CHRIST & CIVILIZATION
Edited bv
REV dOHN B. PATON, D. D
SIR HERCn-' \X/.%IJNTING, M.A
RE\
?^^^E,D.D,
^:?^
GIFT OF
MICHAEL REESE
Digitized by the Internet Archive
in 2007 with funding from
IVIicrosoft Corporation
http://www.archive.org/details/christcivilizatiOOpatorich
CHRIST AND CIVILIZATION
CHRIST
AND CIVILIZATION
A SURVEY OF THE INFLUENCE OF THE
CHRISTIAN RELIGION UPON THE
COURSE OF CIVILIZATION
Edited for the
National Council of the Evangelical Free Churches
by
REV. JOHN BROWN PATON, D.D.,
SIR PERCY WILLIAM BUNTING, MA.,
REV. ALFRED ERNEST GARVIE, D.D.
LONDON
NATIONAL COUNCIL OF EVANGELICAL FREE CHURCHES
THOMAS LAW MEMORIAL HALL, E.C
1910
Butler & tanner,
The Selwood Printing works,
FK.OME, and London.
Preface
While such classics as Plato's Republic and More*s
Utopia show that the problem of society has engaged
the world's great thinkers in former times ; yet it
may be truly said that no previous age was so much
occupied with social questions as the present. From
this widespread and still growing interest the Christian
Churches cannot stand aloof ; and the record of the
function of Christianity in history sketched in the
volume justifies the conviction that they ought not.
The Christian Church has in the past exerted a pro-
found moral influence on society, and has brought about
far-reaching changes in social conditions. This series
of essays, each of which is written by a scholar specially
qualified by his previous studies for the task he has
undertaken, aims at exhibiting not only the principles
which from time to time have found recognition as
constituting the Christian Ideal of Society, but also
the methods by which that Ideal has -been partially
realized under varying circumstances. It is hoped that
in fulfilling this purpose the volume will not only
suggest changes which are to-day desirable, but also
means of bringing those about which are practicable.
In the Introduction the Modern Social Problem
V
240067
vi PREFACE
is presented as a summons to the Christian Churches
to think and work out its solution. As the roots of
Christianity are in Judaism, the first chapter sketches
the Social Ideals in the Old Testament. The second
chapter shows how the Christian Ideal was revealed
in Jesus. Since at a very early stage in its history
the Christian Church found an entrance into the
Graeco-Roman World, the preparation for the reception
of the Gospel engages attention in the third chapter.
How far this Christian ideal was realized in the
Primitive Church the fourth chapter seeks to prove.
Within three centuries the Christian Church spread
throughout the Roman Empire ; by what means the
fifth chapter inquires. How the Roman Empire
was influenced by the Christian Church is discussed
in the sixth chapter. After the fall of the Roman
Empire the Church transmitted its bequest of civiliza-
tion to the new nations then formed. The seventh
chapter exhibits the Influence of the Christian Church
on Social and Ethical Development during the
Middle Ages. While the Reformation was primarily
religious, yet it formulated social principles, and had
social effects ; and both these are described in the
eighth chapter. After the Reformation the most
important event for the Protestant Churches of Great
Britain was the Evangelical Revival in the eighteenth
century. How this was the inspiration of the philan-
thropy which marked the beginning of the nineteenth
century the ninth chapter demonstrates. So import-
ant has been the influence of the French Revolution
PREFACE vii
on modern social theories that the tenth chapter has
been devoted to this subject. In no modern enterprise
of the Christian Church to-day is its social influence
so fully or clearly illustrated as in Foreign Missions ;
the proof of this is given in the eleventh chapter.
As the Christian Church can effect its social mission
only in co-operation with other factors of human
progress, it seemed necessary for the purpose of the
volume that the last chapter should give some account
of modern scientific and philosophical thought regard-
ing human society. May this record of the past awaken
an interest, and spur on to an effort in the present,
which will make the Christian Church of the future
a more constant and potent force for the good of
human society than it has ever yet been !
Contents
PAGE
Preface v
Introduction : The Modern Social Problem, by the Rev.
John Scott Lidgett, M.A., D.D., Warden of the Ber-
mondsey Settlement, and ex-President of the National
Free Church Council ....... 3
CHAPTER I
Social Ideals in the Old Testament, by the Rev. W. H.
Bennett, M.A., Litt.D., D.D., Professor of Old Testa-
ment Language and Literature in New and Hackney
College, London ....... 45
CHAPTER II
The Christian Ideal revealed in Jesus, by the Rev.
Alfred E. Garvie, M.A., D.D., Principal of New College,
London . . . . . . . . .81
CHAPTER III
The Preparation for the Christian Ideal in the
Gentile Environment of the Primitive Church, by
C. Franklin Angus, IVT.A., Fellow and Classical Lecturer
of Trinity Hall, Cambridge . . . . .119
CHAPTER IV
The Christian Ideal as realized in the Primitive Church,
by the Rev. J. Vernon Bartlet, M.A., D.D., Pro-
fessor of Church History in Mansfield College, Oxford 153
X CONTENTS
PAGE
CHAPTER V
The Factors in the Expansion of the Christian Church,
by the Rev. James Orr, M.A., D.D,, Professor of Apolo-
getics and Systematic Theology in the United Free
Church College, Glasgow 191
CHAPTER VI
The Influence of the Christian Church upon the Roman
Empire, by the Rev. H. H. Scullard. M.A., D.D.,
Professor of Church History in New and Hackney College,
London ......... 237
CHAPTER VII
The Influence of the Christian Church on the Social
AND Ethical Development of the Middle Ages,
by the Rev. H. B. Workman, D.Lit., Principal of
Westminster Training College, London . . . 273
CHAPTER VIII
The Social Principles and Effects of the Reformation,
by the Rev. H. Andrews, B.A., Professor of New Testa-
ment Exegesis and Criticism in New College, London 335
CHAPTER IX
The Evangelical Revival and Philanthropy, by the
Rev. Thomas Cuming Hall, D.D., Professor of Christian
Ethics in Union Theological Seminary, New York,
Author of **The Social Meaning of Modern Religious
Movements in England " . . . . . . 377
CHAPTER X
Christianity and the French Revolution, by J. Holland
Rose, Litt.D., Author of "The Revolutionary and
Napoleonic Era." 411
CONTENTS xi
PAGE
CHAPTER XI
The Social Influence of Christianity as illustrated
BY Modern Foreign Missions, by the Rev. James S.
Dennis, D.D., Author of " Christian Missions and Social
Progress " ........ 447
CHAPTER XII
Modern Scientific and Philosophic Thought regarding
Human Society, by Henry Jones, M.A., LL.D., Pro-
fessor of Moral Philosophy in the University of Glasgow 491
Index 523
Introduction
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM
By the Rev. J. SCOTT LIDGETT, M.A., D.D., Warden of
THE BeRMONDSEY SETTLEMENT, EX-PrESIDENT OF THE
National Free Church Council.
C.c. B
ARGUMENT.
Introductory.
(i) The aim of the Volume Historical and Practical.
(2) Satisfaction with the Past out of place.
(3) A Clear and Convincing Indication of the Social Meaning and the
Moral Effects of the Christian ReUgion needed.
(4) Christianity Absolute as the Fulfilment of the Old Testament Religion —
its hope of the Kingdom of God in Christ,
(5) The Forces of the Christian Religion and the Social Problem of to-day.
(6) The Social Problem still Unsolved and more Manifest.
(7) The Presuppositions of this Volume.
I. The Modern Social Problem.
(i) The Situation constantly altering in Relief of the Problem.
(2) Remaining Problem Economic with Religious, Moral and Intellectual
Elements.
(3) The Fact and the Sense of Insecurity and the Consequences.
(4) The Deadly Effect of the Environment of the Slum.
(5) The State of Things often pronounced Inevitable.
(6) The Problem of the City Slum one with the Social Problem elsewhere.
(7) The Luxury of the Rich at the other end of the scale.
II. The Solution of the Problem.
(i) No hope of a Solution from the Purely Economic Standpoint.
(2) The Palhatives of the Poor Law and Charitable Relief unsatisfactory.
(3) The Social Problem above all Spiritual, although conditioned by Economic
Facts and Laws, and affected by Political Action.?
III. The Peculiar Responsibility of the Christian Church.
(i) The Minor Reasons for its Action.
(2) The Christian view of Suffering as Discipline no Objection.
(3) The Relation of Organized Christianity to the Social Problem the difficulty.
(4) The Laws of Christ not for His Church only, but through it Universal.
(5) The Christian Personality Reahzed in Social Relations.
(6) The Christian Religion, while Spiritual and Transcendent, sovereignly
immanent in human society.
(7) The Conflict in the Legislative application of Spiritual Principles inevit-
able, yet Consistent with the Church's Spiritual Mission.
(8) The Church's Main Service as Influential Witness to Ideals in a truly
Christian and Catholic Spirit.
(9) The Decisive Results in the Modern Social Problem of the Manifestation
of this Temper.
/lo) The Practical Service of the Churches outside the Field of Public Life.
(11) The Redemptive Mission of Christianity.
Introduction
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM
The aim of this volume, though primarily historical,
is above all practical. It sets forth the nature and
growth of great social ideals, which were fulfilled in
Christ, and thereby for ever included both in the con-
tent of His religion and in the commission of His
Church. It traces the working of these ideals and the
way by which they passed from being merely the
spiritual heritage of the Church into motive forces
playing a great part in moulding and transforming
Western civilization. The reason, however, of this
attempt to represent historic facts is rather to provide
guidance for the future than to encourage satisfaction
with the past.
For many reasons such satisfaction would be out
of place. Leaving out of account for the moment our
existing social evils, which are deeply rooted in the
past, it is undeniable that Christ's ideals have been
but imperfectly apprehended even by the best of His
followers, and have been largely misconceived by the
majority. The endeavour faithfully to apply even
the imperfect apprehension of them to the life of the
Church itself has only for brief periods been strenuous
and has often failed altogether. Any sustained at-
INTRODUCTION
tempt to base civilization in its entirety upon them
has yet to come into existence. The downward drag
of human inertia and the clash of selfish interests within
the Church have often led to almost flat contradiction
of the precepts of Christ, and to complete denial of
His Spirit. The vindication of Christ — though it should
be offered as a tribute and not as a defence — can only
be, taking history as a whole, by the condemnation,
always of the limitations and often of the infidelity of
His Church. Such vindication will take the form of
showing the permanent sufficiency of the ideals which
Christ revealed, or to which He gave the sanction of
His authority, of describing their sustained influence
upon mankind throughout the ages and, above all,
at seasons of spiritual revival, and of demonstrating
from the transforming and uplifting results of their
partial application that all that is required for the
redemption of mankind is that they should be embraced
with such faith and devotion as will give them full
play.
Hence what is mainly required is a clear and
convincing indication of the social meaning and the
normal effects of the Christian religion. Such an indi-
cation will be largely given by the two inductive
methods of difference and of concomitant variations.
That is to say it will exhibit the normal effects upon
civilization exerted by the introduction of the Chris-
tian religion, and will show that human and civil well-
being have varied directly as the faith of Christ has
been truly embraced and resolutely applied to the
problems and tasks of human society. The most
beneficent effect of such an endeavour will be to supply
an incentive for the future : for the verification of
Christianity, at least on its practical side, must lie in
its complete realization and in its full application to
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 5
human affairs. Hence the present investigation of the
influence of Christianity upon the evolution of civiliz-
ation is intended so to illustrate its principles and to
reveal its relations to human nature and progress, as
to supply inspiration and guidance for a vast task that
is quite obviously incomplete.
The claim is made that the religion of Christ is the
absolute religion. Yet it is absolute, not as a creation
out of nothing, but as the fulfilment of the Old Testa-
ment religion out of which it sprang, and through
which it stands connected, as well as contrasted, with
the other religions of mankind. Now the distinctive
mark of Old Testament religion was that it offered to
faith the prospect and assurance of a supreme his-
toric end which should satisfy every power, meet every
need, and idealize every relationship of mankind.
That end is the Kingdom of God ; not only His sove-
reign gift, but His spiritual manifestation within the
whole realm of human, and even natural, existence.
The advent of this kingdom was represented as neces-
sary to satisfy, not so much the material cravings,
as the spiritual demands which the religion of Jehovah
had itself created in the heart of His people. <Jhe
promise of the Kingdom of God affirmed the worth,
and suggested the permanence of personal existence.
It declared the sacredness of human society, morally
ordered and spiritually inspired. It founded the
social order in God and set forth its perfecting as
the final act of God and the characteristic hope of
true religion. Hence inevitably the consummation,
divinely promised, became the ideal of human effort
and the test, as the prophets insisted, of human char-
acter^ The spirituality of Christ led to the fusing of
the Apocalyptic and the moral elements of the Old
Testament in a perfect whole. Neither element can
6 INTRODUCTION
be ignored. The union between them is not always
apparent in the Gospel narratives as they stand. It
must be found in our Lord's treatment of the Father-
hood of God and of the sonship of men, and in the truth,
contained therein, that the recreative activity of God
begins in the character and influence of His children.
Hence as crude Apocalyptic hopes passed away from
the Christian Church, the earnest of the true Apocalypse
began to appear in more far-reaching social endeavour.
This volume will show how far-reaching such endeavour
became, how it reappeared in every phase of Christian
development, and how its principles worked even in
movements, like the French Revolution, which were
ostensibly a revolt against organized — but in reality
travestied — Christianity.
The vital question, however, remains. What
forces can the religion of Christ bring to bear upon the
Social Problem of to-day ? Every age involves a
crisis for civilization, for the gains of the past can only
be preserved by the continued advance of the present.
Yet in some respects the present crisis is unique, both
by reason of the demands it makes and equally by
reason of the new means of meeting them. On the
one hand is the extent and intimacy of our world-rela-
tions, which are fast making, humanity to stand, not
merely for a common nature, but for a Commonwealth.
In addition, there is the vast development of our
industrial system, with all the moral, economic, and
physical problems involved in it. Accompanying
this development is the colossal and cosmopolitan
organization of financial power that is almost imper-
sonal— that certainly either claims to be or submits
to become devoid of those restraining and guiding
influences which moral personality stands for. If
these elements in combination give unique gravity
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 7
to the problem of modern civilization, on the other
hand the present age has unique powers of dealing
with it. Democracy has come into being, a deeper
sympathy is everywhere at war with inherited and
vulgar callousness, while the advance of science is
every day increasing the resources available for hu-
mane sympathy, when it becomes a democratic pur-
pose. The practical object of this volume will best
be served, therefore, by examining at the outset the
challenge which the modern Social Problem offers to
Christianity.
In what has already been said it is implied that so
far from the social problem having been solved in the
past — whether by the Christian religion or by other
means — its full nature and dimensions are only now
for the first time in human history becoming manifest.
Particular evils have been overcome. But the
development of human life in modern times, although
on the whole it has meant real progress, has been
attended by serious drawbacks and has given rise to
a multitude of incidental evils that are not the less
dangerous or evil, because they may be treated as
incidental. Moreover, the standards of society — whether
political, economic, or social — in so-called Christian
countries have never made and do not now make any
pretence of being completely Christian. This is not
merely a complaint on the part of those who take the
Christian religion seriously. The average opinion of
the present day pronounces the religion of. the Sermon
on the Mount to be an impracticable ideal and holds
that any attempt systematically to apply it would be
attended by almost fatal disaster. So long as this
state of mind prevails convinced and consistent Chris-
tians can find little satisfaction in the social condition
of the age, and will draw the inference that great as
8 INTRODUCTION
has been the influence of Christ it is destined to become
greater and more far-reaching in the future. The
Christian view of the world, while not optimist as to
any particular stage of historic development, (is pro-
foundly so as to the ultimate possibihties, nay certain-
ties, as it regards , them.} ^he Christian believer is
conscious of spiritual forces within himself and the
Church, which would quickly transform the world if
they had full play and became universale Further,
he is profoundly convinced that the nature of the uni-
verse is so constituted and its course so ordered that
all things must, of necessity, conspire to further every
true attempt to translate the Christian ideal into
actuality. Hence, leaving out of account such social
evils as are obviously caused by deliberate wrong-
doing. Christians are constrained to regard all social
evil which rests upon collective volition embodied in
laws and customs, as being due to imperfect under-
standing and unfaithful application of the spirit and
laws of Christ, and will insist that the true remedy is
to be found in a fuller acceptance and expression of
His revelation. Hence Christianity cannot be satis-
fied with the achievements of the past. To begin with,
because great as they have been they have yet been
so largely ineffectual. In the next place, because
Christianity is a continuous spiritual life, which flour-
ishes only so long as it puts forth victorious energy
for the transformation of the world. And, finally,
because the essential nature of its spiritual life de-
mands the most far-reaching social expression. The
history of the relations between Christianity and civil-
ization cannot,therefore, be a completed book. (Neither
Christianity nor civilization has been completed, nor
will either reach its consummation till its relations
with the other have been perfected. ) The history.
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 9
therefore, is chiefly useful as giving both guidance and
inspiration for present and future efforts. It will
supply principles rather than precedents ; vital ends
and not accidental means. It will instruct us by its
shortcomings as well as by its achievements. In par-
ticular it will teach the all-important lesson that Chris-
tianity has most truly served the cause of social pro-
gress by the creative fearlessness, which has shrunk
from no innovation, or even revolution, which has been
possible and needful in order to full realization of its
distinctive life. To celebrate the triumph of Christian
principles and movements in the past, without asking
what kindred, and even greater service they prompt
us to render in the present, is, as our Lord has taught
us, to build the sepulchres of the prophets and thereby
show ourselves to be the children of those who slew
them. The prophetic succession is the only tribute
that the prophets can receive. Hence the present
inquiry seeks to elucidate the characteristic influence
of Christ in order to show that the modern social pro-
blem not only makes an imperative demand upon the
Churches, but also that it can only be solved by the
means that the Churches can bring to bear.
The point of view of this volume is governed by
certain important presuppositions. To begin with,
it is assumed that our present social condition is
unsatisfactory. In the next place it is suggested
that the problem set |by the present social condition
is one. However many elements may he present,
they go to make up one organic whole. Further,
it is assumed that the social problem of the ages has
a distinctively modern form, claiming, therefore, a
treatment special to our own age. Again the form
prescribed for our investigation takes for granted that
the problem will not solve itself. A remedy cannot
10 INTRODUCTION
be hoped for in automatic action, but only by de-
liberate effort. Moreover, such effort must not be
confined within those limits of practical life wherein
the problem finds external manifestation. If it were
so, the only people concerned with it would be the
statesmen, economists and organizers of commercial
and industrial life. On the positive side, it is pre-
supposed that the problem is in the last resort spiritual,
concerned rather with the wills of men than with in-
adequate or refractory conditions of their lot. If it
were the latter, men would not be called to solve a
problem, still less would spiritual influences be in-
voked. Humanity must, in that case, organize its
ambulance service and be content. Being held to be
a spiritual problem, the social problem is treated as a
call to the Christian forces of the nation. Finally, it
is suggested that the problem is soluble, if treated as
ultimately spiritual and dealt with by spiritual means.
All these assumptions must be considered before we
are enabled to show what Christians ought to do, and
to make an appeal to them well grounded alike in the
nature and history of their religion to discharge their
duty, in the faith and obedience of Christ. It is well,
therefore, that we should start with a clear recognition
of the imperfection of our existing civilization and of
the task that this fact imposes upon Christians.
What, then, is the Modern Social Problem ? It is
impossible, within our space, to attempt a detailed
description of it for, while existing everywhere through-
out the country, it differs very much in detail and in
degrees of acuteness, according as we consider urban
or rural populations ; and in regard to the former
greatly depends upon the size of the population and
upon the differing conditions of local industry. Again,
we are living in times of rapid legislative and adminis-
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM ii
trative changes, and when such changes are chiefly
directed towards alleviating social evils. The situa-
tion alters constantly. The grant of Old Age Pen-
sions, for example, has profoundly affected it, not so
much because of the immediate relief given to the aged
poor, but because of the reforms both in regard to the
relations of the State to industry, and in regard to the
Poor Law, which are involved in it. Again, the hous-
ing problem, at any rate in the towns, is by no means
as grave as it was a few years ago, owing in part to
the carrying out of great housing schemes both by
municipal and private activity, and still more to the
multiplication of facilities for cheap transit, which
have sensibly relieved the congested areas of the great
cities, and will tend to the reduction of rents.^ The
Housing and Town-planning Act recently passed,
though by no means as effective a measure as could
have been desired, is likely to accelerate this remedial
process, while doing something to increase the amen-
ities and therefore the healthfulness of large towns,
at any rate so far as their future growth is concerned.
Once more, the treatment of the social problem may
easily create a feeling of undue pessimism, because
the brighter features, both of the retrospect and the
prospect, are inevitably left out of account. We must,
however, not forget that the great increase of the
national wealth, although it has not been attended
by an equitable distribution of it, has greatly raised
the standard of living for the successful in all classes
^ See the Return of the number of Empty Houses in the great
cities and towns of the United Kingdom presented to the House
of Commons by the President of the Local Government Board in
August 1909. It must be remembered, however, that such empty
houses owing to their character and situation, are often not available
for relieving congestion elsewhere, even in the same town.
12 INTRODUCTION
of society. In addition, the cheapening of the neces-
saries of Hfe that has resulted from Free Trade and
from the poHcy of selecting luxuries and superfluities,
instead of necessaries, for taxation has increased the
purchasing power of the poor. The steady develop-
ment of popular education, despite many obstacles
and much obstruction, has accomplished much and
promises still more. The industrial classes, moreover,
have won, after long struggles, complete liberty of
combination. The skilled trades have, therefore, been
enabled to secure higher wages and better conditions
of labour, though some serious deductions must be
made in respect of the insecurity resulting from trade
depression, ill-health and other causes. The extension
of the franchise and the estabUshment of representa-
tive authorities for local government, with steadily
rising ideals and increasing powers to deal with social
conditions are important factors, the possibiUties of
which must be fully recognized. If it is not our busi-
ness now to dwell upon these relieving features they
must not for a moment be forgotten.
Yet an immense problem remains, which is, to
begin with, economic, but which includes reUgious,
moral, and intellectual elements that are of profound
importance. A large proportion of the population,
both in town and country, have to exist permanently
upon less than a living wage, that is upon less than is
necessary so to feed, clothe and house an average
family as to secure physical well-being, with some
small margin for needful recreation.^ This is the
case, not merely in so-called sweated industries,
^ See upon this subject Rowntree's Poverty (Macmillan, is.).
The writer's estimate of the proportion of the population that
comes short of enjoying a living wage may be somewhat excessive.
But on any calculation, the facts are sufficiently serious.
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 13
but in regard to the great mass of unskilled labour
both in town and country. Still more serious, per-
haps, is the lack of security, of which more must be
said later on. Owing to these causes, the industrial
movement upwards is accompanied by a terrible drift
downwards which, as will be seen subsequently is
extending in area, and is filling the centres of our great
cities with almost hopeless wrecks of humanity. If,
then, we wish to realize the meaning of the Modern
Social Problem we must, first of all, explore the city
slum, and not only the slum, properly so-called, but
the ever-widening areas of our great cities, especially
of London, which are the headquarters of unskilled
labour. Here the insufficiency of wages to maintain
health, the rise of rents owing to pressure of popula-
tion (in the case of London because its imperfect
unification leaves the poorer districts unjustly bur-
dened with the cost of sanitation and other local
charges), and the insecurity of labour are to be found
at their worst. To these centres have come the victims
of agricultural depression in the country, often dis-
placing from employment the less vigorous town-bred
labourer. Hither drift the unfit of every kind. Here
is to be found the hopeless competition of scores or
even of hundreds of men to obtain one job.
While not dwelling on the obvious physical evils
of such a state of things, it is necessary to point out
some aspects of the matter which are little realized
by the well-to-do. Above all, is the fact and the sense
of insecurity. At any moment depression of trade,
the introduction of labour-saving machinery, or the
failure of a business firm may bring the most deserv-
ing face to face with the horrors of unemployment.
Such an experience is bewildering in itself, but still
more so if it be borne in mind that the causes which
14 INTRODUCTION
put a man out of particular employment are usually
sufficiently wide in their operation to prevent him
from getting work elsewhere. Moreover, he who seeks
work under such conditions is exposed to cruel in-
dignities, must often fight like a wild beast to get his
place from other competitors, and is exposed to gnaw-
ing anxiety, until such demoralization sets in as deadens
his sensibility by destroying his manhood. Hence the
swift transition from being unemployed to becoming
unemployable. Meanwhile the hard necessity is too
often laid upon the breadwinner that whoever may
come short of food^ — whether wife or little ones — he
must be fed lest the last ray of hope should vanish
through his breakdown. And short of such calamities,
the pressure of competition and the various risks of
employing any save the most efficient labour destroy
the chance of employment after the prime of muscular
vigour has been passed, and cause workmen to be
haunted with the fear of failing sick or of displaying
any physical infirmity, however slight. To all this
must be added the manifold evils that attend upon
casual or seasonal labour, with long periods of enforced
idleness and with the almost hopeless demoralization
which comes from uncertainty and irregularity of life.
The ignorance, immobility, and lack of elasticity that
characterize such labour should also be borne in mind.
Economists speak somewhat loftily of the absorption
of displaced labour by new industries. But the pro-
cess is at best slow and takes full effect only in the
next generation of workers. Meanwhile the tragedy
of broken lives is unspeakable. Further, let it be
remembered that children are born into this hereditary
condition. Their early years are, too often, pinched
and saddened by it, their outlook is limited by its
narrowing conditions, and at too early an age they are
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 15
thrust out to repeat the experiences of those who have
gone before them, or even, it may be, to inflict still
further damage upon the industrial chances of the pre-
vious generation. It need hardly be said that such
influences work havoc with the home. Overcrowding,
frequent *' flittings," occasional acquaintance with
the workhouse, the breaking down of order, all tend
to destroy not only the beauty, but too often the exist-
ence, of home life. Young people, not out of their
teens and brought up under such conditions, found
homes and rear families in their turn. Is it a wonder
that unfitness to discharge parental duties is one of
the saddest features of slum life, that mothers, who
have themselves spent the most momentous years
of their life in casual labour and are forced to continue
in it after marriage, are so helpless and unwise that it
has been found necessary to establish schools for them
in order that they be instructed in the most rudiment-
ary truths concerning the care of infants ?
Around such hapless and hopeless people the en-
vironment of the slum closes with deadly effect. Its
fetid atmosphere, its insanitary conditions, and its
deadly monotony are enough to drag its inhabitants
down to the lowest level of physical and mental inefli-
ciency. Yet this is the least part of it. The slum is
also the " congested area *' where drink shops vie with
one another to complete the ruin of the unfortunate
and unfit. The exclusion of young children from
licensed premises in such circumstances is but an in-
adequate and makeshift remedy even so far as they are
concerned. The atmosphere of drink is all around.
The drink habit is one of the earliest formed. Intoxi-
cating drink is the supplement of insufiicient food,
the condiment or substitute for food, unattractive
both in its nature and in the way it is prepared. Above
i6 INTRODUCTION
all it is the anodyne of misery, the artificial means of
rising above squalid cares and surroundings. Worst
of all, perhaps, is the fact that all those who are neigh-
bours suffer from the same evils and are reduced to a
common unfitness. There are few to set a higher
standard and thereby to kindle the spirit of a healthy
emulation. No doubt education has done something.
The heart of a little little slum child is as receptive to
higher influences as is that of one in higher station.
But the influence of school is too weak to overcome
the steady pressure of the whole of the ordinary en-
vironment. Meet the youth or girl of seventeen or
eighteen, after a few years ' occupation in casual labour,
and how coarsened they have become since the old
school days. The influences at the most critical period
of their life are downward and not upward. Of course,
the excellent work of evening schools, institutes, clubs
and brigades must not be overlooked. But the pro-
vision of such help comes pitiably short of the need.
Indeed, speaking generally, the Churches are not or-
ganized, equipped, and inspired, as yet, for a decisive
victory where the fight for a Christian civilization is
hardest. Here and there, at much cost of men, women
and money a successful work is carried on. But wise,
sympathetic and magnetic friendship is largely wanting
where it is needed most. An overworked minister of
religion, deserted by the workers who have gone to the
suburbs, and harassed to keep his dwindling congrega-
tion together, cannot carry on a vigorous or successful
campaign against the sin and suffering he sees around
him. And, were his resources a hundredfold greater,
let it be remembered that no agency or institution can
take the place of a healthful and happy home ! The
very multiplicity of our agencies is often the surest
evidence of the well-nigh incurable evils with which
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 17
their promoters are bravely struggling to deal. Hence
the presence at the heart of all our great cities, and
especially of London, of multitudes of people, phy-
sically degenerate, mentally unstable, demoralized and
materialized, who are the victims and not the heirs
of our so-called Christian civilization. Their case has
been only imperfectly presented. They are the em-
bodiment and expression of the Modern Social Pro-
blem.
In the consideration of this state of things, two
important facts must be borne in mind. In the first
place, that this state of things has hitherto, for the
most part, been pronounced to be inevitable. No
doubt those who speak thus have little or no personal
acquaintance with the human meaning of the facts of
which they glibly speak. They deal with economic
factors, without enough sensibility or imagination to
remember that their own brothers and sisters are
concerned. The industry and commerce of the world,
and especially of the country, must be carried on.
Reservoirs and reserves of cheap labour are required.
So long as this need is supplied and the merchant gets
his goods, what does it matter to the business man at
a distance, or to the abstract theorist, that men and
women are being thrown upon the scrapheap by the
process, more surely than is the case with obsolete
or worn-out machinery ? This is not an imputation
of heartlessness in the ordinary sense of the term.
Sympathy is the offspring of seeing. And owing to
the distance that separates rich and poor in large cities,
the personal contact, which enables and even compels
seeing, is absent. Hence many are shocked when the
plain facts are stated, and are ready to assume that
their informant is hysterical or embittered. In ad-
dition to the necessities of the army of industry, it is
c.c. c
i8 INTRODUCTION
held that the greatest efficiency of the fit can only be
maintained by the sacrifice of the unfit. The pressure
of competition, and even of unregulated competition,
is held to be so needful, if each is to do his best, that
things must be allowed to take their course. The in-
dependence of the economic unit slowly won from serf-
dom and from the public regulation of labour, must
be jealously upheld. Moreover economic laws are
constantly spoken of as if they acted as irresistibly
and with as complete independence of the human will
as gravitation itself. Hence no effective pressure in
the direction of reform can be expected from those
whose immediate interests are served or whose philo-
sophy is satisfied by the present state of affairs.
In the second place, the problem of the city slum
is in complete solidarity with the social problem else-
where. Not only are its essential features reproduced
on a small scale in countless towns and villages, but
the existence of kindred evils in the country leads
directly to their increase in the great centres of popu-
lation. The unsatisfactory position and prospects
of the agricultural labourer have denuded the rural
districts only to add to the congestion and extreme
competition of the cities. Size, the element of chance,
colour, excitement all arouse hopes and desires which
attract from the countryside. The failures drift to
the great centres. The energetic set their face thither
and displace less vigorous labour where they come.
Thus, though the centre of the problem is in the city
it can only be dealt with there by means sufficiently
powerful and all-embracing to cure the evil every-
where.
At the other end of the social scale is to be found
the luxury of the rich. It is neither necessary, nor
would it be altogether just, to bring the charge of
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 19
wasteful luxury and extravagance against any class
as a whole. There are many of the rich to whom it
does not apply. Still more, the loss of simplicity of
life and restraint in expenditure are characteristic
evils at present in every class, where income exceeds
the primary needs of life, measured by the special
standard of each class. The pursuit of pleasure, with
the indiscipline and extravagance that spring out of
it, are the forms which the social problem takes among
the successful and secure. That which interferes
with an indulgence is regarded as an injustice. At the
time when this is written, those who dislike the land
taxes of the present Budget paint gloomy pictures
of the unemployment which will result from them.
It seems never to occur to those who use such argu-
ments how small is the body of labour which is af-
fected, even assuming that the whole of it is useful.
Many a change of fashion in dress has involved more
loss of employment than Mr. Lloyd George's Budget
can possibly bring about. Still more, it is necessary
to balance against diminished demand for labour by
the wealthy, the increased demand for it which would
immediately take place were the burdens of the poor
lightened by effective social reform.
This imperfect review of the present social situa-
tion shows that, regarded from the purely economic
standpoint, there is no hope of a solution. It tends,
on the contrary, to perpetuate itself. Commercial
interests are nervous of change which may affect for
ill the gigantic and sensitive interests of finance, or
may give temporary advantages to foreign rivals.
Those who have accustomed themselves to a certain
standard of comfort and luxury are easily alarmed at
the possibihty of any unfavourable alteration, whether
positive or relative. The worst victims of social evil
20 INTRODUCTION
have neither the energy, the hope, nor the organizing
power to work out their own salvation by themselves.
It may be suggested that the hope of the future lies
in combination. But waiving the objection that the
remedy of combination assumes a state of permanent,
if latent, warfare between capital and labour, this
method is impracticable. So long as an excess of
unskilled labour exists, constantly recruited from the
unsuccessful, the untrained and the juvenile, there is
no possibility of collective bargaining with employers.
The ultimate resource of combination, a strike, is
impossible — unless indeed the conditions are such as to
bring outside moral forces into the field, as was the
case in the London Dock Strike of 1889 — for the labour
withdrawn can, in most cases, be at least temporarily
replaced. Moreover, the risk of such combination
is one of the most powerful influences in securing the
introduction of labour-saving appliances. Hence the
economic problem cannot be solved by ordinary
economic forces, if left to themselves.
But, it may be asked, what about the palliatives
which exist ? Apart from such help as is afforded
by the co-operation of the very poor themselves —
for example by the more imperfect types of sick benefit
societies, which are for the most part organized by
philanthropic agencies — these consist of the Poor Law
and of charitable relief.
The Poor Law is intended to prevent the possibility
of death by starvation or from inability to obtain
medical attention in sickness. The common work-
house, with its infirm wards, is the primary institu-
tion, which reveals its original design.^ The estab-
^ It is impossible within our limits to touch upon the origin and
history of the Poor Law or to explain the reasons that led to the
momentous reform of 1834, which is the basis of present Poor Law
administration.
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 21
lishment of great Poor Law infirmaries for the sick, of
various systems of dealing with children, of separate
institutions for the treatment of the aged and infirm,
the able-bodied and other classes, are developments
brought about in part by administrative necessities,
and still more by the growing sympathy and wisdom
of Guardians of the poor and of the ratepayers to whom
they appeal. The fundamental condition of rehef,
however, is destitution. The chief end proposed is to
maintain the economic independence of the poor by
exacting from them the spirit of independence and
self-help. Hence the first principle of Poor Law relief
has been that it must be less attractive than the most
meagre subsistence without it, and that the offer of
it must be associated with such deterrents, and even
indignities, that no one will be tempted to have re-
course to it who can possibly do without it. Any
softening of such conditions in recent times marks a
departure from the original principle, and, as recent
experience has shown, may produce, so long as it is
carried on under the legal conditions at present exist-
ing, the embarrassment of costly institutions and of
the rapid spread of pauperism. Hence the following
dilemma is created. Either the Poor Law must be
administered in all its severity, in which case its very
relief is an aggravation of the sufferings of the poor by
reason of the mental anguish it inflicts, or its severity
must be relaxed, with the result that sound economic
progress is checked, and that new kinds of demoraliza-
tion abound. It is impossible that the action of the
present Poor Law should be, in any true sense, reme-
died, save in the case of children educated and started
in life by the more competent Boards of Guardians.^
^ Even in such cases the powers of the Guardians are too limited
to secure the largest amount of success.
22 INTRODUCTION
The very fact that it can only step in when men and
women have hopelessly broken down means that any
remedial action, if attempted, comes too late to secure
the co-operation of hope, energy, and character in its
object. Yet this is quite indispensable if a satisfac-
tory result is to be reached. Help to prevent failure
is what is needed, instead of attempts to palliate
failure after it has taken place. Humane progress is
swiftly giving the ascendency to sympathy over coer-
cion. This involves the total reform of the system,
in order that sympathy may be armed with adequate
powers — educational, disciplinary and co-operative —
to make its action truly remedial so long as the causes
which necessitate special treatment of the unfortunate
continue to operate.^
To a large extent, the same objections must be
taken to charitable relief. Of course, it is impossible
to foresee a time when special needs and emergencies
will not call for private help. When such help is
brought with the comprehension and sympathy of
true friendship it can do nothing but good, for it calls
forth the best and most powerful of motives, in both
giver and receiver, and cements the fellowship out of
which it springs. Short of this charity does more
harm than good. It delays the application of real
remedies, it attracts the least worthy to receive it ;
it is spasmodic in its action and frequently unwise in
its methods. Furthermore it involves the manifold
evils of patronage, can be exploited for unworthy ends,
and becomes a profession instead of a ministry. By
its nature it can only temper effects, without dealing
with causes. It is exposed to the subtle temptation
of seeking to perpetuate, rather than to end, the social
conditions to which it owes its rise. Only as the ideal
^ See the Minority Report of the Poor Law Commission, 1909.
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 23
of righteousness supersedes that of charity, as the
goal of independence, instead of dependence, is sought
for its objects, and as its exercise means the co-opera-
tion of friendship, can philanthropy be treated as a
real factor in the emancipation of the poor, and the
transformation of society. Its truest aim, so far
as private effort is concerned, should be to provide the
upholding influence, the stand-by, of personal contact.
Suflicient has now been said to show that the
Modern Social Problem is above all spiritual. No
doubt it is conditioned by economic facts and laws.
It can be greatly affected by political action. The
grant of Old Age Pensions, the establishment of labour
exchanges, the carrying out of great schemes of State-
aided and supervised insurance against invalidity and
unemployment, the prevention of sweating, the stay-
ing of the torrent of unskilled labour by diverting
from it, through sounder education, the more capable
boys and girls who at present swell it, the opening
up of the land to small holders, the institution of
public works — afforestation, drainage, coast protection,
etc. — against times of trade contraction — all these may
be expected to make a marked impression upon existing
evils. The remodelling of the aims and powers of the Poor
Law — in a sense its abolition — will effectively supple-
ment these wider processes, whatever arrangements
may be made for superseding the present Boards of
Guardians. A truly progressive municipal policy
will steadily improve all the conditions of town life,
But if such a social policy in all its entirety is to be
set on foot, effectively carried through, and success-
fully administered — in spite of hostile combinations
and human inertia — great spiritual influences must
be at work throughout the community. The social
problem must be grasped as an organic whole. Its
24 INTRODUCTION
solution must be undertaken as a national task in
which all classes are called to co-operate. / It must
be pursued with steadfast and strenuous resolution./
It must be compassed by far-reaching and continuous
efforts, legislative, administrative and philanthropic.
All this is impossible till one supreme ideal gains com-
mand of the nation as the prime object of this collective
endeavour./ That object can be nothing less than the
complete abolition of demoralizing and degrading
poverty, and thereby the bringing of the poorest into
the full inheritance of civilization./ Many elements
go to make up the fullness of this ideal, but the indis-
pensable basis of them all is the determination to secure
for all at least the minimum of economic well-being
which is essential to the enjoyment of all the highest
goods of life. The attainment of this great end cannot
be reached without manifold readjustments of social,
economic, and political relations. It calls for renewed
hope and effort on the part of the less fortunate, for
no man can be saved, for any true end of life, in spite
of himself. Equally/ it calls for the triumph of bro-
therly co-operation and brotherly sacrifice on the part
of the more fortunate. In short, the social conscious-
ness must become sovereign in its authority over the
national life, subordinating, until it utterly expels,
selfish individualism, class jealousies, and timid dis-
like of necessary change. ^ Only slowly, and with much
difficulty, will political forces and economic relations
respond to and become transformed by this supreme
ideal. / True the so-called '' economic man '* is so
stiff an abstraction as to be a caricature of humanity.
The pursuit of wealth for its own sake is not, commonly,
the master motive even in the case of those who seek
to get rich. But selfishness, stupidity, and timidity
are mighty forces of obstruction, not to speak of the
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 25
material difficulties that must be encountered. No-
thing but heroic determination, collective wisdom, and
a great inspiration of brotherhood will suffice. It
would be a fatal mistake to confuse these qualities
with a particular economic doctrine — say, for example,
with State Socialism. The question is therefore that
of the national character — its seriousness, sympathy,
sense of brotherhood. Can the social consciousness
overcome the forces that are arrayed against it ? In
other words, the Modern Social Problem is, above all,
spiritual. Produced in its^most aggravated symptoms
by the unrestrained freedom of industrial develop-
ment and competition, its terrible and menacing
import is forcing the mind and conscience of the nation
to face anew the ultimate principles of social righteous-
ness. They cannot be ignored or postponed. Pallia-
tives have proved ineffectual. The agencies of phil-
anthropy, alike in their promise and their shortcomings,
show the presence of good-will, but of good-will defec-
tive in power, range and equipment. The whole army
of humanity must take the field. / Because the social
problem is spiritual and national, the only hope of its
solution lies in a great religious inspiration./
This conclusion establishes immediately the pecu-
liar responsibility at this juncture of the Christian
Church. There is no need to dwell on the minor rea-
sons which strengthen this contention. Some of them
must, however, be named. The social problem has be-
come a grave danger to the State. The Church must
always be a school of true patriotism, encouraging its
members to serve the State ; both warning the State
of its spiritual dangers and assisting it to overcome
them. The social problem inflicts untold and un-
merited sufferings on multitudes. The Church is a
school of humanity, and, on peril of brutalizing men
26 INTRODUCTION
both within and without its pale, must bring home
to all the meaning of the evil and seek by all legitimate
means to alleviate it. The social problem exposes its
victims to cruel temptations, threatens where it does
not destroy their power to resist them, materializes
their outlook and, incidentally, defeats the efforts of
the Church to awaken their faith and hope of better
things. Hence if the Church is to become a '' covert
from the storm,*' as '' the shadow of a great rock in
a weary land," resolute action must be taken to
destroy such evils at the root. Furthermore, so far
as the social problem exists through the collective
will of the commimity, expressed in laws and customs,
the members of the Church are implicated in the wrong
that is done, strengthening or at least acquiescing in
it, if they do not contribute to reform it. It is a fatal
mistake, in a democratic age, to depersonalize the
action of the State, and thus to belittle the responsi-
bility of the citizens, and not least of Christian citizens,
for it. Once more, it is Christianity more than any
other influence which has elevated the social condition
into a problem. To be a problem it must be conceived
as, at once, an evil and a remediable evil. It is Chris-
tianity that has made it both. Kindred evils existed
in, and hastened the downfall of ancient civilizations.
Yet the heart of the community was not moved, nor
was the conscience stirred by them. The political
philosophy even of Plato and Aristotle — always con-
cerned with the ideal State — justified these evils, as
not only inevitable, but as reasonable and even bene-
ficial. It is Christianity which has changed the social
outlook, not only by its doctrine of the personal worth
of the lowliest and worst, and by evoking in them
unsuspected spiritual powers, but by the cumulative
effect of its message on mankind. The Fatherhood
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 27
of God, the divinely-humane ministry of the in-
carnate Son of God now exalted as the Sovereign
and spiritual Redeemer of mankind, " the new Jerusalem
coming down from God out of heaven,'' the redemption
of the universe from its evil, the supremacy of the
law and life of Love, what are these but a challenge
to all existing evils ? Wherein lies their final verifica-
tion if the realm of reality to which they belong is a
world apart, out of all organic relationship to the earthly
history of mankind ? Such a view contradicts the
witness of the Incarnation, reduces Isaiah to imbecil-
ity, and gives the lie to the deepest teachings of our
Lord.^ The Fatherhood of God can only be set forth,
verified and vindicated by the brotherly love of His
Church. God's universe, and still more mankind,
must constantly be summoned, by the faith that re-
moves mountains, to give consenting witness to the
truth that God is Love. In Christianity no .Dual-
lism is possible. And with the denial of Dualism
vanishes contempt for the meaning and despair of the
possibilities of earthly life as the gift of the Divine
Father and the preparation for eternal life. Not only
will the reason of man be bafiied and his humanity
receive a deadly blow unless this be the case, but faith
itself will lose its buoyancy and the active reason by
which it goes forward to reconcile and unify heaven
and earth — by thought, ideal and deed — will be foiled.
Therefore, the spiritual must be fulfilled in the moral,
the moral must mould the social, and the social must
assume command over and transform the material
environment, if regenerated mankind is to work to-
gether with God to make all things new. Hence it
has come to pass that every great revival of Christianity
^ E.g. the Sermon on the Mount, the Parables of the Grain of
Mustard Seed, the Leaven, etc.
28 INTRODUCTION
has inaugurated a new period of social endeavour and
reform.
It may be asked whether the Christian revelation
does not assume the permanent existence of suffering,
treat it as an indispensable discipline, and thereby
transmute it into a means of higher good. Un-
doubtedly it does. Nor is it possible that social re-
form, carried to its utmost limits, can ever eliminate
the element of suffering from the human lot. A life
bounded by death, and exposed to the buffets and
mortal strokes dealt by material nature, will never
be immune from suffering. If he became so, man
would sink into a denizen of earth instead of rising to
become a citizen of heaven. But the following all-
important considerations must be borne in mind.
Firstly, the Christian religion has no mercy upon those
who callously allow their brethren to remain under
remediable suffering. Let the epistle of St. James be
read as a summary of Christian teaching on this point.
Or let St. John, the greatest mystic of the Christian
religion, speak : *' But whoso hath the world's goods,
and beholdeth his brother in need, and shutteth up
his compassion from him, how doth the love of God
abide in him ? " Above all, let our Lord's test be
borne in mind, " Inasmuch as ye did it not unto one
of these least, ye did it not unto Me.'* In applying
such declarations, let it be remembered that if in
some ways individual liberty is increased in modern
times, yet in other respects the more complex organiza-
tion of modern commerce and industry forces both
justice and compassion to assume collective expres-
sion, if they are to be applied at all. Secondly, the
New Testament insists much more constantly upon
the inevitable passion and suffering of those who would
be the agents of God in redeeming their fellows, than
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 29
upon the necessary sufferings of those they seek to
redeem. Modern Christianity has lightly transferred
this burden, assuming for the most part that the repre-
sentatives of Christ are to be protected from the suffer-
ing of a Christlike passion, while '' the masses '' are
to feel its full force. Thirdly, the irreducible mini-
mum of suffering works beneficent ends only so long
as men face the causes of suffering as a whole, hope-
fully and unitedly, in the serious and joyful determina-
tion to overcome them. Dull submission to evil not
only deadens the spirit, but destroys the power of
suffering itself to refine and build up character.
All this will probably be allowed. The difiiculty,
for many minds, arises when the question of the rela-
tion of organized Christianity — the Church — to the
Social Problem is reached. So long as sentiments of
humanity, or the individual conduct that springs from
them, are concerned little or no objection is raised.
But directly the attempt is made to universalize senti-
ments as principles of collective action and to give
expression to them in the complex relations of eco-
nomic and political life, then — although this may be
the only means of making them prevail — the objection
is strongly taken that this lies outside the province of
the Church, and is even contrary to its peculiar mis-
sion.
To begin with, it is frequently held that the laws
of Christ are laws for His Church, intended, therefore,
to govern the select relations of the members, and not
as law universal. This raises, of course,^ the whole
question of the relations of the Church to the ordinary
world, not so much in the externality of its organiza-
tion and action, as in the scope of its spiritual princi-
ples. It is impossible to deal exhaustively with this
subject now. But the following considerations are
30 INTRODUCTION
all-important. The universalism of Apostolic Chris-
tianity must be our clue to the meaning of specialized
Church relations. Christ, says St. Paul, " ascended
far above all the heavens that He might fill all things "
(Eph. iv. lo). Out of that universal immanence
spring the ministries of the Church. All men are,
therefore, potential subjects of the kingdom and mem-
bers of the Church ; they are to be treated as such.
Moreover, love — the life-spring of the Church — will
not be limited either in its range or in its objects. Its
realized expression in the Church necessitates its going
forth to all mankind. 'VAs ye have opportunity do
good unto all men, and especially unto them that are
of the household of faith '' is as broad in its extent as
it is natural and human in its recognition of primary
and special obligations. Still less can love, as the
supreme principle of life, tolerate two incompatible
standards of conduct, one towards those that are
within the Church and another towards those that are
without, or, perhaps, one towards members of the
Church in their spiritual and another towards them
in their economic interests and relations. Love finds
such dichotomies both suicidal and hypocritical.
Moreover, if love would sincerely prevail for all the
ends of life within the Church, its victory must also
be won in all the realms that lie outside. For the
Church, however separate it may seek to be from the
concerns of ordinary life, is so inextricably bound up
with them, that either the Church must seek spiritually
to prevail over them or they will prevail over and
within the Church. Hence the isolation of the Church
from the social problem conceived as spiritual cannot
be maintained for the two reasons that such isolation
would negative the universal mission of the Gospel
and also that it would make any effort to live out
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 31
the life of Christ within the borders of the Church
itself absolutely hopeless. When any body of ear-
nest Christians have actually withdrawn from the
world, they have always organized for themselves an
ideal state. Such withdrawal being possible only
temporarily and on the narrowest scale, it becomes
vital that the whole Church, cultivating the common
life and in alliance with all men of good-will, should
seek to transform the whole State.
But more deepseated difficulties must be con-
sidered. Some that were urged in bygone days are
rapidly losing their significance at the present time.
For example, it used to be contended that the mission
of Christ, and therefore of His Church, was to save
individual souls, and that, therefore, social and ma-
terial concerns were beyond the sphere of the directly
Christian commission. For most thoughtful persons
this objection has broken down at both points. To
begin with the importance of the personal experience
of salvation being granted, it is impossible to deal
with an abstract individual, cut off from all social rela-
tionships. Such an individual does not and cannot
exist. Hence the Gospel is addressed to persons who
can only realize their personality in and through social
relationships. Salvation must, therefore, include the
transformation of those personal relationships and all
that springs from them. In the next place neither the
religious nor the psychological interpretation of indi-
viduality will permit complete separation qf soul and
body, of powers directed to the spiritual and those
directed to the physical ends of life. Not only does
the personality unite both, but it unites them not by
an external, but by a vital and organic bond. Hence
as the man is one the work of salvation cannot ignore
any part or need of his complex nature. All this is
32 INTRODUCTION
securing growing recognition by the Christian Church
at the present day.
The truth of these reasons for Christian action to
solve the social problem, however, has not yet pro-
duced universal conviction. It is urged that the Chris-
tian religion belongs to a transcendent order of things.
It consists in the conveyance of eternal life to be-
lievers in Christ. Its source, goal and " conversa-
tion " are in heaven. Hence Christ did not concern
Himself with political, economic and social concerns,
and, if He ministered physical healing, it was by
spiritual influences and for spiritual ends. His ex-
ample must, of needs, limit our conduct, not only be-
cause of His authority, but because any departure
from His methods involves spiritual disaster. It leads
those who suffer from earthly disadvantages unduly to
magnify them, instead of seeking to live the transcen-
dent life, in which evil is itself transmuted into a means
of good. Further, it materializes the aims and spirit
of the Church and thereby disables it from receiving
the highest spiritual influences and attaining the high-
est spiritual ends. It is, furthermore, an entire mistake
to suppose that material security and prosperity have
anything to do with the Kingdom of God. It is con-
ceivable that all our social problems might be success-
fully solved, without the Kingdom of God being appre-
ciably advanced. At the best, its work of evangelizing
men would have to be done anew for every successive
generation, no matter what might be their social con-
dition. Moreover, legislation means, in the last re-
sort, the prevalence of strength. In our more civilized
days, legislation by majorities has taken the place of
civil war. But it partakes, notwithstanding, of the
nature of warfare. Hence the Church is debarred from
interfering with the course of legislation, since our
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 33
Lord has said, " My kingdom is not of this world/'
To all this must be added the many practical dangers
of internal strife and loss of influence with those who
are opposed to particular reforms, which must ensue
whenever the Church departs from an attitude of strict •
neutrality in all social concerns that ultimately in-
volve political relations. Hence, as the result of all
these considerations, it is argued that the social influ-
ence of the Christian Church can only be incidental
and indirect, or, at the utmost, limited to the inculca-
tion of spiritual principles, upon which social reform
may and ultimately will be based.
It is necessary to consider the case thus presented,
although limits of space prevent any exhaustive treat-
ment of it. Let it be granted, at once, that the Chris-
tian religion is spiritual and transcendent. Yet what
is spiritual transcendence, whether that of God over
the universe, that of Christ over humanity, or that of
the Spirit over the individual heart ? It implies
sovereign immanence. A transcendent God who was
not also immanent would cease to be transcendent
in any relevant sense of the term, and vice versa.
And the same is true of the other relations just instanced.
To say that Christianity is a spiritual life, realized in
and through Divine relationships, does indeed imply
that it cannot be defined in any terms of secular life,
be they political, economic, or social. It is more than
and other than all these whether separately or in com-
bination. In the same way, it cannot be defined in
terms of intellect, feeling or will. Yet this is not to
say that it either can or seeks to exist apart from all
these interests and powers. The very fact that it
transcends all these gives to it, not only the power
but the function to subordinate, direct and inspire
them all. In the living complex of human life re-
c.c. D
34 INTRODUCTION
ligion must fulfil its transforming and uplifting office
in the most vital and thorough-going way, or the
elements it has failed to control will rise up to corrupt
and degrade it. By this light we must understand
both the example and the teaching of our Lord. With-
out dwelling upon the primary objects or the limiting
conditions of His historic ministry, it will suffice to
call attention to His declaration that He came " to
fulfil '* the law and the prophets. Fulfilment always
transcends preparation in every realm of life. Thus
our Lord's fulfilment is not only disentangled from
the limitations of time and place which affected both
the law and the prophets, but thereby manifests a
new order of truth and life. Yet the fulfilment must
be in vital, and not merely external relations to the
preparation. It must fulfil a promise and expectation
latent and growing in the preparation. Both the
Law and the prophets, in different ways and in differ-
ing degrees of perfection, seek expression for the
spiritual in the social. In particular, the prophets
cannot conceive of any true religion which does not
issue in a state ideally moral and humane. The
fact that such a state is the creation and gift of God,
does not remove it from the aspiration and effort of
men. Nay, it imposes upon men the duty of seeking
to create it. Our Lord's fulfilment, as all His teach-
ing shows, lay in its supreme revelation of the meaning,
power and obligation of Love — to God and man.
Love is a spiritual principle. It can never be identi-
fied with any particular practical endeavour, or with
any external arrangements. Yet it must needs strive
to express itself in such endeavours, and to create for
itself the state of things in which it can display all its
potency. Hence, though the universality and spirit-
uaUty of our Lord's example were in themselves suffi-
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 35
cient to prevent His limiting His everlasting Gospel
by temporal efforts, He gave final manifestation
and inspiration to principles, which can only survive
by expressing themselves throughout the whole range
of human life and by the use of all the instruments
at their disposal. Of course, all attempts thus to
assert the meaning and to gain the results of the supreme
principle of Love must be governed by the Spirit of
Christ. The material is a Christian concern, not in
its abstract secularity, but in so far as it enters into
and affects for evil or for good, as it assuredly does,
the spiritual life of love. Its place must neither be
exaggerated nor ignored. Above all, it must be seen
that man cannot touch, appropriate and shape the
material for his own ends without his very use of it
reacting upon him, to his spiritual advantage or injury.
When a spiritual being handles '' things,'' they in-
evitably become more than things : they become
forces or objects of a spiritual activity, which will be
exalted or debased according to its use or abuse of
them. No doubt the legal, customary, or material
result of social reform, viewed in itself, is secular and
cannot for a moment be confounded with the Kingdom
of God. But the attempt to secure such results may
and should be spiritual, in both motive and method.
Indeed it may impose the greatest strain upon spiritual
virtues, often severer than what is regarded as more
spiritual work. For example, we have known many
whose advancement in Christian love is sufficient to
make them ardently desire the '' salvation of souls,*'
who are extremely stingy in the matter of subscriptions
towards beneficent ends, or keenly resent any call
to contribute through taxes and rates to social reforms
which they admit to be beneficial or even necessary.
Yet though the outward result of social reform be
36 ' INTRODUCTION
not spiritual, that result, when unified with the spiritual
forces which have brought it about and continue to
use it for their own vital ends, is inextricably bound
up with the coming of the Kingdom of God. Other-
wise the Apocalyptic visions, both of the Old Testa-
ment and the New, must be dismissed as the childish
fancies of an unspiritual imagination.
So far as the legislative application of spiritual
principles is concerned it may be admitted that some-
thing in the nature of warfare may enter into the case.
Yet an objection, which would make it impossible
for the Christian Church, as such, to bring pressure
to bear for the closing of the sweater's den and the
gambling hell, to demand the suppression of the Indian
opium traffic, or the rescue of the enslaved Congo
races, and which would withdraw the missionary
societies from all concern in the humane progress of
India were the Government to nationalize their schools
and hospitals, surely needs some careful scrutiny.
It might as truly be said that the exercise of authority
by a Christian father over a rebelhous child, or of
discipline by a Christian schoolmaster over a refractory
scholar, are of the nature of warfare. It will be replied
that such cases imply recognized authority on the
one side, and tutelage on the other. Evil has un-
doubtedly resulted whenever the Christian Church
has claimed that exactly these relations exist between
itself and mankind. Yet such examples show that
the exercise of pressure, as well as of influence, may
often be justified on the highest grounds. And it is
preposterous to contend that the one influence, which
on occasion can counteract the selfishness of men,
and appeal to their better nature against their worse,
should refrain from exercising this influence at any
crisis when the interests of humanity are at stake.
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 37
That would be to allow the Devil's forces to occupy
the field. The objects and duty of the Church as a
whole can never be narrower and poorer than those of
its individual members, else it would cease to guide and
inspire their life. Nor can fidelity to a principle be
reconciled with the neglect of practical measures for
carrying it out. But if the Church enter the field of
social warfare, it must be on conditions which are
laid down by its spiritual mission. To begin with, it
must be when the general sense of its members recog-
nizes a divinely-imposed obligation to do so. In the
next place, it must be for truly cathoUc ends ; for ends,
that is to say, that are recognized as necessary to
fulfilling the second Commandment, " Thou shalt
love thy neighbour as thyself." If these conditions
are fulfilled, not only will the Church pursue no sec-
tional object, but, even in case of controversy or
struggle, its members will be satisfied that the attain-
ment of a truly catholic end can in no wise really
injure even those who for the time being oppose it.
In this respect the action of the Church will arise
from altogether different motives from those of or-
dinary sectional or political warfare. Thus typically
Christian action will, for the most part, be reconciling
rather than controversial. Its appeal will be to the
highest and most universal interests. In prosecuting
these it will mediate rather than aggravate strife. It
will enable spiritual and moral interests to make them-
selves heard and felt above the clamour of interested
factions. This view, if taken, is sufficient to turn
aside the danger either of identifying the Christian
Church with any particular political party, or of the
creation of a so-called Christian party by the Church.
Sound progress demands, just as human Umitations
insure, the interaction of progressive and of critical
38 INTRODUCTION
minds. Each type has its own distinctive service
to render, the office of the Church being to assist to
get all problems, however regarded, treated in the
light of the Kingdom of God. In all these situations,
a truly spiritual Church wiU find the guidance of faith,
and will act for ends that are never lower and less
than those of humanity. That mistakes should be
made, in social concerns as in others, is inevitable.
Yet the Church need fear no warfare, so long as her
sword is '' the Sword of the Spirit,'' and she takes the
'' armour of righteousness on the right hand and on
the left."
Yet, although the Christian Church must from
time to time pursue essential principles on to the field
of controversial life, her main service is that of influen-
tial witness to the ideals by which men and states
must live. The supreme marks of a truly Christian
and catholic spirit are sixfold. In the first place,
there is the inwardness which responds to the pres-
ence and power of God in Christ, thus enabling the
fullness of spiritual life to be realized through faith.
Such inwardness must, however, be saved from the
snare of pietism by the universality of its aim, in corre-
spondence with the world-purpose of Christ. Such
spiritual universalism must, above all, be true to the
redemptive meaning and purpose of the Gospel. It
must not be ashamed of the Cross of Christ, or of any-
thing that the Cross reveals or implies. Only through
the forgiveness of sins and divinely-wrought regenera-
tion can men enter the Kingdom of God. Yet the
presentation of redemption must not be so rigid as to
destroy the comprehensiveness of Christ. The res-
toration, fulfilment and satisfaction of human nature
is the end of redemption. If we must " die to live,"
the life that is reached through this death enriches all
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 39
human powers and touches them to finer issues. Com-
prehensive sympathy is therefore one of the marks of the
Christian spirit. With it goes the progressive temper,
which is ceaselessly original and creative. True Chris-
tianity is ever making and remaking the world in
accordance with the growing vision of the Divine ideal.
Hence, finally, it becomes impossible to rely simply
on past precedents or on external regulations. The
continuity of Christian life is shown in its power to
exhibit identity in and through difference ; so to
adjust itself to new conditions that the immanent
sovereignty of its life is displayed. Its inmost un-
changeableness is revealed by its free response to
the changing conditions of secular progress. It is hard
to combine in living unity and due proportion, in-
wardness, universality, redemptive power, broad
comprehension, progressive sympathy, and consistent
self-adjustment. The secret can only be conveyed
by fellowship with Christ Himself, and by the baptism
of that holy love which manifests itself naturally
by unifying all these elements in a consistent temper
that answers both to the truth of God and to the
realities of life.
In proportion as this temper prevails its manifest-
ation will have decisive results upon the Modern Social
Problem. Spiritual inwardness will destroy the self-
ishness and greed of practical materialism. A truly
universal aim will set free from subservience to any
class or to sectional interests of any kind. Fidelity
to the redemptive message of the Gospel will arouse
the powers in human nature, without which no social
reform can gain its full effect. Comprehensiveness
of spirit, progressive sympathy, and self-adjusting
power will enable the Church to rise above narrowness
and adherence to the external precedents of the past,
40 INTRODUCTION
so as to take a proper share in the reconstruction of
society on more spiritual and social lines. The first
consequence of all this will be that in teaching and in
life the Christian Church will, if faithful, express
and enforce the principles of universal brotherhood.
While practical endeavours to give effect to these
principles are being made by the State, the Church
will bring to bear the inspiration of faith in the world-
embracing and world-transforming purpose of Divine
iQve, will call men to brotlierly co-operation for the
rescue of, the weak and helpless, andwill demand the
self-discipline which^jadly accepts the sacrifices that
are necessary tojhis ead. The primaf y call which the
modern social problem makes upon the Christian
Church as a whole, is for just this prophetic witness, in
word and deed, by authoritative guidance and indi-
vidual conduct, to the claims of human brotherhood as
paramount, and as fixing the standard and goal for
all effort in every sphere of life.
It is not necessary to speak in detail of the practical
service which the Churches should render outside the
field of public life. /If the social problem cannot be
solved on its economic and civic side without great
spiritual inspiration and leadership, it is equally true
that its solution will need unstinted personal and
voluntary service rendered by the Churches them-
selves./ Their most competent members should accept
the burdens of public office./ Their philanthropic
societies should furnish greater assistance to civic ad-
ministration, and should watch with ceaseless vigilance
the course of public administration./ The charitable
endeavour of the churches should be keenly scrutin-
ized to make sure that they are not retarding instead
of advancing social reform./ Churches must free
themselves from being in their charitable endeavours
THE MODERN SOCIAL PROBLEM 41
either the tools of interested parties or the instru-
ments of a thoughtless and impulsive sympathy./
Above all, the Churches must cultivate a genius of
personal friendship, which will bring them into such
relations with the poor, and especially with the young,
as will make the good that is within reach seem desir-
able and attainable. Such friendship in club and
institute, in guild and reading circle, may easily prove
the turning-point in many lives, and may effectively
raise the standard of life, without which all work done
for others will be in vain. If such a ministry is to be
exercised the Churches must establish the centre of
their influence among the poor. The spiritual well-
being of the rich will be served not less, but more,
successfully if the governing ideal be to follow Christ
in close contact with and far-reaching toil for and with
the poor. The state of many Churches in the poorest
populations is a disgrace to the common Christianity,
showing a lack of energy, sympathy, and self-sacrifice
on the part of the weU-to-do, which reveals that, for
many, the Christian religion is but a source of senti-
mental consolation or a conventional formality and
not the enthusiasm of devotion to God and man./
All these practical consequences, and more, will
result in ever-extending range and fullness from the
deepening and spread of social sympathy. / It is for
the Churches so to extend their conceptions of Chris-
tian duty that Isaiah, if he could return to earth, would
feel at home in them./ What is needed is the constrain-
ing conviction that the social problem, as it exists
to-day is, from every point of view, intolerable and
disgraceful, that it is remediable, and that it is for
Christianity to manifest the glory of its redemptive
mission by freely giving the inspiration and
sacrifice by which the remedy can be applied. /The
42 INTRODUCTION
unspiritual and the anti-social are one. /The cure for
both is in the proclamation and application of the
two great Commandments, " Thou shalt love the Lord
thy God with all thy heart and with all thy soul and
with all thy mind and with all thy strength'* and
" Thou shalt love thy neighbour as thyself.'*^
I
Social Ideals in the Old Testament
By Rev. W. H. BENNETT, M.A., Litt.D., D.D., Profes-
sor OF Old Testament Language and Literature,
New College and Hackney College, London.
ARGUMENT.
Little Distinction in Israel between Church and State. Social and Religious
Ideals Inseparable. Chief Bond between Israelites Loyalty to Yahweh .
Growth of Social Ideal may be traced through Five Stages.
I. Nomad Period. Before the Conquest of Canaan Social Conditions simple
and austere. Mutual Loyalty within the Tribe.
II. Period before the 'Canonical Prophets, from the Conquest to the beginning
of the eighth century b.c. Change from Nomad to Settled Agricultural
Life. New Feature of Social Life, the Bond between the Family and the
Land. Large Class of Farmers owning the Land they tilled. Develop-
ment of Pohtical Organization. Rise in Standard of Living.
III. Law and Prophecy in the Eighth Century B.C. Growth of Luxury. Forma-
tion of Numerous Large States. Farmers driven from the Soil, become
Landless Paupers. Protests of the Prophets. Attempts to secure
Healthy Conditions by affirming Primitive Customs in Legal Codes.
IV. Law and Prophecy in the last period of the Monarchy and during the Exile.
Previous Evils Continue. Protests from Jeremiah and Ezekiel. Re-
newed Attempts at Reform through Social Ordinances in Legal Codes.
Deuteronomy, etc. Social Development checked by Invasion and
Captivity.
V. Period after the Exile. Recrudescence of Former Evils. Attempts at Reform
byNehemiah and the Prophets. Social Ideal in Priestly Code, Liberty
for all Israelites, and for each Family an Independent Means of Liveli-
hood through the Ownership of Land.
VI. Review. Difference of Social Conditions necessitates Care in applying
O. T. Principles to our Times. Prophets would have condemned Chris-
tendom for its failure to develop a Righteous Social System. O.T. seeks
Energy for Reform in Love to God and one's Neighbour. Social Reform
to-day hindered by Mutual Antagonism of the Churches. For Social
Reform we need Alliance of Social and Religious Enthusiasm and Co-
operation of the Churches. Failure to secure Social Righteousness
means the Ruin of Christian CiviHzation. Our hope is in the Spirit
of Christ.
I
Social Ideals in the Old Testament
In Israel, as in the ancient world generally, society
was essentially religious ; the ritual of public worship
and private devotion were included amongst social
duties ; and what we should call secular law and
custom were enforced by religious sanctions as being
part of Revelation. The good citizen would sacrifice
and pay tithes and observe the Sabbath ; and on the
other hand the regulations as to the punishment of
criminals or the conduct of war had been made known
by God to priests, prophets and lawgivers. But in
writing to-day of a Social Ideal we shall be chiefly
occupied with secular and ethical subjects ; we shall
not attempt to determine the belief or the forms of
worship of the ideal society ; nor shall we attempt —
at any rate in this particular essay — to lay down
an exact dogma as to the relation of social principles
to religious sanctions. Nevertheless, it is impossible,
especially in dealing with the Old Testament, to
ignore altogether the place and influence of religion
in society ; and the plan of this volume includes the
consideration of the attitude of the Church to social
questions. In Israel, however, the modern distinc-
tion between Church and State had not arisen ; Israel*
45
46 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
as a whole and in all its individuals, was a religious,
just as much as a political, unity. In practice there
were many beginnings of what we should call a diverg-
ence of Church and State, but these were regarded
as failures to maintain the National Ideal, a view
upheld by the law and the prophets. It was taken for
granted that the religious organs of the community —
king, priests and prophets — would determine the con-
ditions of social life.
The inspired leaders of Israel always looked for-
ward to the coming of the Kingdom of God ; they
expected that the frail and sinful Israel of their experi-
ence would be transformed by the grace of God into
an ideal society. They had glowing visions of the
future glory of the righteous nation ; and they did
their best by teaching, law-giving and administration
to train the Israelites to be worthy citizens of the
Kingdom. Hence the Old Testament is largely occu-
pied with the setting forth of a Social Ideal, of which
we must attempt some slight sketch in the following
pages.
It will be convenient for our purpose to divide
the history of Israel into five periods : (i) The No-
madic Period, from the rise of the Israelite people till
the Settlement in Canaan ; (ii) The period before
the Canonical Prophets, from the Settlement to about
the beginning of the eighth century B.C. ; (iii) The
Later Monarchy, with special reference to the prophets
of the eighth century and the earlier laws ; (iv) The
close of the Monarchy and the Exile, with special
reference to Jeremiah, Ezekiel, and Deuteronomy ;
(v) The Post-exilic Period, with special reference to
the Priestly Legislation and the Wisdom Literature.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 47
i. The Nomad Period.
Before the Conquest of Canaan, Israel was a
confederation of nomad tribes, and until the Fall of
Jerusalem, at any rate, part of the population in the
border lands to the south and east continued to lead
a nomad life. The Israelites always had much to
do in the way of trade and war with the roving Bedouin
of the surrounding deserts. It was natural therefore
that their religious and social life should be profoundly
influenced throughout by conditions under which
it first arose, and with which it was always in
close contact. Israel brought lofty ideals from the
desert, and when the nation had fallen upon evil
times, many looked back to these early days as to a
Golden Age when life was simple, pure and noble,
and men were loyal to their kinsfolk and their God.^
In some matters the Israelites always thought and
spoke in terms of the nomad life ; an army dispersed
to its homes to the cry of '* To your tents, O Israel ! "
and the priestly writers after the Fall of the Monarchy
drew up their code of laws in terms of the wilderness,
the camp and the Tabernacle, doubtless following
established precedent.
The social conditions of nomad life are simple
and severe. A Bedouin tribe wandering with its
flocks and herds from pasture to pasture cannot
obtain many luxuries ; it is inured to hardship, and
trained in the primitive virtues of courage and patriot-
ism. Such a society is virtually a large family, and
can only exist by the mutual loyalty and devotion
of the clansmen. Their dependence on one another
^ E.g., Jeremiah ii. 1-3. A less favourable view of this period
is also taken in the Old Testament; and is the view with which
most of us are more familiar.
48 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
in the face of danger and difficulty checked alike
insubordination and tyranny.
The virtues of the nomad are chiefly to be looked
for in his dealings with his fellow-tribesmen; as far
as others are concerned, it may be said of him, as of
his prototype Ishmael, that " his hand is against
every man, and every man*s hand is against him.'*
Yet this is not wholly true of his attitude to strangers ;
Arab hospitality is proverbial, and has its roots in a
humane sense of brotherhood. For in the life of the
desert changes of fortune are sudden, violent and
frequent ; witness the example of Job. Thus the
wanderer, helpless, unprotected and destitute, is wel-
comed, partly because his host may soon be in like
extremity himself. Similarly the ordinary traveller
receives entertainment, which the sheikhs look for
themselves when their affairs take them from the
encampments of their own tribes. But it is signifi-
cant that the name of the guest may not be asked,
lest there should prove to be a blood-feud between
his tribe and his entertainers.
Again, when tribes are allied because they count
kinship, or on any other ground, there is not only
the sense of duty to fellow-tribesmen, but that of
obligation to allies, and the community has its res-
ponsibilities as well as the individual.
As the Israelites of our first period formed a loosely
confederated group of Bedouin clans or tribes, they
handed down to later generations traditions of a
simple life and of mutual loyalty and helpfulness
amongst fellow-citizens. Moreover the chief bond
which held the tribes together was their common
devotion to Yahweh, the God of Israel.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 49
ii. The Period before the Canonical Prophets.
The Conquest of Canaan brought about a com-
plete change in the social conditions of most of the
Israelite clans. From a group of nomad tribes they
became in time a nation of what we should call yeoman
farmers and peasant proprietors ; or in other words
they lived by agriculture, and the land was owned
by those who cultivated it ; the words '' landlord,"
'' tenant/' and '' rent '' are unknown to the Old
Testament. The conquest involved a change from a
wandering life in tents to a settled life in houses ;
and also what we should call a rise in the standard of
living ; the possibilities in the way of comfort and
luxury were increased, and in such matters men come
to feel that they want all they can get.
We shall only deal briefly with the social conditions
of this period because we shall have to refer to them
again when we consider the ideals of the early prophets
and lawgivers ; but we must spend a few words on
the leading points just referred to.
First as to social organization : Israel, as we have
seen, entered Palestine as a loosely connected group
of clans or large families ; and this system was the
starting point for the new order. For the most part
each clan ^ settled together, in the same district, and
maintained for a while the old family feeling. But
family or clan feeling gradually degenerated to mere
local feeling, and the interests of neighbouring farmers
are by no means so identical as those of members of
^ We use " clan " as an elastic word ; it may be loosely under-
stood to mean a subdivision of the " tribe," as we use that word
in the phrase " The Twelve Tribes." The " clan," the Hebrew
mishpdhd, often translated " family," might vary from a score tO;
a thousand or more " families," as we understand the word.
e.g. ^,
50 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
the same nomad tribe. Moreover in most districts
the IsraeUtes mingled with the native population,
and gradually the two amalgamated into a more or
less hybrid race. The conquering nomads found
the land thickly strewn with fortified places ; and as
they were involved for centuries in a struggle for
existence with their neighbours, they very largely
settled in these walled towns and villages, and also
added new ones to their number. Thus the district,
the village, or the town took the place of the clan,
and there was a beginning of city-life.
Instead of the clan, as in the desert, the family
became the social unit ; but it was the family in a
larger sense than we commonly give to the word ;
it was not merely a married couple and their children ;
but would often include a man, his mother, his wives,
his children, sometimes also his sons* wives and their
children, his slaves and others living under his pro-
tection.i While a man's mother lived she would be
the head of the harem or women's apartments.
These changes distributed, so to speak, the old
family feeling on a large scale, the clan feeling. The
larger share went to the smaller family just described ;
and, as elsewhere in antiquity, family ties, the sense
of mutual affection, confidence, duty and respon-
sibility remained one of the strongest social forces.
The recognition of clan kinship persisted in some
measure, at any rate, for a time, but was largely
replaced by neighbourliness towards fellow-towns-
men and those living in the same district, citizenship
on the smaller scale. There was also a gradual growth
of patriotism, the sense of membership of the nation,
^ The ger or resident alien, perhaps originally also in some cases
a member of another Israelite clan, is constantly referred to as a
m^niber of the household.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 51
Israel ; but as political union was not fully accomplished
in this period, the chief bond between Israelites as
Israelites remained that of religion, loyalty to Yahweh,
the God of Israel.
By the settlement in Canaan a new element was
added to the family, namely its land, the homestead
and the farm. For the most part a free Israelite family
is thought of as holding land ; for the farm or estate
was not the absolute property of the occupant for
the time being ; he could not dispose of all rights in
it. The land came to be considered a sacred and
inalienable gift of God. Thus when Ahab wished to
buy Naboth's vineyard, Naboth refused with the
words, '* Yahweh forbid that I should give thee the
inheritance of my fathers " ; and Jezebel could only
get the vineyard for her husband by having Naboth
put to death on a criminal charge.
A similar bond existed between the tribe or clan
and the district which it occupied, and men soon
came to feel that there was an organic union between
the Holy Land, the Chosen People, and their God.
Our information is too scanty to enable us to
construct a complete picture of Israelite society in
this period. But amongst the handful of men and
women who make brief appearances on the stage of
history, we discern a few wealthy nobles like Barzillai,
Nabal and Shimei. We also observe well-to-do
families, whose members take their share in the work
of the farm ; Saul goes to look for his father's asses,
David feeds his father's flock. Probably such fami-
lies were the largest class in the Israel of our period,
comfortable, middle-class folk, as we should say.
Extreme poverty would be almost unknown; even
slavery was comparatively mild.
There was in the earher part of this period a mini-
52 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
mum of government, law, and police. Later writers
mark the contrast between their own times and the
period of the Judges, '* In those days there was no
king in Israel ; every man did that which was right
in his own eyes.*' ^ The chief secular authorities
were the local sheikhs and the leaders specially ap-
pointed for war. But these were reinforced and
supplemented by religious custom and priestly oracles.
For many years after the Conquest the Israelites
were exposed to constant attacks from the yet unsub-
dued Canaanites, from the nomads of the surrounding
deserts, and from the Philistines and other enemies ;
there were no properly organized national military
forces, so that there was little assurance for life, liberty
or property. The establishment of the monarchy
gave greater security against external enemies, but
involved a certain amount of taxation, partly in the
form of the corvee or forced labour on public works.
Thus Solomon's exactions of labour for the Temple,
and his other buildings, the '* grievous yoke '' which
he laid upon his people,^ were one cause of the
Secession of the Ten Tribes. Internally the increase
in the power and activity of the government no doubt
did something to protect the weak against the strong,
though we do not read of any such beneficence ; but
probably the machinery of the State was more widely
used to enable nobles and officials to aggrandise
themselves at the expense of the small farmers. Naboth,
no doubt, had fellow victims ; and lesser men, accord-
ing to their power and opportunity, imitated'Ahab and
Jezebel.
iii. Law and Prophecy in the Eighth Century B.C.
After a while things mended a little, and the
1 Judges xxi. 25. . » i Kings xii. 4.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 53
Israelites were less harried by raids and invasions.
For long periods there was peace between Israel and
Judah, and probably the severe struggle in which
several successive kings of Israel were engaged with
the Syrians of Damascus was not without advantages
for Judah. But in the course of the ninth century
B.C. the renewed activity of Assyria in the lands be-
tween the Euphrates and the Mediterranean crippled
Damascus, and Israel and Judah alike were left with-
out any formidable enemies in their immediate neigh-
bourhood, and flourished accordingly. More especially
Israel under Jeroboam II, B.C. 783-743, attained
to something like the splendour and power of the
reign of Solomon.
At the best the modern capitalist would have
regarded Israel as a doubtful sphere for the exercise
of his energies ; any ventures there would have been
felt to be of a highly speculative nature, from which
a correspondingly liberal profit would be expected
in case of success. Nevertheless there was a con-
siderable measure of material progress ; it is won-
derful how great an advance in civilization may result
from even a modicum of continuous settled order.
This material progress involved many social changes,
of which the most important was the break-up of the
old land system. A strong government meant heavy
taxation, and the requisitioning of the labour of the
poorer farmers and their cattle for public works in
time of peace, and for military service in time of war.
These burdens, combined with bad seasons, and losses
suffered from foreign enemies, plunged the farmers
into debt, which finally resulted in the transfer of
their land to wealthy creditors and sometimes in the
enslavement of the debtor and his family.^ In other
^ 2 Kings iv. i. The statements in the previous sentences are
54 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
ways also, legitimate and illegitimate, the land came
to be largely held in great estates ; the sacred bond
between the family and the land was broken ; and
there arose a landless class, which tended to sink into
slavery, pauperism, or crime. At the same time,
however, many of the dispossessed farmers would betake
themselves to the towns, and some might become
artisans. On the other hand the wealthy families
were often given up to callous, self-indulgent luxury.
Of course a large measure of family feeling and patriot-
ism survived, but their influence was weakened by
mutual distrust and dislike of one class towards
another.
In the latter half of the eighth century B.C. a deter-
mined attempt to check the growth of social corruption
was made by Amos, Hosea, Isaiah, Micah and those
associated with them. About the same time, per-
haps somewhat earlier, another attempt to promote
social well-being was made by publishing the brief
codes of laws included in the earlier documents of the
Pentateuch, notably the Book of the Covenant?- The
legislation and the prophetic teaching both sought the
same ends, nor was either of them revolutionary.
Rather both of them sought to maintain or to restore
the ancient social ideals of Israel — doubtless with
modifications and improvements suited to altered
circumstances. We will consider, therefore, what
contributions towards a social ideal are made by the
early laws and by the prophets of the eighth century.
Let us turn first to the Laws. These assume the
ordinary social conditions of ancient times, rich and
partly theoretical deductions from the known facts ; but cf. Neh. v.,
which will be dealt with later on.
^ Exodus XX. 22-xxiii. 33. Some parts, however, of these
chapters may be later than the time with which we are now deaUng.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 55
poor, freemen and slaves ; and they do not attempt
to change the social system. In some matters the
harsh customs of primitive times are endorsed ; e.g.
punishment by mutilation, " eye for eye, tooth for
tooth.** ^ If a man beats his male or female slave to
death, he is not to be punished, unless the victim
actually dies under his hand, '' for he is his money.** *
But efforts are made to secure an impartial adminis-
tration of justice,^ to alleviate the lot of slaves, and to
render some help to the poor.
Thus a Hebrew was not to be compelled to remain
in slavery for more than six years * ; if a slave died
under the rod, his master was to be punished ; 2 and
if an owner deprived his slave of an eye or a tooth,
the sufferer was to be emancipated. Money is to be
lent to the poor gratis, the taking of interest being
forbidden ; and a garment received as a pledge is
not to be kept overnight.^
The code contained in the Book of the Covenant.
short and incomplete as it is, worthily upholds the
great Semitic principles of social justice formulated
by the Babylonian king Hammurabi hundreds of
years before, and maintains the kindred tribal ideal
of mutual helpfulness, service and loyalty. The
latter finds striking expression in the exhortation,
** If thou meet thine enemy* s ox or his ass going
astray, thou shalt surely bring it back to him. If
thou see the ass of him that hateth thee lying under
his burden, and wouldest forbear to help him, thou
shalt surely help with him.** «
^ Exodus xxi. 24.
* Exodus xxi, 20, 21. ' Exodus xxii. 21-24, xxiii. 6-9.
* Exodus xxi. 2. 5 Exodus xxii. 25-27.
* Exodus xxiii. 4, 5. By the ** enemy " and " him that hateth
thee " we must understand fellow-Israelites.
56 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
In the same spirit the prophets utter their inspired
protests against the growing tendency by which the
resources of the community were made to serve chiefly
the pride and luxury of wealthy nobles. Isaiah and
his contemporaries denounce in no measured terms
the way in which the machinery of government,
official status, the administration of so-called justice,
were used to enable the authorities to rob and ill-
treat their fellow-countrymen. Thus — '' Seek justice,
relieve the oppressed, vindicate the rights of the
fatherless, plead for the widow.'' i And again,** Yah-
weh will enter into judgment with the elders and
princes of his people : It is ye that have eaten up the
vineyard ; the spoil of the poor is in your houses :
what mean ye that ye crush my people, and grind
the face of the poor ? This is the Oracle ^ of the
Lord, Yahweh Sebaoth,*' ^ and again
Woe unto those who set up unjust decrees,
And the scribes who busily write oppression
To turn aside the helpless from judgment,
And to despoil the wretched of my people of their rights
That widows may be their prey,
And that orphans may be their plunder.*
Amos sets in the forefront of the unpardonable
sins of Israel the guilt incurred, ** because they have
sold the innocent for silver, and the needy for a pair
of shoes." ^ In Samaria ** they store up violence
and robbery in their palaces.*' « So too Micah, ** Hear,
1 Isaiah i. 17.
* The Hebrew word ne'um, EV " saith," is an emphatic epithet,
asserting that the preceding is an inspired message from God.
' Isaiah iii. 14, 15.
* Isaiah x. i, 2, the translation is Cheyne's in the Polychrome
Bible.
^ Amos ii. 6. ® Amos iii. 10, cf. iv. i, v. 11 f., viii. 5 f.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 57 .
I pray you, ye heads of Jacob, and rulers of the house
of Israel : is it not for you to know judgment ? You,
who hate the good and love the evil ; who pluck off
their skin from them, and their flesh from off their
bones ; who also eat the flesh of my people, and flay
their skin from off them, and break their bones ; yea,
they chop them in pieces as for the pot, and as flesh
within the caldron. . . . The heads thereof judge
for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and
the prophets thereof divine for money . . . therefore
shall Zion be plowed as a field, and Jerusalem shall
become heaps, and the Temple Hill as the high places
of a forest/' ^
A similar protest is made against the ostentation,
self-indulgence and debauchery of the nobles. They
were rolling in wealth, and they are condemned because
they were proud and haughty, ^ drunken,^ flaunting
their vices before man and God, ''they declare their
sin as Sodom, they hide it not.''* The great ladies,
the leaders of fashion in Jerusalem, were tarred with
the same brush as their husbands ; they were haughty
and wanton. 5 The widespread social corruption pre-
sented another feature which the prophets unhesitat-
ingly condemned, the change in the land system, a
change by which the free Israelite farmers were being
driven off the land, in order that it might be held
in large estates by a limited class. Thus Isaiah,
*' Woe unto those who join house to house, who add
field to field, till there is no more room, ajid ye are
settled alone in the midst of the land." « The lan-
guage suggests something corresponding to our great
^ Micah iii. cf. Hosea xii. 6-8.
