gave him the idea of what a free government is, where the\nrule is the natural equality of the citizens and the equality of their\nrights; of a royalty which places before all else the respect for the\nliberty of the citizens;\" and, rising above all others in his immaculate\ngrandeur, Antonine, his father by adoption, whose picture he traces for\nus with redoubled gratitude and love. \"I thank the gods,\" said he\nfinally, \"for having given me good ancestors, good parents, a good\nsister, good teachers, and in my surroundings, in my relations, in my\nfriends, men almost all filled with goodness. I never allowed myself to\nbe wanting in deference towards them: from my natural disposition, I\ncould sometimes have shown irreverence; but the benevolence of the gods\nnever permitted the occasion to present itself. I am also indebted to\nthe gods, who preserved pure the flower of my youth, for having been\nreared under the rule of a prince, and a father who strove to free my\nsoul from all trace of pride, to make me understand that it is possible,\nwhile living in a palace, to dispense with guards, with splendid\nclothes, with torches, with statues, to teach me, in short, that a\nprince can almost contract his life within the limits of that of a\nsimple citizen, without, on that account, showing less nobility and\nvigor when he comes to be an emperor, and transact the affairs of state.\nThey gave me a brother, whose manners were a continual exhortation to\nwatch over myself, while his deference and attachment should have made\nthe joy of my heart.\n\n\"Thanks to the gods again, that I have made haste to raise those who\nhave cared for my education, to the honors which they seemed to desire.\nThey have enabled me to understand Apollonius, Rusticus, Maximus, and\nhave held out to me, surrounded with brilliant light, the picture of a\nlife conformed to nature. I have fallen short of it in the end, it is\ntrue; but it is my fault. If my body has long supported the rude life\nwhich I lead; if, in spite of my frequent neglect of Rusticus, I have\nnever overstepped the bounds, or done any thing of which I should\nrepent; if my mother, who died young, was able, nevertheless, to pass\nher last years near me; if, whenever I have wished to succor the poor or\nafflicted, money has never been wanting; if I have never needed to\naccept any thing from others; if I have a wife of an amiable,\naffectionate, and pure character; if I have found many capable men for\nthe education of my children; if, at the beginning of my passion for\nphilosophy, I did not become the prey of a sophist,--it is to the gods\nthat I owe it all. Yes, so many blessings could only be the result of\nthe aid of the gods and a happy fortune.\"\n\nThis divine candor breathes in every page. No one has ever written more\nsimply than did he for the sole purpose of unburdening his heart to\nGod, his only witness. There is not a shadow of system in it. Marcus\nAurelius, to speak exactly, had no philosophy: although he owed almost\nevery thing to stoicism transformed by the Roman spirit, it is of no\nschool. According to our idea, he has too little curiosity; for he knows\nnot all that a contemporary of Ptolemy and Galen should know: he has\nsome opinions on the system of the world, which were not up to the\nhighest science of his time. But his moral thought, thus detached from\nall alliance with a system, reaches a singular height. The author of the\nbook, \"The Imitation,\" himself, although free from the quarrels of the\nschools, does not rise to this, for his manner of feeling is essentially\nChristian. Take away his Christian dogmas, and his book retains only a\nportion of its charm. The book of Marcus Aurelius, having no dogmatic\nbase, preserves its freshness eternally. Every one, from the atheist, or\nhe who believes himself one, to the man who is the most devoted to the\nespecial creeds of each worship, can find in it some fruits of\nedification. It is the most purely human book which exists. It deals\nwith no question of controversy. In theology, Marcus Aurelius floats\nbetween pure Deism, Polytheism interpreted in a physical sense according\nto the manner of the Stoics, and a sort of cosmic Pantheism. He holds\nnot much more firmly to one hypothesis than to the other, and he uses\nindiscriminately the three vocabularies of the Deist, Polytheist, and\nPantheist. His considerations have always two sides, according as God\nand the soul have, or have not, reality. It is the reasoning which we do\neach hour; for, if the most complete Materialism is right, we who have\nbelieved in truth and goodness shall be no more duped than others. If\nIdealism is right, we have been the true sages, and we have been wise in\nthe only manner which becomes us, that is to say, with no selfish\nwaiting, without having looked for a remuneration.