2 Isaiah ii. 7-17. ® Isaiah v. 11, 22.
* Isaiah iii. 9. *» Isaiah iii. 16.
• Isaiah v. 8, Cheyne's translation, Polychrome Bible.
58 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
mansions standing isolated in their square miles of
park. Micah too denounces those who when they
find themselves in power ** covet fields and seize
them ; and houses and appropriate them ; they
oppress a man and his house, even a man and his
heritage *'. . . '* the women of my people ye cast
from their pleasant houses/' ^
Moreover just as the prophetic literature asserts
the rights of the actual cultivator as against the land-
lord, so also it emphasizes the dignity of the farmer's
calling. His skill and traditional lore have been
given by divine inspiration ; they come from " the
Lord of Hosts, who is wonderful in counsel, and
excellent in wisdom."*
The prophetic protests against the social deca-
dence of their age might be summed up in the pictures
of an ideal State and an ideal Ruler ; the just King,
divinely inspired to protect the poor and the oppressed.'
It might of course be said that such ideals were
commonplace, merely expressing an universal aspira-
tion, and further that the movement against which
the prophets protested was an inevitable social and
economic development, a natural stage in the ad-
vance of civilization ; and that the misery by which
it was accompanied was only the suffering necessarily
incidental to national progress. But the cardinal
wickedness which the prophets condemn is really the
iniquitous distribution of the gain and loss arising
out of the social changes ; the profit mainly falls to a
hmited class of nobles and officials, callous, self-
seeking and self-indulgent; and deepens their moral
deterioration ; while the loss is borne by the poor
and helpless. At the same time a conmiunity of
* Micah ii. 2, 9.
* Isaiah xxviii. 29. * Isaiah xi. 1-9.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 59
independent freemen was passing into one of plutocrats
and their dependents.
Perhaps the prophets hoped for some good effect
from the codes of law which attempted to protect
the ancient order ; but, at any rate, they were clear
that a nation which sacrificed the people to the pride
and vice of its nobles could not endure ; it must
perish by the judgment of God.
iv. Law and Prophecy in the last period of the Monarchy
and during the Exile.
We cannot say how the social movement would
have developed if Israel had remained prosperous
and matters had been allowed to take their natural
course without interference from outside. As it was,
the material advance of both nations was cut short
by foreign conquest, and the doom pronounced by
the prophets was speedily fulfilled. During the life-
time of Isaiah the Northern Kingdom was carried
captive by the Assyrians ; and Judah underwent
a similar fate at the hands of the Babylonian king
Nebuchadnezzar about 140 years later. In the inter-
val Judah suffered much, first from the Assyrians
and then from the Babylonians. There were, indeed,
brief periods of peace and comparative prosperity
tempered by the necessity of paying a heavy tribute
to the suzerain power. But the land was again and
again harried by ruinous invasion, the country was
laid waste, towns were sacked, Jerusalem itself was
frequently besieged and more than once taken, and
numbers of the jwpulation were carried away as
slaves. Sennacherib, for instance, claims that in one
campaign, tliat of B.C. 701, he captured forty-six of
the towns of Judah and carried off 200,150 persons,
*' small and great, male and female,'* besides innumer-
i
6o SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
able horses, mules, asses, camels and cattle. These
misfortunes may have served, in some measure, as a
moral and spiritual discipline, and the reforms of
Josiah in B.C. 621 aimed amongst other things at an
improvement of social conditions. But little was
really effected, and we gather that the nobles who
exploited national prosperity also contrived that
the burden of disaster should chiefly fall on the weak
and helpless.
But if there was little or no amelioration in the
actual condition of society, but rather the reverse,
yet the inspired prophets and lawgivers still main-
tained and developed their ideals of social right-
eousness, and did their best to realize them as far as
circumstances permitted.
The most important laws of this period are found
in the legal portion of Deuteronomy y chapters xii-
xxvi, in the Law of Holiness, Leviticus xvii-xxvi,^
and in Ezekiel xl-xlviii. Speaking generally, these
documents are a development from the laws of the
previous period, as set out in the Book of the Covenant ; *
and Deuteronomy and the Law of Holiness may be
said roughly to be enlarged and emended editions
of the earlier code. There is nothing revolutionary —
'* the poor shall never cease out of the land " ^ — but a
renewed attempt to secure the well-being of the people
under the existing social system by maintaining all
that was beneficent in ancient custom, by purging
the system of its corruptions and by introducing
desirable reforms.
The provisions, both of Deuteronomy and of the
Law of Holiness, attempt to deal with the pauperism,
the driving of the farmers from the land, and the
1 And some other passages.
• 2 cf. p. 54. 3 Deut. XV. II.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 6i
other social evils, which arose towards the close of
the Monarchy. The permission given ^ to persons
passing through a vineyard or a cornfield to eat their
fill of fruit or grain, was probably in accordance with
established custom ; and this may also have been
the case with the injunctions that portions of the
harvest, of the vintage and of the produce of the
olive plantations should be left for the poor,^ and
that the resident alien, the orphan and the widow
should enjoy the hospitality of the well-to-do at the
feasts. 3 Here and elsewhere, however, it is difiicult
to say how much is ancient usage and how much is
new.
It is an indication of the changes in social condi-
tions and of their vicious character that we meet with
references to free labourers, " hirelings,'* which show
that it was necessary to protect them not merely
from sweating but from delay in the payment of
their wages.* Another indication of the sympathy
of this legislation with the poor is the provision that
a runaway slave shall not be returned to his owner,
but shall be allowed to settle wherever he chooses,
and shall be well treated.^ The necessity for such
regulations throws a lurid light on the character of
the Israelite plutocracy, and helps to explain the
dislike shown by the inspired writers to the accumu-
lation of great wealth — a feeling illustrated by the
fact that even the king is forbidden to possess many
horses or wives, or much gold and silver.® A fortiori
the nobles might be expected to content themselves
^ Deut. xxiii. 24 f.
2 Deut. xxiv. 19 f., Lev. xix. 9 f., xxiii. 22.
^ Deut. xvi. 11-14.
* Deut. xxiv. 14 f., Lev. xix. 13. ^ Deut. xxiii. 15.
• Deut. xvii 16 L
62 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
with moderate means. On the other hand, the pros-
perous man is exhorted to help those who have fallen
into poverty ; and if the ruined farmer is compelled
to part with his liberty, he is not to be treated as a
slave but as a free labourer.^
But the most remarkable of these attempts to
avoid alike destitution and congested wealth, is the
institution of a '' release ** at the end of every seven
years.2 The cancelling of debts, when social con-
ditions had become intolerable, was a familiar resource
of revolutionary leaders in the Greek and Roman
republics. Its great drawback was that it was an
uncovenanted breach of legal contracts. The Deu-
teronomic " release " was an attempt to obtain the
relief afforded by such measures without their dis-
advantages. The Book of the Covenant ^ had already
directed that Israelite slaves should be released at
the end of six years ; Deuteronomy * r epeats this
ordinance, but further ordains that all debts shall
be cancelled at the end of every seven years. But
nevertheless the rich are not to hesitate to lend, but are
to open their hands to their needy brethren. Thus
relief would be given to the unfortunate on a clear
legal understanding, without, the breach of faith in-
volved in the revolutionary cancelling of debt amongst
the Greeks and Romans. As we shall see in the next
section, this *' release " as a permanent institution
was impracticable ; but the proposal shows that the
legislator cherished social ideals, according to which
the prosperous man was bound, even at the cost of
serious sacrifice, to see that his less fortunate neigh-
bour was not left in a state of hopeless poverty.
^ Lev. XXV. 35-39. ^ Deut. xv. i. ^ Page 54.
* Deut. XV. The law of the Jubilee, Lev. xxv. 8 ff., is not part
of the original Law of Holiness ; see next section.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 63
For the prophetical teaching of this period on
social matters we have chiefly to rely on Jeremiah
and Ezekiel. The Fall of Jerusalem and the Cap-
tivity diverted men's minds from social questions
to international poHtics, so that the great Prophet
of the Exile, the author of Isaiah xl-lv, and others ^
have little that concerns our subject.
As in the earlier prophets, we still find emphatic
testimony to the principles of social righteousness,
and indignant protests against their violation. Ezekiel,
for instance, in describing the righteous man whom
God approves, speaks of him as one who '* hath not
wronged any, but hath restored to the debtor his
pledge, hath given his bread to the hungry, and hath
covered the naked with a garment, hath not lent
upon interest, neither hath taken any increase, hath
executed true justice between man and man.** ^ This
prophet also sets forth in striking figures the iniquity
of social evils that are only too persistent. " The
shepherds fed themselves, and fed not my sheep,'* »
in other words, the governing classes, legislators,
administrators, judges, did not use their authority
to promote the welfare of the people, but rather made
and administered laws and carried on the government
with a view to aggrandizing themselves at the expense
of the people. Another figure shows in a very clear
light how able, wealthy, or powerful men not only
clutched for themselves all that was most desirable
in the way of comfort or luxury, but also by their
wanton waste and callous greed spoiled what little
they left for their less fortunate countrymen. '' Seem-
eth it a small thing unto you to have fed upon the
good pasture, but ye must tread down with your feet
^ Nahum, Habakkuk, Zephaniah, Obadiah.
* Ezek. xviii. 8. ^ Ezek, xxxiv. 8.
64 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
the residue of your pasture ? Seemeth it a small
thing unto you to have drunk of the clear waters,
but ye must foul the residue with your feet ? And
as for my sheep, they eat that which ye have trodden
with your feet, and they drink that which ye have
fouled with your feet/' ^ The social conditions
were such that the rich purchased their luxury by
depriving the poor of the opportunity of a decent and
wholesome life. Ezekiel unsparingly condemns the
system, and the well-to-do people who were content
to profit by it.^ The prophets also condemn a par-
ticular form of this evil, the corvee or forced labour,
a specially iniquitous kind of taxation imposing heavy
sacrifices on the poorest classes. Jeremiah denounces
a certain king of Judah because he used '' his neigh-
bour's service without wages, and gave him no hire/*^
Another burning social question, that of land
tenure, has also left traces on the prophetical litera-
ture of the period. The sanctity of the bond between
an Israelite family and its land is illustrated by
the fact that in the death-agony of Jerusalem, just
before the final catastrophe, Jeremiah exercised his
right of preemption in order to prevent a field going
out of the family.* And on the other hand the reck-
less disregard of these sacred ties by the kings and
their courtiers is shown by EzekieFs ordinance ^
that the prince shall not expel the people from their
land.
An episode in the life of Jeremiah shows not only
how the primitive social ideals were cherished by
the prophets, but also how they were set at nought
^ Ezek. xxxiv. 17 ff.
2 Cf. Jer vii. 6, xxii. 3 ; Ezek. xxii. 7, 8, 29.
^ ^ Jer. xxii. 13. * Jer. xxxii 6-15.
5 Eziek. xlvi. 18..
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 65
by the nobles. The Book of the Covenant, as we
have seen/ ordained that no Hebrew should be kept
in slavery for more than six years ; but in Jeremiah's
time this law had become a dead letter. When,
however, the Chaldeans were pressing the siege of
Jerusalem, and the city was at the last extremity,
the King Zedekiah, the princes and the people entered
into a covenant to emancipate their Hebrew slaves,
and accordingly they were set free. By thus ful-
filling the ancient law, they hoped to propitiate Yah-
weh and avert the threatened calamity. Apparently,
they were not disappointed ; for a time, at any rate,
the siege was raised. When the danger seemed to
be over, the King, princes and other slave-owners
forthwith resumed possession of the slaves whom
they had solemnly emancipated. According to Jere-
miah this was the final, unforgiveable offence which
rendered the Captivity inevitable.^
V. The Period after the Exile.
The Return of the Jews from Babylon to Jerusa-
lem was a new departure rather than a restoration
of the old order. Henceforth, until the Old Testa-
ment was practically complete,^ the Jewish community
in and about Jerusalem was a subject portion of
some heathen empire, Persian or Greek ; it had a
measure of home-rule, sometimes more, sometimes
less. Within a strictly limited sphere the Jews had
social privileges, duties and opportunities ; but they
were burdened by heavy taxation imposed by a
foreign government, and more or less harassed by
^ Page 55. * Jer. xxxiv. 8-22.
^ As far as our subject is concerned. A few portions of the Old
Testament were written after Jewish independence was restored
by the Maccabees, but they have no importance for the social ideals
of the Old Testament.
C.C. F
66 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
the oppressions and exactions of foreign officials.
Thus the free social development of Israel was no
longer possible, so that the imagination was at liberty
to construct the picture of the ideal state without
being hampered by the prosaic necessities of practical
government. The New Israel was no longer to be
looked for through the adaptation or transformation
of an independent state in actual existence ; but the
New Jerusalem was to come down from God out of
heaven.
The legislators of this period endorsed the older
ideals by including the earlier codes in the complete
Pentateuch ^ or Tor ah, which became the Bible ^ of
the Jews. The newer laws ^ were conceived in the
ancient spirit, except so far as their advocacy of
social righteousness was weakened by insistence on
the paramount importance of the exact observance
of a minute and elaborate ritual.
But, at any rate, these later lawgivers clung tena-
ciously to the ancient idea of the sacred bond between
the Israelite yeoman and his farm. Chapter after
chapter^ is taken up with an account of how the
land of Palestine was divided by Divine Revelation
amongst the tribes, clans and families of Israel.
Thus the land of a family or clan was a sacred gift
from God,^ and the lawgiver did his best to secure
^ First the authors of the Priestly Code, c. B.C. 400, included in
their work the Law of Holiness, see p. 60. Then the Book of the
Covenant, see p. 54, Deuteronomy, the Priestly Code, etc., etc., were
all combined to form the Torath or authoritative Revelation, our
Pentateuch.
2 The Pentateuch was recognized as canonical before the other
portions of the Old Testament, and has ever since been held in
higher esteem by the Jews.
^ Priestly Code and later portions of the Pentateuch.
* Joshua xiii.-xxi. ^ Cf. p. 51,
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 67
that it should be permanently held by those to whom
God had given it. By the celebrated Law of Jubilee 1
it was enacted that the freehold, as we should say,
could not be sold. Every fiftieth year all land which
had been sold since the last Jubilee was to revert to
its original owners. Such a law would have effectually
prevented the formation of great estates, and would
have secured the permanent existence of a class of
yeomen farmers. In the same spirit it was enacted
that heiresses should marry among their own kinsfolk. ^
! The Law of Jubilee was obviously impracticable
and for the most part remained a dead letter ; but
an incident in the administration of Nehemiah shows
that the Jewish leaders were sincerely anxious to apply
the principles of the priestly legislation as to the
tenure of land. We must bear in mind that Ezra
and Nehemiah, wielding the authority of the Persian
king, established the Priestly Code as the law of the
Jews ; Nehemiah was twice the Persian governor
of Judah. After the Return an attempt had been
made to restore the old order, by settling — for the
most part at any rate — each family on its own land.
But there was heavy taxation, and seasons were
bad ; many of the farmers borrowed money on mort-
gage ; and soon the mortgages were foreclosed ;
and, as under the Monarchy, most of the land was
appropriated by a few wealthy men, while the
farmers and their families became landless paupers
and some of them were sold into slavery. In their
despair they appealed to Nehemiah ; he remonstrated
with the nobles, and when he found that remonstrance
was not sufficiently effective '* he held a great assembly
against them '' ; or in other words, he called a general
meeting of the Jewish community to put pressure
^ Lev. XXV. 8-55, cf. p. 62. ^ Num. xxxvi.
68 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
on the offenders. He told them that he and his
friends and followers had been doing their best to
relieve the distress by buying and emancipating Jews
who had been sold into slavery ; and all the while
his efforts were being thwarted by the greed of his
fellow-countrymen who were making a profit by
reducing their brethren to slavery. Nehemiah acknow-
ledged that he and his friends had lent money at
interest. We may well believe that the interest
was moderate, and that the loans were made with a
view to helping the borrowers. Nevertheless, Nehe-
miah proposed that he and all parties concerned should
henceforth refrain from taking interest, and that the
nobles should restore fields, vineyards, oliveyards
and houses to their original owners.^ Nehemiah
was supported both by the authority of the Persian
court and by the enthusiastic approval of the great
majority of the Jewish assembly. The nobles had
no choice but to consent. They promised to restore
land and houses, and to do all that Nehemiah wished.
He, however, feared that they might imitate their
predecessors under Zedekiah,^ and recall their promise
as soon as the pressure of existing circumstances was
removed. Accordingly he sent for the priests, and
bound the nobles by a solemn oath ; and he himself
pronounced a curse upon them in case they should
be faithless. In his own words, '' I shook out my lap
and said, ' So may God shake out every man from his
house and from the fruits of his labour that performeth
not this promise ; even thus may he be shaken out
and emptied.'
* The conditions of this restitution are not fully or clearly
stated ; but there is no doubt that the nobles made very heavy
sacrifices, as far as their legal claims were concerned.
2 Cf. p. 63.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 69
"And all the assembly said * Amen/ and praised
Yahweh.
'' And the people did according to this promise/' ^
We may notice that this incident illustrates the
feeling of the Jews not only as to the family holding
of land, but also as to slavery ; the public conscience
revolted more and more against the idea of a Jew
being a slave. Nehemiah's suppliants pleaded, " Our
flesh is as the flesh of our brethren, our children are
as their children." — Why then should their sons and
daughters be sold into slavery ? And Nehemiah
accepted their plea. The influence of such feelings
is also manifest in the Law of Jubilee. It is plain
that the idea of Jews in bondage was repugnant to
the authors of that law, though they felt it impossible
to abolish such slavery altogether. They had to
content themselves with doing their best to limit it
as far as possible, and to mitigate its severity.^ If a
Jew is driven by poverty to sell himself as a slave,
he is not to be treated as a slave, but as a hired servant
or a resident alien. ^
A similar spirit shows itself in the writings of
the post-exilic prophets.* It is true that they, like
the lawgivers, are very much preoccupied with the
Temple, its priesthood and its ritual ; but none the
less they bear their testimony to social righteousness.
The fast is worthless when the worshipper oppresses
his labourers, and the true fast is not to bow down
the head like a rush and to sit in sackcloth and ashes ;
but to loose the bonds of wickedness ; and to let the
^ Nehemiah v.
* Leviticus xxv. 39 f., 47 ff.
3 Get.
* Isaiah xxiv.-xxvii., Ivi.-lxvi., etc. ; Haggai, Zechariah,
Malachi, Joel, etc.
70 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
oppressed go free ; to feed the hungry ; to house the
outcast ; and to clothe the naked.^
In this last period the Wisdom Literature ^ of
Israel becomes important, and its witness is quite in
harmony with that of the Law and Prophets. Job's
noble picture of the Righteous Man ^ is one of the
passages in which the teaching of the Bible reaches
a climax ; it presents an ideal which has never been
surpassed. The righteous man uses his advantages
of rank, power and wealth in the service of his less
fortunate brethren. He is the helper of the poor,
the fatherless and the widow; he is *' eyes to the
blind, feet to the lame, and a father to the needy.'* *
Again Job enumerates among the sins which draw
down the wrath of God upon the wicked, contempt
and neglect of the claims of slaves ; and that a man
should eat his morsel alone, while the fatherless go
hungry.5
It is a little depressing to pass from the passion and
pathos of ]Joh to the " canny " shrewdness of Proverbs
and the cynical pessimism of Ecclesiastes. Yet both
imply that the true social order is based on mutual
helpfulness, and suggest that if the ultimate and per-
manent condition of society is one in which the interests
of the people are sacrificed to the pride, ostentation
and self-indulgence of privileged classes, then, indeed,
life is *' vanity of vanities."
^ Isaiahyviii. 3-8.
^ Job, Proverbs, and Ecclesiastes in the Hebrew and Protestant
Canon of the Old Testament.
^ Job xxix., cf. xxxi.
* Job xxix. 11-16. ^ Job xxxi. 17, 21.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 71
vi. Review.
A recent writer 1 says, with much truth, that many
take for granted that the social teaching of the Bible
may be ignored because the social conditions 2 of our
time are different from those of the beginning of the
Christian Era, and are still more remote from those
of Old Testament times. We plume ourselves on
the advance of civilization, and scout the idea that
we can learn from ancient prophets and lawgivers.
It seems like expecting a sixth-form prefect to learn
from a youngster in the second or third. We may
illustrate the difficulty by two important matters
which involve those moral considerations with which
we are specially concerned — Does not the Old Testa-
ment accept slavery and polygamy? In a qualified
sense it does. But for that matter, slavery flourished
in Christian states far into the last century ; and
when one calls to mind the casual ward and the work-
house, the sweated industries and the unemployed,
and Piccadilly at midnight, it is a perfectly defensible
position that, for all practical purposes, the condition
of labour and the status of women were better in the
Judah of Isaiah than they are in England to-day ;
and that Jerusalem, even under Manasseh, was no
worse than many of the great cities of Christian peoples.
Moreover whatever the defects of ancient Israel,
we must remember that even inspired teachers have
to start from things as they find them and to speak
in terms of existing institutions. Nor do they sanc-
tion everything which they do not propose to alter ;
no sane reformer tries to set everything right at once ;
^ Koberle, Soziale Probleme im alien Israel und in der Gegenwart,
pp. I f.
2 Kulturentwicklung.
72 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
that is anarchism. Ideals have to be sought in men's
positive teaching, not in what they seem to take for
granted ; and the positive teaching of the Old Tes-
tament, the changes it introduces into the existing
order, are upward. We have seen ^ that there is
a constant anxiety to improve the position of slaves
and to limit slavery as much as possible. It is true
that the lawgivers are chiefly concerned for Israelite
slaves, but then a man's social ideals are naturally
applied first to his own people. So too the whole
tendency of Old Testament teaching is in favour of
monogamy. At the Creation only one woman was
provided for the first riian ; the patriarchal stories seem
intended to illustrate the disadvantages of polygamy ;
and Proverbs might have been written for a purely
monogamous people. It is difficult to imagine the
Excellent Woman 2 sharing her authority with a rival.
If, however, these considerations show that the
inferiority of the civilization of Israel is no reason for
ignoring the teaching of the Hebrew Scriptures, they
are equally conclusive against a wholesale application
of texts in a literal sense. The practical remedies
advocated by prophets and lawgivers were designed
to meet the circumstances of their own people and
their own age, and are not absolute laws binding on
every one, everywhere, at all times. It is not too
much to say that *' It is wrong in principle to deduce
without qualification from the Bible, Old or New
Testament, any political, economic, hygienic or any
other demand as to the external course of social life.'* ^
We must not, for instance, maintain that the Old
Testament binds us to secure to the farmer the owner-
ship of the land he cultivates. Such an arrangement
^ Page 69.
* Prov. xxxi. 10-31 ; ^ Koberle, p. 22.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 73
may or may not be desirable ; in deciding such ques-
tions we should welcome any light the Hebrew Scrip-
tures can afford ; but we must remember that there
may be moral considerations which did not occur to
the ancient prophets and lawgivers ; and also that
economic laws and material circumstances cannot
be ignored. It is still more evident that we cannot
use isolated texts to show that some given social
change must be made at once in some particular
fashion.
This frank avowal clears the way for the legiti-
mate application of inspired principles and ideals
to modern needs ; for these principles and ideals are
like the sun ; however circumstances may change,
they still reveal their character and help us to deal
with them.
The prophetic standard of social righteousness
would emphatically condemn Christendom ; Isaiah
and Jeremiah would have scouted the idea that we
are merely the victims of circumstances, or that the
social ills under which we labour are the inevitable
results of inexorable economic laws. They would
have found the root of the evil in moral corruption,
in the callous selfishness which is rampant to-day as
it was thousands of years ago. Now as then, they
might have told us, eagerness to acquire, to increase,
or to defend luxuries and privileges makes men in-
different to the misery and degradation of their fellows.
Modern methods are not so crude as in ancient times.
In England, at any rate, Naboth is not condemned by
intimidated judges on notoriously trumped-up evi-
dence, but the poor man loses his vineyard all
the same. In spite of many changes in outward
forms, if Ezekiel were here to-day, he might still
declare that those who feed upon the good pasture
74 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
trample the residue, and that those who drink the
clear waters foul the residue with their feet, so that
the sheep have nothing to eat or drink except that
which has been trodden down and befouled.^ Nor
would the Psalmist admit that his ideal of the Righteous
King who is to do justice to the poor and save the
needy * is realized by the rulers of modern Christendom.
But if our social system is found wanting when
tried by these ancient standards, another question
arises. How can Law, Prophets and Psalmists guide
us in our search after a better way ? How can they
help us in our struggles for reform ? Our thoughts
at once turn to our Lord's answer to the inquiry,
" Master, which is the great commandment in the
law ? *' '' Thou shalt love the Lord thy God with
all thy heart and with all thy soul, and with all thy
mind. This is the first and great commandment.
And a second like unto it is this, Thou shalt love thy
neighbour as thyself. On these two commandments
hangeth the whole law, and the prophets.*' * No
word of Christ compels a more prompt and unquali-
fied acceptance. And with regard to social evils we
feel, as it has been well said, '' The only safeguard is
the diffusion of the spirit which loves one's neighbour
as oneself, which is willing to consider the ' stranger '
as well as the home-born, and which, in fact, regards
the members of one's community with precisely the
same trust, kindliness, forbearance and open-handed-
ness as the members of one's own family." *
But one of the most serious difficulties of the
^ Ezek. xxxiv. i8 f. 2 Psalm Ixxii. 4.
^ Matthew xxii. 36-40, R.V., quoted from Deut. vi. 5, Lev.
xix. 18.
4 Prof. W. F. Lofthouse, " The Social Teaching of the Law."
Expositor, May, 1908, p. 468.
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 75
present situation is that those who are anxious to
live according to this spirit find themselves baffled
by a system which tends to reduce society to
millionaires and their dependents, slaves in all but
name, and without the compensations of slavery.
Can the study of Hebrew ideals help us discover social
reforms by which the spirit of Christ may be set free
from its shackles and may have free course and be
glorified ?
We are at once met with the difficulty that for
devout Israelites the ideal society was alike Church
and State, a society in which religion was the supreme
bond. Whereas in Christendom religion is a divisive
influence, and the mutual jealousy of the Churches
paralyses the nation in its struggle against ignorance,
misery and vice. This is not the place to discuss the
question of organic reunion ; but is there no way by
which sectarian quarrels may be limited to matters
ecclesiastical, and the moral and religious forces of
the country united in the crusade against social wrong ?
There is, however, another aspect of this difficulty.
The ideal Israel, as we have said, was to be a religious
society, such as the British Empire is little likely
to become in the near future. Would the prophets
have allowed us to hope for social progress under our
present conditions ? The reader will find such subjects
more fully dealt with in succeeding papers, but we
may say a word or two. We may remind ourselves
that for the prophets religious unity did not depend
on the universal acceptance of the same set of abstract
dogmatic propositions, and that they did not measure
a man's loyalty to Yahweh by the frequency and
regularity with which he observed religious rites^
public or private. We are not even told that Isaiah,
Jeremiah, and Ezekiel expected true believers to
76 SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT
attend their prophesyings three times a week. May
we not contend that the rehgious sentiment in some
form and to some extent is universal ? Possibly
mutual sympathy and recognition between the Churches
and those who are more vaguely and informally
religious would be for the general advantage, would
promote the growth of religion, and increase its influence.
On the other hand there is no lesson that is more
clearly taught by the Old Testament than the impor-
tance of the spiritual life to social progress. In
some form or other man's faith and love towards
God and God's grace given to man are essential con-
ditions of a nation's welfare. But, again, the pro-
phets are equally emphatic in condemning devout
men who are indifferent to social righteousness and
neglect their duties as citizens.
In such matters the Hebrew Scriptures furnish
us with many plain examples ; thus the prophets
and lawgivers are the champions of freedom ; they
constantly attempt to limit the extent of slavery
and to mitigate its severity. Moreover their demand
that the Israelite family shall be secured in the posses-
sion of land is an effort to make the people free in
fact as well as in name. No one enjoys real liberty
who can be deprived of the means of livelihood at
the arbitrary will of an employer. In ancient Israel
ownership of a farm was the natural way to provide
a man with an independent and assured opportunity
of earning a living for himself and his family. In
our own times the application of the principles of
prophetic teaching must take account of altered cir-
cumstances. It would be folly now to give every one
land and expect him to take to farming. The evil
against which Isaiah and Amos protested is appearing
in a new form. The class who were their own masters — •
SOCIAL IDEALS IN THE OLD TESTAMENT 77
yeomen, tradesmen, master workers, small manufac-
turers— is rapidly disappearing, and its members are
being replaced by managers and foremen. There is
a continual increase of the proportion of the popula-
tion who are liable to be cast into the ranks of the unem-
ployed through the avarice, the caprice or the malice
of the heads of great commercial enterprises. Men
who are thus helplessly dependent are not free, and
were the prophets amongst us to-day they would
renew their protests against industrial slavery.
Nevertheless, it does not follow that we ought to
transfer the prophetic denunciation of Israelite oppres-
sors to the ruling classes to-day. Nor need we conclude
that the sentence of doom passed on Israel and Judah
is also pronounced against Christendom. It is true
that the ancient plague symptoms reappear now with
equal virulence ; we are threatened with a plutocratic
oligarchy, hitherto the harbinger of moral and material
ruin. But our spiritual resources to-day are greater
than those of ancient Israel. The leaven of the King-
dom of God is working in our midst. The experience of
two thousand years has shown us that the Spirit of
Christ, the influence of His teaching. His example
and His personality, make for righteousness even more
powerfully than the ministry of the Hebrew prophets.
But we must let this Spirit have free course. We are
often told that we cannot curtail the luxury of the few
in order to provide the many with the necessaries
and decencies of life, because such a policy would bring
about industrial ruin. But the unhesitating testimony
of the Old Testament is that an awful and speedy
Divine judgment awaits the people that acquiesces in
national wickedness.
II
The Christian Ideal Revealed in Jesus.
By Rev. ALFRED E. GARVIE, M.A., D.D., Principal of
New College, London.
ARGUMENT.
(i) The Religious Good of the Christian Gospel — Divine Fatherhood and
Human Sonship.
(2) The Correspondent Human Duty — Love to God, and Love to Man
as Likeness to God.
{3) Impartiality and Universality of this Love— The Good Samaritan.
(4) This Love Practical — ^The Last Judgment, The Unrighteous Steward,
The Rich Man and Lazarus.
(5) The Guilt of Injury of Man measured by the worth of each Soul to God.
(6) Did Jesus institute the Church and the Sacraments ?
(7) Jesus' Conception of the Kingdom of God.
(8) His Attitude towards and Action in regard to the Existing Social
Order in Church and State no Illustration of Permanent or Universal
Principles.
(9) No Ready-Made Solutions of Social Problems, but Suggestive Refer-
ences to Social Relations and Institutions — ^The Family — Divorce.
(10) The Duty of Children to Parents taught by Jesus — His Treatment
of Women and Children.
(ii) The Economic Basis of the Family — Property — ^An Inference from
Jesus' Teaching on the Family — His Refusal to Interfere in Dispute —
Discouragement of Covetousness.
(12) The Influence of Riches and Poverty on the Soul — Poverty Advan-
tageous and Wealth Dangerous — ^The Beatitudes — ^The Rich Fool,
The Rich Man and Lazarus.
(13) Does Jesus discourage Industry ? — His References to the Relations of
Master and Servant.
(14) Jesus' Teaching on Simplicity of Life not Ascetic — Total Abstinence
— ^Not Indifferent to Aesthetic Aspect of Life.
{15) Does Jesus Condemn Government? — Reasons against this View —
Present Application of this Teaching.
(16) The Absence of Detailed Instructions a Proof of the Universality and
Permanence of the Christian Religion — Contrast with Mohammed
and Buddha.
(17) Did Jesus Foresee the Gradual Progress of the Kingdom ? — Christian
Means and Ends of Progress.
{18) The Dependence of the Realization of the Christian Ideal on Personal
Relation to Christ — Devotion and Duty.
II
The Christian Ideal Revealed in Jesus
(i) The heart of the Christian Gospel may be found
in the confession and the invitation of Jesus in Matt,
xi. 25-30. His unique nature as the Son of God,
known by the Father alone, and alone knowing the
Father, and His unique vocation to reveal the Father
to whomsoever He willeth qualify Him to offer to
labouring and heavy-laden mankind rest of soul in
learning of Him and taking His yoke, which is easy,
because He Himself is meek and lowly in heart. His
intimate communion with God is accompanied by an
absolute dependence and a complete submission. As
all things are delivered to Him by the Father, so He
thanks the Father for whatsoever is well-pleasing in His
sight. It is not necessary here to discuss the meta-
physics of the Incarnation. The religious conscious-
ness and the moral character of Jesus alike bear wit-
ness to a relation to God in which He is alone among
and above all mankind. This relation, which is His
by nature, it is His vocation to mediate for mankind
by His grace. *' The only begotten Son who is in the
bosom of the Father hath so declared Him," as to give
to as many as believe " on His name the right to
CO. " G
82 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
become the children of God" (John i. i8, 12). The
relation, which is original for Him, is mediated by Him
for them, so that He who is the subject of the religion of
Jesus becomes the object of faith in the Christian religion.
He not only shows God as Father to men, but also brings
men as children to God. He Himself reveals the divine
Fatherhood by realizing the perfect sonship under the
conditions and limitations of human life. The Divine
Son who knows, loves, trusts, obeys God as Father is
the Human Brother, so that through Him all the human
brothers may become divine sons. He calls men to
Himself that He may bring them to God. '' Come to
Me." " Learn of Me." " Take My yoke." '' Follow
Me." This is His invitation, for only in such close
fellowship with Himself can men be brought into
intimate communion with God.
There is, however, a hindrance which must be
removed if His invitation is to be fully accepted ; and
He recognizes it ; and, therefore, in His attitude and
His assurance to sinners He removes it . He is the Friend
of sinners (Matt. xi. 19). He calls not the right-
eous, but the sinners (ix. 10-13). He has the right on
earth to forgive sins Tverse 6) ; He welcomes the peni-
tent with the words of pardon, '* Thy sins are forgiven "
(Luke vii. 48). The salvation which He offers to men
involves His own sacrifice. He must give His life as
a ransom for many (Matt. xx. 28), and the new covenant
of grace is in His blood (xxvi. 28). Yet He, the Son of
God, and, as the Saviour of men, the firstborn among
many brethren, cannot be holden of death, but is raised
from the dead, and becomes, as Mediator between God
and men, the supreme authority and the universal
presence. The divine Fatherhood revealed and the
human sonship realized in and through Him are to be
preached throughout the whole world in order that
REVEALED IN JESUS 83
the whole family of God may be brought home (xxviii.
18-20).
(2) This religious good, which is the priceless gift
of Jesus to mankind, involves a correspondent moral
duty. It claims not only the human faith which wel-
comes, uses and enjoys the divine grace ; but also the
energy of that faith, its expression and exercise in love,
grateful to God, and generous towards man. Jesus,
coming as the Jewish Messiah, claimed to fulfil the law
and the prophets, and in that fulfilment required that
His disciples should exceed the righteousness of the
Scribes and Pharisees, the commonly acknowledged
and approved exponents, in theory and practice, of the
law (Matt. V. 17-20). He unified, simplified, elevated
and vitalized that law by summing it up in one princi-
ple— an absolute love to God and an equal love for self
and others (xxii. 37-39). Although this principle was
laid down in what might at first sight appear only as
a casual answer to a hostile question, yet it necessarily
results from, and is, therefore, in complete harmony
with the essence of the Christian religion. The
morality of a religion of divine Fatherhood and human
sonship must be, and cannot but be, love. As God,
manifest in the grace of Jesus, is altogether lovable,
love to Him need not be enforced as a duty ; for it will
be the spontaneous response to the grace that is re-
ceived in faith. Jesus assumes that human gratitude
will be the inevitable consequence of divine generosity.
He who is forgiven much will love much (Luke vii. 47).
He does not enforce the duty of absolute love to God
in His teaching, not only because He is always exhibit-
ing it in His life, but still more because He is always
caUing men to faith in God, and is confident that as
men through faith freely receive the grace of God, so
will they freely give in love to God.
84 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
It is otherwise, however, with the love to man which
is enjoined. This is not a love of gratitude, but of
generosity. Men are not to be loved because they are
lovable. Jesus expressly contrasts the love which
He requires of His disciples with natural affection,
and with the love which is called forth, and is an answer
to love (Matt. v. 46, 47). The fullest expression and
the highest exercise of Christian love are required in
regard to those who make it most difficult. Enemies
and persecutors are to be loved (verse 44). Two reasons
are given for this demand. The first is this, that fellow-
ship with God is realized in likeness to God. He who
enjoys a filial communion with God must show a filial
resemblance to God. In order that the disciples may
be the sons of the Father in heaven, they must display
the same impartial affection as He does in sending
sunshine and shower to all men alike (verse 45) ; only
as they are peacemakers can they enjoy the blessedness
of being called sons of God (verse 9) ; the perfection of
the heavenly Father in loving is to be their ideal (verse
48) ; the second reason is that only the loving can ap-
prehend, appreciate and appropriate the love of God.
He who hardens himself against man closes himself
against God. The merciful obtain mercy (verse 7) ;
the forgiving are forgiven (vi. 14). So dependent is
filial communion with God on filial resemblance to
God, that they cannot enjoy God's grace who are
without grace to others. So closely united are love
to God and love to man.
(3) Besides this characteristic, which so closely
connects religion and morality that love to God is
shown and proved in love to man, Jesus assigns to this
principle these other features. It is to be not only
impartial as regards moral character, but it is also to be
universal, unlimited by the common divisions among
REVEALED IN JESUS 85
men. This is brought out most clearly in the parable
of the Good Samaritan (Luke x. 30-37). Just because
there was kinship in blood and likeness in religion
between Jew and Samaritan, was Jewish exclusive-
ness most uncompromising towards the Samaritan.
It is to rebuke this racial hate that Jesus holds up a
Samaritan as an example to be followed. Had He
represented the Samaritan as the sufferer, and the Jew
as the helper, Jewish pride would have been gratified ;
and the lesson of neighbourliness would not have been
so effectively given. Jesus' limitation of His own minis-
try to *' the lost sheep of the house of Israel '* does not
disprove the universality of His love. It was necessary
that the offer of God's grace should be first made to the
people who had received a promise of it and a prepar-
ation for it. That Jesus might secure attention to His
claims as Jewish Messiah, it was necessary that Jewish
prejudice should not be provoked by any attempt to
reach the Gentiles. Even when rejected by the Jewish
people, Jesus was possessed by the conviction of the
necessity of His death in Jerusalem at the hands of the
Jewish nation ; and He, therefore, did not turn to the
Gentiles. His welcome and approval of Gentile fai^h
show the wideness of His love.
(4) This impartial and universal love is to be practi-
cal. It is to be displayed in feeding the hungry, cloth-
ing the naked, and visiting the sick and the imprisoned.
The parable of The Last Judgment, in Matt. xxv.
31-46, represents as the standard of judgment such
acts of philanthropy. Those who have done these
things are blessed, and they who have left them undone
are accursed. That Jesus is here laying down a univer-
sal test is not disproved, as is sometimes argued, by two
phrases in the parable. Even if the judgment des-
cribed is that of '' all the nations " (verse 32) in dis-
86 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
tinction from the Christian Church, a less measure of
love will not be required of disciples. Their righteous-
ness must exceed not only the righteousness of the
Scribes and Pharisees, but surely of the Gentiles also.
The disciples are expressly required to forgive insult
and injury ; and much more severely is love tested by
such a demand than by this call to doing good. Even
if the epithet ''my brethren'', applied to those benefited,
meant believers on His name, and the parable was thus
intended to encourage the disciples by the assurance
that Jesus would regard their interests as His very own,
this limitation, which is by no means certainly proved,
does not justify the inference that it is only philan-
thropy to Christians which Christ will reward, or
inhumanity to them which He will punish. Could
He who commended the divine impartiality for imita-
tion to His disciples have represented Himself as thus
restricting His interest and sympathy ?
The same duty of philanthropy is enforced by the
companion parables in Luke xvi., although it must be
admitted that the interpretation of both is involved
in some obscurity. The parable of the Unrighteous
Steward Cverses 1-9) appears to be intended to teach
that the use of wealth in showing kindness and giving
help to others will be rewarded in the future life (verse
9). More doubtful is the interpretation of the phrase
mammon of unrighteousness as '' ill-gotten wealth."
It is hard to believe that Jesus meant to teach, as Dr.
Bruce maintains (The Expositor's Greek Testament, i,
p. 586), that '' the more ill-gotten the more need to be
redeemed by beneficent use.*'
The parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (verses
ig_3i) appears to convey the lesson that wealth used
selfishly in indulgence and luxury to the neglect of the
claims of the poor and the suffering will bring on the
REVEALED IN JESUS 87
possessor the severest condemnation. The only man
whom Jesus in all His teaching pillories in the place of
torment is the Rich Man, who left Lazarus unrelieved
at his gate. It is necessary to point out that these
promises and these rewards alike, presented in these
parables, seem to appeal to a lower motive than love
of others. As Jesus condemns the alms given in osten-
tation to gain '' glory of men " (Matt. vi. 2), so doubt-
less He would have condemned any form of charity
from self-interest only. We must recognize the in-
adequacy of the parable form to convey the truth com-
pletely. Jesus, when He thus speaks of rewards or
punishments, presupposes the love of others which alone
gives any moral value to acts of beneficence.
(5) Love will not only give all the help it can to
others ; it will be very careful not to do injury to
others, especially by leading them into sin, or by hinder-
ing their faith. How very solemn is the warning against
causing one of the little ones to stumble (Matt, xviii. 6).
Whether the sayings which immediately follow in the
First Gospel regarding the sacrifice to be made in order
to avoid any offence refer to injury done to others may
be questioned ; but, even if the immediate reference
be to the peril which sin brings on the sinner himself,
yet it is a legitimate extension of the truth to apply it
to injury to the souls of others. If a man is to love
his neighbour as himself, he must be prepared at as high
a cost to avoid his hurt even as his own.
The explanation of the severity of the demand here
is to be found in Jesus* estimate of man. He taught
the infinite worth of every soul. Not only is each man
worth so much to himself that the gain of the whole
world cannot compensate for the forfeit of himself,
and that he has no possession he can offer as a ransom
for himself (xvi. 26) ; but every man is worth so much
88 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
to God that his loss through sin grieves God, and his
recovery brings God joy. This is the lesson taught in
the parables in Luke xv. Such is the worth of each
soul to God that Jesus came '' to seek and save the
lost " (Luke xix. lo). Whatever a man's character
or condition, as a man, capable of becoming a son
of God, and even in his sin loved by God, he has
an infinite worth, and so an absolute claim to be
so loved that his salvation shall be sought at any
cost.
(6) The relation of God and man as the heavenly
Father and the earthly child, and the relation of men
to one another as brethren is the religious good Jesus
offers, and love is the moral duty He enjoins. This is
the broad and sure foundation for a Christian society ;
but on this foundation Jesus does not Himself rear
the complete superstructure. The name by which
the Christian society was afterwards known is only
mentioned twice. In the commendation of Peter for
his confession (Matthew xvi. 18-19), that confession is
accepted as the foundation of the Church, to which is
promised the power to resist all assaults, and to which
is entrusted the stewardship of the Kingdom in its
moral j udgment of human actions. But no organization
is prescribed. In the command regarding the treat-
ment of an offending brother, a local organization of the
Church, similar to that of the synagogue, seems to be
assumed (xviii. 15-20). It must be added, however,
that the authenticity of both passages has been chal-
lenged ; the other Synoptics have no parallel, and
there is no other indication in the teaching of Jesus
that He ever spoke to His disciples about founding
such a society. But even if we set aside these doubts,
and accept these passages, they do not aid us at all
in defining more distinctly the Christian social ideal.
REVEALED IN JESUS 89
Whether Jesus Himself instituted the ordinance of
baptism into the threefold name (Matt, xxviii. 19) is
regarded as doubtful by many scholars, who find in this
passage a reflexion of contemporary belief and practice
rather than a remembrance of past history. Even the
intention of Jesus to establish a memorial feast in the
ordinance of the Supper has been called in question.
The narrative in Mark (xiv. 22-25) gives no indication
that Jesus desired the acts to be repeated ; and in this
respect Matthew (xxvi. 26-29) follows Mark. Luke's
narrative (xxii. 14-20) is clearly influenced by the
custom of the Apostolic Church. He adds the words,
'' This do in remembrance of Me.*' Paul's account
(i Cor. xi. 23-26) is quite evidently determined by the
general practice of the Church. Absolute certainty
seems in this matter quite unattainable ; but it is
probable that the Christian community had some
warrant in Jesus' teaching for these ordinances, which
were recognized from its very beginnings. Jesus de-
sired in these symbolic acts, these acted parables, to
keep before His disciples the moral cleansing and the
religious fellowship which He was ever offering to
mankind. We can have little doubt, however, that
He never intended them to become the formal, mys-
terious, supernatural sacraments into which ecclesiasti-
cism afterwards changed them.
Were it proved, however, that Jesus said and did
nothing to indicate His desire that His disciples should
form themselves into a society, yet it could be confi-
dently maintained that these disciples in effecting their
union in the Church were moved and guided by His
Spirit, were giving an inevitable application in the
historical conditions to the essential principle of His
Gospel. It was fitting and needful that those who felt
themselves to be brethren, because they knew God
90 THE- CHRISTIAN IDEAL
as Father, should come together for common witness,
worship and work.
(7) But it must be asked, Can the Christian ideal
of society be regarded as fully reaUzed in the Church,
the community of those who as disciples of Jesus and
believers in Him have received His salvation ? Jesus
only twice (if at all) spoke of the Church ; but there
was a phrase constantly on His Ups, the Kingdom of
God. Those who are eager for social reform often seize
upon this phrase as giving the sanction of Jesus to their
social interpretation of the Gospel. It cannot be ignored,
however, that not only the meaning of the term, but
even the content of the conception is doubtful. Does
kingdom mean realm or rule ? In the former case the
social aspect would be implied, in the latter not. Is
the Kingdom present or future ? Did Christ believe
Himself to have established it at His first coming, or
did He anticipate its establishment at His return in
power and glory ? Is it to come into the world by a
gradual progress or by a catastrophic act ? Is the means
of its estabUshment moral and spiritual influence, or
supernatural power ? Texts can be quoted for each of
these views. The obscurities, ambiguities and per-
plexities of the subject are all due to the fact that Jesus
had to present the heavenly treasure of His own moral
and religious ideal in the earthen vessels of prophetic
predictions and popular expectations.
It is often assumed by scholars that Jesus was so
completely a man of His own age and people that what-
ever in His teaching goes beyond or rises above the
current conceptions must be regarded as an addition
to His genuine utterances, a reflexion of the beliefs,
hopes, and aims of the Christian Church at the time
when the Gospels were composed. We may, in opposi-
tion to this view, press several questions. Is it prob-
REVEALED IN JESUS 91
able that Jesus did not conceive the Kingdom of God in
as spiritual and ethical a form as would correspond
with His perfect revelation of God and man ? Is it
probable that One whose religious consciousness and
moral character so transcended the thought and life
around Him was so closely bound by the common
beliefs on a question of such moment for faith and life ?
Is it probable that the community of His disciples, so
dependent on Him for what was truest in its beliefs
and best in its deeds, so soon, even within a generation,
outstripped Him in its conception of the Kingdom of
God ? The contrary assumption is very much more
probable, that the conception of a present, ethical
and spiritual relation of God to man, to be progressively
completed and extended, was the kernel of Jesus' own
teaching, and that the apocalyptic language in which it
was expressed was but the husk, necessary to protect
and preserve that kernel. When Jesus likens the
Kingdom to the treasure in the field and the pearl of
great price it is represented as an individual possession
(Matt. xiii. 44-46). When He compares it to the
mustard seed and the leaven, He so presents its expansive
power and its pervasive influence as to suggest, but not
more than suggest, that it is a social benefit (31-33)- I^
must be admitted that Jesus' teaching about the King-
dom of God does not show that He intended any re-
organization of human society, or what a reorganiza-
tion in accordance with His principles would be.
(8) The results of our inquiry do not appear any
more positive when we consider Jesus' attitude to-
wards, and action in regard to the existing social order
in Church or State. He was not the leader of a revolt ;
He was careful not to say or to do anything that would
provoke a revolution. This caution was required of
Him by the historical conditions. The popular expect-
92 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
ations were fixed on a political Messiah, one who would
cast off the Roman yoke, and establish a prosperous
and powerful as well as a righteous rule in Jerusalem.
The temper of the people was very dangerous. A word
or a deed of Jesus might have precipitated an explosion
of the pent-up hate against the Roman oppressor.
However repugnant to Jewish patriotism the Roman
Empire was, and however oppressive its dominion
might often prove to be, yet a Jewish rebellion could
have ended only in the destruction of the nation.
There was no promise or prospect of a new society to
be founded on the ruins of the Roman Empire. It was
not, however, merely prudent calculation that res-
trained Jesus' action. His words to Pilate, *' My King-
dom is not of this world '' Qohn xviii. 36) give the
deeper reason. It was contrary to the essential char-
acter of His purpose that He should seek its fulfilment
by any outward changes, ecclesiastical and political.
Further, that it might be advanced as the expanding
mustard seed, or the pervasive leaven, it must not
needlessly be brought into conflict with any of the
kingdoms of the world. His warning to Peter : '* All
they that take the sword shall perish with the sword "
(Matt. xxvi. 52) discloses the reason for His submission
to both ecclesiastical and political authorities.
These instances of conformity do not illustrate any
permanent or universal principles of Christian action
in Church or State. Under altered conditions oppo-
sition, or even defiance, may be as consistent with the
Christian ideal as was Jesus' own submission. When
conscience compelled Jesus to enter into conflict with
the ecclesiastical authorities. He did not shrink from it,
even though His own death was the inevitable issue.
What His example does teach is that there may be con-
formity to the existing order in Church and State
REVEALED IN JESUS 93
wherever that is consistent with conscience, the claims
of duty, or the call of faith. This conception of His
Kingdom as not of this world has, however, permanent
and universal significance. Confidence in the power of
truth, righteousness, grace to fulfil the ends of God is
Christian. Reliance on the outward means of changes
in organization, ecclesiastical or political, is not. This
emphasis on the inward and indifference to the out-
ward is probably the explanation of Jesus' having left
the organization of the community of His disciples to
be carried out after His Resurrection. While there is
nothing in Jesus' teaching to forbid the use of the
machinery of the Church or of the State to restrain
vice, to relieve misery, to promote health and happi-
ness, even to protect and preserve character ; yet
we must not hide from ourselves that Jesus Himself
was indifferent to the mechanics of outward organiza-
tion, and was concerned about the dynamics of inward
inspiration. Make the tree good, and its fruit will be
good (Matt. vii. 20). Christ's method is to change
character, and not to alter institutions.
(9) If this is His method, we shall go to Him in vain
for any ready-made solutions of social problems. He
reveals principles ; He does not prepare programmes ;
but it was inevitable that in a ministry so varied
and in teaching so comprehensive as His He should
touch on social relations and institutions ; and although
it was never His intention to be a legislator, yet we
shall find that He does, if not expHcitly, yet implicitly,
lay down principles of His Kingdom, which may be
practically applied to our present perplexities and
difficulties.
It is noteworthy that the family was the only social
institution regarding which He gave very definite in-
struction. That He chose to describe the relation
94 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
between God and Man, revealed and realized in Him,
by the family relationship of Father and Son is itself a
most pregnant consideration.
In condemning the interpretation of the Jewish
law by the Scribes, He took two of His instances from
the family. The law of divorce was explained by many
of the Scribes in such a way as to make it very easy for
a man to get rid of his wife ; and the common practice
was an encouragement to moral laxity. In the Sermon
on the Mount, in close connexion with His condemna-
tion of the lustful look as a commission of adultery in
the heart, He condemns divorce as adultery. The
husband who divorces his wife makes her an adulteress,
and the man who marries the divorced wife becomes an
adulterer. One ground for divorce is given in the
clause " saving for the cause of fornication '' (Matt.
V. 31, 32). In another setting this same prohibition
of adultery is repeated, although the language slightly
varies; and the justification of this teaching is given by
an appeal to Scripture, to the intention of the Creator
in making mankind male and female that there should
be an indissoluble union of husband and wife, '' What
therefore God hath joined together let not man put
asunder." In reply to the challenge that He was thus
annulling a commandment of Moses, He laid down a
general principle applicable to many other provisions
of the Jewish law. '* Moses for your hardness of heart
suffered you to put away your wives " (xix. 3-9).
In this passage, too, one cause for divorce is recog-
nized.
In the parallel passages in Mark (x. 1-12) and Luke
(xvi. 18) no mention of this exception is made. It is
argued that the clause in the First Gospel is a gloss,
intended to bring Jesus' teaching into harmony with
the practice of the Church in this matter. It must be
REVEALED IN JESUS 95
admitted that the author of this Gospel, for whom the
teaching of Jesus is the legislation of the new kingdom,
does sometimes insert such explanatory clauses, without
any intention to add to or take from the teaching, but
only to make its meaning plain. It seems certain
that Jesus did not intend to legislate ; and we put His
words to another use than He intended if we look to
them for the details of laws of divorce. The version in
Mark seems to be the original, and here what is con-
demned is divorce, either by husband or wife, in order
to effect a marriage with another. This apparently
common motive of divorce is unhesitatingly condemned ;
but there is nothing said as to whether there is or is not
any legitimate ground for divorce. Luke's version
combines part of Mark's and part of Matthew's, and
is evidently secondary. The words as given in Matthew
V. 32 are not at all as intelligible as Mark's version of
the saying. Should not the man who divorces his wife
be pronounced as himself guilty of adultery, instead of
being charged with the offence of making his wife an
adulteress, an offence which she could be guilty of only
by her marriage to another man ? The version in
Matthew xix. 9 is nearer Mark's, and expressly con-
demns not divorce merely, but divorce with a view to
marrying another woman. As Jesus does not seem to
be prohibiting divorce altogether, the exceptive clause
in Matthew must be regarded as an explanation, added
when the words of Jesus, which referred only to divorce
for the sake of marrying another, were generalized into
a law regarding divorce.
It seems altogether a vain dispute, although it has
been long and hotly waged, whether Jesus does, or does
not make an exception to His prohibition of divorce,
as His interest lay elsewhere, even in condemning one
instance of scribal casuistry, which made it easy for
96 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
men and women to foUow their own whims in tempor-
ary marriage relationships. The principle that Jesus
does lay down is that the relation between husband
and wife is intended by God to be so close that it is
to be lifelong. Whether there are offences which so
destroy the relationship as to justify the legal recog-
nition that it has ceased to be Jesus nowhere expressly
teaches. It may be added that His ideal of marriage
does condemn as a heinous sin any moral laxity, any
infidelity in fancy or feeling, and that it does require of
every society which claims the Christian name that
the sanctity of marriage shall be recognized in its laws
as in its morals.
(lo) The second instance of scribal casuistry which
Jesus condemned was the ingenious device by means
of which a son was relieved of the obligation to support
his parents. All he had to do when his parents asked
him for anything was to declare that that thing was
dedicated to God, and he was exempted from his duty
(Mark vii. 10-12). It would appear even that this
dedication was not regarded as withdrawing the pro-
perty from his own use. The duty of children to care
for their parents Jesus affirmed as the law of God, and
such attempts at evasion as traditions of men which
made void God's word. These two instances prove
how highly Jesus valued family life. There is no
ground whatever in the teaching of Jesus for the assump-
tion, on which the artificial piety of monasticism is
based, that He regarded celibacy as superior to marriage,
or the casting off of family relationships as better than
the discharge of the duties that these relationships im-
pose. It is true that He Himself did not marry ; but
that is surely fully explained by the unique vocation
He fulfilled and the unique relation He consequently
sustained to all mankind. It is true also that He
REVEALED IN JESUS 97
left His home at Nazareth, withstood the interference
of His family with His ministry, and, even when the
claims of His mother and brethren were insisted on,
affirmed the higher worth for Him of spiritual affinity
than of natural relationship (Mark iii. 34, 35). What
His example teaches is that the claims of the family are
not absolute, but subordinate to the claims of the King-
dom of God. The selfishness of the family is rebuked ;
but its necessary function in human society is recog-
nized.
The treatment of women and children by Jesus has
also a direct bearing on the problem of the family.
Jesus was not at all effeminate, but thoroughly manly ;
and yet we can speak of His womanliness and His
childlikeness. He understood the heart of the woman
and the mind of the child. To give only a few in-
stances! He surprised the disciples by talking with
the woman of Samaria, as a Jewish Rabbi would have
scorned to do (John iv. 27). He offended his host
Simon by accepting the offering of the penitent sinner's
gratitude for the grace of forgiveness (Luke vii. 39).
He defended with the insight of love the overflowing
of the heart of Mary of Bethany (Matt. xxvi. 10-13).
He watched the children at their play (xi. 16, 17). He
set a child in the midst of His disciples as an example
to them (xviii. 2, 3). He welcomed the mothers and
the babes, whom His disciples wanted to send away
from Him (xix. 13-15). Reverence for womanhood
and childhood is the sure foundation for the sanctity of
the home.
An asceticism, which has no warrant either in the
teaching or the example of Jesus, has sometimes
betrayed the Christian Church into a depreciation of
the family, with the consequent disrespect to woman-
hood and childhood. But wherever the teaching of
c.c. H
98 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
Jesus regarding the family, reinforced as it is by His
treatment of women and children, has been fully
accepted, there there has been a purification and
elevation of the home. It can be said with absolute
confidence that a society is Christian only as it main-
tains marriage and the family inviolate.
(ii) The family has not only a physical foundation
in the relation of the sexes and the generations to one
another ; but demands also an economic basis. The
home presupposes the house. We must inevitably
pass from the institution of the family to the institu-
tion of property. Jesus in His teaching assumed pri-
vate ownership, the current custom of His age and His
people ; but just as little as we are entitled to infer
from His references to the offering upon the altar
(Matt. V. 23, 24), or to the interpretation of the law by
the Scribes (xxiii. 2, 3), that He meant to perpetuate
by His authority the Jewish ritual and the Jewish code,
just so little right have we to assume from His allu-
sions that private ownership is the only Christian method
of holding property. As even sacrifice to God was to
be subordinated to reconciliation with a brother (v.
24), so we may be confident that Jesus would approve
whatever method of holding property might be most
favourable to the fulfilment of the law of equal love to
self and neighbour.
There is one inference regarding property that it
seems legitimate to draw from Jesus' teaching about
the family. In any collective ownership of the means
of production in a socialist State, it would be neces-
sary to make provision for the economic unity and
independence of the family. Husband and wife,
parents and children, must not be treated as individual
units with their separate economic relation to the com-
munity, but such a measure of private ownership would
REVEALED IN JESUS 99
seem to be necessary from the Christian standpoint as
to maintain the interdependence of the members of each
family.
With the distribution of wealth Jesus would have
nothing to do. When appealed to about a dispute
regarding property, He not only refused to interfere,
but even rebuked the covetousness which His moral
insight enabled Him to detect as the motive of the
request. '' Man, who made Me a judge or a divider
over you ? . . . Take heed, and keep yourselves from
all covetousness : for a man's life consisteth not in the
abundance of the things which he possesseth '' (Luke
xii. 14, 15). If in the distribution of wealth covetous-
ness is to be shunned, surely from the Christian stand-
point love is to be sought. The modern economic
system involves an inequality in the distribution of
wealth that encourages covetousness, and disowns
love, and in view of the Christian ideal of brotherhood
stands condemned.
The possession of property Jesus discourages as an
aim in life. The Kingdom of God, with its religious
good of Divine Fatherhood and its moral duty of human
brotherhood, is worth immeasurably more than all the
riches of the world. Even as regards the means of
meeting the simplest bodily wants for food, clothing
and shelter, Jesus forbids any concern, and calls for
trust in God. '' Work not for the meat which perish-
eth, but for the meat which abideth unto eternal life,
which the Son of Man shall give unto you " (John vi.
27). " Be not therefore anxious, saying. What shall we
eat ? or. What shall we drink ? or, Wherewithal shall
we be clothed ? For after all these things do the
Gentiles seek ; for your heavenly Father knoweth that
ye have need of all these things. But seek ye first His
Kingdom and His righteousness ; and all these things
100 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
shall be added unto you " (Matt. vi. 31-33). Character
is what Jesus cares for, not property.
(12) It must be recognized, however, that character
and property are not altogether unrelated. The prob-
lem of riches and poverty is moral as well as economic.
If Jesus was indifferent to the modern pressing problem
of the mode of ownership of property. He was keenly
interested in the influence of riches or poverty on the
soul. His judgment reverses current opinions. He
regards poverty as spiritually advantageous, and wealth
as spiritually dangerous.
It is probable that Luke has preserved the beati-
tudes in their original form, as it is less likely that he
would omit the qualifications found in Matthew in order
to give expression to his Ebionitism, than that Matthew
would add these qualifications in order to adapt the
direct personal address of Jesus to His disciples as
general legislation for the Christian Church. Jesus
pronounces blessed the poor, the hungry, the weeping
and the persecuted, and utters His woe upon the rich,
the full, the laughing, and those that are well spoken
of (Luke vi. 20-26). He expressly states the reason for
His judgment regarding the peril of the rich. '' How
hardly shall they that have riches enter into the King-
dom of God ! " (xviii. 24). The explanation which is
given in Mark, '' How hard is it for them that trust in
riches to enter into the Kingdom of God ! " (x. 24)
may have been given by Jesus ; but we cannot avoid
the suspicion that it was the form of the saying which
afterwards became current in order to modify the ap-
parent harshness of the original words. Nevertheless
it does bring out Jesus' meaning. For Him the danger
of wealth was the self-sufficiency that it was likely to
breed, indifference to the claims of God on the one hand,
and to the needs of men on the other hand.
REVEALED IN JESUS/^"^ ^^^^ ^ '.^iii-
The first peril is presented to us in the parable of the
Rich Fool (Luke xii. 16-21) ; and the second in the
parable of the Rich Man and Lazarus (xvi. 19-31).
How great Jesus' estimate of this peril was is surely
shown by the sacrifice He required in order that it
might be escaped. To the rich young ruler, whose
wealth imperilled his eternal life, Jesus said, " One
thing thou lackest yet ; sell all that thou hast, and
distribute unto the poor, and thou shalt have treasure
in heaven ; and come, follow Me " (xviii. 22). This is
not a universal demand ; but it is applicable wherever
and whenever property endangers character. '' The
things which are impossible with men are possible with
God " (verse 27). There are rich men who so humbly
depend on and so sincerely serve God that their wealth
is not a danger to their own souls, but a trust from God
that they hold as a means of doing good to others.
Wealth can be robbed of its poisonous sting only as it is
used in relieving the needs of others. That, as has
already been indicated, is taught positively as precept
in the parable of the Unrighteous Steward (xvi. 1-9),
and negatively as warning in the parable of the Rich
Man and Lazarus (19-31).
It is noteworthy that in the second parable we have
the only instance of the use of a proper name. Surely
some part of the lesson taught is hid in the proper
name Lazarus ; if not, why did Jesus here only depart
from His usual method ? Lazarus is the Greek ab-
breviation of the Hebrew Eleazar, which means, " God
hath helped." The poor man is represented in the
story, in contrast with the rich man, as one whom God
cared for because he trusted in God. The advantage
of poverty is that it exercises man's trust in God as
wealth does not, and that it has an experience of the
care of God as wealth has not. His wealth keeps the
xd2 :- 'THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
rich man from God ; his need drives the poor man
to God.
It must be added, however, that when Jesus speaks
of poverty, He is not thinking of such a ruthless struggle
for daily bread, such unrelieved misery, such moral
degradation and religious despair as the conditions of
our modern society impose on its outcasts. There is a
squalor and shame, a sorrow and suffering in the poverty
of our complex civilization which a simpler society
did not know.
Jesus assumes that the needs of the poor will
be met. He condemns ostentatious, but commends
secret almsgiving (Matt. vi. 1-4). This is what He
requires of the young ruler (xix. 21). The neglect of
this duty is what damns the Rich Man (Luke xvi. 25).
Jesus Himself during His ministry had compassion, and
not only healed the sick, but even fed the hungry. The
society Jesus approves is not a society which in its
distribution of wealth intercepts the Father's bounty
to the most needy of His children, but one that through
the help of human love responds to the trust in divine
love. If under present conditions private charity
should prove inadequate to relieve all necessities, then
Jesus* teaching and example in regard to the poor
impose the obligation of a collective provision for such
human wants.
(13) Wealth is spiritually perilous, and poverty
spiritually advantageous ; yet the way in which the
rich class can escape its disadvantage is by giving
freely to relieve the necessity of the needy class. Is
Jesus then, we seem to be forced to ask, indifferent or
even hostile to industry ? He Himself left His car-
penter's bench in Nazareth ; He called His disciples
from their fishing in the Sea of Galilee ; when He sent
them out on their mission to '' the lost sheep of the
REVEALED IN JESUS 103
house of Israel '' He forbade their making provision
for their bodily needs, and made them depend on the
bounty of those to whom they were sent. Accordingly
voluntary poverty and mendicancy have been advo-
cated as the distinctively evangelical virtues. We are
not left to the reductio ad absurdum argument that
if there were no workers, but all became beggars, society
would come to an end. The vocation of Jesus and His
disciples was unique ; the preacher of the Gospel ren-
dered a service to the hearer which gave him a claim
for support, " The labourer is worthy of his food **
(Matt. X. 10) ; the disciples as the destined leaders of
the Christian community needed the elementary disci-
pline for their high and holy calling of an absolute sub-
mission to and dependence on God even in regard to
their bodily needs.
Jesus in His teaching shows an interest in the mani-
fold callings of men, the husbandman, the shepherd,
the fisherman, the merchantman ; even the duties and
cares of the housewife receive His notice. There is no
evidence whatever that He disapproved of industry,
and commended mendicancy.
If not in Palestine generally, yet throughout the
Roman Empire, slavery was common, and most labour
was servile. Jesus does not appear to have had any
occasion to pronounce any judgment on the question ;
but from His general principles we may infer that He
would have acted in regard to it as did the Christian
Church afterwards. Instead of advocating the aboli-
tion of the institution. He would have so applied to
the relation of master and slave the law of love as to
transform its character. In several parables Jesus
refers to the relation of master and servant. The
exacting demands of the Kingdom are illustrated by
the master, who enjoins the servant on his return from
104 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
the field to wait on him while he sups without thanking
him for the service (Luke xvii. 7-10). But Jesus here
pronounces no moral judgment on the master's con-
duct ; and it would be an unwarranted inference that
Jesus approved harsh treatment of servants. Such
an impression finds its correction in the three parables
of the Hours, the Talents, and the Pounds, of which,
according to Dr. Bruce, the '' common theme is the
political economy of the Kingdom " {The Parabolic
Teaching of Christ, p. 178). " The Parable of the
Pounds," he says, '* illustrates the proposition that
when ability is equal quantity determines relative
merit'' (p. 179). ''The Parable of the Talents illus-
trates the proposition that when ability varies, then
not the absolute quantity of work done, but the ratio
of the quantity to the abiUty, ought to determine
value." '' The Parable of the Labourers in the vine-
yard or of the Hours teaches that a small quantity of
work done in a right spirit is of greater value than a
great quantity done in a wrong spirit " (p. 180).
These are the principles by which the relation of work
and wages is to be determined in the Kingdom of God ;
and, although Jesus is thinking of anything but the
organization of industry, yet surely in a just economic
system ability must be recognized, industry rewarded,
and fidelity commended.
Jesus refers not only to reward, but also to punish-
ment in the relation of master and servant. Unfaith-
ful servants will be beaten with few or many stripes
according to their demerit (Luke xii. 48). Wrong-
doing cannot go unpunished in a Christian society.
Yet forgiveness must always be ready for penitence,
but that penitence alone is recognized as genuine which
includes the willingness to forgive. The Parable of
the Unforgiving Servant (Matt, xviii. 23-35) teaches
REVEALED IN JESUS 105
this truth. In the relation of master and servant, as
Jesus presents it in the parables, faithfulness in the
servant is insisted on, but righteous and even gracious
principles of action are assumed on the part of the
master. We should be putting these parables to a
use Jesus never intended, if we attempted to derive
from them directly regulations for the relations of
Capital and Labour to-day. It is with moral dis-
positions and not with economic conditions that Jesus
is solely concerned. Nevertheless, we may confi-
dently affirm that no relations of Capital and Labour
are Christian in which these moral considerations are
ignored, in which the supreme law of equal love to
self and neighbour is disobeyed.
(14) The industry, which Jesus takes for granted
without censure, and even with commendation of such
virtues as it brings into exercise, is industry directed
towards meeting the needs of a comparatively simple
life. Modern industry is producing not only the neces-
sities, but even the comforts, refinements and luxuries
of life. We may well ask ourselves whether Jesus,
living the simplest life, absorbed in the Kingdom of
God, indifferent to earthly goods, could approve our
complex civilization. It may be said unhesitatingly
that the luxury which ministers to the vanity or the
indulgence of the rich stands absolutely condemned.
This is not the place in which to show that this luxury
is as economically wasteful as it is morally hurtful
and socially wrongful. There are material advances
in modern society that are a hindrance to the progress
of the Kingdom of God. When the earth is searched
far and near, and bird and beast are mercilessly slaugh-
tered, to tickle the palate and to adorn the person of
those whom a superfluity of wealth has robbed of the
taste for simple pleasures, there is decadence and not
io6 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
improvement. When it is recognized that this super-
abundance of riches in the few is accompanied by, nay,
in some measure is the cause of the insufficiency for
the needs of hfe of the many, then it must be admitted
that the Christian social ideal is absolutely contra-
dicted. That life might be made much more simple
without any loss of any good, aesthetic or intellectual,
worth preserving, must surely be freely admitted ;
such simpler life would certainly be more Christian.
On the other hand, the teaching and example of
Jesus do not seem to demand that that simplicity
should be carried as far as asceticism. Jesus did
require self-denial, the sacrifice of the offending eye,
hand, foot (Matt. v. 29, 30 ; xviii. 8, 9), the taking up of
the Cross, (xvi. 24), the abandonment of home and
kindred (viii. 18-22), the loss of life itself (xvi. 25) ;
yet the demand is always made in the interests of the
Kingdom of God. Pain or loss or death is not an
end in itself ; self-torture is no duty. The Kingdom
offer a fuller and a larger good than any which for its
sake must be surrendered. Jesus Himself lived in
utmost simplicity and even utter poverty ; yet He was
no ascetic. In this respect in the popular opinion He
compared unfavourably with John the Baptist. *' The
Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say.
Behold a gluttonous man, and a wine-bibber, a friend
of publicans and sinners'' (xi. 19).
It is hardly necessary to add that the advocacy of
total abstinence as the most effective method of deal-
ing with the evil of strong drink to-day is not based on
asceticism, but on the Christian principle of avoiding
at any cost every moral offence, every cause of stumb-
ling to self or another. If Jesus' example cannot in
this respect be appealed to, it is because the conditions
of His age did not require this form of self-denial.
REVEALED IN JESUS 107
The motive from which total abstinence is practised
by many to-day is in complete harmony with His
spirit and purpose. Can it be doubted that if self-
denial for the sake of the Kingdom were in mani-
fold forms more common, our society would be
very much more Christian in character than it is
to-day ?
That Jesus was not altogether indifferent to what
may be called the aesthetic aspect of life may be in-
ferred from His interest in nature around Him, the birds
of the air, and the flowers of the field (Matt. vi. 26, 28).
To promote art, science, literature, or philosophy
did not fall within the scope of His unique vocation—
the revelation of God as Father, and the redemption of
man from sin — on the fulfilment of which during His
brief earthly ministry He had to concentrate all His
desire and effort: ''working while it was yet day."
His perfection was not extensive, quantitative, but in-
tensive, qualitative. His speciality was not everything,
but "the one thing needful,'' the union of God and
man, without which nothing has enduring meaning,
unchanging worth. In the Divine Fatherhood and the
human brotherhood there is nothing adverse to any of
these interests and pursuits, even although Jesus in
His absorption in, and devotion to, this one aim had no
thought to spare, and no help to give to any of them.
Genuinely Christian character has been developed in
seeking the True, loving the Beautiful, as well as striv-
ing for the Good ; and accordingly none of these aims
or endeavours needs to be shut out from a fully Chris-
tian society. All these interests and pursuits, how-
ever, to be fully Christian in spirit and purpose, must
ever be controlled by the law of love. The defence
Jesus offered of the gift of the sinful woman (Luke
vii. 44-47) and of Mary of Bethany (Matt. xxvi. 10-13)
io8 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
suggests that the society Jesus would approve need not
rest on any narrow utilitarian basis.
(15) The teaching of Jesus has recently been so
interpreted as to deprive of His moral sanction the
very existence of an organized society with laws which
may be enforced. His prohibition of personal revenge,
and His instructions to His disciples when persecuted
to submit readily and fully to any wrongs inflicted on
them, have been generalized into a final theory of
government. The three concrete instances Jesus gives
of such submission, the turning of the other cheek to
him who has smitten the one, the surrender of the cloak
to him who by law has taken away the coat, the going
of two miles when forced to go one (Matt. v. 39-41)
have been treated as rules of permanent and universal
application. Under no conditions, it is argued, is
force to be met with force ; wrong must never be with-
stood ; obedience to law cannot be compelled.
In disproof of this conclusion it may be pointed out
first of all that Jesus is here not laying down rules of
conduct, but is giving illustrations of a principle, and
illustrations of what one may call the maximum re-
quirement of the principle. If your love for your
enemies, if your forgiveness of the insults and injuries
they inflict upon you, demand such submission to
wrong, you must submit — this is His meaning. Jesus
does not seek by hard and fast rule to supersede con-
science ; conscience must judge in each case whether
the principle demands this or another application.
Secondly, it is to be noted that one of the illustrations
is drawn from temporary and local conditions — the
service enforced by the Roman soldiery — as in the case of
Simon of Cyrene who was compelled to carry the cross
of Jesus (Mark xv. 21) — and cannot be a rule for all
ages. Thirdly, the command is addressed to His dis-
REVEALED IN JESUS 109
ciples for their guidance under persecution. Jesus has
not at all in view the problem of the government of
society. He is not here pronouncing any opinion as to
the functions of the State, or the means by which its
authority may be enforced.
One may say confidently that government with the
assent of the governed is nearer the Christian social
ideal than the rule of force. That does not, however,
involve that wrong-doers shall not be restrained, if need
be, by force. So far as the moral interests of a society
demand the suppression of vice and crime, there is
nothing in the teaching of Jesus, reasonably and con-
scientiously interpreted, to forbid such repression. If
the punishments inflicted are vindictive, then the
Christian principle is most certainly violated. If
the punishments even are only preventive, they fall
short of the requirements of the supreme law of love.
Only if they are reformatory in intention, even though
they may not always be in result, are they consistent
with the Christian social ideal. Undoubtedly there
is a stupidity and even a cruelty in many of the prison
regulations, which sets them in absolute antagonism
to the spirit of Jesus.
If Jesus' principle of non-retaliation is to receive its
proper modern applications, it is not only in individual
conduct, but also in social regulations. When Christian
men are not only subjects, but citizens, then not sub-
mission to government only, but participation in govern-
ment in order that as far as is possible the Christian
ideal may be advanced and not retarded in its realiza-
tion, is their duty. His ideal is a society in which love
is so supreme, that law with its penalties is no longer
necessary. Till love gains such supremacy law may
be enforced, so long as it keeps not back, but hastens
on the reign of love. So also in international relations
no THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
the Christian principle appears to demand that war,
and the suspicions, rivalries, ambitions which lead to
war, shall be avoided at any cost of wealth, or power, or
fame. To the writer it seems that the possibility must
be allowed of a national resistance to aggression or
tyranny which would not come under the condemna-
tion of Jesus. Just as within a nation crime may be
restrained, so as between nation and nation an attack
on a people's liberty may be resisted. Yet from the
Christian standpoint the ideal is a humanity that has
forgotten the arts of war. Whatever in international
relations removes the provocation to war is an applica-
tion of the principle which Jesus enunciated. A literal
obedience in all cases to the instances given as rigid
rules would involve the supremacy of wrong in the
world, the suppression of right, not only a temporary
delay in the realization, but even the final extinction of
the Christian ideal of just and kind and helpful govern-
ment.
(i6) Having thus briefly surveyed the teaching of
Jesus on those questions which are of urgent interest
to us to-day, we are led to two considerations which
seem to be of utmost importance if that teaching is to
afford us the guidance which we need now. Social
reformers in their ardour have sometimes felt that the
teaching of Jesus did not yield them at once the solu-
tions of the problems which they sought. This feeling
is due to mistaken expectations, to putting the wrong
questions to Jesus. The proof of the universality and
permanence of the Christian religion lies just in this,
that it does not deal directly with the needs of one age
or of one people, that it does not perpetuate and diffuse
temporary and local customs and standards. If Jesus
had personally concerned Himself with the social
problems of His own time and surroundings, He could
REVEALED IN JESUS iii
not have become the world's Saviour and Lord. If
our social problems had been anticipated by Him, and
He had dealt with them, His teaching would have
been out of all relation to the life around Him. The
temporal and particular could have a place in His
teaching only by way of illustration of the permanent
and the universal. To grasp the illustration and cling
to it would in most cases be to let slip and lose the
principle. Just because Jesus so simplified and
unified religion and morality as filial love to God and
fraternal love to man, is the Christian faith so adaptable
to different races and changing periods. Just because
He applied that supreme principle only to a few funda-
mental relations of human society, can there be pro-
gress in Christian society.
The wisdom and the worth of the method of Jesus
are made more evident, if we compare it with that of
Mohammed or Buddha. Buddha, that he might share
his way of salvation with others, founded an order of
monks, and only unwillingly associated with it in an
inferior position an order of nuns. Alike his problem
and its solution were temporary and local. Without
altogether losing its distinctive features Buddhism can-
not be the religion or morality of a progressive, civil-
ized, modern society. Mohammed was not content
with giving a creed ; he must needs attach to it a code
which minutely regulated the morals, manners, duties
and relations of his followers. Although he was a
reformer, he was not so detached from his environment
as to be uninfluenced by its beliefs, customs, institu-
tions. While purposing to make Islam the universal
religion, he nevertheless forced it into the moulds of
Arab society, and so made it incapable without funda-
mental change of adaptation to new conditions. That
Jesus did not legislate for His community as Buddha
112 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
and Mohammed both did is a proof that His Kingdom
was not of this world, the natural product of one age or
one people, but came in Him from an eternal and
infinite source, above the divisions of race and the mu-
tations of time, and so adapted, when it entered into
human history, for universality and permanence. Be-
cause we cannot find ready-made answers to all the
questions of our time in the teaching of Jesus, it is
fittest to yield to those who know how to cast the
plummet of their conscience, quickened by His Spirit,
into the depths of His principles the guidance that any
age or any people may need.
(17) It may be objected, however, that Jesus,
although He laid down such permanent and universal
principles, did not foresee any so gradual progress of the
Kingdom of God in the world. There is a tendency
among some scholars to force the teachings of Jesus into
the Procrustean bed of contemporary Jewish thought :
and to deny to them any originality of truth. It is
impossible here to enter on a discussion of the difiicult
subject of Jesus* eschatological teaching, in which He
foretells in the near future God's judgment on Jerusalem,
and in close connexion with it anticipates His own
Second Advent, and the consummation of the age.
There is no indication of any long interval of time
between the events. It must be observed, however,
that He expects the fall of Jerusalem in the same
generation (Matt. xxiv. 34), but of His Return even He
the Son knows not the hour (verse 36. It seems
reasonable so to understand these conflicting indications
of time, as there appears to be considerable confusion
in the evangelists' reports of these utterances of Jesus).
The parables collected in Matthew xiii. bearing on the
mystery of the Kingdom suggest at least that Jesus had
in view a longer and slower development of the King-
REVEALED IN JESUS 113
dom by moral and religious means, and not by super-
natural power. It is very difficult to believe that Jesus
as the founder of the Kingdom of God on earth had not
at least as clear a foresight of its historical progress as
He had a keen insight into its moral and religious
principles. A closer consideration should surely con-
vince us that the Kingdom which is not of the world,
which spreads as a mustard seed, and works changes
like the leaven, which is so valued as a treasure or a
pearl of great price as to be secured at the greatest
sacrifice, into which the tares may be introduced as well
as the wheat, and the success of which depends on the
receptivity of human souls for divine truth and grace,
that such a Kingdom comes not with outward obser-
vation, or in sudden manifestation. That Jesus'
foresight included any detailed knowledge of the history
of His cause in the world need not, and cannot be main-
tained ; but it is surely giving Him less than is due to
His wisdom and grace to suppose that He did not anti-
cipate, as the joy set before Him, for which He endured
the Cross, the world-wide spread, and age-long growth
of His Kingdom unto an end as great as, and worthy of.
His sacrifice. As other essays in this volume will show,
the Kingdom of God has been coming in a gradual pro-
gress in human history ; and if the results are any indi-
cation of the intention of Jesus, we are warranted in
concluding that, however revolutionary His moral and
religious principles might be, the method of Jesus in
applying these principles in human society is evolution-
ary, not in opposition, to, but in agreement with, the
method of God in Creation and Providence. If pro-
gress is to be Christian in character, it must not be
secured by physical violence, or even political expedi-
ency, but by the enlightening of the mind, the quicken-
ing of the conscience, and the renewal of the life,
c.c, I
114 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
From this conclusion there follows an important
inference in regard to the function of the Christian
Church in Social Reform. It is not enough that its
end should be Christian, the means too must be. It is
not the task of the Church to hasten or delay changes in
the economic conditions by stimulating the suspicion
and hostility of the masses against the classes, or the
reverse, by taking sides either for Capital or Labour,
by defending private property or advocating collective
ownership, by identifying itself with or opposing itself
to any political party. It is its task, however, to insist
that not bare legal justice, or even mere economic
equality, but genuine Christian love shall inspire all
social relationships ; that the aim of all social progress
shall be a wider and yet closer brotherhood of mutual
sympathy and service ; that the pity of Christ Himself
shall be felt by all who are the members of His body for
the miseries and sins of even the lowest of His brethren ;
that the fellowship of His sufferings and conformity to
His death means to-day very specially individual
sacrifice for the common good ; that the power of His
Resurrection will be realized above all in this age not so
much in personal experience only, as in former ages, but
in national and international history ; that the wrongs
and cruelties that men inflict on one another must be
brought to the judgment-bar of the Holy Love that
gave itself in desolation and darkness to save sinful
mankind. This may appear a less attractive method,
but if the experience of the past offers guidance for the
present, it will prove the more effective.
(i8) In conclusion it seems necessary to add that
the work of the Church is limited by its strength, that
its abounding fruit depends on the fullness of life that
it can draw from its roots in the truth and grace of
God in Jesus Christ, Not only the teaching and exam-
REVEALED IN JESUS 115
pie of Jesus must be taken into account in dealing with
the Social Problem of to-day. The Christian Ideal is
not only revealed, but also realized in Christ. It is not
there merely for our contemplation and imitation. It
is there for our appropriation by faith in His grace.
Loftier and larger principles were never uttered ; a
greater service was never rendered to mankind ; and
never was a greater sacrifice endured for the good of
men. Yet these principles can never be fully applied,
nor can that service or that sacrifice be closely imitated,
until Christ Himself in His present and potent Spirit
becomes the inmost life of the soul, until His truth
illumines the conscience, His grace energizes the will,
and His love captivates the affections. Nothing could
be more foolish than the tendency which is only too
common to-day to oppose the devout life and the prac-
tical duty. The lower springs of admiration for and
acceptance of the teaching and example of Jesus will
not keep full the river of Christ-like ministry to the
needs of men ; it must draw its streams from the higher
springs of a life lived with Christ in God, a life crucified
and risen with Christ. Meditation on, and communion
with the Living Lord is the source of the wise and holy
love for men that is needed in all social relations.
Should the much serving of even philanthropy
divert the desire and interest of the Christian Church
from the one thing needful, the love of the Father
through the grace of the Son in the fellowship of the
Spirit, ere long the work for man itself would lose its
inspiration, would sink into a soulless routine, would
fail in bringing to men their highest good. It was for
the world's lasting gain that Jesus made it '' His meat
and His drink," to do the Father's will in caring for
the souls of men even unto the sacrifice of His Cross,
even though His eyes had to be withdrawn from, and
Ii6 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
His heart had to be closed to many of the other interests
of Ufe. His concentration on the revelation of God's
Fatherhood, and the realization through redemption of
man's sonship, was the necessary condition of the ever-
widening expansion of man's brotherhood. The reli-
gious good of the Kingdom of God must be secured for
man before its moral duty could be imposed on man.
Accordingly, the Christian ideal of social relations has
its core in the Christian faith in God as the Father who
in grace forgives the son who in faith comes to Him.
The grateful love to God which is the fruit of the divine
grace is the root of the human sympathy, service and
sacrifice on behalf of others which brings the Kingdom
of God on earth in a holy brotherhood of mankind which
reflects the Holy Fatherhood of God.
Ill
The Preparation for the Christian Ideal in
the Gentile Environment of the Primitive
Church
By C. franklin ANGUS, M.A., Fellow and Classical
Lecturer of Trinity Hall, Cambridge
ARGUMENT.
I. The Seed of the Gospel and the Soil of the Graeco-Roman World — The
Traditional Account of its Condition One-Sided and Based on In-
sufficient Evidence.
II. The General Law of Development — The two Stages : (i) The Basis of
Society among the Greeks and its Demolition — The Guidance of
Philosophy — Epicureanism and Stoicism — (2) Rome as a MiUtary
State — The Patria Potestas — Hardness and Strength.
III. The Actual Picture — A Society in Process of Decomposition but giving
Promise aheady of a New Order of Things.
(i) Parallels to Modern Society in the Early Roman Empire —
A High Level of Prosperity in Material Civihzation, a Sense of Econ-
omic Responsibihty in the Government, Corruption in the Upper
Classes, Abounding Generosity.
(2) Pecuhar Points in the Imperial Age — ^The Position of Women,
The Public Games, The Institution of Slavery, and the Influence of
Philosophy — The Defect of the Philosophy — The Absence of a Vivify-
ing Spirit.
Ill
The Preparation for the Christian Ideal in
the Gentile Environment of the Primitive
Church.
Uw? ovv olov re rjp rrjv elpTjviKtjv ravirju hiha(TKa\iav
KpaTTJaaif il /jlt) to T/7? oiKov/xivi]^ rrj 'Irjaov iirLSrjfila
fjb€T€^e^\rfTo Travra'x^ov iirl to ri/jbepdjTepov ; Origen.
' EiraL^aycoyeL yap koX t) ^CKo<To^ia to ^EWtjviKov o)9
o vofjLo^ Tovf ^E8paiov<i el^ XptaTOP. TrpoTrapaa/cevd^ec
TOLVVV avTTj TTpo oBoTToiovaa TOP VTTO XpLGTov TeXevov-
fievov.
Clement of Alexandria.
Freed from the narrow bonds of Judaism, the Christian
Gospel invaded the Graeco-Roman world. What was
the kind of civilization which it found there estab-
lished ? What ideas and institutions had it to com-
bat ? On the other hand, to what extent and through
what processes had the hearts and minds of men been
prepared for its reception ? What, in a word, was
the nature of the soil into which the good seed must
fall, and what was already sown or growing there ?
These are the questions which we have now to con-
sider.
It has been usual until quite recent times to regard
the Roman Empire, during the first century of our
era, as a world of profoundest moral darkness, relieved
U9
X
120 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
only where a few faint beams of light, reflected from
the East, gave promise of the coming dawn. A true
picture of society was found in the familiar lines of
Matthew Arnold : —
" On that hard pagan world disgust
And secret loathing fell ;
Deep weariness and sated lust
Made human life a hell."
Contemporary writers were quoted to the same effect.
Had not Tacitus written of his own age as " a reign
of terror, in which no virtue could live,'' and called
the Imperial City '' a common sink where all the
abominations of the world met and multiplied 7 ** ^.
Seneca was the tutor of Nero, and knew the secrets
of the court : could anything exceed the bitterness
of his description ? —
" All things are full of iniquity and vice. More crimes are com-
mitted than can be remedied by force. A monstrous contest of
wickedness is carried on. Daily the lust of sin increases : daily
the sense of shame grows less. Casting away aU regard for what is
good and honourable, pleasure runs riot without restraint. Vice
no longer hides itself, it walks abroad before all eyes. . . . Inno-
cence has ceased to exist . . ." ^
From these and similar passages we have learnt
to picture a world of absolute power unregulated by
conscience, of enormous wealth free from any sense
of responsibility ; where wickedness sat enthroned,
while more than half the population lived in slavery,
chattels of masters trained to seek amusement in
scenes of blood and human agony ; where the widow
and orphan were unregarded, and the very name of
^ Tacitus, Agricola i. Annals, xv. 44 ; see also the whole
chapter in the Histories, i, 2.
' Seneca, De Ira, ii. 8.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 121
charity was unknown ; a world where sense and
intellect were abundantly gratified, while the soul
starved, because love had no place in it. How a
society so essentially corrupt could have held together
for so long was not explained : in this barren and
exhausted soil, it was believed, Christianity, like a root
out of dry ground, miraculously grew.
To deny that the traditional account contained much
truth would be absurd, but it was one-sided and based
on insufficient evidence. The best known classical
writers are either historians, who amid the excite-
ments of the court and capital give only occasional
attention to the provinces, or satirists whose very art
presupposes a certain amount of exaggeration and
caricature. Peace and the prosperity of humble folk
have always found few annalists. Moreover it is
difficult to trace the infl.uences at work upon those
who did not read. This is unfortunate, because, as
we must never forget, Christianity first found welcome
among the '' lower '* classes, and worked its way up-
wards. Yet probably these classes are less susceptible
to change than the rest of the community. The picture
of the masses in Petronius and the Golden Ass
reveal very much the same characteristics that still
mark the peoples of the South — a gay, sensual crowd,
materialistic in its hopes and fears and at the same
time very superstitious. The researches of recent
years among inscriptions, papyri and humbler pot-
sherds are bringing to light an immense amount
of evidence which may some day be combined into a
vivid presentation of their every-day lives,^ but
already we have enough to justify the statement of
^ See Deissmann, Ltcht vom Osten, Osten ^, 1909, p. 212 : also
his remarks in the Expositor, for Feb. 1909, p. 100 ; Renan, Les
Apdtres p. 312.
122 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
Renan that the world in general had never been so
happy as during the first two centuries of the Roman
Empire. Parts of it indeed, as for instance Asia
Minor, '' the province of five hundred towns,'' have
never reached so high a level since. Of the many
modern authorities which might be quoted, let us
cite one paragraph from the most recent English work
on the subject : it will serve at once to correct the
traditional view of our period and to mark out the
lines which our investigation must follow. In the
introductory chapter of his Roman Society from Nero
to Aurelius, Dr. Dill writes : —
" The inscriptions, the letters of the younger Pliny, even the
pages of Tacitus himself, reveal to us another world from that of
the Satirist. On countless tombs we have the record or the ideal
of a family life of sober, honest industry, and pure affection. . . .
The provinces, even under a Tiberius, a Nero, a Domitian, enjoyed
a freedom from oppression which they seldom enjoyed under the
Republic. Just and upright Governors were the rule and not the
exception, and even an Otho or a Vitellius, tainted with every pri-
vate vice, returned from their provincial governments with a repu-
tation for integrity. Municipal freedom and self-government were
probably at their height at the very time when life and liberty in
the capital were in hourly peril. The great Stoic doctrine of the
brotherhood and equality of men, as members of a world-wide
commonwealth, which was destined to inspire legislation in the
Antonine age, was openly preached in the reigns of Caligula and
Nero. A softer tone — a modern note of pity for the miserable,
and succour for the helpless — ^makes itself heard in the literature of
the first century. The moral and mental equality of the sexes was
being more and more recognized in theory, as the capacity of women
for heroic action and self-sacrifice was displayed so often in the age
of the tyranny and of the Stoic martyrs. The old cruelty and con-
tempt for the slave will not give way for many a generation ; but
the slave is now treated by all the great leaders of moral reform as
a being of the same mould as his master, his^equal, if not his superior,
in capacity for virtue." ^
* Dill, op, cit.t pp. 2 f. See also Mommsen, Provinces of the
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 123
These facts, evidence of a new influence at work,
require fuller treatment and illustration. But a
preliminary question arises. What was the source
of this new influence ? Not Christianity, for it shows
itself in authors to whom the infant sect was unknown.
Indeed, as has been said, '' had the new life flowing
forth from Christ encountered the still unbroken
ancient life, it would have recoiled from the encounter
ineffectually." ^ We cannot imagine St. Paul obtain-
ing a hearing at Athens in the time of Pericles, or at
Rome during the second Punic War. His message
would have fallen upon preoccupied ears and never
reached the hearts of men who felt no need of his
gospel. '' But when the fullness of the time was
come " — the phrase is historically accurate ! Ancient
civilization had reached a crisis in this first century
of the Roman Empire. Society was in a state of
transition : —
" Wandering between two worlds, one dead.
The other powerless to be born."
If then we are to understand what a French writer
has called " this preparation of souls," 2 it will be
necessary to inquire into the manner and process of
the change, even at the cost of an apparent digression.
Let us begin with what may be called the general
law of development in the histories of all dominant
nations. In modern Europe it appears as clearly as
in ancient Rome. There are two stages to be dis-
Roman Empire, p. 4 ; Bussell, The School of Plato, introduction,
and infra, p. [37].
* Uhlhorn, Die christliche Liebesthdtigkeit in der alien Kirche
(E. T., 1883, p. 40).
' Martha, Les Moralisies sous I'Empire romain, p. 4.
\/
124 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
tinguished. The first is the age when the tribal or
civic spirit is supreme, when the individual is sacrificed
to the State, and intellectual interests are subordinated
to the political. During this period the power is
probably in the hands of the few, and the condition
of the masses is one of poverty and neglect ; but the
nation itself is strong in war and rapidly expands its
dominion. Then as conquest brings wealth, and wealth
luxury, a second period begins. The body of the nation,
as it were, is at rest and the mind is allowed to awake.
The softer, feminine side of human nature begins to
find expression; the claims of pleasure, art and all
forms of indi^idual culture press forward to be recog-
nized. In the reaction against the supremacy of the
State, public duties are found to be irksome, and insti-
tutions such as marriage or an established religion
become unfashionable. Men object to any responsi-
bilities that threaten to limit their personal indepen-
dence, and demand freedom to make their own fortime
or to save their own souls. Economically, the centre
of gravity is changing, money becomes a force as well
as birth and the sword. A middle class arises and
slowly acquires political power. As a military force
the nation has begun to decline. Morally and intel-
lectually it is hanging in the balance, and contem-
porary observers will express most diverse opinions
as to its condition. In the fierce conflict between old
traditions and new ideals, symptoms emerge which
one party will hail as signs of progress," the other as
marks of '' corruption."
The Graeco-Roman world then was in the midst
of its second period when Christianity entered it. To
recognize this fact will help us to understand the con-
fusions and contradictions which we shall find as we
proceed to study its details. But we have first to
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 125
examine rather more particularly the causes which
brought the first period of its history to an end.
The basis of ancient society, among both Greeks
and Romans, had been the City-State . The ''City'' was
an end in itself, the supreme object of devotion to its
members, whose obedience it claimed in every relation
of life under the triple manifestation of Law, Citizen-
ship and Religion. The citizens were bound to one
another by mutual ties and obligations ; all non-
citizens, whether slaves or foreigners, were, originally
at least, without any rights whatsoever ; the claims
of common humanity were neither recognized nor
understood.
It was this narrow conception of the State which
wrecked the efforts of the Athenians to found a lasting
empire in the fifth and fourth centuries B.C., and
limited the speculations of even the greatest philoso-
phers.
The first blow at the ancient fabric was struck,
perhaps, by Socrates, who declared himself a citizen,
not of Athens, but of the World ^ : the demolition was
completed by the conquests of Alexander, whose
greatness appears more in his political enlightenment
than in his military successes. To Aristotle the dis-
tinction between Greek and barbarian appeared natural
and ultimate, and when Alexander was master of the
East, his old tutor is said to have advised him to
treat the first as a leader treats his friends, but to use
the foreigners as instruments of his despotic pleasure.
*' But he,*' continues Plutarch, '' as one come down
from heaven to reconcile the feuds of mankind, bade
all consider the world their country and the virtuous
their friends.'' 2
^ Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, v. 108.
* Plutarch, De Alexandri Fortuna, v.
126 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
The political and social effects of Alexander's con-
quests were immense— nothing less than the end of
the classical age of Hellas. Politically, innumerable
petty republics were merged into one vast unity.
Sovereign states sank to provincial towns : councils
accustomed to debate on themes imperial, found them-
selves limited to questions of municipal organization.
Moreover, the old philosophy disappeared with
the conditions which had given it birth. It is one
of the most ironical proofs of man's short-sightedness
that Aristotle's Ethics was out of date almost as soon
as it was published. Theories of citizenship lost their
interest when the ''City" was no more. Still it is true
of nations as of individuals that by dying we live, and
with the end of Hellas Hellenism began. Though
Athens had lost her Empire, and even her independence,
she now for the first time reahzed the proud title which
Pericles had given her, and became the university of
the world, and by the conquests of Alexander, absorbed
and extended in the Empire of Rome, Greek ideals
and Greek civilization spread from the five rivers
of Indus to the Atlantic Ocean. Again, when their
collective majesty was taken from them, men found their
individuality. Though systems perished and Empires
changed hands, private lives still went on, and personal
sorrows had to be borne ; indeed now that public
duties had been so diminished, they filled the larger
part of the horizon. The change is clearly shown in
the comic stage, where the varying fortunes of indivi-
duals now engrossed the attention formerly given
to affairs of state, and here was the origin of Terence's
famous line : —
" Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto."
Thus two important results emerge : first, a cosmo-
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 127
politanism, in which the old distinction between Greek
and barbarian disappears, and second, the new spirit
of individuaHsm.
For serious guidance in their perplexities men turned
to philosophy, which adapted itself to the new order.
The difference may be shown by two definitions. To
Plato and Aristotle the origin of philosophy was a
sense of intellectual doubt and bewilderment. To
Epictetus it is : — '' A consciousness of one^s own
weakness and insufficiency for what is required.'' ^
Metaphysics, that is to say, sinks to the background ;
ethics becomes of supreme importance. Philosophy
is no longer the pillar of fire going before a few intrepid
seekers after truth : it is rather an ambulance follow-
ing in the wake of the struggle for existence and picking
up the weak and wounded. Plato's contemptuous
exclamation : — '' For the people philosophy is impossi-
ble !" 2 is not repeated ; on the contrary, philosophy,
as Cicero puts it, '' is the art of life " ; and the post-
Aristotelian schools, like modern churches, made no
distinction of sex, or status, or nationality. They
offered to all, by divers ways, a road to peace and
happiness and a stronghold against the attacks of
external fortune.
Two systems of thought, separated by a funda-
mental difference of standpoint, and appealing to
opposite sides of human nature, were pre-eminently
successful in their attempts to supply this need. It
did not occur to either Epicurus or Zeno to '' call in a
new world to redress the balance of the old." They
brought no hopes of heaven, no fuller revelation of
God, but sought rather to make each man a god unto
himself, and this present life independent of circum-
^ Epictetus, Dissertations, II. xi.
^ Plato, Republic, 494a.
128 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
stances. Into the details of their teaching we need
not now enter ; they concern us only in so far as they
helped to modify or reform the social ideas of our
period, and we may be content with the most general
summary.
Epicurus was a man to whom tradition has done
scant justice. We have been taught to call him a
godless scientist and pleasure-seeker, and neither title
is strictly applicable. A kindly soul, with a genius
for friendship, he was the author of a real evangel to
many who were in bondage to the fear of death or
to the mental disquietude which is the result of poly-
theism. His ideal was a quiet life, and his Articles show
that he was prepared to sacrifice any '' system *' to
secure it. By what he believed to be a true, or at
least a plausible, account of man's nature and environ-
ment, he hoped to banish panic from their minds, and
pain from their members. Happiness, he taught,
consisted not in the multitude of possessions but in
the fewness of desires : in the service of philosophy was
true freedom. He was, perhaps, the first to discover
that society is made for man, and not man for society.
In the garden where his followers met, women and
even slaves were made welcome, and little children
were among the recipients of his letters. '' In his
lifetime," writes a biographer, *' his friends were
numbered by whole cities," ^ and generations after his
death disciples were found eager, like Lucretius, to
praise the saviour who had brought life and — mortality
to light ! The school hardly appears above the surface
of history. Averse by tradition from activity in either
politics or research, and inspired rather by the example
of its master than by his promulgation of " the truth,"
it survived its great rival as well as all early forms
^ See Diogenes Laertius, x. 9.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 129
of Greek philosophy, and lasted into the fourth century
of the Christian era. The grosser minds of Rome
seized upon those parts of Epicurus' teaching which
were most liable to perversion, and won for it the
infamy now associated with the name of epicure.^ But
while it must be admitted that Epicureanism was
always fatally open to abuse, it did much in a hard
and unsettled age to develop the more amiable virtues
of domestic life.
Very different was the object and influence of
Stoicism. Its founder, Zeno, was like many of its
early leaders, a Phoenician, and in him appear some
of those characteristics — an intolerance of imperfection
almost amounting to a sense of sin, a demand for
resignation before the All-Supreme, and an uncompro-
mising idealism — which we associate with the Semitic
spirit, but which were new in the thought of Hellas.
To him seems to have been due the introduction of the
ideas and words of duty and conscience, as well as the
distinction of moral values, which are absolute, from
practical values, which are relative and strictly indif-
ferent. He first clearly stated that the will or intention
is everything, and that circumstances are nothing,
except as forming material for exercising the will or
building character. The Empire of Alexander seems
to have produced upon his mind an effect very like
that which centuries later the Roman Empire produced
upon the mind of St. Augustine. He, too, had his
vision of a City of God, in which were neither Greek
nor barbarian, male nor female, slave nor free, but all,
as recognizing one law of Reason, members of one
^ Its most typical representative under the Empire is perhaps
Horace, and it would be interesting to consider what has been
the moral effect of his Odes upon successive generations of
Enghsh gentlemen.
c.c K
130 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
State and therefore one of another. For the Reason,
which is in and rules the world, is one with the reason
in our breasts which does or should govern our lives.
Therefore the Law of the universe is also the law of
our own nature, and we can only realize ourselves and
obtain our freedom in conforming to the purposes
of God.
To some members of the school this thought came
with all the force of a religion ; and so Cleanthes, like
Newman, has his hymn : —
" Lead me, O Zeus, and thou, O Destiny,
Lead Thou me on :
To whatsoever task thou sendest me
Lead Thou me on :
I follow fearless, or if in mistrust
I lag and will not, follow still I must." ^
Thus the Stoics literally made a virtue of necessity.
Still, it was this mystic assurance that formed the
strength of the school.
" The enormous influence which it exerted over the minds of
the ancient world, its power to strengthen the souls of the noblest
men for action and endurance, lay in its firm grasp of this central
idea — that there is a rational principle in the world which is one in
nature and with the self-conscious intelligence within us, and that
through apparent disorder this principle is inevitably reaUzing
itself."2
Praise such as this is to be found in all accounts
of Stoicism ; and yet we must haste to add qualifications.
If it had peculiar strength, it had also peculiar
weaknesses. No other school failed so completely
to connect its ideals with practical life. A curious
unreality, a fatal lack of grip, runs through the whole
1 Quoted by Epictetus, Manual, 52.
* Caird, The Evolution of Theology in the Greek Philosophers ^
vol. ii. p. 84.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 131
system. Enunciating the loftiest ideas as to the
sovereignty of " God '' and the universal brotherhood
of man, it fails, nevertheless, to release them from the
region of intellectual concepts. Again, the slight
importance which Stoicism attached to external circum-
stances, while forming much of its power as a creed
for the individual, greatly weakened its force to stimu-
late practical reform, or inspire active benevolence.
The characteristic attitude of the Stoic to life is fairly
portrayed in Henley's Invictus, but his "unconquerable
sour* could be gained only at the cost of much sacrifice.
All emotions that might disturb the central calm, all
adjuncts which were within the reach of envious for-
tune— ^life, honour, the fate of others — these must be
regarded as indifferent by the true sage. "He is
incapable of passion,'* we read, ''neither does he forgive
any man." ^ To render himself invulnerable, the Stoic
turned his heart into a stone : — " He made a solitude
and called it peace." This profound egotism, so incon-
sistent with the better instincts of humanity,' will meet
us again when we consider the great Stoics of Rome.
It remains first to inquire how Roman society
underwent the change which had revolutionized the
Hellenistic world.
From its earliest history Rome was essentially a
military state. The effect upon the characters of its
citizens is well shown in Lecky's History of European
Morals : —
" The Roman," he says, " had learnt to value force very highly.
Being continually engaged in inflicting pain, his natural or instinct-
ive humanity was very low. . . . Indomitable pride was the
most prominent element of his character. A victorious army which
is humble or diffident, or tolerant of insult, or anxious to take the
second place, is, indeed, almost a contradiction of terms. ... On
^ Diogenes Laertius, vii, 123.
132 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
the other hand, the habits of men were unaffected, frugal, honour-
able and laborious. A stern discipline pervading all ages and classes
of society, the will was trained, to an almost unexampled degree, to
repress the passions, to endure suffering and opposition, to tend
steadily and fearlessly towards an unpopular end. A sense of duty
was very widely diffused, and a deep attachment to the interests of
the city became the parent of many virtues." ^
The rigour and severity of ancient Rome is illus-
trated by the patria potestas. The Roman father was
absolute head of his house and exercised the power of
life and death over all its members : even when his
sons attained manhood and possessed families of their
own they were not exempt from his authority. Many
instances of its relentless exercise, regarded by the
Greeks as intolerable tyranny, are recorded with
respect by the national historians.
But if the most distinctive mark of the Roman
nature was hardness, there went with it a strength
which no other country could resist. By the middle
of the second century before Christ the supremacy of
Rome was manifest. A series of wars left her without
a rival in the political world,, heir of Alexander, pro-
tector of Greece and mistress of the Orient. From
this point a twofold current of conflicting tendencies
flowed westward. While the Roman conquerors
returned with enormous stores of treasure and all the
instruments of Eastern luxury, there followed also in
their train the Greek philosopher preaching the creed
of Epicurus or the Porch. The immediate effect was
disastrous, for the old traditions of Roman society
gave way before the new ideas had had time to con-
struct an alternative rule of life. In the atmosphere
of irresponsible power the primitive integrity of the
Roman fathers died. The Government proved in-
* Op, cit, p. 224.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 133
adequate to the enormous extension of its authority.
The town had become a world-capital, containing nearly
a million souls ; the State an Empire stretching from
the deserts of Africa to the German Ocean, bounded
on one side by the Straits of Gibraltar and on the other
by the Euphrates. Commercial interests acquired
more and more weight in the foreign policy of the
Senate. As the value of the provinces increased, the
struggle of parties at home became more bitter and
unscrupulous. A century of civil war, which devas-
tated Italy and reduced most of the inhabitants to the
verge of penury, while the wealth and resources of civili-
zation were shared between a few capitalists, left one
man undisputed master through all this vast territory,
lord of life and death over fifty millions of men. What
Julius Caesar might have achieved, had he lived to
carry out his reforms it is impossible to determine;
but in reducing Italy and the provinces to one level
he certainly took a great step towards the unification
of the Empire, though the admission of all free men
to the full rights of Roman citizenship was not actually
realized till a.d. 216. But even while political dis-
tinctions of status remained, the magnificent facilities
for travel and permeation of Greek language and ideas,
together with the absence of racial or colour prejudices
and the absorption of all nationalities and religions,
had produced a practical homogeneity throughout
the ancient world by the time that Christianity entered
it.
Hitherto we have been occupied with causes or
antecedents. We have tried to account for the con-
dition of affairs in the first century in our era. It
is now time to turn to the actual period and examine
134 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
the picture which we have been allowed to expect — a
society in process of decomposition but giving promise
already of a new order of things. The picture, it is
only fair to remind ourselves, must be far from com-
plete. The evidence for a full description of provincial
life is still being collected ; but even the partial testi-
mony of ancient literature may serve to show a move-
ment within the Pagan world fertilizing the old soil
and preparing it to receive new seed.
In many of these essential features the early Roman
Empire presents astonishing parallels to modern
society.
" It has never been difficult for me to realize," writes its most
recent historian, " that contemporary Europe and America, the
Europe and America of railroads, industries, and monstrous swift-
growing cities, might find present in ancient Rome a part of their
own very souls — restless, turbulent, greedy." ^
In material civilization, at least, a high level of pros-
perity was maintained. The " majesty of the Roman
peace ''and the large extent of municipal independence
permitted by the central authority covered the pro-
vinces with flourishing cities. Every year our excava-
tions are bringing to light traces of highly organized
communities in regions where desert and solitude now
prevail.
" The world is filled," said a panegyrist of the age, " with gym-
nasia, fountains, porticoes, temples, factories and schools : the
whole earth flourishes Hke a garden." 2
The great roads which spanned the empire from end
to end, the security of the inland sea, and the absence
1 Ferrero, Characters and Events of Roman History (Lowell
Lectures for 1909), p. 248. The whole book is an enlargement and
illustration of the text.
2 Aristides, Or. xiv. 3.91 (quoted by Dill, p. 197).
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 135
of protective tariffs, gave an enormous impulse to
industrial production. The new countries of Gaul,
Spain and Britain vied with, and in some respects
surpassed, the old manufactures of Asia and the East.
The new middle class offered a market for cheap imita-
tions and popularized luxuries. The increase of trade
between the different parts of the world led to a great
development in letter-writing, while at home civic
intercourse was fostered by innumerable clubs and
private societies.
" Among the many parallels which can be drawn between the
first centuries of the Christian era and our own times there is prob-
ably none more striking than that of their common tendency to-
wards the formation of associations. There were, as now, associa-
tions for almost innumerable purposes. In almost all parts of the
Empire there were trade guilds and dramatic guilds : there were
athletic clubs and burial clubs and dining clubs : there were
friendly societies and literary societies and financial societies. If
we omit those special products of our own time, natural science
and social science, there was scarcely any object for which men
combine now that they did not combine then." ^
No institution of ancient life so favoured the growth
of Christianity as these societies ; and indeed the local
churches owed chiefly to them whatever status or
organization they originally possessed.
Nor was the Government entirely without a sense
of economic responsibility. Sumptuary laws to check
individual extravagance were continually being passed.
Evidence has been found for the existence of a Poor
Rate in Egypt.^ In Rome the lower classes had
been encouraged to look to the State for free food and
amusement. In 46 B.C., 320,000 citizens were receiv-
^ Hatch, Bampton Lectures, 1880, p. 26. See also Renan, Les
Apotres, p. 350.
2 Expository Times, Nov. 1908, p. 90.
136 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
ing daily grants of corn, at a cost to the Empire of
£650,000 a year. Caesar reduced the number, which
seems to have become fixed at 200,000. Originally
a political bribe to the masses, its continuance by the
Emperors has caused some perplexity to historians ;
but as recent research has discovered traces of similar
institutions in Greek municipalities, perhaps those are
right who see in it a deliberate attempt to solve a
difficulty not confined to ancient cities, and a recog-
nition that *' the main duty of an enlightened Govern-
ment is to pauperize its people.'' ^
Corruption is most evident in the upper classes. The
political revolution greatly interfered with their tradi-
tional occupations of waging war and administering
affairs, and even what opportunities were left them,
most showed little inclination to employ. Instead,
all sorts of personal interests occupied their time —
intellectual culture,the pleasures of art, sensual extrava-
gances, and every form of sport. What little educa-
tion there was tended solely to develop the instinct
of rhetoric, or, as we should say, journalism. It was
essentially a superficial age ; its notes are nervous
hustle and purposeless activity. The lines of Horace
are well known : —
" Caelum, non animum, mutant qui trans mare currunt.
Strenua nos exercet inertia,"
and Seneca two generations later writes in a similar
strain 2. But the censure of court poets and court
philosophers only records the failure of the Govern-
ment's efforts to restore a bygone simplicity. Society,
then, as now, invented countless claims upon the leisure
of its members.
^ Bussell, The School of Plato, p. 11.
2 Horace, Epistles, I. xi. 27. Cf. Seneca, De Tranquillitate, 12.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 137
" It is astonishing," writes Pliny, " how time is spent in Rome.
Take any day by itself and it either is, or seems to be, well spent ;
then review many days together, and you will be surprised to dis-
cover how unprofitable they have been. Ask any one — ' What
have you done to-day ? ' He will tell you, ' I was at a friend's
giving his son the toga virilis, another requested me to be witness to
his will, a third asked me to a consultation. All of these things
appear at the time to be extremely necessary, but when we reflect
that day after day has been thus spent, such employment seems
trifling."!
Still there were those who, like Pliny himself,
found other means of filling their time and spending
their money. Any public calamity or wide-spread
disaster excited the most general interest and found
practical sympathy. In 17 a.d. an earthquake de-
stroyed twelve of the most populous cities of Asia
Minor. Tiberius at once promised a sum of ^^83,000
and remitted all taxation for five years, while the Senate
despatched a commission of inquiry and relief. Ten
years later the collapse of an amphitheatre at Fidena
killed or maimed fifty thousand persons. The houses
of the gentry were thrown open, and every form of
medical aid was placed at the disposal of the sufferers.^
" There has probably seldom been a time," writes Dr. Dill,
" when wealth was more generally regarded as a trust. . . . There
was never an age in which the wealthy more frankly and even reck-
lessly recognized this imperious claim." ^
Pliny, according to the estimate of the same writer,
spent £80,000 in benevolence. The endowment of
institutions for the support of poor children, « begun by
the Emperor Nerva, was continued by private indivi-
duals. Charitable bequests are frequent in the in-
! Pliny, Epistles, I. ix.
^ Tacitus, Annals, ii. 47, iv. 63
^ Dill, Roman Society, p. 231.
'^ Pliny, Panegyric, 28 ; Epistles, VII. xviii.
138 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
scriptions. A stone, erected by the grateful community,
commemorates the gift by an ItaUan Apothecary of
£60 and 300 jars of " aromatic herbs '' for the free
distribution of drugs to the sick and needy of his
township.^
So much then for the aspects in which the Imperial
Age most strikingly resembles our own. There remain
four points in which it was peculiar — the position of
women, the public games, the institution of slavery
and the influence of philosophy. In each of the first
three we shall find traces of the growth of a humaner
spirit, while in the fourth will be seen the main source
and limitation of its power.
Nowhere were the signs of change more manifest
than in family life. Parental despotism was too heroic
or too harsh for these later days, and a Roman knight,
in the time of Augustus, who exercised the traditional
privilege of flogging his son to death, was almost torn
in pieces by the mob.^ The position of women was
one of complete social and moral emancipation, and
while possessing few legal rights, they enjoyed a greater
amount of personal freedom than has ever been per-
mitted them since. They seem to have paid for it by
losing the respect of those whose privileges they invaded.
To Tacitus, Agrippina showed herself an unnatural
mother in seeking to share with Nero his imperial
burden.3 But they were still regarded in general as
the instrument of men's pleasure, and even the philo-
sophers seem to have thought it hardly worth while
to protest. Epictetus credits no woman with thoughts
above sensual gratification.* Indeed, nothing in
Pagan literature so scandalizes the modern reader as the
light-heartedness with which every violation of sexual
^ Inscr. Orelli, 114. ^ Seneca, De dementia, i. 15.
^ Tacitus, Annals, xiii. 5. * Epictetus, Manual, 40.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIROISTMENt 139
morality was regarded and even practised. The tre-
mendous emphasis laid by the early Church upon per-
sonal purity was the necessary reaction. For even
when men had begun to imderstand the value of human
life, they had still to learn the sanctity of their own
bodies. Yet one inscription has been found com-
memorating a Society for the Preservation of Chastity/
and many others preserve the record of lives passed
in innocence and fidelity, while history contains some
notable instances in which husband and wife taught
one another how to die.
It is probably true of all nations that their public
entertainments exhibit their worst side, but the
Roman games are deservedly notorious. No descrip-
tion can surpass the horrors of the reality : they ap-
pealed to the lowest and most brutal passions of which
human nature is capable. The gladiatorial shows were
evolved out of the Etruscan practice of offering human
sacrifices to the shades of the dead, and were intro-
duced into Rome at the beginning of the foreign wars.
From the first the blood and treasure of the conquered
nations was dedicated to their embellishment ; but
as the Games increased in popularity, there gradually
arose a professional class, each member of which was
under contract " to let himself be chained, scourged,
burnt or killed without opposition, if the laws of the
institution should so require.'' Criticism or protest
in the days of the Republic is hardly audible. ** To
some, I know,'' writes Cicero 2, '' the exhibition of the
gladiators seems cruel and inhuman, and perhaps, as
things are done nowadays, they are right. But what
an example of courage," he continues, '' what con-
tempt of death ! No better instance of discipline can
1 Inser. Orelli, 2401.
2 Cicero, Tusculan Disputations, ii, 41.
140 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
be presented to the eye/' A hundred thousand are
said to have fought during the reign of Augustus.
Passion for these spectacles ran Uke a disease through
all sections of the community, irrespective of age, sex,
or rank.
" What room is left for liberal arts," asks a contemporary,^
" when the mind is preoccupied and obsessed with such enthusiasms ?
In how many homes will you find any other subject of conversation ?
What else do we hear discussed by our young men, if we enter their
lecture rooms ? Nor indeed does any theme more frequently
engross their instructors."
And Juvenal complains that the disaster of Cannae
could not have caused more consternation among the
Romans of that day than is shown by their descendants
at the defeat of a popular side in the arena.^ We are
perhaps hardly in a position to condemn this mis-
direction of the public interest, but at least its
object in our day is more innocent.
From Rome the Games spread to the provinces.
Only in Greece, with the exception of the half-foreign
port of Corinth, did they fail to secure a foothold.
When an attempt was made to introduce them into
Athens, a philosopher bade the people first overthrow
the Altar of Pity. Greek ideas, indeed, inspired the
initial opposition. It is in philosophers like Seneca
that we first find a sense of revolt openly expressed.
" The Games," he writes, " are mere massacres," and again»
" man, a sacred thing, is butchered to make a holiday for his fel-
lows." 3
Such utterances were not altogether fruitless ; and
later Emperors, such as Vespasian and Marcus Aurelius,
discouraged the shows, though many years had to
^ Dialogus de claris oratorihus, 29. ^ Juvenal, xi. 185.
^ Seneca, Epistles, vii. 3, xcv. ^Z-
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 141
pass and stronger influences arise before they ceased
altogether.
Another institution of the period, whose history
illustrates the same conflict between a traditional
disregard for human life and a growth of more humane
sentiments, is slavery. Every community has at one
or another stage in its development contained a class
of men doomed, by birth or the fortunes of war, to live
dependent on the whims of others, unprotected by
any legal status and regarded by society as mere
machinery to minister to its convenience. To the
Law, the slave was not a person, but a thing, at the
absolute disposal of his owner. But the actual lot
of the slave has varied immensely according to the
character of his masters. In Greece his position was
worse in theory than in fact.
"In no country of the ancient world were slaves treated with
such humanity as in Hellas ; it was not the law, but custom that
forbade the Greek to sell his slaves to a non-Greek master, and
so J)anished from this region the slave-trade proper." ^
But at Rome all the vices of the national temperament
combined to make his life intolerable : against its lust
and cruelty he had for centuries no redress. The
callousness with which the elder Cato sold in their
declining years the slaves who had worn out their
energies in his service shocked his biographer, Plu-
tarch.2 A Roman might have considered it enough
that they had been spared so long ! Brutal punish-
ments and death itself were inflicted upon them for
the slightest faults, or even with no excuse at all. The
lines of Juvenal are well known : —
^ Mommsen, Provinces of the Roman Empire, p. 272.
2 Plutarch, Cato Major, v.
142 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
" 'Go, crucify that slave.* ' For what offence ?
Who the accuser ? Where the evidence ?
For when the life of man is in debate,
No time can be too long, no care too great ;
Hear all, weigh all with caution, I advise *
' Thou sniveller ! is a slave a man ? " she cries.
' He's innocent ! be't so : 'tis my command.
My will ; let that, sir, for a reason stand.' " *
In one of his epistles, Seneca describes the fashionable
aristocrat at dinner, surrounded by a multitude of
slaves, each a specialist in some minute item of the
ceremony.
" He eats more than he can hold, but his unfortunate slaves
must not so much as move their lips. Every sound is threatened
with the whip ; not even an accidental cough or sigh is forgiven.
The slightest violation of the silence is dearly paid for. All night
they stand dumb and fasting. Hence the proverb * in every slave
an enemy ' : we make them so. I pass over the inhumanities which
we perpetrate upon them as though they were brute beasts. . . .
One carves the costly birds, guiding a trained hand through breast
and back along prescribed curves. Unhappy being, whose sole
mission in life it is to carve fowls properly:"
Then he contrasts this behaviour with the attitude
dictated by philosophy : —
" So live with an inferior as you would have a superior live
with you. Admit a slave to your conversation, even to your table.
Let some dine with you because they are worthy : others that they
may become so. 'He is a slave ' — but perhaps his spirit is free.
A slave ! what harm is there in that ? Show me one who is not !
Some are slaves to lust, others to avarice or ambition ; all to fear.
I can name you a magistrate the slave of a hag ; a Croesus enslaved
by a waiting-woman, young noblemen at the beck of actresses :
no servitude is so disgraceful as that which we impose upon our-
selves." ^
Elsewhere his writings exhibit the same influence.
^ Juvenal, vi. 219. — W. Gifford's translation.
2 Seneca, Epistles, xlvii.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 143
" Philosophy knows no respect of persons, and recognizes no
patent of nobility but its own. We must consider not the origin but
the goal." ^
and again : —
" A man should keep within reasonable bounds in his treatment
of slaves. Even when they are our absolute property we ought to
consider not how much we may torture them with impunity, but
how far such conduct is permitted by natural humanity and justice.
While all things are lawful towards a slave, some things are not law-
ful towards a man : the very Law of Nature forbids. Because
Vedius PolHo fed his lampreys with human blood, he was execrated
by society even more than he was hated by his slaves. Cruel masters
are pointed at with loathing in all parts of the city." ^
History records several instances where a new tone
in public opinion made itself felt. When slaves
suffered from disease which seemed incurable, it had
been the custom to expose or kill them. The Emperor
Claudius made the latter course a criminal act, and
gave those who were exposed their freedom.^ If a
master was murdered by a slave, the law decreed that
all the slaves beneath the same roof should be put to
death. A case occurred in the year 61, and 400 were
led out to execution. '' The people rose, '' says
Tacitus, *' to defend the innocent, and protests against
such excessive severity were heard even in the Senate.'*
The speech of the conservative spokesman, Cassius,
is very significant : —
" A slave was always suspect to our ancestors, even when he was
born upon their estates or in their houses, and felt from the first
affection for his master. But now that our households contain
nations, separated by diverse customs and worshipping foreign gods
or none at all, the only possible restraint is that of fear."
The majority decided that the law must take its course,
^ Seneca, Epistles, xliv. 2 Seneca, de dementia, i. 18.
^ Suetonius, Claudius, 25.
144 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
and the sentence was carried out by the soldiers in the
face of a dense and threatening mob.^ Gradually,
however, limitations were imposed upon the absolutism
of the masters. A law was passed forbidding slaves
to be matched against wild beasts in the arena, and
under Antoninus they were not allowed to be put to
death without a cause assigned. Subsequent legis-
lation *' appointed officers through all the provinces
to hear the complaints of slaves ; enjoined that no
master should treat his slaves with excessive severity,
and commanded that when such severity was proved,
the master should be compelled to sell the slave he had
ill-treated.'' 2 Finally the jurists accepted the maxim
of philosophy that all men are by nature free.
Thus for social amelioration, as for guidance in moral
and spiritual problems, men looked more and more to
the philosophers. We have seen what philosophy
was to Epictetus. Juvenal, Plutarch and Marcus
Aurelius say much the same. The evidence of the
first is perhaps the most striking, as coming from one
who is, as we may say, not only a layman but even an
anticlerical. Possibly his recantation is too generous :
" Divine philosophy ! by whose pure light.
We first distinguish, then pursue the right.
Thy power the breast from every error frees.
And weeds out all its vices by degrees." ®
Plutarch speaks more soberly : —
" The crown of all our education should be philosophy ; it is
the only remedy for the weaknesses and diseases of the soul. It is by
its advice and assistance that we distinguish right from wrong,
^ Tacitus, Annals, xiv. 42.
2 Lecky, op. cit, p. 308. See Seneca, De Beneficiis, iii. 22.
^ Juvenal, xii. 187, Gifford.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 145
what is just from what is unjust, what is good from what is evil. It
teaches us how to conduct ourselves in all relations ; to worship the
gods, honour our parents, reverence our elders, obey our laws, be
subject to our rulers, love our friends, behave to our wives with
restraint, our children with affection, to our servants without
arrogance. Chief est lesson of aU, it teaches us not to be overjoyed
in prosperity, or overwhelmed in misfortune, not to be dissolute in
our pleasures, nor furious and brutal in our passions." ^
'' What is man's life ? " asks Marcus at the end of
his second book.
" Life," he answers, " is a warfare and a sojourning, and after-fame
oblivion. What then can be our guide ? One thing, and one alone
— Philosophy — which keeps the spirit within unspotted and with-
out offence, superior to pleasures or sorrows, doing nothing foolishly
or with deceitfulness . . . and finally awaiting death, the dissolu-
tion, with serenity." ^
But the philosophers, we must remember, were not
so much men of speculative originality or profound
learning as professionaLexperts in the problems of daily
life. In varying ranks and stations, inmates of palaces,
like Seneca, or wandering for conscience' sake in exile,
like Dio Chrysostom, they formed the clergy of the
Pagan world, and exalted by their neighbours upon
a moral pedestal, made an easy target for the satirists
who preferred to emphasize the defects of their practice
rather than the excellences of their preaching. But
no class of men, now or then, may fairly be judged by
such a test, and though some philosophers, no doubt,
conformed too much to the fashion of this world, they
played a necessary and important part in the general
preparation. To them it belonged to offer consolation
to the bereaved, to rebuke the ostentation of the rich,
and make a stand against the tyranny of rulers. They
preached the natural equality of man beneath the
^ Plutarch, De Liheris Educandis, x.
2 Marcus Aurelius, To himself, ii. 17.
C.C. L
146 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
sovereignty of heaven, and inculcated upon all the
duty of benevolence to their fellows. They painted
the pleasures of a simple life, and commended a kindly
tolerance towards the faults of others, and a resolute
and cheerful bearing of whatever fortune or providence
might send. These are the themes which fill the essays
of Seneca and Plutarch, and inspire the sermons of
Dio and Epictetus. It was from such sources eventu-
ally that the Emperor Marcus Aurelius derived his
'' conception of an equal commonwealth based on
equality of right and equality of speech, and of im-
perial rule respecting first and foremost the liberty
of the subject.*' ^ These lessons, which the upper
classes received through literature and lectures, were
preached to others in their market-places. If Dio
complains of his order that
" They do not go to the people, despairing perhaps of their
abiUty to ameliorate the masses," ^
we may infer that he at least recognized the obligation
and strove to discharge it. The Stoics, admits an
early Father,^ did not leave even slaves or women
unevangelized. Wearing the ragged cloak of a beggar,
and with a book in his left hand, the bearded '' sophist "
was a familiar sight in every town, and everywhere
found eager audiences, imploring guidance in moral
questions. In one of his discourses Epictetus has
drawn a picture of the ideal missionary. " Let no
man rashly assume that office without a conscious-
ness of his vocation. He is an ambassador from God
sent to proclaim to men the error of their ways and
show them a more excellent road to happiness. Let
^ Marcus Aurelius, " To himself," i. 14.
^ Dio, or. xxxii.
' Lactantius, Divine Institutes, iii. 23.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 147
him prepare himself by emptying his heart of all
desires ; his life must have nothing to conceal. Because
of the stress of this present evil time, let him go
without encumbrances, calling no home his own, at-
tended by no servant, and professing himself a citizen
of no earthly country ; patient of ill-treatment, and
commending in his own person the doctrines which he
preaches/'^
It is a high ideal, and yet there is surely something
wanting. It has nothing to say with regard to the
preacher's audience : they are taken for granted, as
so many cases of the disease which must ensue where
philosophy is not known. There is no realization of
'' my neighbour ** as a concrete individual. Relations
are regarded as '' encumbrances.'* In the same spirit
he speaks elsewhere of wives and children as " bits of
shell or weed,'* which the voyager on the sea of life
may pick up at a port of call : '' but when the captain
calls, drop everything and hurry back to the ship.'* 2
Passion and pity, we remember, were both vices and
alien to the sage. This limitation appears in a curious
passage of Seneca in his treatise " On Clemency.'* He
is discussing the relation of that virtue to pity, which
he says is parallel to the relation of faith to supersti-
tion. }
" Stoicism is often accused of being too hard, although no sect
is more benign or gentle, more kindly affectioned towards men, or
more attentive to the common welfare. But pity is a vice. A man
cannot maintain the same level of greatness, if fear and sorrow
darken and contract his mind, and therefore he will not pity, since
he cannot do so without a piteousness within, though he will gladly
do all that pity usually suggests." ^
^ Epictetus, Dissertations, iii. 22. ^JUanual, vii.
^ Seneca, De dementia, ii. 5.
148 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
But, unless the distinction is without meaning, that is
just what he cannot do. The mind that values its
own serenity too high to risk it in the service of another
can never enter into the sympathy which prompts
true assistance. Those who
"counsel and speak comfort to that grief
Which they themselves not feel/*
awake no response in the hearts of their fellows. They
are more akin to the priest and levite than to the
good Samaritan.
The same arrested benevolence is seen in Marcus
Aurelius. At one time his thoughts turn to the great
Community of Nature which will not allow anyone of
us to isolate himself.
'* Have you ever seen a dismembered hand, or foot, or decapi-
tated head, lying severed from the body to which it belonged ?
Such does a man, so far as he is able, make himself when he refuses
to accept what befalls, and isolates himself, or when he pursues self-
seeking action. You are cast out from the unity of Nature of which
you are an organic part ; you dismember your own self.'* ^
At another, the egotistic motive, and the limits of its
energy, are more apparent.
" In one respect men are our nearest duty, in so far as we are
bound to suffer them and do them good. But in so far as particular
individuals interfere with my proper functions, man becomes to me
a thing indifferent, no less than sun or wind or beast of the field." ^
" We are bound to suffer them and do them good ! **
That is the high-water mark of Stoic altruism. At
best our fellows are the exercising ground for our
virtues, or a trial sent to discipline us by an inscrutable
Providence. There is always a note of condescension
in the message ; the preacher is preoccupied with
^ To Himself, viii. 34 ; cf. Epictetus, Dissertations, ii. 5.
2 Ibidem, v. 20.
IN THE GENTILE ENVIRONMENT 149
himself. Like the White Knight, "he is thinking of
a way'* to improve himself, *'and so has no reply to
give '' to them that labour and are heavy laden. To the
appeal of mere philosophy the world answers that it
'' patches grief with proverbs '* and is more ready to
preach the necessity for reform than to provide the
motive power for its realization. It may induce men
to change the topic of conversation in deference to
the presence of the philosopher,^ but it has seldom
produced any alteration in their habits. And so we
do not wonder at the final pessimism with which
Seneca exclaims : —
" Vice ebbs and flows like a tide. Evil we are, evil we have been
and, though reluctantly I say it, evil we shall ever be." ^
To conclude, we see that human nature without
Christ was then just what it is now. Men were not
altogether without hearts or sympathies and did not
lack consciousness of failure and impulses to better
things. But there is an absence of any vivifying spirit,
there is no power to replace weakness by strength, to
conquer lust or selfishness ; above all there is no enthus-
iasm. The ideal of the Brotherhood of Man broke
down for lack of an adequate conception of the Father-
hood of God. Men had no hope because they found
no faith. 3 Even now, in a society still only tinged by
the Spirit of Christ, we may note the same contrast
between the senseless extravagances of a few and the
^ See Petronius, 85.
* Seneca, De Beneficns, i. 10.
^ This is well brought out in connection with Marcus Aurelius
by T. R. Glover, The Conflict of Religions in the Early Roman
Empire, pp. 197 ft.
150 PREPARATION FOR CHRISTIAN IDEAL
monotonous pauperism of many (a contrast only
heightened by our increased command of material
resources), the same reign of sensual desire and moral
perversion, the same symptoms in short as those in
which St. Paul saw a revelation of the Wrath of God.
But already the true Light was coming into the
world. We have now to watch its reception and
follow its victorious growth. New seed will be sown
throughout the Mediterranean world, but how many
tares, sprung from previous sowings, will appear
among the wheat ? How far will old conventions
and presuppositions survive, and the conquered once
more impose conditions on the Conqueror ?
IV
The Christian Ideal as Realized in the
Primitive Church
By Rev. J.VERNON BARTLET, M.A., D.D., Professor of
Church History in Mansfield College, Oxford.
ARGUMENT.
The Kingdom and the Church — ^The Blending of Jewish and Gentile Ideas
in Practical Piety.
I. The Christian Life of the Early Jewish Christianity — ^The Idyllic Sim-
plicity of the Primitive Community — More Reflective and Organized
Forms Gradually Assumed — ^The Influence of the Gospel on the Com-
munities of the Dispersion — ^The Didactic and other Writings — The
Testimony of Pliny.
II. The Christian Life of the Early Gentile Churches — The Hindrances
to Christian Brotherhood — The Full Fellowship of all Behevers —
The Recognition of the Supreme Value of Moral Personality — ^The
Application of Sacrificial Language to Christian Service — The Spirit-
ualization of the Whole of Life — ^Application of the Christian Principle
to the Home and the Household, Husband and Wife, Parent and
Child, Social Intercourse Generally — The Correspondence of the
Actual Practice with these Characteristics — Discipline Corporate in
Spirit and in Form — ^The Eucharist as a Bond of Unity — Ignatius'
Insistence on Fellowship — ^The Communion Service a Fountain-head
of Christian Altruism — The Subsequent Transformations of the
Primitive Social Feast — ^The Discipline of the Church's Public Opinion
— ^The Relation of the Church to Society in General — Love as the
Keystone of the whole Fabric of Christian Conduct.
The Principle of Selection in the Picture given — The Worldly
Spirit in the Church as Reflected in the Shepherd of Hennas and the
Second Epistle of Clement — Importance of Discovering the Moral
Forces in Early Christianity, their Religious Springs and Social Issue
— ^The Demand of Economic Justice as well as Redemptive Pity.
IV
The Christian Ideal as ReaHzed in the
Primitive Church
In previous essays the growth of the Christian ideal
has been traced. We have seen first its emergence
in a Chosen People, and then its fulfilment in the
person and teaching of Jesus, God's Anointed, the
destined Head of a people filled with a like spirit of
filial holiness and love. We have now to consider
how far the early Church actually realized its vocation
to embody the spirit of Christ in human life, personal,
social, and civic. Our chief concern is with the social
manifestations of the Christian impulse and principle.
But since these work from within, from the regenerated
consciousness of the individual, outwards to their
social issues, the '* Kingdom of God '' within the
human soul as character must be kept constantly in
view. The '' Kingdom " as realized in a renewed
society, comes through the spread of the Kingdom
as filial loyalty in its personal units, after the type
exemplified in Jesus as Son of Man. In fact a new
sense of personality, of the moral value of each soul
as directly related to God, was perhaps the chief
ethical contribution of the Gospel, the spring of its
dynamic for illimitable progress, individual and social.
It is with the operation of this new master-idea, while
163
154 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
as yet it shone with fresh splendour for the eye of
humanity, that ths essay will have largely to deal.
When the Church began to conceive of salvation less
in terms of personaHty than of '' grace '' abstracted from
moral experience, at that moment it began also to
depart from its original spirit.
While it is needful at times to study Jewish and
Gentile Christianity apart, in relation to the native
atmosphere and antecedents of each, it is not so in
the present instance save in quite a minor degree.
It was in the practical piety of daily life that all types
of Christians most agreed, standing out as such from
their several social environments in virtue of marked
common features. These features we are now to
examine in a summary and connected fashion, with a
view to realize their dependence on a common faith
or attitude to life, due to the action of the Gospel of
Christ. Yet one fact tending to explain the similarity
even of the forms in which the evangelic impulse
took effect among Jewish and Gentile believers, must
be kept steadily in mind ; namely, the blending of
Jewish and Gentile ideals which had already come
about in certain circles. The Jews had spread widely
beyond Palestine, especially around the eastern Medi-
terranean ; Graeco-Roman civilization had invaded
Palestine, the Holy Land of the Jews ; and each type
had in a measure leavened the other. The results
were the Graecized Jew, or Hellenist, and the cor-
responding semi- Jewish or '' God-fearing '' Gentile.
Here the Jewish faith contributed the essential reli-
gious and moral elements; but the liberal and cos-
mopoHtan temper, as well as the forms of culture
characterizing both classes, was due mainly to Greek
influences dating from the conquests of Alexander,
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 155
and in a lesser degree to Roman. Northern Syria,
Asia Minor, Alexandria, and Rome itself, all contained
large and influential Hellenistic or semi- Jewish popula-
tions : and as the Gospel naturally made its first
and strongest appeal to these, we are prepared to
find fundamental resemblances in the Christian life
as it took shape in such regions. Generally speaking,
then, it was only in certain Palestinian communities
that the exclusive Jewish spirit, with its national
caste customs, persisted among Christians. Apart from
these the universal spirit of the Gospel gradually estab-
lished itself in the eyes of most Christians of Jewish
birth and training, as traced in the book of Acts. The
detail, indeed, in which it describes the process whereby
Jewish limitations gave way under the lead of the
Spirit, shows how great were the barriers overcome
and how potent the ideas operative in this moral
and social revolution. We do not think enough
of the heroism of faith and sacrifice to which the
Evangelic spirit braced those Jews who made the
great renunciation involved in admitting the Gentiles
as '' brethren '' in Israel, — in simple loyalty to the
Spirit of God manifest in such souls as " purified by
faith,'* apart even from certain requirements of that
Law upon which God had so long placed honour
among His people. Whither '* the Spirit of Jesus "
led they followed, '* not knowing whither they
went," but leaving an example to Christians in all
ages of the duty of following the gleam visible in
the fresh openings of Providence, yet always in con-
tinuity with the spirit underlying the progress of the
past. Such is ever the prophetic spirit. But never
did it win a more striking victory. The warning as
to the penalty of disobedience to such a call is no less
impressive. As the progressive section of Judean
156 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
Christianity was rewarded with undreamt-of fruit-
fulness, so the conservative was blasted with sterility.
" Crushed by the letter of Jesus ** — the letter of the
example of a Master who had Himself conformed on
the whole to the usages of the Law, though in sovereign
freedom of spirit — they '' died a lingering death/' i
Aloof alike from national Judaism and from the
Christian Church as a whole, Ebionism became *' heresy "
in the eyes of both. There is food for reflexion and
heart-searching here. It affords a signal instance of
the law of spiritual life through death to the letter
of even a sacred past, exemplified already in the Head
of the Church Himself, but to be fulfilled in His Church
again and again, notably at the great Reformation
wherein the modern Christian world was born out of
the medieval.
The Christian ideal, life as lived under the sway of
love for God as holy Father and for men as related to
Him, was too rich in moral possibilities to be fully realized
at once in any one circle of Christians, if indeed in all
taken together. It asserted itself piecemeal, here on
one side, there on another, according to prior training,
yet in all cases raising to a higher power the purer
and more humane elements in existing moral life,
and paralysing or controlling the selfish and morbid
ones. But as these differed largely according as Jewish
training did or did not determine the life of the com-
munity, we find at first two rather distinct types of
Christian piety ; though these tend more and more to
blend into a common type in the second Christian
generation.
1 Harnack, Expansion of Christianity, i. yz f- » compare Hort,
Judaistic Christianity, y. 37.
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 157
I
Christian life in the primitive community at Jeru-
salem was at first characterized by an idyllic simplicity.
The brethren were absorbed in immediately religious
duties to God and man, with little or no reflexion
as to the future and the conditions imposed by ordinary
social wants in such a world as this. They were
expecting the present order soon to give place to
another : hence religion was ' all in all * in a very obvious
sense. To feel and express grateful love to God for
His redemptive acts in Christ, whether past or future
(both being to their feelings wondrously nigh), and
to extend the expression of devotion into their rela-
tions with others, as embraced within the scope of
God*s fatherliness — that was the sum of the matter.
In such an atmosphere all was worship and all was
unity, whether they hung on the Apostles* lips for
further knowledge of their Master's ways, or expressed
their fellowship in the intimate communion of simple
meals that recalled the recent and sacred union of
Jesus and His personal disciples. How far the spirit
of ''all things in common *' carried them in practice
is not quite clear. But certainly there was no com-
pulsion and no formal system about their doings in
those early days, even when certain went the length
of selling their goods to supply the needs of others.
What was distinctively Christian, directly expressive
of the new bond between them as Messiah's followers,
was domestic in form (''at home "), though they
also assembled about their leaders for instruction
within the Temple precincts. Thus in exultant glad-
ness and openheartedness they lived the life of abso-
lute human '* communion '' (koinonia), and all alike was
''holiness to the Lord" (Acts ii. 42-47).
158 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
Of course, this state of simple " enthusiasm/'
without thought for the morrow in any sense, could
not continue unchanged. It gradually assumed more
reflective and organized forms, one of which was the
daily distribution of the necessaries of life to those
utterly dependent, especially the widows and orphans
of the community, an institution which we see deve-
loping in the pages of Acts (iv. 34 f. ; vi. i ff.). But
that the primitive community long remained *' of
one heart and soul,'' so that the spirit of egoism in
the use of possessions was largely swallowed up
by love, we have reason to believe. In this sense
they continued to '' have all things common,*' and
to regard lack of brotherly sympathy the most grievous
breach of the law of Christ, — '' the regal law of liberty "
in love. This appears not only from the tone of the
Epistle of James,^ but also from the emphatic teaching
of a Gospel current among certain old-fashioned
believers in the latter part of the century, which had
large affinity with the element common to our Gospels
of Matthew and Luke. In this " Gospel according
to Hebrews " it was said that he was guilty of the worst
kind of sin ''who grieved the spirit of his brother" :
and the Lord was reported as having said to His
disciples, " And never be ye glad save when ye have
looked on your brother in love." If further confirm-
ation were needed, it exists in the teaching of the
*' Two Ways," a Jewish-Christian catechism widely
current in primitive times, and probably going back
in substance to the earliest days. Among its injunc-
^ This writing presents Christian piety as the fulfilment of the
ideal spirit of the Jewish Law as expounded by the Prophets and
the Sermon on the Mount, and illustrates how needful was the new
Christian dynamic to the realization of the ideal of Divine brother-
hood.
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 159
tions was this : ^ " Thou shalt not turn away from
him that is in want, but shalt make thy brother par-
taker in all things, and shalt not say that they are
thy very own. For if we are fellow-partakers in
that which is imperishable, how much more in the
things perishable ? " How essential to true faith
such conduct was held to be, appears also from the
fact that "remembrance of the poor'* was put for-
ward by the leaders of the Judaean Church as the sole
condition 2 of their recognition of the Christianity
otherwise proved to exist among Paul's Gentile con-
verts— a '* fruit " of living faith which Paul was no
less eager to foster.
So far we have dealt mainly with Christian life in
Palestine, the Holy Land of Judaism, where a high
ethical ideal was traditional and needed chiefly to be
raised to a higher power and range by a new spiritual
impulse. But in the communities of the Dispersion
the morality of Old Testament religion existed amid
more mixed and complicated conditions, which, if they
tended to emancipate both Jew and proselyte from
the narrowness of much Palestinian piety, tended
also to make simplicity and unworldliness of character
harder of attainment. How the Gospel worked as a
renewing and refining leaven in such circles also,
may be seen in the Didache or " Teaching of the
Apostles,'' which embodies the " Two Ways " in a
form showing how the more negative traits of Judaism
* Didache, iv. 8.
^ Gal. ii. 10, cf. James* Epistle, ii. 15 ff., where care for a brother's
bodily needs is made the typical test of living faith. Paul's concern
for the same quality goes far beyond collections for " the poor of the
saints in Jerusalem " (Rom. xvi. 26 f., cf. Acts xi. 30 ; xii. 25) ;
it is part of the " kindness and goodness " which he regards as " fruit
of the Spirit " (Gal. v, 22 f., vi. 10, Rom. xii. 8, 13).
i6o THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
gradually felt the touch of a larger and more loving
spirit. The essence of the Way of Life is indeed left
as it was originally adopted from Jewish oral
" teaching '' for proselytes in the Dispersion. '' First,
thou shalt love God who made thee ; secondly, thy
neighbour as thyself ; and all things whatsoever
thou wouldest not have done to thee, do thou also not
do to another." ^ But the sub-Christian features
were gradually supplemented, first by additions breath-
ing the spirit of the Golden Rule of positive love and
then by incorporation of those precepts of Christ
which embody it most strikingly (ch. i. 3 ff.). ''For
what grace is it if ye love them that love you ? Do
not even the Gentiles the same ? But love ye them
that hate you, and ye shall not have an enemy." Then
follows the law of meek forbearance under injury,
with a view to overcoming evil not with its own
weapons but with good, which is characteristic of early
Christianity in all circles, and the spirit of which is
nowhere more nobly expounded and illustrated than
in Paul's Epistles. '' Render to no man evil for evil.
. . . Avenge not yourselves, beloved, but give place unto
wrath. ... Be not overcome of evil, but overcome
evil with good. Owe no man anything, save to love
one another ; for he that loveth his neighbour, hath
fulfilled the law. . . . Love is long-suffering, is kind,
. . . seeketh not its own, is not provoked, taketh no note
of evil, . . . hopeth all things, endureth all things " (Rom.
xii. 17 ff. ; I Cor. xiii. 4 ff.). Here we have not only
practical rules, but also the motive which alone makes
them practicable. The insight of the compiler of the
DidachS does not carry him so far, and he sets forth
^ This appears in the early addition to Acts xv. 20, 29, as " All
things which ye would not have happen to yourselves, do not to
another."
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH i6i
this particular part of the Christian ideal as a counsel
of perfection (" thou shalt be perfect ") ; yet he
takes it very seriously, as did all Christians at first. ^
He is filled also with the passion of sympathy for
the appeal of want, wherever met. " Give to every
one that asketh thee, and ask not again ; for the
Father willeth that to all should be given from His
own unmerited gifts." Here again emerges an authen-
tic note of the Christian spirit, the consciousness that
all man has, is held on trust for its one and sole Giver,
the heavenly Father, for whose ends therefore it
ought in all loyalty to be utilized. ''What have we
that we have not received ? " Thus Paul utters the
same thought in a way which excludes not only all selfish
use, but also '* glorying " in any possession, spiritual
or material, as if one had created it and it were one's
very own (i Cor. iv. 7, xii. 7, 25). Indeed this idea of
utter dependence, and consequent stewardship as
regards one's life and all its powers and resources,
conjoined with that other master principle of Christ,
love to God and man, may be said to have constituted
the secret and power of early Christian conduct.
In other circles than that of the DidacM the
Jewish limitations in the ethical ideal of the *' Two
Ways " were set aside somewhat differently, 2 and
fresh applications of the principles of Christian
living were made, still on lines unaffected by special
Pauline influence. This was the case for instance
^ Indeed, this has been a mark of most revivals of the Gospel
manner of life ; witness the early Franciscans, the Anabaptists
and others in the sixteenth centm-y, the Friends, certain minor
Russian communities, and the Salvation Army.
^ Thus the Epistle of Barnabas, representing Christianity in
Alexandria about 70-80 A.D., in citing it omits a number of its
more rudimentary precepts, e.g. those prohibiting certain things
because they lead to others yet worse {Did. iii. 1-6).
C.c. M
i62 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
in a far later attempt ^ to set forth the Apostolic
type of moral teaching, yet one expressing what had
long been the local Christian ideal in North Syria. Here
the self-seeking and overreaching temper {pleonexia)
and the spirit of retaliation are singled out as the
great solvents of goodness. Very emphatic warning is
also given against seeking the admiration of the other
sex by adornment of the person, as placing temptation
in the way of others, if not in one's own. This shows a
fine sense of responsibility for the indirect effects of
conduct, and brings home vividly to us the new
love infused into humanity, that love which is " the
identification of oursdves with God's interests in
others." Truly did another writing ^ of much the
same region and date, but belonging to a more Jewish
circle, sum up Christian ethics in saying: '* Every
fair deed shall the love of man teach you to do,
even as hatred of men suggests ill-doing." In this
spirit Christian elders are to act as parents to orphans
and as husbands to widows, with all cheerfulness
supplying to them their livelihood, yet always subject
to the sound maxim ^ *' To the craftsman work, to the
feeble alms." Love is still the secret ; and love gains
entrance in no way more effectively than through
*' the common partaking in salt." Hence mutual
hospitality is to abound ; for it leads to beneficence,
and beneficence to salvation. Let all put their living
at the disposal of the brethren in God, for such tem-
^ The so-called Apostolic Didascalia (Bk. i.), put together in
the course of the third century.
2 Epistle of Clement to James, cc. viii. ff.
^ Compare Didache, xii. 3 f. If a brother from a distance " will-
eth to settle among you, and is a craftsman, let him work and (so)
eat. But if he have no craft, according to your prudence provide
that a Christian shall not live with you in idleness."
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 163
poral giving meets with eternal receiving. Give to
the hungry, thirsty and naked ; visit the sick ; reheve
those in prison ; welcome to your homes the stranger.
But Christian '' philanthropy " extends further into
the sphere of social relations. Let brethren at variance
not go before the secular authorities, but be reconciled
by the Church's elders, yielding them ready compliance.
Nay, let the overreaching instinct (pleonexia) be shunned
as a thing which for temporal gain sacrifices eternal
good ; let weights and measures be just, and trust-
money be held sacred. Even chastity is intimately
bound up with this fundamental '' philanthropy,*'
which affords the moral basis for God's mercy at the
last.
Such a picture of Christian ethics — allowing for
its semi- Jewish traits — not only recalls the Didache
(ch. xii.) with its catholic love for the stranger brother,
balanced by wholesome provision against the vagrant
idler who would '* make merchandise of Christ," but
also agrees with the impressions of an outsider that
reach us in his own words. Pliny, the governor of
Bithynia, writing about 112 A.D., reports that the
Christians "used to assemble on a fixed day (the Lord's
day) before dawn, recite responsively a hymn to
Christ as to a god,i and pledge themselves with a
religious vow {sacr amentum) not to any crime, but
against theft, robbery, adultery, breach of trust or
denial of a deposit when claimed." Pliny may or may
not be right in believing that these Christians at
their weekly morning worship actually pledged them-
selves afresh to the moral ideal implied in allegiance
to Christ. But his words at least cast vivid ligh;
^ So Pliny would conceive the matter. Of such primitive
hymns we may get an idea from Eph. v. 14, i Tim. iii. 16, cf,
2 Tim. ii. 11 f.
i64 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
upon the idea of the Christian Hfe, as distinct from that
of the world around. They show the sort of vocation
to which men felt themselves consecrated by baptism,
which was then, as it is to-day on the mission field,
regarded as finally setting the believer apart from
the old manner of life to atotally new one. Thus bap-
tism was associated with an explicit renunciation of
the Way of Death, and an embracing of the Way of
Life (as set forth in the Didache, cf . ch. vii.) . Its phrasing
might differ locally, but its substance was one and
the same, and intensely practical. The idea of a
definite moral covenant as part of the new allegiance
underlies all early references to baptism. Thus Justin
Martyr, after stating the moral teaching of Christ
[Apol. i. 15 f.), says that those who come forward for
baptism " promise that they are able thus to conduct
their life " (i. 61) ; and he describes the newly bap-
tized as '* covenanted '' to Christ's service,^ just as
soldiers are to Caesar's (i. 65). That the military
analogy was present to his mind, as to the mind of
Christians generally from the time when Paul com-
pared the self-denying conditions of the two services
(2 Tim. iv. 3 ff.), is clear from his remark that, if sol-
diers put their profession and allegiance (homologia)
above home and life itself, it were absurd for Christians
to fail in loyalty to Him whose service promises
rewards so much more to be desired (id. 39). So
Tertullian, when denying that the Christian should
seek the military decoration of a garland in Caesar's
service, cries,^ '' Can we believe it allowable to add
the oath of human service to the divine, and to pledge
oneself to another lord after Christ ? "
* So Tertullian On Modesty, ch. 8.
* De Corona Militis, c. 11.
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 165
II
Striking as is the brotherliness of early Jewish
Christianity compared even with Judaism generally,
especially as between rich and poor, yet here the
advance was largely on pre-existing lines. Hence it
is among non-Jews that we look for the full test of
the Gospel's power to beget brotherly love in
human nature. Did it succeed in diffusing an enthu-
siasm for humanity as such ? For humanity was
broken up into many sections, within which the tie of
blood bound men together in such a way as to keep
those in one racial division aloof from all the rest.
The ultimate sanction too of such division lay in
religion, as is the case in India to-day, where caste
distinctions divide even those within the same national
system, Hinduism. Indeed it is by keeping Indian
caste in mind, that we can best measure the strength
of the new moral factor, as able to abolish even such a
wall of partition as that reared by race and circum-
cision between Jew and Gentile. But, apart from
this, the barriers everywhere of race, religion, civil-
ization, and culture, were such that a thoughtful
observer like Celsus, writing towards the end of the
second century after Christ, regarded it as chimerical
to imagine that all the inhabitants of the earth should
ever agree in obedience to one law of life.^ Yet this
is exactly the basis upon which PauFs missionary work
actually achieved its large success. For him there
was '' in Christ '* neither Jew nor Gentile, Greek nor
barbarian, bond nor free ; but only one divine-human
type of humanity. And on the same principle did
Christianity win over the Roman Empire.
^ Origen, Against Celsus, viii. 72, cf. Harnack, Expansion of
Christianity, i. 318 note.
i66 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
The foundation of the new sense of brotherhood be-
tween all men without racial distinction was laid by the
Gospel deep in the common spiritual nature of humanity
as related to God. His fatherly relation to all excluded
*' respect of persons " on God's part, and therefore
on man's.^ The " offspring of God '' must recog-
nize each other under every guise, once the archetype
of humanity had appeared, bringing to light in His
own person the fact of man's capacity for sharing the
Divine life as universally as the moral law at work in
the conscience of all. In Jesus the Christ, God's
destined Head of a humanity corresponding to the
purpose of the Divine Grace, all barriers, even those
raised by God Himself round His elect people for a
limited and temporary purpose, were virtually done
away for ever. With free and intimate access to
God as Father, in and through Christ as the ** Head
of every man," came full fellowship between all who
accepted their sonship and the moral conditions that
involved. It was a great moment when this was
finally and openly acknowledged even by Palestinian
Christianity through the mouths of Peter and James.
Thus the old caste custom which barred Jews from
the special intimacy of table-fellowship with even the
best and holiest of Gentiles, was now done away for
the great bulk of Jewish Christians, on conditions that
were mainly moral. The one remaining restriction as
to food, that against partaking of *' blood," was one
about which many Gentiles felt some scruple. In any
case, it is clear that these Jewish Christians gave up
in sheer obedience to God and charity to their fellow-
believers what nothing but a supreme moral motive
would have induced them to surrender. Hence the Jeru-
salem Conference of Acts xv. marks one of the greatest
^ Acts xvii. 23 if., cf. x. 34 f.
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 167
triumphs in the moral history of humanity, and affords
a proof of the mighty dynamic of the new Christian
ideas.i And thanks to Paul's splendid devotion to
the idea of the unity of Jew and Gentile in Christ,
which he led his converts to embody in a great object-
lesson, the tangible token of their grateful love to "the
poor saints "of the mother-Church in Jerusalem (Rom.
XV. 25 ff.), the Judaean Church as a whole never revoked
its decision.
This palmary proof of the Gospel as the religion
of the Spirit, with its inner law — a true attitude of
soul towards God — in contrast to the religion of legal
ordinances and outward rites, is typical of early Christi-
anity. It recognized the supreme value of moral
personality, as what gives a man his significance
for God, and viewed the religious man's relations with
God and his fellows as essentially ethical. Even
worship itself became ethical, determining and deter-
mined by the worshipper's whole volitional life, and
most of all his conduct towards men, seen in the
light of divine destiny. Thus while in the old type of
sacrificial service a man brought part of his posses-
sions as homage to God, the Christian sacrifice was
the man himself, soul and body, placed at the service
of God for His own uses. It was a '' living sacrifice,"
and no longer one of dead things ; it was a " sacred
service " {liturgy) informed and inspired by conscious
personal ends. 2
^ As commentary, take the following modem analogy. Speak-
ing of the immense difficulty of transcending caste feeling on the one
side, and the sense of racial superiority on the other, between Hindus
and English in India, a Brahmin lately said : " But where you meet
a real Christian, the ideal is possible ; and it is possible nowhere else
in the world " (Paper on " Racial Unity," in The Student Movement,
vol. X. p. 149).
^ Rom. xii. i, " your reasonable/' or spiritual ** service '*
{XojLfCT) Xarpela).
i68 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
The use which Paul makes of sacrificial language
is always in this sense metaphorical, though for that
very reason most spiritually real. " Sacrifice and
solemn service," " an odour of a sweet smell (cf. Lev.
i. 9), a sacrifice acceptable,'' '' ministrant,'* '' minis-
tering in sacrifice,'' *' offering " — all these are used by
him 1 to describe the devotion of human life in one
form or another to the sanctifying service of God,
without -any reference to formal acts of worship.
The same is the case with the Hellenistic writer of the
'' Epistle to Hebrews," with his *' sacrifice of praise
to God continually " and his statement that with the
'' sacrifices " of doing good *' God is well pleased "
(xiii. 15 f.). Such language "passed gradually and
almost imperceptibly into liturgical use, and hence
acquired new shades of meaning," as the sacrificial
associations of Old Testament and even pagan worship
closed round it afresh. But in the New Testament
itself the sphere of divine service (latreia) is not prim-
arily public worship, but is rather the whole circle of
conscious volition and action in which the transformed
spirit may realize its new allegiance, not to the ways
of the world or age, but to the will of God. This is
seen in the illustrations which Paul goes on to give of
the working of the mind of Christ in the collective
life of His followers. It transcends the natural egoism
whereby man appropriates to his own use or glory
the gifts with which he finds himself endowed, whether
by nature or grace. '* In Christ " all gifts are felt to
be held in trust for the good of all, in that fellowship
which is the very life of the Christian Commonwealth,
the Church of God. The idea of an organism of
spiritual life, with Christ as head and Christians as
^ Phil. ii. 17, iv. 18, Rom. xv. 16.
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 169
members one of another, should control all conduct
among Christians (Rom. xii. 3 ff., i Cor. xii. 12 ff.).
Nor does Paul in this connexion distinguish be-
tween official and purely personal services or graces :
preaching, teaching, ruling, relieving, showing hos-
pitality, sympathizing in joy and sorrow, humility,
forgiveness, abstinence from retaliation — are alike
traced to the initiative of the selfsame indwelling
Holy Spirit. Nothing is more characteristic of early
Christianity ^ than its spiritualization of the whole
of life in the light of this idea, coupled with that of
Love, to God and man, as the chiefest gift of all,
in and through which all others attain their end and
perfection. Thus the common daily walk is no less
'' holy *' than the more special acts of divine service
or worship. It is this which makes it the absolute
religion, as the Christian apologists of the second
century feel and urge in various forms, notably Aris-
tides and the author of the Epistle to Diognetus, who
appeal to the morale of the Christians, who '' in their
lives surpass the laws," in proof of the divine origin of
their faith. Such was the conception of holiness
embodied once for all in the life of its Founder Himself
and in the writings of its early prime, notably those
of Paul. The Lordship of Christ for faith, as devoted
loyalty to His person and will, covers everything and
settles even ritual questions (Rom. xiv). " One man
esteemeth one day above another : another esteemeth
every day alike. Let each man be fully assured in
^ Striking proof of the persistence of the idea of Christian life
as an inspired life, is furnished by the " Canons of Hippolytus,"
probably a late form given to his work entitled " Apostolic tradition
touching spiritual gifts." There Hippolytus (about 200-220 a.d.),
in spite of his opposition to Montanist exaggerations, treats the
distinctive Christian graces of character as gifts of the Spirit.
170 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
his own mind." He is to do or abstain as " unto the
Lord ** ; yet not in any individuahstic spirit, but as
in love to his brother's soul also, avoiding as far as
possible what might cause him to stumble or act
with a bad conscience. '* Whatsoever is not of faith
(i.e. conviction as to the Lord's approval) is sin." There
we have the sum and substance of Christian ethics
on the Godward side ; and on the manward side,
the principle is equally simple and inclusive, What-
soever is not of love is sin (Rom. xiii. 8-10, xiv. 15,
I Cor. xiii). The power, range, flexibility yet strin-
gency, of these motives are infinite, as Paul shows
in the varied applications he makes of them in his
different epistles. " Faith energizing by love " consti-
tutes a perfect religion of the spirit, as distinct
from the letter. The correlative of this is the Spirit
of God, as a spirit of holiness and love, abidingly at
work in the soul of him who has sincerely said in his
heart, *' Jesus is Lord " (i Cor. xii. 3 ; Gal. v. 13-16,
22-25).
Hitherto we have described Gentile Christian
ethics mainly as set forth by Paul in the Epistle to
the Romans, which is specially adapted for our purpose
as being a summary of his experience of Christian
life without that more special reference to local con-
ditions in one or another of his young communities
which marks the bulk of his Epistles.^ But there
is one other Pauline epistle which is similarly general
in scope and serves to supplement the picture in
^ E.g. , those to Thessalonica, where he has occasion to emphasize
the duty of patient, honest work for one's own daily bread, and to
Corinth, where love as the organic principle of Christian society is
variously used to counteract the Greek egoism and intellectualism.
What is most impressive in all cases is Paul's confidence that the
inward dynamic of the Gospel is adequate to overcome all abuses, in
spite even of misunderstanding.
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 171
Romans by certain other applications, particularly
as regards the Christian home and household. The
Epistle known as that '' to the Ephesians," but really
a circular letter to Churches in the Roman province
of Asia, with Ephesus as its centre, is wonderfully
rich in its domestic ethics, the sphere where we enter
the very holy of holies of the Christian lifei and the
unit of its social reform. The sanctity of the Christian
home rests upon its nobler idea of woman and her
possibilities as man's equal, though not his duplicate,
in all that constitutes true humanity. Man and
woman '' in Christ," as joint-sharers in the Divine
life, are fellow-helpers in all that belongs to this
supreme vocation, and together constitute a part-
nership so full and intimate as to supply the type of
the union of Christ and His Church (Eph. v. 22-33).
This idea placed conjugal love on a new basis of mutual
reverence which contained the promise and potency of a
new type of conjugal life altogether. Yet here too
the natural truth in the old doctrine and practice
is conserved while transfigured. The headship of the
man and the subordination of the woman, as the
more dependent sex, is taken for granted ; but all is
animated by the new reverence and love. It is '' in
the fear of Christ '' that each gives way to the other,
and this transforms everything. The relation of
Christ to the Church becomes the model of the hus-
band's spirit towards his wife in all things ; and the
wife's attitude is typified by that of the Church to
Christ. All selfishness is thereby eliminated from
their relations. The husband's headship is no longer
arbitrary, over-bearing, unsympathetic or patronizing ;
^ The new attitude to women and children is touched on with
much insight in T. R. Glover's Dale Lectures, where it is contrasted
with that of even the best pagan morahsts.
172 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
the wife gains a fresh dignity in his eyes and in her
own, passes out of mere pupillage under his will and
enters on an intelligent co-operation in the vocation
of applying a higher will than that of either, as embodied
in their Lord's life and teaching. The frivolity of
female life in antiquity, conditioned by the triviality
of its occupations and interests, is remedied at its
source.
Thus the foundation is laid for the Christian home.
The children are no longer in theory and practice
chattels of the paterfamilias, but God's divinest
trusts to both parents, to be viewed from birth as
His, and to be trained to realize their vocation as
members of Christ. '' Holy," as born of parents
holy unto the Lord by the covenant (i Cor. vii. 14),
they were to be treated as themselves of ** the house-
hold of the faith " and not of the world. Thus they
are exhorted to obey their parents *' in the Lord,"
i.e. as being Christians and from Christian motives ;
while parents are to nurture them with instruction and
admonishing of a like order (vi. 1,4). Very significant
of the new spirit of consideration is the warning to
fathers not to provoke their children, by harsh or
unreasonable commands, '' lest they lose heart "
(ib. 4, Col. iii. 21) — a fine touch which has not yet
had its full effect. Similarly the lot of domestics,
mostly slaves, felt at once the breath of the Divine
philanthropy (Titus iii. 4), which forthwith brought
inward freedom to the spirit and thereby transfigured
the outward lot, even where full emancipation did not
follow, as it did doubtless in many cases. Though
Paul felt it inexpedient to declare war against slavery
in general, partly because this would have brought
his message to a violent end as subversive of social
order, and partly because he regarded the existing
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 173
order as having a very short lease of Hfe, the whole
tendency of his emphasis upon the common lordship
of Christ, for master and slave alike, must have made
strongly against slavery among Christians (Eph. vi. 9,
Col. iv. I ; and esp. Philemon passim). Later on
we have clear evidence that this took effect in Christian
practice .1
Beyond these special applications, however, we find
also in Ephesians, and its companion Colossians,
striking use made of the essential Christian spirit
as the purifier and sweetener of social intercourse
generally. The following quotations 2 show how the
silent revolution wrought by a new idea of God and
man worked itself out, just as it does on the mission-
field to-day.
" No longer walk even as the heathen walk, without true moral
aim, alienated from the Divine life through insensibility of con-
science, and so running into all sorts of excess. But ye did not so
learn Christ, if ye were duly taught truth as it is in Jesus, namely,
to put off the ways of your old moral character, and assume the new
character made after God's image. So be truthful with each other ;
for we are members one of another. Let anger not grow into sin,
as abiding resentment. Let him that stole steal no more ; rather
let him labour, working with his hands the thing that is good, that
he may have whereof to give to him that hath need.^ Let no corrupt
talk escape you, but such as builds up noble manhood, remembering
the Holy Spirit that dwells within. Hence, let all bitterness and
angry railing and malice be put away ; and put on, as God's elect, holy
and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, humility, long-suffer-
1 For some account of the effects of early Christianity upon the
condition of women, children, and slaves, see C. Schmidt, The
Social Results of Early Christianity (recently re-issued by Pitman &
Sons). Perhaps the most striking evidence, however, is the habitual
tone of the epitaphs found in the Catacombs.
2 Eph. iv. 17-V. 21, Col. iii. 5-17, both passages being used and
slightly paraphrased.
^ This motive for industry is characteristic of early Christianity ;
see below.
174 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
ing ; forbearing one another and forgiving, if any one have complaint
against any. Even as God in Christ graciously forgave you, so also
do ye. Be ye, therefore, imitators of God, as beloved children ; and
walk in love, even as Christ also loved us and gave Himself up for us,
an offering and a sacrifice of sweet savour to God. To one living in
this consecrated spirit sin alike of the flesh and of the spirit, passion,
evil desire, and covetousness, * which is idolatry,' are utterly alien.
With such * unfruitful works of darkness ' have nothing in common,
but rather even reprove them by contrast, as children of light. Look
then carefully how ye walk, wisely making the best of the present
season ; for the times are evil. Avoid such exhilaration of the
senses as men seek in wine, with its riot ; seek instead exaltation
from the Divine Spirit, such as overflows in holy speech for the
common good ; teaching and admonishing yourselves in psalms and
hymns and spiritual songs, singing with gratitude of heart unto the
Lord. Finally, whatsoever ye do, in word or in deed, do all in the
name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through
Him.''
Here one gains two complementary impressions ^ ;
first, that the Christian life is simply the true human
life, realizing the normal relations which should sub-
sist among mankind ; and next, that all these relations
of life, as baptized into Christ, become parts and
modes of Church fellowship, animated and sustained
by the sense of a special bond. Divine as well as human,
which invests even " the daily round and common
task '* with a heavenly dignity and sanctity.
With the above characterization of Christian life
we have reason to believe that the actual practice of
the early Christian brotherhoods corresponded in the
main.2 No doubt there were exceptions, due partly
to inexperience of '* truth as it is in Jesus,'* as distinct
from current moral standards, and partly to erroneous
^ Compare Hort, Christian Ecclesia, 228 ff.
2 This is the general result of the full and dispassionate consider-
ation given to the point not only in the Apostolic Age, but down to
the close of the next century, in E. von Dobschiitz's Christian Life
in the Primitive Church, 1904 (Williams & Norgate).
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 175
theories which arose in certain circles as to the relation
of **the flesh" to ''the Spirit" in the Christian
walk, tending on the one hand to antinomianism and
on the other to false asceticism. But these were
probably passing aberrations for the most part, cor-
rected by further teaching or by the discipline of
temporary exclusion ^ from the full local " fellowship
of the Saints." " Reprove one another," says the
Didache (xv. 3), " not in wrath but in peace, as ye have
it in the Gospel (cf. Matt, xviii. 15-17); and with any
that trangresseth against his fellow let none talk, nor
let him hear speech from you until he repent."
Discipline was corporate both in spirit and in form,
and must have had immense moral authority, seeing
that half the joy and strength of the new life lay in
its loving fellowship. '' The fruit of the Spirit is love,
joy, peace " (Gal. v. 22) ; and it was on the occasions
of outward '' fellowship of the Spirit " afforded by
the Agape, or Love-Feast, that the Kingdom of God
was most manifestly felt as peace and inspired joy
(Rom. xiv. 17). Then was love reaHzed to the full
as " the bond of perfectness," and '' the peace of Christ "
swayed all hearts as the arbiter of divergent individual
interests (Col. iii. 14 ff.), as they held high fellowship
in the Spirit, with psalms and hymns and spiritual
songs. The most vivid account we possess of a Love-
feast comes from as late as the very end of the second
century 2 : yet we may safely carry it back to any of
the intervening decades.
To such Christian fellowship how fatal all that
divided in spirit those who sat side by side at the
sacred social board ! To gather in the spirit of faction
^ 2 Thess. iii. 14 f., cf. i Thess. v. 14 1, Gal. vi. 1-5, 7 f., 2 Cor.
ii. 5-11.
^ Tertullian, Apology, ch. 39.
176 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
or with enmity lurking among the members, would be
to '' come together not for the better but for the worse "
(i Cor. xi. 17) : it would be *' impossible to eat a
Lord*s supper *' in deed and truth. Accordingly
everything was done to safeguard the feast of Holy
Communion from profanation by loveless participa-
tion. It opened with a symbol of mutual affection,
the kiss of peace, accompanied doubtless by some
fitting words of reminder as to its significance and
sanctity ; and how seriously the duty of making the
inward state answer to the outward symbolism of
the breaking of one loaf and the drinking together
from the same cup, is shown by Didache chapter xiv.