\n\n\nII.\n\nWe here touch a great secret of moral philosophy and religion. Marcus\nAurelius has no speculative philosophy; his theology is utterly\ncontradictory; he has no idea founded upon the soul and immortality. How\ncould he be so moral without the beliefs that are now regarded as the\nfoundations of morality? how so profoundly religious, without having\nprofessed one of the dogmas of what is called natural religion? It is\nimportant to make this inquiry.\n\nThe doubts, which, to the view of speculative reason, hover above the\ntruths of natural religion, are not, as Kant has admirably shown,\naccidental doubts, capable of being removed, belonging, as is sometimes\nimagined, to certain conditions of the human mind. These doubts are\ninherent to the nature even of these truths, if one may say it without a\nparadox; and, if these doubts were removed, the truths with which they\nquarrel would disappear at the same time. Let us suppose, in short, a\ndirect, positive proof, evident to all, of future sufferings and\nrewards: where will be the merit of doing good? They would be but fools\nwhom gayety of heart should hasten to damnation. A crowd of base souls\nwould secure their salvation without concealment: they would, in a\nsense, force the divine power. Who does not see, that, in such a system,\nthere is neither morality nor religion? In the moral and religious order\nit is indispensable to believe without demonstration. It deals not with\ncertainty: it acts by faith. This is what Deism forgets, with its habits\nof intemperate affirmation. It forgets that creeds too precise\nconcerning human destiny would destroy all moral merit. For us, they\nwould say that we should do as did St. Louis when he was told of the\nmiraculous wafer,--we should refuse to see it. What need have we of\nthese brutal proofs which trammel our liberty?\n\nWe should fear to become assimilated to those speculators in virtue, or\nthose vulgar cowards, who mingle with spiritual things the gross\nselfishness of practical life. In the days which followed the belief in\nthe resurrection of Jesus, this sentiment was manifested in the most\ntouching manner. The faithful in heart, the sensitive ones, preferred to\nbelieve without seeing. \"Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet\nhave believed,\" became the word for the time. Charming words! Eternal\nsymbol of tender and generous Idealism, which has a horror of touching\nwith the hands that which should only be seen with the heart!\n\nOur good Marcus Aurelius, on this point as on all others, was in advance\nof the ages. He never cared to argue with himself concerning God and the\nsoul. As if he had read the \"Criticism of Practical Reason,\" he saw\nclearly, that, where the Infinite is concerned, no formula is absolute;\nand that, in such matters, one has no chance of seeing the truth during\nhis life, without much self-contradiction. He distinctly separates moral\nbeauty from all theoretical theology. He allows duty to depend on no\nmetaphysical opinion of the First Cause. The intimate union with an\nunseen god was never carried to a more unheard-of delicacy. \"To offer to\nthe government of God that which is within thee,--a strong being ripened\nby age, a friend of the public good, a Roman, an emperor, a soldier at\nhis post awaiting the signal of the trumpet, a man ready to quit life\nwithout regret.\" \"There are many grains of incense destined to the same\naltar: one falls sooner, the other later, in the fire; but the\ndifference is nothing.\" \"Man should live according to nature during the\nfew days that are given him on the earth, and, when the moment of\nleaving it comes, should submit himself sweetly, as an olive, which, in\nfalling, blesses the tree which has produced it, and renders thanks to\nthe branch which has borne it.\" \"All that which thou arrangest is suited\nto me, O Cosmos! Nothing of that which comes from thee is premature or\nbackward to me. I find my fruit in that which thy seasons bear, O\nNature! From thee comes all; in thee is all; to thee all returns.\" \"O\nman! thou hast been a citizen in the great city: what matters it to thee\nto have remained three or five years? That which is governed by laws is\nunjust for no one. What is there, then, so sorrowful in being sent from\nthe city, not by a tyrant, not by an unjust judge, but by the same\nnature which allowed thee to enter there? It is as if a comedian is\ndischarged from the theatre by the same pr\u00e6tor who engaged him. But wilt\nthou say, 'I have not played the five acts; I have played but three?'