'* On the Lord's Day gathering yourselves together
break bread and give thanks, having first confessed
your transgressions, that your sacrifice may be pure.^
But let no one that hath a dispute with his fellow
assemble with you until they be reconciled, that your
sacrifice may not be profaned. For this is that
which was spoken by the Lord (Mai. i. 11) : In every
place and time offer me a pure sacrifice." Here we have
a deeply ethical idea of the Christian sacrifice, of
which the Eucharistic prayer was the most solemn
form ; its purity, and so its virtue, was forfeited by
unforgiven sin on the conscience, and particularly
by the sin of unbrotherly feeling, in violation of the
fundamental Christian law of Love. As long as the
Eucharist was so regarded, so long the Christian life
had at the very heart of its corporate worship the
most powerful of sanctions for the safeguarding of
its distinctive ethical and social ideal. Thus while
Baptism, as we have seen, made impressive the con-
ception of the Christian life as loyalty to a covenant
^ Cf. iv. 14, " Thou shall confess thy transgressions, and shalt
not come to prayer with a bad conscience,'*
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 177
solemnly sealed and attested — a covenant implicitly
or explicitly renewed from week to week ; recurring
Eucharistic communion with fellow-members, as also
with the Head of the Body, served to refresh the
life of Love as the very life of God within the soul,
and to brace it for every call to self-sacrifice and ser-
vice. In proportion as these twin conceptions ceased
to be uppermost, the rites themselves lost their moral
and social value.
It was realization of this, namely, that Love was
the essence of Christian life and worship, and that it
found expression and nourishment in the Agapi or
Eucharist of the united local brotherhood, which
made Ignatius of Antioch, early in the second century,
so vehement against heresy as fatal to unity and love.
Hence his insistence on fellowship with the corporate
life of the local Church under its duly recognized
ministry, the congregational bishop and the body of
elders and deacons amidst whom he presided, as the
outward safeguard of unity. Thus he cries : ^
" He that is within the place of sacrifice (the Church as a praying^
people) is pure ; but he that is outside the place of sacrifice is not
pure ; that is, he that doeth aught (in a Church capacity) apart from
bishop and eldership and deacons, this man is not pure in his con-
science. ... Do ye, therefore, arm yourselves with meekness (in
contrast to the self-confidence of sectaries) and so recover full health
in faith, which is the flesh of the Lord, and in love, which is the blood
of Jesus Christ. Let none of you bear a grudge against his neighbour. *'
Here in Ignatius' mystical language, as Lightfoot
says, faith is the flesh, the substance of the Christian
life ; love is the blood, the energy coursing through
its veins.
This sacrificial language is of the type already
^ To the Trallians, vii., viii. ; compare To the Ephesians, v.
2 So Polycarp, To the Philippians, iv. , calls widows, as specially
devoted to the life of prayer, " an altar of God."
C.C. N
178 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
seen in Paul and in the Epistle to Hebrews. The
people are the place of sacrifice (altar), as their prayers
of thanksgiving (Eucharist) are also the sacrifice
proper, '' the sacrifice of praise . . ., that is, the fruit of
lips that make acknowledgment to His name '' (Heb.
xiii. 15). Their sacrifices are simple thankofferings
and not expiatory in intention, the homage of those
already brought nigh by Christ's one sacrifice, and
thereby made priests unto God for to offer sacrifices
well-pleasing to Him.^ And as in Hebrews such
sacrifices were deeds ^ of beneficence and charity
(v. 16), so the ** pure sacrifice " of the heart in praise
assumed the outward form of thankofferings for God's
service, especially in the cause of the poor. By
Clement of Rome (c. 96 a.d.) they are referred to as
'* the gifts " offered to God (ch. xliv, and Lightfoot's
note). The uses to which these free-will offerings
were put, beyond the portion of them used for the
Eucharistic bread and wine proper, are indicated by
Justin Martyr (i Apol. 67) as being the succour of
orphans and widows, those in want through sickness
or other cause, those in prison, strangers, and in short
all that are in need.^ A century or so later the Chris-
tian who is tempted to spend his money in gambling,*
* Compare the Rabbinic saying, ** One day all offerings will
cease, only the Thankoffering will not cease ; all prayers will cease,
only the Thanksgiving prayer will not cease " (quoted by Westcott
on Heb. xiii. 15).
2 As God's name is " glorified among the Gentiles/* by sacrifices
of charity, according to Mai. i. 11, 14, as cited in Did. xiv. 3, so con-
versely God*s name is blasphemed among the heathen through an
unloving walk (Polycarp ad Phil., x. 2 1).
^ In course of time the support of the ministry, which at first
was a matter of direct gift by the donor to the recipient (Didache,
xiii. 2-7, cf. xv.J;2), came to be a charge on the collective offerings.
* De Aleatoribus, xi, which deals earnestly with this social evil.
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 179
is bidden '' Scatter thy money upon the Lord's table."
Indeed the first privilege belonging to the baptized
Christian is that he is now '* made worthy to present
an ofering " in the Eucharistic service/ and it is for-
bidden that any should thus contribute to the Chris-
tian sacrifice until fully admitted by baptism to
God's priestly people. To grasp this early idea of the
Christian sacrifice, is to realize that no act of public
worship is more sacred or characteristic of our religion
than the offertory, especially the ** sacramental offer-
tory " for the needy members of the Church, if only
we enter into its original spirit. It expresses not only
the brotherly love which is the manward aspect of
our religion, but also the fact that the Christian holds
no property his own, but only as in trust for God, the
giver of all, at His disposal for His own uses. Thus the
Communion Service was, and should ever be, a fountain-
head of Christian altruism, and of devotion to the service
of God in man.
That this has not been the case to a far greater
degree in the history of Christianity as a whole, is
partly due to the changes both in idea and practice
which from the third century onwards transformed
the primitive social feast of love (agape) and thanks-
giving (eucharistia) into the Catholic mystery of the
Mass. Apart altogether from the truth or falsity of the
new conceptions of a bodily presence of Christ in the
elements, the mind of the partaker had a new preoccupa-
tion, as he brooded upon the mystery of such a form of
communion with his Lord ; and the whole emphasis of
thought and feeling shifted from the personal relations
of fidelity to God and man which constituted the
normal Christian life, and tended to rest on a divine
* Didascalia (c. 250-275). So in iv. 5-6, only the gifts of those
walking worthily are to be accepted.
i8o THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
opus operatum unrelated to Christian experience. Thus
the connexion of the Service with conduct and motive
became more indirect ; and at the same time the idea
of grace therein conveyed became more individualistic.
Concurrently with this, the deeply ethical idea of the
Christian's sacrifice, in and though his ''gifts" brought
to the altar of God's service, was gradually transferred
to the eucharistic symbols of Christ's passion as conse-
crated by the minister (hence growingly styled ''priest")
in sacred formulae ; so that, in the elements, the body
and blood of Christ themselves were conceived to be
offered as a sacrifice of expiation, the counterpart and
continuation of Christ's own oblation in Heaven. Nay
more, by a further confusion, which we can trace in the
West at least, an expiatory value came to be trans-
ferred back to the Christian's own oblations, and the
ideal of salvation became once more at its very heart
both legal and precarious.
While the primitive Communion Service and its
prayers were a positive inspiration to loyal love and
unselfish living, both it and the conduct which it
fostered were safeguarded in more negative fashion by
a discipline which brought the full force of the Church's
public opinion to bear upon serious breaches of the
Christian ideal. Indeed so closely were the two
related, that the final form of such discipline was exclu-
sion for a season from the Church's supreme act of
fellowship. But what here most needs emphasis
is the genuinely collective character of such discipline ^
* Tertullian, Apology, chap. 39, describes how the Christians
meet to enforce discipline according to the Gospel's precepts.
Then take place " exhortations, corrections and divine censures.
For both judgment has great weight as being delivered among those
assured that God is looking on, and the strongest presumption is
created as to what the award in the future will be, whenever any has
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH i8i
during the whole period that has any claim to be
called primitive. Each case came before the assembled
brotherhood, and the censure expressed the moral
communis sensus of " the saints," in whom the mind
of Christ was believed to operate through the Holy
Spirit. Could any moral sanction be more impressive
and potent for the Christian conscience ? And could
it fail to lose much of its distinctive force, as rooted
in the whole genius of Christ's teaching on mutual
responsibility among His disciples, as well as in the
actual usage implied in Matthew xviii. 15-20, just
in proportion as the duty of watching over each other's
souls became deputed in form and in fact to the officers
of the community ? None can say, indeed, how much
transformation of the very principles underlying
Christian practice, both personal and social, and how
much arrest in the education of the average Christian
consciousness in what is most proper to it, may be put
down to such withdrawal of collective moral responsi-
bility from the rank and file of Christians. But none
can doubt that the effect has been great ; while few
intelligent Protestants will question that it has been on
the whole an evil.
So far we have considered early Christian life
chiefly as taking effect among Christians themselves,
rather than society in general. But there was more
than this. '* As we have opportunity, let us work
that which is good toward all men, and especially
toward them that are of the household of faith "
(Gal. vi. 10). The latter reference naturally prevails,
particularly at first ; yet, as occasion offers. Christian
so sinned as to be banished communion in prayer and assembly and
all sacred intercourse. Tried seniors preside, having obtained that
honour not by money but by general testimony.'* So too the
Syrian Didascalia, ii. 47, more than half a century later.
i82 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
writings breathe a large dutifulness to '' them that are
outside/* The primary duty towards such was, of
course, to win them over by '' holding forth the message
of life," as mirrored in a Christlike walk. AU needless
offence to their feelings or sense of right and wrong
was studiously to be avoided (Rom. xii. 17 f.). The
only form of revenge allowable towards foes and per-
secutors was to cause in them a burning sense of shame
by patient rendering of good for evil. The only kind
of resistance even to official persecution was to be
passive ; for in idea civil authority is ordained of God
for the good of men, in the long run, and the terror
of evil-doers. The actual authorities might be mis-
guided or misinformed as to matters of conscience,
which go beyond their ken and therefore their strict
competence : and in that case conscience must be
obeyed, God rather than man, by passive resistance
to the usurping action of the State. But where con-
science is not directly involved, civic dues of all kinds
are to be rendered. Every human duty is to be dis-
charged by the Christian as by others, save that with
him, one, the supreme debt of love, cannot be paid off,
but remains ever in force. " Thou shalt love thy neigh-
bour as thyself '' holds in relation to all men, according
to their state of need and receptivity .^ '* Let us not
be found men-pleasers,'* cries an early preacher (2
Clement, ix), but at once adds, '' Not that we are to
please one another only, but also the men that are
without, as far as righteousness goes ; that the Name
(of Christ) be not reviled by reason of us.'* Similarly
the Epistle to Diognetus, an '* open letter " to cultured
pagans which must have missed its aim had it not
kept pretty close to obvious facts, claims for Christians
that " they love all men, and are persecuted by all. . . .
^ The above summaries Rom. xii. 19-xiii. 10.
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 183
They are reviled, and they bless ; they are insulted
and they respect. ... In a word, what the soul is
in a body, this the Christians are in the world. . .
So great is the office for which God hath appointed
them, and which it is not lawful for them to decline."
Thus once more we are brought back to love as
the keystone of the whole fabric of Christian conduct,
without which it collapses the more surely that the
strain of its ideal on obedience is so enormous. It is
no wonder that the very idea of Love in the Christian
sense is other than what it was prior to Christ. Not
that maxims of love, more or less universal, were lacking
both in Judaism and outside. But they were largely
isolated and incidental ; or were not meant in the
same serious sense which Christianity attaches to them,
because they were not backed by a spirit of real enthus-
iasm for humanity. Thus love was not before made
the root of all other virtues, or insisted upon as the
test of true fellowship with God ; nor could it be,
until the idea of God as Himself Love was fully and
effectively revealed in Christ. Then, " Ye shall be
perfect (in love) as your heavenly Father is per-
fect,'* supplied the needful rehgious dynamic for the
supreme moral disposition, that ''ardent, passionate,
or devoted state of mind'' declared by Jesus to be
*' the root of virtue." ^ This '' expulsive power of a
new affection " proved itself in fact the root prin-
ciple of Christian ethics. Of this fact the First Epistle
of John affords impressive evidence ; for its message
is that sin and Christian love are in experience mutually
exclusive ; and that faith in the love of God made
manifest in Christ means victory over the world and
all its forces. And what this Epistle witnesses of Chris-
^ Ecce Homo, a book which abounds in noble passages bearing
upon the subject of this essay.
i84 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
tian experience at the end of the second generation,
that the Hterature ^ of the second and third centuries
abundantly confirms. Christian love, too, was no
mere chance emotion of individual sympathy : it was
universal in its scope, because rooted in profound
reverence for the human soul as related to God. The
revolutionary effect of this conception may be illus-
trated by contrasting Aristotle's ideal man, the "lofty-
minded " person of consciously superior gifts and
character, with Goethe's description of the truly great
soul, in which dwells a threefold reverence — for that
above himself, that on his own level, and that as yet
below his own condition.
To the foregoing picture of early Christian life it
may be objected, that it is unreal because one-sided,
only the better features being selected for notice.
This objection would be justified if a complete picture
were in question. But such is not the case. Space
and the special scope of the series of essays of which
this forms part, alike imposed the necessity of selection
in order to place in relief those features which seem
reaUy to explain the marvellous effect produced by
Christianity in the Roman Empire. Ere three cen-
turies were over, the religion which had at first seemed
the foe of social order was recognized by Constantine,
one of the ablest of the world's statesmen, as the one
possible basis of that Empire both morally and socially.
This means that the Church's best and most distinct-
ive features had been most operative, in spite of
enormous hindrances and opposition from the hitherto
dominant forces in society, in spite also of all the
^ Pagan as well as Christian ; compare Lucian's contemptuous,
" How the Christians do love one another."
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 185
moral shortcomings of those who owned the new
inspiration and its ideals. So viewed, the evidence of
moral failure among early Christians generally, amounts
to no more than what may serve to remind us to-day
of the terrible power of evil tradition and custom in
ancient society, and of the grim reality of the struggle
for a purer life as carried on by the new society in an
atmosphere charged with moral malaria.
Take, for instance, the Shepherd of Hermas and
the earliest extant homily, called the '' Second Epistle
of Clement,'* two writings reflecting the ravages wrought
within the Christian fold by the worldly spirit rife in
two great cities (Rome and another, probably Alexan-
dria) about 120-150 A.D. The homily shows especially
how the Greek theory as to the moral independence
of the spiritual and physical elements in man afforded
a subtle excuse for yielding to sins of the flesh, as
though the spirit suffered nothing thereby either here
or hereafter. But it shows also how strong was the
reaction against such conduct on the part of the local
Church as a whole ; so much so, that the homily itself
was treasured among its archives for occasional reading,
and ultimately attained semi-canonical rank. Hermas,
on his part, illustrates the subtle temptations of wealth,
and how surely the Master himself had diagnosed
its tendency to sap the vitality of spiritual simplicity
and earnestness, on which the realization of the Chris-
tian ideal depends, and to foster the spirit of com-
promise even with the ways of an alien society. But
he shows too, how the Christian consciousness was
reacting afresh against such dangers and resisting
Mr. Facing-both-ways, with his objection, '' The
Christian ideal may be glorious, but is it practicable ? "
Hermas points to the innerness of the Christian ideal ;
to its stress on the master-motive ; to the enthusiastic
i86 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
love of the good in singleness of heart, as the great
antidote to " evil desire '' in every form ; to faith
as the mother of the virtues ; and to the Holy Spirit
of God, striving in the soul against the desires of
the flesh, as the ground of a joyous assurance of
victory.! Here we have true evangelic notes, though
side by side with them there are traces of a revived
doctrine of supererogation, — token of a legalist mode
of thought, — in the notion that certain parts of the
Christian ideal, e.g. self-denial for the sake of the widow
and orphan, constitute a special " sacrifice '* to God not
incumbent on followers of Christ as such.^ Here, in-
deed, was a menace to the Christian life, the doctrine
of two standards of obedience among Christians, one
which for various reasons, more or less plausible, spread
quickly in certain circles during the third century,
to the lowering of Christian conduct, personal and
social. But on the whole, the Shepherd — which also
hovered for a century or two on the borders of the
Christian Canon — tends, like the kindred homily, not
to disprove the adequacy of the new moral dynamic
at work among men, but rather to heighten our sense
of the terrible reality and potency of the counter-
current against which Christians were making sure,
if often painful headway.
After all, what is of most significance both his-
torically and practically, is to gain some fair impres-
sion of the moral forces prevalent within early Chris-
tianity, their religious springs and social issues. This
is what it is hoped may have been rendered possible
by the above sketch. Nor does it seem that our
modern world affords a field of operation less suitable
! Mandates, xii. 1-2, Visions, iii. 8, 3 ff.. Similitudes ix. 13, 2 ;
24, 2 ; X. 3.
^ Contrast Christ's teaching, Ecce Homo (1867), p. 299.
AS REALIZED IN PRIMITIVE CHURCH 187
for the development of the latent possibilities of the
distinctive Christian motives and principles here set
forth, than was the ancient world. On the contrary
Christendom at any rate is in a state of inherited
semi-preparedness ^ such as presents an opportunity
of infinite possibilities, if only the essential Gospel of
Love, divine and human, and of love's sacrifice for
the realization of human good as it was to the eyes
of Christ, be proclaimed afresh in all its spiritual
simplicity but far-reaching practical application, accord-
ding to the special needs of the age. To see society
as through the eyes of Jesus Christ, — that the social
effects of Methodism in one century, and of the Sal-
vation Army in the next, show to be the secret of
adequate moral dynamic, through a baptism into His
spirit, as ** enthusiasm of humanity " for every human
being as before God.
The practical corollary of such reverence for all
human capacity as of God and unto God, is not only
redemptive pity but economic justice. This demands
in God's name both steady effort and sacrifice, in order
to secure the greatest possible equality of opportunity
for all. To rest short of this, or to plead '' inherent rights
of property," is to rob God, by denying His ownership
of all wealth and the means of its production, including
human faculty, and by refusing Him free use of what
is necessary to His own development of His real treasure,
1 Compare the general effect of Mr. Benjamin Kidd's writings
as to the sensitiveness of the modern social conscience. Further, if,
as he argues in his " Romanes Lecture," the condition of society's
becoming more organic be subordination of the individual to the
common good, and of the present to the future ; then Christianity,
especially early Christianity, has proved itself pre-eminently able
to effect this. For it can create the social will needful to a fully
social State.
i88 THE CHRISTIAN IDEAL
latent human capacity, for want of fitting conditions.
** No rights apart from correlative duties/* that is
more and more plainly dawning on men as the funda-
mental law of society, historically and ethically
regarded. But if this is to be embodied also in law,
without either bloodshed or loss to personal and indi-
vidual development, the spirit of willing self-sacrifice,
where one's superfluity means loss to others, must be
diffused and maintained as never before throughout
the body politic. For this we need the Christian con-
sciousness of God, as the Creator of all things, with-
out and within a man, and so as Sovereign Disposer
of all the issues of man's dependent productivity.
But as this consciousness came to Christendom through
the experience of God's grace and man's dependence
in the matter of the soul's salvation in Christ from sin
and all its disabling effects, so must it be spread and
sustained by the same experience. Thus doubly
shall men learn to say, " What have we that we have
not received ? " and with double reverence to use all
their powers and goods as in trust from God for His
end of ends. His Kingdom of holy Love among
men. Such at least is the moral of early Christian
life and institutions.
The Factors in the Expansion of the
Christian Church
By Rev. JAMES ORR, M.A., D.D., Professor of
Apologetics and Sytematic Theology in the United
Free Church College, Glasgow.
ARGUMENT.
The Problem of the Extension of Christianity — The Growing Complexity
and Difficulty.
I. Was the Early Progress of Christianity Surprising and Unprecedented ?
— ^The Parallel with other Religions not Real — Buddhism not a " Uni-
versal Religion " — ^The World-Conquering Principle of Christianity
— ^The [Remarkable Reception of the Gospel everywhere — Gentile
Christianity not exclusively identical with Paulinism — ^The Period
of Greatest Expansion — ^The Estimates of Modern Scholars — The
Pervasion of all Ranks and Classes of Society — The Evidence of a
Learned and Eloquent Christian Apology — ^The Secret Influence of
Christianity.
II. The Causes or Factors of the Expansion and Influence.
(i) Can Conditions in the Pagan World itself Explain this Success ?
— ^The Peculiar Preparation for the Reception of a Universal Religion
— ^The External Aspects of the Preparation — The Profounder and far
more Positive Lines of Preparation — The Strain to Universalism.
(2) These conditions do not explain the Progress of Christianity
— Baur's Error — The Failure of the Philosophies — The Moral
Corruption Prevalent — The Ethical Revival of the Age of the Anton-
ines produced no great Change — The Main Counts in the Indictment
stand.
(3) The Bearing of the Religious Conditions on the Acceptance
of the Gospel, the Wide Spread of Scepticism and the Vast Growth
of Superstition — The Help and the Hindrance to Christianity.
III. The Explanation to be sought within the Religion itself — ^The Deeper
Necessity of the Age Met — ^The Real core of the Religion not Spirit-
uality, nor Monotheism, nor Doctrine of Immortality. Conversions
due to Christian Life and Witness — The Real Spring in the Doctrine
of the Cross — ^The Christian Faith in the Risen and Exalted Lord —
The Absoluteness of Christ's Person and Work — The Gift of the Holy
Spirit — ^The Moral Changes wrought by the Spirit of Christianity :
a New Spirit of Active Charity, a New Ideal of Moral Purity, Puri-
, fication of the Family Life; the Elevation of Women, the Amelioration
of the condition of the Slave, the Consecration of Labour — The Firm
Organization of the Christian Church — Not a New Gospel needed
but a Gospel better understood.
V
The Factors in the Expansion of the
Christian Church
By Rev. JAMES, ORR, M.A., D.D., Professor of Apolo-
getics AND Systematic Theology in the United Free
Church College, Glasgow.
The extension of Christianity in the early centuries
presents problems which grow in fascination with
increase of knowledge and closer attention to the
facts. Till the school of Baur opened the way to a
broader investigation, the subject was mainly dis-
cussed as a branch of apologetics. The early apologists
not unnaturally dwelt on the surprising rapidity of
the spread of their religion as a proof of the divine
energy inherent in it.^ Every one has heard of
Gibbon's '* five secondary causes " of the rapid growth
of Christianity, and of the refutations of the sufficiency
of these by Bishop Watson and others.^ Since Baur*s
time the standpoint and method of treatment have
largely changed. Learning and research have enor-
^ The passages are given at length in Harnack*s Expansion
of Christianity, vol. ii. (E. T.), pp. 147-82.
2 Gibbon's Decline and Fall, chap. xv. : in reply Watson's
Apology for Christianity, etc. Gibbon veils his purpose by naming
as the primary causes, " The convincing evidence of the doctrine
itself," and " the ruling providence of its great Author." But, of
course, the so-called " secondary causes " are to him the real ones.
191
192 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
mously increased our knowledge of that ancient world
into which Christianity entered. The political, social,
moral, and religious conditions of the Graeco-Roman
world, the interacting forces at work in it, philosophic
tendencies, imperial poUcy and its effects, have been
minutely and carefully studied. New worlds have
been opened up by exploration of antiquity, and
immense extensions have taken place in our acquaint-
ance with Oriental religions. The Christian Origins
themselves have been made the subject of exhaustive
critical inquiry.
Under these various influences, the problem of
the causes of the early progress of Christianity has
become vastly more complex and difficult. The
change is seen in such works as Harnack's, where a
good part of the success of Christianity is attributed
to the power of Christ's religion to " absorb the ele-
ments of the ancient world into itself " ; ^ or as Otto
Pfleiderer's, where, in the fashion of Baur, Christianity
is '' studied as the normal outcome of the manifold
factors in the religious and ethical life of the time.'* 2
The study of the progress of Christianity, in other
words, from being apologetic, has become scientific.
If the inquiry is rightly conducted, we are satisfied
that apology does not suffer from the process. More
^ In an article in The Contemporary Review for August 1886,
p. 234, Haraack speaks of " The Catholic Church as that form of
Christianity in which every element of the ancient world has been
successively assimilated which Christianity could in any way take
up into itself without utterly losing itself in the world. . . . Chris-
tianity has throughout sucked the marrow of the ancient world,
and assimilated it." This is not put so strongly in his latest work,
but cf. i. pp. 291 if., 395 ; "» PP- 327 ^', 34^ ^-^ 349 ^■> 4^7 ^-^
437 ff., 441 if.
2 Introduction to his Primitive Christianity : its Writings and
Teachings in their Historical Connexions ; cf . his Christian Origins.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 193
important even than apologetic gain are the lessons
to be gleaned from the study for our own tasks in
advancing the Kingdom of God in the world.
A preliminary question relates to the fact itself to
be investigated. How far are we entitled to speak
of the early progress of Christianity as something
surprising and unprecedented, needing special causes
to explain it ? Does not the history of religions,
outside Christianity, afford examples of like vigour
and rapidity of diffusion ? There is Judaism, which,
notwithstanding its exclusive spirit and repellent
customs, had, through the zeal of its propaganda,
gained an astonishing hold upon the Gentile world.^
Harnack computes the numbers of the Jews in the
time of Augustus at about a seventh or eighth part
of the whole population of the Roman Empire.*
There are the Egyptian, Persian, and other foreign
cults, with their mysteries, which flooded the Empire
in the early centuries : so much so that Harnack
declares that in the third century the worship of
Mithra '' became the most powerful rival of Chris-
tianity." 3 There is the extraordinarily rapid exten-
sion of the Mohammedan Empire, which, in less than
a century after the Hegira, had spread through Arabia,
Syria and Egypt, far into the interior of Africa, and
in Europe embraced Spain and part of Gaul. Above
all, there is Buddhism, which, driven from India,
^ Of. Matt, xxiii. 15 ; Acts xv. 21.
2 Expansion, I. pp. 10 ff. He takes the population of the
Empire to be 54,000,000, or 60,000,000. This, however, is probably
an underestimate. V. Schultze computes 100,000,000 for the whole
empire ; Gibbon, 120,000,000.
^ History of Dogma, i. p. 118 (E. T.).
c.c. o
194 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
took possession of China, Japan, and neighbouring
countries, and continues to reckon its adherents by
hundreds of millions. With Christianity, Islam and
Buddhism are ranked by investigators as '' universal
religions " ; ^ and it may be claimed that the diffusion
of the latter faith is as wonderful as anything in the
history of the religion of the Cross.
Yet, more closely viewed, the parallel between the
spread of the religions named and that of Christianity
in the first flush of its conquering vigour is seen not
to be a real one. Judaism cannot fairly be put in
comparison with Christianity, since, apart from other
reasons (the majority of the Jews in the Empire were
no doubt Jews by birth and descent), Christianity
was itself an outgrowth from Judaism, accepted its
revelation and Scriptures, and proclaimed, so far,
the same truths, appealing to the Old Testament
prophecies, and declaring itself to be their fulfilment.
Besides, the religion of Moses never gained possession
of the Empire as Christianity did, or came within
imaginable distance of such a consummation. Mithra-
ism, again, was a transient phenomenon, appealing
to a special class and a passing spasm of feeling, and
could not, as Harnack shows in his latest interesting
discussion, possibly '* gain the day." ^ in its austere
^ Cf. Kuenen's Hibbert Lectures (1882) on National Religions
and Universal Religions, pp. 5 ff. Kuenen gives to Mohammedanism
" according to one of the latest estimates, 175,000,000, against
Christendom's 400,000,000, and Buddhism's 450,000,000."
2 Expansion, ii. pp. 447-51. Harnack, in his Appendix, after
studying CumonVs work on the Mysteries of Mithra, appears to have
considerably modified his earlier verdict. He shows that the entire
domain of Hellenism was closed to Mithraism, that in the West it
was chiefly a miUtary cult, and that it was not, after all, a real rival
to Christianity throughout the West. The resemblances to Chris-
tian sacraments are " superficial." Cf. Dill, Roman Society from
Nero to Marcus Aurelius, pp. 619 ff,
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 195
monotheism, Mohammedanism had a truth superior
to that of the idolatries around it, and was capable of
inspiring a fierce, fanatical zeal ; but, even with this
truth, despite Carlyle's dictum in his Heroes, the religion
of Mohammed made little headway till the prophet
took to the sword as a means of propagating his
faith. '' I affirm," says Dr. Marcus Dods truly, " that
the man must shut his eyes to the broadest, most
conspicuous facts of the history of Islam, who denies
that the sword has been the great means of propagating
this religion." ^ In no sense is Mohammedanism
fitted to be a universal religion. Palgrave somewhere
tells of a boast of Mohammed that he would make
his religion spread wherever the palm-tree grew.
This, in fact, is nearly the limit of its progress. Where
it touches higher civilization, it acts as a bhght and
curse. 2 Where it holds possession of lower races,
it presents an almost insuperable obstacle to the
entrance of higher conceptions. ^
Buddhism stands on an altogether different level.
It would be unjust to deny the elevation of much
of Buddha's ethical teaching, and still more the mild
and benevolent spirit which breathes through the
teaching from the personality of Buddha himself.
Yet it is only by an illusion that we can speak of
Buddhism as a *' universal " religion, or of Buddha's
original doctrine as a religion at all. It would be
^ Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, p. 99.
2 One of the best books on this aspect of Mohammedanism is
Freeman's Ottoman Power in Europe. Of. especially chap, iii., which
discusses the general character of the rehgion.
^ In his Mohammed and Mohammedanism, Mr. R. Bosworth
Smith defended the view, which has been taken by others, that
Mohammedanism has special adaptation to low and unprogressive
races. He subsequently considerably modified this view in an
article in The Nineteenth Century, Dec. 1887.
196 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
more proper to describe it as a pessimism, on a basis
of Brahmanistic metaphysics. In any case, its way
of salvation — its method of attaining Nirvana — is
possible only for the ilite — for the fewest of the few.
For the many there is the simple code of the five pre-
cepts, but without any effective moral motive behind
to secure fulfilment. In practice, therefore. Buddhism
has not proved a spring of progress. It does not dis-
place rival systems, but subsists peacefully alongside
of them, or amalgamates with them. Thus with
Confucianism and Taoism in China ; thus with Shinto-
ism in Japan. Its later fantastic developments are
an abandonment of Buddha's essential ideas.^ By
confession of its own votaries, its day is now done in
lands where it has held sway.^
A glance at the undoubted facts in regard to the
early spread of Christianity shows how different a
phenomenon we are here dealing with. From the
first Christianity aimed at being a world-conquering
principle — a world-conquering principle on the grandest
scale and in the highest sense. The task it set before
itself was stupendous. Its message, on the face of
it, was not one likely to commend it to either Jew or
Greek. " Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumbling-
block, and unto Gentiles foolishness.'* ^ It sprang
^ For the historical Buddha (Gautama) was substituted a long
series of imaginary Buddhas — past Buddhas, prospective Buddhas,
a primordial Buddha, of whom the rest were emanations, an
Amida Buddha, All-Saving and Compassionate, who takes believers
to his own Paradise, etc.
2 In 1896 one of the leading Buddhist Japanese journals wrote :
" Buddhism is holding its own to-day by the mere force of inertia
. . . within ten years Buddhism will fail in all its endeavours." In
1897 another Buddhist journal said : " Buddhism is dead. There is
no advantage in concealing the fact " ; and still another asserted :
" All that remains of Buddhism is its literature."
3 I Cor. i. 23.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 197
from a despised nation, and was preached at first by
men unlearned in the schools.^ It renounced tem-
poral weapons ; had nothing to rely on for success
but the power of the naked truth. Jesus is reported
to have said, " My Kingdom is not of this world ; if
My Kingdom were of this world, then would My ser-
vants fight." 2 Paul declares, *' The weapons of our
warfare are not of the flesh, but mighty before God
to the casting down of strongholds.'' ^ It had nothing
to offer to temporal ambition, or for the gratification
of the flesh ; on the contrary, its disciples had to take
on them the yoke of a strict and severe self-denial
in regard to the pagan life around them,* and had to
lay their account for reproach, persecution, and the
possible loss of all things, often of life itself.^ To
the outward view, the new religion stepped into the
arena for conflict, like a bared athlete, stripped of
every earthly advantage.
Yet no one who reads the annals of the early progress
of Christianity can doubt that, wherever this Gospel
of the Kingdom was preached, it met with a remarkable
reception. Its universal principle was still partially
veiled in the Jewish-Christian communities, which
clung, as a matter of observance, to the customs of
their fathers, even where the legitimacy of the Gentile
mission was acknowledged.® With Paul it freed
itself from all limitations, and entered on a period of
rapid and wide diffusion. Whereas Mithraism, when
it appeared later, found no access into the Hellenic
1 Acts iv. 13 ; I Cor. i. 26-28.
^ John xviii. 36. ^ 2 Cor. x. 4. ,
* Rom. xii. 12-14 ; Col. iii. 5-10 ; Titus ii. 12 ; i Peter iv. 3, etc.
^ Matt. V. ID, II ; I Thess. ii. 14, 15 ; iii. 3, 4 ; i Peter iv.
12-16, etc.
* Acts xxi. 20, 21 ; cf. Justin's Dial, with Trypho, chap. 47.
igS THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
world, and gained its chief successes in the semi-bar-
barous provinces on the boundaries of the Empire/
it is the pecuUarity of the PauHne mission that it
followed the great lines of Roman communication,
and aimed definitely at establishing itself in the
large cities — the centres of civilization. ^ Its goal
was *' Rome also." ^ The Book of Acts and the
Epistles show how striking were the results. Already
in A.D. 58, before his own visit to the city, Paul could
speak of the faith of the Church in Rome as *' pro-
claimed throughout the whole world " ; * and six
years later, a.d. 64, according to Tacitus, the Chris-
tians involved in Nero's persecution were ** an immense
multitude.'' ^ Churches were planted in all the great
cities of Asia Minor and Macedonia. Only very
remarkable successes could justify such hyperboles
of the Apostle as *' preached to all creation under
Heaven," '* in all the world bearing fruit and increas-
ing." «
It was a mistake of the older scholars to identify
Gentile Christianity exclusively with Paulinism. Paul
was only one worker in that vast Gentile field, and
even his own ground was afterwards wrought over
by other Apostles — e.g., by John in Asia Minor.'
Our materials for estimating the progress of Chris-
tianity in the post-apostolic age are scant, but they
are sufficient to allow of our perceiving the Gospel
1 Cf. Harnack, ii. pp. 448-9.
2 Cf. Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 147 (ist edition),etc.
3 Rom. i. 15. * Rom. i. 8.
^ MuUitudo ingens. Annals, xv. 44. Clement of Rome (a.d. 96),
speaking of the same persecution, uses a like expression, " great
multitude."
* Col. i. 6, 23.
' Cf. Ritschl, AUkatholische Kirche (2nd edition), pp, 272-3
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 199
pursuing its way, and casting its spell alike on far
East and far West, in centres of civilization and dim
regions of barbarism. The Epistles of Ignatius and
martyr-scenes like Poly carp's illuminate the darkness
for us ; a letter like Pliny's to Trajan (a. a.d. iio)
throws a flood of light on the condition of the pro-
vinces of Bithynia and Pontus ; inscriptions evidence
the power of the Gospel in other parts of Asia Minor ;
Justin speaks of the religion of Christ as spread among
all races of men.^ Then, in the last quarter of the
century, great Churches, as those of Carthage and
Alexandria, flash into visibility, and abundant testi-
monies meet us of the vigour with which Christianity
is pressing forward to its conquest of the Empire.
Deadly persecutions could not stop this march of the
Church to victory. Writings of clever satirists like
Lucian, brilliant literary assaults like The True Word
of Celsus, made, apparently, no impression upon it.
The glowing periods of Tertullian may be rhetorically
coloured, but it can hardly be doubted that they
represent at least the essential fact.^
From the middle of the third century, at any rate,
there is no question any longer that the Church was
progressing by leaps and bounds. ^ This is the period
in which Harnack puts its great expansion.* On the
back of the most relentless persecution it had yet
endured, it found itself suddenly raised by the success
of the arms of Constantine to a position of acknow-
ledged supremacy. When in this period we find the
usurper Maxentius seeking to ingratiate himself with
1 Dial, with Trypho, chap. 117.
2 Cf . my Neglected Factors in the Study of the Early Progress of
Christianity, pp. 62-4.
^ Cf. Eusebius, Ecc. Hist, viii, i
* Expansion, ii. p. 455.
200 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
the Romans by pretending that he was of the Christian
faith ; ^ or hear Maximin, most obstinate and cruel
of the persecutors, giving as the reason why the perse-
cution had been undertaken, that the emperors
*' had seen that almost all men were abandoning the
worship of the gods, and attaching themselves to the
party of the Christians,'' ^ we feel that Constantine's
act was but the recognition of a victory that had
already been achieved.
These facts have a justice done to them by modern
scholars which we do not find in the cold and critical
pages of Gibbon, who thinks that the Christians may
have constituted at most one-twentieth of the whole
population of the Empire in the time of Constantine
(on his computation about 6,000,000). ^ '' The facts
of the case," says Harnack, '' do justify the impression
of the Church-fathers in the fourth century, of men
like Arnobius and Eusebius and Augustine — the
impression that their faith had spread from generation
to generation with inconceivable rapidity." * He
discards the extreme opinion that the number of
Christians, even in the West, ever amounted to half
the population,^ but shows that there were extensive
regions in which they were nearly, or entirely, the
half, and large districts which at the opening of the
fourth century '* were practically Christian all over."
Other districts were more backward, but in many of
these the Christians formed '' a very material portion "
^ Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. viii. i.
^ Ibid. ix. 9 (in the edict stopping the persecution),
' He reckons the population of the empire at 120,000,000
(chap. ii.). It is incredible, however, as V. Schulze says, that the
Christians at this date should have been fewer than the Jews.
* Expansion, ii. p. 466.
6 Ibid. p. 453.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 201
of the population.* To our mind Harnack somewhat
under-estimates the degree of the progress of Chris-
tianity prior to the third century, when, in his view,
this '' astonishing expansion '* notably took place,
and, specially, seriously understates the extent of
the Christian element in Rome itself.^ But the
picture, even as he gives it, is sufficiently marvellous.
There are many other facts besides those already
noticed which require to be taken into account in
judging of this remarkable expansion of Christianity.
It is not merely in its numerical progress that the
penetrative power of the Gospel is seen — not merely,
even, in the fact that it was in the important centres
of population, chiefly, that its influence was concen-
trated— but in the degree in which it succeeded in
pervading all ranks and classes of society, in finding
its way into circles of learning and culture, and in
affecting the thought and practice of Paganism itself.
The old idea that Christianity found its converts
only among the lowest and most servile classes has
1 Expansion, ii.p. 457. Allowance must be made also for the ignor-
ance arising from the extremely fragmentary character of our inform-
ation. The history affords many illustrations of this. The Churches
in Alexandria, Carthage, Spain break on us quite suddenly. Inscrip-
tions show the existence of a numerous Christian Church in Cyrene,
of which we do not hear otherwise.
2 He ignores wholly, e.g.. the evidence of the Catacombs, which,
on the lowest computation of the numbers of the dead, show a far
larger Christian population in Rome than he allows. (Cf . my Neg-
lected Factors, pp. 35 ff.). He estimates the Christians in Rome in
A.D. 250 at about 30,000 (out of 800,000 or 900,000) at a time when
the Emperor Decius was declaring that he would rather have a rival
emperor in Rome than a bishop (Expansion, ii. pp. 386-7). Too
much is made of Origen's " very few " in a passage relating to
agreement in prayer {Expansion, ii. p. 454), as against the other
strong testimonies of Origen himself. Cf. also Harnack's own
statements on Maxentius, etc. (ii. p. 459), which speak to a very
extensive influence of Christianity in Rome.
202 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
to be given up. The Gospels and Epistles, furnishing
as they do numerous examples of persons of higher
social position attaching themselves to Christ and to
His Church, already discredit such a notion. Men
and women of rank and '* substance,'' ^ *' of honour-
able estate," ** not a few," ^ wealthy and hospitable,^
of official status,* possessors of land and houses,^
owning slaves,* etc., appear freely in their pages.
Early secular and ecclesiastical history, now corrobor-
ated in marvellous fashion by the Catacombs, shows
that the influence of Christianity on the higher ranks
of society, not least in Rome itself, had formerly been
far under-estimated. It is enough to mention as early
examples Pomponia Graecina, in the reign of Nero,
Clemens the Consul and his wife Domitilla, near
relatives of the Emperor Domitian — the crypt of the
Flavians showing, as Harnack says, that ** an entire
branch of the Flavian family embraced the Christian
faith " ' — Acilius Glabrio, in the same reign, one of
the wealthiest and most illustrious men in the State
(crypt also found), Urania, the daughter of Herod
Atticus, reputed '' the richest man in Greece, and
probably in the world," Caecilia, the noble virgin-
martyr, etc.s It is undoubted that, as the Church
grew in numbers, it also grew in wealth and social
^ Luke viii. 2.
2 Mark xv. 43 ; Acts xvii. 4, 12.
^ Luke xix. 2 ; Acts xvi. 14 ; i Cor. xvi. 15 ; 3 John i. ;
2 Tim. i. 16.
* Mark v. 22 ; Luke i. 3 ; vii. 5 ; Acts viii. 27 ; xiii. i, 12 ; xvii.
34 ; xviii. 8 ; Rom. xvi. 23.
^ Acts iv. 37 ; V. I, 2 ; xii. 12.
® Ep. to Philemon ; cf. Eph. vi. 9 ; Col. iv. i.
' Princeton Review, July 1878, pp. 266-69.
* See the evidence in detail on this subject in my Neglected
Factors, etc., Lect. ii. ; cf. Harnack's Expansion, ii. pp. 183-239,
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 203
influence, often, as the examples of Carthage, Alex-
andria, and Spain show, and as the persecutions,
when they came, revealed, to the great detriment of
its purity.^ Origen declares that in the multitude
of believers were found *' not only rich men, but
persons of rank and delicate and high-born 'ladies.'* 2
The Court, in the third century, was conspicuous for
the numbers of its Christians. ^
As evidence of the influence of Christianity in
literary and cultured circles, one need only point to
the rise in the second century of a learned and eloquent
Christian Apology, to the attempts at a combination
of Christianity with Oriental theosophy in Gnosticism,
to the wide range of knowledge and skill in writing
displayed by the Early Church Fathers, to the famous
Catechetical school in Alexandria, to the conflicts
with heresies and development of Christian doctrine.
Gnosticism itself is an instance of the powerful out-
going of force from Christianity on pagan ideas and
beliefs ; a similar influence may be traced in Neo-
platonism ; not improbably, also, in certain features
of the pagan ethical revival and propaganda of the
second century and of the heathen mysteries.*
Christianity, in short, had entered as a powerful
leaven or ferment into ancient pagan society, and
its secret influences, direct and indirect, were being
1 Neglected Factors, pp. 130, 141-3 ; Harnack, ii. pp. 441-4.
2 Against Celsus, iii. 9.
3 Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. vii. 10 ; viii. 6 ; Of. Harnack, ii, pp.
202-3.
* Cf. Neglected Factors, Lect. iii. We must not be misled by the
studied silence of pagan writers on Christianity {Ihid. pp. 166-67,
and authorities quoted there). Origen could affirm even in his day
that " almost the entire world is better acquainted with what Chris-
tians preach than with the favourite opinions of philosophers '*
(Against Celsus, i. 7).
204 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
felt on every hand. When one reflects on the solid
opposition this young and unprivileged religion had
to encounter in social odium, religious fanaticism,
imperial proscription, philosophic scorn, and keen
and unsparing literary attack, one may feel justified
in aflirming that never since has Christianity had such
obstacles to overcome — has not even in the thought
and culture, the science and philosophy, of our own
time such difficulties to face — as it had in those first
ages in which it achieved so notable a victory.
II
The way is now open for the consideration of the
main problem we have in hand — the causes or factors
which explain this remarkable expansion and influence
of Christianity in the early centuries. And, as a first
branch of the question— Can this success of Chris-
tianity be explained out of conditions in the pagan
world itself ? Or, How far do these conditions con-
tribute factors for the explanation ?
No impartial student of history will deny that
the outward and inward conditions of the Roman
Empire in the first century formed a peculiar prepara-
tion for the reception of a universal religion like
Christianity. It is the undying merit of Baur to
have elaborated this thesis with a philosophic breadth
and historical insight which have left their mark on
all subsequent study. ^ Christ's Gospel and Paul's
teaching are pregnant with the idea of a ripeness of
times. '' The time is fulfilled, and the Kingdom of
^ Cf. his pages on the Universalism of the Roman Empire as a
preparation for Christianity in the opening of his Church History of
the First Three Centuries,
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 205
God is at hand/' . . .1 ''When the fullness of the
time came, God sent forth His Son/' ^ Apologists
like Origen dwell on the fact, though chiefly with an
eye on the external preparation.^ It is obvious,
however, that this profound correlation between
Christianity and the condition and needs of the age
into which it entered, affording so manifest an evidence
of a divine, overruling providence, may readily be
turned to another purpose, and made the means of
explaining the rise and victorious progress of Chris-
tianity as the result of a natural conjunction of causes
in the time itself. This, in fact, is Baur's method.
'* It is the object of the historian,'' he tells us, '' to show
how the miracle of an absolute beginning may itself
be regarded as a link of the chain of victory, and to
resolve it, so far as the case admits, into its natural
elements" ; and he concludes, '' The universalism of
Christianity is essentially nothing but that universal
form of consciousness at which the development of
mankind had arrived at the time when Christianity
appeared." * We must look, therefore, at the kind
of forces at work in the pagan world, and see how far
this is an adequate explanation.
The external aspects of the preparation for Chris-
tianity as a universal religion — those which naturally
impressed the Apologists — though important and
striking, are too familiar to need much illustration.^
1 Mark i. 15 ; Cf. Reuss, Christ. Theol. of Apostolic Age, i. 139,
2 Gal. V. 4.
^ Against Celsus, ii. 30. Melito of Sardis draws attention to the
fact that Christianity (the universal religion) was born at the same
time as the Roman (universal) Empire (Euseb. Ecc. Hist. iv. 26).
* Church Hist. i. pp. 4, 5.
^ A good sketch is given in Uhlhom's Conflict of Christianity
pp. 2-21.
2o6 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
One thinks here of the union of all peoples and nations
in one vast political organization, under the rule of
a single head ; of the net-work of inter-communica-
tion spread throughout the empire ; of the wide
diffusion of Greek as a common language ; of the
peace that prevailed at the time of the introduction
of Christianity, and the like. These outward con-
ditions formed the necessary frame-work without
which the propagation of a religion like Christianity
would hardly have been possible. By breaking down
external barriers, and promoting intercourse among
the peoples ; by the extension of Roman law and
administration to the provinces ; still more by the
imperial idea which the system enshrined, and which
early threw out an image of itself in that strange
simulacrum of a universal religion — the worship of
the Emperor, — the new order fostered the spirit of
universalism which, from other causes, was already
in the air, and, so far, prepared an atmosphere for
the Gospel. These things were aids for such a religion
as Christianity when it came : furnished channels
along which its influence might flow ; but they had
no efficacy in themselves to create the religion that
was needed. In some respects, indeed, they raised
new obstacles, and created fresh perils. This is
strikingly illustrated in the case of the worship of
the Emperor, in which, for the first time, the ancient
world gained a centre of religious unity. In this
cult, which had amazing popularity, the Roman
Empire expressed its inmost spirit. Caesarism was
the apotheosis of brute force. It rested on the army.
It was the army that made the Emperor ; the army
that could unmake him. The worship of the Emperor
was thus no chance phenomenon, but had a true
logic in the heart of it. As the deification of brute
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 207
power, it was the strongest possible antithesis to the
worship of the Christ. It was the worship of the
Beast. 1
There were, however, it is not to be denied, far
profounder, and far more positive, Hnes of preparation
for Christianity in the ancient world than those first
indicated. The age was one, as Baur well shows,
straining out to universalism in every direction. 2
If pagan religions had decayed, it was partly, as he
says, because '' the spirit, whose religious feelings
the former once served to express, had expanded and
risen beyond them.'* ^ Nq small part of this result
was due to the development of Greek philosophy from
the time of Socrates. Platonism, with its lofty idealism,
was a powerful force in this direction — many, like
Justin and Augustine, found it a bridge to higher
conceptions, — but to apprehend the full measure of
the preparation, the whole development must be
taken into account. The effects are chiefly seen along
three lines, i. In a more inward view of morality.
With the overthrow of the old traditional morality,
there began with Socrates the search for a better
ground of morality in man's own nature. Socrates
bade men turn from the outward to the inward,
drove man in upon himself, bade him seek his law of
action in something within himself. Especially does
the later post-Aristotelian philosophy bear this pre-
dominantly ethical character. This is seen in the
nature of the questions discussed — the idea of the
^ Cf. Uhlhom's Conflict of Christianity, pp. 56-62 ; Boissier's
La Religion Romaine, i. pp. 122-208. This worship of the Emperor,
Uhlhorn says, was the point where Christianity and heathenism
came into sharpest conflict (p. 60).
2 Cf. Uhlhorn, pp. 21 £f.
^ Church History, i. p. 10.
2o8 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
good, the nature of the moral end, the relation of
virtue to happiness. Stoic and Epicurean were at
the opposite poles of ethical theory, but they were
agreed in this, that man's true good is within, is to
be sought for in the sphere of the soul. 2. In the
recognition of a nature in man which unites him with
his fellows, and lays the basis of a universal moral
fellowship — this specially through Stoicism. With
the breaking up of the old State-life in Greece, this
nobler conception survived ; and when at length
Rome had founded a universal empire. Stoicism was
ready to furnish the intellectual counterpart in its
doctrine of an equality of man, and of a universal
commonwealth or fraternity of mankind, based on
reason. 3. In the tendency to monotheism observable
in all the greater thinkers. Especially in the writings
of the Platonists and Stoics of the Roman age ^ — not
to go further back — whatever the explanation, we
cannot but acknowledge that the human mind was
groping, and not altogether unsuccessfully, towards
that conception of the unity, the all-embracing provi-
dence, and the unerring wisdom and goodness of God,
found already in Judaism, and soon to be made the
common possession of men by Christianity.
Here, then, it may be thought, are strains of teach-
ing and affinities of ideas in the ancient world, which
may in considerable part account, if not by their
synthesis for the origin of Christianity, at least for
the hold the new religion was enabled to take of
earnest minds, and so for its rapid progress. And it
is certainly to be conceded that the progress of Chris-
tianity could never have been what it was, either in
range or in quality, had this intellectual and spiritual
' E.g. Seneca, Plutarch, Epictetus, Marcus Aurelius.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 209
preparation not preceded. If, however, any one
supposes that Christianity was in any appreciable
degree indebted to the ideas now mentioned, either
for the substance of its teaching, or for the forces
which gave it driving power in the Roman world,
such an opinion must be pronounced mistaken. Here
is where Baur erred. '' When an old system decays,''
he thinks, ''it is because the new truth which is to
succeed it is already there : the old would not decay,
if the new had not arrived, be it but in germ, and had
been long labouring to undermine and eat away the
existing structure." ^ But it is not really so. The
old may decay, as Baur himself abundantly shows
had happened in this case — " Paganism had sunk
into the mindless religion of the vulgar. . . . Decay
and dissolution had completely seized on the old
religions." 2 But it in no wise follows that an age
which, in its better minds, is conscious of the hollow-
ness of the existing forms, and has even thoughts and
aspirations of a higher order, is able from its own
resources to bring forth the new religion, charged
with spiritual forces, which is needed to supply the
lack.
It would, indeed, be strange if the philosophies of
Greece, which failed to save Greece itself, or prevent
it from sinking in intellectual bankruptcy and moral
dissolution, had been able to save the Roman Empire,
when transplanted to that yet more corrupt soil.
Nor did they. The views promulgated were too
unclear, were too abstract and speculative, lacked
too much the fundamental element of certainty, to
enable them to reach the popular mind, or lay hold
^ Church History, i. p. 10.
^ Ibid. i. pp. 6, 9. In qualification see Uhlhorn, Conflict of
Christianity, pp. 40 ft.
c.c. p
210 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
on the popular conviction.^ The nobler minds did
not dream of disturbing the State religion, but lent
themselves to maintain it by rigorous enforcement
of the laws. The theism of a Seneca and an Epictetus
still rests on the Stoical nature-basis, and Plutarch's
Platonism does not hinder him from attempting a
reconciliation between his philosophical conceptions
and the popular theology by the help of a doctrine of
demons or undergods, and through reading into the
myths a deeper allegorical meaning. The haughty
self-sufficient temper of Stoicism was profoundly alien
from the dispositions inculcated by Christianity.
Stoics talked of a universal city — a brotherhood of
reason ; but no attempt was ever made by any one
to start a society in which such an ideal might find
realization. 2 The hopelessness of any regeneration
from forces within paganism will best be seen by
glancing at the actual condition of the Graeco-Roman
world into which Christianity came.
The picture of the frightful moral corruption of
the ancient heathen world has been so often drawn
that it is only needful to touch on leading points.^
Nor is it necessary to indulge in any rhetorical exaggera-
tion. Able writers have done their best to bring out
relieving features, and tone down the blackness of
the customary descriptions,* and we thankfully accept
what they have to tell us of the many better elements
still surviving in that ancient pagan society.^ Yet
^ Cf. Uhlhorn, pp. 28, 37, 51-2, etc.
2 Cf. Lightfoot, Philippians, pp. 306-8, 319, 322.
^ Cf. the descriptions in Uhlhorn, Schaff, Pressens^, Lecky,
Farrar, Fisher, etc., and see next note.
* Among the writers who take this more favourable view may be
mentioned Friedlander, Renan, Merivale, Boissier, Hatch, Dill, etc.
^ Cf. specially 'Dill's Roman Society from Nero to M. Aurelius,
pp. 1-3 ; 142-4. Dill's charming picture of " The Circle of the
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 211
when all deductions have been made, the general
impression of the character of the age, as pictured
by those who knew it best, is but little affected. There
were honourable exceptions, and perhaps more of
them than we have been accustomed to think ; but
it remains the fact that it was not the vulgar satirist,
but the nobler spirits themselves, who took the gloomiest
view of the corruption of their times, and saw least
hope of a remedy. Whether Seneca should be ranked
among these '' nobler spirits " may be doubted, for
his personal character was far from harmonizing with
his lofty teaching ; but his view, at least, of the vice
of his time was of the darkest. '' All things,'* he
writes, *' are full of iniquity and vice. More crimes
are committed than can be remedied by force. A
monstrous contest of wickedness is carried on. Daily
the lust of sin increases ; daily the sense of shame
diminishes. Casting away all regard for what is
good and honourable, pleasure runs riot without
restraint. Vice no longer hides itself, it stalks forth
before all eyes. So public has iniquity become, so
mightily does it flame up in all hearts, that innocence
is no longer rare : it has ceased to exist." ^ This
savours of rhetoric ; but writers like Livy, Tacitus,
Lucian, and historians and moralists generally, speak
hardly less strongly. '' Lucian and Marcus Aurelius,"
Younger Pliny " may serve as an example of the whole. On the
other hand, it is impossible, in face of overwhelming evidence, to
acquiesce in so sweeping a statement as that of Dr. Hatch : "It
is probable that there was in ancient Rome, as there is in modern
London, a preponderating mass of those who loved their children
and their homes, who were good neighbours and faithful friends,
who conscientiously discharged their civil duties, and were in all the
current senses ol the word ' moral ' men " (Hihhert Lectures, pp.
139-40).
* De Ird» ii. 9.
212 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
says Dill, " seem to be as hopeless about the moral
condition of humanity as Seneca and Petronius were
in the darkest days of Nero's tyranny." ^ '' Rome
has become great by her virtues till now/' writes
Livy, *' when we can neither bear our vices nor their
remedies." ^ '< Tacitus," we are told, '' is a moralist
with a sad clinging pessimism. He is doomed to be
the chronicler of an evil time, although he will save
from oblivion the traces and relics of ancient virtues.
He has Seneca's pessimistic theory of evolution." ^
Juvenal, again, while possessing *' a higher moral
intuition, a vision of a higher life," *' is an utter pessi-
mist about his time, more extreme even than Tacitus.
His age, if we believe him, has attained the climax
of corruption, and posterity will never improve upon
its finished depravity." ^
If it be thought that these depressing descriptions
are born of what Dill calls '' The Terror " in the period
from Nero to Domitian, and that a new era of hope
opened for the empire with the disappearance of that
tyranny, and the ethical revival of the age of the
Antonines, it must be owned that the evidence does
not warrant us in assuming that, beneath the surface,
the change was really great. The utmost that can
be said is, that '* it was easier to be virtuous in the
reign of M. Aurelius than in the reign of Nero, and it
was specially easier for a man of the highest social
grade." * The ethical revival was a reality, of which
many noble things might be said. There was teaching,
preaching, declaiming, on a scale that had never before
been heard of.^ It may be doubted, indeed, whether
this excessive insistence on ethics — often a matter
1 Roman Society, p. 6. ^ In Prcef.
3 Dill, p. 26. * Dill, p. 7.
.J Cf. my Neglected. Factors, etc., pp. 185, 190-206. See also
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 213
of rhetorical display — ^was itself a healthy sign. An
age, as Uhlhorn says, which is always feeling its pulse
in an ethical respect already confesses itself to be in
a sickly and declining state. ^ In any case, we have
the testimony of the philosophic Emperor himself
that, despite it all, the times were hopelessly evil.2
The ethical propaganda, in fact, had but the most
transient results. The tide of corruption was there,
checked, dammed up for the moment, but ready to
burst forth the instant the barriers were removed. ^
This was seen when Marcus died, and Commodus
succeeded. It was as if the powers of the pit were
let loose again. So far from the much-praised age
of the Antonines being the beginning of a new day,
it was really the last glow of the sunset before the
light finally disappeared. Renan, as a sympathetic
interpreter of the age, may be cited. '' At bottom,''
he says, " the progress wrought by the reigns of
Antoninus and Marcus Aurelius had only been super-
ficial. Everything was bordered by a varnish of
hypocrisy, by exterior appearances which were taken
as caused by the unison of the two wise Emperors. . . .
What reigned throughout all was a deep gloom." *
With due allowance, therefore, for whatever may
be said in alleviation of the picture of the gross moral
corruption of the Roman world in the first centuries,
it must be contended that the main counts in the
indictment of that age stand unshaken, i. AU writers
note the unsound social conditions of the age — ^the
Merivale 's i^owaws Under the Empire, chaps. Ix., Lxvi. ; Dill's Roman
Society, Bk. ii. ; Renan, Marc. Aurele., chap, iii., Hatch, etc.
1 p. 92. 2 cf. Dill, pp. 6, 303, 335.
^ See the vivid picture in the commencem^it of Froude's
*' Origen and Celsus," in Short Studies, vol. iv.
* Marc. Aurele, chap, xxvi.
214 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
boundless luxury and extravagance at one end of the
social scale, ^ and deep poverty and degradation at the
other. The slavery on which the social structure
was built meant the destruction of free labour and the
cutting out of a middle class sustained by honest
industry, with unspeakable degradation and vice to
the immense masses of human beings in the servile
condition.2 As a natural result, labour itself was
held in contempt, and the idle, frivolous crowds had
to be supported in other ways— by doles from the
State, as hangers-on upon the rich, etc. 2. Equally un-
mistakable is the testimony to the ruin of domestic life,
and the shameless licentiousness and profligacy among
both men and women, though doubtless noble excep-
tions can be cited. ^ Marriage had fallen largely into
desuetude ; * divorces were common ; women of the
highest rank condescended to acts of the most shameful
lewdness. Juvenal's Sixth Satire could not have been
written unless it had rested on a basis of fact in the
general condition of society. 3. Another point is
the spirit of cruelty and delight in brutal and sanguinary
amusements : on this we need not dwell.^ Idleness,
frivolity, sycophancy, licentiousness, luxury, cruelty,
such practices as exposure of children, infanticide,
driving out sick or aged slaves to die, etc.,® — these are
not casual blots, but deep-seated plagues, affecting
the entire social body.
1 The incredible extravagance of the age maybe seen illustrated
in Dill, pp. 20, 32, etc., or in Uhlhorn, pp. 104 ff.
2 On slavery, cf. Uhlhorn, pp. 131 ff. ; for a slightly milder
view, Lecky, European Morals, i. pp. 318-26.
3 Cf. Lecky, ii. pp. 320-29.
* "A great and general indisposition towards marriage, which
Augustus attempted in vain to arrest by his laws against cehbacy,'*
etc. (Lecky, ii, p. 322). ^ Cf. specially Lecky, i. pp. 287-305.
* Cf. Lecky, ii. pp. 26-30. Seneca defended the kiUing of
weak and deformed infants {De Ird, 1. 15).
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 215
It is very evident that from a society so radically
corrupt forces were not likely to proceed that would
help Christianity much in its endeavours to establish
a Kingdom of God among men. It was a society
that needed salvation ; not one that could bring it.
There is, however, yet another aspect under which
this society must be regarded, which does bear directly
on the readiness shown by many to accept the Gospel,
viz., the condition in which the Roman world found
itself religiously, as the result of the action of the
causes — intellectual and moral — already described.
The two facts which stand out most clearly in
this connexion are — i. The wide spread of scepticism,
or total unbelief, among the cultured or educated
classes ; and 2. The vast growth of superstition,
and a great influx of foreign cults, in the empire
generally. The scepticism was but a continuation
of the scepticism of Greece, and strengthened itself
by the aid of Greek philosophy. It took the form,
first, of an absolute disbelief in the popular religion,
even while insisting that the State-religion was to
be maintained as a measure of political expediency ;
then passed over, with many, to doubt or open denial
of the existence of any gods, and, very generally, to
doubt or denial of a future life.^ Even where there
was not positive unbelief, a dread uncertainty hung
over everything. The extraordinary development of
superstition, not simply among the common people,
but in all classes, 2 and the great influx of foreign
1 On the prevalence of Scepticism, cf. Lecky, i. pp. 170-74 ;
Uhlhorn, pp. 46, ff . Pliny declares it to be a sure result of science
that there are no gods : '* Nature alone is god " (Nat. Hist. ii. 7).
On doubt or denial of immortality, cf . Dill, pp. 485 ff.
* See especially Dill, pp. 168, 443 ff. PMny, Suetonius, Tacitus,
Marcus Aurelius, etc., were all deeply superstitious.
2i6 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
religions are not a contradiction of the former fact,
but a confirmation of it. It was because the heart
was so empty of real faith that it betook itself so
readily to monstrous superstitions ; because the old
gods failed to satisfy that there was such a craving
for new ones. The foreign cults most in favour were
Oriental ones — e.g., the worship of Isis and Serapis,
later of Mithra. This is a significant fact, as showing
that the religious consciousness had entered on a
deeper phase ; was now more earnest in its desire for
spiritual rest and peace. For, whatever the demerits
of the Oriental religions, there was at least expressed
in them a deeper feeling of the discord, the pain, the
mystery of existence, and in the mysteries connected
with some of them were ideas and rites which had
reference to redemption.^
It is quite true that the characteristics of the age
just described, in certain respects, made the task of
Christianity not easier, but harder. The fondness
for new gods and goddesses, new rituals and worships
—especially for such as gratified the craving for
excitement, and had great elaboration, pomp, and
splendour — was one to which Christianity, as a simple,
spiritual, unadorned religion, without images, temples,
ceremonies, or outward attractions of any kind, could
offer no satisfaction. The fanatical superstition of
the age, again, so far from helping the progress of
Christianity, was everywhere its greatest hindrance. «
In the medley of religions which filled the empire,
there was no one which set up for itself any exclusive
1 On the ideas, rites, influence of the cults of Isis and Mithra,
see especially Dill, pp. 560 ff., 585 ff. On the relation with Chris-
tianity cf. my Neglected Factors, pp. 209-15. The moral influence
of the Mysteries must not be exaggerated. Many facts show that it
was really not great.
* Cf. the scene at Ephesus, Acts xix. 24 ff.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 217
claim. Devotion to one cult did not mean rejection
of the rest. But Christianity had none of this toler-
ance. It was with it war to the death against all
forms of pagan idolatry. If the God whom the
Christians worshipped was the true God, there was
no room for any other. Hence the popular rage which
the new religion everywhere aroused against itself.
It was to the populace a gloomy, unsocial superstition,
which they must stamp out in self-defence. With
its pure, holy spirit, it must have been an abomination
to the crowds which flocked to the amphitheatres,
or to the shrines of Bacchus or Venus.
What can be said on the other side is, that, while
opposed to the great mass of the surface sentiment
of the age, Christianity met the deeper wants men
were feeling, and so related itself to all the better
tendencies already traced. In the very depths of
that grovelling superstition, of that prostration of
the soul at foreign shrines, evidence is seen, as just
remarked, of that weariness and disgust of life, that
longing for salvation, that desire for knowledge,
certainty, communion with the Unseen, which formed
so important a part of the preparation for the Gospel.
One may doubt whether this was not often the most
influential factor of all in securing for Christianity
the favourable hearing it obtained. The profoundest
preparation of the pagan world for the new religion,
surely, was its sense of utter need.
Ill
A suitability in the general condition of the Roman
world for the reception of a universal moral and
spiritual religion like Christianity must thus be recog-
2i8 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
nized ; but it must now likewise be apparent that
the real key to the explanation of the remarkable
expansion of Christianity in the early centuries is to
be sought for within the religion itself, and not in
any external or adventitious circumstances. Judaism,
by its wide dispersion, its synagogues, its circulation
of the Jewish Scriptures in the Greek tongue, its
fringe of proselytes and following of more loosely-
attracted converts — the *' devout persons " of the
New Testament ^ — afforded, especially at the begin-
ning, a helpful bridge for the passage of the Gospel
to the Gentiles. But the power by which the rehgion
of the crucified gained its victories was still wholly its
own, though it claimed that all the hopes and promises
of the older Covenant were fulfilled in it.
We are brought here to the kernel of the matter.
Christianity won the day because, as already hinted,
it met the deepest necessity of the age into which it
had come. It met the monotheistic tendency of the
age ; it met the universalistic tendency of the age ;
it met the deeper and stronger ethical tendency repre-
sented by Stoicism. Above all, it met the deep craving
of the age for spiritual peace and rest, its need of
certainty, its longing for redemption, and for direct
communion with God. To these wants it brought a
satisfaction which no religion of the time could pretend
to offer. It did not meet them by teaching merely
— as if Christ were only a new Socrates — but it met
them by the positive exhibition of the redeeming love
of God in Christ, by the setting forth of the personal
Jesus in His life, death and resurrection, by the pro-
clamation of forgiveness of sins through Him, by the
bestowal of the power of the Holy Spirit. It was
not a doctrinal religion merely, but a rehgion of
^ Acts X. 2, 22 ; xiii. i6, 26, etc.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 219
dynamic — of power. It did not only tell men what
to do, but gave them power to do it. Its ideals were
the highest, and in many ways new — a *' trans valua-
tion of all values," to borrow a phrase of Nietzsche's 1
— but it brought them within men's reach as realizable.
Hence it prevailed. In a striking passage in his
Representative Government, John Stuart Mill says :
'' On the day when the proto-martyr was stoned to
death at Jerusalem, while he who was to be the Apostle
of the Gentiles stood by ' consenting unto his death,'
would any one have supposed that the party of the
stoned man were there and then the strongest power
in society ? And has not the event proved that they
were so ? Because theirs was the most powerful of
existing beliefs." ^ That is in brief the explanation
of the success of Christianity. It was the strongest
thing in the world at that time, and it was sure to
conquer. The sword could not stop it.
In investigating this connexion of the success of
the Gospel in the heathen world with its essential
nature, the important thing is to be certain that we
get to the real core of the religion, and do not stop
short, in our search for causes, at any inferior point.
Baur, e.g., finds the essence of Christianity, and the
secret of its success, in the general idea of its *' spirit-
uality," 3 and, no doubt, so far rightly. But while
the pure spirituality of the Gospel — its freedom '* from
everything merely external, sensuous, or material "
^ Umwertung alter Werte.
2 " But what is Christianity itself ? . . . We answer in a word,
its spirituaHty. . . . When we inquire what constitutes the abso-
lute character of Christianity, we must point to its spirituality "
(Church Hist., i. p. 9).
3 Cf. Justin's account of his fascination by Platonism in Dial,
with Trypho, chap. ii.
220 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
— may have commended it to minds trained to spiritual
contemplation/ it is obvious that to great multitudes
in paganism, both educated and uneducated, this
very spirituality must have presented itself as a draw-
back and difficulty. It was, indeed, the ground of
the charge of " atheism '' against the Christians that
their religion was without temples, and images, and
the other paraphernalia of worship.^ It is tempting,
again, to think of Christianity as commending itself
by its monotheism ; and here, unquestionably, as
already seen, is a side of relation with the highest
strain of thought in later paganism. There is little
doubt, e.g., that it was chiefly as a system of mono-
theism that Christianity appealed to a secular mind
like Constantine's. It is nevertheless true, as the
pagan speculations themselves show, that abstract
monotheism, divorced from other elements, has little
power to found or propagate a religion. Christianity
was a great deal more than an abstract monotheism ;
had it been only this, it would not have achieved the
success it did. It is to be remembered also how
Christianity differed from pagan monotheism in its
inability to tolerate or reconcile itself with existing
idolatries. Between it and existing cults there could
be, as remarked above, no compromise. ^ It is inade-
quate, again, to assign as a cause of the success of
Christianity its preaching of immortality.* Paganism,
indeed, sorely needed the comfort of an assured hope
of a future life ; but an abstract doctrine of immortality
^ On Represent. Govt, 9. 6.
2 Cf. Origen, Against Celsus, vii. 62 ff.
^ Gibbon gives as one of his Causes the " intolerant zeal " of the
eariy Christians (chap. xv.). But intolerant zeal does not seem a
likely way of gaining favour,
* This is another of Gibbon's secondary causes.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 221
would have been as ineffective for the ends of propa-
gation as an abstract monotheism ; and the kind of
immortality Christianity preached had little in common
with the speculations of the schools. It was an
immortality bound up with Christ, and involved a
resurrection — a doctrine at which the speculative
mind stumbled. ^
We seem on surer ground when the accent is laid
on the changed characters and holy lives of the Chris-
tians, on martyr devotion, and on the new spirit of
love, manifesting itself in deeds of active philanthropy,
which Christianity brought into the world. For
here undeniably we are in contact with the purest
spirit of the new reHgion — that by which it was most
directly and impressively brought under the notice
of the heathen. Justin tells us that his conversion
was partly due to witnessing the constancy of the
martyrs, 2 and there were numerous cases of the same
kind.3 On the transforming effects of Christianity,
which stamped it from the first as a social regenerative
force of the mightiest order, we shall have more to
say immediately. Meanwhile it is to be observed
that even here we are in contact with the stream
1 Cf. Acts xvii. 32 ; i Cor. xv. 12 ; 2 Tim. ii. 18. It is to be
admitted that in certain, perhaps most, of the Mysteries, there were
points of contact with the doctrine of the Resurrection, only, how-
ever, as nature-myths.
2 2 Apol. 12.
^ The Martyr spirit of the age is well exemphfied in Ignatius
(Ep. to Eph. I ; Romans, v., vi. : " Let fire and the cross, let the
crowds of wild beasts . . . come upon me : only let me attain to
Jesus Christ " ; and in Polycarp (Eus. Ecc. Hist., iv. 15). Cf. Euse-
bius, viii., ix., on the Martyrs under Diocletian : "At these scenes
we have been present ourselves, when we also observed the divine
power of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ Himself present, and
effectually displayed in them," etc.
222 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
rather than with the fountain from which it flows ;
with the outcome of the divine Hfe rather than with
its source. Still less can we lay the stress on miracles,
or on '' miraculous claims," in explanation of the
success of Christianity.^ It is now agreed on all hands
that these had little to do with the general propagation
of the Gospel. So far as miracles entered into the
Christian argument, it was usually not the act of
power, so much as the character of the work, to which
appeal was made.^ On the pagan side miracles were
less seldom doubted than ascribed to sorcery .^
Shall we then, mounting higher, seek the ultimate
secret of the power of the Gospel in its doctrine of
redemption — in the Cross ? Here we might seem
to have with us the Master Himself, when He declares :
" I, if I be Hfted up from the earth, will draw all men
unto Myself " ; * and His great Apostle, when he
extols the Gospel of the Cross as *' the power of God.*'^
But attention to these very words shows us that
something lies yet behind. The emphasis in Christ's
saying is on the personal pronoun — '' /, if I be lifted
up.'' In Paul's statement, while '' Christ Crucified "
is declared to be '' unto Jews a stumbling-block, and
unto Gentiles foolishness," it is, after all, not specifically
of '' Christ Crucified," but of '' Christ " Himself, that
the assertion is made : '' Unto them that are called,
both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and
the wisdom of God." Here we come to the ultimate
fact — Christ's own Personality ; a Personality to be
interpreted, indeed, through all that He was and
1 Yet another of Gibbon's Causes.
^ Cf. Origen, Against Celsus, i. 67, 68, etc.
3 Ibid. i. 6, 68 ; Justin, i Apol. 30.
* John xii. 32.
' Rom. i. 16 ; i Cor. i. 23, 24.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 223
did ; yet that which stands behind, and gives
significance and potency to everything else in His
religion — stands behind Cross, Gospel, Church, Scrip-
tures, doctrines, changed characters, social trans-
formations, and makes them what they are — from
which, supremely, stream out the forces that have
made the world new ! The Apostle John gave the
secret when he wrote : '* This is the victory that hath
overcome the world, even our faith. Who is he that
overcometh the world, but he that believeth that
Jesus is the Son of God.'* ^
That here we reach the real spring of the marvellous
energy displayed by the Gospel in its early course
can readily be verified. One might proceed deduct-
ively in showing how this faith in Jesus as the Son
of God is necessarily a principle of moral victory in
the hearts that possess it, and in society. We prefer,
in closing, to ask historically how this faith in Jesus
did work in the ancient world in gaining its moral
victories.
The early Christians were well acquainted with
the historical facts of Christ's life from careful oral
instruction, 2 and, later, from the written Gospels. ^
The image of the historical Jesus must, therefore,
ever have been with them as an example and inspira-
tion to goodness. But Jesus was never to these early
believers simply a wise and gracious Teacher and
Example. His Person and character had for them
from the beginning an absolute worth. He was
their risen and exalted Lord. They conceived of Him,
1 I John V. 4, 5. 2 Q L^j^g j ^
^ The Gospels were regularly read in the Christian Assemblies in
Justin's time (i Apol, 66, 67). In the New Testament an acquaint-
ance with the facts of Christ's life is presupposed in the exhortations
to imitations of Christ's patience, forbearance, gentleness, etc.
224 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
with Paul and John, as pre-existing in *' the form of
God," 1 and as humbling Himself to become man,
and suffer death, for man's salvation. Without
theologizing on the subject, they raised Him in their
thoughts and worship to equality with the Father.
The effects of this transcendent conception of Christ's
Person on the mission to the heathen world can
readily be seen. Its first result was to invest Christ's
Person itself with an absoluteness which could belong
to no other. This sense of absoluteness the primitive
Christian consciousness expressed by the simple word
'' Lord." Later thought found an expression for it
in the term " Logos." Ritschl shows how the con-
ception of the Logos in the Apologists and their suc-
cessors, designating as the word did '* the universal
and absolute character of Christianity," secured the
recognition of Christianity as a universal religion. 2
A second and consequent effect was to clothe Christ
with an absolute authority, and to give to everything
in His revelation a character of immovable certainty.
One is constantly struck, in the early Christian writers,
with this note of confident assurance of the truth of
their message, as compared with the tentative, uncer-
tain, vacillating opinions of the pagan teachers.
Pagan philosophy was groping in confessed darkness
on the highest subjects : here was truth, drawn not
from their own wisdom, but from the '' Word " Him-
self, who had been manifested, and had given them
an understanding, that they might know Him that
was true. 3
This absoluteness conceived of as belonging to
Christ's Person, however, bore not only on the know-
1 Phil. ii. 6 ff.
2 AUkath. Kirche, pp. 307, 317.
' I John ii. 27 ; v. 9-13, 20.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 225
edge He came to impart on God and divine things,
but equally on His work as Saviour. Christianity
was above all things else a message of salvation —
of reconciliation, of peace with God, of a new life in
the Spirit. This, supremely, was the aspect of it
which met the need of a world ill at ease with itself,
and longing for a way of escape from its woes. The
weary seeker for a cleansing from his sins, and hope
of immortality, found in Christ's Gospel a satisfaction
such as all the mystical rites of paganism could not
yield him. Great power lay also in the historical
character of this redemption. Dill, speaking of
Mithraism, says of the sacrifice of the bull, '' which
seemed to occupy the same space in Mithraic devotion
as the Sacrifice on Calvary:'' '* But one great weak-
ness of Mithraism lay precisely here — that, in place
of the narrative of a Divine life, instinct with human
sympathy, it had only to offer the cold symbolism
of a cosmic legend." ^ Here, again, was a lever of
incalculable power with which to act on the heathen
world.
Lastly, with this absoluteness of Christ's Person
was connected, in the belief of the Early Church, the
gift of the Holy Spirit — Illuminator, Renewer, Sancti-
fier. In Montanism the Spirit was connected with
gifts and prophesyings. But already in Paul's and
in the other New Testament Epistles, the idea of the
Spirit as the author of miraculous '* gifts " recedes
behind that of His operation in regeneration and the
quiet renewal and development of Christian char-
acter ; and the production of the fruits of discipleship
in holy living.^ Above all is His working seen in the
developing and perfecting of the supreme grace of
love.^
1 Roman Society, etc., pp. 622-3. ^ Gal. v. 16-26. ^ i Cor. xiii.
C.C. Q
226 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
These great dynamic forces in the heart of Chris-
tianity once recognized, the fullest place can be given
to the wealth of new and revolutionary ideas
associated with them, to which they gave vitalizing
power, and to the forces of social transformation
and amelioration which it brought into the pagan
world in such fullness. We do not think here of a
bare monotheism, or abstract doctrine of immortality,
but of great pregnant truths like the Fatherhood of
God and brotherhood of man, God's loving providence,
the infinite value and redeemableness of every human
soul, accountability and judgment, the spiritual
equality of master and slave, rich and poor, in God's
Kingdom, the place of woman by man's side as his
spiritual helpmeet and equal. Who shall estimate
the force of the lofty ethical ideals of Christ when
seen actually realized in human lives, or the continuous
elevating influence of that image of perfect holiness
flashed on the world in Christ Himself ? ^
We are not left to conjecture as to the effects of
these ideas and forces ; they are *' writ large " in
the whole history of the moral changes wrought by
the spirit of Christianity in that decaying and hope-
lessly corrupt civilization already described, into
the midst of which it came. The Apologists for the
Gospel have no stronger arguments to present on its
behalf than the moral miracles wrought, and visible
to all ; in the changed character of its converts, their
pure and upright lives, their well-ordered homes, the
abounding charity and beneficence with which the
new religion inspired them.^ The active and organized
charity of the Church — ^to which paganism could show
^ Cf. Lecky, European Morals, i. p. 412.
2 Cf. Justin, I Apol 12, 15, 16, 30, etc. ; Tert. Apol 2, To the
Nations, 4 ; Origen, Against Celsus, iii, 68, etc.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 227
no parallel — and the wealth of beneficent institutions
which that charity created, were a constant object-
lesson to the heathen of the new spirit of holiness and
love which had entered the world through Christ .^
In an age like our own, when Christianity as a
power of social regeneration is again upon its trial,
it is fitting that these inestimable services of Christ's
religion to the ancient world should be gratefully
recalled. The chief may be briefly summed up thus : —
1. A new spirit of active charity.
2. A new ideal of moral purity.
3. Purification of the family.
4. The elevation of woman.
5. The amelioration of the condition of the slave.
6. The consecration of labour.
Only a few points in this large field, which has
been ably dealt with in many special works,^ can be
singled out for illustration.
Jesus well speaks of the commandment of love
He gave to His disciples as ** a new commandment."
It was new to paganism, into the dark, unloving
depths of which Christianity, at the beginning of our
era, shot the ray of a new hope ^. As the Christian
^ Lecky, European Morals, ii. pp. 83, 84 if. ; 90, 107, etc.
This author says : ** Christianity for the first time made charity a
rudimentary virtue. ... It has covered the globe with institu-
tions of mercy, absolutely unknown in the whole pagan world "
(pp. 84, 91).
^ The following may be named in English. C. Loring Brace,
Gesta Christi ; Uhlhorn, Christian Charity in the Christian Church
(E. T.) ; C. Schmidt, The Social Results of Early Christianity (E. T.) ;
Lecky, Hist, of European Morals.
^ The exceptions and partial qualifications above alluded to
(p. 210), on the condition of paganism, are not forgotten. In
view of them all, Uhlhorn does not hesitate to entitle the
opening chapter in his work on Christian Charity! "A World
without Love."
228 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
Church spread, a kindUng breath of love began to
make itself felt through all the relations of society.
The Churches themselves were full of this love, and,
on the whole, nobly maintained their function of
setting to the world an example of active kindness.
Plentiful oblations were brought to the love-feast.
The alms-chest was liberally replenished. The poor,
the widows, the orphans, were generously provided
for. Hospitality was ungrudgingly exercised. The
sick, the prisoners, those in exile, such as were con-
demned to die, were objects of constant care. Some
Christians in Numidia having fallen into the hands
of their enemies as prisoners of war, Cyprian's con-
gregation in Carthage raised a sum equal to about
£850 towards their ransom .^ No wonder the heathen
exclaimed : " See how these Christians love one
another!"
This charity of the Church, however, was far
from confined to its own members. Towards the
heathen population it took the form of an omnipresent
and active philanthropy.^ The poor were assisted,
foundlings rescued, lepers tended, the sick ministered
to. When plagues broke out in Carthage and Alex-
andria, the heathen fled, but the Christians remained,
organized corps of help, and rendered unselfish ser-
vice .^ Paganism was destitute of any trace of organized
charity. But the spirit of Christian love soon began
to crystallize itself into institutions. On all sides,
after the Empire had become Christian, were to
be seen rising houses for strangers, houses for the
sick, houses for widows, orphanages, houses for the
1 Cyprian, Ep. lix.
2 " Our compassion spends more in the streets," says Tertullian,
" than yours does in the temples " (Apol. 42).
3 Cf. Uhlhom, pp. 187-9.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 229
rearing of children, whether bereaved of friends or
foundlings, houses for the aged, asylums for the blind,
dumb, insane,^ etc. A striking testimony was borne
by the Emperor Julian when, urging the pagans to
like works of love, he said : ''It is disgraceful, when
the godless Galileans support our poor as well as
their own, that our people should be without our
help/* 2 The same humane spirit which dictated
these offices of charity fought unceasingly against
all that savoured of cruelty in the life of the time,
and especially against the gladiatorial and other
sanguinary sports of the arena. It was through the
action of a brave monk Telemachus, who, in a.d. 404,
leaped into the ring and sacrificed himself, that these
abhorrent spectacles were finally abolished.
Little need be said of the services to moral purity.
The standard set up by Christianity was higher than
sages had ever dreamt of ; yet in Christ men found
a power enabling them to attain to it. The obliga-
tions to holy Hving were of the strictest ; yet the worst
slaves of lust and passion were seen asuming them.
To the astonishment of their heathen neighbours, they
laid aside their old vices, and became humble, patient,
truthful, sober, just. In the changed position of
woman as wife, mother, daughter, in the Christian
household, we see an evidence of the new ideas about
woman introduced and diffused through ancient society
by the Gospel. This, with its result in the creation
of the Christian home, was unquestionably one of the
most beneficent, and at the same time most deep-
reaching, of the reforms wrought by Christianity. It
placed marriage on its original divine foundation. It
forbade divorce save for the gravest cause. It united
* Cf . Uhlhom, p. 330 ; Brace, p. 62 (2nd Edit,).
* Cf. Uhlhom, p. 326 ; Schmidt, p. 328.
230 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
the members of the household in bonds of love, and
bade them labour, not only for each other's temporal,
but for each other's spiritual welfare. Christian
homes were as bright lights in a dense surrounding
darkness ; oases in a moral desert ; centres of pure
influence amidst the corruptions of a paganism which,
with its neglect of woman, its contempt for infant
life, and its universal dissoluteness, left small place for
domesticity. Some of the most beautiful characters
in the early history of the Church are Christian women
(Nonna, Monica, Anthusa) ; from the bosom of
Christian homes came some of the most distinguished
teachers of the Church — Origen, Gregory, Chrysostom,
Augustine, Theodoret, etc. Moreover, in purifying
the home, Christianity took the first step to a regenera-
tion of general society ; for, without pure morals in
the home, how shall we look for pure morals in the
State ?
There is no institution with which the teachings
of Christianity are more fundamentally at variance
than that of slavery. The Christian Church, therefore,
from the first took up the cause of the slave. It did
not begin by preaching a general crusade against
slavery, which, in the then existing condition of
society, would only have provoked a revolution, and
probably have done more harm than good. But it
internally transformed the condition of the slave, and,
by urging its own truths and principles, slowly but
surely undermined the system. The impulse to
emancipation was soon felt. Hermes, a Prefect of
Rome, under Trajan, gave his 1,250 slaves their
liberty, and means to gain a livelihood, on the day
of their baptism ; ^ Chromatins, another Prefect of
Rome, in the reign of Diocletian, freed 1,400 slaves,
^ Cf. Schmidt, p. 226.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 231
who had become Christians, saying : '' Those who
have become the children of God ought to be no
longer the slaves of men." There are many similar
examples.!
A word only can be spared for the remaining point
to which attention was directed — the restoration by
Christianity of the idea of the dignity of labour. This
was another idea by the introduction of which Chris-
tianity counterworked slavery. Early Christianity
did not preach the rights of labour ; it preached the
duty of labour. Its boundless charity was saved
from harm by the companion principle, that if a man
would not work, neither should he eat. Efforts were
made to render the poor capable of work, and to put
them in a position to earn their own livelihood. Thus,
observes Mr. Brace, " throughout the Roman Empire
a grand rehabilitation of labour began under Chris-
tianity, which has never ceased. Work became
honoured under the new religion. The Christian
ecclesiae became little fraternities of free labour and
competitors of the great slave-estates." 2 With full
justice may the Gospel claim to have inaugurated the
modern industrial era.
These hints may perhaps suffice to show the
nature of the forces through which Christianity won
its triumphs in the early centuries. Much might
be said of subordinate causes, as, e.g., the firm organiza-
tion of the Christian Church — a true imperium in
imperio. But this was of gradual growth, and the
extent, compactness, and vigour of the organization
1 Ibid. Brace properly calls attention to the fact that " the
Christians dried up another source of slavery by steadily and con-
sistently opposing the abandonment and exposure of children "
(Gesta Christi, p. 68).
2 Page 69.
232 THE FACTORS IN THE EXPANSION
are rather indications of the hold the Church had
already gained, than causes of its progress. It is to
be said of the Early Church that it owed much to the
great and truly good men who were its leaders — its
bishops like Ignatius, and Polycarp, and Irenaeus,
and even Cyprian — but these men themselves were
trophies of the grace of God. It must be acknow-
ledged, too, that less spiritual methods of propaga-
tion were sometimes employed, as in Gregory's mis-
taken policy in Pontus of converting heathen festivals
into Christian celebrations ; ^ and that, when the
Church grew more prosperous, worldly and impure
elements were found in it. We see this in the pictures
given us of the Churches in Carthage and Alexandria ; ^
in the defections at the persecutions ; in the evils
unveiled in the Spanish Church by the canons of the
Council of Elvira.3 It is evident, however, that the
wealthy and worldly do not flock into a Church till
it has already become popular : the very degeneration
implies a previous state of higher purity. These
things are not the causes of the Church's success, but
an effect of it. The bare fact that the Church came
through the storm of Diocletian persecution as it did,
and, by the sheer heroism of suffering, forced the
recognition of its claims upon the Empire, shows
how sound the kernel must have been.
The lesson we would draw from this survey for our
^ Cf. Hamack, Expansion, ii. pp. 350-3. Hamack admits :
" Gregory is the sole missionary we know of during these first three
centuries, who employed such methods." The statement of his
biographer that Gregory found only seventeen Christians in his native
town and neighbourhood must be taken cum grano. Hamack him-
self notices the testimony of Lucian that Pontus was " full of atheists
and Christians " more than half a century before.
^ By TertuUian and Clement of Alexandria.
* Cf. Hamack ii. pp. 441-3.
OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH 233
own arduous task in extending the Gospel in the world,
and seeking for it victory in society, may be stated
in a sentence. It is not in getting a new Gospel, but
in learning to understand better the Gospel that we
have — in learning really to understand, use, preach,
and apply it — that the hope of the world lies. *' Unto
Him that loved us, and loosed us from our sins by
His blood ... to Him be the glory and the dominion
for ever and ever. Amen.'' ^ '' By this sign conquer."
1 Rev. i. 5, 6.
VI
The Influence of the Christian Church
upon the Roman Empire
By the Rev. H. H. SCULLARD, M.A., D.D., Professor of
Church History in New College, London.
ARGUMENT.
Introductory Considerations.
I. The Influence of the Church and ol Christianity not Identical.
II. The Church had only very Restricted Authority in the Empire.
{a) The heritage into which it came.
(6) Shortness of the time.
(c) The Church never established.
{d) Too late to avert the ruin of the Empire.
III. Disadvantage of Confining our Thoughts to a Limited Period.
IV. Can a State ever be Christianized ?
The Ways in which the Church affected the Social Life of the Empire.
I. In the Realm of Ideas.
Sociality of Christianity as Contrasted with (a) the Religions and (6) the
Philosophies of the Empire.
The Teaching of the Church regarding (a) EquaUty ; (6) Liberty ; (c) Fra -
ternity.
II. In the sphere of Conduct.
(i) In the Church-
Communism — Philanthropy — ^Democracy.
(2) In the Monasteries —
Withdrawal from the world not absolute — Within the monasteries there
was comradeship.
(3) In the World—
(a) How did Christians regard the Empire ?
(6) How far did Christians abstain from public and civic duties ?
(c) Did Christianity affect the laws of the Empire ?
VI
The Influence of the Christian Church
upon the Roman Empire
In considering the social influence of the Christian
Church upon the Roman Empire, it is specially desir-
able to keep in mind the wider and more correct use
of the word " social." It is possible so to limit its
meaning as to neglect important aspects of the Church's
influence, and come away from our study with a sense
of disappointment. We are so accustomed to regard
" the social question " as an economic and legislative
one, that we are in danger of neglecting some of the
most important influences which affect social senti-
ment, social custom, and social life. I hope before '
the close of this Essay to show that the influence of ;
the Church even upon legislation was by no means
slight ; but I wish also to suggest, if not fully to prove
(for only a small fraction of the evidence can be dealt
with), that even if the Church did comparatively
little to Christianize the instrument of Government
and prevent the ruin of the old regime, it nevertheless
rendered an incalculable benefit to the social life of the
world which then was and to the world which was to
be. But there are some preliminary remarks which
ought to be made.
I. The Influence of Christianity and thelnfluenceof
m
238 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
the Church are not the same. The Church as an organized
society or group of societies may only have embodied
very imperfectly at any one period the Christianity of
Christ and His apostles. Both by defect and excess
its influence may be somewhat different from the
influence of Christianity. Some part of the original
message and some element of its original power may
be wanting ; or on the other hand foreign elements
may have been introduced which tend to counter-
act and neutralize its influence. The question, '' What
is the religion of Christ ? " is by no means so easy as
the celebrated character in one of Fielding's novels
found it — " When I mention religion I mean the
Christian religion, and not only the Christian religion
but the Protestant religion, and not only the Protestant
religion but the religion of the Church of England '' —
but I should think that hardly any one would wish
to identify in all points the religion of Churchmen in
the second, third, fourth and fifth centuries with the
religion of the New Testament. Before, then, we
criticize Christianity for its failure or small success
in any direction, we must know whether Christianity
has ever been brought to bear upon the social life of
the time at the necessary point. Something like
Christianity has been before the world and operating
upon society in every generation since the first ; but
before we confess the powerlessness of Christianity
to solve all social problems and extinguish social evils
we must be sure that it has been before the world in
all its fullness and purity, and allow it time. Some
Churchmen may not even have been Christians at all,
and certainly the best of Churchmen were not perfect
Christians. The representation of Christianity, e.g.,
which confronted the empire in the last generation
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 239
before the capture of Rome by the Goths contained
elements which must seem to many quite ahen
from the pure Christianity of Christ — magic, divin-
ation, sacerdotaUsm, the medicinal lie, intolerance,
asceticism, monasticism and so forth.
II. Almost equally important, though from another
point of view, is the fact that during our period the
Church never rose to the place of absolute authority
in the counsels of the Empire. During the larger
part of the time it was a proscribed society, despised
and persecuted. It could hardly be expected to
influence very powerfully, along the line of its own
desires, the social policy of persecuting emperors.
And when with the conversion of Constantine it seemed
to get its opportunity, it was very far from obtaining
the determining voice in the affairs of the State.
For consider for a moment these things, each of which
must be dismissed in a few lines.
(a) The heritage into which it came. The reforming
party, if such we may regard either the Church, or
Constantine and his Christian friends, was in a hope-
less minority. Beugnot estimated that the heathen
population of the empire at the accession of Constan-
tine was still nineteen-twentieths of the whole. But
if we put the Christian element at one-tenth instead
of one-twentieth, the difficulty of transforming the
Roman empire by means of legislation will still
appear almost insuperable. What could the one-
tenth have done against the nine-tenths, even if they
had been social enthusiasts ? We know _ something
about the difficulties of legislation in advance of
public sentiment in our own country. If total pro-
hibitionists constituted only one-tenth of the popula-
tion, could they succeed in making effective a total
prohibition law, even if it found its way into the
240 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
statute book ? But the drinking habits of our country
are not more difficult to change than the gladiatorial
games of ancient Rome. The latter were quite as much
a factor in national life, as inveterate and apparently
as indispensable as alcoholic drinking is with us.
When we remember the determined stand the early
Church took against that crying evil of the Roman
empire, we may be led to ask whether the modern
Church is as free from blame in reference to the debasing
customs of English society.
Conservatism in Rome was a far more powerful
and mischievous thing than it is in England. There
was no power of initiation, no hope, no idea of pro-
gress, in ancient paganism. The people had sur-
rendered one after another their democratic sentiments
as well as privileges. They wanted only to be fed
and amused by the State and lij^ in idleness. The
extension of the franchise did not mean^ny increased
interest on the part of the people in the government
of the Empire. The decayjif4iiibiiiC spirit is noticeable
as early as the reign of Tiberius. The noblest Romans,
such as Symmachus, towards the close of the Empire,
when the barbarians were threatening its existence,
would not sacrifice themselves to the extent of allow-
ing their serfs to enlist in the army. Their worship of
the past made them oblivious to the needs of the
present. The changelessness of the present order,
the eternity of Rome, was the one influential article
in their creed.
(b) Then how short was the time in which the
Church was able to exert its influence. In less than a
hundred years after Christianity became a tolerated
religion, Alaric and his Goths had entered Rome.
Rome had fallen. And during all those hundred years
the northern nations were pressing upon the frontiers,
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 241
and settling within the empire. The population
of the empire was changing rapidly; the limits of the
empire were contracting. It was a time of public
danger, and such times are never favourable for social
legislation.
It may of course be said in reply to this argument
that the Christian emperors and the Christian bishops
found time for theological controversies and for legis-
lation in favour of the clergy and the Church : and
some may wish that all the heat spent in violent
controversy had been directed to the passing and
enforcement of better laws for the people. But the
two things were not at all on the same level as regards
practical politics, whatever may have been their rela-
tive importance. Constantine and his sons chose
the line of least resistance in concentrating so much
of their attention upon theological matters, and the
later emperors found it much easier to issue perse-
cuting edicts against the pagans than to put a stop
to the games, or to reform the barbarous finances
of the empire. As a matter of fact the pagans in
many instances do not seem to have cared very
much about the closing of their temples, but the cur-
tailment of their pleasures was a much more serious
thing. Constantius, Gratian and Arcadius all found it
perilous to interfere with the amusements of the
people.
(c) Then we have to remember that the Church
was never in the proper sense established. The
advisers of Christian emperors were for the most
part heathen, and, what was equally important, the
administration was in the hands very largely of heathen
men who could prevent or render difficult the perfect
administration of the laws. The Empire was never
Christianized in the sense of being ofiicered by Chris-
ex. R,
242 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
tian men. De Broglie^ goes so far as to say that with
the exception of Ambrose all the favourites of the
emperors in the fourth century were " enemies of
the truth/* i.e. heathen or Arian. And we cannot
help regarding it as a most noteworthy if not deplor-
able fact that the one man who better than any one
else might have guided the social policy of the time,
the great Athanasius, '' the jurisconsult Athanasius/*
as Sulpicius Severus calls him, was three times exiled
by Christian emperors. Probably Athanasius by
the firm stand which he took for the freedom of the
Church, as well as by his vindication of Christian
truth, did more for his own and other ages than he
would have done as a jurisconsult or social reformer
in happier times; but it is not to be wondered at,
after his own experience of the tyranny of kings and
the time-serving of bishops, that when he turned his
thoughts to social problems he should have leaned
towards the monastic life.
{d) And, finally, it should be remarked in this
connexion that when the Church arrived at a position
of power in the State, so far as she did do so, it was
too late to avert the ruin of the Empire. *' It is one
of the most tragical facts of all history,'* said J. S.
Mill '' that Constantine rather than Marcus Aurelius
was the first Christian emperor. It is a bitter thought
how different the Christianity of the world might
have been had it been adopted as the religion of the
Empire under the auspices of Marcus Aurelius instead
of those of Constantine.** 2 Modern historians do
not all take such a favourable view of the political
sagacity of Marcus Aurelius as Gibbon did; but as
regards the time, it is interesting to try and imagine
1 UEglise et VEmpire romain au IV"' Steele, vol. iv. Resum^.
^ Essay on Liberty, p. 58.
■. )
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 243
what a Christian Emperor like Constantine might
have done, if he had had the chance which the Stoic
Marcus Aurehus had a century and a half before.
The empire as reformed by Diocletian was already
past redemption. The Church might hasten or retard
its end, but it could not avert it.
III. The influence of Christianity can never be
fully estimated by confining our thoughts to a single
limited period. The work of the Church, like the
work of Jeremiah, is '' to pluck up and to break down,
and to destroy and to overthrow,*' as well as to build
and to plant. The destruction of the Roman Empire
was necessary for the progress of the race ; and though
the chief actors in the scene little realized how this
was to come about, and would have resisted it with
all their might if they had done so, yet the purpose
of God was accomplished through them. Wishing
only to build and to plant, i.e. to maintain the stability
of the empire, the Church found that it had also to
pluck up and to break down and to destroy and to
overthrow. The question is, did the Church while
so doing prepare the way for a better time ? Did
it mediate between Roman and the Barbarian ? Did
it preserve what was best in the old Roman civilization ?
Receiving a new spirit and principles calculated to
produce better social conditions, did it hand them
down faithfully to succeeding generations ? The
prophets of Judah did not succeed in creating an
ideal city by cleansing Jerusalem of its abominations :
but they did a work whose influence is felt to-day.
Can we say the same of the teachers and workers in
the early Church ? Even if they did not succeed in
applying the Gospel in the wisest ways to every phase
of life in their day, did they deliver and transmit a
Gospel capable of transforming the world ?
244 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
IV. There is one other preliminary question —
Can a State ever be Christianized, not nominally,
but in the sense of becoming permeated by the spirit
and principles of Jesus Christ ? Is there not something
in the very constitution of a State which prevents
the perfect application of Christian morality ? How
can a society governed by force illustrate the principles
of the Sermon on the Mount ? It is an old question,
but one also that is ever with us, and never more per-
sistently than now. There are many in our day who
incline towards a very high doctrine of the State,
conceding to it an authority, prerogative and function,
which they would deny to any organized Church.
There are others on the contrary who make much
more modest claims for the State, and believe, among
other things, that it can never be a perfect embodi-
ment, nor even a proper instrument, of the Kingdom
of Heaven.
There is no occasion here, however, to discuss
rival theories of the State, its functions or its possi-
bilities, inasmuch as what we have now to deal with
is simply the Roman Empire : and whatever may
be true of other forms of government we may believe
that the Roman Empire could not be Christianized.
A despotism of the Oriental type can never afford
ideal conditions, social, material, or industrial. Ambrose
was nearer the truth when he said that the Church
was the outward form of justice.^ Liberty and justice
were impossible in the empire of his day. And of
course the larger question of the possibility of Christian-
izing any State lies in the background of our thoughts.
But we must now confine our attention to positive
results. In what apparent and conspicuous ways
^J)e Officiis, i. 29, 139.
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 245
did the Church affect the social hfe of the empire ?
I. And first in the realm of ideas, where all great
victories have first to be won, what did the Church
achieve ? Most important of all — it maintained against
all rival theories and beliefs the social conception of
God received from Christ and His apostles. It attacked
the anti-social, unsocial, and imperfectly social ideas
of God which it found prevalent in the empire, and
substituted something better in their place. It saw
one after another of those imperfectly social, or
even mischievous ideas retire into the background,
and make way for the Christian idea of which it was
the guardian and interpreter. That was the first
and the greatest victory of the Church. Men are not
likely to be better than their gods. Their social
ideals stand in close connexion with their religious
beliefs. No nation can change its gods without
changing very much besides.
Now what was there of social efficiency in the
religious ideas which Christianity resisted and to so
large an extent displaced ?
The old gods of Latium were intimately connected
in the minds of their worshippers with the fortunes
of the State. They were the gods of the nation, and
to neglect their worship was to involve the nation in
disaster. But the old Roman idea of religion was
essentially magical, commercial and selfish. The gods
were to be appeased by sacrifices and made to do
what the worshipper desired. It was a question of
contract and the fulfilment of contract, not of fellow-
ship between the worshipper and his god. Religion
Kad nothing to do with morality. The action of the
deity did not extend to the thoughts and desires of
the heart. Man might be dependent upon the gods
fpr his daily bread,.,but he was dependent upon him-
246 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
self alone for his morals. Such intercourse as there
might be Detween the gods and man was concerned
with the outward fortunes of the individual or the
State. The inadequacy of these ideas was felt as
time went on, and the Eastern cults came in to minister
to the deeper needs of men. The ideas of brotherhood
with men and fellowship with God, which found no
place in the old religion, did find some expression in
these Oriental religions. It was the fact of their
greater sociality which accounted for their rapid
success. Mithraism, e.g., could never have been
the dangerous rival to Christianity which it must
have seemed had it not provided a real brotherhood,
and promised union with God. The victory of Christi-
anity over Mithraism was the victory of a superior
form of Socialism over an inferior form. Mithraism
was defeated on its own ground. The religion which
promised most and could accomplish most for society
was the one which survived. In the third century
Mithraism probably numbered its adherents by mil-
lions. It had established itself in nearly every part
of the Roman empire. It was the religion of the
men who ruled the empire, i.e. to say of the soldiers.
But where is it to-day ? What monuments has it
left behind it ? Nothing practically but monuments of
stone. In the expressive words of Dr. Rendel Harris,
*' It is not merely that Mithraism is dead, but there
are no gesta Mithrae; there never were any." ^
And why was Mithraism, which seemed to promise
so much, so socially ineffective ? It would be easy
for the sociologist to point to glaring defects, such
as the exclusion of women from its privileges and its
severe and imperfect view of human nature, but
behind all these surface defects there is a radically
^ Aaron's Breastplate, p. 139.
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 247
unsocial view of God. The Divine is the ethereal
and non-human. Man must first divest himself of
those things which are most properly his, before he
can enter into the blessedness of heaven.
The old gods of Latium having been found wanting,
military and other Eastern cults having lost their
hold upon the more earnest minds in the Empire,
nothing remained but the apotheosis of the Emperor
and the worship of the Dea Roma. But a State
which worships itself is morally dead. The vision
has gone and the people have perished.
Still, there was philosophy, if not religion : did
not that, we may ask, keep alive a social ideal
worthy of a great empire ? Aristotle begins his
Politics by telling us that man is a political animal,
and that he who by nature and not by accident is
without a State is either above humanity or below it.
That means that the State exhausts the possibilities
of human development : man is only man because
he finds a place in the State. Concerning man as a
member of an eternal order, and the State as the
sphere in which God is training men for a higher life, ,
Aristotle has nothing to say. God is non-moral and /
unsocial. He does not interfere with mankind. The /
highest virtues consequently are intellectual, not moral. /
Aristocratic, abstract, unsocial, the ideal of Aristotle/
was powerless to effect any social reform. It was/
so with Epicurus. The gods did not trouble themselves/
with the affairs of men : it was foolish therefore for
man to live for any one but himself, or take any pari
in civic concerns. Platonism and Neoplatonism wen
likewise unfit to introduce a higher social order, because
the highest ideal in the one case was aristocratic]
intellectual, and unhuman: in the other absolutely
non-human. In the case of Stoicism alone can it
248 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
be said that the ideal has even the appearance of
being a social one, and the fact that the legislation of
the Stoic jurisconsults compares in some points favour-
ably with that of Christian emperors makes the
resemblances and differences of the greatest interest.
Stoicism did possess a social ideal; it conceived
of its god as being in closest relations with men. It
was the old tribal idea of God, with humanity sub-
stituted for the tribe. Gods and men formed one
commonwealth ; men were partakers of the divine
nature. This community of gods and men was not
to be identified with the State. Foiled in his attempts
to serve the earthly state, the wise man, says Seneca,
may remember that he belongs to a greater common-
wealth whose bounds are only to be measured by the
circuit of the sun, where he will not work in vain, or
rather meditate in vain.i This social ideal is incom-
parably higher than that of Aristotle. Not only is
the State cosmopolitan and not Greek ; not only
are all men, even slaves, admitted into citizenship in
the earthly kingdom, but over and beyond this there
is the greater commonwealth of gods and men. There
is an ideal as well as a cosmopolitan element in the
Stoicism of Seneca which seems to promise much.
And yet Stoicism failed to influence permanently
the fortunes of the empire. Stoicism was much
more closely allied with the empire than Christi-
anity. It was an essentially Roman philosophy. It
had a far more favourable, because earlier, chance
I of remedying by legislation the evils of the empire
j than Christianity had. Yet Marcus Aurelius does
1 not inaugurate a brighter period for his people ; he
1 closes the golden age of Roman history, the age which
\ 1 De OHo, iv.
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 249
before all other ages in the history of the world Gibbon
thought was the happiest to have lived in.
We shall misinterpret Stoicism if we put it on
the same level as Christianity for social outlook and
effectiveness. The differences are much greater than
the resemblances. The Stoic community of gods and
men, by merging the human and the divine, by con-
fining the divine within the limits of a commonwealth
homogeneous in all its parts, shuts out God from all
effective action upon the world as fatally as the cold
isolation of Aristotle's deity. God is imprisoned
in His own universe. He is man's equal, morally
perhaps his inferior, but constitutionally his equal.
He is not the giver of grace to men, for man shares
already what God possesses, save immortality, and
this God never imparts. He is not the giver of vir-
tue, for man is the author of his own salvation. And
as there is no transference of moral power from God
to man, so man cannot possibly influence his neigh-
bour on the higher side of his nature. Each man is
sufficient in himself. A man should indeed love his
neighbour, and a very able writer in a recent work on
Stoicism, has used the peculiarly Christian phrase,
*' enthusiasm of humanity,'' to describe Stoic phil-
anthropy, but we must remember that the love of the
Stoic was the love of one who denied the rights of the
affections and emotions. It was without passion
and without hope. It was without hope either for
the individual or for the earthly commonwealth. Stoic
eschatology will not bear comparison with Christian.
The aimlessness of the one is in strong contrast to
the progressive and final character of the other. The
Golden Age for the Stoic was in the past rather than
in the future. But a social reformation is impossible
without hope. The Christian had been begotten
250 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus
Christ from the dead, and in Jesus Christ had found
a Hfe of fellowship with God and man which was im-
possible before. But the Stoic's faith was self-centred.
It was in himself. And the outlook was dark and
uncertain.
Before passing away from the realm of ideas to
more concrete illustrations something may be said
regarding the three democratic, republican and social-
istic ideas of Equality, Liberty and Fraternity as
held in the early Church. The revolution which
Christianity wrought in the Roman Empire cannot
y be understood if we ignore this part of our subject,
(a) Equality. Christianity asserted the absolute
equality of all human beings in the sight of God.
The early Church, confronted by very different ideas
on the subject in the Roman Empire, in Gnosticism
as well as in heathenism, set itself resolutely to bring
( public sentiment on to its side.
And, first, with regard to the child. From the
first and consistently the Church championed the
cause of the child. From its very birth and even
before birth the infant was a being with sacred rights
11 which it was both crime and sin to violate. Infanticide,
11 a practice concerning which the ancient world was so
11 callous that the author of the fine saying '* I am a
II man, I count nothing human to be foreign to me,'*
1\ did not see the inconsistency of being enraged with
l\ his wife for refusing to destroy their infant daughter
I \ with her own hand. To the Church and to the Church
1 \ almost exclusively belongs the honour of securing the
\ \ natural rights of the child. Before the middle of the
\ Vthird century a similar spirit had made itself felt in
\ §toic circles, and the jurisconsult Paulus characterized
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 251
infanticide as murder. But the general Stoic attitude
is best seen in Epictetus, who regards children as
" snivelling brats '* beneath the notice of the wise
man.i
Then with regard to Woman. In theory, according
to Boissier,2 the Church treated women badly enough,
accusing them of weakness and vanity. ''What do
these miserable women want, laden with sins, turned
about in all directions by opinions, always learning
and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth ?*'
said Jerome. Yet even Jerome must not be taken
too seriously. The ladies were his favourite pupils.
They were to be educated as carefully as men. They
might read Cyprian, Athanasius, Hilary, and — climax
of all generous concessions — they might learn Hebrew.
And this view of the sinfulness of the feminine nature
is only one side of the picture. Her social inferiority
was sometimes regarded as due to the fact that the
woman was the first to sin. But Ambrose, e.g., will
not allow that she was the sole cause of the Fall, and
says that if man were the stronger he ought to have
resisted the temptation more easily.^ Moreover sal-
vation had come into the world through her. *' The
Saviour gives abundant proof of the dignity of woman
in being born of a woman," said Augustine.* And in
the school of Christ all were alike disciples. Justin
Martyr held that God had given to women equally
with men the ability to keep the whole law^. Tatian
said that Christians admitted women to the pursuit of
philosophy, all in fact who desired to hear, even old
^ Bigg, Church's Task under the Roman Empire, p. 70.
2 La Fin du Paganisms, iv. 2, 4.
3 De Instit. Virgin., 4. 25.
* Sermo, 190.
^ Trypho, 25.
252 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
women and striplings, persons of every age and sex.*
" The virtue of man and woman," said Clement of
Alexandria " is the same. For if the God of both is
one, the Master of both is also one ; one Church, one
temperance, one modesty ; their food is common,
marriage an equal yoke ; respiration, sight, hearing,
knowledge, hope, obedience, love, all alike. And
those whose life is common have common grace
and a common salvation : common to them are love
and training.'* 2 Chrysostom said, '' They surpass
us in love to the Saviour, in chastity, in compassion
for the miserable." ^
Sentiments such as these could not be held in
every part of the empire from Carthage to the furthest
East without profoundly modifying the social life
of the empire. A vassal, often honoured and res-
pected, but always dependent upon the will of father,
husband or son, in the days of the Republic ; a freed-
woman, often cruel and degraded, but always the victim
of her own caprice or passion, emancipated yet not
free, in the days of the empire ; it was only in the
school of Christ that woman received her freedom and
entered into a life of perfect liberty.
With regard to slavery, Harnack is no doubt right
in saying " It is a mistake to suppose that any slave
question occupied the early Church." * Slavery was
an institution of such long standing and so widespread
that any direct attack upon it would have been dis-
astrous to all concerned, to the slaves themselves
and to society at large, as well as to the slaveowners.
The very existence of society depended upon slave
labour. If abolished, it could only be aboUshed very
gradually. Both Stoicism and Christianity however
1 Cohort, 32 and 33. ^ Paedag, i. 4. ' Horn. 42.
* Expansion of Christianity, i. 3, 7.
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 253
had much to say upon the subject.-/^hey both re-
garded it as unnatural, and contrary to primitive
custom. At the beginning it was not so, but Uke
divorce under the Mosaic law, it was allowed because
of the hardness of men's hearts. It was an accom-
modation to a corrupt state of society. According to
Seneca it was unnecessary in the age of innocence-
According to the Church writers it was a result of
the Fall. But the Church writers were able to look
upon it with greater calmness and hopefulness than
the Stoics. As it was due to sin, that is to the will
of man, it was not necessary ; and as it was allowed
by God, it must be for some holy and gracious pur-
poses. It was a punishment for sin, and a discipline for
the sake of righteousness. To Seneca it naturally
seemed a thing utterly hateful,^ though even according
to Stoic doctrine the wise man might rise superior
to its bitterness and be free though in bonds. To
the Christian it seemed a temporary ordinance of
God, to be dissolved only by mutual consent, and
while it lasted an opportunity, not to be missed,
for glorifying God. It may require an effort of the
imagination to conceive the heightened sense of
dignity which the consciousness of union with Jesus
Christ in the new life gave to men in those early days,
which led them to work cheerfully and suffer uncom-
plainingly in bonds, and even for the sake of the
Gospel to sell themselves into slavery as Clement of
Rome tells us some did ^ ; but it was by that new
sense of dignity and that new spirit, and not by any
violent agitation, that slavery was undermined. It
^ The best treatment (in English) of slavery in the early Church
perhaps is in vol. I. of A. J. Carlyle's Mediaeval Political Theory in
the West, iii. 8, 9 and 10.
2 I Ep. chap. 55. . .
254 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
was to the new-found liberty of men in Christ Jesus,
with the consequent respect it inspired, rather than
to the Stoic doctrine of the natural equality of men,
that the world owed the mitigation and partial abolition
of slavery.
Other social inequalities were also transcended
in the thought of the early Church. Poverty ceased
to be regarded as necessarily a crime, disgrace, or
disadvantage. The Church became the recognized
champion of the poor. This was as true of the Gentile
Churches as of the Jewish. A recent writer has,
indeed, spoken of the Jewish-Christian Churches as
constituting the " radical social wing of the primitive
Church," and of the social spirit which glowed in
that part of the Church as '' inadequately represented
in the main current of Christian life which finally
resulted in Catholic Christianity." ^ If by '' radical"
is meant lawless and revolutionary there may be
truth in th^ observation. The Sibylline books, some
of which emanated from Jewish-Christian sources,
breathe a spirit of hostility to the existing order of a
very violent kind. But radicalism is not necessarily
of a violent or anarchical character. The type of
socialism represented by such Jewish Christians as
James was very different from that which found
favour among some of the wilder spirits of Alexandria,
and there seems to be no reason why it should be con-
sidered more *' radical " than that of Paul. A
sympathy with the poor as intense and as practical
as that shown by James glowed in the heart of Paul ;
and that kind of sympathy, the Christian rather than
the Sibylline, fortunately did prevail '* in the main
current of Christian life which finally resulted in
CathoUc Christianity." Some of the Catholic writers
^ Rauschenbusch, Christianity and the Social Crisis, p. loi.
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 255
are as outspoken as James himself against oppression
by the rich, and these denunciations were accom-
panied by appropriate works. Again it appears that a
higher form of sociaUsm survived a lower ; and one
reason for the disappearance of Jewish Christianity,
which some writers deplore, may have been its failure
to remain where James had left it, and its alliance
with a more violent (though not more radical) type
of social theory.
(b) With regard to the second of the democratic
ideas, that of Liberty, it is hardly possible to exaggerate
the service the early Church rendered to mankind
before the fall of the empire. It was the constancy
of the confessors and martyrs that forced the idea of
toleration on to the attention of men. Individual
conviction, first an object of wonder, then of scorn,
finally became the strongest force with which the
Roman emperors had to reckon. Even Stoicism,
though professing to hold in honour the manhood of
every man, threw itself blindly against the Christian
sentiment and called the Christian's conduct *' obsti-
nacy.'* Rationalism joined the alliance of Super-
stition with Despotism and attempted to crush the
only Faith which had within it the promise of civil and
religious liberty. But it failed. Christianity triumphed
over the combined assault, and its victory marked the
beginning of a new era and of a new world.
The victory was not of course at once complete.
The conflict was again and again renewed. The
leaders of the Church were not always true to the
principles for which Apologists like Tertullian and
Lactantius had contended and in obedience to which
the martyrs had died. That those principles made
any headway at all against the powerful currents that
resisted them is a splendid tribute to their own inherent
256 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
strength and to the heroism of the men who held
them. The essential thing to notice is that ideas of
liberty utterly foreign to the philosophy of Plato or
of Cicero had laid hold of the minds of men and were
getting themselves applied in various directions.
(c) It was so with the idea of Fraternity. Brother-
hoods were not unknown in the ancient world. There
were many in the Roman Empire. But Christianity
gave a new meaning and a new sanction to the idea of
brotherhood. '' Thus we love one another, because
we do not know how to hate/* said Minucius Felix,
" Thus we call one another brethren as being born of
one God and Father, comrades in faith and fellow-heirs
in hope.'' ^ " Thou shalt not call things thine own :
for if ye are partakers in common of things which
are incorruptible how much more of things which are
corruptible." 2 It is *' divine religion, which alone
effects that man should hold man dear, and should
know that he is bound to him by the tie of brother-
hood, since God is alike a Father to all." ^ Passages
like these abound in rich profusion throughout the
writings of the period, and reveal the twofold way in
which the brotherhood of men was regarded. At the
foundation of all lies the universal Fatherhood of God :
men are brethren all the world over, because created
by the One God. But it was the fellowship of faith
and hope and love in the Gospel of Jesus Christ that
gave its peculiar charm and its peculiar power to the
Christian brotherhood. The Fatherhood of God meant
much more to the Christian than to the philosophers,
but it was the consciousness of the new life in Christ
which converted theory into practice and produced
^ Oct. 31. ^ Barnabas, chap. 19.
3 Lactantius Div. Inst., v. 7.
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 257
'* the insatiable desire for doing good " of which
Clement of Rome speaks. ^
II
It is now time to look at some of the attempts
which the early Church made to apply these ideas.
The first efforts of the Church, then, were directed
to forming a society independent of the State in
which the social ideas of Christianity could be more
perfectly applied. The origins of that society are
clearly seen in the New Testament, and the pictures of
primitive Church life there given reveal the astonishing
power which the new faith had to create a higher
social life than the world had ever known. Surely
all things in the way of social reform were possible to
that faith. The enthusiastic type of Communism
may be compared with the other social phenomenon des-
cribed in the same chapter of the Acts of the Apostles,
the Gift of Tongues ; for just as the latter sign indi-
cated the unifying socializing power of the Gospel in
one direction so the former did in another. Language
and property represent two great hindrances in the
way of a perfect mutual understanding and intercourse.
These hindrances are done away in Christ. The one
can be Christianized as perfectly as the other.
We are in the habit of regarding this Pentecostal
experience and its outcome as something exceptional
in the life of the early Church, confined to Jerusalem
and attended with very dubious results. The sub-
sequent poverty of the Church at Jerusalem has even
1 I Ep. chap. ii. For further illustrations the English reader
should consult the valuable works of^ Lecky and Schmidt. Brace's
Gesta ChrisH is not so good. Croslegh's Christianity Judged by its
Fruits, and Storr's Divine Origin of Christianity may also be
mentioned.
c.c. S
258 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
been ascribed to it. We may leave that alone. But
what is specially important to note is that in theory
and principle the Communism was not exceptional.
The new Christian theory of property — '' not one of
them said that aught of the things which he possessed
was his own '' — is one which we fi|id constantly
adopted and applied in the new society. The conse-
cration of property to the common weal is one of the
fundamental principles of the new Church life, and
one which the teachers of the Church are never tired
of insisting upon. A long catena of passages, from
the Didache which says " Thou shalt share all things
with thy brother '' to Augustine and Pelagius who
both regarded poverty as better than riches, could
very easily be given, and would abundantly prove
the contention that all Churchmen believed that
naught which the Christian possessed was his own,
but that he was bound to surrender it or to use it for
the common good. Against any theory of State Com-
munism or compulsory Communism the Church writers
would have unanimously protested. The immorality
of Plato's RepubUc, e.g., was pitilessly exposed by
Lactantius, who said that the ownership of property
contains the material both of vices and of virtues, but
a community of goods contains nothing else than
the licentiousness of vices : Covetousness, not private
property, was the cause of the evils of society.^
Private ownership was not abolished in the Church,
but every encouragement was offered to voluntary
giving to the point of self-sacrifice and even consequent
poverty. Clement 'of Alexandria, who believed in the
use and not in the total surrender of property, never-
theless held that to reduce one's wants to a minimum
^ Div. Instit. iii. 22. The references here and elsewhere will be
found in the " Ante-Nicene Christian Library."
UPON THE R©MAN EMPIRE 259
was a social duty, and Augustine, though he recognized
in opposition to Pelagius the right of earthly property,
looked upon it in very much the same way as he did
upon the institution of slavery. It was good to con-
quer the love of money, but it was better to add works
to the inward victory.
The liberality of the Church is too evident on every
hand to need illustration, and it showed itself in a
great variety of ways. In the middle of the third
century the Roman Church supported 1,500 poor
persons. In cases of emergency Ambrose, Augustine
and others parted with the vases and ornaments of
the Church to help the unfortunate. The legend says
that Paulinus of Nola sold himself into slavery to
redeem a young man the only son of a widowed mother.
Basil turned a part of the town of Neo-Caesarea into
a colony of mercy with an asylum for the aged, a hos-
pital for the sick, a home for children, and an inn for
travellers. In times of plague Christians ministered
to the dying who had been basely deserted by their
pagan friends. All this charitable work was well-
known to the heathen and cannot have been without
its influence in changing public sentiment in the
empire. Even the Stoics who despised the Christians
for their obstinacy and want of reason may have learnt
something from these object lessons. Men sometimes
do learn from the people they profess to despise ; only
generally they do not acknowledge their obligations.
Some of the laws which heathen emperors put upon
the statute-book may have been suggested by Chris-
tian examples. When we come to Julian we know
that something of this kind did take place. " It has
happened," he said, *' that the indifference of our
priests for the poor has suggested to the impious
Galileans the thought of practical beneficence. . . .
26o INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
It would be shameful when the Jews have not a beggar,
when the impious Galileans nourish both ours and
theirs that those of our cult should be deprived of the
succour which we ought to give them.'* So he told
his priests to bestir themselves.
But these forms of practical charity did not exhaust
the sociality of the ancient Church. Work was pro-
vided as well as alms. Teaching was given. Oppor-
tunities of social intercourse were afforded. Even
after the Church had modelled itself only too closely
on the imperial lines, the democratic spirit of the earliest
age could not be quenched. The people could elect
their own bishops, though they may not have been
supposed to nominate them. And those bishops were
their friends. They championed the cause of the
poor. They intervened in case of disputes. They
resisted their oppressors. And so great was the popu-
larity and moral authority of their voluntary tribunals
that at the end of the fourth century the Emperor
Arcadius passed two laws which made the sentences
of the bishops legal. When attacked by the bar-
barians, bishops like Sidonius and Synesius defended
their flocks and proved themselves better patriots
than the heathen nobles. And over and above all
these advantages of a temporal kind there was com-
munity in the deepest things. It is no wonder that
the Church was more popular than the State. It was
accomplishing many of the things which the empire
had failed to do. It was doing much which the empire
had never attempted. And the fact that the Church
in later times fell lamentably short of the ideal formed
by men like Ambrose, and Martin of Tours, and other
bishops, and showed that tyranny was not confined to
civil governments, is no reason why we should refuse
to acknowledge the splendid social service which it
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 261
rendered during this period in protecting the weak
and in affording a sphere in which the individual^
could come into possession of his own. ^'^
But what about Monasticism ? Was this a gain
to the Roman Empire ? It is one thing to say that a
contented, happy, fellowship of Christians such as we
see depicted for example in the Apology of Aristides,
" a document so altogether altruistic in its ethics and
disclosing a people so utterly happy in the faith into
which they had been brought that one might have
blushed to find the difference between their spiritual
temper and our own " — it is one thing to say that
such a fellowship, in the world and yet not of it, must
have been a good thing in itself and also for the world ;
but we may hesitate before saying that the monastic
life which was so popular at the end of our period
was good either for the men who fled from the world,
or for the world from which they fled.
But some things ought to be remembered.
Monasticism is not Christian, though it may have
been adopted by the Church from motives partly
Christian. The fact that it did not make its appear-
ance for three hundred years shows that it is no essen-
tial part of Christianity. But in the fourth century
it was the spirit of the age. It arose from causes
over which the Church had no control. And the
Church had to reckon with it. Some of the leaders
resisted the movement, but the greater number yielded
to it and tried to utilize it, just as our Churches to-
day try to be *' up to the times '' and take advantage
of any strong current of public opinion.
Another thing — the whole Church did not become
monasticized. Monasticism became a sort of Church
within the Church, and even this monastic section did
262 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
not break wholly with the world. Many of the monks
for good and ill continued to take a living interest
in the world they had renounced. They even graced
marriage ceremonies by their presence. They insti-
tuted something similar to our Pleasant Saturday
Evenings. The monasteries too were often homes of
learning : they were centres of charity : they were
sources from which evangelistic missions proceeded :
they were labour colonies and, to mention social
influence of another kind, we cannot forget that it
was from this class, whichwe, from our modern stand-
point, are inclined to regard as altogether mischievous,
that a social wrong which had defied all the efforts of
pagan and Christian emperors received its deathblow.
It was not by legislation, but by the noble act of a
monk that the gladiatorial shows were stopped.
For those within the monasteries the social life was
far from being an ideal one ; still it was at least a social
life. The rights of the individual were respected.
Men met one another, men rich and poor, noble and
serf. Equality, liberty and fraternity did find recog-
nition within the walls of the monastery. ^ To us the
monastery with its rigorous rules, and its isolation of
husband and wife, seems a very imperfect substitute
for the home and the relations of family life. Yet
even this was easier to husband and father than to see
wife and children daily dying of starvation, or sold into
slavery before his eyes. The life to which they came
was better than that they left behind.
But what about those left still in the world ? Was
not their lot made the harder by the withdrawal of
so many to the monasteries ? The taxes had still
to be paid, public burdens had still to be borne. This
^ See, e.g., Genesis of the Social Conscience, an interesting work
by Prof. Nash, chaps, v. and vi.
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 263
was of course a serious evil, and the mention of it
brings us to the last part of our subject, the actual
participation of Christian men in the public Hfe of the
empire. Had the Christians of those days any civic
conscience at all ?
To answer that question we ought to consider :
{a) What view did they take of the social order to
which they belonged, i.e. the Roman empire ?
{b) How far did they abstain from public and
civic duties ?
(c) Did Christianity as a matter of fact succeed in
changing to any extent the laws of the empire ? ^^/
(a) Considering that the empire was so long in
opposition to the Church, the almost invariable respect
shown to it by Christian writers is one of the miracles
of history. Persecuted and despised by the State;
the Church nevertheless honoured the State, and wh^n
we remember the different spirit shown by the Jews^|i^e
shall see in the peaceable spirit of the Christians; a
striking tribute to the presence of a new power in
their midst. It was no more natural for the Christians
than it would have been for the Jews to pray for their
enemies, willingly to pay taxes to the Emperors who
denied them liberty, and remain law-abiding citizens
in a State which regarded them as outlaws. But this
the power of Christ effected. The conservative atti-
tude of Paul and ist Peter and the Acts of the Apostles
to the Roman Empire is the prevailing one : though
echoes of another kind are not altogether wanting.
Clement of Rome says that it was God who *' gave
the power of the Kingdom to our rulers and governors on
the earth . . . that we might be subject to them, nought
resisting Thy will.'' ^ MeUto of Sardis speaks of the
1 Ep. Ixi,
264 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
happy beginning of the empire, and regards it as an
auspicious circumstance that Christianity arose about
the same time.^
Irenaeus says that civil governments are ordained
of God though they are due to human sin.^ Minucius
Fehx says " our infant empire was begotten in crime
and maintained by terrorism,'* yet*' we are not disloyal,
though some of us refuse the honours of public office/'^
And time would fail to tell of Prudentius and Orosius
and Ambrose and Augustine and the rest. Two more
illustrations may suffice. Paulinus says — *' As far as
the heaven is above the earth, so great is the distance
between the things of Caesar and of Christ,*' and yet
he tells us that St. Felix, with the help of the Apostles
Peter and Paul, obtained a prolongation of the Roman
Empire, thus making not only the Saint, but the
Apostles, responsible for the continued existence of
the empire. Again, St. Jerome speaks of Rome as
" Babylon,'' and yet exclaims, when Alaric and his
Goths have sacked it, '' the light of the world is
quenched."
Justin Martyr occupies an interesting position in
relation to this question. His broad outlook upon the
world leads us to expect that he will find in human
institutions as well as in human philosophies illustra-
tions of his favourite doctrine of the Logos. Why
should not the '' seed of reason " spring up in the
works as well as in the thoughts of men ? But Justin
does not develop this idea. Even the world which
God has made, not aimlessly but for the sake of the
human race, is no proper object of the Christian's
desire. To seek a human kingdom is to deny the
^ Eusebius, Ecc. Hist. iv. 26. 2 y 24, 2.
* Octavius, chaps. 25 and 31.
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 265
Saviour. To flee from those things which seem to be
good is the road to blessedness. But after the Resur-
rection there will be a thousand years of earthly bliss
for the Christian.
The influence of the millenarian hopes upon the
attitude of the early Church to the world opens up a
large subject, but the tendency of many writers seems
to be to regard it too much as an evil thing. It is
true that the expectation of the approaching end of
the world produced an unrest and indisposition to
work at Thessalonica and elsewhere ; but that it was
on the whole an anti-social and mischievous belief it
would be very difficult to prove. The enormous
power of such a hope must not be judged simply by
the extravagances which accompanied it in special
instances, whether few or many. If sometimes it led
to 'ecstasy and idleness, at others it led to patient
continuance in well-doing, made men forget their
weariness, their animosities, their differences. A living
hope of any kind was of priceless value for that '' hard
Roman world " on which *' disgust
And secret loathing fell ;
Deep weariness, and sated lust
Made human life a hell.
And if the hope of Justin and others was judged
too earthly by Augustine and later teachers of the
Church, it had brought courage to do and bear, and
added a new motive for brotherly love and mutual
service. The consciousness of belonging to an eternal
kingdom, whatever the particular form the Christian
hope might assume, brought an increase both of sym-
pathy and of power. Whether it led to a neglect of
practical duties and civic responsibilities is a question
of fact rather than of theory.
266 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
(b) With regard then to participation in pubhc
and civic Ufe there is much again that should be said.
If Christians held aloof during times of persecution
ought we to be surprised ? The wonder is all the
other way. It was one of the moral victories of
Christianity that its adherents did not betake them-
selves to the deserts three hundred years before they
did actually go in their hundreds and thousands. In
the second and third centuries they were still in the
world, though not of it. Everything points that way ;
not simply the testimony of a writer like the author
of the Epistle to Diognetus, who compares the presence
of Christians in the world to that of the spirit within
the body, but also the testimony of extreme men
like Tertullian, who shows that, whatever his own
particular tastes and convictions in the question might
be, Christians were as a matter of fact to be found
everywhere — in the army, the market place, the booth,
the workshop, the inn and other places. And indeed
the enemies of the Christians imply as much, as might
be easily shown.
And all this time the Christian Church had not
only to fulfil its social and civil duties in the face of the
strongest prejudices against it, but also in direct
resistance to a current in heathen society which had
set strongly in an anti-social and anti-civic direction
No one can deny that the Church strengthened and
purified family life ; and if on the other hand it may
seem to have done something to discourage marriage,
it was in the attempt to substitute a moral for an
immoral celibacy, that is to say, at most an imperfect
social ideal for one mischievously and outrageously
antisocial. Or take military service. The Christians
disliked it, because they fought under an idolatrous
military regime, as well as because it was ideally
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 267
opposed to the Gospel. They did sometimes avoid
military service. But so did the heathen, and possibly
in much larger numbers, and from a very different
motive. Long before the fall of the Roman Empire
the demoralization of public sentiment (i.e. from the
patriotic point of view) had reached such a stage
that barbarians were admitted into the empire not
only to finance it but to fight for it. Or take muni-
cipal duties. Christians no doubt often tried to evade
the unenviable position of the curialis ; but so did
the heathen, for the honour had become an intolerable
burden, a remorseless instrument for crushing out of
existence the middle classes. Christians did not wish
to be either the victims or the instruments of a form
of tyranny which was simply ruining the State. In
this respect they yielded to the prevailing dislike to
accept municipal obHgations. But the saying of
TertuUian, '' Nothing is more foreign (to the Christian)
than public affairs ** represents an extreme opinion
and not the general practice of the early Church. Even
after monasticism had become a popular movement,
Augustine could say " Let those who profess that the
Christian religion is hostile to the Republic give us
military men, provincials, husbands, parents, sons,
masters, servants, kings, judges, and administrators
equal to those that Christianity has formed." ^
(c) But finally did the Church succeed in influenc-
ing legislation to any considerable extent ?
If we recall the observations made at the opening
of this essay we shall look for indications of the mind
of the Church or of the Christian emperors rather
^ See Schmidt, Social Results of Early Christianity, p. 287.
Harnack in Historian's History of the World, vol. vi., Appendix B.
Ramsay, Church in the Roman Empire, p. 432 if. Nash, op. cit.,
p. 147. Hodgkin, Italy and Her Invaders, ii., p. 561, etc.
268 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
in what they proposed than in what they succeeded
in carrying out. Many of the laws passed must have
been inoperative, and many more would no doubt
have been forthcoming had there been any prospect
of their being obeyed. There were however a con-
siderable number which clearly show the new spirit
which was striving to find expression in the legislature.
De Broglie tells us that in seven years Constantine
issued 140 edicts, in nearly all of which the new spirit
; of Christianity is to be seen 1 : while Dean Stanley
\ said : ** In 313 a.d. was issued the Edict of Toleration.
\ Then followed in rapid succession the decree for the
1 observance of Sunday in the towns of the Empire,
the use of prayers for the army, the abolition of the
punishment of crucifixion, the encouragement of the
emancipation of slaves, the discouragement of infanti-
cide, the prohibition of private divinations, the prohi-
bition of licentious and cruel rites, the prohibition of
gladiatorial games. Every one of these steps was a
gain to the Roman Empire and to mankind such as
not even the Antonines had ventured to attempt,
and of these benefits none has been altogether lost.'' 2
These opinions may be a little too enthusiastic. The
latter hardly does justice to the noble though com-
paratively futile efforts of some of the Roman emperors ;
while the former must not blind us to the unchristian
character of some of the edicts of Constantine and
his successors. But it is hardly appropriate in this
brief essay to do more than indicate generally a few
lines upon which advance was made. Among the
laws which followed there were many others designed
to alleviate the miseries of men. Abuses such as John
^ Op. cit. I, chap. ii. and iii.
^ Eastern Church, vi., p. 230.
UPON THE ROMAN EMPIRE 269
Howard in later times brought to light in the treatment
of prisoners were forbidden by various edicts. Judg-
ment was not to be delayed beyond a definite period.
Actresses were encouraged to escape from their demoral-
izing profession. There were laws giving to mothers
the right of guardianship over their own children :
laws directed against immorality and with the object
of limiting divorce : and many laws which reveal a
growing sympathy with the weak, the poor, and the
unfortunate.
Special laws were directed against the injustice
and oppression of the taxgatherers and of the rich.
We can in short see most clearly that the Christian
idea of government existing for the protection of the
weak and of the poor had laid hold of the minds of
Christian emperors. The Church through its own
organizations, and in connexion with the anti-demo-
cratic and anti-Christian type of government prevailing
in the empire, which frustrated its efforts at every
turn, did a splendid work in alleviating poverty and
distress.! While the State was kilHng the middle
classes and so putting the dagger to its own bosom, the
Church was at least championing the cause of the
poor and mitigating the misery of the unfortunate.
Many things may be laid to the charge of the Church
in the first four centuries with more or less of plausi-
bility and of justice, but the very last thing with
which she can be charged with any degree of truth-
fulness is a want of sympathy with the poor, the help-
less, and the unfortunate. Before the empire fell,
the merciful spirit of the Church was reflected, not only
^ Even Karl Kautsky says — " Though it did not aboKsh poverty,
it was the most effective organization for alleviating the misery
growing out of the general poverty within its reach." Quoted by
Rauschenbusch, p. 133.
270 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
in the works of Christian authors, and in Church insti-
tutions and in Canon law, but even in the legislation
of a despotic and still largely pagan State. That State
had not been transformed by the Church from a des-
potism into a representative government, or taught
political economy, or saved from the inevitable
consequences of centuries of folly. But *' amid all
the perverse errors of legislation and the hopeless
corruption of the financial service,*' as Dr. Dill remarks,
" the central authority was keenly alive to its duties
and almost overwhelmed by its responsibilities." ^
Speaking of the last emperors he says: '* Almost every
page of the code bears witness to the indignant energy
with which the Emperor and his council strove to
check the anarchy of the provincial administration.
But with a high sense of duty and the appearance of
omnipotence the central authority had lost control of
the vast system.'* ^ And again — *' Yet it is impossible
to ignore the high sense of duty, and the almost effu-
sive sympathy for the suffering masses which mark
the last utterances of the imperial jurisprudence.** ^
That surely was no small victory for Christianity
to have won. It is for Christian men to-day, having
the inestimable advantage of living in a land of popular
government and free institutions, which the teaching
of Christianity has done much if not everything to
secure for them, to act with greater devotion and with
greater knowledge in the interests of the common-
wealth; but it would be foolish and unjust to ignore
the debt which we owe to the early Church.
^ Roman Society in the Last Century of the Eastern Empire, p.
229.
2 P. 278. 3 p, 277.
VII
The Influence of the Christian Church on
the Social and Ethical Development
of the Middle Ages
By Rev. H. B. WORKMAN, D.LiT., Principal of
Westminster Training College, London.
ARGUMENT.
§ I. The Fall of the Empire— The Task of the Church— A Survey of
the Ruin — West Goths — Salian Franks — Vandals — Slavs — Huns
— ^The Muslim Conquests — ^the Wikings — Attila and Leo — the Church
and the Salvation of Civilization.
§ II. The Conquests of the Cross — ^The only Hope of Civilization — Saracen
Culture inadequate — Roman Culture, the Extent of its Survival —
Roman Schools — Classical Literature — Inadequacy for the Crisis of these
Survivals — The New Civilization not the Effect of Survivals — Illustra-
tion and Proof from Gregory the Great — The New Nations and the
Church — ^The Soil of the New Civilization — Nominal Conversions —
Their Value— Testimony of Sir J. Stephen, of Ritter— Effect on
the Growth of Papal Supremacy.
§ III. The Church and Civilization — Its Life and Spirit — ^The Impotence
of Arianism — The Individualism of Barbarism — Illustrations — The
SoHdarity of the Church — Its effect on the Middle Ages — Social
and Spiritual Significance of this Solidarity — Objection raised from
the Individualism of the Reformation — The Objection answered.
§ IV. Examination of the Social Work of the Church in Detail — Greater
Value of Human Life — Deduction for the Penal Code — ^The
Inquisition — The Abolition of Slavery — The Redemption of
Captives — ^The Church and Poverty — Breaking down Class Distinc-
tions— St. Louis and Brother Giles — The Modern Fear of Poverty
— The Doctrine of Works and its Effect on Charity — The Church
and War — The Increase of Fanaticism — Diminution of Atrocity —
The Ideal of Chivalry— The Status of Woman — The Ideal of Virginity
— Place of Women in the Middle Ages — Illustrations — The Church
and the Growth of Liberty — The Difference in this matter between
the Early and Later Middle Ages — Aquinas and Marsiglio — The Rise
of Democracy — The Social Guilds — ^Their Work and Extent — The
Great Pillage — Practical Christian Socialism.
§ V. In Social Evolution Factors now harmful have played their Part —
Illustration from the Papacy — From the Penitential System — Its
Origin and Evils — Disciplinary Powers — The Conception of Solidarity
in the Doctrine of Merit.
§ VI. The Work of Monasticism — Monasticism and the Papacy — ^The
Origin of Monasticism — The Debt of Civilization — New Dignity of Toil
— The Value of Obedience — Monasticism and the Layman — The
Deductions that must be Made.
§ VII. The Reform Movements of the Later Middle Ages — Their Classifi-
cation— The new Spirit of Nationalism — Evangelical Poverty —
The Union of Democracy and Reform — Arnold of Brescia — The Peas-
ants' Revolt — Wyclif's Doctrine of Dominion — His Sympathy with
the Poor — His Kinship with St. Francis — His Appreciation of the
Real Humanity of Jesus — The Emphasis of Humanity among the
Lollards.
VII
The Influence of the Christian Church on
the Social and Ethical Development
of the Middle Ages
With the fall of the Roman Empire in its western
section we enter upon a new chapter in the history of
humanity. The former things had for ever passed
away ; but it was rather the coming of a new hell
than a new earth or a new heaven that seemed, at
first, to be the result. In reality it was necessary to
remove the things that were shaken, even though the
removal should be by consuming fires, that there
might be laid the abiding foundations of the City
of God.
The student would do well to obtain some idea of
the task which awaited the Church in the centuries
between the sack of Rome and the conclusion of the
wanderings of the nations. He should turn to the
map of the empire and realize its meaning ; the
majesty of its unity, the diversity of nations and
tongues which had lost their differences in the prouder
consciousness of a common citizenship, the reality of
c.c, 2'^ T
274 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
the law and order which bound the ends of the earth
to one common centre, the extent and depth of its
civilization, the wide diffusion of the arts, culture,
and science of the old world. The darker sides of
the picture he would do well, for the moment, to neg-
lect ; the religious rottenness, the financial ruin, the
limited few for whom the culture and civilization
existed, the vast hordes of slaves, the social and
political cancers which had eaten out the heart of
the empire. These things should be abstracted ;
the majesty of Rome and her civilization is so incon-
testably great that a world in which that force was
lost, or apparently lost, seemed to Christian prophet
and heathen thinker alike a ruined world. From
his realization of the greatness of the empire, and
the debt under which she had laid humanity, let the
reader now turn to the results of the wanderings of
the nations. In place of the old unity of speech, re-
ligion, law, and civilization, we find a babel of lan-
guages, a chaos of conflicting barbarisms ; anarchy
written large on all life, and darkness covering the
face of the deep.
A brief survey of the extent of the ruin may not
be out of place. The invasion of Greece by the West
Goths under Alaric (396) began the series of move-
ments which resulted in the breaking up of the West-
ern Empire into barbarian kingdoms. Driven from
their original home round the Aral, by the presence
of the Huns, the West Goths swept through Thrace,
Greece, and Illyricum and under Alaric captured
Rome itself (408). The death of Alaric at Cosenza
terminated for a while their onward march ; but this
deadly blow at the heart of the empire had already
been accompanied by the loss of outlying provinces.
In 407 the Romans retired from Britain ; fifty years
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 275
later such civilization as they had established was
swept away before the inroads of Saxons, Angles and
Jutes. In 409 a mixed band of Vandals, Suevians
and Alans — the last a race, probably, of non-Aryan
origin^ — crossed the Rhine, ravaged Gaul, and occupied
Spain, though many of the towns still remained in
Roman hands. In 413 the West Goths, retiring from
Italy, advanced to the Pyrenees, and established
in North-East Spain a kingdom with Barcelona as
the capital, in Southern Gaul a second kingdom
round Toulouse. From these centres they slowly
extended their dominion over almost the whole of the
peninsula. In consequence of their pressure, the
Vandals in 429 abandoned Spain and invaded Africa.
Under the leadership of Gaiseric their conquest was
rapid ; the loss of Carthage in 439 marked the begin-
ning of the end of Roman dominion. Thirty years
later Sardinia, Corsica and the Balearic Islands sur-
rendered to their fleets.
Northern Gaul had already fallen before the Salian
Franks. This German tribe from the regions between
the Scheldt and Rhine throughout the fifth century
slowly consolidated their conquests, until in 507 Chlo-
dovech (Clovis) drove back the West Goths beyond
the Garonne. Meanwhile in South-East Gaul the
Burgundians established themselves in Savoy (439) ;
while in Italy Theodoric founded an Ostrogothic
kingdom which stretched from Pannonia (Hungary)
to Sicily (489-493).
Even more dreaded than Vandals, Ostrogoths, or
Franks were the Huns, Asiatic nomads akin to the
Turks, who in the fifth century established under
Attila an empire which reached from the Volga to
the Rhine, from the Danube to the Baltic. Their
defeat at Mery-sur-Seine in 451 alone saved Gaul
276 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
from their devastations ; while their invasion of
Italy in 452 and their sack of the great city of Aquileia
are said to have led to the foundation of Venice by
Christian fugitives.
In the sixth century, a temporary revival of the
empire under Justinian (f 576) led to the disappear-
ance of the kingdoms of the Vandals and Ostrogoths ;
but other races were ready to take their place. In
565 the Lombards descended into Italy from Pan-
nonia, and within four years won for themselves the
country which they still possess.
Meanwhile in the East Slavonic tribes, Chrobats,
Serbs, Sorbs and others were slowly occupying what
once had been imperial soil, bringing with them polit-
ical problems, the end of which is not yet ; while in
Northern Europe, Slovenes, Wends, and Czechs were
establishing themselves in their permanent homes,
attempting to hem in Teutonic expansion on the
East.
As if the medley of races were not sufficient, we
find in the seventh century the Turanians swarming
over parts of Europe. In 679 the Bulgarians crossed
the Danube and occupied their present kingdom.
Another oriental tribe, the Ugrian Magyars, a race
very different in origin from the Huns, were for many
years the terror of Europe. But in 955, after their
great defeat by Otto the Great, they settled down in
Pannonia, a district afterwards known, by a mistake
in identification, as Ungaria or Hungary.
A blow to the Church, even more serious, was to
come from the East. When Gregory the Great died
(604), Muhammad had not yet begun to believe in his
own mission. Before the century was completed,
Syria, North Africa, Egypt, the most fertile districts
of Spain — Leon alone was saved for the Cross — had
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 277
exchanged their Christianity for the creed of their
Muslim masters. The great victory of Charles Martel
at Tours (732) alone saved France from the same
fate. At one time (849) it seemed as if Rome herself
would become a Muhammadan city ; the coasts and
islands of Italy had already fallen before the Saracen
fleets.
The West had scarcely begun to recover from its
struggle with the CaHphate when the thirst for plun-
der woke again in North and East. Swarms of Wik-
ings, secure in their command of the sea, descended
on every coast, swept up the rivers to burn the inland
towns, and destroyed with indifferent ferocity church,
castle, and village. '' Deliver us, O Lord,'* ran the
litany of the times, '' from the frenzy of the North-
men.'' Heathenism hurled itself in a last desperate
rally on the Christian world. Thor and Woden and
misshapen Asiatic monsters struggled to overthrow
the Cross.
When in 482 the terrible Attila, after his defeat
by the Visigoths at the battle of the Catelaunian
fields (Chalons), flung himself on Italy, the Romans,
in their despair, sent the foremost of their citizens
to implore the Hun to make peace and withdraw.
With their senators they associated the venerable
Leo, their bishop. The mission was successful ; Attila
and his Mongolian hordes retired to Pannonia. Later
legends have claimed all the credit of this deliverance
for the Bishop of Rome. Leo is represented, for
instance, in the paintings of Raffaele as standing with
the great figures of St. Peter and St. Paul at his back,
menacing with drawn sword and unutterable woes
the trembling Hun. Which things are an allegory.
In Leo, for whose person Attila probably felt no more
reverence than for that of his fellows in the deputy-
278 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
tion, we salute the representative of the force which
alone could subdue the barbarian. For we may
boldly claim that the Church saved civilization ; but
for her missions and her influence this would have
perished.
II
The story of Christian aggression forms no part of
our purpose. The great missions of the early Middle
Ages will ever remain one of the proudest records of
the Church. The heroes of the Cross, with their lives
in their hands, succeeded in recovering for their Master
the lost provinces of His kingdom. From the Steppes
of Russia to the shores of the Atlantic, the barbarians,
nominally at least, before the end of the eleventh
century accepted the authority and submitted to
the discipline of the Church. The savage Wends
between the Elbe and Oder were almost the last
to forsake their idols ; not until 1333 did Albert the
Bear of Brandenburg beat down into a reluctant Chris-
tianity the dwellers round the modern Berlin. But
passing by the records of victory, we must confine
ourselves to the question : what was the effect upon
civilization of this aggression of the Church ?
We have claimed that civilization was saved by the
Church ; at the same time it was transformed. As is
usual in all great movements, the movement itself
was almost unconscious of what it effected. The
Church was not thinking of civilization — for civiliza-
tion in some of its aspects the mediaeval .Church
had a profound contempt — she was thinking of her-
self, or rather of her Master. The great missionary
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 279
enterprises inaugurated in the seventh century by
Pope Gregory the Great were only just in time. On
every side the dominion of the Church was threatened,
her borders straitened. Only by persistent aggres-
sion could Christianity be saved, more especially
when we remember that the Cross was destined shortly
to lose the Greek Empire in Europe and Asia Minor to
the Othman Turks.
The changes produced by the inrush of the bar-
barians were more than territorial. They swept
away not only Roman rule, but Roman civilization ;
this last, in some lands, partially only, in others, for
instance England, absolutely and for ever. Roman
law gave place to the customs of the tribes ; Roman
schools survived only in a few sheltered towns ; classic
culture became lost for centuries ; above all the '' Pax
Romana,'' the greatest gift which Rome conferred
on humanity, was exchanged for the confused struggle
of tribe with tribe. Life everywhere, in all its forms,
whether social or political, tended to slip back into
barbarism. But for the Church the ruin would have
been complete.
For, save in the Church, where else shall we find,
in the general welter of the times, a force sufficient to
save civilization ? Shall we turn to the new nations
— Franks, Huns, Northmen and the like ? Or, since
this is unthinkable, shall we fall back upon the culture
introduced into Europe by the Arabs ; the arts and
sciences which we owe to their inspiration ? But
unless we misread the whole history of the West,
Eastern culture must always have formed an alien
element, the mark, at best, of Saracen conquerors.
Its philosophy, potent though it became as an heretical
force in the schools of Toledo and Paris, was too essen-
tially Eastern in its Pantheism to influence the West.
28o INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
As one of the elements absorbed by the awakening
intelligence of Europe, Saracen culture had its value ;
as a foundation for Western civilization and moral life
it was impossible. Nor shall we rest on firmer ground
if we seek for our sources of civilization in the survival
of the old Greek and Roman culture.
The extent of the survival of the Roman culture
— for our present purpose Greek letters may be neg-
lected— has often, it is true, been underestimated.
In the darkest days of barbarian triumph there were
still here and there, in Italy at least, Roman Schools,
and the traditions of Roman culture and law. These,
like Roman roads, Roman aqueducts and bridges,
were built too solidly to be easily swept away. But
though surviving, their effect upon the life of the sur-
rounding barbarians was but slight. We may take,
for instance, Roman Law, the codification of which
was the great legacy of the later Empire. The key
to the existence of Lombard cities and Lombard
schools lies in the continued recognition through the
darkest ages of the old Roman system of jurisprudence.
But the effect of Roman Law upon the barbarians
was almost nil until they had been Christianized.
Only when the age of iron gave place to the first rude
attempts at order could Roman Law re-assert herself.
Then indeed her influence was tremendous, both
upon the common law of the new nations, and especi-
ally upon the Canon Law of the Church. This last,
in fact, was moulded upon the Roman model. But
this influence, we maintain, was secondary, not causal,
the result of a suitable environment prepared by the
Church. Without the civihzation fostered by the
Church the nations would never have turned from
their rude codes to the more scientific jurisprudence
of Justinian. For the question of the influence of
©N THE MIDDLE AGES 281
Roman Law resolves itself into the struggle between
the surviving Romanized and Christianized civic
communities and the surrounding barbarian and
heathen populations with their own codes. But for
Christianity the struggle would have been unto death ;
it was really the Christianity of the towns that won
over the country pagans.
In estimating the effect of Roman Law upon civil-
ization we must not forget that its influence was not
without its drawbacks. If we compare the legal
story of England and Germany we see the greater
benefit that might have accrued from the growth of
a native system of law, Teutonic in origin, moulded
under Christian influences, than from the institution
of a jurisprudence that in some aspects at least was
essentially alien. Many of the worst features of law,
in Germany especially, are the result of this old wine
in new bottles.
This reasoning is still more correct when applied
to Roman schools, and all the culture that Roman
schools might be supposed to have fostered. That
here and there the traditions of the old schools lingered
on, perhaps even the actual schools themselves, need
not be disputed. But the influence of this old culture
as a civilizing element was almost nothing, until the
Church had done the spade-work which alone made
it fruitful. The new schools of Europe, from Charles
the Great and Alcuin to Abailard, were, with few excep-
tions, strictly Christian schools ; if not the work of
missionaries, at any rate the result of the labours of
great Christian teachers. From the sixth to the
twelfth centuries the great educational centres were
almost invariably monasteries ; they alone kept burn-
ing a dim but living light. In the twelfth century
no doubt we see a change. Education passed away
282 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
from the monastery to the cathedral school ; this
last, in turn, gave place to the grammar school and
the university. We may call this great twelfth cen-
tury movement — the leading figure of which was
Abailard — '* the protest of the secular spirit " ; but,
if so, we must be careful to define our terms. The
opposition of '' secular '' is to the '' regular '' or mon-
astic, not to the Church, much less to Christianity —
this last an idea almost inconceivable to the mediaeval
mind. But whether by '' secular '' or *' regular '',
the mediaeval education of Europe, such as it was,
owed all to the protecting care of the Church — Italy
alone possibly excepted — until the rise of the Uni-
versities, and the first dawn of the Renaissance.
But if the great civilizing forces of the Middle Ages
cannot be found in either Roman Law or Roman
Schools, much less shall we find them in the survival of
that Roman and Greek culture which formed so great
a factor in the Renaissance. As a matter of fact,
during the Middle Ages Latin literature was almost
unknown. Virgil survived ; but chiefly as the memory
of a mighty wizard. The gold of past culture had
sunk ; for the most part it was only the light and
worthless rubbish that had floated down the stream
of time, saved for us by Boethius, Cassiodorus, Mar-
tianus Capella and other compilers. So Httle was
the old culture a factor in the new civiUzation that it
might be maintained, with a fair show of justice,
that the Church sinned against civilization by the
contempt she poured upon this culture, and the
trivial place in life to which through her influence
culture was condemned during mediaeval times, with
the single exception, from the twelfth century onwards,
of the logic of Aristotle— the '' new logic '' as it was
called— and Plato's doctrine of ideas. The rise of
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 283
the Western Church was no doubt accompanied by
a steady decHne in the study of classical letters ; Greek
became an unknown language ; the grammarian was
expelled by the schoolman ; in some quarters learn-
ing was looked upon as a hindrance to the Gospel.
The reproduction of material became, in time, all
that was asked of scholars. But the more we em-
phasize this result, the more potent the argument
that the new civilization was not the effect of the
survival of Greek or Roman culture. No better
illustration of this can be found than the fact that
the hostility of the Church to pagan culture finds its
most famous expression in one to whom civilization
will ever owe an incalculable debt.i
The hostility to classic culture of Gregory the Great
and other early mediaeval ecclesiastics should not be
misinterpreted. *' It was to a great extent merely
the reflection within the sphere of Theology of the
political and social conditions of the times.'' 2 Jn
reality it was only among Churchmen that an educa-
tional ideal was maintained at all. We cannot there-
fore subscribe to the opinion of some writers of repute
who have contended that the hostility of the Church
to secular learning flung back civilization, to some
extent even Christianity itself, into a superstition
very little superior to paganism. We may own that
the age between Charles the Great and Hildebrand
was one of almost universal darkness, in which re-
ligion, divorced not merely from learning but also
from morality, assimilated to herself a variety of pagan
^ Gregory the Great : Ep. ix. 54. " A report has reached us
which we cannot explain without a blush that thou expoundest
grammar to certain friends," etc.
2 Rashdall, Universities *« the Middle Ages, i. 26.
284 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
and materialistic elements. But this divorce, with
all its disastrous consequences to civilization, was
due to the hopeless welter of the age rather than to
the spirit of the Church. We have proof of this last
in the fact that every mediaeval revival of religious
life, for instance the great reform of the eleventh
century, the moving spirit of which was Hildebrand,
led at once to a new interest in letters, in art, and
in all the higher things of life. Even the religious
movements which at first sight seem antagonistic
to civilization, for instance monasticism, will be
found, upon examination, to furnish their contribu-
tion.
We have claimed that the idea of finding the great
new civilizing factor in the life of the barbarian
nations is unthinkable. The statement needs a certain
qualification. In the successive swarms of barbarians
the keenest eye can detect little but savagery, miti-
gated by frankness and bravery, and by a certain
absence of the corruptions of the dying Roman world.
Nevertheless the new nations formed a fine soil for
the growth of a new culture ; but the new culture
was in every case planted there by the Church, in no
case the product of internal latent powers. We may
take as an illustration the case of the Northmen of
Normandy. At the commencement of the tenth cen-
tury they were still the terror and scourge of Christen-
dom. Their drinking cups were oftentimes human
skulls ; their amusement to throw children into the
air and catch them on the points of their spears. By
the end of the century the Norman pirates had for-
gotten their native land, its language and rough cus-
toms, and abandoned the worship of Woden for that
of '* the white Christ.'* The result was marvellous,
both in the facts themselves and in the rapidity of their
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 285
accomplishment. The new faith chastened and trans-
formed into the beginnings of a new poetry the wild
fancy which had thought of the thunder as the hammer
of Thor, and heard in the wind the war-cry of Woden.
Hence it is in Normandy that we first see the break-
ing of light in the dark ages. There the new and
nobler spirit became a national enthusiasm. Monas-
teries arose in every glade, while the schools of Bee
and Avranches might well be called, for awhile, the
universities of the West. Thus the energy of the
Wiking pirates, at the call of the Church, aroused
Europe from its night of sleep, and gave a new
dawn to civilization. But the force that made for
civilization was the transforming touch of the
Church.
Before we pass away from the conversion of the
nations it may be well to meet an objection. These
wholesale conversions, it may be urged, were but
nominal and external. Christianity gave to barbar-
ism hardly more than its superstition, turning its
cruelty into the new channels of hatred for unbe-
lievers and heretics. It scarcely cleansed the outside
of the cup and platter ; within it was as of old full of
extortion and excess. All this is true and more.
Nevertheless it is one of those half truths which are
more false than any lie. ''Where is that country
and what is that time in which Christianity has been
more than this amongst the great multitude of those
who have called and professed themselves Christians ?
The travellers in the narrow way who are guided by
her vital spirit have ever been the '' chosen few." The
travellers along the broad way, wearing her exterior
and visible badges, have ever been the '' many called.'*
And yet he who should induce any heathen people to
adopt the mere ceremonial of the Church, to cele-
286 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
brate her ritual, and to recognize, though but in words,
the authority of her Divine Head, would confer on
them a blessing exceeding all which mere human
philanthropy has ever accomplished or designed.
For such is the vivifying influence of the spirit of the
Gospel that it can never be long otherwise than prolific
of the highest temporal benefits to all, and of the
highest spiritual blessing to some in every land which
acknowledges it as a rule of life, and receives it as a
system of worship." ^
To the same effect also is the verdict of another
thinker. " Christianity," says Ritter, in his History
of Christian Philosophy, '' offered itself and was ac-
cepted by the German tribes as a law and as a dis-
cipline, as an ineffable incomprehensible mystery.
Its fruits were righteousness and works and belief in
the dead word. But in a barbarous people this is an
immense advance, an inestimable benefit. Ritual
observance is a taming, humihating process ; it is sub-
mission to law ; it is the acknowledgment of spiritual
inferiority ; it implies self-subjection, self-conquest,
self-sacrifice. It is not religion in its highest sense,
but it is a preparation for it."
One result of this nominal and rudimentary con-
version must not be overlooked. Its very super-
ficiality rendered easy the supremacy of Rome. Super-
stition is ever the characteristic of the heathen ; con-
version and civilization but slowly destroy its hold.
Upon its follies and terrors, as well as upon reverence
and awe, Rome securely founded her vast system
of privilege and pretension. Moreover, if the Church
influenced the barbarian, the barbarian was not with-
out his reaction on the Church. We see this in the
^ Sir J. Stephen, Collected Essays, p. 130.
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 287
growth in the Church of materiaUzed superstitions.^
If these to the modern mind seem oftentimes to differ
but shghtly from the grossest idolatries we must
remember, as some excuse, the wilder practices from
which the heathen were weaned. The history of
Latin Christianity is the demonstration that childish-
ness, as well as wisdom, is oftentimes justified by
her children. The whole policy of Rome, in its deal-
ings with the heathen, will be found in the letter of
Gregory the Great to MelHtus : ''It is evidently
impossible, in the case of hard hearts, to cut off every-
thing at once. A man who is endeavouring to scale
a summit rises by steps, not by bounds.'' 2 Rome
grew because she was in creed, organization and ritual
perfectly adapted, as a biologist would phrase it, to
an imperfect environment. She ruled the age be-
cause!! she represented in herself its weakness as well
as its strength. Unlike the early Church she took
refuge in a policy of syncretism*.
Ill
We should do well to inquire what it was in the
life of the mediaeval Church that especially made for
civilization in its relations with the rough material
left by the barbarian conquests. One word of caution
^ See Diet. Christian Antiq., ii. 1542.
2 The whole letter should be read. See Bede H. B. i. xxx.
With this should be compared Gregory's letter to Augustine, ib.
i. xxvii. (undoubtedly genuine), and the letter of Boniface in
Haddan and Stubbs' Councils, iii. 304-6.
2 On the refusal of the Church in the first three centuries to
adopt a policy bf syncretism see my Persecution in the Early
Church, pp. 86, 351.
288 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
is advisable at the outset. In our discussion we shall
deal with the matter in an abstract fashion, examining
the great forces and processes of society much as the
anatomist examines an organism or bodily frame-
work. From such examination much may be learned.
But after all more important far than organic frame-
work is the Hfe of which this frame is but the outer
covering or shell. And it was neither the beauty of
its sacred writings, the strength of its organizations,
nor the fascination of its religious services, but the
life of Christ manifesting itself abundantly in the
mediaeval Church — poor, incomplete, inconsistent, as
may at times have been its expression — that saved
the world from the deluge, and in place of barbarism
restored civilization.
The student would do well to note that the Chris-
tianity which civilized has always been Catholic.
Many of the barbarians were converted at a time
when they were in contact with Arians, and Arians, in
consequence, they became. But Arianism, however
vigorous it might appear for the moment, has always
proved in the long run to be effete and unfruitful. The
peoples which adopted it have either died out, for in-
stance the Vandals, or have repented and received the
Catholic faith, as the Visigoths. But in all ages the
Christianity which has remained loyal to Christ and
His claims has wielded an influence the extent and
duration of which cannot be explained by logic, and
which forms in itself no small part of the argument
for the truth of the Catholic faith.
Moreover, in spite of all shortcomings, there has
never been a time when the Church has forgotten its
divine mission as the representative of Him Who
came not to be ministered unto but to minister.
Even in the dreariest days God has not left Himself
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 289
without His witnesses, men and women not a few,
whose lives, made radiant by the Cross, have filled
with light the darkest places. In every age, even in
those in which the life of the Church has seemed at
its lowest, the greatest force that has made for civiliza-
tion and uplifting has been the continued vitality of the
great principles of the Gospel ; its abounding altru-
ism ; the value given to the poorest and meanest as
the brother for whom Christ died ; the stress laid upon
sin as the blot on human life, the hindrance to further
progress, the cause of inevitable retribution ; the
revolution effected by the teaching of a future life,
the bringing in of a new world to redress the balance
of the old, with its doctrine of judgement and conse-
quent rewards and punishments.
Nor must we overlook in our enumeration of the
factors in Christianity that have made for the regenera-
tion of mankind its optimism. The crude doctrine
of total depravity enunciated by St. Augustine has
never succeeded in banishing, in practice, the belief
of the Church that the latent powers which make for
righteousness exceed those which are evil, that even
in the far country man is near the kingdom of God,
and that human nature, on the whole, is on the side
of the angels. With these necessary cautions we are
now in a position to approach the somewhat abstract
question ; what was it in the mediaeval Church that
especially fitted it to be the formative factor in medi-
aeval civilization ?
Before an answer can be given we need to ask the
further question : what were the essential features
of the barbarians the taming of whom fell to the lot
of the Church. By an answer we do not intend a
catalogue of vices — cruelty, lust, bloodshed, and the
like — these, it might fairly be contended, were as
c.c. u
290 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
marked characteristics of the Romans whom they had
conquered as of the barbarian victors. We would
look deeper ; can we find in barbarism a general for-
mula of which its various aspects are in the main the
expression ? Can we find a similar general formula
in the life of the mediaeval Church ? We think we
can.
The great central principle of barbarism, as we see
it at work in the Western world on the break up of
the empire, is its essential individualism. The limit
of outlook is the local tribe ; neighbour and enemy
are almost interchangeable terms. The one bond of
solidarity is the great chief, and the usages and cus-
toms that centuries of superstition had turned into
bonds more unbreakable than steel. The state as
state — a collective fact, not the mere expression of
loyalty to the individual chief — is unknown ; and
in consequence all political matters are in constant
flux. As in the lower organisms, kingdoms divide
and sub-divide, or reunite their fragments, with amaz-
ing facility. Generalizations are often dangerous,
but we shall not err widely in summing up the inner
spirit of European barbarism as unregulated individ-
ualism.
One illustration of this position must suffice. The
Wiking, sailing from his Northern home, thinks noth-
ing of the spread of his empire, casts few looks behind,
is bound by no links of loyalty. He sails hither and
thither, indifferent to all save the impulses of the
moment. If he settles, it is not as a colonist pushing
forward the frontiers of his native state. Whether
Varangian in Russia, or Norman in France and Sicily,
he forgets the old and founds round himself a new
kingdom. The very intensity of his individualism,
unfettered by national outlook or lasting tradition,
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 291
enables him rapidly to adapt the new state, whether
in Russia, France, or Sicily, to the special environ-
ment. Even language, the one feature, besides his
religion, which links him on to his former associates,
is to him so essentially an individual matter, that he
is wilHng to cast it aside for the tongue of the people
he has conquered, as he had already cast aside his
religion. The Frank in Gaul, Norman in France,
Varangian in Russia, Lombard in Italy, are but a
few of the illustrations of this principle that we could
furnish.
Nor was it only among the barbarians that we
find the action of particularist tendencies. We see
the same fatal process at work in the Carolingian
Empire. The kingdom the unity of which has been
painfully accomplished by the labours of some hero,
ever tends to fall back into an aggregation of counties
loosely bound together by shadowy ties, which are yet
too weak to prevent the constant internecine strife.
The period of the heptarchy was not peculiar to Eng-
land ; what was peculiar was the speedy deliverance
of our country from the centrifugal forces which on
the Continent wrecked all attempts at political unity.
The student of to-day is apt to be misled by such
modern facts as France, Italy and Germany into for-
getting that in the Middle Ages the Continent was
split up into an indescribable number of semi-inde-
pendent duchies, counties, bishoprics, and the like.
But for the unity given by the Church the forces of
disintegration might have become supreme.
In contrast to this unregulated individualism of
the barbarian, we find in the mediaeval economy the
working out of the great principle of solidarity. The
effort of human society in the Middle Ages is to fit
itself in with great institutions, or rather with the
292 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
governing ideas of such institutions. The one means
that is held out to men as the key to accompHshment
is the sinking of the individual in some form of cor-
porate life. Instead of the struggle of clan with clan
we find the great dominant conception of a world-
empire and a world-Church. Of these two the second
is the more important ; the unity of all in one Catholic
Church lies at the root of the notion of one Holy Roman
Empire.
The absorption of the individual into a corpora-
tion, primarily spiritual but with a secondary out-
look upon the political, is thus the key to mediaeval
life and thought. The religious life of the individual
was but in a slight sense a matter of his own experience.
From first to last in the spiritual world he is con-
ditioned and determined by his corporate environ-
ment ; his baptism into the corporation, his participa-
tion in its sacraments, his relation to a priestly caste,
and the like. Just as in the secular mediaeval state
the life of the individual was conditioned by his guild,
rank, or city in a way and to a degree of which we
have to-day illustrations only in the dreams of Social-
ists, so, even more strictly, in the spiritual life. In
fact, it was the training in the consciousness of solidar-
ity, given from cradle to grave by the Church, that
alone made possible the emphasis placed upon cor-
porate life in the civil estate.
We are at length in a position to answer our ques-
tion : What was the great force in the Catholic Church
that made for civilization, leaving aside for the mo-
ment its definite spiritual activities? We find it in
this consciousness of solidarity. But in reality this
principle is none other than the translation into new
and more spiritual terms of the root principles of the
old Roman Empire into whose dominion the Church
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 293
had stepped, whose genius of administration she had
inherited, whose work she was destined to carry on
to still higher issues. This it was, enforced by all
the sanctions and fears of another world, that subdued
the individualism of the barbarian, with its vagaries
and divisions, and forced him slowly to adapt himself
to the needs, limitations and service of society ; that
gave him a wider outlook than the clan and its struggles;
that made him conscious both of what he owed to
posterity, and of his indebtedness to the past.
Furthermore in this emphasis of solidarity we see
the force which prepared the new races to receive the
inheritance of law and order which had come down
to them from Rome. The Church by its great essen-
tial ideas made ready the soil, dug about the roots,
rendered possible in different ways the renewed vital-
ity of the withered but undying principles of Roman
and Hellenic civilization. The secret of civilization
is growth combined with continuity ; progress is never
the result of cataclysm. The Church not only sup-
plied the element of continuity with older cultures,
but, from its very nature, the possibihties of and
stimulus to development and growth.
The student should not forget that the emphasis
laid by the Church upon solidarity was not material
only ; it demanded from all the apperception of cer-
tain ideas. The gross materialism of much of the
corporate life of the mediaeval Church cannot be
denied ; but even the most superstitious devotee
could not fail to be conscious at sundry times and in
divers ways of the existence of a great spiritual society
the bounds of which, both past and future, were in
the infinite distances. By many differing ways (super-
stitious or otherwise need not now detain us), he was
ever forced to realize that his salvation depended
294 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
completely upon his union with a Church visible and
invisible, upon forces spiritual, far-reaching, infinite,
that transcended the little circle of his immediate
sensations. Whatever the superstition, or ignorance
of the Middle Ages — and we are not careful to mini-
mize these matters — underlying all we may find the
presence of potent ideas that drove men to look before
and after. But it is precisely the absence of such
ideas that constitutes barbarism, with its concentra-
tion upon the needs of the moment ; it is the pres-
ence above all else of such ideas that makes for civiliza-
tion.