\nThou sayest well; but in life three acts suffice to complete the entire\npiece.... Go, then, content, since he who dismisses thee is content.\"\n\nIs this to say that he never revolted against the strange fate which\nleaves man alone face to face with the needs of devotion, of sacrifice,\nof heroism, and nature with its transcendent immorality, its supreme\ndisdain for virtue? No. Once at least the absurdity, the colossal\niniquity, of death, strikes him. But soon his temperament, completely\nmortified, resumes its power, and he becomes calm. \"How happens it that\nthe gods, who have ordered all things so well, and with so much love for\nmen, should have forgotten one thing only; that is, that men of tried\nvirtue, who during their lives have had a sort of interchange of\nrelations with divinity, who have made themselves loved by it on account\nof their pious acts and their sacrifices, live not after death, but may\nbe extinguished forever?\n\n\"Since it is so, be sure, that, if it should be otherwise, they (the\ngods) would not have failed; for, if it had been just, it would have\nbeen possible; if it had been suitable to nature, nature would have\npermitted it. Consequently, when it is not thus, strengthen thyself in\nthis consideration, that it was not necessary that it should be thus.\nThou thyself seest plainly that to make such a demand is to dispute his\nright with God. Now, we would not thus contend with the gods if they\nwere not absolutely good and absolutely just: if they are so, they have\nallowed nothing to make a part of the order of the world which is\ncontrary to justice and right.\"\n\nAh! is it too much resignation, ladies and gentlemen? If it is veritably\nthus, we have the right to complain. To say, that, if this world has not\nits counterpart, the man who is sacrificed to truth or right ought to\nleave it content, and absolve the gods,--that is too _na\u00efve_. No, he has\na right to blaspheme them. For, in short, why has his credulity been\nthus abused? Why should he have been endowed with deceitful instincts,\nof which he has been the honest dupe? Wherefore is this premium given to\nthe frivolous or wicked man? Is it, then, he who is not deceived who is\nthe wise man? Then cursed be the gods who so adjudge their preferences!\nI desire that the future may be an enigma; but, if there is no future,\nthen this world is a frightful ambuscade. Take notice that our wish is\nnot that of the vulgar clown. We wish not to see the chastisement of the\nculpable, nor to meddle with the interests of our virtue. Our wish has\nno selfishness: it is simply to be, to remain in accord with light, to\ncontinue the thought we have begun, to know more of it, to enjoy some\nday that truth which we seek with so much labor, to see the triumph of\nthe good which we have loved. Nothing is more legitimate. The worthy\nemperor, moreover, was also sensible of it: \"What! the light of a lamp\nburns until the moment in which it is extinguished, and loses nothing of\nits brilliancy, and the truth, justice, temperance, which are in thee\nshall be extinguished with thee!\" All his life was passed in this noble\nhesitation. If he sinned, it was through too much piety. Less resigned,\nhe would have been more just; for surely to demand that there should be\nan intimate and sympathetic witness of the struggles which we endure for\ngoodness and truth is not to ask too much.\n\nIt is possible, also, that if his philosophy had been less exclusively\nmoral, if it had implied a more curious study of history and of the\nuniverse, it would have escaped a certain excessive rigor. Like the\nascetic Christians, Marcus Aurelius sometimes carried renunciation to\ndryness and subtlety. One feels that this calmness, which never belies\nitself, is obtained through an immense effort. Certainly, evil had never\nan attraction for him: he had no passion to struggle against. \"Whatever\none may do or say,\" writes he, \"it is necessary that I should be a good\nman; as the emerald might say, 'Whatever one may say or do, I must\nremain an emerald, and retain my color.'\" But, in order to hold one's\nself always upon the icy summit of stoicism, it is necessary to do cruel\nviolence to nature, and to cut away from it more than one noble element.\nThis perpetual repetition of the same reasoning, the thousand figures\nunder which he seeks to represent to himself the vanity of all things,\nthese frequently artless proofs of universal frivolity, testify to\nstrifes which he has passed through in order to extinguish all desire in\nhimself. At times we find in it something harsh and sad. The reading of\nMarcus Aurelius strengthens, but it does not console: it leaves a void\nin the soul which is at once cruel and delightful, which one would not\nexchange for full satisfaction. Humility, renunciation, severity towards\nself, were never carried further. Glory--that last illusion of great\nsouls--is reduced to nothingness. It is needful to do right without\ndisturbing one's self as to whether any one knows that we do it. He\nperceives that history will speak of him: he sometimes dreams of the men\nof the past with whom the future will associate him. \"If they have only\nplayed the part of tragic actors,\" said he, \"no one has condemned me to\nimitate them.