This consciousness of solidarity, characteristic of the
mediaeval Church, was of immense social significance ;
it took the disintegrated units of life and society that
survived the barbarian invasions and built them up
into a new order, drawing strength even from the
prevalent decay. By its more spiritual conceptions,
above all by the homage which in the worship of Christ
it ever paid to renunciation, the Church slowly broke
up the military ideas of feudalism, and for brute force
and passion substituted law and order. Its doctrine
of the unity of the human race, both in Adam and in
Christ, was destined to prove fatal to all slavery.
Even the mediaeval doctrine of sin, by its essentially
social rather than individualistic outlook, became,
as we shall see later, a powerful instrument in the
suppression of barbarian tempers and customs.
One objection to this generalization is so obvious
that it needs to be met. We have emphasized the
solidarity of the Catholic Church as the root idea —
neglecting for the moment the spiritual forces —
which gave her power to tame the individualism of
the barbarian. But historians have pointed out that
the Reformation was the protest of the individual
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 295
against an organization which gave the individual
as such Uttle or no place. How then, it may be asked,
can the Reformation be looked upon as a factor in
advancing civihzation, when it appears to be a set-back
to ideas from which humanity had been emancipated
by the mediaeval Church ?
The answer is plain. The individualism of the
Reformation was not the individuahsm of the bar-
barian ; it was an individuahsm of thought, not of
action. Unregulated individuahsm in action, whether
in the fifth-century Vandal or the twentieth-century
manufacturer, leads to anarchy ; individualism in
thought, however ill regulated, makes for hberty,
and, in the long run, for righteousness. Individual-
ism may rightly be claimed to be the highest and
rarest product of human development, but such
individualism does not come first in the order of time,
except in so far as we may dimly discern its roots in
the anarchic selfishness of the barbarian. In the
historical order solidarity comes first, alone making
possible the civilization in which this higher individ-
ualism— genius, personal magnetism, leadership, lofty
thought, the artist's touch, the poet's vision — call it
what we will — shall have its truest chance.
Moreover, the protest of individualism was not
the only feature of the Reformation. Side by side
with it we see the revolt of nationalism, the deter-
mination of the Western nations to work out their own
life on their own lines. But nationalism and individ-
ualism necessarily contain contradictory elements.
In the play of these two principles — the greater oppor-
tunity of the individual as such, the expression of
solidarity in nationalism rather than in the unity of
creed, ritual and organization — united only in their
protest against the common tyranny of Rome, we see
:296 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
the cause and trace the varying phases of the Reform-
ation. But the consideration of this matter belongs
elsewhere.
IV
From this somewhat abstract generalization we
shall do well to pass on to details. In any survey of
the civilizing factors of the mediaeval Church we may
claim the value assigned to human life as the result of
the doctrines of the sanctity of each immortal soul ;
the mitigation of the horrors of war ; the impulse
given to the manumission of slaves. The mediaeval
Church provided the one power that could successfully
oppose the reign of force, that could uphold and main-
tain a certain discipline over the passions of the
greatest. To the Church also we owe the formation
of a loftier ideal of womanhood, the beginnings of
education, the rise of art, the noblest achievements
of architecture. In the coming of the friars, to a lesser
extent also in the earlier monastic movement, we note
the most successful effort ever made towards con-
structive socialism. Many of these matters are so
self-evident, so acknowledged by all, that they need
not detain us ; some have been dealt with already
in a previous section, in so far as we see them at
work in the early Church in its relation to the Roman
Empire.
The emphasis of the greater value of human life
is observed in the formation of a strong public opinion
against the common sins of the empire, abortion and
infanticide ; and in the growth during the Middle
Ages of foundling hospitals. That this last move-
ment became in time a source of danger to chastity
must not blind us to its value at its first origin in
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 297
teaching charity and humanity. Nor should we over-
look, as another instance of the great law of compen-
sation that runs through all history, that the com-
passion of the Church for infants was largely the result
of its extreme doctrine of Baptism. The hell which,
according to common belief, awaited the unbaptized,
led the Church to insist on the saving of life. But
from the serfdom or slavery into which the children thus
saved were too often sold the mediaeval Church only
slowly effected deliverance.
From the credit due to the Church on this matter
of the greater value attached to life, the crown of which
was the abolition of the gladiatorial shows, one deduc-
tion must be made. The Church in the Middle Ages
did nothing to mitigate the barbarity of the penal
code. This is the more remarkable when we remem-
ber that the early Church excluded its members from
holding office in the State, because their duties could
not be carried out ** without chaining and torturing." '
Unfortunately the persecuting zeal of the intolerant
led not only to the abandonment of this early spirit,
but in the later Middle Ages to a decided retrogression.
In 1252 Innocent IV made torture legal for the hunt-
ing of heretics, and forced its use on the secular courts.
Not the least of the many crimes of the mediaeval
Inquisition was the way in which she thus poisoned
the administration of justice and the methods of evi-
dence. To this sin she added the studied hypocrisy
with which, on handing over the *' relaxed " to secular
judgment, she solemnly admonished the authorities
that the punishment to be enforced " should not
imperil life or limb, or cause effusion of blood."
As regards slavery the progress made in the Middle
Ages was somewhat slow. We must remember that
^ See my Persecution in the Early Church, p. 179.
298 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
the Church did not at first recognize the greatness of
St. Paul's Epistle to Philemon, that no slave question
existed in the early Church, and that the legitimacy
of slavery was generally acknowledged in theory.
But in practice, the doctrine of the value of '' the
brother for whom Christ died '' slowly triumphed.
The freedom of serf or slave in testamentary bequest
was inculcated as the most acceptable gift that could
be made *' for the benefit of the soul.*' By the end
of the fourteenth century slavery in Europe of Chris-
tian people was almost unknown. Serfdom lingered
long, and its abolition was hindered by the great
number of serfs attached to the estates of the Church.
Many of these no doubt were originally free peasants
who had bartered their liberty for the greater security
and protection which the spiritual overlord could
afford. Like many other movements commendable
in their origin this, in time, became a disaster both for
civilization and the Church. The serfs of the Church
were among the last to secure their liberty. But in
its practical working mediaeval serfdom was not quite
so evil as it seems to us to-day. We may well doubt
whether the landless peasantry of modern England,
though nominally free, is in reality much better off
than the mediaeval villain whose land was secured to
him by custom.
Closely connected with the abolition of slavery
was the constant effort of the Church, throughout the
Middle Ages, to redeem Christian captives from their
servitude. This movement had been begun in the
days of persecution ; one of the objects of the monthly
collection allowed by Roman Law in the churches
was the redemption of brethren banished to the mines
of Sardinia. With the barbarian invasions such a
fund became still more necessary ; and the leaders
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 299
of the Church, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, Caesarius,
Eligius and others distinguished themselves by their
efforts in this matter. Caesarius of Aries (t542) was
not the only bishop of his times who, to purchase
back the captives of his flock, sold the gold and silver
vessels and ornaments of his church. When money
failed Eligius of Noyon {h. 588) in his constant work
of manumission, he sold even his clothing. The Mus-
lim conquests and the terror of the Algerine pirates,
led the Middle Ages to found societies specially
devoted to this object, the chief of which was the
Trinitarians or Maturines. But in all such movements
the Church took the foremost part ; to the mediaeval
mind a philanthropy not ecclesiastical in origin and
control was almost inconceivable.
With the abolition of slavery there came into
greater prominence the evil of poverty. From the
first the Church sought to meet this by constant
charity. Collections for the poor always formed
part of the Eucharistic services, and at an early date
charity was elevated into one of the leading graces
and merits of life. The effects of this zeal for the
poor made themselves manifest in the closing days
of the Empire ; they were even more apparent in the
Middle Ages. We see, perhaps, the highest expres-
sion of this spirit in the great revival ushered in by
St. Francis of Assisi. No religious life seemed then
to be complete which did not devote itself to the care
of the outcast or leper, or give of its substance to the
relief of the sick and the aged. All over Europe the
rude barbarity of the times was counteracted by a
deep stream of pity which founded hospitals, lazar-
houses, and almshouses in almost every city and vil-
lage. Nor were the claims of the poor in the matter
of education forgotten. The Franciscan revival
300 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
ushered in the golden age of our universities ; for a
few years Oxford and Paris were accessible to the
poorest. The greater part of the endowments for the
mitigation of poverty and suffering were unfortunately
swept away at the Reformation, or handed over to
individual ownership. This unparalleled pillage of
the common wealth by the greed of unprincipled ex-
ploiters of the Reformation forms a great stain upon
a movement that in other respects ministered to the
social well-being.
One effect of the mediaeval habit of charity was to
break down the barriers which separated the classes.
Of Aletta, the noble mother of St. Bernard, we are
told that '* she was accustomed to go personally from
house to house, searching out the poor and weak . . .
preparing food for them, ministering to the sick, cleans-
ing their cups and vessels with her own hands, and
performing for them the humblest offices usually dis-
charged by servants." Such records might be multi-
plied indefinitely ; they witness to a kindliness of
sympathy between rich and poor that did much to
counteract the evils of feudalism, and to redress
economic inequalities.
The call to fraternity, as we have seen, reached
its climax in the coming of the friars. In France
the number of leper hospitals rapidly sprang from a
few to over two thousand. But by nothing is the
success of St. Francis' attempt to bring the classes
together more clearly brought out than in the famous
tale of the Little Flower.
How St. Louis, King of France, went in person in the guise of a
pilgrim to Perugia for to visit the holy Brother Giles. ... So the
porter went to Brother Giles and told him that at the door was a
pilgrim that asked for him. . . . And being inspired of God it was
revealed to him that it was the King of France : so straightway with
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 301
great fervour he left his cell, and ran to the door, and without further
questioning, albeit they ne'er had seen each other before, kneeling
down with great devotion they embraced and kissed each other, with
such signs of tender love as though for a long time they had been
close f amihar friends ; but for all that they spoke not, the one nor
the other, but continued in this embrace in silence.
Let US hear the comment of one of our own pro-
phets. '* Of all which story not a word of course is
credible by any rational person. Certainly not : the
spirit nevertheless which created the story is an en-
tirely indisputable fact in the history of mankind.
Whether St. Louis and Brother Giles ever knelt to-
gether in Perugia matters not a whit. That a king
and a poor monk could be conceived to have thoughts
of each other which no words could speak . . . this
is what you have to meditate on here.'* ^
We must not pass away from this question of the
relation of the Church to poverty and suffering with-
out pointing out the great factors in mediaeval life
which made for charity. The Middle Ages — unlike
the twentieth century — was not afraid of poverty ;
poverty was not the one evil of life which more than
any other must be shunned. So far from looking
upon poverty as a crime or stigma, the mediaeval
Church erred rather in the opposite direction in elevat-
ing poverty, provided it was voluntary, into the mark
of saintliness. Mediaeval practice, we must confess,
was not always in accord in this matter with mediaeval
theory ; but the Church of the Middle Ages was at
any rate true to its Founder in refusing to recognize
the ideal of life in the successful millionaire. Its
saints and true leaders never forgot the great lesson
taught us in the Old Testament that God is always
on the side of the poor and suffering, against the rich
^ Ruskin, Mornings in Florence, p. 89.
302 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
and strong. Great wealth and great piety were incom-
patible ideas ; renunciation of riches lay at the root
of all holiness, and in such renunciation the poor were
not forgotten. Again and again we find that the pre-
cept of Christ, ** Go, sell all that thou hast and give
to the poor, and come follow Me,'* is elevated into the
universal rule for all who would seek the higher life.
In the lives of the saints no text is so fruitful in produc-
ing the great crises of the soul, or in leading to emanci-
pation and light. At one time, even, as we shall
see later, no small party in the Church — though for the
most part classed as hopeless enthusiasts, Fraticelli,
Lollards and the like — sought to make absolute
poverty the sine qua non of all true spiritual life.^
Moreover, in its doctrine of merit by works the
Church possessed a potent weapon for reducing charity
into more than a pious sentiment. We must own that
too often charity was forced into foolish channels, too
often, moreover, it sprang from purely selfish motives.
Nevertheless instances abound of attempts to win
salvation by deeds of love of the highest benefit to
wider circles than the clergy. On all hands, in the
Middle Ages, we see the rise of institutions of mercy
absolutely unknown to the pagan world. Even the
mediaeval almsgiving, though doubtless indiscriminate
and wasteful, oftentimes even productive of the very
miseries it was intended to cure, must not be wholly
judged by the rules of Political Economy. The culti-
vation of a habit, if not a sense, of pity, especially in
a society otherwise brutal, is worth more than the
accumulation of capital.
As regards the effect of the Church upon war our
conclusion is not altogether satisfactory. History
shows us that in the Middle Ages the Church stirred
* See infra, p. 325.
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 303
up many wars, some of them of especial ferocity.
Nothing could be more appalling in its bloodshed
and horror than the struggles over Investitures, which
began with Hildebrand, and which were not settled
until fifty years later, at the Concordat of Worms
(1122). More ferocious still were the Crusades,
whether by Europe against the Muslims, by Teutonic
Knights against the heathen Wends of Prussia, or
by catholic orthodoxy against the Albigensian heretics
of France. The ideal of peace so characteristic of
the early Church, the disinclination to have anything
to do with war, or the soldier's calHng even in times
of peace, which led to many martyrdoms in the days
before Constantine,^ gave place in the Middle Ages
to a delight in war, one cause of which was too often a
fanatical spirit or ecclesiastical interests. Against
this it is but a slight offset that the Church instituted
in the tenth century the '' Truce of God," at one time
of some value in repressing private wars.
But while it is impossible to plead that the Church
diminished the number of wars, we may yet contend
with justice that the Church secured a real diminution
in their atrocity. Throughout the Middle Ages the
rights of the enemy over his conquered foe were savage
enough at best, nevertheless we see the slow growth of
better things. '* The evangelical precepts of peace
and love," writes Freeman, " did not put an end to
war, they did not put an end to aggressive conquests,
but they distinctly humanized the way in which war
was carried on. From this time forth the never-end-
ing wars with the Welsh ceased to be wars of exter-
mination. The heathen English had been satisfied
with nothing short of destruction and expulsion of
1 See my Persecution in the Early Church, 2nd edition, pp. 181-90.
304 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
their enemies ; the Christian EngHsh thought it
enough to reduce them to poUtical subjection." ^
We have an illustration of this greater humanity of
war in the way in which the Church secured the recog-
nition of a principle, utterly unknown in the Roman
world, that Christian prisoners — Muslim and others
were regarded as outside the pale of this charity —
should not be reduced to slavery.
Moreover the ideal of chivalry, which the Church
fostered and consecrated by special rites, contained
within itself many softening elements which could not
fail to mitigate the effects of war. To give one in-
stance out of many : of Tescelin, the father of St.
Bernard, it is related that while *' noble in descent
and rich in possessions, he was yet a great lover of
the poor, with an extraordinary love of justice, so
that he was accustomed to wonder that it should seem
hard for any to observe justice toward others, especi-
ally that they should desert the justice of God by
either fear or love of gain. He was the bravest of
soldiers, yet shrank from the praises which others
sought. He never took up arms except in defence of
his own territory, or at the call of his feudal lord."
Such men as Tescelin were not so rare as we are accus-
tomed to think. But, as the chronicler adds, this
temper was all due to his '' magna pietas."
That the Church uplifted the ideal and status of
woman cannot well be denied. Whatever else may
be said about the mediaeval cult of the Virgin this
much must be acknowledged, the immense influence
it exerted upon the whole conception of womanhood.
More than spoken eloquence or dogmatic teaching,
the cult of the Virgin, under its different aspects,
^ Norman Conquest, i. 33-4.
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 305
more especially as Mater Dolorosa, or as Virgin and
Child, taught men the sacredness of the mother, and
the majesty of suffering gentleness.
Writers have sometimes urged that the mediaeval
Church, by its exaggeration of the value of a celibate
life, by the reverence it paid to those who abandoned
the cares and duties of motherhood and fatherhood
for the contemplative life of the cloisters, lowered the
ideal of home. There is in this considerable truth.
Ultimately, no doubt, as the Reformation felt, the
monastery is opposed to the home, and an exaggerated
emphasis upon consecrated virginity is inimical to
the best interests of the State. Nunneries, two cen-
turies before the Reformation, had outlived their
usefulness ; a sufficient proof of this may be found
in their general neglect and reduced numbers. But
in the earlier dark ages the nunnery had a part to play
in civilization of the utmost importance. Only in
the monastic life was a woman safe from the unbridled
lust of the powerful. Into this retreat, guarded by
sacrosanct terrors, none dare break. Barbarians who
ventured to insult '' the brides of God " soon ex-
perienced, or thought they experienced, His avenging
wrath. Hence the ideal of virginity, though false
and exaggerated, was not without value in counter-
acting the lustful reaHties of the world around.
The reader should not forget the important place
which women often attained in the mediaeval Church,
and, in consequence, in the mediaeval State. Few
nobler types of womanhood have ever appeared than
Joan of Arc or Catherine of Siena ; few prophets
to whom more attention was given than Hildegard
of Bingen, or Bridget of Sweden. But these char-
acters, so beautiful and rare, were largely dependent
on the mediaeval environment. An age which could
CO. X
3o6 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
produce a Joan of Arc or a St. Catherine may be for-
given many exaggerations and sins for their sakes.
The noblest place of woman is in the home, and
mediaeval home life was oftentimes more beautiful
than we are wont to allow. Again and again in the
annals of the age we find records of devoted mothers
who trained up their children for service in Church
and State with an intensity of consecration which in-
fluenced their whole subsequent life. Of such were the
mother of St. Anselm, and the mother of St. Bernard,
and many other illustrious examples in cottage and
castle. In the Middle Ages, as in any age, the germ-
cell of all that was best in the social system of the times
lay in the purity and consecrated zeal of Christian
motherhood.
The greatest service rendered by the Church in the
later Middle Ages was the assistance given to the sacred
cause of civil liberty. In the early Middle Ages the
Church threw its mighty influence into the scale of
authority, and abandoned the appeal to the masses on
the principles of liberty — one great source of its power
in the Roman Empire — for reliance upon the rulers
of the new nations. To this change, no doubt, the
Church was driven through its contact with the bar-
barians. To restore order where all around was chaos
and ruin needed not so much liberty as force, the
authority of such men as Charles the Great, or WilHam
the Conqueror.
But in the later Middle Ages, when the peril of the
new nations had passed away, the Church returned,
to some extent, to its former attitude, and became
once more the friend of liberty. We may own that
the assistance was rather accidental than deliberate ;
that the ultimate object of the Church was to obtain
authority for herself by the subjection of the State.
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 307
Nevertheless, but for the Church, the nations of the
West would have been ground between the upper and
nether millstones, the competing tyrannies of local
magnates and absolute monarchs. The influence of
the papacy from the days of Hildebrand onwards was
always cast against the claim of kings to exercise
authority by an indefeasible title. Ecclesiastical
lawyers and theologians were firm in their assertion
of the divine right of the people to raise up and pull
down princes. '' A king,*' said Thomas Aquinas,
" who is unfaithful to his duty forfeits his claim to
obedience. It is not rebellion to depose him, for he
is himself a rebel whom the nation has a right to pull
down.'' But we see how the doctrine, originally
formulated by the Church for its own purposes, and
with limitations that would have guarded its own
interests, could minister in other hands to the growth
of hberty, when Thomas Aquinas goes on to add :
'' But it is better to abridge the king's power that he
may be unable to abuse it. For this purpose the
whole nation ought to have a share in governing
itself. The Constitution ought to combine a limited
and elected monarchy with an aristocracy of merit,
and such an admixture of democracy as shall admit
all claims to office by popular election. No govern-
ment has a right to levy taxes beyond the limit
determined by the people. All political authority
is derived from popular suffrage, and all laws must
be made by the people or their representatives."
The assertion of the great principles of liberty is
even more clearly found in the Defensor Pads (1324)
the magnum opus of the great mediaeval political
thinker, MarsigHo of Padua. Than MarsigHo no seer
ever had a clearer vision of the new order towards
which the world was slowly moving ; no prophet ever
3o8 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
glanced deeper into the future. In his principles
the modern Constitutional statesman, the modern
Protestant finds little to alter ; he has only to develop
and fill in the outline. Sovereignty, so Marsiglio held,
rests with the people, " from whom, or the majority
of them, determining by their choice or will, expressed
by speech in the general assembly of citizens, proceeds
all right and power.'* For the purposes of action
'' the rule of the king is perhaps the more perfect,"
but the king, as the officer of the people, must be
directly elected. Marsiglio will have nothing to do
with either divine right or the hereditary principle.
Such elected monarch is responsible to the people,
whose instrument he is, and by whom he may be
deposed if he override the national will. Equally
remarkable is Marsiglio' s anticipation of certain modern
social movements. He would give to the civil power
the right of determining the number of men to be
employed in every trade or profession.
Now the astonishing thing is that these two quota-
tions are from writers of utterly hostile schools.
Thomas Aquinas was, and is still, the chosen advocate
of Rome ; Marsiglio sweeps away the pretensions of
a sacerdotal order, and would treat the clergy, in all
but their strictly spiritual functions, exactly the same
as all other members of the civil society. With Mar-
siglio the State is supreme, or rather. State and Church
— this last he defines as the corporation of the faith-
ful^— become one. Ecclesiastics, even the pope him-
self, must be subject to the State's tribunals, their
number be limited by its pleasure. To the State
also belongs all patronage, which should as a rule be
exercised by the free election of the parish itself, with
which also should rest the power of dismissal. The
ecclesiastical property must be vested in the State,
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 309
which can at any time secularize superfluities to other
uses.
Nevertheless these two writers are yet united, for
purposes completely contradictory, in laying down
principles that were fatal to the absolutism of feudal
society. The Churchman and the doctrinaire philo-
sopher were one in asserting both the rights of demo-
cracy and the criminal nature of absolute power.
The lawfulness of insurrection was not only admitted
but defined as a duty sanctioned by religion. The
representative character of all offices and institutions
both in Church and State was clearly laid down. The
result was seen in the powerful struggle in the four-
teenth century between democracy and privilege.
But Rienzi, Marcel, Artevelde, John Ball and other
champions of freedom were before their age. The
story of the unfortunate circumstances through which
the sixteenth century saw the set-back of the principles
of liberty, and the triumph of absolutism over the
nascent institutions of democracy, does not belong to
our present purpose. But we must not forget the
debt which democracy will always owe to the Church-
men and heretics, who for opposite reasons so clearly
enunciated its main principles in the Middle Ages.^
As regards liberty of thought there is less to be
said. The whole conception was somewhat alien to
the times. But we should do well to avoid exaggera-
tion. Scholasticism, at least in its earlier develop-
ments, was by no means the crude hair-splitting appeal
to mere logic and authority which in its later days it
1 Marsiglio's Defensor Pads will be found in Goldast's Monarchia
Romani Imperii, vol. 2 (Hanover, 1612). A good account of Marsig-
lio will be found in Poole's Illustrations of the Hist, of Med. Thought
(1885), G. 9. For the growth of the idea of popular sovereignty see
Gierke's Pol. Theories of Middle Ages (Ed.^Maitland, 1900), §§ 6 and 7.
310 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
tended to become. The thoughts of Anselm and
Abailard move in spheres far above the narrow con-
troversies of the pedants. Though modern science
cannot sufficiently express its contempt for the vast
superstructure which the schoolmen raised on their
narrow and flimsy foundations, nevertheless that
strange system was in a true sense preparing the way
for the advent of better things. And, within the limits
provided, there never was a time, until the Reforma-
tion, when considerable liberty of thought and expres-
sion was not allowed, especially in the Universities.
In our present connexion we should note that the
whole intellectual movement of the times centred
round the problems of theology. The evils of this
narrowed vision none will deny ; nevertheless it bears
witness, after its fashion, to the desire for intellectual
unity which lies at the root of all knowledge.
In the rapid development in England in the later
Middle Ages of the social guilds or fraternities we see
more than the growth of democracy. Though origin-
ally founded in imitation of the successful craft or
trade guilds of London, Bristol, and other great cities,
the new guilds had httle connexion with trade. Their
object was the furtherance of neighbourhness and
mutual help. They combined the advantages of a
social club with the benefits of insurance and assur-
ance against fire, water, thefts, poverty, disease and
death. They undertook for their members the duties
now discharged by burial clubs, by hospitals, by alms-
houses, and by the guardians of the poor. By steady-
ing the price of labour, or by obtaining work for their
members they discharged the function of modern
trades unions. They discouraged judicial strife by
insisting upon their members submitting to arbitration.
In some towns, for instance Coventry and York, the
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 311
guilds found lodgings and food for poor strangers. In
times of special need, when the bridge was broken
down, or the steeple in need of repair, the guilds of a
town united to carry out the object. They provided
dowers for portionless girls ; they furnished school
fees for promising lads ; in some places they maintained
schools of their own ; on the coast they insured against
loss at sea ; above all, they made the '' Merry Eng-
land " of our fathers by reason of their incessant Church
ales and other festive entertainments, " mummings,"
miracle-plays, mysteries, and the like. To the joyous-
ness of life they largely contributed by the attention
they paid to singing, in many places maintaining a
special song-master.
From the first the guilds were strictly associated
with the Church. Each guild linked itself on to some
special saint or chapel, whose feast-day it kept with
processions and banquets, and for whose services it
provided candles and funds. The wealthier guilds
even maintained chaplains of their own, at the cost
of ten marks a year, to offer masses for the quick and
the dead. On Corpus Christi day the guilds of a town,
especially in a cathedral city, united in a gigantic pro-
cession. On the death of any member the whole guild
attended his funeral.
The popularity of these guilds, if we may judge
from their number and rapid growth, was extra-
ordinary. In London there were at least ninety of
them connected with parish churches. There were
fifty-five at Lynn. Nor were they confined to the
larger towns. There were eight guilds in the little
parish of Oxburgh in Norfolk, twelve at Ashburton,
and forty-two at Bodmin in Cornwall. By the begin-
ning of the fifteenth century there was scarcely a town
or village of any importance without them. Some of
312 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
these possessed large endowments. Many included
women as well as men. By one of the greatest crimes
in history nearly all these guilds were swept away at
the Reformation, in a few places a pitiful fragment
of the spoils being handed over to the people to estab-
lish a school. Even the endowments for the poor
were greedily seized by men who built up princely
fortunes by the robbery of the parish. But for this
great pillage of social funds England to-day would
have needed no poor-law, and no school rate.^ Only
slowly are we waking up to the great loss to the life
and well-being of the people which has followed the
divorce of religion from the corporate life, the reduction
of insurances to commercial transactions, of all care
for the poor to a matter for the guardians. To the
ideals and practice of the mediaeval guilds, whose
centre in all their attempts to realize brotherhood was
the Church, the twentieth century would do well to
return.
Our debt to the Church must not be measured
only by the ethical results, or by the means of their
attainment which commend themselves clearly to
the twentieth century. The reader too often forgets
the evolution, slow and painful, of society and morals,
and in consequence neglects, in reading history, to
look at progress from the standpoint of that which
1 The reader interested in the social side of the mediaeval guild
should study the case of Boston in the Victoria County History of
Lincoln, vol. ii. From one guild and its pillage he can learn all.
The mockery involved in calling schools, " King Edward VI founda-
tions " has been abundantly shown by Mr. Leach in his various
educational works.
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 313
was attainable in the age in question. When thus
considered relatively, forces and tendencies which to-
day we should rightly condemn as mischievous, are
seen to have been, at their time and for their purpose,
potent for good ; though the good was not unmixed
with evil, and was often pregnant with coming catas-
trophe. Of this truth the greatest illustration is the
rise in the Middle Ages of the papal supremacy, in
many respects the most wonderful event in his-
tory.
The student who would investigate the part that
the Papacy has played in the evolution of society should
realize at the outset that the mediaeval Church was
not so much a Church, in the modern or scriptural
sense of the word, as a State. '* Convenience," writes
Professor Maitland, '' may forbid us to call it a State
very often, but we ought to do so from time to time,
for we could frame no acceptable definition of a State
which would not comprehend the Church. What
has it not that the State should have ? It has laws,
lawgivers, law courts, lawyers. It uses physical force
to compel men to obey its laws. It keeps prisons.
In the thirteenth century, though with squeamish
phrases, it pronounces sentence of death. It is no
voluntary society. If people attempt to leave it
they are guilty of the crimen laesce majestatis, and are
likely to be burnt. It is supported by involuntary
contributions, by tithe and tax. ' That men believe
it to have a supernatural origin does not alter the case.
Kings have reigned by divine right, and republics
have been founded in the name of God-given liberty.'* ^
But the constitution of this State was unique in one
all-important respect. This was a State within a
1 Maitland, Canon Law in Church of England, p. 100.
314 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
State, a State which had neither boundaries nor Hmits ;
which existed in, was part of, and yet distinct from
every other State, over the which in fact it claimed
priority and pre-eminence.
Herein will be found the secret both of the growth
and downfall of the papal supremacy. For the papacy
was no gigantic upas tree of fraud and superstition
planted and reared by the enemy of mankind, but a
necessary factor, so far as we can see, in the evolution
of society. The patriarchate of Rome became the
supreme power in the mediaeval world because Western
Europe had been cradled in the belief of the necessity
of one world-power, to which all other powers should
give adherence and form a part. To this legacy of
the Caesars the popes became the heirs. Amid the
chaos and welter of the great upheaval they alone
offered unity of administration and law. They won
the gratitude of Europe by never flinching from their
task of beating down anarchy into order, and asserting
the supremacy of moral ideas over brute force. Thus
they stood for the solidarity of Europe in one world-
state. The virtual downfall of the papacy at the
beginning of the fourteenth century was due to the
same cause. Men did not throw over the yoke of
Boniface VIII because they had ceased to believe in
the pope's spiritual pretensions. The Reformation
in its first origin was political, not religious ; social,
not moral ; a protest against an all-centralized yet
omnipresent world-power, in theory spiritual, in prac-
tice secular, which had outlived the conditions of its
birth. The imperial idea, which originated with
Alexander, but was completed by the Caesars, was at
last exhausted. World-wide administrative central-
lization, whether secular or spiritual, had ceased to be
the ideal. The building up of the nation had begun
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 315
to be revealed as the goal of history, at any rate so
far as the immediate future was concerned.
Other aspects also of the mediaeval Church that
to-day excite contempt or pity, possessed considerable
influence as civilizing factors in an earlier age. We
may illustrate by the doctrine of penitence. With
the corollaries of this mediaeval doctrine, the system of
indulgences on the one hand, and the penitentials on
the other, we are all famihar. As regards indulgences
— the great abuse of the system, — the chief errors
sprung up in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries,
largely as an outcome of the Crusades, nor was the
matter at any time a factor of the greatest importance.
It was different with the penitentials. This great
instrument for Christianizing barbarian tempers was
probably the creation of the Irish Church and in
special of Columban. Thence through Theodore of
Tarsus and the English prelates the penitentials
passed into the general Church of the West.
In condemnation of the principles and methods
of the whole system historians are nowadays substan-
tially agreed. Nevertheless, the student should re-
member the great law illustrated on every page of
ecclesiastical history, '' that those beliefs or institutions
which seem irrational, or absurd, or unworthy of the
Christian spirit, have come into vogue in order to kill
some deeper evil, not otherwise to have been des-
troyed." ^ The penitentials were a necessity if the Church
was to bring the masses that had nominally passed into
the kingdom of Christ, yet remained in many respects
heathen at heart, into any real experience of religion.
In the mediaeval Church, unlike the Church of the
first four centuries, baptism came first, oftentimes the
^ Allen, Christian Institutions, p. 408.
3i6 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
baptism of whole races received as they were into
the Church of the Empire which they had conquered ;
training and discipline must needs follow.
Penance, to adopt for this system of discipline the
familiar title nowadays somewhat restricted in its
application, was thus no mere creation of sacerdotalism,
but a response to popular needs, the outcome of the
revolution produced by the barbarian invasions. In
the decaying Roman world no state save the Church
was either strong enough or civilized enough to enforce
obedience to moral law, or hold down the usages and
reminiscences of heathenism. Her punishments were
at first hmited to those sanctioned by the pains and
fears of the wounded conscience. Unfortunately the
Church soon yielded to the Teutonic custom of com-
muting misdeeds by a money payment, or by means
of substitutes. Hence the opening of the door to the
abuse of indulgences. In the earlier age the chief
defect of the system lay in the fact that punishment
bore more hardly on the poor than on the rich, while
above all it made sin something arbitrary and extemcJ
to the soul. The priest also who could release from
its punishments on earth, or whose prayers had power
with God in the mysterious other world of retribution,
took the place of the Christ who could purify the
heart. Thus the pope and not the Holy Spirit became
the administrator of mercy and pardon. The human
race became afraid of dealing directly with God, and
sacerdotalism won its long triumph.
The other evils of the system of penance have
been often exposed, and are sufficiently familiar. The
student of ethics will point out the tendency — always
natural to the Roman spirit — to stiffen all morality
into legal restrictions, and to confound the inner law
with the regulations of the Church. Or he may dwell
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 317
on the bands of Flagellants who in times of popular
excitement covered the land, stripped to the waist
and plying a scourge knotted with iron, the use of
which for thirty-three days cleansed the soul from all
stains of sin. He may instance the madness of that
typical hermit Dominicus Loricatus, who with a broom
in each hand and singing psalms, could wipe off, as
his friend Damiani relates with pride, a century of
guilt within a week. The theologian, finally, will
point to the constant haggling and bargaining over
the degree of sin and the value of merit, or he may
relate the numberless instances of desperate abuse, a
chicken or a pint of wine purchasing absolution for
the foulest deeds.
These evils should not be minimized ; nor should
their exaggeration obscure the real inwardness to the
mediaeval mind of the doctrine and its corollaries. As
Harnack allows, its first effect was the deepening of
the sense of sin, though the deepening was counter-
balanced in time by the stupefying readiness with
which men confessed that they were sinners. Another
effect was the formation side by side with the sacra-
mental Christ of the image of the historical Jesus, in
the contemplation of whose sufferings Bernard and
others found their most passionate exaltation. In
the doctrine, first suggested by the English doctor
Alexander of Hales, and developed by Thomas Aquinas,
of the common treasury of merit out of whose inex-
haustible store the pope could dispense to the spirit-
ually destitute, we see another instance of the great
mediaeval conception of solidarity so unintelHgible
to latter-day individualism. In everything the social
aim predominates ; the duties of life spring out of
our unity as a race ; humanity on earth is one in its
sufferings with humanity in the invisible world. All
3i8 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
this formed part of the education of the race for better
things to come.
VI
In the rehgious Ufe of the Middle Ages the two
distinguishing features are the power of the papacy
and the strength of Monasticism. The two were
mutually dependent. It was by no accident of history
that the fall of the one coincided in time with the dis-
solution of the other. But for the help of Rome the
monasteries could not have resisted the attacks of
covetous kings ; but for the monks the pope would
never have succeeded in building up his universal
dominion. This was the political side of their work,
in reality the least part of their mission ; and with
this we are not now concerned. On the social side
it was given to monasticism to represent in the midst
of barbarism an ordered if one-sided life, and moral
ideals above the age ; and to lay, in the midst of rude
and opposing forces, the foundations of a noble civiliza-
tion.
The origin of Monasticism, the phases through
which it passed, its ideals and history, are familiar to
our readers, or easily accessible. In the spread of
Monasticism we see two strangely contrasted influences
working together to change the aspect of Europe.
The one was the passion for solitude, the other the
desire for fellowship. The passion for solitude drove
the saint into the wastes and forests ; the desire to
imitate his life, and the protection which his foundation
could afford turned the lowliest hermitage into a
crowded monastery surrounded by a thriving depend-
ency of serfs and tenants. The illustrations of this
would be almost as numerous as the monasteries
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 319
themselves. Everywhere it was the same ; whether
by the slopes of the Jura, in the forests of Bavaria,
or amidst the wastes of Northumberland. Europe
does not always remember the debt which she owes
to those who in their longing to escape from the haunts
of men, cleared the densest jungle, drained pestilent
swamps, and by the alchemy of industry turned the
deserts into waving gold. The sanctity of the hermit,
drawing after him against his will a brotherhood of
disciples, laid the foundation of our busiest towns,
broke the silence of waste and fen with a chain of
religious houses, set agricultural colonies in the midst
of the profoundest forests, or planted on some dreary
coast the forerunner of a busy haven.
Not the least result of Monasticism, as developed
by St. Benedict in the West, was the change which
the movement brought into men's conceptions of the
dignity of toil. In the degenerate Roman world, as
among the rude barbarian conquerors, manual labour
had been exclusively reserved for slaves. But in the
Rule of Benedict manual labour formed an indispens-
sable part in the life of every monk, however noble
his birth. " This is a fine occupation for a count,''
sarcastically exclaimed Duke Godfrey of Lorraine
when he found his brother Frederick washing dishes
in the kitchen of the monastery. '' You are right,
duke," was the answer ; " I ought indeed to think
myself honoured by the smallest service for the Master."
Such tales might be multipled indefinitely ; we may
smile at them, but their value is not the less great.
They witness to the elevation of labour into new esteem,
the commencement of that organized social industry
which in later years was to destroy feudalism itself
and shift the centre of power to the producer and
toiler.
320 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Of almost equal value with the exaltation of labour
was the emphasis laid by Monasticism upon the virtues
of humility and obedience ; from the monastic stand-
point the two tend to become one, related as cause
and effect. Hitherto obedience had been learned in
one school alone — for we may neglect the obedience
of the slave, — the school of the army. Now men
were taught by a discipline other than military that
the highest type of life is that which learns to obey.
It is difficult to exaggerate the value of this lesson in
the peculiar circumstances of the times. Amid the
dissolution of old society and the ascendency of the
barbarians, the lesson was once more enforced of the
old obedience which had made; Rome great, but in a
purer and more spiritual form. With all deductions
that may be made for an exaggeration of obedience
into a servile degradation of will — a tendency that we
see issuing finally in Jesuitism — or even into a nega-
tion of self-respect, we should not ignore the value to
civilization in its turbulent youth of the Church pro-
posing for the reverence of mankind a life of obedience
as the highest ideal of virtue.
We must not forget that Monasticism attracted
the lay world as well as the clerics of the Church to
its own ideal, though in an entirely different way.
From the twelfth century onwards we find a number
of half-monastic orders, Teutonic Knights, Hospitallers,
Tertiaries of St. Francis, Beguines, brotherhoods and
the rest. The life of every town was leavened with
these half-ascetic clubs, which besides enabling the
layman to do something for the salvation of his own
soul, undoubtedly developed obedience and civil
order, and fostered a spirit of charity and altruism.
From any estimate of the benefits of Monasticism
certain deductions must be made. The over insist-
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 321
ence upon asceticism was not for the good of humanity,
and led to some extent to a weakening of home ties.
From the standpoint of race continuation and develop-
ment the result was in part disastrous. Celibacy
doomed the holiest and most intellectual to sterility ;
the future was left ^to those of coarser clay. Monas-
ticism was also responsible for a certain lowering of
civic virtues. By their very constitution as an order
the monks were cosmopolitans. As a result they were
also largely anti-national. They formed a State within
a State, an ecclesiastical internationalism whose head
centre was Rome. The sole care of the monk was
too often the welfare of his monastery, and the spread
of his order. The organized socialism of which at
one time the monasteries were the truest exponents
became, too often, a struggle for individual wealth
on the part of prior or abbot. But when all deduc-
tions have been made the balance of our debt to
Monasticism is incalculable ; nor is it the less that the
system, like other institutions, outlived its usefulness,
and became a curse where at one time it had been a
blessing.
VII
As yet in our investigation we have said nothing
as to the influence of the Reform Movements of the
Middle Ages ; we have confined ourselves to the action
of the Church. To us of a later age the mediaeval
Reformations, or attempts at Reformation, loom large ;
to the men of the times they were not of the highest
moment. As students of history we see them in
their right perspective, and hail their scattered rays
as the dawn of a new day ; we salute their preachers
as the heralds of a better age. But the men of the
c.c, y
322 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
time saw in them little but unreasoning revolt, and,
on the whole, their influence, social and otherwise,
was not so great as sometimes we imagine. But such
as it was it demands attention.
Mediaeval reform movements may be roughly
classified as follows, (i.) Those which aimed at a
reformation of the Church from within, by a stricter
observance of its primitive law and spirit, and a purging
of the whole in head and members, (ii.) Those which
protested against the suppression by Rome of all
independence. These aimed at lessening the excessive
internationalism of the Church, and at the develop-
ment of a strong local feeling by the emphasis of
nationalism in ritual, government and language.
These two objects or causes of religious revolt often
tended to become one, as in the case of the Hussite
movement in Bohemia. But, in the case of the reform
movement which culminated at Constance, the strong
desire for amendment in head and members was really
vitiated and made of no account by the new spirit of
nationalism which we find so rampant in the Council
itself. 1 (iii.) The movements of reform or revolt
which originated in a deep belief in evangelical poverty
as the sine qua non of all spiritual life, (iv.) Protests
against the excessive sacerdotalism of the times,
especially against its causa causans, the doctrine of
transubstantiation. But the objections to transub-
stantiation of Wyclif and others scarcely fall within
the plan of this chapter ; they are theological rather
than social.
The best work of the mediaeval Church lay, no
doubt, in the reformations which may be classed as
from within ; the coming in the early years of the
1 See my Dawn of the Reformation, vol. ii. chap. v. for the fuller
proof of this.
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 323
thirteenth century of the Friars under St. Francis and
St. Dominic, the ConciHar movement of the fourteenth
century which led to Constance (1415), or, to go back
to an earHer age, the great reform of the Church associ-
ated with the name of Hildebrand. But the bearing
of these movements upon social development has been
sufficiently considered already in connexion with
the work of the Church, of which in fact they were the
strongest advocates and supports. As regards the
protest against the suppression of the national feeling,
or revolts which sprang from the new consciousness
of nationalism, it is needless to write at length. In
these, as for instance in the Hussite revolt, which
began in the constant struggle between Czech and
Teuton, we find the birth of that new spirit which was
to prove dominant, for weal or woe, at the Reformation
itself. But such movements were of greater influence
upon the politics than the morals of the times. In
Bohemia, to cite one illustration, the influence of Hus
upon the development of its national spirit is undying ;
his contribution to the permanent moral and religious
uplifting of his nation has been but slight.
The revolts which may be classified under (iii.) or
(iv.) often tended to run the one into the other. For
our present purpose they are of far greater importance
than the orthodox reformations which fall under (i.)
and (ii.). These latter reformations, because they
were orthodox, added little save revived zeal or wider
horizons to the moral and social ideals of the Church.
The unorthodox reformations, on the contrary, cor-
rected many errors or exaggerations of mediaeval
method and aim, oftentimes it must be confessed by
over emphasis of the contrary.
The revolts which originated in the protest of
enthusiasts against the wealth of the Church, and which
324 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
proclaimed the need of evangelical poverty, were almost
continuous from the twelfth century to the Reforma-
tion. They assumed many forms and different names,
but underlying all is the same spirit. Whether called
Henricians, Patarines, Waldensians, Poor Men of
Lyons, or Lollards ; whether deriving their origin
from Joachimists, Spirituals, Fraticelli and the like ;
whether they looked to the writings of Wyclif, or to
the Introduction to the Eternal Gospel of Gherardo
da Borgo San Donnino ; — their doctrines are funda-
mentally allied ; the tendency to identify poverty
and perfection, to take from the Church its endow-
ments and to bestow them on the poor, or devote
them to the resources of the State. On their political
side these revolts mark the rise of a new democracy ;
the leaders of the one were often the leaders in the
other. The Spiritual Franciscans, especially, joined
their devotion to the poverty of their founder with an
enthusiasm for new philosophies, new heresies, and
new social movements that was always driving them
into conflict with either Church or State. A wave of
democratic agitation was sweeping over Europe ; a
fierce struggle between reason and authority was
working its way to the surface in the sphere of politics
as well as of belief. For in that age all revolutions were
naturally religious in origin and character, while all
reformation led of necessity to social revolution.
The illustrations of this union of democracy and
reformation are many, in every century from the
twelfth onward. We may mention in the first half
of the twelfth century Henry of Lausanne, a monk of
Clugny, barefooted, carrying a cross in his hand,
attacking the corruptions of the Church with such
earnestness that a dozen towns have boycotted their
clergy ; this at a time when St. Bernard rules Europe
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 325
for orthodoxy from his cell at Clairvaux. In the towns
of Italy at the same time this revolt against authority,
allied with the reaction of the Christian conscious-
ness against a worldly Church, took the special form of a
struggle to shake off the yoke of feudalism, both civic
and spiritual. The twelfth century witnessed the
rise of the free republics of Lombardy and Tuscany.
In Rome that remarkable reformer, Arnold of Brescia,
used the local disaffection to advance his dreams of
a nobler Utopia.
If Abailard was the incarnation of the new spirit
which in the twelfth century claimed for itself freedom
of thought, in Arnold of Brescia, the pupil and com-
panion of Abailard, we find the leader in the new claim
for freedom of will. His life will serve as an excellent
example of the union in the Middle Ages of democracy
with the preaching of evangelical poverty. Born at
Brescia, Arnold on his return from his studies in Paris
plunged into the struggles of the citizens against their
bishops. Brescia was a seat of the Patarines, and
Arnold, though in theology most orthodox, added fuel
to the flames of heresy and patriotism by his invectives
against the worldliness of the priests. The possession
of property, he maintained, was contrary to Christi-
anity ; he urged the secularization of the estates of the
Church. Clerical wealth should be escheated to the
commune ; henceforth the ministers of religion should
depend on the voluntary tithes of the people. His
teaching suited both the politics and pockets of the
market-place. All Lombardy was stirred with wild
expectation in which it would be difficult to say whether
the hope of plunder or reform was the dominant motive.
After various adventures in 1147, we meet him at
Rome preaching his favourite doctrines to a democracy
which needed no persuasion. The purity of his life.
326 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
the high morality of his teaching appealed to the few ;
the many were reached by the fiery eloquence with
which a man clothed in a monk's robe and worn with
fasting preached in the peasant's tongue apostolic
poverty in priest and pope. Arnold's ideal was of a
great Christian repubhc, in which the existing feudalism
should give place to the sovereignty of the people, to
whom should belong the vast estates of the Church ;
much the same idea as was afterwards more clearly
enunciated by MarsigUo. Triumphant democracy
would possess all the virtues and none of the wrongs
of the systems it would replace ; it would usher in an
era of true religion, for which the world sought in vain
in existing ecclesiastical organizations.
In many respects Arnold was an unpractical dreamer.
As we look back upon his ideals and remember that he
attempted to reahze these among the ignorant and
oppressed lower classes of the twelfth century, our
admiration of his daring is only equalled by our astonish-
ment that he should mistake the transitory intoxica-
tion of the Romans for reUgious and moral conviction.
Nevertheless his memory should be reverenced. The
world has too few prophets for us to despise one
Who rowing hard against the stream.
Saw distant gates of Eden gleam
And did not dream it was a dream.
In 1155 Arnold, a true martyr for freedom, was
hanged and burned, and his ashes thrown into the
Tiber by Pope Adrian IV, the one Englishman who
ever occupied the papal chair.
The life of Arnold is typical. We find its details
repeated, mutatis mutandis, in every country and
century. In the thirteenth century for a few years
we see the cessation of revolt, but this was only
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 327
because for a few years we see the triumph, or fancied
triumph, of democracy and piety in the person of St.
Francis. With the loss of his ideal the old struggle
once more breaks out ; but in every case the leaders
of the people in their battle for freedom are the preachers
of the need of apostoHc poverty. In England we have
an illustration of this in the case of the Peasants*
Revolt. At the back of this great revolt we find the
friars, who had for years been preaching to the people
** that all things should be in common,'' as we learn
from Langland. Though Wyclif's direct influence
upon this revolt was slight, nevertheless his communis-
tic ideas, reported secondhand by his Biblemen, or
distorted by men indifferent to their subtle and unwork-
able distinctions, 1 had not been without their effect.
The Peasants' Revolt, though far from being a com-
munistic movement, was but the rude translation into a
world of practice of a theory of '' dominion " that des-
troyed the *' lordship " of the wicked and exalted
possession into the inalienable right of the saint. 2
Wyclif's arguments are obscured by being expressed
in the definitions and distinctions of a decaying feudal-
ism. Like most schoolmen Wyclif starts with an
ideal state of society : *' all authority is founded in
grace." *' Lordship " rests with God alone, who as
Suzerain of the world hath allotted '' dominion " to
popes and kings in fief and tenure of their obedience
to Himself. Of this feudal tenure '' from the Lord in
chief " mortal sin is a breach, and in itself '' incurs
forfeiture " — a doctrine bound to lead to anarchical
consequences if Wyclif had applied his conclusions to
existing society. But he saved himself by a curious
^ For illustrations see Chronicon AnglicB (Rolls. Series) 282, 340.
* Wyclif's political theories are best seen in his De Dominio.
For an analysis see Poole, Med. Thought, 290-306.
328 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
metaphysical juggle. He carefully distinguishes be-
tween '' dominion," which belongs alone to the
righteous man, and '' power," which the wicked may
have by God's permission in consequence of the Fall.
In thus building up society upon the Fall, Wyclif
foUowed the usual mediaeval theories. Thomas
Aquinas alone had discerned that social instincts are
an essential part of man's moral constitution.
The natural corollary of this doctrine of '' dominion ''
is the defence of Christian socialism. Communism
is with him the translation into reality of his main
thesis that " every righteous man is lord over the whole
sensible world " ; '* the faithful man " — Wyclif is
quoting Proverbs xvii. 6 — '* hath the whole world of
riches, but the unfaithful man hath not even a farthing ! '*
In his scheme '' lordship " is thus always linked with
service ; the two are corresponding terms, as the most
exalted of all potentates acknowledges by his title of
Servus Servorum. Thus '* rights " and '' duties " be-
come equivalent and interchangeable. But Wyclif
was not ignorant that his ideal society is not yet
capable of realization. He is careful to insist that the
righteous must not attempt to acquire their inalienable
rights by force.
With Wyclif s revolt on its political, scholastic,
and theological sides we are not here concerned. But
whatever judgement may be passed upon his political
theory of '' dominion," or his Erastian ideal ot
reformation, not even his bitterest opponent can deny
Wyclif's intense love of, and sympathy with, the poor.
To WycHf the Epistle of St, James would be rather
the marrow of the Gospel than *' an epistle of straw,"
but then Wyclif's sympathy with and understanding
of the poor was deeper than that of Luther. Their
needs are at all times uppermost in his thoughts. His
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 329
sorrow for their woes runs through his works like a
wail of love, and redeems his fiercest denunciations,
his most impossible schemes. Half his writings might
be compressed into his bitter cry : '* Poor men have
naked sides, and dead walls have great plenty of
waste gold.^ Wychf, in fact, had he not been ham-
pered by his scholastic training, might have figured
in the Roman calendar as a second St. Francis. In
more than one of his doctrines the critic may discern
resemblance to the teaching of the saint of Assisi. His
*' poor priests '' were a revival of the '* Little Brothers/'
He constantly speaks as if poverty were the duty of
the whole Church. But we miss the sweetness and
light, the radiant joyousness, the absence of all aggres-
siveness save love, which make the Italian immortal.
The very fierceness of Wyclif 's attacks upon the degen-
erate friars of his age witnesses to his kinship with
them. He hated them with all the hatred which an
earnest man feels for those who have degraded his
ideal or disappointed his hopes. But these attacks
should not blind us to Wyclif's spiritual lineage. The
Reformer was, in fact, '* the genuine descendant of the
friars, turning their wisdom against themselves, and
carrying out the principles he had learned from them
to their legitimate political conclusions.'' 2 Perhaps
it would be more accurate to classify him with the
Spiritual Friars, whose ideas and phraseology he in
part assimilated ^ ; though, with English common
sense, he abandoned their apocalyptic ravings.
Before we pass away from Wyclif it is of interest
^ Matthews, Eng. Works of Wyclif, 91. Select Eng. Works, iii.
170.
2 Brewer, Monumenta Franciscana, i. p. Kx.
^ Cf . Wyclif, Dominic Divino, 5 n. 15 ; also Select English Works,
iii. 212, and especially iii. 304 (very doubtful if by Wyclif), 360, i. 314.
330 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
to note one matter of doctrine in which Wyclif's
intense social sympathies lead him to a conclusion
unusual in a mediaeval. We refer to the strong appre-
ciation which Wyclif shows of the real humanity of
Jesus, especially in his treatise de Benedict a Incarna-
tione. Here he claims that Christ is the universal
man identical with all His brethren. The *' literal
reaUty of Christ's human nature is a most precious
jewel '' which he will not surrender ; Christ and His
humanity must never be divided. This identification
of Christ and the communis homo is not merely due to
Wyclif's scholastic Realism ; it marks rather that
intense sympathy for suffering humanity, so charac-
teristic of the Reformer, which led him to the same
conclusion as in the first century it had led the writer
of the Epistle to the Hebrews.
We note the same emphasis of humanity in Wyclif's
Lollard disciples. We see this in the protest of Purvey,
Wyclif's assistant in the translation of the Bible,
against all crusades : '' Certes, as long as heathen
men will live peaceably with us Christians, and not
war on us to destroy our Christendom, we have no
authority of God to war against them " ; and in his
plea, rather, for foreign missions : "A true successor
of St. Peter should rather grant indulgences to suffer
pains meekly, to convert heathen men." Pilgrimages,
if made at aU, should be '' made only unto the poor " ;
" it were better to deal money unto poor folk than to
offer to the image of Christ." ^ '' If ye desire," said
Margery Baxter (1428) '' to see the true Cross of
Christ, I will show it you at home in your own house.
Then the said Margery, stretching out her arms abroad
said : This is the true Cross of Christ, and this cross
^ Foxe (ed. Pratt), iii. 597 ; iv. 133. Purvey, Remonstrance, 23,
25» 5S, 64, 66.
ON THE MIDDLE AGES 331
thou oughtest and mayest every day behold and
worship in thine own house ; and therefore it is but
vain to run to the church to worship dead crosses/'
Similar answers were given by Sir John Oldcastle
and other Lollards. Said the heroic William Thorpe
in his examination before Archbishop Arundel in 1407,
when giving his reasons why images ought not to be
worshipped in any wise : '' Man that was made after
the image and likeness of God is full worshipful in his
kind ; yea, and this holy image, that is man, God
worshippeth [respectethy* To the same effect was
the testimony of John Edmunds (1521) : '' This
John Edmunds talking with the said Baker of pil-
grimage bade him offer his money to the image of God.
When the other asked what that was, he said that
the image of God was the poor people, blind and lame.''
Many other like illustrations could be given how the
Lollards cared more for '' preventing the sufferings of
Christ's people " than for '* picturing to themselves
the bodily pain, long since passed, of one Person." *
But the greatest service of the Lollard and other
mediaeval heretics and reformers lay in the emphasis
they placed upon the right of individual judgment.
They demanded '' the liberty of prophesying " which
in the next age was to give power to the Reformation.
Above all they taught men how to die for their faith
and conscience. Though in their days they lived
without influence, and died without respect, they have
since seen of the travail of their souls and are satisfied.
:ic H: 4: 4: 4(
We have finished our survey of the influence of
the Church on the social and ethical development of
the Middle Ages — from Gregory the Great to the later
^ 'RMskin, Lectures on Art,yi-6; with which compare Foxe(ed.
Pratt), iii. 594, 265 ; iv. 238. Wyclif, Select English Works, iii. 463.
332 INFLUENCE OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH
Lollards. The vast extent of the period covered has
precluded all but the most cursory examination, and
many matters of interest have, perforce, been omitted.
With all its defects — and the reverse side of the page
may well fill us with indignation — the mediaeval Church
presents a noble spectacle of moral grandeur, and of
true work done for humanity. That many of the
forces and institutions which in their day ministered
to righteousness in a later age became positive hin-
drances, the clearing away of which was necessary for
further development, is only in harmony with the
known laws of progress. That they without us should
not be made perfect is not the condemnation of the
hope of those who have gone before, but the providential
law of evolution.
VIII
The Social Principles and Effects of the
Reformation
By Rev. H. T. ANDREWS, B.A., Professor of New Testa-
ment Exegesis and Criticism, New College, London.
ARGUMENT.
Preliminary — Difficulties involved in the Treatment of the Subject — (i) The
Danger of Subjectivism — (2) The Social (Question not a Prominent
Issue with the Reformers — (3) The Different Meanings attached
to the term Reformation and the Need of Definition — (4) The Difficulty
of Separating the Religious from other Influences at Work during
the Period.
I. The Social Teaching of the First Reformers and its Effects.
(A) Luther, His Fundamental Position — The Peasant Revolt —
Its Causes — The Programme of the Peasants — The Attitude of Luther
— His Vindictive Pamphlet — Effect of Luther's Action on the Refor-
mation and on Germany — Luther's Attitude to the New Commercial
Spirit.
(B) Calvin — Differences between Luther and Calvin — The Con-
dition of Geneva — The Fundamental Principles Underlying Calvin's
Work — The Attempt to Establish a Theocracy — The Relation between
Church and State — The Relation between the Individual and the
Community — Knox's Attempt to Establish Calvin's Regime in Scot-
land— His Social Programme — ^The Influence of the Reformation
on the Struggle for Independence in the Netherlands.
II. The Indirect Effects of the Reformation on Social Progress.
The Indirect and Ultimate Effects more Important than the Imme-
diate Results — The Influence of the Reformation Seen — (a) in the
introduction of a New Conception of Life and the Overthrow of the
Monastic Ideal ; (6) the Consecration of Family Life ; (c) a New
Sanctity attached to Labour, Commerce and Civic Life ; (d) the Con-
ception of a Social Ideal ; (e) The Reformation Enhances the sense
and value of Personality ; (/) It fosters the Spirit of Intellectual
Freedom ; (g) Its Influence on Political and Social Liberty and (h)
on the Growth of Democracy ; (i) It Revolutionizes the Conception
of Charity and (/) Gives a new Stimulus to Education ; (k) the Reform-
ation and the Middle Classes ; (l) Socialistic Theories in the Reform-
ation Period ; (m) Certain losses entailed by the abandonment
of the Mediaeval Dream of Unity and the Introduction of the Com-
mercial Spirit.
VIII
The Social Principles and Effects of the
Reformation
It is by no means an easy task to gauge with anything
like scientific precision the exact contribution which
the Reformation made to the social progress of the
race. There are many difficulties which such an
investigation is bound to surmount before it can hope
to reach a satisfactory result.
In the first place we must strive to guard against
the danger which is incidental to all such inquiries
of unconsciously imposing our own ideas and judg-
ments upon the data of history. *' History/' as
Froude once said, '* is like a child's box of letters.
You can make it spell whatever you please." There
is no region in which the dictum — ** the mind sees
what it brings with it the power of seeing " — is better
illustrated than in the philosophy of history. It will
therefore be absolutely necessary for us to guard
our selves against hasty generalizations, especially
when the generalization is in accord with our own
wishes.
Then again a difficulty arises from the fact that
the social question was not one of the most prominent
issues at the time of the Reformation. Democracy
336
336 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
had not yet realized itself. There was, of course,
grave discontent among the peasantry of Europe, and
serious outbreaks occurred in Germany, England and
Bohemia ; but it cannot be said that the social pro-
blem filled the thought and imagination of the age as
it does to-day. The Reformation was pre-eminently
a spiritual movement. Its main purpose was to
emancipate religion from the tyranny of the Roman
Church. It was only incidentally, here and there, that
it was brought face to face with definite social issues.
Whatever contribution therefore the Reformation
made to social reform was in the nature of a by-pro-
duct, and cannot be regarded as part of the original
purpose of the movement.
Furthermore, before we can hope to reach con-
vincing results, it will be necessary to define the mean-
ing which we attach to the term '' Reformation.*'
The word is used in many different senses. To some
minds it simply denotes the results achieved by Luther
in Germany during his lifetime. Others regard it as
signifying primarily the changes introduced by Henry
VIII in the relations between the EngHsh Church and
the Papacy. To others the work of Calvin at Geneva
constitutes the real Reformation. Our conclusions
are bound to vary with our definition. As a matter
of fact the most diverse results have been obtained
by scholars in the past. Lord Acton, for instance,
in his History of Freedom asserts that '' The direct
political influence of the Reformation effected less
than has been supposed. . . . When the last of the
Reformers died, religion instead of emancipating the
nations had become an excuse for the criminal art of
despots. Calvin preached and Bellarmine lectured,
but Machiavelli reigned.'* In striking contrast to
this statement of Lord Acton, we have the aflirma-
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 337
tion of M. Borgeaud in his Rise of Democracy, " Modem
democracy is the child of the Reformation." Now
Lord Acton and M. Borgeaud are both of them right.
The difference in their conclusions is due to the fact
that the former rigidly limits the Reformation to the
lifetime of the Reformers, while the latter includes
the Puritan movement of the seventeenth century in
the scope of the Reformation. In the present essay
the Reformation will be taken in the broadest sense
of the term. To limit it to the work of the first Re-
formers is to take an unduly narrow and circumscribed
view of history. Luther and Calvin only laid the
foundations, and it was two hundred years before the
full effects of the movement began to be realized. We
must regard the Reformation, therefore, as including
all the new spiritual forces which were generated in
Europe during the sixteenth and seventeenth cen-
turies in the effort to break down the superstition and
tyranny of the Papal authority.
Finally, we have to remember that there were
other forces at work during this period besides the
religious. There was, for instance, the Renaissance,
which re-introduced the social and political ideals of
ancient Greece and Rome. Great changes, too, were
taking place in the world of commerce. The develop-
ment of navigation and the discovery of America had
broadened the basis of trade. A new order of mer-
chant princes was beginning to arise. Wealth no
longer necessarily meant the possession of land. The
economic condition of Europe was steadily being
revolutionized. The Feudal System was ceasing to
be the pivot of society. The profitable employment
of money in trade enhanced the value of capital. With
all these influences at work, it is extremely difficult
to disentangle any single strand from the complicated
c.c. z
338 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
thread of causation and estimate its particular effect
upon the social development which ensued. To take
an illustration. We know that between the time of
Wyclif and the death of Queen Elizabeth the wages
of agricultural labourers doubled in England, and as
Prof. J. R. Green says, " villeinage died out so rapidly
that it became a rare and antiquated thing.'' Our
first impulse would naturally be to attribute this result
to the new religious ideas introduced by the Reforma-
tion. We are bound, however, to take into considera-
tion the other influences which were at work, and
we must never forget the economic fact that the Black
Death had swept off half the population of the rural
districts, and so made labour scarce. Even in feudal
times, in spite of the safeguards provided by Parlia-
ment in the interests of the feudal lords, a depletion
of the labour market was inevitably followed by an
advance in the status and wages of the labourer. It
would be as unscientific to ascribe the amelioration
in the condition of the labouring classes entirely to
the propaganda of Wyclif and the Lollards, as it would
be to deny altogether the part which the new religious
ideas played in creating what Thorold Rogers called
" the golden age '' of the English peasant in the fif-
teenth century.
Keeping these difficulties in mind, we can now
proceed to the examination of the facts. It will be
necessary first of all to investigate the principles
laid down by the great Reformers on the subject of
Social Reform, and the direct effects produced by the
movement in different countries ; and then, when
this has been done, we shall be in a position to esti-
mate the larger and more general influences which the
Reformation generated in the sphere of social and
civic life.
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 339
I
It will be impossible, of course, to survey all the
different religious movements in connexion with the
Reformation. We shall have to confine ourselves in
the main to an examination of the teaching of Luther
and Calvin, though some allusion must also be made
to the work of John Knox in Scotland, and the great
struggle for religious liberty in the Netherlands. We
find that though the various movements which make
up the Reformation have much in common, yet they
have many points of difference as well. The doctrines
of the new faith were in their essence the same all
over Europe ; but in spite of the common basis, no
two movements assumed the same form or issued in
the same results. The different shapes which the
Reformation assumed in different places were due
partly to the temperament of the leaders and partly
to the social and political environment in which the
battle had to be fought out.
A. The Social Teaching of Luther.
Luther was from the first pre-eminently concerned
with the religious question. The problem for him
had always been, '' How can a man be just with God ? *'
After a desperate struggle he had found the answer
which satisfied his own soul, and he was anxious to
give that answer to the world. The main point for
Luther was the estabhshment of a right relationship
between man and God. The question of the right
relationship between man and man never concerned
him very deeply. He felt that if men could be in-
duced to accept the doctrine of justification by faith
and enter into a hfe of fellowship with God, the re-
generation of society would naturally follow. " Save
340 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
the individual, and by saving the individual you will
save the State '' — that was the watchword of the
/Lutheran Reformation. Luther was therefore anxi-
/ous to keep the movement from being entangled in
/ any social or political complications. In this policy
/ however he was doomed to fail.
/ At a very early stage in its development the German
/ Reformation was brought face to face with a grave
social crisis. The Peasants' Revolt in 1524 made it
necessary for Luther to decide once for all whether
the movement should ally itself with the forces of
democracy in their struggle for freedom, or whether
it should support the ruling classes in their effort to
maintain the old feudal order.
It is impossible within the limits of the present
Essay to attempt to describe all the issues which
were involved in the Peasants* Revolt. For fifty
years and more the German peasantry had been
seething with unrest. Economic changes had been
taking place all over Europe which amounted to
little less than an agrarian revolution. The discovery
had been made that land possessed a commercial
value. In former days the feudal lord was perfectly
contented if the land provided him with men to serve
him in husbandry or war. Now he became anxious
to make money out of the soil. The common lands
were gradually enclosed. The produce of the woods
and the rivers, which in the past had been regarded
as common property, was appropriated by the lord
of the manor. The introduction of Roman Law,
too, altered for the worse the agricultural customs
and usages which had prevailed in Germany for ages,
and lowered the status of the labourer. The growing
love of luxury led the rich to seek increased sources
of revenue by grinding the faces of the poor. The
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 341
exactions of the Church grew more burdensome every
year. The tithes were extended to cover every pos-
sible source of income. A steady rise in prices and
a consequent diminution in the value of money served
to intensify the sense of poverty. A series of bad
harvests added to the sufferings of the peasants.
Time after time insurrections had been organized
by the Bundshuh, as the Peasants' league was called.
None of them however had proved successful, and
they had always been suppressed without difficulty.
The Reformation with its attack upon the Church
and its proclamation of religious liberty gave the
peasants a new hope and added fuel to the flames.
Some of the more radical reformers like Miinzer
openly espoused the cause of the peasants and carried
the fiery cross of rebellion throughout the southern
part of Germany. At length in 1524 the great insur-
rection broke out. The demands of the peasants,
which were incorporated in twelve Articles, seem to
us to-day extremely moderate. They were couched
in religious phraseology and supported by arguments
drawn from the Scriptures. The peasants commenced
by claiming in the first article the right to elect their
own pastors and religious teachers. They made no
objection to the payment of the greater tithes, but
they argued that the lesser tithes were unscriptural
and rested merely on human authority. They de-
manded the restitution of the privilege enjoyed by
their forefathers of hunting in the common woods
and fishing in the rivers. They protested against every
form of slavery as being contrary to the teaching
of the New Testament and demanded exemption
from all servile services. They asked also for a reduc-
tion of rent and the abolition of the death duties exacted
by the landlord.
342 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
The programme of the peasants offered Luther a
great opportunity. Their fate was very largely in
his hands. He was one of the determining factors
in the situation. The issue of the revolt was in no
small degree settled by his decision. There can be
little doubt that at heart Luther was largely in sym-
pathy with the peasants. He came himself of peasant
stock and knew from bitter experience the wrongs by
which they were oppressed. In his earlier writings
he had lashed out bravely against the misgovernment
of the princes and the luxury of the rich. At the
first appearance of the peasants* programme, he
adopted a neutral attitude towards the two contending
parties, distributing praise and blame with impartial
hand. He expressed approval of most of the pea-
sants' demands and urged the nobles to remove the
grievances. At the same time he warned the peasants
that a resort to violence would be fatal to their claims.
It seems quite clear that he was anxious to secure
a compromise, which might ameliorate the lot of
the peasants without injuring the nobles.
When the peasants, unable to secure a bloodless
revolution, resorted to the sword, Luther abandoned
the position of neutrality, flung himself wildly into
the fray and put himself forward as the champion
of the nobles. His pamphlet Against the murderous
thieving hordes of peasants is a disgrace (there is no
other word for it) to literature, to say nothing of
religion. Luther dipped his pen in venom and openly
incited the nobles to butchery. *' A prince can now,'*
he wrote, '' better merit heaven with bloodshed than
with prayer." A perfect orgy of slaughter followed.
No less than a hundred thousand peasants, on the
lowest computation, were slain with the sword. The
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 343
agricultural districts of Southern Germany became
little better than a wilderness.
Many attempts have been made to extenuate
the action of Luther. The moderate programme
of the twelve articles, it is urged, was only a blind.
The real aims of the Bundshuh stopped very little
short of Socialism. Moreover the success of the
peasants would have meant revolution, and for that
Luther was not prepared. Luther knew too that
the success of the Reformation would be imperilled
if it were associated with the movement. He would
have inevitably lost the support of the German princes
and nobles upon whose help he relied in his struggle
with the Pope. The risk was too great. Luther
had really no alternative but to sacrifice the peasants
in the interests of the Reformation.
Arguments such as these would have justified
Luther in adopting a policy of neutrality, but they
do not justify his vindictive onslaught upon the
peasants ; least of all do they afford ground for his
enunciation of the barbarous doctrine '' Killing No
Murder.'' Luther's pamphlet, as Dr. Lindsay says,
*' all extenuating circumstances being taken into
account, must ever remain an ineffaceable stain on
his noble life and career."
Luther's action left an indelible mark upon his
own character, upon the constitution of the Lutheran
Church, and upon the German nation. There can
be little doubt that Luther's own social sympathies
were dulled and blunted by his partisan conduct.
He had violated the principle of political neutarlity
which lay at the very base of his religious conceptions.
He had taken sides with the nobles against the people.
There was no escaping from the position. As time
went on, his sentiments became less and less demo-
344 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
cratic. No one, who had not lost his finer instincts,
could ever have written the notorious letter which
Luther composed later on, in conjunction with Melanch-
thon and Spalatin, to remove the scruples of a Saxon
noble in regard to the burdens his tenants bore, in
which he gives utterance to the astounding state-
ment, ** The ass will have blows and the people will
be ruled by force/' The effect upon the constitution
of the Lutheran Church was equally detrimental.
It was thrown more and more into the hands of the
princes. As Professor Pollard says, " The movement
from 1521 to 1525 had been national, and Luther
had been its hero : from the position of national hero,
he now sank to be the prophet of a sect and a sect
which depended for its existence upon the support
of poUtical powers. Melanchthon admitted that the
decrees of the Lutheran Church were mere platonic
conclusions without the support of the princes, and
Luther suddenly abandoned his views on the free-
dom of conscience and the independence of the Church.''
But most disastrous of all was the effect produced
upon the German nation. The peasants were alien-
ated from Protestantism and relapsed, some back
into Roman Catholicism but the majority into unbelief.
The cause of Social Reform was handicapped, and
it took centuries before it recovered from the blow
which Luther dealt it. " To the end of the eighteenth
century the German peasantry remained the most
miserable in Europe. Serfdom lingered there longer
than in any other civilized country save Russia, and
the mass of the people were effectively shut out from
the sphere of political action." The anti-Christian
character of modern Socialism in Germany is one of
the fruits of Luther's policy.
Little need be said with regard to Luther's atti-
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 345
tude upon other social questions. Reference, however,
should be made to his hostility towards the methods
of the new Commerce. In one of his works he pro-
tests against the doctrine that a merchant '' must
buy in the cheapest market and sell in the dearest,''
and insists that the only justifiable rule is '' I may
sell my wares as dearly as I ought, or as is right and
just.*' '' Selling shall not be a work which stands
freely in your power, without all law and measure,
as though you were a god, who is bound to no one :
but because your selling is a work which you do to
your neighbour, it shall be conducted with such law
and conscience that you may do it without harm and
injury to your neighbour.'* Luther suggested that
the magistrates should appoint a commission to estab-
lish just and fair prices, though he adds that he thought
there was very little prospect of such a plan being
carried out.
Luther's most vehement denunciations, however,
are reserved for the great trading societies and bankers,
such as the Fuggers, who in the fifteenth and six-
teenth centuries amassed huge fortunes by financial
and commercial operations. The lending and bor-
rowing of money at interest were anathema to Luther.
His indignation against the Monopolists is almost as
violent as his attack upon the peasants. " These
people are not worthy of being called men or dwelling
among people. It would be right for the magistracy
to take from such all that they have and drive them
from the land." In one of his extant letters written
at a time of famine when an attempt was being made
by the nobles to make a corner in wheat, Luther
makes an urgent appeal to the Elector John Frederic
to pass a law ''to prevent the nobles from trading in
corn and thereby practising usury in such a shameless
346 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
manner." But it was not merely the abuses con-
nected with commerce that Luther hated : he dis-
liked the thing itself. " It were more godly/' he says
in his Address to the Nobility, '' to encourage agri-
culture and lessen commerce/' '' Germany would
be better off/' he writes elsewhere, " if she spent less
of her gold in buying cloth from England and spice
from Spain."
It would not be far from the truth to say that
Luther's social ideal was an improved Feudal System.
He was anxious that Germany should return to the
old simple agricultural life. The commercial spirit
was an unmitigated disaster in his eyes. The fact
is of course that Luther was essentially conservative
in all his instincts, and his innate Conservatism is
never more apparent than in his attitude to social
questions. He began his public career by opening
the floodgates of reform, and then, frightened at the
results, spent the rest of his life in the vain attempt
to build a dam to stem the torrent.
B. The Social Teaching of Calvin.
When we pass from Germany to Switzerland,
we find ourselves in a completely different atmo-
sphere. Switzerland was a federation of a number of
free and independent republics. Each of the great
city-states was autonomous and responsible for the
conduct of its own government. The social problem
was much less acute than in Germany. The peasants
had already won their freedom, and many of the
evils which were so rampant in other countries had
been mitigated if not entirely removed. Calvin, there-
fore, when he came to Geneva, stood at a great advan-
tage in comparison with Luther. Luther's stage
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 347
was a large empire with many complex political forces
confronting him at every turn. He could only hope
to succeed by winning over the most potent elements
to his side. Calvin's stage, on the other hand, was a
moderate sized city, the population of which is estimated
at 12,000. As long as he was able to dominate the city,
there was little fear of outside interference. Luther's
only way of safety was to keep the Reformation clear
of politics, and to avoid the social problem as far as
possible. Calvin could only hope to make his influ-
ence felt by incarnating his ideal of reform in the
institutions of his city. And even if he had wished
to follow Luther's example and avoid interference in
political and social questions, it would have been
quite impossible for him to do it at Geneva. Geneva
had always been in theory at any rate a theocracy.
Its bishop was nominally its king, though his power
was limited by the Vicedom or civil overlord (who
was always a member of the House of Savoy), and
the assembly of the citizens. As a matter of fact, the
bishop was the creature and nominee of the Duke of
Savoy, who by using him as his instrument strove
with more or less success to impose his will upon the
people of Geneva. " Duke and bishop," as a chronicler
says, '' like Herod and Pilate stood united against
the city." In 1530 Geneva emancipated itself from
the *' two-headed tyranny " which sought to destroy
its liberties. In regaining its political freedom it won
religious freedom as well, and six years later, in 1536,
the city publicly proclaimed its acceptance of the
Reformation. Within two months of this event Cal-
vin obeyed the summons of Farel, and essayed the
high task of making Geneva a City of God, a real theo-
cracy which should be a model to the world.
We are not so much concerned with the details
348 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
of Calvin's work in Geneva as with the underlying
principles upon which it was based, and with those
mainly only in so far as they bear upon the social
question. The leading principles of Calvin's regime
may be stated thus : (i) Religion, though essentially
personal, must work itself out in the social and polit-
ical life of the people. Germany under the guidance
of Luther might adopt a new faith, and leave its old
system of government and its social order intact and
unaltered. But Geneva under the leadership of Cal-
vin could not be content with that. The reform of
religion must be followed by a reform of morals and
a reform of civic life. Christianity must dominate
the body politic as well as the individuals of which
the state is composed. It must be woven into the
very warp of the fabric of society. (2) The Chris-
tianization of the state can only be produced by the
establishment of a theocracy. The establishment of
a theocracy means the recognition of the law of God
as the supreme standard and basis of the civic life.
The function of the government is to devise means
by which this ideal can be attained. The particular
form of government, according to the teaching of
Calvin, is immaterial. A theocratic state may be
ruled by a monarchy — an aristocracy — or a demo-
cracy. Each has its advantages and its disadvan-
tages. " Monarchy easily degenerates into despotism,
aristocracy into oligarchy or the faction of the few,
democracy into mobocracy and sedition." Calvin's
own preference is for a democracy tempered by a
mixture of aristocracy. The main thing, however, is
not the form of government, but the energy with
which the government devotes itself to the ideal.
(3) The law of God which constitutes the ideal, is
found revealed in the Scriptures. The Bible, which
' EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 349
to Luther was mainly the textbook of doctrine, and
the source of theology, contained for Calvin a revela-
tion not only of the polity of the Church, but of the
main principles of social well-being as well. A theo-
cracy therefore meant a state founded and built up
upon the teaching of Scripture, or in other words, the
application of the truths of the Bible to civic and
political life. Herein perhaps lies the greatest con-
tribution which Calvin made to Social Reform. In
claiming that the Bible was a textbook of sociology
as well as religion, he took up a position which was
destined to produce revolutionary results in the future,
(4) How, then, is a theocracy to be established ? It
can only really be achieved when Church and State
unite together for its accomplishment. Church and
state, according to Calvin, are related to one another,
as body to soul. As Dr. Fairbairn puts it, " Without
the State there would be no medium for the Church
to work in, no body for the soul to animate ; without
the Church there could be no law higher than expedi-
ency to govern the State, no ideal of thought and
conduct, no soul to animate the body. Both Church
and State, therefore, were necessary to the good order-
ing of society, and each was explained by the same
idea.** (5) The State so constituted and established
possessed supreme power over the individual, and
the individual had no rights against the state. This
naturally followed from the obvious fact that there
could be no appeal against the law of God. Under
the inspiration of Calvin the city of Geneva drew up
an elaborate code, which regulated life in all its aspects
down to the most minute details. No variation was
tolerated, and all infractions of the law were severely
punished. The regime of Calvin insisted upon the
principle that the individual is bound to sacrifice his
350 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
own particular whims and fancies, when these clash
with the general interests, for the sake of the com-
munity as a whole. But if the individual lost in some
respects, he gained in others. If he was bound to
sacrifice his private liberty to the well-being of the
State, on the other hand, it must be remembered that
the State made itself responsible for his well-being too.
Calvin laid it down, as one of the rules of government,
that it was the duty of the State to provide useful
employment for every man that could work ; and
what is more, he introduced new industries (e.g. cloth
and weaving) into the city in order to enable it to
perform its obligations.
Such are the leading ideas which underlie Calvin's
attempt to create a perfect city. The success of an
enterprise conducted upon such principles as these
depends upon two conditions. The leaders of the
movement must possess sufficient enlightenment and
insight to enable them to interpret aright the will of
God in the matter of social welfare, and their inter-
pretation must be so clear and self-evident that it
wins for itself universal approval. And then the
Church and the State must be practically co-extensive
as they were in Geneva, in order to make it possible
for the Church to impose its laws upon the people.
In other words, Calvin^s scheme is only capable of
practical realization in a society saturated with the
Christian spirit and wholly devoted to the Christian
ideal.
In the case of Geneva these two conditions were
largely fulfilled, and consequently Calvin's work be-
came one of the most splendid social experiments
known to history In an age when most of the great
European nations were hurrying in the wake of Machia-
velli to the worst form of despotism they had ever
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 351
known, the little city of Geneva stood out before the
world as the home of freedom, and afforded a welcome
asylum to hosts of refugees who had been exiled from
other countries on account of their love of civil and
religious liberty. And out of Geneva there issued a
stream of influence which enabled most of these nations
eventually to destroy the despotism they seemed at
the time so bent upon establishing. As Mark Pattison
says : " it was the Calvinistic discipline that reformed
Scotland, emancipated Holland, attained a brief but
brilliant reign in England, and maintained a struggle
of sixty years against the royal authority in France.*'
A word must be said with regard to the social
effects produced by Calvinism in Scotland and Holland.
We are not concerned with the dramatic episodes
which make the career of John Knox one of the most
thrilling narratives in modern history. We have only
to deal with the social principles which he enunciated
or exemplified in his conduct of affairs. The aim of
Knox was to establish in Scotland a replica of the
regime of Calvin at Geneva. It would have been a
gigantic undertaking under any circumstances. Cal-
vin's scheme had only been tried on a small stage.
Whether it could be applied to a large country with
a scattered population like Scotland, remained to be
proved. Calvin's success had been largely due to the
influence of his personality. The whole of Geneva
was constantly under his eye. His touch can be seen
in almost every action of the magistrates. Knox
could not hope to dominate Scotland in the same way.
He could not be everywhere at the same time. His
influence would necessarily have to be exerted at a
distance. But in addition to the difficulties created
by geography, Knox had constantly to contend against
the permanent opposition of the Queen and the Court,
352 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
who tried to thwart his work in every possible way.
But if the different conditions, under which Knox had
to work, prevented him from attaining Calvin's success,
they helped at any rate to broaden and deepen the
social and political influence of the movement. In
the first place the ecclesiastical machinery had to be
enlarged and elaborated to suit the conditions of
Scotland. This in itself was a liberal education, for it
taught the Scotch the principles of representative
government ; and the principles first learned in the
government of the Church were afterwards applied to
the government of the country. In the second place,
the opposition of Queen Mary gave a more independent
and democratic tone to the Church, and this new spirit
gradually infused itself into the blood of the people.
The answer which Knox gave to the Queen when she
asked him whether subjects, having power, might
resist their princes — " If their princes exceed their
bounds. Madam, and do against that wherefore they
should be obeyed, it is no doubt but they may be
resisted even by power *' — struck a new note in the
history of the Reformation, and cancelled all the regu-
lations of the confessions (Knox's own included), which
insisted on the divine right of kings and the duty of
passive obedience.
In his Book of Discipline, drawn up in 1560, Knox
propounded a splendid programme of social reform.
The scheme proposed that the Church, in addition to
the maintenance of public worship, should in every
parish provide {a) that all unable to earn a living
should be supported out of the public funds ; (b) that
all able to work should be compelled to do so ; (c) that
every child should be afforded an opportunity of edu-
cation ; (d) that every youth of promise should have
an open way to the universities through a system of
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 353
high schools. The scheme was not completely carried
owing to lack of funds. The endowments upon which
Knox had relied were in the confusion that followed
the establishment of the Reformation sequestrated
for the most part from the Church, either by the Crown
or the nobles, and nothing was left for social experi-
ments. Still, though the scheme was quite unattain-
able at the time, Knox bequeathed it to the nation as
a great social ideal ; and it is very largely to that
ideal that Scotland owes the great educational advan-
tages which it possesses to-day.
The limitations of space preclude anything more
than the briefest reference to the magnificent struggle
for liberty which the Reformation inspired in the
Netherlands. The most noteworthy characteristic
about the movement in the Netherlands is that through-
out it was a people^s battle. There was no strong
inspiring religious personality like Luther or Calvin
to stir the blood of the nation and rouse the people to
enthusiasm. The only great name is that of William
of Orange, and it was in the political sphere and on
the battlefield that his strength was most manifest.
The significant point for us is that the spirit of the
Reformation enabled a subject race to maintain a
stubborn resistance for twenty-five years against the
flower of the Spanish army, and finally to win inde-
pendence and liberty. Every weapon which the In-
quisition possessed was tried in vain. Nothing could
quench the indomitable courage of the Dutch. With
intrepid faith they faced the most ghastly forms of
torture and martyrdom that the diabolical ingenuity
of their persecutors could devise. The Spanish General
Alva confessed just before his recall that nothing but
the complete extermination of the Protestants would
restore the Netherlands to the Catholic faith. The
C.C. A A
354 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
only hope of success was to raze to the ground every
city that could not be garrisoned with Spanish soldiers.
That, however, was impossible, for the Dutch had
become masters of the sea ; and when at last in sheer
desperation they cut the dykes and flooded their ter-
ritories rather than submit, the Spaniards were forced
to evacuate the country and a Dutch Republic was
established. Thus the Netherlands, thanks to the
Reformation, were the first country in Europe to win
civil and religious liberty.
Our examination of the facts has shown us how
the social influence of the Reformation increased as
the new stream of religious truth gathered strength
and volume. Luther commenced by being neutral
on social questions, but was driven by circumstances
to link the movement with the forces of reaction.
Calvin, however, turned the Reformation into a new
channel, and definitely made social reform part of the
Christian programme. As Troeltsch says, *' It is not
till Calvin that we can speak of Christian social reform
and social construction, in so far as we mean the con-
scious work of Christian society.*' From Switzerland
Calvin's new ideal passed into Scotland and Holland,
and finally found embodiment in English Puritanism.
II
The Indirect Effects of the Reformation
Now that we have examined the direct effects of
the Reformation in certain typical countries, we are
in a better position for estimating the more general
and indirect results of the movement on social progress.