\" The absolute mortification at which he had arrived had\ndestroyed the last fibre of self-love in him.\n\nThe consequences of this austere philosophy might have been hardness and\nobstinacy. It is here that the rare goodness of the nature of Marcus\nAurelius shines out in its full brilliancy. His severity is only for\nhimself. The fruit of this great tension of soul is an infinite\nbenevolence. All his life was a study of how to return good for evil. At\nevening, after some sad experience of human perversity, he wrote only\nas follows: \"If thou canst, correct them; on the other hand, remember\nthat thou shouldest exercise benevolence towards those who have been\ngiven to thee. The gods themselves are benevolent to men: they aid\nthem,--so great is their goodness!--to acquire health, riches, glory.\nThou art permitted to be like the gods.\" Another day, some one was very\nwicked; for see what he wrote upon his tablets: \"Such is the order of\nnature: men of this sort must act thus from necessity. To wish it to be\notherwise is to wish that the fig-tree shall bear no figs. Remember,\nthou, in one word, this thing: in a very short time thou and he will\ndie; soon after, your names even will be known no more.\" The thoughts of\na universal pardon recur without ceasing. At times a scarcely\nperceptible smile is mingled with this charming goodness,--\"The best\nmethod of avenging one's self upon the wicked is not to be like them;\"\nor a light stroke of pride,--\"It is a royal thing to hear evil said of\none's self when one does right.\" One day he thus reproached himself:\n\"Thou hast forgotten,\" said he, \"what holy relationship unites each man\nto the human race,--a relationship not of blood, or of birth, but the\nparticipation in the same intelligence. Thou hast forgotten that the\nreasoning power of each one is a god, derived from the Supreme Being.\"\n\nIn the business of life he was always exact, although a little\ningenuous, as very good men usually are. The nine reasons for\nforbearance which he valued for himself (book xi. art. 18) show us his\ncharming good-nature before family troubles, which perhaps came to him\nthrough his unworthy son. \"If, upon occasion,\" said he to himself, \"thou\nexhortest him quietly, and shalt give to him without anger some lessons\nlike these,--'No, my child; we are born for each other. It is not I who\nsuffer the evil, it is thou who doest it thyself, my child!'--show him\nadroitly, by a general consideration, that such is the rule; that\nneither the bees, nor the animals who live naturally in herds, resemble\nhim. Say this without mockery or insult, with an air of true affection,\nwith a heart which is not excited by anger; not as a pedant, not for the\nsake of being admired by those who are present; think only of him.\"\n\nCommodus (if it was for him that he thus acted) was, without doubt,\nlittle touched by this good paternal rhetoric. One of the maxims of the\nexcellent emperor was, that the wicked are unhappy, that one is only\nwicked in spite of himself, and through ignorance. He pitied those who\nwere not like himself: he did not believe that he had the right to\nobtrude himself upon them.\n\nHe well understood the baseness of men; but he did not avow it. This\nwilling blindness is the defect of choice spirits. The world not being\nall that they could wish, they lie to themselves in order not to see it\nas it is. From thence arises an expediency in their judgments. In Marcus\nAurelius, this expediency sometimes provokes us a little. If we wished\nto believe him, his instructors, several of whom were men of mediocrity,\nwere, without exception, superior men. One would say that every one near\nhim had been virtuous. This is carried to such a point, that one is\nforced to ask if the brother for whom he pronounces such a grand eulogy\nin his thanks to the gods was not his adopted brother, Lucius Verus. It\nis certain that the good emperor was capable of strong illusions when he\nundertook to lend to others his own virtues.