The most potent influences exerted by an event in
history very often do not reveal themselves to its con-
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 355
temporaries. The men who live near the times often
fail to appreciate the full scope and significance of the
truths which have been proclaimed, or the forces which
have been set in motion. The harvest produced from
the seed sown by Luther and Calvin must have far
exceeded the expectations of the sowers themselves.
The Reformation is the greatest event in modern times,
not because of its achievements in the sixteenth cen-
tury, but because the new truths which it inculcated
have been working themselves out in history ever
since, sometimes in a way little anticipated by the
Reformers. '* The value of the Reformation,'* to
quote the words of Professor Gwatkin, " is not so
much in what it did as in what it made possible.*'
(a) The Reformation introduced a new ideal of life.
According to the teaching of the pre-Reformation
Church, the highest life could only be attained in the
monastery, by men and women who had cut themselves
off from ordinary society, and abjured the common
pleasures and duties of the family and civic life. The
mediaeval idea of piety consists in flight from the
present evil world. '* The model saint of the Roman
Church," to quote the words of Schaff, ** is the monk
separated from the enjoyments and duties of society,
and anticipating the angelic life in heaven, where
they neither marry nor are given in marriage." This
monastic conception is based upon a dualistic view of
the universe. The two worlds — the natural and
spiritual — stand over against each other in radical
antagonism. The soul of man is poised between them,
and they are so related to him that, as Thomas Aquinas
says, ** The nearer he inclines to the one, the further
he departs from the other." It was only by renouncing
the pleasures of earth that men could attain the beati-
tude of heaven. The only safe rule of life was a
356 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
rigid asceticism which meant the repression of all
the natural instincts and the cultivation of the anti-
social spirit. Nothing in the history of the human
race has ever been so fatal to social progress as the
monastic ideal. When that ideal was at its highest
point of success, it meant the withdrawal of the world^s
choicest and purest souls from all active interest in
the common life. The management of secular affairs
was left to those who had not sufficient character or
enthusiasm to adopt the loftiest mode of life. If
monasticism could have secured for itself universal
adoption, it would have necessarily involved the suicide
of the human race. And when monasticism fell from
this high place and degenerated, as it often did, into
corruption, it became more anti-social still, since it
encouraged evil practices and vices which inevitably
entail the disintegration of society.
It was, perhaps, the greatest achievement of
Luther and the Reformers that they were able to lay
the axe at the root of the monastic theory of life and
destroy its very foundations. They attacked the
fundamental dualism on which monasticism was based.
They denied that the true life was only attainable in
the seclusion of the cloister. They asserted that the
man who cut himself off from social relationships lived
a maimed and artificial life. The highest graces and
virtues of the Christian life could only be acquired
through social intercourse in the home and the state.
Far from being prejudicial to the spiritual interests,
marriage and business and politics afforded men a
sacred opportunity of consecrating their talents to the
noblest ends. No better expression of the sentiments
of the Reformers could probably be found than the
well-known and of t-quoted words in Browning's ''Rabbi
ben Ezra"—
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 357
" Let us not always say
Spite of this flesh to-day
I strove, gained ground, made way upon the whole ;
As the bird wings and sings
Let us say ' All good things
Are ours; nor soul helps flesh more now
Than flesh helps soul.' "
" Ein Christenmensch/' said Luther, *' ein froh-
licher Mensch sein muss.'' '' You may enjoy every
pleasure in the world which is not sinful in itself.*'
*' Nature has made gold and silver, and everything
that is fair and beautiful, attractive.*' '' The Lord
God made the good Rhine wine for us to drink.** In
all probability the words which Heine ascribes to
Luther,
" Who does not love wine, wife, and song
Remains a fool his whole hfe long,"
are not authentic, but they represent his views. The
teaching of Luther completely revolutionized the con-
ception of the Christian life. It was through Luther,
as Goethe so finely put it, *' that we have the courage
to stand with firm feet upon God*s earth, and have
become conscious again of our divinely-endowed human
nature.'*
(b) As a result of the introduction of the new
ethical ideal, the Reformation gave a new sanctity to
home life and the family relationship. The mediaeval
Church, by insisting upon the necessity of cehbacy for
the attainment of the saintly character, had cast a
slur upon marriage and all that marriage involved.
At the best it was regarded as a necessary evil, to be
permitted to those who were not endowed with the
purest virtues and could not therefore aspire to the
life of saintliness. Here again the mediaeval theory
358 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
displayed its anti-social tendency. Family life is the
foundation upon which society is constructed, and
must be so, unless we adopt the plan propounded by
Plato in the Republic. To attack the family, as the
mediaeval Church did, by its doctrine of celibacy,
and to treat as secular and pagan the most tender
and precious human relationship, is to deny the possi-
bility of creating a Christian state altogether, since the
ideal state cannot be built up on a rotten foundation.
The Reformers, by consecrating and ennobling the home
and the family (and modern Christian home life is
altogether the creation of the Reformation) regener-
ated the social system at its springs and sources. As
Dr. Marshall says in his book on Economics^ '' Indi-
vidualism governed by the temper of the Reformed
religion intensified family life, making it deeper and
purer and holier than it had ever been before. . . .
The family affections of those races which have adopted
the Reformed religion are the richest and fullest of
earthly feelings ; there never has been before any
material of texture at once so strong and fine with
which to build up a noble fabric of social life." No
nation can ever rise above the level of its family life.
By raising the standard of the home life of the people,
the Reformation made one of its most notable contri-
butions to the social progress of the race.
(c) A further result of the abandonment of the
monastic ideal is found in the sanctification of the
commercial and civic activities of man. The mediaeval
Church frowned upon trade and commerce, and at-
tached small value to the duties and responsibilities
of citizenship. Everything of this kind belonged to
the secular life, and was a hindrance to the develop-
ment of the soul. The Reformers removed the ban,
and taught mankind that commerce and citizenship
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 359
alike afforded opportunities for the exercise of Chris-
tian virtue. As Sohm puts it, *' Now for the first
time is seen the full value of the State, of a civic calling
and of civic freedom. . . . The State appears no
longer as a work of the devil, a work of sin or injustice.
The State like the family is a divine institution. . . .
Look at the whole round of political life, at labour in
agriculture and commerce, in handicraft and trade,
in science and art, in obedience and command : the
labour of manservant and maid, the judge, the soldier,
the official and the prince ; look where you will, all
this labour, performed as a calling ordered by God,
is the service of God which is well pleasing to Him.
The whole world has become holy, and all that was
profane in it is done away. The world with all its
duties is changed into the vineyard of the Lord, into
a temple of God in which we are to worship Him in
spirit and in truth.'*
(d) From this conception of the sacredness of life
on all its sides and in all its relationships, there fol-
lowed as a natural consequence the conviction that
there was a social ideal ordained by God to be worked
out in human society. The Kingdom of Heaven, in
other words, was not merely a great ecclesiastical
system, or some catastrophic event which was to come
to pass at the end of time ; it was a spiritual force
which is present here and now, working in the world,
leavening society, purifying commerce, ennobling art,
ameliorating the conditions of life, striving towards the
creation of an ideal society where the will of God would
be perfectly carried out. Monasticism abandoned the
world as hopeless, and left it to its doom ; the
Reformers — Calvin in particular — set themselves to
transform the world according to the pattern which
they had seen on the Mount of Vision.
36o THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
(e) The Reformation also enhanced the value and
meaning of personality, MediaevaHsm regarded the
individual man as part of a great machine. The State,
the Empire, and the Church were everything. The
units did not count. The individual did not matter.
Tennyson's description of Nature is also a description
of the mediaeval spirit.
" So careful of the type she seems.
So careless of the single life."
The new religious teaching of Luther and Calvin in
different ways impressed upon the world the import-
ance of the individual, (i) Both Reformers laid down,
as one of the primary axioms of faith, the principle
that all men stand on the same footing in the sight
of God. A sacerdotal system always encourages class
distinctions. The priest alone can enter into the
Holy of Holies. The common man must stand in the
outer courts of the Temple and has no right of access
to the presence of God. The Reformers demolished
the sacerdotal position, and taught the poorest peasant
that he was as dear to God as priest or prince. There
was only one way that led to life, and along that road
all alike must travel if they would enter into the King-
dom. (2) In addition to this common axiom, the
doctrine of; predestination, as it was enunciated by
Calvin, introduced a new element which emphasized
personality in a still more striking way. As Troeltsch
says in a recent article in the Hibbert Journal, '' The
idea of personality in Calvinism stands out in quite a
different manner than does that idea in Lutheranism.
No humble devotion of self to God and charitable
devotion of self to one's neighbour, but the strongest
personal value, the high sense of having a divine mis-
sion in the world, a grace-given preference over thous-
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 361
ands and an immeasurable responsibility, are what
engross the soul of man who, in the complete solitude
of his inner self, experiences and succeeds in working
out the grace which is his title to election. . . . Cal-
vinism possesses a valuation of the personality of the
elect which reminds us throughout of Kant, while
Luther remained much more within the circle of the
mystics/*
The influence of this new discovery of the value
of personality upon social progress can scarcely be
exaggerated. Man stood once more with head erect
upon the earth. He realized again the dignity of his
manhood and the worth of his soul, the inherent rights
which he possessed, and the grave responsibilities
which rested upon him. It was this new conception
of personality that supplied the motive power for the
regeneration of the world.
We must guard ourselves, however, against one
very common mistake. The Reformation was, in
Westcott's phrase, ** the affirmation of individuality.*'
But individuality must not be confounded with Indi-
vidualism in its modern connotation. The theory
implied in the term Individuahsm was almost entirely
unknown at the time of the Reformation.
(/) The Reformation also undoubtedly helped to
foster the sense of intellectual liberty. Guizot has said
" that the Reformation was a vast effort made by the
human race to secure its freedom : it was a newborn
desire to think and judge freely and independently of
ideas and opinions, which till then Europe received or
considered itself bound to receive from the hands of
antiquity. It was a great endeavour to emancipate
the human reason and to call things by their right
names. It was an Insurrection of the human mind
against the absolute power of the spiritual order.**
362 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
If this statement of Guizot had been intended to refer
to the actual results produced in the lifetime of the
Reformers, it would not be wholly true. The Re-
formers, of course, broke away from the authority of
tradition, but they always substituted a new form of
authority in its place, and they claimed for their new
authority the most absolute obedience and allegiance.
Toleration beyond a certain point was an idea quite
foreign to their creed. The Anabaptists were most
cruelly persecuted, and Servetus was put to death,
because they differed from the traditional authority
in a different way from Luther and Calvin, and re-
fused to accept the new standard which had been set
up in its place. There is a sense in which it is true
to say that at first there was no more freedom of
thought in Protestantism than in Roman Catholicism.
Neither system willingly permitted any considerable
variation from the accepted faith. Luther was as
anxious as the Pope ''to wring the neck of reason and
strangle the beast." But when we pass from the
immediate to the ultimate effects of the Reformation,
the truth of Guizot's words becomes unquestionable.
Freedom of thought may not be the child of the Re-
formers, but it is one of their lineal descendants. The
action of the Reformers was a revolt against the con-
stituted ecclesiastical authority, which had exercised
an unchallenged sway over the minds of men for more
than a thousand years. The success of their revolt
made other revolts possible, and even encouraged
them. Hosts of men who followed Luther in his
attack on Rome ceased to be his disciples when it came
to constructive work. They helped him to pull down
the old house, but they did not care to live with him
in the new house which he built to take its place :
they preferred to build one of their own. The Re-
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 363
formation, therefore, inevitably and much to the
regret of the first Reformers, produced variety and
diversity of thought, which in the long run naturally
resulted in the introduction of toleration.
(g) The Reformation also kindled afresh the fire
of political and social liberty. Here again the effects
of the movement were at first disappointing. There
can be no doubt that in weakening the power of the
Pope it strengthened for the moment the hands of
the monarchs of Europe, and increased their despot-
ism. Henry VIH, for instance, became a much worse
tyrant after he had supplanted the Pope as head
of the English Church. Luther gave to the doctrine
of passive obedience an unction which it had not pos-
sessed for ages. But we should be taking very short
views of history if we refused to recognize that after
the first few years of its existence, the course of the
movement turned into quite a different channel and
completely reversed its first effects. If in its child-
hood the Reformation raised Henry VIII to a higher
pinnacle of power than any English king had possessed
for generations, in its full manhood it sent King Charles
to the scaffold for infringing the liberties of his sub-
jects. The lever by which it finally lifted Europe out
of despotism was its doctrine of the '' priesthood of
all believers.'' '' All Christians," said Luther, *' are
truly of the spiritual estate, and there is no difference
among them save of office alone.*' If this principle
is logically and consistently carried out, it abolishes
all distinctions within the pale of the Church. Laymen
and clergy stand on a similar footing, and have equal
rights. Every Christian has the privilege and duty
of sharing in the government and administration of
the Church. The sons of the Reformation learned
the meaning of citizenship first of all in the Church,
364 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
and having learned the value of freedom there, could
be content with nothing less in civic and national
affairs. The Church was the school in which the
modern world was taught the privilege of liberty and
the art of government. '* Religious liberty/' as Schaff
puts it, *' is the mother of civil liberty. The universal
priesthood of Christians leads legitimately to the uni-
versal kingship of free, self-governing citizens, whether
under a monarchy or under a republic."
(A) From what has been said, it is easy to perceive
how the Reformation fostered the spirit of democracy.
As M. Borgeaud says in words which have already
been quoted, '' Modern democracy is the child of the
Reformation, not of the Reformers.'' The full signi-
ficance of the doctrine of the universal priesthood of
believers was not realized at once. Luther, as Troel-
tsch remarks, *' shrank from putting this principle
into effect." Even in the Church constitution of Cal-
vinism, it was not allowed full play. The English
Independents were the first to grasp the real meaning
and logical consequences of the new idea, and to trans-
late it into a Church polity. They were the first to
see that if the doctrine of the universal priesthood was
to be fully carried out, all authority in Church matters
must be vested in the whole body of Church members.
Robert Browne, the founder of Independency, as
Dexter says, '* had no idea of being a democrat or
that he was teaching democracy. His conception of
Church government, it is clear, was of the absolute
monarchy of Christ over His Church. But then he
conceived of Christ the king as reigning through as
many regents as there are individual subjects of His
kingdom." And when he reached this point he had,
though probably perfectly unconsciously, laid the
foundations of a spiritual democracy. From the
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 365
Church the democratic idea passed slowly and almost
imperceptibly into the state. Even Robert Browne
himself seems to have felt that the rules which he
formulated for the government of the Church ought
mutatis mutandis to be applied to civil affairs. In his
treatise A Booke concerning True Christians, after
describing the regulations of Church government, he
adds the significant words, " We give these definitions
so generall that they may be applied also to the civill
state.'* Sixty-six years after this book of Browne's
was published, in the year 1648, the English Indepen-
dents presented to Parliament a manifesto entitled
'* An Agreement of the People of England'' which
demanded the establishment of a complete democracy.
Among the principles which are laid down in this re-
markable document are the following : The recognition
of the sovereignty of the people ; the supreme power
to be vested in a single legislative assembly ; biennial
parliaments ; the equitable and proportionate distri-
bution of seats ; the extension of the franchise to all
citizens of full age except hired servants and those in
receipt of relief ; the toleration of all forms of Chris-
tianity ; the Churches to be freed from state inter-
ference and control ; the limitation of the powers of
Parliament by fundamental laws embodied in the
constitution, especially with regard to the civil liberties
guaranteed to citizens. Such was the political ideal
of the Independents at the commencement of the
Commonwealth. It is the logical consequence of
Luther's doctrine of Universal Priesthood transferred
to the sphere of civic life.
And it was not only in England that the Puritans
laid the foundations of modern democracy. The
Pilgrim Fathers carried the same great ideal across the
Atlantic to America. At the end of their memorable
366 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
voyage, before they disembarked from the Mayflower,
they drew up an Agreement or Covenant, which con-
stitutes the charter of rehgious and civil Uberty in
America. Well has it been said that ** In the cabin of
the Mayflower humanity recovered its rights and in-
stituted government on the basis of * equal laws ' for
' the general good.' "
Thus did the Christian Church nobly avenge the
wrong which had been done to it by the State in the
early ages. In ancient times the Roman Empire gave
to the Church an organization and a constitution which
crippled its freedom and destroyed its spirituality.
In modern times the Church, rejuvenated and purified
by the Reformation, gave to the nations of Europe
principles of government which enabled them to regain
their liberty and organize democracy.
{i) The Reformation revolutionized the conception
of Christian charity. Charity in mediaeval times was
cultivated not so much for the welfare of the recipient
as for the benefit of the donor. When a man gave
money to a beggar, it was not so much with a view of
helping him in his necessity as of performing a meritori-
ous act which would secure his own salvation. As
Innocent III put it, '' Alms purify, alms deliver, alms
redeem, alms protect, alms make perfect, alms save.''
The result was that charity became indiscriminate, and
tended to encourage rather than to diminish poverty.
A host of professional mendicants haunted every city
and fattened on the rich man's dread of purgatory.
Of course, theoretically, according to the teaching of
the Church, the giver of alms was required to investi-
gate the deserts of the recipient, and one of the most
distinguished Paris theologians went so far as to lay
it down " that to give to one who has no need is not
only not a merit, but even a demerit." But in spite of
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 367
this, there is no vestige of doubt that the mediaeval
doctrine of almsgiving demoralized a large section of
the community. The monasteries by their bountiful
largesses seem to have aggravated the evil. '* The
monks/' so we are told in a eulogy of the system
written by an anonymous writer in the year 1591,
** made hospitals and lodgings within their own houses,
wherein they kept a number of impotent persons with
all necessaries for them, besides the great alms which
they gave daily at their gates to every one that came
for it. Yea, no wayfaring person could depart without
a night's lodging, meat, drink and money, it not being
demanded from whence he or she came and whither
he would go.'' The policy of the Reformers may be
illustrated by two quotations from Luther : (i) Luther
insists that mendicancy must be put down. *' Begging
is to be rigidly prohibited : all who are not old or
weak shall work. No beggars shall be permitted to
stay who do not belong to the parish." (2) The needs
of the deserving poor ought to be met out of the com-
mon chest of the people. " Each town should provide
for its own poor people. . . . Poor householders who
have honourably laboured at their craft or in agriculture
ought to be given loans from the public chest ; and
this aid shall be given to them without return if they
are unable to restore it." The first great English Poor
Law, which was passed in 1536, practically embodied
these two principles of Luther. The giving of doles
was prohibited. " No person shall make any common
dole or shall give any ready money in alms to beggars."
Local authorities are required to *' succour, find and
keep " all the impotent poor belonging to their district.
The necessary means were to be obtained by the col-
lection of alms in church and at public festivals. It
was soon discovered that the Church collections did
368 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
not suffice for the purpose. Various Acts were there-
fore passed authorizing the local officials to bring
pressure to bear upon those who were reluctant to
give, and finally in 1572, since the voluntary method
does not appear to have worked well, the justices were
empowered to make a direct assessment, and overseers
of the poor were appointed to take charge of the whole
business. The Reformation thus introduced three
important changes into the mediaeval system of Poor
Relief : (i) It insisted upon the classification of pau-
pers ; (2) it transferred the responsibility from the
Church to the State ; (3) it laid down the principle
that the community, as a community, was in duty
bound to relieve the necessities of the deserving poor.
(/) The Reformation gave a great stimulus to edu-
cation. Calvin has been called " the father of popular
education and the inventor of free schools '* ; but this
is an honour which he must share with Luther and
Zwingli, and indeed with all the Reformers. In 1524
Luther wrote an address to the mayors and aldermen of
German cities on the condition of education, in which he
attacked the inefficiency of the existing system, asserting
that the German schools were '' a hell and a purgatory
in which with much flogging children learned nothing,'*
and urged the necessity of reform. ** So much money
is spent year after year for arms, roads, dams, and
innumerable similar objects, why should not as much
be spent for the education of poor youth ?'' He even
went so far as to advocate compulsory education. '' I
maintain that the civil authorities are under obligation
to compel people to send their children to school.'*
We have already seen how John Knox advocated a
complete system of education for Scotland which
aimed at securing [a) that every child should be pro-
vided with the opportunity of attending school ;
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 369
(b) that every youth of promise should be afforded the
chance by a graduated system of higher schools of
going up to the university. In England, too, great ad-
vances were made. Cranmer drew up a scheme for
founding schools in every diocese from the funds of
the monasteries. Unfortunately the spoils of the
monasteries were appropriated by other hands, and
it was left to private charity to provide the funds.
Henry VIII founded ten grammar schools, Edward
VI twenty-seven, Mary and Elizabeth thirty between
them. In addition to these benefactions, much was
done by private charity. '' In all, two hundred and
fifty higher or grammar schools were founded under
the immediate impulse of the Reformation." In the
reign of Henry VIII, too, the apprenticeship system
was established in England. The apprentice laws
enacted that all children between the age of five and
thirteen who were found begging or idle were to be
bound as apprentices to some handicraft. These laws
were binding upon master and servant alike. No
master could refuse to receive an apprentice, and no
youth could refuse to accept the position found for
him.
(k) The Reformation played an important part in
the development of the middle classes, which is one of
the most noteworthy features of this period of history.
In the Middle Ages there was no intermediate rank of
any importance between the nobles and the tillers of
the soil, though the latter were divided into several
grades. The general social theory that prevailed (and
it was supported by the teaching of the Church) held
that a man was born into his predestined rank and
ought not to aspire to a higher status. The growth
of commerce completely overthrew this view of life
by placing a new lever in the hands of the trading
c.c. B B
370 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
classes, which enabled them by the acquisition of wealth
to raise themselves into a position which challenged
the social supremacy of the feudal lords. The Reform-
ation, by its emphasis on the value of personality
and by its insistence that it was the duty of every
man to make the fullest use of his capacities, fostered
the new spirit ; and by the system of education which
it advocated and to a certain extent succeeded in
establishing, it gave men the power of breaking their
" birth's invidious bar," and rising to the position
which their ability fitted them to fill. There can be
little doubt that it was the middle classes who reaped
the immediate benefit from the Reformation. From
their ranks the most stalwart supporters of the move-
ment were drawn. This fact naturally reacted upon
the constitution of the Churches themselves. Bishop
Creighton has admitted in the case of the Church of
England that '' the changes made at the time of the
Reformation were too exclusively made in the interest
of the prosperous middle class,'' and his words are
more or less true of most of the Reformed Churches.
(/) A brief reference must be made to some of the
socialistic theories to which the age of the Reformation
gave birth. These, of course, did not emanate from
the ranks of the orthodox Reformers, but arose either
in connexion with some of the sporadic radical sects,
or amongst the litterati of the schools. Little is known
of the schemes of Jan Mathys and Jan of Leyden,
except that they rested on a communistic basis. The
social teaching of Miinzer and the Anabaptists has
come down to us in a vague and indefinite shape, but
we know that it advocated a very extreme method of
reform. The proposals put forward by Eberlin in
1521 have, however, been transmitted in clearer form.
To quote the description of the scheme given by Pro-
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 371
fessor Pollard in the Cambridge Modern History, '* Its
pervading principle was that of popular election : each
village was to choose a gentleman as its magistrate :
two hundred chief places were to elect a knight for
their bailiff : each ten bailiwicks were to be organized
under a city and each ten cities under a duke or a
prince. One of the princes was to be elected king, and
he, like every subordinate officer, was to be guided by
an elected council. In this scheme town was through-
out subordinated to country. . . . Agriculture was
pronounced the noblest means of existence. Capitalist
organizations were abolished. . . . Only articles of
real utility were to be manufactured, and every form
of luxury was to be suppressed."
The noblest social dream of the period is to be
found in Sir Thomas More's Utopia. More touches
on most of the great social problems which were be-
ginning to demand the attention of the world, e.g.
the punishment of crime, labour, education, the free-
dom of conscience. His attack upon the existing
system is most stringent. He regards it as nothing
more or less than '* a conspiracy of the rich against the
poor.*' *' The rich devise every means by which they
may in the first place secure to themselves what they
have amassed by wrong, and then take to their own
use and profit at the lowest possible price the work
and labour of the poor '* ; and as a consequence the
peasant is doomed to ** a life so wretched that even a
beast's hfe seems preferable.'* In contrast to the
prevailing system, Utopia was organized in the in-
terest of the poor. The object of its labour legislation
was the welfare of the labourer. Goods were possessed
in common, and labour was compulsory upon all.
The hours of work were made light, that opportunity
might be provided for the culture of the mind. The
372 THE SOCIAL PRINCIPLES AND
aim of the criminal code was ** nothing else but the
destruction of vice and the saving of men.'* Freedom
of conscience was allowed to all, since the people of
Utopia were '' persuaded that it is not in a man's
power to believe what he list."
Leaving out of account its fantastic details, there
can be no doubt that Utopia gave to the modern world
a new social vision which has been the inspiration of
social reformers in every generation.
(m) It is impossible to close this essay without
making some allusion to the losses which were entailed
in the Reformation period. Great as were the gains
to social progress, there are at any rate two losses to
be put to the other side of the account. Neither of
these is due to the Reformers, though each was more
or less affected by their teaching. In the first place,
the world lost the dream, which had filled the imagina-
tion of the Middle Ages, of a united humanity, living
under one Church and one form of government. In
place of the dream of unity, we find the principle of
nationalism. The watchword of the Reformation age
was decentralization. The centrifugal forces were
encouraged at the expense of the centripetal. As a
result there grew up the spirit of national rivalry which
has been responsible for most of the devastating wars
in modern times, and which to-day seems to be more
potent than ever. Secondly, the Reformation period
is responsible for the discovery of commercial methods
and financial operations, which have led to the des-
potism of capital. Luther, as we have seen, protested
against these methods with his usual vehemence,
but he was *' a voice crying in the wilderness," to
which the world paid no heed. And where Luther
bound, Calvin loosed, though it is only fair to add that
Calvin restricted the liberty of receiving interest to
EFFECTS OF THE REFORMATION 373
genuine transactions where lender and borrower both
gained some advantage. The fact however remains
that the introduction of commerce and the increased
importance that thereby became attached to capital,
complicated the social problem and introduced new
difficulties in the realization of the social ideal.
IX
The Evangelical Revival and Philanthropy
By Rev. THOMAS CUMING HALL, D.D., Professor of
Christian Ethics in Union Theological Seminary,
New York.
Author of " The Social Meaning of Modern Religious
Movements in England. 1900."
ARGUMENT
Introduction — Organized Religion as a Social Force — The Evangelical Revival
as a Dramatic Climax — The Movement not a Theological One —
Interest and Importance of this Non-Theological Character.
I. The Causes of the Spiritual Deadness : Exhaustion of the Nation by-
Religious Differences, the Attitude of the Political Leaders, e.g.
Horace Walpole.
II. The Character of the New Impulse to the Spiritual Forces of England :
Intense Activity — Individualism corrected by the Doctrine of Free
Grace, its Motive of Charity, its Contribution to Intelligent Philan-
thropy.
III. The Philanthropy of the Evangelical Leaders — Education — Popular
Preaching — Discontent of the Working Classes — A Democratic
Basis — The Pronounced Attitude towards Slavery — The Condemna-
tion of Slavery as Immoral — Slavery at Home.
IV. The Influence of the Evangelicals within the Establishment on Legis-
lation— ^The Records of Remedial Legislation from 1800 onward —
The Obstacles to Reform.
V. The Internationalism of Foreign Missions — Missionary Societies —
The Influence of the Moravian Missions — The Real Interest of the
Movement Evangelical and not Theologically Dogmatic.
VI. The Criticism of the Later Phases of Evangelical Philanthropy — Charles
Dickens — Its Weakness not Shallow Hypocrisy, but its Unscientific,
Sentimental Character.
VII. The Aftermath of the Evangelical Revival in Radicalism — Robert
Owen — James and John Stuart Mill — The Contribution of the Evan-
gelical Movement to Peaceful Political Organization and Agitation.
VIII. The Evangelical Inspirations in the Broad Church Party — ^Maurice,
Kingsley and Carlyle as Children of the Evangelical Revival —
" Christian Socialists " — The New Philanthropy, Educational, Socially
Reforming.
IX. The Evangelical Movement as a Second Reformation — The Defects
of the Early Reformation on the Social and Philanthropic Side —
The Social Demand and the Social Awakening — The Catholic Reaction
also Social and Philanthropic.
X. The Gift of the Evangelical Revival to the English-speaking World —
The New Kingdom- Purpose — Education — Prison-Reform — Training
for Philanthropy — The Resemblance of the Salvation Army to the
Evangelical Movement — Christian Life as a Life of Redemptive Ser-
IX
The Evangelical Revival and
Philanthropy
It is no longer necessary in really informed circles
to argue concerning the tremendous social force
organized religion has been in all ages. Every great
advance in human life has been marked by great
religious changes. However gradual and steady may
seem the advance of the race that advance becomes,
generally, dramatic in some crucial strain, and the
old and new forces face each other in strongly marked
contrast. This is as true in the history of religious
as in that of political phenomena.
Such a dramatic climax seemed reached when
Wesley at last began outside the Church to proclaim
the new religious life which those within the Church
refused even to consider. At the same time, no doubt,
many forces were making ready for the great spiritual-
social movement which we now call the Evangelical
Revival.
The movement was quite patently not a theological
one. Even those of us who think of ourselves as the
children of the Evangelical awakening, and rejoice
in its history and its splendid record, can hardly with
377
378 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
truthfulness claim that it has largely advanced theo-
logical science, or made any notable contribution
to theological-philosophical thought. Only indirectly
did it even quicken men's interest in fundamental
religious speculation. In point of fact, with all their
marked limitations, the English Deists are far more
intellectually important than any of the theologians
of the Evangelical movement until we come to Frederick
Denison Maurice — whom early Evangelical theology
would have disowned.
This non-theological character is both interesting
and important. The result of the main line of interest
being elsewhere was that many theological traditions
were taken over uncritically, and that many move-
ments directly connected with the revival of religious
life have not been properly recognized as outcomes
of the awakening. Thus no account of the philan-
thropy of the Evangelical movement can pass over
the labours of religious pastors whose theologies are
widely separated from each other. Wesley and White-
field were bitter theological opponents, but the warmest
friends in the rehgious awakening. Some one is said
to have asked Whitefield if he expected to see Wesley
in Heaven. *' I fear not/' he is reported to have
replied, '* John Wesley will be so near the throne we
will hardly get a peep at him.'* The philanthropy
which so marks the awakening is linked alike to Evan-
gelical Broad Churchism and to the new Evangelical
Unitariarism, and unites movements which are theo-
logically widely apart.
The spiritual deadness that was so marked a
characteristic of the period of Whig ascendency can,
without difficulty, be accounted for in many ways.
Among the most striking causes was the exhaus-
tion of the nation by the fierce religious differences
And philanthropy 379
with their attendant wars and revolutions which
had at last culminated in the great Whig victory.
Nothing seemed so necessary for the national life as
quiet and rest. The more ardent souls on both sides
had suffered fearfully, and the struggles represented
almost the elimination of zeal and fervour by death
and exile, and this was the case on both the Protest-
ant and Roman Catholic sides. Men were now
utterly weary of the long demoralizing and expensive
struggle. The one virtue that seemed needed was
that of '' moderation '' and the one really patriotic
attitude was '' tolerance.'' Then again a new indus-
trial class was emerging which distinctly and with
some reason distrusted both the Tory parson and
the non-conforming theologian. At the same time
this class had had no time itself to find spiritual leader-
ship. The attitude of Robert Owen is not infrequent
in that class. But in thus rebelling against the existing
religious conventions a very large class in the com-
munity was left without any religious inspiration or
guidance, and its thoughts and feelings were little
known to the religious leaders, whether of the Estab-
lishment or of Nonconformity.
Nor was the least cause of the spiritual deadness
the attitude of the political leaders on the Whig side.
They deliberately sought to suppress all religious
excitement and enthusiasm. The very term enthusi-
asm was abhorrent to all the Whig writers and preachers.
Among the most effective of the political leaders
of that day was Horace Walpole. He was excep-
tionably able and calm, and was the cynical dispenser
of all Church patronage, not, indeed, in the interests
of any religious definition, but in the avowed interest
of religious lukewarmness. For him a chief claim to
preferment was efficiency in management, and ability
38o THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
to suppress every sign of real interest in any subject
more exciting than the rotation of crops. Nor was
he wholly to blame for this from his point of view.
For him the Church was a useful and indispensable
tool of Government, and the Government needed
peace. At the same time it can be easily seen that
this attitude was not well calculated to encourage
active religious life. Not that all religious life had
by any means gone. There were not a few devout
and earnest Tory Churchmen, but they had been
so greatly discredited by their attitude toward the
throne that they had no real influence with the urban
Whig population. Walpole played fast and loose
equally with Nonconformity and with Toryism. He
did it, no doubt, in good faith because he saw the
dangers of renewed religious strife. Thus the great
urban trading class that grew up and produced the
revolution of 1688 and made Whig ascendency seem
the normal condition of affairs for three generations
was in great danger of entirely neglecting the things
of the spirit, and of sinking into luxuriant profligacy
on the one hand, or of miserable economic dependency
on the other.
It was at this time that the spiritual forces of
England gained a new impulse, and that a new char-
acter was stamped upon the face of Enghsh reHgious
life. The economic conditions did not make for
profound theological reflection. The quietism of the
Moravian teachers, who did so much for Methodism,
never gained a real foothold in the official thinking of
Evangelicalism. The mysticism of Law was instinct-
ively a rock of offence to Wesley. The day belonged
to men of action rather than to men of thought, and
the main characteristic of the Evangelical movement
in its early days was its intense activity. Only in
AND PHILANTHROPY 381
the later stages do we find any great intellectual
interest.
The monastic distortion of the message of Jesus
into a message of almost selfish consideration for one's
own personal salvation has ever been a danger in times
of renewed spiritual interest. Thus even at first
the Wesleys started out to '* save their souls.'* It
is so easy for us all to forget that Jesus said that he
who sought to save his life would lose it. And all
the experience of religious history abundantly justi-
fies the paradox. The '' philanthropy '* of this scho-
lastic type of religious thinking, whose chief interest
is thus fundamentally selfish, has nearly always been,
in the main, corrupting and evil. Nor is this hard to
understand. Even granting that all motives are
mixed, yet the works of this so-called *' charity "
have been done so largely with a view to the interest
of the *' philanthropist's " soul, that the interests
of the receiver have been overlooked, and injudicious
loveless help is well-nigh worse than none. From this
corruption the Evangelical movement was happily
saved by the doctrine of free grace. The Moravians
taught the Wesleys, and they again taught England
that God's love was free and could not be bought by
either works or repentance, but that all could have
that forgiving love who really sought it. For the
Evangelical religious movement as a social force it
was of the gravest moment that at the very start
works of mercy and redemption should be thought
of as the outflow of intelligent divine love implanted
in men's hearts, and not as a means by which a man
may save his own soul. Hence these works must
be really redemptive of the life of those helped, and
to be redemptive must be both intelligent and far-
sighted.
382 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
The '* charity '' of the middle ages, even in the
hands of devoted friars and godly women, was per-
vaded by the subtle selfishness that it was a " virtue '*
per se to give, and that indiscriminate alms-giving
made for eternal salvation even if the effects here
on earth were doubtful enough. The English Refor-
mation had never really been thorough and radical
upon this conception of God's free grace, and hence
it stands out as one of the weightiest contributions
to our modern efforts at redeeming human life that
the Evangelical movement taught men whole-heartedly
and unselfishly to seek others' welfare, simply because
God had unselfishly sought our welfare and we were
His children.
We may then date modern and intelligent philan-
thropy from the time when giving ceased to be a virtue
unless it really uplifted human life, and when the really
religious life was thought of as primarily redemptive
service. Thus the whole religious energy squandered
or nearly so in saving one's own soul, was set free to
really save the world Jesus died for. It is true that
the conception was often clouded, and that to this
day charity is still thought of as a passport to Heaven,
but this is the fault of inherited errors from the
paganized past.
The first work the Evangelical leaders took upon
them was that of education. Wesley was not a great
success as the head of a school, but he flung himself
into the cause of education with the zeal and intensity
of purpose that stamped the movement, even though
otherwise so generally unintellectual. The Methodist
classroom was the mental training ground for the
new and exceedingly ignorant converts. It was expec-
ted that all who came should learn to read, and pathe-
tic pictures are drawn of aged miners and weary old
AND PHILANTHROPY 383
women painfully spelling out the texts of scripture
that had come to mean so much for them. The
church became a school, and the school the portal
to the church. The aristocratic Tory establishment,
for even under Whig leadership it remained Tory at
heart, was content to leave the agricultural community
densely ignorant ; and the grave disadvantages of this
ignorance were not very patent so long as Tory leader-
ship of a relatively competent character was at hand
to lead and govern. It is often forgotten that when
England had — say — three millions of people, as in
the time of Queen Elizabeth ; and while these millions
were in direct and almost intimate daily contact
with the land-owning lords, the patriarchal system
worked fairly well. So long as the Tory party in
Church and State led men in substantial sympathy
with their ideals and views of life they were strong
and relatively competent. The strain came with the
rise of the urban and trading classes, with other
ideals and greatly changed views of life. Noncon-
formity was strongly intrenched in these classes, but
as cities grew neither the Tory Church nor Noncon-
formity was equal to the task of effective leadership.
There grew up in England the industrial army, unor-
ganized, leaderless, ignorant and often almost indes-
cribably vicious, wholly irresponsible, without rights
and without property. This ignorance it was the
task of the Evangelical revival to face, and the efforts
of the leaders to dispel this darkness gave, at last,
to England that school system which with all its
faults has done such noble service to the new manhood.
It is noteworthy that just as it was Luther, Ger-
many's most distinguished doctor, who gave himself
eagerly to the work of the most primary and element-
ary education among the lowly in Saxony ; so it
384 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
was Wesley, England's most learned Oxford fellow,
who set for himself the work of organizing primary
education, giving better schoolbooks to the teachers,
and plans for teaching the most ignorant of England's
children.
This eagerness to teach awoke an eagerness to
learn, and new publishing houses sprang up to meet
the growing demand for books, tracts and newspapers.
Men like Ingham gave up hours upon hours to teach
English spelling to thousands of little children all over
England. They adapted their preaching to the simple
and the ignorant, but without sacrifice of dignity
or fitness. Dr. Samuel Johnson, whose Tory and
Churchly tastes made him impartial as a critic, says
of Methodist success in preaching '' Sir, it is owing
to their expressing themselves in a plain and familiar
manner, which is the only way to do good to the
common people, and which clergymen of genius and
learning ought to do from a principle of duty, when
it is suited to their congregations.*' 1
Thorold Rogers thinks that the increasing pros-
perity of the labouring class gave the Wesleys their
opportunity for religious advance, as a part of his
general theory that only in times of general economic
advance can any social progress be made.^ However
this may be it seems surely easy to show that the
relative condition of the labouring classes as compared
with the comfort of the middle classes was lower
than in the seventeenth century, and while the
Evangelical movement touched the working classes,
it was very largely a movement of all classes, although
the expression of that movement differed according
1 Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson. Malone's ed., pp. 126-127.
* Thorold Rogers, The Economic Interpretation of History.
London, 1889, p. SS.
AND PHILANTHROPY 385
to the economic and intellectual level. It would
surely be safer to say that increasing material welfare
and higher standards of living among some classes
made the discontent among the submerged very acute
and real. Education enabled this discontent to express
itself, and the political reforms that reached a climax
in the Reform Bill would have been unthinkable but
for the fundamental educational work of the early
Evangelical movement.
The philanthropy of the movement was also,
happily, upon a very real democratic basis, as demo-
cracy was then understood. Of course there was
no thought of complete removal of class lines, such
as found its theoretical expression in France in 1792.
But before God all men were thought of as equals.
Wesley was autocratic, but he was never aristocratic.
One may read Wesley wellnigh from beginning to
end and scarcely discover the economic level of those
among whom he worked. They were all for him
*' souls." In the Evangelical movement within the
Establishment the same relative democracy is apparent.
It was therefore socially '' taboo." To be even tainted
with Evangelicalism was, in the early years certainly,
to be socially suspicious. It meant knowing *' queer
people " and going '' out of one's sphere in life," as
the romance literature of the period abundantly shows
us.
What this meant for real philanthropy is not
easily overestimated. It is of far more importance
to teach men how they may make economic oppor-
tunity by juster laws than to be " generous " and
sentimentally '* kind " to them as permanent economic
inferiors. The democracy early flung itself upon
the task of self-help, and it was not only enabled to
do this, but inspired to do so by the religious move-
c.c. c c
386 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
ment. The power to organize and agitate, to hold
meetings in the open air, to gain political power by
demonstrations was largely gained in the conventicle,
the class-meeting, the dissenting circle, the chapel,
the street-preaching and the religious demonstrations
that have been part of the movement into our own
day (The Salvation Army). It is hardly too much to
say that the Evangelical revival taught the world's
democracy how most effectively to become audible.
This side of the movement has a long and interesting
history going back to Wickliffe and his Lollard monks,
and from them to their teachers the Waldensian lay
preachers. But the full flower of the movement
only bloomed in the fullness of time when the English
democracy was moved and moulded by Wesley and
Whitefield, by Ingham and John Nelson. It is, as
we have said, quite unhistorical to limit the reUgious
awakening to any one class in the nation. Sooner
or later all classes felt the effects, for the High Church
movement is one phase of the larger religious revalua-
tion of life. At the same time the classes that were
most profited by the religious up-lift were the lower
middle and working classes. As these entered upon
their political heritage they were trained for its posses-
sion by their religious leaders. To-day the working
man is being trained, not only by actual participation
in politics, but also by Trades Unions, by the Socialist
group or the political coterie. At that time such oppor-
tunities were wellnigh wholly lacking. The confis-
cation of the yeomen's land, and the rotten borough-
representation system left some of England's most
stalwart elements politically helpless, and in their
ignorance dumb and despised. It is useless to dis-
pute as to whether with the economic changes this
class would have found a substitute for the religious
AND PHILANTHROPY 387
organization had it been lacking. The fact is that
the rehgious organization did not prove lacking and
that the high level of the English working man to-day
is largely the result of the training so many got within
the various religious groups to which this movement
gave rise.
One of the most striking effects of the new phil-
anthropy was the pronounced attitude toward slavery.
The abolition of this horror is one of the great achieve-
ments of the EvangeHcal revival. Against slavery
the Quakers and the Freewill Baptists almost alone
have a fairly clear record of consistent protest. There
have never been lacking individuals who protested
in the name of Jesus against all forms of slavery.
But organized Christianity has in all ages done but
little directly for its abolition. Slavery died out in
Europe because serfdom was cheaper, and the supply
of slave-labour both limited and highly unsatisfactory.
The monasteries were almost the last ones in Europe
to give up slavery and serfdom. It was so easy to
ask, *' Who will do the menial tasks if all are free ? '*
The rising humanitarianism of the Evangelical
revival revolted against slavery, and Wesley pro-
tested against it as fundamentally wrong. Whitefield
did the same, but with less consistency, for he accepted
money to buy slaves, in the hope however that they
might be won to Christ and their souls thus saved !
After Wesley there arose a noble band of men led by
Wilberforce and Clarkson, who amid hate, scorn and
ridicule fought for the new-found conscience, and
awakened all England to hear the clanking of chains
and to heed the dying groans of a quarter of a million
negroes flung overboard on the middle passage. The
long struggle was begun and carried through by
Christian enthusiasm. It is vain to say it was merely
388 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
an economic transition. The slavery was in the
colonies, and was confessedly exceedingly profit-
able. It was far away, and yet England paid an
enormous sum to the planters for the freed negro,
and ran great risks in her firm and constantly increasing
hostility to the whole slave trade. The long struggle,
whose last echoes are . now dying out in the Congo,
forms one of the most hopeful and inspiring chapters
in the struggle for freedom. The very attitude of
England in her policing the sea in the unselfish demand
for freedom for the black man as for the white is a
noble fruit of an awakened sense of human brotherhood.
The things we are used to never seem to us strik-
ingly immoral. That some of our brethren should be
permanently condemned to hew wood and draw
water, while others live on the labours of the econo-
mically less fortunate in relative idleness, seemed
to the Tory Churchman and the average Noncon-
forming Whig, whether Presbyterian or Independent,
to belong to the course of nature. Was not Ham
cursed by God for all the ages, and are not some
men born to work and others to be fed by the sweat
of their brother's brow ? It needed the tremendous
shaking of the whole conventional fabric of the reli-
gious life before it could even dawn on such minds
that they were living in a really immoral social order,
in which slavery was breeding parasitism. It startled
such men to be told that the very holding of slaves
was fundamentally immoral, that it was bad alike
for slaveholder and the slave, and that if a man would
not work, neither should he eat. Of course unbelief
within and without the Church said the abolition of
slavery was impossible, an impracticable dream, a
Utopian ideal ; or that it was an ordained thing that
some should build houses and not inhabit them, and
AND PHILANTHROPY 389
that others should eat without working. Rehgious
enthusiasm forced aboHtion upon the ruHng class,
and England then forced it upon the world. In all
the history of philanthropy this struggle is perhaps
the most dramatic and the most instructive, as the
evil against which it was directed was the most openly
shameful and brutal.
But slavery at home was almost as real a fact
as it was abroad. Little children were sold from the
poorhouses to the factories of the North, and women
and children were being forced into a cruel wage-
slavery, whose horrors have been told again and again.
Here one of the first and noblest voices raised in
protest was not, alas, that of a Christian, in the accepted
sense of the word, but that of Robert Owen. He
was the product of the great moral awakening, and
his Utopian dreaming was of a brotherhood of man-
kind thoroughly religious in character, while he dis-
owned the adjective. The really effective attempts,
however, to mitigate the worst horrors of this wage-
slavery, were made by Shaftesbury, and the sup-
port he received was from the sons and daughters of
the Evangelical revival.
The Methodists were as a class unrepresented in
Parliament. But happily the class-meeting, the
social habit, the coteries had entered the Establish-
ment. Within the Establishment had sprung up
an ecclesia in ecclesid and under the leadership of
Wilberforce nothing is heard of for a generation but
reform after reform. The Thorntons, Howard and
many others were the leaders along political lines.
How directly this party owed its origin to the des-
pised Methodists is seen, for instance, in Sidney Smith's
cheap sneer when he classes the Methodists, Arminian
and Calvinistic, and the Evangelicals within the Estab-
390 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
lishment, and writes, '* We shall use the general term
Methodists, and distinguish these three classes of
fanatics, not troubling ourselves to point out the
fine shades and nicer discriminations of lunacy." ^
And again when he says, '' the Methodists have formed
a powerful party in the House of Commons." As,
in point of fact, those we think of as forming Metho-
dism were almost without the franchise at this time,
the actual political work fell upon the leaders of the
Evangelical party within the EstabHshment. While
this was the case, it is also true that such men as
Wilberforce, Grant, Parry and the Thorntons would
have been quite powerless without the tremendous
and increasing pressure of the public opinion formed
in the chapel and meeting-house. The poorer sort
of '' Methodists " could be sneered out of court, but
Wilberforce and Hannah More could not be thus
dealt with, and they had the enthusiastic support
of the chapel and conventicle. In the heats of
these contests for reform was born an actual working
*' brotherhood " whose end is not yet. The full
economic significance of the term not even the most
dogmatic dreamer should venture to describe in detail.
There was thus formed the '' Nonconformist conscience "
whose troublesome activities have had to be taken
into account by many an English Ministry since.
Indeed it is most interesting to take the accounts
of Parliament from 1800 onward, and to trace the
origin of the mass of remedial legislation that begins
now to appear upon the records, and which prepared
the way for the great series of Reform Bills (1832 on-
ward), which have given England its modern demo-
cracy. In rapid succession we see linked with
the Evangelical leaders movements for reform of
^ Sydney Smith, Works, vol. i., p. 96.
AND PHILANTHROPY 391
prisons (Howard) and for new and more efficient Poor
Laws. At this time England begins to build really
helpful asylums, to found hospitals and to revise the
penal code. Jewish disabilities become the theme for
agitation, and the conscience of great land-owners is
appealed to by the wretched condition, of the cottages
of the agricultural labourer. When, in fact, one con-
trasts the rapid succession of almost revolutionary
legislation, and follows the unceasing agitation for
social amelioration of this period with — for instance —
the period between Queen Anne's death (1714) and the
fall of Walpole (1742) it is hardly too much to say that
England entered at this time, and under the direct
leadership of men trained by the Evangelical religious
movement, upon a new social order. True it is that
it was only the dawn of a better day. True it is also
that much of the legislation of the time was sentimental
and quite superficial. It was rather impulsive than
the outcome of fixed social theory. The old selfish
pseudo-individualism was not nominally abandoned,
but its dogmatism was ignored, and English common-
sense entered upon her social responsibilities. This
was done not very intelligently, nor with any very clear
grasp of underlying principles, indeed, the very religi-
ous, inspirational character of the movement rather
damped fundamental reflexion, but none the less Eng-
land took her stand and will surely never go back.
There is no space at the writer's command to do more
than mention a few of the direct results of this political
activity on the part of the '' Methodist Party," as
Sydney Smith called it. In 1787, Minchin led the first
successful attack on the bloody penal laws. In 1791
Gray took the part of imprisoned debtors, and had
behind him the full support of the Evangelicals. They
about the same time defeated a movement against the
392 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
Toleration Act. Wilber force soon compelled the ap-
pointment of a Parliamentary Commission on Children's
Employment, and exposed the awful abuses, which are
now only paralleled, to the shame of humanity, in Japan
and the United States, where no proper enforcement of
even the existing laws can be counted upon. In 1802
and 1809 bills were passed restricting child labour,
although very inadequately. In 1825, Sir John C.
Hobhouse carried his bill granting a partial holiday for
children on the Saturday. In 1833 ^^ night work for
boys and girls under eighteen in spinning and weaving
mills was stopped, and from this to the present day
the conscience of England has been steadily at work
trying to soften the rigours of the competitive industrial
situation. The Factory Acts of 1844 ^^^ 1845 in their
many imperfections are still landmarks for all social
reformers ever since, and are the direct outcome of
Lord Shaftesbury's leadership of the Evangelical Party.
The co-operation of the Trades Unions was sought and
gained, and the whole legislation was still farther
advanced and unified in 1874.
All this had to be accompHshed in the face of Tory
dogmatism on the God-given '' rights " of invested
wrongs, and political economy dogmatism on the
advantages of '* governing as little as possible " and
the rights of free contract. As though there were any
freedom or any possibility of freedom of contract be-
tween starving men, women and children and the owners
of the productive machinery of society ! It was not
because the Evangelical Party really saw the fallacy of
the dogmatic political economy of that day, but because
it was the party of conscience and sentiment that it won
the battle.
But no democracy can stand on a purely national
basis. The type of Evangelical democracy was, as we
AND PHILANTHROPY 393
have seen, not a worked out theory of social recon-
struction, but a burning longing for the salvation of
all men as *' brothers in Christ.'* It would be a great
shame if the Christian Church yielded to International
Socialism the leadership which historically she may
claim in the world-wide assertion of a great human
brotherhood. And the claim of Christianity in the
modern world to this international character is due to
the Evangelical Revival.
The old Missionary Society, *' For the Propagation
of the Gospel in Foreign Parts," founded in 1702, had
had special reference to the American colonies. But
only when the *' consecrated cobbler,'' William Carey, in
1792 founded the Baptist Missionary Society, and
himself went to India did organized Christianity start
upon the modern conquest of the world, and really pro-
claim the international character of Christianity. This
international character attached itself to the whole
Evangelical philanthropy. The London Missionary
Society was founded in 1795, the Scottish Church
Society in 1796, the Church Missionary Society in 1799,
the London Jews' Society in 1808, the General Bap-
tist Missionary Society in 1813, and in the same year
the Wesleyan Missionary Society. The same spirit
prompted the founding of the Bible Society in 1804.
These Societies were, of course, primarily for spreading
the Gospel, as that was variously formulated in the
different parties of the great movement. But true to
the traditions of the various branches at home the
missionary activity was humanitarian in the best sense
of the term. The splendid common-sense of the move-
ment is seen in the records of Livingstone's travels.
And in the early missionary movement, schools and
works of relief, the wants of the body as well as of the
soul, came within the range of Evangelical sympathy.
394 I'HE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
The fierce hostility of the forces that were simply inter-
ested in the commercial exploitation had, of course,
to be encountered. The cheap sneer that the rum and
the missionary went together is made in the face of the
fact that the rum was going whether the missionary
went or not, and that the rum without the missionary
would have been simply unmitigated hell.
The influence of the Moravian Missions upon the
Evangelical efforts is a still inadequately written
chapter. It was in many ways a most fortunate cir-
cumstance that the early leaders of the Evangelical
movement were well acquainted with Moravian methods,
by which men were trained in trades and useful arts
for their work as missionaries. To build houses, and
make wheels, to be able to repair simple machinery and
to understand the processes of husbandry ; these
things were as important in the early stages of mission-
ary work as the literary culture which too often is the
sole equipment. The early zeal of Evangelical Mis-
sions was wisely guided by Moravian experience, and
the practical philanthropic character has, happily,
never been lost.
In a certain sense the movement was dogmatic, and
even narrowly dogmatic. That is to say, a somewhat
rough-and-ready dogmatic ground-work in theology
was assumed to be the teaching of the Bible and was,
rather unreflectingly, accepted by nearly all. At the
same time, as at home so on the mission field a certain
quite refreshing freedom marks the early leaders. The
real interest of the movement was Evangelical and not
theologically dogmatic. The real heart of the great
missionary uprising whose climax has not yet been
reached was its loving and religious humanitarianism.
Its aim was practical, its ambition was the world-wide
proclamation of loving brotherhood as a religious
AND PHILANTHROPY 395
experience, and the redemption of the sons of God from
the chains of sin, disease, ignorance and misery. This
rehgious experience had given reaHty to the work at
home, and now the work in foreign lands had a soften-
ing and elevating influence in turn upon the Churches
at home. The missionaries told of hospitals and schools
they founded for the natives of far-off lands, and pity
and compassion were the springs for moving to ever-
wider generosity.
The later phases of Evangelical philanthropy have
been held up to a good deal of ridicule and scorn by the
writers of the last generation. Particularly Charles
Dickens has gained the public ear for much that is
unsympathetic and really untrue description. Not
that there were not just such men as he describes, or
that not just such folly as he portrays was not perpe-
trated. But such caricature does not really represent
the movement. Dickens was in many ways the herald
of the new democracy in literature, and it is a great
pity that he did not see the connexion between the
new feeling for the lowly at home and abroad in the
simple and often unreflecting dogmatic piety of the
Evangehcal following. When, for instance, George
Eliot has touched the movement she has done her work
with far more accuracy and insight. The weakness
was not so much the shallow hypocrisy which follows
in the wake of all really successful movements. The
real weakness of the philanthropy was its sentimental,
unscientific character. This was again the result of
several circumstances. The historic situation had a
good deal to do with it. The French Revolution had
frightened men in England. They dreaded all the
social doctrines preached in its name. There was no
ear in England for any thorough-going scheme of
social reform. To the Evangelical worker the indi-
396 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
vidual heart was the one source of weakness, the influ-
ence of environment and social system upon the indi-
vidual heart was generally largely forgotten. The
whole tone of the day was individualistic in its theory.
Salvation was a scheme for the individual to accept or
reject. Along this line the scientific political economy
was on all fours with the Evangelical Party. The
perplexing questions of poverty, of intemperance, of
immorality, and of crime were far too much simple
questions of individual decision. This gave to the
philanthropy a certain character of censoriousness, and
a certain narrowness which made it often disagreeable
to loose unthinking good nature. Again the Methodists
and Evangelicals of all shades linked their philanthropy
with a number of catchwords of religious experience
and theology, some true, some one-sided to the verge
of untruth, some wholly untrue. Against all this there
was a strong reaction as really religious in character,
although beyond the pale of the Church, as the move-
ment within.
The Evangelical Revival was so largely ethical,
it was so distinctively and characteristically social
that no picture that leaves out the aftermath in Radical-
ism and its new-found temper is complete. Robert
Owen was painfully ignorant of the religious move-
ment of his day. Nearly all he protested against was
equally foreign to the best minds of liis own generation,
and he lost both influence and the steadying effect of
companionship by cutting himself off from the religious
life of his own time. At the same time he, too, is a
product of the great social-ethical revival that has not
run its course yet. His dreams were unscientific and
strangely wooden and impracticable. What was best
and most lasting in him was his faith in man and the
moral order of the world. This faith survived all dis-
AND PHILANTHROPY 397
appointments, and gives to Robert Owen's life a really
supreme value. When he comes before the throne
the things he tried to do for the least of God's little ones
will surely be reckoned as if done for Christ (Matt. xxv.
40).
Exactly the same rebound from a false and shallow
formulation of Christianity marks the attitude of two
profoundly religious men, the two Mills. They also
are children of the new social-ethical valuation of life.
Of the two, John Stuart Mill is the finer and more
fruitful expression of this negative side of the move-
ment. To him religion was conscience and service,
and he lived out his religion. It was, indeed, painfully
deficient in some of the elements that give strength
and power to intellectually weaker men and women.
But John Stuart Mill represents the longing, which the
unreflecting Evangelicalism never met, for a self-con-
sistent religious view of the world. And in rejecting
the only view of the world that the Evangelicalism of
the day had to offer, James Mill turned from all Chris-
tianity which he identified and taught his son to identify
with the religion of Jesus.
It may seem a strange judgment to many, but the
present writer cherishes the profound conviction that
the life philosophy of John Stuart Mill suffered from
exactly the same limitations and narrowness that mark
the dogmatic religious thought of his day. When
under other influences (Comte, Coleridge and Mrs.
Taylor) he broke away from his early faith it was too
late for him to wholly reconstruct his system, which
therefore remains a building he has himself reduced to
ruins. But his interests were ethical and social. He
too longed for a really solid foundation upon which
to build the new social order. His late essay, however,
on *' Socialism " represents little more than the revolt
398 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
against his own past dogmatic individualism, and gives
but little promise of any really helpful reconstruction.
Yet in him is as plainly seen as in any of the Evangel-
icals the almost fierce discontent with the plane on
which men were living, and there burns in him the
fire of an almost revolutionary spirit.
This essentially practical social character of the
Evangelical movement saved England in a time of
fearful industrial dislocation. All the elements for a
bloody and demoralizing struggle for power between
the proletariat and the privileged classes were seem-
ingly just as present in England as in France. But
when the time came education and sympathy had
stirred men to place their hope, not so much in revol-
ution and in violence as in writing, speaking and
agitating.
Thorold Rogers says, no doubt with justice, of
the English working-man of this period, " The remark-
able fact in the history and sentiments of the English
working-man is that he is neither socialist nor anarchist.
He believes, and rightly believes, that in the distribu-
tion of the reward of labour his share is less than it
might be, than it ought to be, and that some means
should be discovered by which the unequal balance
should be rectified.'* ^ But he gives no such place as
the present writer is inclined to give to the hope
inspired by the success of organization and agitation
as learnt in the religious groups that sprang up
during the Evangelical movement.
The scope of this movement as it moulded modern
philanthropy extended to all classes in England, and
to the Evangelical inspirations the so-called Broad
Church Party owed their life and vigour. It is, of
course, only of the philanthropic side that we are called
^ Work and WageSy New York Ed. (undated), p. 490-
AND PHILANTHROPY 399
to speak. But the whole modern philanthropic move-
ment in England and America has a peculiar character
and a special spirit separating it from similar continental
efforts. This character is due, without question, to
the religious inspiration from which these movements
sprang. It may be freely granted that some of the
special limitations have their root in this same histori-
cal development. But whether one is in agreement or
disagreement with the organizing conceptions at the
basis of English and American philanthropy, the
historical facts ought not to be ignored. It is one of
the great weaknesses of Karl Marx's otherwise invalu-
able survey of this industrial revolution in English life
that he is colour-blind to religion, and apparently
very ignorant of some of the most absorbing passions
of that day.
To attempt to understand the modern movement to
promote social justice, and to leave out the work of
Frederick Denison Maurice or Charles Kingsley or
even Thomas Carlyle is so unscientific as to be absurd.
And these men were directly and demonstrably children
of the Evangelical Revival.
The philanthropy of the early Evangelical leaders
was largely under the influence of a somewhat
narrow view of life. It is quite remarkable, indeed,
how untouched many of the most powerful leaders
were by great currents of thought sweeping over the
continental peoples. This was in part the result of the
insular character of all English civilization, in part
because England's commercial primacy was so undis-
puted that she was little inclined to consider the ques-
tion as to whether others were in advance in thought.
And as in the time of the French Revolution of 1793, so
just before 1848, there was great danger of a wayward
untrained democracy entering upon a really religion-
400 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
less movement for farther emancipation. Liberalism
again ran the danger of being identified not only with
hostility to the Church but with antagonism to all
religion. In literature Byron and Shelley voice the
feelings of many of that day, and even the Evangelical
Party in Parliament came under suspicion of being
really reactionary. What has so often happened in
history now took place, and the party once scorned as
Radical and dangerous was now petted as the conserver
of institutions wickedly attacked. A new class of
working-man was rising whose Radicalism was a sub-
stitute for religious enthusiasm of the dogmatic type.
Happily the Evangelical movement had never been
sufficiently theological to give the party a basis apart
from the religious activities in which its life expressed
itself. Hence it happened that its impulses and deeper
inspirations were not confined to any one organized
body.
To-day the modern philanthropy of the English-
speaking world is most markedly under the influence
of the work done by a small body of men, who set out
to link again Christianity with social justice, and who
resolved, because they were Christian and had found in
Jesus Christ access to the Father, to understand the
point of view of the new working man in his Radicalism,
and to make him, if possible, understand the teachings
of Jesus Christ. Almost to invite obloquy Frederick
Denison Maurice and Charles Kingsley together
with a group of earnest men called themselves *' Chris-
tian Socialists.'* In point of fact, they had only the
very vaguest conceptions of the things in which a
modern Marxian Socialist is interested. It was
not by the introduction of collective ownership of the
productive machinery that these men expected to
save society. They expected simply to substitute
AND PHILANTHROPY 401
loving co-operation for hate-breeding competition, and
they were full of dreams and plans by which to accom-
plish their end. These men were broad enough to see
that there was a religious element in the enthusiastic
Radicalism of the men to whom John Stuart Mill was a
new gospel. They wished to link that enthusiasm to
really religious life expressing itself in social activity.
One of the dreary happenings in Germany has been the
almost complete divorce between the State Church and
the leaders of Germany's growing democracy. And not
only the State Church but the organized religious
intelligence is in danger of becoming unreal and un-
fruitful because out of touch with the hungers and
thirsts of the great multitude, coming slowly to self-
consciousness.
In both these directions the Evangelical movement,
had it been a dogmatic scheme, or given rise to a new
theological organization, might have failed as completely
as pietistic Lutheranism to bridge the gap. It was hap-
pily so largely a movement of social philanthropy that
there was vitality and religious energy enough to raise
up a new set of religious interpreters to carry on on other
lines the work of Wilberforce, Shaftesbury, Howard and
the older reformers.
No one can at present fairly judge of the work done,
for instance, in the Working-men's College in Great
Ormond Street. But when men write the splendid
history of a generation learning at the feet of Tennyson,
Carlyle, Kingsley, Robertson of Brighton and Thomas
Hughes, they will come upon the secrets of so many
quiet, bloodless revolutions in English life, reaching
ever after a larger social justice, and finding in religious
inspiration guidance and comfort.
It is worthy of note that this new philanthropy
began, as Luther's and Wesley's philanthropy began, by
C.C. D D
402 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
attempting to teach the simplest elements to the sim-
plest people. In Little Ormond Yard the Rev. M.
Short and Maurice began a work with men and half-
grown boys in which the teachers, perhaps, learnt quite
as valuable things as they taught. The friendship be-
tween Walter Cooper and Gerald Massey, and the organ-
ization of the *' Working-men's Association " gave
Maurice his chance to " Christianize Sociahsm," and
socialize Christianity. Working-men's colleges were
established at Oxford, Cambridge, Manchester, Salford,
Ancoats, Sheffield, Halifax, Wolverhampton, Glasgow,
Birkenhead and Ayr.^ The leaders of the movement
attached no importance to political changes that were
not the expression of a new life and a new motive.
Probably no two prophets have done more in their
several ways for social religious philanthropy than
Carlyle and Ruskin. Our scholastic Protestantism has
so vastly over-emphasized Greek metaphysics that it is
in danger of forgetting that Amos, Hosea and Isaiah
wrote in the highest poetical art forms of their day, and
that their philanthropy was of the thorough-going
type that seeks to deal with the fundamental underlying
conditions.
The concrete results in philanthropy were many
and important. The whole co-operative movement
was the indirect outcome of the definite attempts of
this little group. The whole settlement movement,
based on Toynbee Hall, has its inspirations from the
same source. The summer school, and University
Extension, and the distinct attempt of Morris to add
beauty to humble life, all found their inspirations in
the same movement.
It was also among these men that the fundamental
questions of effective philanthropy were definitely
^ Life of Maurice, vol. ii p. 379.
AND PHILANTHROPY 403
raised. They taught men to seek the causes of human
misery in human greed and injustice. These men began
the war that has not ceased yet for a social justice that
will make alms-giving unnecessary. The question of
rent, of proper housing of the poor, of sanitation in town
and country ; and the deeper questions yet of the rela-
tions of man to man as men and brethren ; these were
the questions most fully and earnestly pressed home by
these new religious agitators. That their forms were
not conventionally theological is true to the original
character and spirit of the Evangelical Revival. But
one has only to glance at the pages of Ruskin and Car-
lyle, to say nothing about Charles Kingsley and Maurice,
to see whence they drew their deeper inspirations and
whose spiritual children they really were. The very
phrases of the Evangelical leaders are constantly on
their lips, and the deep religious spirit pervading their
social hope and philanthropic dream is born of that great
second Reformation which began with Wesley.
For it is not too much to say that the Evangelical
movement was a second Reformation. The early Reform-
ation was very early so buried in scholastic and dog-
matic disputes that its social and philanthropic side
became a mere side issue. With Luther, with Calvin,
Butzer and others the movement was ethical, political
and social. All the elements for a new Christian social
order might almost be gathered from Luther {Letter
to the Protestant Princes) or Butzer [De Regno Christi).
But political events made any approach to a really
thoroughly Christian Reformation impossible. Nor
would the social order outlined in the works of the
Reformers have really met the new economic needs of
the coming society. At the same time the tragic thing
was the loss of social interest in the second-growth
scholastic Protestantism. The Evangelical Revival was
404 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
a distinct return to the practical and social-ethical
spirit of the earlier men. It is all too often forgotten
by some who, like the writer, are conservative Presby-
terians, that Calvin started out to found a really new
social order. That he started on wrong lines we may
freely acknowledge. That his state was, in fact, a new
papacy with a loosely formulated theory of the two
swords and a spiritual primacy for the Church need not
be called in question. The important thing is that the
Christianizing of the social order was his main interest.
In the scholastic and dogmatic disputes of the post-
Reformation period either the social interest was lost,
or it identified itself with some political issue, and so
ceased to be thoroughly Christian in spirit. Then came
the Evangelical Revival. Its social interest was still
undefined, and often confused and sentimental, but it
was the main issue, and its services to England and
America have been of the most permanent importance
because it has given us back again the dream of God's
Kingdom realized on earth among men.
The weakness of pre-Evangelical Protestantism
was that it all too often surrendered to Rome the ambi-
tion to control the world. Rome has never given up
her ambition, but it has, alas, become corrupted and
scholastic. And yet this assertion of world-wide ambi-
tion and central social interest has been her strength.
Protestantism was too content with a narrow and event-
ually uninspiring individualism. We are saved by our
division from mere Churchly ambitions. But in God's
providence we are once more challenged by the Evangel-
ical Revival to convert the social order to rebaptize
the fundamental motives of men's lives, and to regener-
ate the whole fabric of men's ambitions. The political
schemes under which this dream will be realized must be
left to economic empiricism. The Church forces must
AND PHILANTHROPY 405
furnish, however, both the formulated demand for a
state of society which will be fit to be called God's King-
dom on earth, and the inspirations that will compel
men to realize the dream at all and any sacrifices
necessary.
This social demand and this social awakening are
the direct outcome of the blessedly non-theological but
thoroughly religious awakening of the eighteenth
century.
As the Reformation in Europe called out a Roman
Catholic reaction, so the Evangelical Reformation awoke
the slumbering Catholic elements in English society
and the Established Church. There has always been a
strong Catholic feeling in the Establishment, even when
it was most anti-papal. This movement also partakes
of the social and philanthropic character that marks
the orginal awakening. Gladstone and Newman both
connect the Tractarian Movement with the Evangelical
awakening, and both in England and in the United
States one of the marked characteristics of the move-
ment has been its social note and its energetic philan-
thropy.
For thorough-going Protestantism this social inter-
est may seem both too aristocratic and too political to
be of the highest usefulness in an age that rightly turns
more and more to democracy and more and more dis-
putes the right of the religious teacher to dictate the
political forms under which the new social order shall
emerge. At the same time, the interesting thing is
that the High Church reaction cannot escape the *' Zeit-
geist,'' and moves forward toward the New Heaven and
the New Earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness.
The Evangelical Revival has given the new Kingdom-
Purpose to the English-speaking world. And the
main thing is this Purpose. He that willeth to do the
4o6 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
will of the Father shall know of the political doctrine
under the regular forms of human knowledge, and to
this work of the transformation of the main purpose of
all human society at home and abroad an Evangelical
Protestantism is now setting its hand ; and having put
its hand to the plough it cannot look back.
Experience is chastening as well as quickening
and directing its activities. Education must become
broader, freer, and yet more Christian than it ever has
been. Under what forms we can preserve both our
Protestant freedom of conscience, and yet hand down
to each child the priceless heritage of a religious past
is a question the writer does not feel called to enter
upon. But it must be pointed out that the earliest
philanthropy flung itself energetically upon the giving
to the child its intellectual inheritance as fully as was
then possible. We will not be true to our Evangelical
traditions if we do not seek to give, in the light of far
more exacting demands, to every child the fullest equip-
ment for meeting life's questions that the age can
furnish.
Again, we cannot be content with prison-reform.
We must ask deeper questions about the whole life
history and underlying causes of criminality. Our
philanthropy must be scientific in a way it was not
possible for even an expert like Howard to be scientific.
But our penology must not only be scientific, in the
deepest sense, but in the best sense of the word really
religious. At this point again the undogmatic untheo-
logical tradition should come to our aid. Behind Howard
were the united forces of the various bodies of Pro-
testant dissent. It is in such activities rather than in
any form of sound words that Protestantism can find
her highest and most lasting unity. The recognition
of this fact has made, for instance, the Young Men's
AND PHILANTHROPY 407
Christian Association one of the most splendid monu-
ments to the real spirit of the Evangelical Revival,
its broad catholicity and its non-theological attitude
being especially characteristic of the Evangelical
awakening.
In the same way the Sunday school is a child of the
religious humanitarianism of the Evangelical reforma-
tion. To be true to the spirit of the Evangelical move-
ment the Sunday school must be kept effective, and to
do this needs very constant care and attention. If we
recognize the relatively unreflective character of the
religious awakening we must also be alive to the danger
that it cease to minister to quickened intelligence.
This lack of an intellectual ministry is the reproach that
was brought against Evangelical zeal, and even count-
ing in the Broad Churchmen, it still remains true that
much of the activity was emotional, and sometimes
lacked the effectiveness a more scientific and consistent
philanthropy would have possessed.
So that to be really true to the best traditions of
the movement we must bring to the task of aiding men
in the consecration of the redemptive life an increas-
ing scientific spirit, and the effectiveness of trained
intelligence. Not the least service the Evangelical
philanthropic movement has rendered the community
has been the establishment of training schools, homes
for deaconesses, scientific hospitals, schools for the
blind, and other forms of philanthropy demanding and
supplying high technical training.
To-day the Salvation Army represents much of the
spirit of the old Evangelical movement. Indeed, it
incorporates with its enthusiasm and devotion some-
thing also of the weakness of that movement. It is
not, indeed, theological, but like the Evangelical begin-
nings the theology it has is somewhat crude and scholas-
4o8 THE EVANGELICAL REVIVAL
tic. Its main interest is the redemptive life, but like
the early Methodist movement it has great faith in cen-
tralized power, and has the high organization of a
Roman Catholic order. Where it reveals most clearly
its parentage is in its tremendous emphasis upon the
social expression of the Christian life. At this point it
revives the finest feature of the older movement.
Moreover, in its nominal policy of non-interference with
the Church connexions of its members it again has
marked similarity with early bodies of Evangelicals,
who never left in many instances the churches, or were
only forced unwillingly out of them. Then, again,
the distinctly non-sacramentarian character of the
new organization reminds us of how unsacramentarian
pure Evangelicahsm has ever been.
This hasty review of the movement in connexion
with philanthropy will, the writer hopes, reveal the really
great source of Evangelical life and vigour. It was
primarily a social-philanthropic movement on a deeply
religious basis, with the Christian life as a hfe of redemp-
tive service prominently in the foreground. It was a
Protestant reformation of Protestant Scholasticism, and
a very effective return to the reUgious activities as the
real test of true discipleship. Its work has not yet been
completed. The tremendous ethical revival that is a
distinguishing mark of our own day may be directly
connected historically with the great blessing that came,
to English-speaking lands particularly, in the great
Evangelical Revival with its manifold philanthropy.
Christianity and the French Revolution
By J. HOLLAND ROSE, Litt.D.,
Author of "The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era/'
ARGUMENT.
Introduction — ^Two Tendencies ia Human History, The Claim for Liberty and
the Demand for Order and Justice — These -Tendencies in Religion —
Connexion of Christian Belief and Movements on Behalf of Liberty.
I. The Character of the French Revolution — An Emancipating Movement
not Essentially Irreligious — Voltaire not Atheist, but Opposed to
Roman Church — Rousseau's Misconception of Christianity in the
Social Contract, and More Favourable Attitude in the Savoyard
Vicar — ^The Sentiment for Social Reform.
II. The Collapse of Organized Christianity in France — ^The Power and
Wealth of the Roman Catholic Church, the Curse of Favouritism,
Poverty of the Cures, their Influence as Ardent Reformers — The
Church Morally and Intellectually Bankrupt — The Strength of the
Reform Movement in the Church — The Attitude of the Populace
not Anti-Christian — The Legislation of the National Assembly —
The Right of Religious Liberty — The Outbreak of Passion and Mob-
Violence — The Confiscation of the Lands of the Church — ^The Re-
nunciation of the Obligation to Support the Clergy — The Dissolu-
tion of the Monastic Orders — The Civil Constitution of the Clergy —
The Invasion of the Domain of Faith Fatal — Aggravation of the
Crisis by the Papacy and its Supporters — Fanaticism Kindled by
Fanaticism — Anti-Religious Fury.
III. The Reaction and the Restoration of the Roman Catholic Church —
The Failure of Protestantism to win the Adhesion of Frenchmen
— The * Constitutional ' Church — ^The Concordat of Napoleon with
the Pope — The Subsequent Recovery of her old Position by the
Church — ^The Power of the Church used in Repressing Democracy
and Promoting Autocracy — ^The Separation of Church and State.
IV. The Contrast between France and England in the Relation of Religion
to Democracy — ^The secure Place of the National Church in the Hearts
of Englishmen, the Influence of the Wesleyan Revival, the Close Con-
nection between Evangelical Religion and Philanthropy — ^The New
Impulse towards Democracy manifested in Ways on the whole
Friendly to Religion — Cartwright's Plea for Popular Government
on a religious basis, the People's Charter of 1838 — Tom Paine's
Influence Short-lived — The Failure of Physical Force Chartism —
The Service of Maurice and Kingsley — No Divorce in our Island
between Religion and Reforming Movements — Affinity of the Prin-
ciples of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity with the Christian Social
Ideal — The Christian Church and Democracy Allies, not Foes.
X
Christianity and the French Revolution
In the history of the human race there are observable
two outstanding tendencies, that which makes for the
freedom of the unit or individual, and that which
produces orderly cohesion of the mass. These ten-
dencies are in constant action. Except in the most
lethargic races, the individual always has some free
play for his energies ; and in the times of wildest
licence the principle of order speedily begins to re-
assert itself, if only in the form of the blackmail of a
powerful baron or the despotism of a triumphant
faction. The fundamental problem of political life is
the harmonizing of the claim of the individual for
liberty with the imperious demand of the community
for order and justice.
What is true of social life may also be affirmed of
the life of the race on its reHgious side. So soon as
religion begins the difficult task of organization, it
meets the same insoluble problem. If religion were
limited to the communion of the individual with his
Maker, the difficulty would not exist ; but the devout
soul cannot, and must not, remain alone on the moun-
tain top ; he must come down to the plain and seek
to influence mankind for good. Then it is that the
temptation besets him to seek to control men from
without, instead of awakening a new life within them
411
412 CHRISTIANITY AND
and to build up the Kingdom of God with earthly
materials. Despite the solemn warnings of Christ, a
new Tower of Babel is begun, in the fond hope that
men may scale the heavens with labour of hands and
feet. A time comes when the toilers realize the futility
of their enterprise, and demolish the lordly fabric ;
but before long there arises a generation reckless of
the lessons of the past which strives again to build
the spiritual kingdom with clay. The processes of
construction and demolition have often been repeated ;
and it is scarcely too much to say that the history of
Christianity on its political side has been that of the
construction of elaborate systems and their removal
or overthrow when they have proved to be a
hindrance both to the spiritual life and to the welfare
of mankind.
We have no space in which to point out the close
connexion which has existed between vital Christian
belief and movements on behalf of liberty. It is true
there have been long periods when the Church has relied
on, or has wielded, the secular power ; and the results of
such union have sooner or later always been disastrous.
From the time when the Emperor Constantine allied
the Church to the Roman State down to the time when
Napoleon estimated the value of the papal alliance as
equal to 200,000 soldiers, both political and spiritual
liberty have suffered untold harm from so unnatural a
coalition. At these retrograde periods the organiza-
tion of the Church comes to be everything, and the
spirit of the Gospels is apt to be stifled beneath armour.
But any one who ponders on their message to man's
inner life must see that such a state of things is essen-
tially unchristian. Christianity, indeed, is no more to
be blamed for their misdeeds than is the English Con-
stitution for the cruelties of Henry VIII or the per-
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 413
sonal rule of Charles I. On the other hand, whenever
the truth has been set forth by fearless souls like
Wycliffe, Huss, and Luther, it has helped to further
political as well as spiritual freedom. Not until the
merely State Reformation of Henry VHI's days had
deepened into the doctrinal and moral Reformation
of the following reigns did England realize the meaning
of the verse, *' Where the spirit of the Lord is, there
is liberty/' The Puritans set up an ideal of national
life far higher, purer and juster than had been seen
since the evil days when the Christian Church linked
itself to the decaying body of the Roman Empire.
The saints blundered, it is true, and rendered their
sway irksome beyond measure to the average man.
That was to be expected. Nevertheless they had sown
seed which bore a bounteous harvest in New England,
and which served, even in Old England, to thwart the
Romanizing efforts of James II. Who shall say how
far the Revolution of 1688 and the Declaration of
American Independence in 1776 were due to the
dauntless spirit of the older Puritans ?
It is, however with later developments than these
that we are here mainly concerned. Though we shall
close with a brief consideration of English political
life, we may now turn our attention to the land where
problems of the State have been worked out with un-
equalled intensity. France has well been called the
political laboratory of Europe. The ardour of the
national temperament has invested her annals with
peculiar interest. Above all, it was the period of the
great French Revolution which determined the rela-
tions of Christianity to the secular power in a great
part of the Continent.
The French Revolution of the years 1789-1799 is
not to be looked on as a series of violent outbreaks.
414 CHRISTIANITY AND
but rather as an emancipating movement which was
marred by acts of exceptional folly and needless
cruelty. It had its origin in a natural impulse of man
to shake off serious evils and outworn usages, but it
resulted also from new ideas which clashed with the
existing order of things in Church and State. We are
concerned here solely with those ideas which caused
a revolt against the authority of the Roman Catho-
lic Church, and with the influences at work which
fatally weakened the defence.
It has often been stated that the Revolution was
due mainly to the infidel writings of Voltaire, Rous-
seau, and the '* Encyclopaedists." It should be re-
membered, however, that Voltaire and Rousseau were
far from being atheists, and that they made no or-
ganized attack on Christian doctrine. They were
deists, and they declaimed bitterly against atheism as
monstrous and incredible. Voltaire's philosophy was
derived almost entirely from Locke and Bolingbroke.
There is little of serious argument against the funda-
mentals of Christianity in Voltaire's works ; but there
is plenty of invective and satire at the expense of the
superstitions then prevalent. He contributed nothing
that was original to the thought of his time ; but
mankind owes much to a man who clearly summarized
the criticism of his age and directed it vigorously
against an effete and arrogant organism. Protestants
must be grateful to the man who manfully protested
against the infamous wrongs wreaked by the Roman
Church on the pastor Calas on the strength of an incred-
ible and unproven charge. When religion becomes an
ally of despotism it earns the scorn of the humane ; and
the widespread revolt against its dogmas in eighteenth
century France was due to a perception of the falsity
of its position and the hypocrisy of many of its pro-
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 415
fessors. Voltaire summed up his aims in the motto,
'* Ecrasez I'lnfame " ; the phrase appHed, not to Chris-
tianity, but to the Roman Church. Finally, it is
noteworthy that the arguments which he drew from
English sources were quite harmless in the land of
their birth — a proof that religion which is vital and
consistent need not fear the assaults of critics like the
sage of Ferney.
The same remark is in some respects applicable
to the writings of Rousseau. His political specula-
tions would have had little vogue in a land where civic
freedom was a reality. In the France of Louis XV,
where monarchy was at once absolute and contempt-
ible, and the structure of society lopsided and rotten,
it was dangerous as well as fallacious to portray the
construction of a perfect polity as an infallibly easy
task. Without dwelling on the political sophisms
that are attractively strewn in the reader's path in
the Social Contract (1762), we may notice the author's
attitude towards Christianity.
He claims, firstly, that as Jesus came to establish
a kingdom which is not of this world. His followers
must necessarily own a divided allegiance and thereby
break the unity of the State. '' Whatever destroys
social unity (Rousseau declares) is good for nothing."
Admitting the sublime excellence of the precepts of
Christ, he yet insists that they will not make His fol-
lowers good citizens because their interests will not be
in this world. Again, he says : '' Christianity preaches
only servitude and dependence. Its spirit is too
favourable to tyranny for the latter not to profit by it
always. True Christians are made to be slaves." He
then denies that Christians can be brave, good soldiers. ^
It is clear that Rousseau took only the narrowest
^ Social Contract, Bk. iv, chap. 8.
4i6 CHRISTIANITY AND
view of Christianity and of its history. Ignoring the
many precepts which prescribe to Christians their
duties in this Hfe, and enjoin on them the formation
of a loving brotherhood wherein love of God would
inspire them with a passion for the service of man, the
Genevese thinker pictures the Christian as a weak,
colourless creature whose gaze is ever on the skies,
who neglects the present and grovels to every tyrant
and can therefore never help in the formation of a free
community. In a word, he brands Christians with
the defect of '' other-worldliness,*' and uses terms of
opprobrium towards them which the gifted lady novelist
who coined that term would warmly have reprobated.
In truth, this last chapter of the Social Contract
teems with mistakes and inconsistencies. In one
sentence he admits the wide difference between the
Christianity of the Gospels and Roman Catholicism ;
but elsewhere his charges seem to apply solely to that
communion; as when he accuses those absent-minded
recluses of capturing the organization of the Roman
Empire and setting up '' the most violent despotism in
the world." Apparently he felt no sense of incongruity
in bringing this charge of unworldliness against the
system which at any rate counted the greatest number
of adherents of Christianity, and whose defects sprang
mainly from the effort to dominate and absorb the
civil power. His few casual references to Protestants
also betray astonishing ignorance. He seems not to
have heard of the Dutch " Beggars," of Cromwell's
Ironsides, still less of the founding of New England by
the Pilgrim Fathers on the basis of that Christian
compact signed in the cabin of the Mayflower which
provided a solid basis for a stable and beneficent polity.
He names Cromwell only to class him with Catiline
as an ambitious hypocrite 1
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 417
It would scarcely be necessary to refer to this
singular tissue of falsehoods and blunders, did it not
figure in a work which the French revolutionists
accepted as the new evangel. Deluded by the falla-
cious ease of his descriptions, and inspired by the
ardour for liberty which undoubtedly fired him, their
most determined leaders made it their chief aim after
the overthrow of the French monarchy to rear the
new society on the hues of the Social Contract. This
was the source of the anti-religious zeal of the years
1793-1794. Rousseau*s sketch of a social religion,
which every one must profess, explains Robespierre's
effort during his brief dictatorship to enforce the
worship of the Supreme Being, if need be by the
guillotine.
Rousseau's attitude towards Christianity in his
'* Savoyard Vicar " is far more favourable. He portrays
that gentle idealist as adoring the Gospels and reverenc-
ing Christ as more than human. ''If the life and
death of Socrates were those of a sage, the life and
death of Jesus are those of a God.'' And again — *' I
believe all religions to be good so long as men serve
God fittingly in them." Before the Vicar became a
reverent theist, he had celebrated mass with levity ;
now his new creed of love to God and love to man
caused him to, celebrate it with reverence as became
an unfathomable mystery. Such were the teachings
of this charming story which powerfully affected mul-
titudes of priests and laymen, and led them to strive
in 1789 for the christianizing of the Chtirch. It is
here that Rousseau's influence was most beneficent.