\n\nThis quality, expressed as an ancient opinion, especially by the pen of\nthe Emperor Julian, caused him to commit an enormous error, which was\nthat of not disinheriting Commodus. This is one of those things which it\nis easy to say at a distance, when there are no obstacles present, and\nwhen one reasons without facts. It is forgotten at first that the\nemperors, who, after Nerva, made adoption so fruitful a political\nsystem, had no sons. Adoption, with the exheredation of the son or\ngrandson, occurred in the first century of the empire without good\nresults. Marcus Aurelius was evidently from principle in favor of\ndirect inheritance, in which he saw the advantage of the prevention of\ncompetition.\n\nAfter the birth of Commodus, in 161, he presented him alone to the\npeople, although he had a twin-brother: he frequently took him in his\narms and renewed this act, which was a sort of proclamation. In 166\nLucius Verus demanded that the two sons of Marcus, Commodus and Annius\nVerus, should be made C\u00e6sars. In 172 Commodus shared with his father the\ntitle of Germanicus. In 173, after the repression of the revolt of\nAvidius, the Senate, in order to recognize in some way the family\ndisinterestedness which Marcus Aurelius had shown, demanded by\nacclamation the empire and the tribunitial power for Commodus.\n\nAlready the natural wickedness of the latter had betrayed itself by more\nthan one symptom known to his tutors; but how shall one foresee the\nfuture from a few naughty acts of a child of twelve years? In 176-177\nhis father made him _Imperator_, Consul, Augustus. This was certainly an\nimprudence; but he was bound by his previous acts: Commodus, moreover,\nstill restrained himself. In later years, the evil completely revealed\nitself. On each page of the last books of the \"Thoughts,\" we see the\ntrace of the martyr within the excellent father, of the accomplished\nemperor, who saw a monster growing up beside him, ready to succeed him,\nand to take in every thing through antipathy, the opposite course from\nthat which he had believed to be for the good of men. The thought of\ndisinheriting Commodus must, without doubt, have come often to Marcus\nAurelius. But it was too late. After having associated him in the\nempire, after having so many times proclaimed him to the legions as\nperfect and accomplished, to come before the world and declare him to be\nunworthy would be a scandal. Marcus was caught in his own phrases, by\nthat style of benevolent expediency which was too habitual with him.\nAnd, after all, Commodus was only seventeen years old: who could be sure\nthat he would not reform? Even after the death of Marcus Aurelius this\nwas hoped for. Commodus at first showed the intention of following the\ncounsels of meritorious persons with whom his father had surrounded him.\n\nThe reproach which is made, then, against Marcus Aurelius, is not that\nof not having, but of having, a son. It was not his fault if the age\ncould not support so much wisdom. In philosophy, the great emperor had\nplaced the ideal of virtue so high, that no one would care to follow\nhim. In politics, his benevolent optimism had enfeebled the state\nservices, above all, the army. In religion, in order not to be too much\nbound by a religion of the state, of which he saw the weakness, he\nprepared the great triumph of the non-official worship, and left a\nreproach to hover above his memory,--unjust, it is true; but even its\nshadow should not be found in so pure a life. We touch here upon one of\nthe most delicate points in the biography of Marcus Aurelius. It is\nunhappily certain, that, under his reign, Christians were condemned to\ndeath, and executed. The policy of his predecessors had been firm in\nthis particular. Trajan, Antonine, Hadrian himself, saw in the\nChristians a secret sect, anti-social, dreaming of overturning the\nempire. Like all men true to the old Roman principles, they believed in\nthe necessity of repressing them. There was no need of special edicts:\nthe laws against the _c[oe]tus illiciti_, the _illicita collegia_, were\nnumerous. The Christians fell in the most explicit sense under the force\nof these laws. Truly, it would have been worthy of the wise emperor who\nintroduced so many reforms full of humanity, to suppress the edicts\nwhich entailed such cruel and unjust consequences. But it is necessary\nto observe primarily, that the true spirit of liberty, as we understand\nit, was not then understood by any one; and that Christianity, when it\nwas master, practised it no more than the Pagan emperors. In the second\nplace, the abrogation of the laws against illicit societies would have\nbeen the ruin of the empire, founded essentially upon the principle that\nthe state ought not to admit within its bosom any society differing\nfrom it. The principle was bad, according to our ideas: it is very\ncertain, at least, that it was the corner-stone in the Roman\nconstitution. Marcus Aurelius, far from exaggerating it, extenuated it\nwith all his powers; and one of the glories of his reign is the\nextension of the right of association. However, he did not go to the\nroot: he did not completely abolish the laws against the _collegia\nillicita_, and in the provinces there resulted from them some processes\ninfinitely to be regretted. The reproach which can be made against him\nis the same that might be made to the rulers of our day, who do not\nsuppress with a stroke of the pen all the laws restrictive of the\nliberties of re-union, of association, and of the press.\n\nFrom the distance at which we stand, we can see that Marcus Aurelius, in\nbeing more completely liberal, would have been wiser. Perhaps\nChristianity left free would have developed in a manner less disastrous\nthe theocratic and absolute principle which was in it; but one cannot\nreproach a man with not having stirred up a radical revolution on\naccount of a prevision of what would occur several centuries after him.\nTrajan, Hadrian, Antonine, Marcus Aurelius, could not know the\nprinciples of general history and political economy which have been\nunderstood only in our time, and which only our last revolutions could\nreveal. In any case, the mansuetude of the good emperor was in this\nrespect shielded from all reproach. No one has the right to be more\nexacting in this respect than was Tertullian. \"Consult your annals,\"\nsaid he to the Roman magistrates. \"You will then see that the princes\nwho have been severe towards us are of those who have held to the honor\nof having been our persecutors. On the contrary, all the princes who\nhave respected divine and human laws include but one who persecuted the\nChristians. We can even name one of them who declared himself their\nprotector,--the wise Marcus Aurelius. If he did not openly revoke the\nedicts against our brethren, he destroyed their power by the severe\npenalties which he declared against their accusers.\" It is necessary to\nremember that the Roman Empire was ten or twelve times as large as\nFrance, and that the responsibility of the emperor was very little in\nthe judgments which were rendered in the provinces. It is necessary,\nmoreover, to recall the fact that Christianity claimed not only the\nliberty of worship: all the creeds which tolerated each other were\nallowed much freedom in the empire. Christianity and Judaism were the\nexceptions to this rule on account of their intolerance and spirit of\nexclusion.\n\nWe have, then, good reason to mourn sincerely for Marcus Aurelius. Under\nhim philosophy reigned. One moment, thanks to him, the world was\ngoverned by the best and greatest man of his age. Frightful decadences\nfollowed; but the little casket which contained the \"Thoughts\" on the\nbanks of the Granicus was saved. From it came forth that incomparable\nbook in which Epictetus was surpassed, that Evangel of those who believe\nnot in the supernatural, which has not been comprehended until our day.\nVeritable, eternal Evangel, the book of \"Thoughts,\" which will never\ngrow old, because it asserts no dogma. The virtue of Marcus Aurelius,\nlike our own, rests upon reason, upon nature. St. Louis was a very\nvirtuous man, because he was a Christian: Marcus Aurelius was the most\ngodly of men, not because he was a Pagan, but because he was a gifted\nman. He was the honor of human nature, and not of an established\nreligion. Science may yet destroy, in appearance, God and the immortal\nsoul; but the book of the \"Thoughts\" will still remain young with life\nand truth.\n\nThe religion of Marcus Aurelius is the absolute religion, that which\nresults from the simple fact of a high moral conscience placed face to\nface with the universe. It is of no race, neither of any country. No\nrevolution, no change, no discovery, will have power to affect it.\n\n\n\n\n  Transcriber's Notes:\n\n    Phrases in italics are indicated by _italics_.\n\n    Words in the text which were in small-caps were\n      converted to title-case.\n\n    The \"oe\" ligature is indicated by \"[oe]\" (e.g. Ph[oe]nician).\n\n    Missing word added:\n      pg  34  the word \"it\" has been added to the phrase:\n        \"if (it) had been announced\"\n\n    Words re-arranged:\n      pg 126  \"the be strongest\" --> \"be the strongest\"\n\n    Typos corrected:\n      pg  32  \"Pysche\" --> \"Psyche\"\n      pg  54  \"apochryphal\" --> \"apocryphal\"\n      pg  95  \"Judean\" --> \"Jud\u00e6an\" (2 occurrences)\n      pg 109  \"Mithracism\" --> \"Mithraicism\"\n      pg 150  \"ctizens\" --> \"citizens\"","title":"English Conferences of Ernest Renan: Rome and Christianity. Marcus Aurelius","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":34337}