The fervour of ''The Savoyard Vicar" was an effective
answer to the cold dogmatism of the philosophic
atheists, and it infused zeal and energy into the cures,
who thenceforth strove, not only for the righting of
c.c, E E
4i8 CHRISTIANITY AND
their own grievous wrongs, but also for the uplifting
of the poor and oppressed around them. Sentiment
played a perilously large part in the course of the
French Revolution ; but its best expression was in
the widely felt desire to redress the glaring inequalities
of French social life. It was this desire (largely, but
by no means solely, prompted by Christian motives)
which welled forth in the ^a Ira song of 1790 — a song
not to be confused with the ferocious Ca Ira of the
Terror : —
Le peuple en ce jour sans cesse r^pete
Ah ! ^a ira ! Qa ira ! Qa ira !
Suivant les maximes de I'Evangile
(Ah ! Qa ira ! Qa ira ! Q^ ira)
Du l^gislateur tout s'accomplira,
Celui qui s'eleve on I'abaissera,
" Et qui s'abaisse, on I'elevera."
We have looked ahead in order to catch a glimpse
of some of the results of Rousseau's teachings so far
as they concern us here. But we must now retrace
our steps in order to notice the causes of the helpless
collapse of organized Christianity in France. It re-
sulted not merely from the ardour of the attacks of
Voltaire, Rousseau, and the '' Encyclopaedists," but
also from the utter weakness of the defenders.
The triumph of Roman Catholicism in France
seemed to be complete in the year 1685, when Louis
XIV revoked the Edict of Nantes and sought to compel
the conversion of all Protestants within his kingdom.
It is estimated that about a quarter of a million of the
best citizens of France then fled from her borders.
Besides '' dragonnading '' the remainder, Louis ad-
mitted the control of the Pope over the discipline and
clergy of the Church of France to an extent never
known before. The spirit of inquiry was checked by
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 419
the Papal Bull, *' Unigenitus '* (1713), which secured
the triumph of the Jesuits over the Jansenists, the
more philosophic party in the Church ; and there-
after the clergy sank into a state of mental torpor. The
wealth of the Church increased, until, at the beginning
of the Revolution, it amounted, according to an official
estimate, to four milHards of francs (£160,000,000).
Its lands, comprising about one-fifth of all France,
produced a yearly income of about ;f 4,000, 000. The
annual value of its tithes has been computed by M.
Debidour at 80,000,000 or 90,000,000 francs (^^3, 200,000
or £3,600,000).^ By ancient custom these revenues
were almost entirely exempt from taxation by the
State.
This vast wealth would not have been the object
of envy, had its proceeds been fairly distributed ; but
the curse of favnnritism had eaten deep into the life
of the Church. The richest gifts were apportioned to
the scions of nobles ; and some were kept, whenever
possible, in the hands of one family — the case of the
de Rohans at Strasburg being notorious. That see
had long descended from the bishop to his nephew ;
and there thus grew up an establishment which would
have moved the wonder of the early Christians. The
Bishop of Strasburg resided in his episcopal palace at
Saveme with the pomp of a sovereign prince. He
could entertain two hundred guests as well as their
servants. The meals were long and luxurious, dishes
of solid silver adding splendour to the repast. ^ The
Archbishop of Narbonne had an income of ;f 40,000 a
year. The recently published Memoirs of the Com-
tesse de Boigne show the manner of his life. A fort-
night spent at Narbonne in alternate years sufficed
^ Debidour, L'j£glise et I'j^tat en France (1789-1870), p. 21.
2 Taine, Ancien Regime, i, pp. 187-8.
420 CHRISTIANITY AND
for the discharge of his archiepiscopal duties ; and for
six weeks every year he presided over the provincial
Estates at MontpeUier. He passed the rest of his time
at his country estate amidst society remarkable, even
in the reign of Louis XV, for its high living and loose ,
thinking. The mother of the countess was once warned
by a grand vicaire not to show her conjugal affection ;
** it is the one kind of love which is not tolerated here/'
At the hunt, the Archbishop was noted for the vigour
of his language. When the exemplary Bishop of
MontpeUier was expected to be present, his host would
say to the company, '' By the way, gentlemen, no
swearing to-day " ; but he was the first to fling all
restraint to the winds.
Scandals like these were exceptional ; but they
were noised abroad through France, and gave point to
the complaints as to the wealth and insolence of the
higher clergy. It was well known that the ii6 bishops
of the Church of France received stipends which
averaged from £7,000 to ;£io,ooo a year apiece ; and
in many cases this sum was largely increased by plural-
ities and sinecures. Meanwhile, at the other end of
the scale, many of the parish priests were in a miserable
condition. Goldsmith's vicar.
" passing rich on forty pounds a year,"
would have been envied by very many French parish
priests [cur is), many of whom received barely half
and some few only a quarter of that sum — generally in
the shape of tithes which they had to extract from
peasants as poor as themselves. Injustice often
sharpened the edge of poverty. These miserable
stipends were sometimes paid by vicars and ahhis
commendataires, who never visited the parishes which
they farmed out at this beggarly rate to the real
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 421
workers. The evils of absenteeism, which had eaten
the heart out of FeudaHsm, bade fair to strangle
religion in many parts of France.
What wonder, then, that the parish priests be-
came ardent reformers. Themselves the victims of
injustice in the Church, they were in close contact
with those who were borne to the ground by the burden
of unjust taxes, the exactions of absentee landlords,
and all the apparatus of a moribund Feudalism.
It was the pamphlet of a priest, the Abbe Sieyes,
which gave point to the demands of the people for
full representation in the forthcoming States General
of France (May 1789). He opened his brochure with
the incisive questions and answers : *' What is the
Third Estate [Commons] ? — Everything.'* " What
has it been hitherto ? — Nothing." '' What does it
intend to be ? — Something." Among other pamphlets
issued by priests we may notice that by the bold Abbe
Gregoire, *' Letters to the Cures," which helped to
organize their opposition to the privileged hierarchy
and to send up a majority of reforming deputies to the
Estate of the Clergy ; and these, joining the Commons
of France in the first month of the Revolution, gave
to that movement an impact which was resistless.
That suggestive thinker, de Tocqueville, has pointed
out that in the Revolution all parts of the old fabric
of government were subjected to simultaneous assaults
which nowhere could be withstood. An outworn
Feudalism was attacked by agrarian reformers ; the
absurdities and iniquities of taxation were denounced
by the unprivileged classes ; the absolute monarchy
was assailed by all who wished to see reforms carried
by the nation itself ; while the Church, the chief sup-
port of the throne, had to bear the blows of many of
her own sons and of thinkers outside who saw in her
42*2 CHRISTIANITY AND
the personification of superstition and intolerance.
In its hour of need the Church of France had virtually
no defenders. Obscurantism had done its deadening
work. Learning had left her cloisters, and was now
enrolled in the service of her critics. A retort more
effective than clerical casuistry was the gag ; but the
wit of Voltaire and the persistent ingenuity of Diderot
and d'Alembert triumphed over repression, with the
result that the courtiers and many of the higher clergy
were fain to join in the laugh at their own expense.
Thus, both in a moral and intellectual sense the
Church of France was a bankrupt institution. It
might have been reformed betimes had its chiefs shown
enough of energy, initiative, and self-sacrificing zeal ;
but the lack of these qualities (strangely paralleled
by the conduct of Louis XVI and his Ministers in May-
June 1789) precipitated the crisis : so that the full
fury of the revolutionary storm burst on an edifice
quite unprepared to withstand it. More than half of
the deputies of the Clergy joined the Third Estate as
soon as it took the defiant step of declaring itself to
be The National Assembly of France (June 17, 1789).
The adhesion of the clerical reformers was one of the
decisive events that determined the triumph of demo-
cracy over the wavering but in the main reactionary
tendencies of the King and Court.
The cahiers, or instructions for the guidance of the
deputies of the clergy, show the strength of the reform
movement that was sweeping through the Church.
Nearly all the cahiers insisted on drastic [changes
which would make France a limited monarchy, with
Ministers responsible to the States General, taxes
voted solely by that body, liberty of the individual,
together with admissibility to all offices in the State,
and the abolition of feudal and other abuses. A
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 423
majority of the clerical deputies also decided to abro-
gate the odious privilege by which the funds of the
Clergy were almost entirely exempt from taxation.
In vain did the higher ecclesiastics struggle against
the new passion for freedom and equality. They
were condemned by their own past, and sank help-
lessly into the stream which was to bear reactionaries
and reformers to unimaginable lengths.
For the present the attitude of the populace, even
at Paris, was by no means anti-Christian. After the
capture of the Bastille (July 14, 1789) the Parisians
confided the Revolution to the guarding care of the
patron saint of the capital, Ste. Genevieve, and marched
with votive and thankofferings to her shrine. But
the Church as an institution was soon to feel the force
of the new levelling tide. Almost the first destructive
work of the National Assembly was the abolition of
tithes in an ill-considered decree hastily passed during
the memorable sitting of August 4, 1789. On that
same occasion (well called '' the St. Bartholomew of
privileges ") two cures proposed the strengthening of
the law against plurality of benefices in the Church.
Gregoire, whose inflexible firmness and love of justice
made him the leader of the cures, proposed the abolition
of annates, a revenue received by the Pope from
vacant benefices. Other clerical privileges, local and
personal, were sacrificed by their holders amidst scenes
of great enthusiasm. On the motion of the Archbishop
of Paris the sitting ended with the chanting of the
Te Deum in the royal chapel at Versailles. Despite
many faults of detail, the legislation of that memorable
night deserves a tribute of praise for its generosity and
thoroughness. The decrees were hastily worded, and
that relating to tithes pressed unfairly on the cures ;
but in the main the enactments of August 4 have
424 CHRISTIANITY AND
pointed the way in which the Democratic Church of
the future must work. Unfortunately they came too
late. France, then in the throes of the first Jacquerie,
looked on the sacrifices offered by nobles and clergy
as the jettison of superfluous cargo in order to save the
sinking ship of class privilege. Therefore, legislation
which would perhaps have saved the Church had it
proceeded in the ordinary way from her own Courts
(as Talleyrand had desired it should), merely whetted
the appetite of her enemies.
As summer waned to autumn, the Assembly threw
itself with GalHc ardour into the somewhat profitless
task of framing a declaration of '' The Rights of Man.'*
That which related to rehgious liberty claims a passing
notice. It was with the utmost reluctance that the
clerics of the Assembly admitted the idea of freedom
of worship. Since the year 1787 Protestants had
been tolerated, a concession due to the growing en-
lightenment of the times and the kindliness of Louis
XVI. But freedom from persecution was one thing,
and liberty of worship was another. Eagerly did the
clergy now seek to maintain the ascendency of their
Church on the plea that it was a guarantee of order.
Mirabeau — the free-thinking, free-living noble of Pro-
vence who united in his person the vices of the old
regime, the intelligence of the Voltaireans and the
magnetism of genius — thrilled the Assembly by pro-
testing against this claim of dominance.
" They speak to you incessantly of a dominant religion ! * Domin-
ant,' gentlemen ? I do not understand this word, and I need it to
be defined to me. Is it an oppressing worship that is meant ? Is
it the worship of the prince ? But the prince has not the right to
dominate over consciences. Is it the worship of the greater num-
ber ? But worship is an opinion. Now opinions are not formed by
the result of votes. Your thought is your own — it is independent.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 425
Nothing ought to dominate over justice ; nothing is dominant
except individual right."
There spoke the most inspiring thinker and the greatest
political genius of the early part of the Revolution.
His words bear the stamp of the Reformation. Pro-
testant he was not; he had drunk of the spirit of
liberty at the fountain of Voltaire, but the plea just
quoted contains the essence of Protestantism.
An able champion of the long-persecuted Huguenots
stood forth in the Assembly and preluded his speech
by the words, " I am the representative of a great
people." It was Rabaud-St. Etienne, eloquent son
of the long-persecuted pastor of Nimes. Coming from
that centre of religious freedom, where the light of
the Gospel had not been quenched by a century of
oppression, he stood forth to plead, not only for his co-
religionists, but even for the despised Jews, in words
whose force was doubled by his well-known courage
and consistency.
" He who attacks the Uberty of others deserves to live in slavery.
A worship is a dogma ; a dogma holds to opinion ; opinion to
liberty. Instructed by the long and bloody experience of the past,
it is time, at length, to break down the barriers which separate man
from man, Frenchman from Frenchman."
Nevertheless the force of tradition and the instinct of
solidarity, always so strong among the Latin peoples,
carried the Assembly only half-way along the road
leading to religious freedom. This clause of the
Rights of Man as finally passed, ran as follows : *' No
one ought to be molested for his opinions, even religious
opinions, provided that their manifestation does not
disturb the public order established by law.'*
The supremacy of the Church was, alas, to be over-
thrown, not in the sphere of reason, but on the lower
levels of passion and mob violence. There is the great
426 CHRISTIANITY AND
misfortune of the reforming movement of 1789. Hun-
ger, jealousy, and perhaps the intrigues of the Duke
of Orleans, stirred up the Parisian populace to the
orgies of October 5, 6, which led to the overthrow of the
Court at Versailles, the virtual capture of the King
and Queen and their transference to Paris. Five
days after the march of the maenads, which Carlyle
has depicted with epic grandeur, there began the
assault on the prerogatives of the Church, which ended
the time of fraternal good-will, and heralded the dark
days of hatred, schism and civil war. It was while
the Assembly still sat at Versailles in expectation of
its forthcoming removal to Paris, that the confiscation
of Church property was proposed by that enigmatical
figure, Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun.
The eldest son of the noble house of Talleyrand-
Perigord, he had been disinherited and sent into the
Church owing to an accident in early life which, in the
eyes of his parents, unfitted him for success in the
army or at Court. His subtle mind absorbed so much
of the clerical training as to fit him for a life of diplo-
macy and intrigue ; the rest he rejected with quiet
scorn. Yet this gay young Voltairean, who mounted
so lightly up the ladder of preferment, had a keen
sense of what was due to the spirit of the age. He
had vainly sought in 1782 to press forward reforms in
the Church which would have strengthened the Church
and abated the hostility to her. Now, when the storm
had burst, and bankruptcy threatened the Common-
wealth, he improved on a belated offer of certain clerics
that some of the Church lands should form the security
for an urgently needed national loan, by proposing
(October 11) that the landed property of the Church
should revert to the State. For this sweeping pro-
posal he pleaded with great skill, urging the extreme
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 427
needs of the State, the wealth of the Church, its all
but complete exemption from taxation for a long term
of years, above all, the right of the nation to control
any corporation existing within it. This last conten-
tion could be supported by historical proof. The
Kings of France (as of England) had controlled and
suppressed religious bodies and orders of monks, and
Louis XV had banished the Jesuits. But now, for the
reasons stated above, the assault was more determined.
Hatred of the Church, jealousy of its enormous powers,
zeal for Rousseau's doctrine of the absolute supremacy
of the will of the nation, all told against the clerical
claims. The sacrifices offered by the more generous
clerics were not regarded. Democracy, now triumph-
ant over the old absolutism, was determined to
subject to its will the chief imperium in imperio, the
Church.
The defence, though not strong or able, was pas-
sionate. The Abbe Maury, the cleverest of the clerical
champions, pleaded against the policy of confiscation
as a blow to the Church and to all property ; he re-
butted the Socialist pleadings, that what the community
had once conferred it could at will recall, and he pro-
tested against the indignities to which religion would
be exposed. A new turn was given to the discussion
two days later, when the most practical statesman of
the day, Mirabeau, moved, first, that the property of
the Church should belong to the nation provided that
the latter supported the clergy ; second, that no parish
priest should receive less than 1,200 francs (£48) with
lodging. This was an open bid for the support of the
parish priests in the Assembly ; but, to do them justice,
they seem to have been little influenced by it. They
had for the most part taken sides on this question ;
and some of them continued to scout the proposal,
428 CHRISTIANITY AND
even though it promised comfort in place of penury
to very many of their class. On the other hand, most
of them supported the motion, chiefly, it would seem,
on the ground of the harm done to rehgion by the
luxury of the higher clergy. Thus the Abbe Gouttes
said that the scandals in their ranks had extended to
all priests the contempt due to some individual eccles-
iastics. Others again boldly supported the doctrine
of the sovereignty of the nation over all corporate
bodies — a claim pushed to its logical conclusion by the
impetuous young Garat, who declared that the State
had the right, if need be, to aboUsh Christian worship
in favour of a more *' moral '' religion.
The great lawyer, Thouret, brought the debate
back to practicality by insisting that the property of
ancient and wealthy corporations must rest on prin-
ciples different from that of individuals, for corpora-
tions existed only by virtue of law ; and what law
created or guaranteed, could be reformed or trans-
formed by law. Still more to the point was the speech
of that sage counsellor, Malouet, who, while main-
taining the imprescriptible rights of the nation over
all property, claimed that the National Assembly had
no mandate to deal with this great question, and that
grievous harm would befall the cause of liberty if it
were linked with a spoliating and exasperating edict.
He also proposed that the question be referred to a
special commission to report on the steps necessary for
reducing the property of the Church to what was
needful for the adequate support of religious worship
and the relief of the poor.
Unfortunately the removal of the Assembly to
Paris, the disorders there, and the passionate opposi-
tion of the higher clergy to every proposal on this
question, served to defeat all efforts at compromise.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 429
Finally, after long wranglings on the subject, Mirabeau
carried his proposals, with the merely verbal change
that the property of the Church was " at the disposal
of the nation." A demonstration of the mob outside
the Hall of the Assembly (near the north wing of the
Tuilleries) may have decided some waverers to vote
with the popular party : and the decree was carried
by 568 votes against 346. More than 200 members
were absent, and forty did not vote (November 2, 1789).
It is impossible in this essay to enter into the
question of abstract right which is here at stake. ^
The determining factors in the situation were, (i) the
great wealth and undoubted unpopularity of the
Church of France ; (2) the urgent needs of the State ;
(3) the vogue enjoyed by Rousseau's doctrine of the
sovereignty of the general will ; (4) the utter collapse
of the old regime, amidst the ruins of which the re-
formers turned against the institution which was most
wealthy and powerless.
The results of their action were incalculably great.
During the debates the clergy once more offered to
guarantee a loan that would meet the most pressing
needs of the State ; and the scorn with which this
was waved aside in favour of confiscation aroused a
widespread feeUng of bitterness. That feeling widened
and deepened when the obligation to support the
clergy was renounced by the later revolutionary
governments. It is futile to seek to deny that that
^ See Fleury, Institution au Droit ecclesiastique ; D. Maillane,
Histoire apologHique du Comite ecclesiastique de VAssemUee nationale ;
Buchez and Roux, Archives Parlementaires ; E. de Pressens^, The
Church and the French Revolution (Eng. trans., 1869) ; W. M. Sloane,
The French Revolution and Religious Reform; A. Galton, Church
and State in France (London, 1907), and Religious Reform (New York,
1901).
430 CHRISTIANITY AND
obligation existed, and was intended to be binding for
all time. Mirabeau's decree bound together closely,
and not merely for that generation, the question of
confiscation of the Church lands with that of the
support of the clergy. Indeed, the Jansenist, Camus,
protested against the coupling of these two questions
on the ground that the award of State'pay was insulting
to the Church. One can therefore picture the indig-
nation which prevailed when, in the year 1793, even
the '' constitutional '* priests were left unsalaried.
Finally the financiers of the young Commonwealth,
acting as if the Church lands were an inexhaustible
asset, proceeded (despite the warnings of Mirabeau)
to throw on the market issue after issue of paper notes
on the security of the new *' Domaines nationaux '' ;
and the successive falls in value of these notes brought
about an unsettlement of prices which potently con-
tributed to the general debacle in 1 792-1 793.
The dissolution of the monastic orders was decided
on in February 1790, at least in principle ; but the exe-
cution of the decree was deferred. In its full rigour
it was not carried out until September 1792. There
is little question that these Orders had outlived their
period of usefulness. The mendicant friars were
notoriously lazy ; many monasteries were hotbeds of
vice, and the zeal of the monks for learning and edu-
cation had declined. The report of a commission of
bishops on monasteries in 1768 condemned their many
abuses ; and Louis XV consequently abolished very
many Houses. The nation was now more severe than
the old monarchy, and except in the neighbourhood
of well conducted Houses little regret was felt for their
abolition. In some cases, however, especially in the
south and west, the closing of the monasteries caused
serious rioting. In the south it rekindled the old
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 431
animosities between Catholics and Protestants and led
to civil strifes.
Far more significant for the future of democracy
was the decree entitled The Civil Constitution of the
Clergy (July 12, 1790). In one sense it was the out-
come of Mirabeau's decree of November 2, 1789,
which had the effect of making the clergy the salaried
servants of the State. The Church being subordinate
to the civil power, a logic-loving people might be
expected to regulate Church affairs. This was what
the Assembly attempted to do, in accordance with
the proposals of its Ecclesiastical Committee. In
that committee of thirty there were ten clerics, and
the Gallican, as opposed to the papal, or Roman,
feeling was strong. In accordance with its recom-
mendations, the Assembly proceeded to draft a bill
which'would curb'^the powers of the Church. Appealing
from the decrees of the Councils of the Church to primi-
tive customs, they sought to break up the hierarchy,
subject the Church to local authorities in matters of
discipline, and sensibly weaken its connexion with
the Pope. Their aims may be termed ultra-Gallican,
or Jansenist ; but unquestionably Rousseau's theory
of the absolute sovereignty of the nation lay at the
root of this memorable decree.
Stated briefly, it abolished all existing boundaries
of bishoprics and reduced them to conformity with
those laid down in the new Departmental System.
A bishopric was merely a Department considered
ecclesiastically. No Frenchman, cleric or layman,
might thenceforth recognize the authority of bishops
or metropolitans outside France — a clause aimed
against papal control. Further, bishops and priests
were thenceforth to be elected by all voters in their
dioceses or parishes, Protestants and Jews being
432 CHRISTIANITY AND
allowed to vote. The pay of the clergy was also
reduced ; the stipends of the bishops ranged from
£800 to ;f48o. Cures were to receive from ;^25o to £48 ;
they were obliged to reside in their several areas, and
were under the surveillance of the civil authorities.
Finally, the bishops, when elected, were forbidden to
apply to the Pope for '* canonical investiture," but
were charged merely to report their election to him
as the visible Head of the Church. This clause, it
will be seen, violated the principles of Apostolical
Succession and of Catholic unity which had been
observed since the time of the Concordat agreed on at
Bologna with Leo X. At once two parties formed
themselves on these vital issues. On the one side
was the Jansenist minority in the Church, backed
up by all the non-Catholic elements of the nation :
on the other were the Catholics and Ultramontanes
who pleaded vehemently against the schism that must
result in the Church and the indignities of the position
into which her bishops and priests would be thrust.
As the Bishop of Treguier exclaimed, with Breton
vigour, '' Religion is annihilated : its ministers are
reduced to the sad condition of clerks appointed by
brigands.*'
The rigour of this decree is to be deplored, where
it trenched on the domain of faith. While cutting at
the root of the abuses of the old clerical system — its
sinecures, pluralities, and shameless inequalities of
stipend — the new Act crushed a venerable organism
into a new mould, degraded its priests to the level of
nominees of discordant majorities — a thing far different
from that of election by the faithful in the primitive
Church — and severed the bishops, and through them
the priests, from the blessings which were believed
to flow from the successor of St, Peter. In inter-
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 433
fering with matters of dogma, the Revolution entered
into an ahen sphere ; and when early in 1791 its
devotees sought to compel all the members of the
National Assembly to take the civic oath (which
implied obedience to the new decree) it abandoned
its true quest, Liberty.
The mistake was fatal. The majority of the clergy
refused the oath, declaring that conscience forbade
them infringing their allegiance to the See of St. Peter.
In the main it was the pliable, who, following the lead
of Talleyrand, obeyed the behests of the Assembly.
The recusants or " orthodox,'' numbering many who
had hitherto been outwardly careless, carried with
them the majority of the faithful, except in the case
of the large towns ; and when, later on, the Assembly
deposed orthodox bishops and priests, armed force
was often needed to instal their '' constitutional "
successors. These generally officiated to empty
churches, especially in the country districts, while
the faithful followed the orthodox priests into woods
and wastes in order to receive the rites of the Church
free from all taint of schism.
And yet, while we condemn the meddlesomeness
and intolerance of the reformers, we must accuse the
Papacy and its supporters of aggravating the crisis.
A Pope wiser than Pius VI would have let it be known
exactly where the Civil Constitution of the Clergy was
incompatible with the discipline of his Church. Far
from that, he declaimed against the Revolution and
all its dealings with the Church. As early as March
1790 he had declared against the establishment of
religious liberty, the abolition of clerical privileges
and monastic orders, and the confiscation of Church
property. 1 This declaration strengthened the efforts
^ D^bidour, op. cit, p. 86.
C.c. F F
434 CHRISTIANITY AND
of the reactionaries in France, and led the reformers
to take steps for the effective muzzling of a pronoimced
enemy. After the passing of the above named Act
the Pope's opposition gradually hardened ; his re-
proaches stiffened the attitude of Louis XVI towards
the Revolution and rendered the schism between
** orthodox " and '' constitutional '* priests irremedi-
able. Thus on both sides there were faults. If the
reformers in their eagerness went beyond the limits
within which the civil power can prudently act in
the spiritual sphere, yet the Roman hierarchy embit-
tered the strife. Some amount of friction there was
certain to be between the proud and wealthy Church
of the ancien regime and the levellers who accepted
the Social Contract of Rousseau as their gospel;
but the events recounted above precipitated an inter-
necine conflict which with brief intervals has gone on
to this day, and has involved other lands besides
France.
The situation now became rapidly worse. Fan-
aticism kindled fanaticism. The old feud of Catholics
and Protestants flared up again at Nimes, Montauban,
and in the dells of the Cevennes ; la Vendee, the
wooded district to the south of Brittany, began
to mutter against the godless Assembly at Paris ;
and though civil war did not burst forth there
until the King had been deposed and the Republic
haled away recruits, its seeds were sown by the bale-
ful decree of July 1790. Further, it is known that
the King's decision to flee to the Austrians was formed
early in 1791 ; his conscience, once very dull in matters
of religion, was awakened by the attempts to coerce
the orthodox priests and by the remonstrances that
came from Rome. He declared that he had rather
rule in Metz than be King of France on those terms.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 435
Thus on all sides there accumulated proofs of the
error of those who now sought to requite oppression
by oppression, to force religion into their new political
system, and in the name of the sovereignty of the
general will, to fetter conscience. Other causes, of
a financial and political nature, concurred to foil
the hopes of the men of 1789. But the importance
of the topic here considered has been recognized by
all historians.
It is needless to describe the sequel. The anti-
religious fury of Danton and Marat, the avowed
atheism of Fouche and Hebert, the orgies of the
Goddess of Reason, the overthrow of the atheistical
faction by the deist Robespierre and his farcical attempt
to instal the worship of the Supreme Being by a
decree of the Convention — all this bears witness to
the violence of the reaction against the old creed and
discipline. The fervour of these men is undoubted ;
but it soon burnt itself out. Then, after the fall
of Robespierre (July 1794), there came a time of
disillusionment and despair. The resolve of the Jaco-
bin minority to win its way forcefully to the social
millennium had awakened a feeling of regret for the
monarchy and the Roman Catholic creed. Reaction set
in. It was checked by Bonaparte and those acting with
him in 1795 and 1797 ; but on his return from Egypt
in 1799 everything was uncertain. With the help of the
army and malcontents in the Government he gained
control of affairs (November 1799) and there ensued
the period of the Consulate (1799-1804) which gave
way to the Napoleonic Empire.
It soon appeared that the popular General would
declare against the Jacobins (or extreme Republicans)
iand the quasi-philosophic sect of Theophilanthropists
who in 1797-1799 had gained a following in the chief
436 CHRISTIANITY AND
towns. Great, however, was the astonishment when
soon after the Battle of Marengo, he opened negotia-
tions with the Pope for a renewal of the relations
that had been broken off since the year 1793. Omit-
ting all notice of the very complex negotiations of
the years 1800-1802, we may inquire what were the
motives which led the young warrior to frame his
famous Concordat, or treaty with the Pope. Firstly,
he was the son of a pious mother and was reared
among the superstitious seafaring folk of Corsica.
Though in later years he shared the free-thinking
tendencies of his father and of the French Jacobins,
yet he soon shook himself free from his passing pas-
sion for Rousseau, a process hastened by the sight
of the fortitude with which French orthodox priests
went to the guillotine or suffered the long pangs of
exile for their faith. Further, it was clear by the year
1800 that the heart of France yearned after the old
creed and cared little for Theophilanthropy or even
for Protestantism. In fact the failure of Protestants
at that time to gain the adhesion of Frenchmen is
one of the puzzles of the period. The main question
seemed to be between Atheism and Catholicism ; and
now that the steel of the Reign of Terror had shorn
away the excrescences from the Catholic Church,
she stood forth more attractive as a victim than she
had been in the days of wealth and pride.
But which branch of the Church should he adopt ?
The *' constitutionals " were installed in office where-
ever religious service could be carried on ; and, though
banned by the Papacy, they had by this time gained
the allegiance of very many Frenchmen. The '' Con-
stitutional '* Church stood for French nationality,
the institutions of the Republic and independence of
thought. Many of its clergy had married, thereby
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 437
associating themselves with the Hfe of the people.
A ruler whose aims were disinterested and purely
patriotic would therefore certainly have strengthened
the national Church and rejected all thought of com-
promise with the Papacy.
Bonaparte's aims were far different. He saw
that the constitutional Church would never be recog-
nized by the Papacy and by other Catholic Powers.
He disliked the Liberalism of many of the " Consti-
tutional '' bishops, led by that champion of the ideas
of 1789, Gregoire. The aims of the First Consul
were more than merely French. In the words of M.
Aulard — '' His plan was to dominate men's con-
sciences through the Pope, and to realize through
the Papacy his imperial dreams, his vision of univer-
sal empire." That he would withdraw the Pope's
support from the Comtede Provence (''Louis XVIII ")
also counted for something ; as did also the con-
sideration that orthodox Brittany and la Vendee
would never be pacified until Rome and the orthodox
clergy discountenanced revolt.
Such were the motives, purely political, which
led to the so-called restoration of religion in France.
As a matter of fact it had never ceased to exist ; for
except for a brief period in the Terror, the '' Constitu-
tional " priests and Protestant pastors had continued
to officiate, though often under grave difficulties. But
the religion which now was acknowledged was dis-
tinctly Roman, to an extent never known in the days
of the old Galilean Church.
Briefly stated, the Concordat agreed on in 1802
between Bonaparte and the new Pope, Pius VII,
was as follows : — The French Government now recog-
nized that the Roman Catholic faith was held by the
great majority of Frenchmen. Liberty of public
438 CHRISTIANITY AND
worship was accorded to the Church. The number
of bishoprics was lessened. All existing bishops were
required to resign their sees, whereupon the First
Consul nominated their successors. The Church gave
up all claim to her lands confiscated during the Revo-
lution, as also to the collection of tithes. But,
while surrendering vast wealth, the Church ended
the schism that had existed since 1790, secured State
recognition (though liberty of conscience was insisted
on by Bonaparte) and bound itself more closely than
ever to the Roman See.
Disputes soon arose as to the appointment of the
new bishops, especially as thirty-five of the old "ortho-
dox " bishops refused to resign and formed a '' wee
kirk,*' which persisted till the year 1893. But in
the main Bonaparte had his way. During the critical
years of his career, 1 802-1 807, he gained the support
of the clergy in France and of the Roman Curia in
Europe. As Emperor at the height of his power,
he came into sharp collision with the Pope, annexed
Rome, took Pius VII prisoner, had him brought to
Fontainebleau, and talked of making Paris the centre
of Christendom. Yet, though he inveighed against
the Papacy, and called the Concordat a blunder, he
knew full well that but for it he could scarcely have
become Emperor. It was the power of the disciplined
clergy which helped to bring France submissively
to his feet.
Thus, in its struggle with the Revolution, the
Church of Rome seemed to have conquered. She
came to terms with a ruler, who, like her, sought to
curb and suppress the principles of 1789 ; and, at
the cost of great material sacrifices, she regained some-
thing like her old position in France. The overthrow
of Napoleon and the advent of Louis XVIII improved
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 439
her position. Tithes were restored to her ; and in
the reign of Charles X (i 824-1 830) the Jesuits became
once more a power in the State. It was by their
advice and intrigues, and those of a secret religious
body called the Congregation, that that obstinate ruler
was led to the reactionary courses which ended in
the July Revolution of 1830.
Once again, during the Presidency of Prince Louis
Napoleon in 1848-1852, the power of the Church in
repressing democracy and promoting autocracy was
to be witnessed ; and it is well-known that the events
of 1870 in France were not unconnected with the
desperate efforts then put forth at Rome by the
Ultramontanes on behalf of the absolute supremacy
of the Papacy. In the political sphere the Jesuit
intrigues of 1870 suffered an ignominious defeat ;
but the dogma of papal infalhbihty bound the faith-
ful more than ever to the chair of St. Peter. The
following years witnessed a renewal of the struggle
between the civil and religious power in many parts
of the Continent ; and the persistent campaign waged
by French Liberals against clericalism shows how
deeply the study of their history has convinced them
of the danger of the papal claims. The results of the
first French Revolution were fatally compromised
when Bonaparte signed his Concordat with the Pope ;
and it is not surprising that the champions of the
Third Republic have annulled that reactionary compact
and have urged on the separation of Church and State
in France. Their union has produced constant fric-
tion ; and it is the belief of many earnest Catholics
that their Church will not lose by the separation.
The relations of religion to democracy at the time
of the French Revolution offer a curious contrast
440 CHRISTIANITY AND
to those which are noticeable in the life of England
at the same period. The following reasons for that
contrast may be suggested. In the first place the
National Church in England had held a secure place
in the hearts of Englishmen ever since the time of the
glorious Revolution of 1688 ; and though the eighteenth
century witnessed a decline in her activity and an alarm-
ing increase in the stipends and sinecures enjoyed by
the higher clergy, still these abuses were slight com-
pared with those of the Church of France. Further,
the Wesleyan revival then began powerfully to influence
the Established Church for good ; and the work of
many devoted preachers brought home to the people
a vital knowledge of evangelical truth. Further,
the names of Clarkson, Wilberforce, and John Howard
will remind the reader of the close connexion between
evangelical religion and philanthropy in our land.
Thus, whereas in France the philanthropic move-
ment was mainly the work of Voltaire and the philo-
sophers, in England it was an offshoot of reviving
religious zeal.
It is also worthy of note that the new impulse
towards democracy which marked the years 1770-
1780 manifested itself in ways that were on the whole
friendly to religion. Apart from the evanescent
Wilkes episode, we may say that the reform move-
ment is traceable to three sources in the year 1776.
That year witnessed the American Declaration of
Independence, which in many ways was a manifest-
ation of the old Puritan spirit. Then also there
appeared Adam Smith's Wealth of Nations, which
traced out the path of economic reform soon to be
trodden by Pitt ; and then also was published Major
Cartwright's pamphlet. Take Your Choice, which
pointed the way to a drastic reform of Parliament —
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 441
a question that was to occupy the attention of English
Radicals for more than a century. Cartwright founded
his plea for popular government on a religious basis.
'' The principles of politics (he wrote) are the prin-
ciples of reason, moraUty and religion." '' Scripture
is the ultimate criterion both in public and private
conduct." All that a statesman needs is " a know-
ledge of a few of the plain maxims of the law of nature,
and the clearest doctrines of Christianity." '' The
title to liberty is the immediate gift of God and is
not derived from mouldy parchments." He demanded
that the constitution of our land should be made as
simple as possible so that it might be taught to chil-
dren along with the Lord's Prayer and the Ten Com-
mandments. He further asserted that the right to
a vote was a God-given right.
Such were Cartwright' s main principles. He never
entered Parliament, as he scorned to use the means
then used for the gaining of votes : but his long and
strenuous advocacy of reform (he lived on to the year
1824) gave consistency and dignity to the popular
movement. It is curious to notice that the People's
Charter of 1838 differed only in one item (that of
the abolition of the property qualification of mem-
bers) from the programme drawn up by Cartwright
in 1776. We can hardly over-estimate the gain to
the cause of constitutional freedom resulting from
the practicality, religious tone, and in a sense the
conservatism of Cartwright's scheme. Instead of calling
Britons to the task of framing society anew on the
illusory basis of a compact in which every one was
free and equal ; instead of setting up that dangerous
abstraction, '' the general will," as the universal
arbiter or dictator, Cartwright summoned his country-
men to a task which was attainable on the well worn
442 CHRISTIANITY AND
lines of the national life. His teachings were for-
gotten in 1 792-1 795 amidst the passions excited by
the French Jacobins ; but ultimately the clubs founded
by Cartwright and his coadjutors carried on the torch
of freedom through the war-wasted space of the
Napoleonic supremacy and handed it on to the younger
men who, not long after Waterloo, initiated the second
and more successful struggle for reform.
The influence of Tom Paine during the height of
the French Revolution was considerable ; and many
of the political clubs then founded were imbued with
the anti-Christian spirit then prevalent in France.
But owing partly to the coercive measures adopted
by Pitt (who sternly opposed reform in those times
of excitement) and still more to the disappointing
results of the French Revolution, the mania for imitat-
ing the Jacobins of Paris died down. After 1815,
as has been noted, the reform agitation, in the main,
went on the lines laid down by Cartwright and the
earlier Radicals.
Once again, in the spring of 1848, imitation of
French revolutionary methods led English Radicals
on to dangerous ground ; but the collapse of the
great Chartist demonstration on Kennington Com-
mon once more showed that Englishmen were shy of
departing from constitutional ways of urging their
demands. After the failure of Physical Force Chartism
Maurice and Kingsley did good service by pointing
to the many self-help agencies — Trade Unions, Co-
operative Societies and Friendly Societies — whereby
workmen could better their position and prepare
themselves for wider political privileges in the future.
Thus, in our island there has never been that
divorce between religion and reforming movements
which was so pronounced in pre-revolutionary France.
THE FRENCH REVOLUTION 443
Our political problems have been easier than those
which beset that land in the years 1789, 1815, 1830
and 1848 ; but it is highly probable that Great Britain
owes much to the absence of a dominant and luxurious
hierarchy, and still more to the simplicity of organiza-
tion and the insistence on the essentials of Chrisf s
teaching which have characterized the communions
professing the Evangehcal faith. A survey of the
past seems to warrant the belief that the Church of
Christ, so long as she carries out faithfully the spirit
of her Founder, need not fear the attacks of unbe-
lievers, still less the shocks now and again given by
advancing democracy. Christianity has lost ground
only when Christians have put their trust in institu-
tions, wealth, or prestige, and have lost touch with
suffering humanity. But the Church Universal has
recovered that ground when, either by the warnings
of her sons or the attacks of her enemies, she has been
brought back to the first principles of her faith. Thus
even the mistakes of Christian organizations in the
past and the blunders committed by the assailants,
which are alike so marked and so appalling in their
results, seem to afford ground for hope that the nations
of to-day, in their search after a higher state of social
welfare, will win their way nearer to the heart of
Christ's teaching.
Certain it is that that teaching makes powerfully
for the principles of Liberty, Equality and Fraternity.
So long as the Early Church kept to the spirit of the
Gospel, it formed a genuine democracy. Only when
that fraternal communion borrowed from the organiza-
tion of the Roman Empire did it gradually crystallize
into an oppressive hierarchy. Subsequently, in the
ninth and tenth centuries, the Church was crushed into
the mould of Feudalism, and, later still, into that of the
444 CHRISTIANITY AND FRENCH REVOLUTION
Absolute Monarchy. As has been shown above, it Wcis
against these aUen and intrusive elements — these
governmental cuirasses donned for protection but soon
found to be painfully constrictive — that the new
democratic impulse made war, whether at the time of
Wycliffe and Huss, or at that of the Anabaptists, or
in the more secular movement headed by Rousseau.
The best minds in the Church of France in 1780-1790
urgently desired drastic reforms ; and the cures, who
did the real work of the Church, almost to a man wel-
comed the Revolution as the harbinger of better days.
At first the democratic attack was solely against the
temporalities and the organization of the Church ;
and, had it stopped there and not invaded the realm of
dogma, the results would have been wholly for good.
By attacking the consciences of the faithful, the Revo-
lutionists opened up long vistas of strife, persecution
and reaction. But it cannot be too clearly understood
that in this, the fiercest and most baleful struggle
between Christianity and democracy, the assault was
limited at first solely to the outworks and adjuncts of
the Church of France. There it won a notable tri-
umph, which tended to clarify the life of that overfed
organism. The attack failed against the inner citadel
of belief. The lesson of that success and of that failure
is of infinite value alike to the Church Universal and
to Democracy. For it shows by what means the former
may become the potent ally of the latter ; while
political reformers ought for all time to realize the all-
important truth, that their power ends where the
domain of conscience begins.
XI
The Social Influence of Christianity as
Illustrated by Modern Foreign Missions
By THE Rev. JAMES S. DENNIS, D.D.,
Author of " Christian Missions and Social Progress*'
ARGUMENT.
Introduction — Recognition of the influence of the Foreign Missionary Enter-
prise in promoting Social Betterment — ^The Changed Attitude of the
Individual Convert to his Social Environment — The Timely Ministry
of Missions to the Needs of a Community in the process of transition —
Missions as accelerated Social Evolution — A new Environment of
Transforming Influences.
1. Changes in Personal Character which accompany Conversion, and their
Social Significance in Mission Fields.
2. Reformed Habits in the Individual and their Helpful Influence in non-
Christian Society.
3. The Reconstruction of Family Life and its Attendant Blessings to Society.
4. Transformations which pertain to the Larger Sphere of Commercial Life,
and affect Long-Established Social Institutions and Customs.
5. The Moulding Potver of Missions upon National Development.
6. The Economic and Commercial Value of Missions.
7. The Social Significance of Reformed Standards of Religious Faith and
Practice.
Conclusion — ^The outstanding Need of the World — Religion and Christianity —
The Dependence of Social Phenomena on Religious Influences.
XI
The Social Influence of Christianity as
Illustrated by Modern Foreign
Missions '
The influence of the foreign missionary enterprise in
promoting social betterment is now claiming glad
recognition from the Church. It may surely be
counted, as is true of every phase of mission success,
one of the happy signs of divine favour to the modern
Church, yielding fresh evidence of the presence of
power, and of the unfailing adaptation of the Gospel
to minister in helpfulness to all the ages, and to all
the races of mankind. This manifest uplift of the
Gospel among alien races has now become capable of
demonstration in both its evangelical and ethical
aspects to an extent which supports and reinforces
our faith in the constructive social mission of Christi-
anity both at home and abroad.
The individual convert to Christ's religion in mission
fields is awakened not only to a new conception of
his personal relations to the Deity, but becomes con-
scious of a changed attitude toward his social environ-
ment. Duties which hitherto hardly appealed to him,
^ The writer has drawn upon his larger work, Christian Missions
and Social Progress, for some of the material which has been in-
corporated in the subject matter of the present essay.
447
448 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
now arrest his attention ; his awakened conscience
responds to the call of obligations which he has formerly
regarded — if indeed he has been at all sensitive to their
appeal — with profound indifference ; habits which
have never been called in question soon fall under
suspicion ; traditional customs which affect the wel-
fare and happiness of others, or have a depressing
effect upon social standards, are viewed in a new light,
and are challenged with new insight and courage,
wherever they are morally open to objection. The
whole environment of life, with its code of social ethics,
and its conventional ideals, becomes subject to scru-
tiny, and is tested by principles which have hitherto
been only partially, if at all, operative as binding upon
the conscience.
A similar, though somewhat differentiated, mani-
festation of the social power of missions may be dis-
covered in their timely ministry to the needs of a
community in the process of transition from a lower
to a higher status. This is illustrated by the fact that
the missionary enterprise as now conducted is an
educational force of stimulating energy. The mission
school, and numerous higher institutions of learning,
work a quickening intellectual transformation, and
generate new mental activities which banish for ever
the old inertia of brooding ignorance. It has become
already an essential feature of the missionary pro-
paganda that the call of the awakened mind should
receive due attention, and the literary output of
modern missions now ministers with fine discernment
to the instruction and culture of the mind and the
heart. Along industrial lines, also, much has been done,
in combination with lessons of spiritual inspiration
and moral guidance. A large philanthropic purpose
has developed into noble efforts at rescue and ministry
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 449
to those who need the outstretched hand of love and
skill and charitable devotion. This benevolent service
of missions proves itself a further incitement to humane
efforts on the part of enlightened native communities.
It becomes also an important part of the missionary
programme to provide through its educational agencies,
and as the result of its moral training, the class of men
whose discernment and capacity are especially needed
in times of social and national transition. It will be
seen that an entirely new outlook is given to life in its
mutual relationships, and that fruitful ideals are fur-
nished, which give direction and incentive to social
progress in formative periods.
Christian missions represent, therefore, what may
be designated in unscientific language as accelerated
social evolution, or evolution under the pressure of an
urgent force which has been introduced by a process
of involution. They grapple at close quarters with
a social status which, in the light of moral standards,
may be regarded as in a measure chaotic, *' without
form, and void.'' They have to contend alone at first,
and perhaps for several generations, with primitive
conditions, the confused result of the age-long struggles
of humanity. The spirit of order and moral regenera-
tion has never brooded over that vast social abysm.
It has never touched with its reconstructive power
the elements heaped together in such strange confusion.
Christian missions enter this socially disorganized
environment, with its varying aspects of degeneracy,
ranging from the higher civilization of the Orient,
which is by no means free from objectionable features,
to the savagery of barbarous races, and, in most cases
without the aid of any legal enactments, engage in a
moral struggle with certain old traditions and imme-
morial customs, which have long had their sway as
c.c. G G
430 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
regnant forces in society. They deal with a religious
consciousness hardly as yet touched by the spiritual
teachings of Christ, so that the splendid task of a
matured Christian experience as represented in mis-
sions is to take by the hand this childhood of the heart
and mind, and, by the aid of the rich and effective
resources of our modern civilization, put it to school
— leading it by the shortest path into the largeness
of vision and the ripeness of culture, which have come
to us all too slowly and painfully. What we have
sown in tears backward races are now beginning to
reap in joy. In many foreign fields missions must
face conditions which are so complex, so subtle, so
elaborately intertwined with the structure of society,
so solidified by age, and so impregnably buttressed by
the public sentiment of the people, that all attempts
at change or modification seem hopeless, and yet slowly
and surely the transformation comes. It is effected
through the secret and majestic power of moral guid-
ance and social transformation which seems to inhere
in that Gospel which Christian missions teach.
As Christianity advances from heart to heart in
this and other lands, it extends from home to home,
and involves almost unconsciously a large and generous
new environment of influences which works for the
reformation and gradual discrediting of the old stolid
wrongs of society. It produces in foreign communities
a slow, almost unrecognized, yet steadily aggressive
change in public opinion. It awakens new and mili-
tant questions about stagnant evils. It disturbs and
proceeds to sift out and disintegrate objectionable
customs. It stimulates moral aspirations, and quickens
a wistful longing for a higher and better state of
society. Christianity has been building better than
it knew in establishing its missions in the heart of
I
: IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 451
these ancient social systems. The sociological awaken-
ing in Christendom is not more impressive than the
hitherto almost ^unnoticed achievements of missions
abroad in the same general direction, in securing the
enfranchisement of human rights, the introduction
of new social ideals, and the overthrow of traditional
evils.
In illustration of the above general statements,
attention may be directed more particularly to the
following aspects of the subject :
1. The personal character of Christian converts,
by virtue of its influence and example, becomes a
ministry which contributes to the welfare andjmoral
cleansing of society.
2. The transformation of individual habits in
Christian communities works a gradual change for
the better in the larger collective life.
3. The family relationship soon responds to the
influence of this salutary change in its individual
members, and the whole economy of domestic living
is thus affected.
4. The larger realm of communal or tribal life
is also permeated by forceful moral influences which
work a profound change in its spirit and practice.
Social institutions and customs wider in their scope,
and more invincible in their sway, respond in their
turn, and revolutionary changes come about, as the
result of the more or less aggressive infusion of Christian
principles.
5. The national development is in time affected,
and changes which may be classed as political and
judicial in character, with sometimes an international
significance, are introduced into the evolution of back-
ward races.
6. Commercial relationships are found to be not
452 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
altogether outside the sphere of missionary influence,
and new opportunities, as well as new facilities having
a manifest social import, frequently follow the advent
of missions.
7. The evangelical uplift of the religious life in
a non-Christian environment is generally found to be
of incisive social significance, and produces many and
great changes for the better in the practical, everyday
routine of life.
The whole missionary propaganda in its larger
aspects becomes thus an individual, and eventually
a racial preparation for service, not only in the inter-
ests of the evangelistic expansion of the Kingdom of
Christ, but for the purification and higher welfare of
the immediate social environment.
A more detailed consideration of these various
specific statements, and the presentation of a few
typical illustrations, drawn from actual experience,
will reveal more clearly the practical outcome of the
social evangel among backward races.
Changes in Personal Character which accompany Con-
version, and their Social Significance in Mission
Fields.
I. It is the special function of the Gospel to trans-
form individual lives, but a group of transformed
individuals forms at once the nucleus of a changed
society. One man, for example, becomes temperate,
moral, honest, truthful, industrious, and exemplary
in an all-round sense ; if then he is multiplied by ten,
or a hundred, or possibly by a thousand, we have a
social transformation which is revolutionary in its
power. A mighty force, working perhaps silently
and unobtrusively, is put into action throughout
society. It works like some great law of nature, which
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 453
accomplishes its mission without creating any violent
disturbance in its environment. A spirit hitherto
unknown begins to assert itself, and to commend
things that are lovely and of good report, sending out
an impalpable influence, which seems to be able in
some mysterious way gradually to transform into its
own likeness the whole social system in which it moves.
It is not to be inferred that the individual character
which is developed in a non-Christian atmosphere is
in every instance alike defiled, or lacking in those
commendable traits which command respect and
admiration. As a rule, however, the character which
comes to its maturity out of touch with the Christ
life, unconscious of the sacrificial love revealed in the
Cross, and separated from the restraints and incite-
ments of Christian morality, is always in some, and
often in many, respects tainted and marred. In its
primitive savagery it is usually dominated by degrading
superstitions, and has not as yet been touched by even
the initial forces of those moral monitions which are
from above. Something new, incisive, and radical,
like the spiritual energy of the Gospel, must enter
the social system, and work with a transforming
power — a power which is sufficient to arouse ambition,
to quicken discernment, and to formulate ideals —
or heathen society will remain for ever helpless, and
fixed in its primitive moral trend, with possibly a
certain veneering of spurious civilization, which will
only serve to conceal some of its latent tendencies.
The reconstruction of the character through the
illuminating instructions and the sacred persuasions
of the Gospel is indeed the first task of missions, and
the wealth of evidence which the foreign fields yield
to illustrate and confirm missionary success in this
particular is in a high degree effective and convincing.
454 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
There are shining examples of men and women in high
stations, whose personal character as Christian con-
verts has developed into a social, and even a national,
asset of wide influence and high value. Khama, the
South African Chief, with his temperance principles
and moral stability, exercising a forceful influence
throughout all his realm, is a conspicuous illustration.
The same may be said of Daudi Kasagama, the King
of Toro, the royal evangelist, who has sent his thanks
to the Church Missionary Society for the Gospel which
their missionaries have brought to his people, and
who interests himself in evangelistic tours throughout
his realm, distributing the bread of life, and building
churches. In the same section of Africa is Apolo
Kagwa, the Christian statesman of Uganda. In India
we find such representative examples as Sir Harnam
Singh and his excellent wife, devoted to the spiritual
and social welfare of the large environment throughout
which their influence extends. The Pundita Ramabai
is proving herself the social benefactor of distressed
and needy multitudes of her own sex. The late Kali
Charan Banurji was a social force, as well as an exem-
plar of sane and wise statesmanship, and the late Ken-
kichi Kataoka of Japan may be described in the same
words. These are but types of many *' saints in Caesar's
household," whose social sympathies and personal
influence claim our respect and admiration.
There are multitudes, we may safely say many
thousands, in mission fields, who are serving in evangel-
istic and educational circles with devotion and great
usefulness, whose social helpfulness has in it the religious
stimulus and the moral beauty of the Gospel itself.
Every mission field could furnish an honour roll of
such names. They abound in India, China, and
Japan ; they have multiplied also in other fields.
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 455
Numbers of them have won the martyr's crown as the
reward of their constancy and loyalty, and have thus
left an inspiring memory in the communities which
knew them. In some of the most unUkely regions of
the earth the record of these devoted native workers
along the lines of Gospel reformation is especially noble
and inspiriting. The Ufe work of Pao, whose service
in the Loyalty Islands has been commemorated by a
monument erected by the foreign and native communi-
ties of Lifu, where he laboured, is already one of the
classic stories of mission history. The South Sea
natives who have co-operated in the evangelism of
New Guinea, to them a field of foreign service, of peril,
and much sacrifice, have exhibited a spirit of consecra-
tion, and accomplished a work for the social redemp-
tion of its savage people, the results of which have
brought a permanent change in the outlook of the
entire island. Had we time to visit the scattered isles
of the Pacific, we should find whole communities
presided over spiritually by devoted converts, whose
personal influence has worked mightily for the rehgious
and social uplift of those who a generation or more
ago were in the depths of savagery.
We cannot dwell longer upon this special aspect
of our theme, but what we desire particularly to note
here is that personal character of the quality which
missions produce, through the transforming power of
Christianity, is a social asset, the value of which cannot
be gainsaid. Through a God-possessed individuality
larger and more general influences may be expected.
The Gospel, like a seed planted within, grows outward.
It does not touch social life with any permanent and
saving power, except by way of secret fructification
in the soil of the individual heart. A regenerate man
becomes a new and living force in unregenerate society.
456 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
A Christian community, even though small and obscure,
is a renewed section or moiety of society. Both are
as leaven in the mass, with a mysterious capacity for
permeating the whole. This has been declared by
an accomplished writer to be the distinctive mark and
method of Christ's religion.
Individual character, moreover, is the point where
responsibility secures its hold, where public spirit
may be effectively cultivated, where what may be
called the social conscience may be awakened. The
inspiration of the individual for the benefit of the mass
is the first secret of social progress, just as, on the
other hand, the demoralization and paralysis of the
individual work in the end the ruin of society as a
whole. The enlargement of the intellectual resources
of any single member of society, and the cultivation
of his mental powers, such as the development of the
faculties of discrimination, judgment, intellectual per-
ception, forethought, discretion, prudence, facility in
adjusting means to an end, all add to his value as a
factor in social life, and are equivalent to a substantial
contribution to the well-being of society. The economic
regeneration of an idle, shiftless, demoralized, unpro-
ductive, and especially of a destructive, individuality,
into an industrious, productive, and peaceable char-
acter, is equivalent to the addition of so much live
capital to the working force of the community. Thus
the awakening in a man of a new capacity for the
appreciation of moral principles, the establishment
within him of a new basis for fidelity, loyalty, firmness,
stability, and singleness of purpose, in harmony with
higher spiritual standards, become an increment accru-
ing to the moral forces of society, which has in it the
promise and potency of a nobler domestic, social, and
civic life. Herein is the making of better homes,
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 457
purer domestic relations, a higher and finer social
temper, a sounder and truer type of citizenship. The
refinement wrought in rude or gross natures by Christi-
anity, the moral stamina and the serious purpose
imparted to timid, listless, stolid, or self-centred char-
acters, add an important contribution to social
resources.
" Tis in the advance of individual minds
That the slow crowd should ground their expectations
Eventually to follow."
The character of a people is, after all, the only sure
foundation upon which any substantial hope of improve-
ment can be based. ReHgious character in the indivi-
dual is the good soil out of which alone the higher social
virtues can spring.
Reformed Habits in the Individual, and their Helpful
Influence in non-Christian Society.
2. We are familiar in our own environment of
Christendom with the battle waged by the moral
forces of Christianity with the great evils of society.
The same struggle is well known in mission fields,
where Christian efforts at reform have to contend with
deeply entrenched habits, in an atmosphere of indivi-
dual degeneracy, which while it increases the difficulty
of success, at the same time gives additional lustre to
the victory. Christian converts in mission fields are
thoroughly instructed as to the duty of temperance,
and they are almost without exception of one mind on
the subject, and, with possibly rare exceptions, they
are everywhere total abstainers. The perilous snare
of the opium pipe appeals to them in vain, as also the
insidious lure of gambling. The struggle with tempta-
tions to immorality may be severe, and in certain
environments sometimes disappointing, but vice is
458 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
never condoned, and the moral standards of Christi-
anity are honoured, and usually admirably exemplified.
In many mission stations temperance societies, anti-
opium leagues, and White Ribbon Associations have
been formed, while reformed gamblers are found here
and there on the Church rolls. The drift of heathen
despair toward suicide is checked ; the shiftless and
wasteful idleness which is characteristic of so many
savage communities, or the passion for war and plunder
which possesses untamed natures, gives way under
mission discipline and culture to aspirations after the
security and good order of peaceful relations, and the
rewards of honest toil. The native African has learned
the very alphabet of industry and frugality from
Christian missions. Such institutions as that of the
United Free Church of Scotland at Lovedale, South
Africa, not only guide young men and young women
into paths of spiritual light, but transform the life
that now is into a happy and useful career by teaching
some industrial art which makes them of value to the
world, and gives them the privileges and joys of self-
supporting service. No one in the home Churches
can realize, and the missionaries themselves hardly
appreciate, the immense social changes in the direction
of orderly and useful living which have been inaugurated
in hundreds of African communities. '* The kraal-
going missionary has made the kirk-going people,*'
is the quaint epigram which describes the result of
the early efforts of the United Presbyterians in Kaff-
raria. This is not, however, the whole truth, since
that same missionary has transformed the warrior
into the modern ploughman, and put useful tools into
idle hands. Industrial missions, and also industrial
features in the curriculum of missionary training, are
no longer an experiment in many African fields . Ploughs,
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 459
which, in the dramatic language of a native admirer,
are said to ''do the work of ten wives," have broken
furrows of civilization in African society. Self-sup-
porting industry has brought a new consciousness of
self-respect.
The social value of the personal virtues needs no
elaborate vindication. Habits of duplicity, untruth-
fulness, and dishonesty form a social incubus which
missions have happily lifted to an extent which may
well command our attention. It does not invalidate
the force of this statement to find, so far as our ability
to demonstrate it is concerned, that it is less convincing
than we could wish. Christian living is largely influ-
enced by environment, and high-toned character, even
under the culture of Christian influences, is in a true
sense a growth rather than a ready-made product. It
is surely beyond question that Christianity once hon-
estly received and appropriated by the spiritual nature
works for the quickening and nourishing of those
personal virtues which the Word of God both com-
mends and commands. It must not be forgotten,
however, that in so doing, especially in mission fields,
the Gospel code must contend with a combination of
dominant heredity, adverse environment, and over-
mastering temptation, which adds immensely to the
difficulty of moral renovation. It requires more Christi-
anity to the square inch of personal character — if the
expression is allowable — to produce a given amount
of moral stamina where a thoroughly demoralized
heathen personality is to be made over, than where a
naturally high-toned and responsive character is to
be brought into deeper accord with a moral code
already perhaps instinctively revered, and in large
measure observed.
If we search through mission fields we shall find new
460 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
standards of truthfulness identified with Christian
character, and this is true also as regards honest dealing.
The following statement in one of the annual reports
of a prominent mission in China indicates a representa-
tive aspect of Christian influence in the direction of
moral reform : ''A heathen man was asked whether
he saw any good points about the Christians. ' Yes/
he replied, * there are three things I am bound to
admire : (i) there is no need to watch our crops around
their village ; (2) they neither sow, sell, nor swallow
opium ; (3) they cause little trouble in paying their
taxes.* *' Here is rare and downright honesty toward
their neighbours accredited to Chinese Christians, and,
what is more remarkable, toward their government.
There is much unanimity in the testimony of mission-
aries as to the sincerity of native Christians, and their
moral steadfastness. The message of Christianity
everywhere in mission fields includes a programme of
social righteousness, and that many sinful natures
and disorderly lives are transformed is a result which
those best acquainted with the facts will unhesitatingly
corroborate. One of the most brilliant moral qualities
that can' pertain to a man in Asiatic countries, giving
him a distinction as rare as it is wonderful, is to be
known as absolutely truthful and honest. The badge
of simple truthfulness is by general consent the '' Vic-
toria Cross '' of morals in the Orient. It becomes a
social boon everywhere to be able to trust others, to
feel confident that treachery, duplicity, and deception
need not be feared, but rather that a sense of honour,
a respect for obligation, and a devotion to every loyal
claim, are assured.
In other respects, as for example the cultivation of
the physical virtues of cleanHness and neatness, Christi-
anity has inaugurated socially valuable changes wher-
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 461
ever it has entered. It is almost invariably the case
that converts mend their ways by banishing unclean-
ness both from their persons and their surroundings.
There is hardly a mission field where the Christians
cannot at once be distinguished from the heathen by
the attractiveness and wholesomeness of their personal
appearance. There seems to be a happy magic in
Christianity to cleanse both within and without.
The Reconstruction of Family Life and its Attendant
Blessings to Society.
3. The story of transformed homes, of elevated
and purified family life, and of the hallowing of all
domestic relationships, is one of the most precious
chapters in missionary history, and, we may add, repre-
sents also one of the most helpful influences which can
be consecrated to the promotion of social betterment.
In the effort to hallow and purify family life we stir
the secret yearnings of fatherhood and motherhood ;
we enter the precincts of the home, and take childhood
by the hand ; we restore to its place of power and win-
someness in the domestic circle the ministry of woman-
hood ; and at the same time we strike at some of the
most despicable evils and desolating wrongs of our
fallen world. If parental training can be made loving,
faithful, conscientious, and helpful, if womanhood can
be redeemed and crowned, if childhood can be guided
in tenderness and wisdom, if the home can be made a
place where virtue dwells, and moral goodness is nour-
ished, we can conceive of no more effective combina-
tion of invigorating influences for the rehabilitation
of fallen society.
If we inquire what missions have done to regenerate
the family, to purify its moral and disciplinary forces,
and to make it a nursery of refined social idealism, we
462 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
discover a record of ennobling influence which is indis-
putable. Woman, as the central figure of the home,
has been crowned with a dignity which is distinctively
Christian, and in the home life of Christian communities
has been delivered from the humiliation and suffering
incidental to those great historic curses of Oriental
society, polygamy, concubinage, and easy divorce.
Child marriage has been either wholly abolished, or
brought within more reasonable limitations, while the
social miseries of Oriental widowhood have been
greatly mitigated. Much has been accomplished to-
ward the release of woman from those conditions of
enforced seclusion and minimum privilege which
traditional custom in the Orient has imposed upon her,
and all this has been effected not, let it be noted, with
indiscreet precipitancy, but with wise caution and
sobriety. Family training and discipline have been
improved and chastened, and domestic life in its
practical, everyday aspects has been made more
refined. It is noticeable that a spirit of tenderness
has been cultivated in many communities toward help-
less children, securing their protection, and guarantee-
ing to them an affectionate guardianship, saving them,
in some instances, from cruel neglect, or heartless
destruction, in places where no organized societies
have been instituted specially to watch over their
welfare.
The education of woman is a notable aspect of mission
influence. The missionary school for girls has been an
innovation which was at first received with amazement,
as well as with a certain measure of amused incredulity,
throughout the Oriental and heathen world. The
response has been a surprise, and has become a gratify-
ing social benediction to Oriental society, being now
recognized as such by those who at first regarded it
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 463
with disfavour. The touch of educated womanhood
has given an added charm and value to the home life
of the Orient, and has stimulated a spirit of reform
toward all that concerns the status of woman in
Oriental society. The attitude of the Oriental world
outside of Christian circles has been wonderfully
changed in its temper and aspirations concerning the
lot of woman and her social position and privileges.
A cultured womanhood in India, in China, in Japan,
and elsewhere, is claiming its place under Christian
auspices, and is enriching the home life of those coun-
tries, and extending its influence throughout society,
as the result of missionary insistence upon the rights
and privileges which properly belong to womankind.
The traditional evils which have afflicted the
domestic life of heathenism have winced under the
quiet rebuke of the Christian rule of morals. A
vigorous reform has won its way amid the domestic
laxity which prevailed even in some of the most
advanced nations of the Orient. Christianity has
been resolutely unwilling to compromise with the
darling sins of the Oriental household, and, while
governing its protest by tactful and wise self-restraint,
it has nevertheless insisted on the sacredness of family
relationships, and on the inflexible code of the Word
of God in its application to domestic life. There are
to-day multitudes of homes in Asia and Africa, and
in the Islands of the Sea, where sanctified affection,
conscientious fidelity, loving discipline, and refined
companionship, trace their entrance to missionary
influence.
Transformations which pertain to the Larger Sphere
of Communal Life, and affect Long-Established
Social Institutions and Customs.
4. The uplifting influence of missions is not only
464 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
domestic ; it is tribal, and extends to the communal
]ife of the people, and in time works revolutionary
changes in the tone and trend of social development.
Radical transformations in this larger realm of public
life and traditional custom cannot be accomplished
with strident haste and violent aggressiveness, but
must be brought about slowly, yet no less surely, after
the usual manner of great social changes. A new
spirit, almost imperceptibly at first, manifests itself
in society ; public opinion changes ; old customs,
time-honoured, but none the less objectionable, are
modified or abandoned. A better and finer code of
propriety is instituted ; sweeter ideals gradually win
their way ; a process of refinement goes on in sen-
sitive souls ; more gracious desires, higher ambitions,
and nobler aims, gladden and dominate the spiritual
natures of men and women. The higher life begins
to claim the attention of the thoughtful ; the tribal
heart begins to be agitated with aspirations after
improvement, and to fix its desires upon the goals of
culture. Opinions and customs which are in them-
selves worthy are conserved and accentuated ; con-
ditions and indulgences that are evil, and ought to
be abandoned, begin to wane, and to feel the blight
of contempt and shame. Evils that have been domi-
nant for centuries, and have darkened the lives of
unknown millions, are, by common consent, put under
a ban, and are slowly eradicated, although in many
instances they make a desperate fight for life. Less
than a generation ago cruelty reigned in Uganda,
with the sanction both of its prevailing religion and
of immemorial customs. Human victims to the evil
spirits were numbered by the thousand and punish-
ment by mutilation and torture seemed to be the
pastime of those in authority. Bishop Tucker relates
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 465
that at the death of Suna, the father of Mtesa, more
than two thousand human beings were slaughtered,
in accordance with a ghastly custom of unknown
antiquity. Christian missions entered Uganda, and
when the death summons came to Mtesa himself,
not a single human life was sacrificed.
The pitiful condition of the low caste population
of India claims the attention and enlists the ministry
of the missionary, and a new phase of philanthropy
and humane civilization enters into Indian history.
It is attracting the notice of intelligent and thoughtful
men in the higher castes, who frankly acknowledge
that the sympathetic friend, and almost the only
efficient helper of the depressed classes in India is the
missionary. A few words may be quoted from a
recent report of the Travancore Census, issued by
order of the Maharaja, and penned by the Census
Commissioner, a distinguished Hindu of the Brahman
caste. He writes : " But for these missionaries these
humble orders of Hindu society will forever remain
unraised. Their material condition, I dare say, will
have improved with the increased wages, improved
labour market, better laws, and more generous treat-
ment from an enlightened Government like ours ;
but to the Christian missionaries belongs the credit
of having gone to their humble homes, and awakened
them to a sense of a better earthly existence. TMs
action of the missionaries was not a mere improve-
ment upon ancient history, a kind of polishing and
refining of an existing model, but an entirely original
idea, conceived and carried out with commendable
zeal, and oftentimes in the teeth of opposition and
persecution. I do not refer to the emancipation of
the slave, or the amelioration of the labourer's con-
dition ; for these always existed more or less in our
C.C, H H
466 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
past humane governments. But the heroism of raising
the low from the slough of degradation and debase-
ment was an element of civilization unknown to ancient
India." The same remarkable change is found as
the result of the Dutch Missions in Celebes, where
Bishop Brent discovered a splendid object lesson in
the reformation and civilization of a degraded horde
of savages, through missionary influence. '' In Mina-
hassa,*' he writes, '* a hundred years ago the natives
were headhunting savages ; to-day it would be difficult
to find anywhere a more orderly and self-respecting
people.''
So, we might run through the list of barbaric and
bestial customs, and illustrate the magical power of
mission influence in transforming primitive tribal
life. A Christian cannibal, we will venture to say,
cannot be found in Asia or Africa, or amid the old-
time savagery of the island world. Christianity every-
where has insisted upon the sacredness of human life,
and has implanted in the hearts of its followers refined
instincts, which are sure to turn with disgust from
the orgies of a cannibal feast. Similar statements
might be made concerning the taste for inhuman
sports, or the cruel folly of human sacrifices. Even
within a generation, ghastly orgies once so well-known
in that bloody inferno — the hinterland of the African
West Coast — have disappeared, and its official shambles
are now in ruins. The shocking ordeals of superstitious
heathenism have been, with rare exceptions, banished.
The brutal and cruel punishments of prisoners have
been mitigated by a more humane code of penal
administration. With the entrance of the missionary
has been awakened also a new recognition of duty
toward the sick, the decrepit, and those enfeebled by
age, with other helpless and dependent members
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 467
of society, whom it was customary, according to the
heathen code, either to neglect, or put to death, as
worthless and burdensome to society. We may visit
under mission administration homes for the orphans,
and asylums for the lepers, and here and there refuges
where tender ministrations are given to the insane,
the blind, and the deaf and dumb.
Social changes still more revolutionary in character,
and of wider scope, can also be clearly traced to mission
influence. No one can reasonably doubt that to
missions belongs the credit of initiating the crusade
against footbinding in China, the culmination of
which has been the formation of an influential anti-
footbinding society, conducted under the direction
of philanthropic foreign residents, supported by intel-
ligent and progressive Chinese, and eventually issuing
in an imperial edict, forbidding and banishing the
custom. As long ago as 1870, the mission schools for
girls began to contend for unbound feet, and various
educational organizations and societies, largely under
missionary auspices, have steadily and successfully
maintained a determined attitude of antagonism toward
this foolish and cruel fashion.
Again, in the anti-opium crusade missions have
led the van, and have interested themselves, on moral
and philanthropic grounds, in working for the banish-
ment of this social curse. Now all China is aroused,
and the crusade has been fortified by imperial orders,
aimed at the effective prohibition of the opium habit
throughout the empire. In May, 1906, twelve hun-
dred missionaries affixed their signatures to a memorial
on the subject of opium, which, in the August following,
was presented to the Imperial Government by the
venerable Viceroy of Nanking. In September of
that year the Emperor issued the edict which directs
468 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
that the opium traffic shall cease within ten years,
and the wording of the document is strikingly similar
to the phraseology of the memorial.
The services of missions in the overthrow of the
slave trade, and the abolition of slavery, in large
sections of the world, have hardly received the atten-
tion they deserve. It is within a decade that slavery
was officially ostracized among the Barotsi, and also
in Uganda, and in both instances the revolutionary
reform has been traceable to mission influences. The
attitude of missions toward caste, to which reference
has just been made, affords another illustration.
One of the most inflexible and overmastering social
tyrannies which the world has ever known, it is not
to be expected that changes will be wrought, except
by a long and slow process of disintegration. The
overthrow of caste by any violent or arbitrary methods
seems impossible ; yet everywhere the missionary
has proved himself to be the friend and liberator of
the Pariah, and especially in Southern India have
low caste people had opened to them a career of
advancement, and a hope of social betterment, which
represent a practical reversal of the immemorial tra-
ditions cherished by the higher classes, many of whom
would regard even a sneer as too flattering an atten-
tion to a despised Pariah. This process has as yet
touched Indian society only in spots, but it may prove
to be the beginning of a social change which will
eventually develop into revolutionary proportions.
The educational campaign of missions has been
a direct ministry to the higher nature of backward
races, having aroused dormant powers of develop-
ment, quickened the aptitude for progress, given a
finer tone to life, and created a new atmosphere, in
which society as a whole develops with an upward,
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 469
aspiring trend. Educational cravings have already
become a passion in the awakened nations of the East.
The whole higher life of society has been touched by
the stimulus given to industrial training by organiza-
tions for social improvement. The ministry of whole-
some and instructive literature, including Bible trans-
lation, has been of inestimable value to races who
were hardly acquainted with modern knowledge before
the coming of the missionary. The service of medical
missions is one of the most romantic chapters in the
history of human philanthropy. The mitigation of
the ancient brutalities of war, and the turning of the
hearts of Christian communities toward the recogni-
tion of the higher blessings of a peaceable and law-
abiding social order, may all be traced, in large measure,
to the power of the missionary evangel.
The Moulding Power of Missions upon National
Development.
5. Have missions a quickening and formative
influence upon national life and character? The
question opens a large and fruitful subject for dis-
cussion and research. It may be treated both from
an academic or historical point of view, and from the
standpoint of practical apologetics. We can readily
believe that God maintains a sovereign control over
the historic development of nations in modern as
well as in ancient times. The Hebrew historians
described with realistic diction the controlling sove-
reignty of God among the nations, and in forms of
speech which made clear their vivid recognition of
the direct agency of an overruling Providence. The
modern historian, however devout his mood, may
not, perhaps, use Biblical formulae, being influenced
by the dominant idea of theistic evolution now so
470 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
regnant in the philosophy and science of our times ;
but this does not necessarily indicate any deliberate
intention on his part to ignore or to banish the idea of
God's sovereignty, and His supreme guidance of the
contemporary life of nations. He simply brings his
trend of thought, together with his literary style and
terminology, into conformity with prevalent philoso-
phical theories of the mode and order of divine activi-
ties as related to historical progress. A new view
of the divine methods of working requires new forms
of expression, which, while giving prominence to second-
ary causes and evolutionary processes, do not rule
out the First Cause, or make the existence of a supreme
intelligence any less essential in a true philosophy of
history.
Christian missions, in their broad and multiform
results, doubtless have a part to play in the history
of our times, corresponding closely to that training
of Old Testament ritual and discipline which can be
so plainly traced in the calling and governance of
the Jewish nation. History is, in fact, repeating
itself. The Old Testament dispensation as a school
of national life finds, in a measure, its counterpart
in the activities of modern missions among existing
nations. Our own Christendom is in a large sense
mission fruitage, and now Christianity, true to its
Founder's purpose, is becoming the teacher of all
nations, in very much the same sense that the ancient
dispensation was the schoolmaster for the preparation
of a single elect nation for its place in history. The
Bible is full of the national life, not only of the Hebrews,
but of contemporary peoples ; and if a modern Bible
of mission history could be written by inspired dis-
cernment we should surely discover the same almighty
sovereign purpose working for the accomplishment
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 471
of its high designs in the training and destiny of
modern nations. The ulterior object of missions,
although not the original or chief incentive to their
prosecution, is to prepare men and women to be
better members of human society, and more helpful
participants in the social and national development
of the generation to which they belong — it being
understood that the most effective method of accom-
plishing this is to bring them as individuals into right
relations to God and His law. The attainment of
this object implies a steady advance toward a higher
national life, and a fuller preparedness of the people
to be clothed upon with the fresh, new garments of a
cultured civilization.
The future of nations is therefore in a very real
sense marked out and determined by the reception
they give to missionary agencies, and the ascendency
which Christian ideals attain in their individual and
social development. The '* principle of projected
efficiency,*' so emphasized by Mr. Benjamin Kidd,
is an excellent formula for the larger utility and help-
ful tendency of missions in social and national evolu-
tion. That projected potency which works for the
future building up of nations is embodied in missionary
activities. To any one pessimistically inclined, who
has some knowledge of Oriental nations, it may seem
to be a practically hopeless undertaking to lead them
to appreciate and strive after the finer ideals of Chris-
tian cultivation. It is just in this connexion that the
lessons of history are pertinent and incontrovertible.
Teutonic culture and Anglo-Saxon civilization — let
us not forget it — have developed from the fierce tem-
per and barbaric social code of the earlier races of
Northern Europe. Thus, along this road of slow
and painful advance, nations now exemplifying the
472 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
highest social refinement of the age have already
walked, and others will in due time follow in their
footsteps. The Japan, the Korea, the China, and
the India of to-day, as compared with the status of
those same nations a generation or two ago, are exam-
ples of an Oriental Christendom in the making. Faith
based not only on the promises of God, but upon visible
historical precedent, may rest assured of this, but
there must be patience while the " increasing purpose "
of the centuries is being realized.
Questions which are identified with the national
life of a people pertain to such matters as the form
of government, the establishment and enjoyment of
civil rights and privileges, the conduct of politics,
the enactments of legislation, and their administra-
tion as law, the personnel of public service, the adjust-
ment of international relationships, and the defence
of the State. In connexion with such questions the
influence of Christianity need not be revolutionary
in order to be helpful. It may exercise a transforming
and guiding power which will lead a nation by easy
stages of progress out of comparative barbarism into
the heritage of modern culture. In many respects
Eastern nations left to themselves in isolation, depend-
ent upon their own resources, had reached, probably,
their natural limit in the progress toward a higher
civilization. If there was to be further advance,
some outside help was seemingly essential. This
might come as a gift from without, or, as in the case
of Japan, it might be largely self-sought, and assimi-
lated with an intelligent recognition of its value. It
need not necessarily denationalize them, but should
rather shape their further development in harmony
with national characteristics.
In this connexion the influence of Christian mis-
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 473
sions has been both timely, and, to a remarkable
degree, adapted to this higher ministry. The unique
part which each nation has to play in human history,
and the special contribution of service which it is to
render in the interests of world civilization, will lose
none of their distinctive features through the entrance
of the leaven of a common Christianity. In this age
of the world, nations can no longer remain isolated,
or live a separate, exclusive life, out of touch with the
rest of mankind. International relationships are al-
ready world-embracing. Missions, therefore, in so
far as they contribute to the moulding of the national
life of peoples whose historic development seems to
have been hitherto arrested, are a factor in shaping
and furthering the world's international amenities.
It is by no means a matter of indifference to Christen-
dom what kind of a nation Japan is to be ; it is, in
fact, a question of absorbing interest and deep moment.
China is already an important factor in the sphere
of international politics. The whole East is stirred
with a new life, and points of contact with the out-
side world are fast multiplying. The service which
missions have thus far rendered among these different
peoples in preparing them for creditable entrance
into these wider relationships is of higher value than
is generally recognized.
The missionary programme not alone in its evan-
gelistic and ethical impact, but in its broader educa-
tional discipline, in its literary culture, its uplifting
character, and its more intelligent outlook upon his-
tory and practical politics, gives a certain tone and
direction to national life and progress. It trains
better men for government service, and thus has an
influence in the improvement of administrative methods.
Out of six Moslem incumbents recently appointed
474 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
to high positions in the Punjab Government, it is
significant that five of them were educated at the
Forman Christian College of the American Presby-
terian Mission at Lahore. It aids in the adoption of
wiser and better laws, and in the reformation, and,
where needed, the humanizing of the judicial pro-
ceedings. As nations or tribes become enlightened
they begin to appreciate the true meaning and value
of liberty, to cherish more intelligent ideals of patriot-
ism, to form new conceptions of the dignity and
responsibility of national life, and to play their part
with honour, when occasion requires, in international
affairs. Loftier standards of public service, and more
intelligent recognition of the import and value of
international and interracial relationships take their
place in a growing civic consciousness. This influence
of missions upon national life may not be so apparent
to an outside observer as other results more easily
discerned, but it is real, and to one who can obtain
a comparative historical view of the growth of the
body politic it will soon discover itself. It requires
a discerning historic insight for us to trace the lines
of Christian influence in the development of the nations
of Christendom, but no one doubts that Christendom
as a whole, in its national as well as social outcome,
has been in certain important respects the product
of Christianity.
The awakening of China, the progress of Japan,
the development of Korea, the evolution of a new
India, the establishment of constitutional government
in Turkey, can never be historically treated without
giving a large meed of credit to missions. '' The awak-
ening of China,'* remarked Tuan Fang while on his
recent visit to America, '' may be traced in no small
measure to the hands of the missionaries. They have
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS < 475
borne the light of Western civiUzation to every nook
and corner of the Empire." A single glance at the
literature of the new era in China, issued under mis-
sionary auspices, reveals the instructive and forceful
bearing of the literary campaign of missions upon
the rapidly changing tendencies of national life.
China has been put to school to study the encyclo-
paedia of modern knowledge, and learn the secrets
of the historic growth and development of Christen-
dom from the literature which missionaries have
provided. After the Renaissance came the Refor-
mation ; will history repeat itself in the Far East ?
The Economic and Commercial Value of Missions.
6. It is a fair question to ask whether commerce
is in any sense historically indebted to missions ?
The debt of missions to commerce, however, need not
be minimized. The earliest Christian missions fol-
lowed the great trade routes of the world, and since
the age of steam and electricity missionaries have
looked to commerce as their means of transport, and
as affording them many alleviations in their exile
from home. Whatever evils and sins may be justly
charged to commerce, they are not essentially identi-
fied with it, and its nobler spirit, as well as its more
honourable methods, may be regarded as both favour-
able and serviceable to the work of the missionary.
On the other hand, it can be easily demonstrated
that missions have proved helpful to commerce by
broadening the world's markets, swelling the ranks
of both the consumer and the producer, and enlarging
the range of both supply and demand. It is not too
much to say that the increasing opportunities of inter-
national commerce are due in part to the cooperation
of missions by reason of their influence in removing
476 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
hindrances to an entrance among native races, and in
promoting to some extent an interchange of outgoing
and incoming commodities.
Progressive native races invite commerce, and
offer ever enlarging scope to its activities. Educa-
tion gives an inquiring outward vision to provincial
minds, and calls for the best the world can bring to
it of the material facilities and industrial achieve-
ments of the higher civilizations. The services of the
missionary as a pioneer explorer, and a promoter of
industrial advance, have been useful to commerce.
The merchant often reaps a harvest in trade where
the missionary has previously sown the seeds of ethical
and social transformation. In this general sense the
making of a broader and finer national life is the guar-
antee of enlarged commercial intercourse ; while,
on the other hand, commercial wealth and prosperity
without moral stamina and political integrity will
inevitably work for the downfall of a nation. A study
of the growth of trade in the countries of the Far
East will show that it has generally been contempora-
neous with missionary progress, which has manifestly
had a part to play — not often conspicuous, indeed,
but no less real — ^in its promotion and development.
The ethical influence of missions has been helpful to
commerce by its insistence upon high moral standards,
by its training in matters of good faith and moral
rectitude, by its suggestions, at least among mission
constituencies, of improved financial methods, and
by a measure of indirect stimulus to trade with the
outer world, while at the same time creating a demand
for the conveniences and facilities of modern civilization.
The missionary convert is recognized as the advo-
cate and exemplar of new standards of business honesty.
Integrity is acknowledged as a Christian obligation.
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 477
A new code of market-day morals has been introduced,
and incitements to frugality and provident habits
have been one of the practical lessons of the missionary
to his native friends and followers. In many fields
he has been instrumental in establishing Savings
Banks, and in initiating Provident Funds, with a
view to rescuing converts from the temptations and
dangers of debt. Livingstone's " open path for com-
merce ** in Africa has produced phenomenal changes
in the economic development of a large section of
that vast continent, and almost everywhere among
savage races missionary pioneering has resulted in
an open door for trade with the outer world. Mission
outposts among dangerous and savage tribes have
marked the line which separates safety from peril to
the trader, and have differentiated the sphere of trade
from the regions of rapine and barbarity. The im-
mense possibilities of commerce in the Far East give
a special significance to the acknowledged influence
of missions in stimulating trade intercourse with
hitherto closed regions in that part of the world.
Missionaries have, moreover, been instrumental in
many fields in the development of neglected resources
of the soil, and in introducing improved facilities,
both agricultural and industrial. Mackay in his
busy workshop in Uganda was the pioneer of the
present ** Uganda Company, Limited," and a similar
statement may be made of missionary initiative in
the '* Papuan Industries, Limited," and other indus-
trial ventures in mission fields. A close study of the
political and commercial value of missions will award
them a far more prominent place in the activities of the
modern world than we have been accustomed to
assign to them. It behoves Christendom to give
attention to this fact. Expansion as an imperial
478 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
policy should not be along military lines alone, nor
should it be inspired exclusively by political and
economic designs ; much less should it be with a view
merely to commercial exploitation. Christian mer-
chants and men of affairs may justly regard missions
as an ally of commerce, and an agency of high value
in the promotion of mutually advantageous trade
relations.
The Social Significance of Reformed Standards of
Religious Faith and Practice.
7. Is the social life of non-Christian races uplifted
and made more salutary by an evangelical reform-
ation of religious faith and practice ? In answering
this question we should not ignore or minimize all
that is socially valuable and morally commendable
in the ethical incitements and restraints of non-Christian
faiths. In several respects we may find their influence
to be worthy of respect and conservation. It is safe
to say, however, that every admirable and morally
wholesome tendency of the social code of ethnic faiths
is likewise endorsed and nourished by the influence
of Christianity ; while in this connexion it may be
well also to recognize the fact that there are certain
social features more or less condoned and upheld in
Western nations which are not traceable to Christian
instincts and tastes, and which missionary teachers
have no desire to introduce and perpetuate elsewhere.
Interesting subjects for discussion are suggested
in this connexion by such questions as the following :
What social effects of value may be expected from a
more spiritual conception of religion than is usual
amid the formalities of ethnic faiths ? What results
of an elevating character may a community hope for
which has succeeded in breaking with idolatry ?
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 479
What general progress may come from the overthrow
of superstition ? What pubUc benefits may result
from a more intimate association of a pure morality
with devout heart religion ? What measure of social
uplift may be secured by a high order of religious leader-
ship ? What beneficial effects may be expected to
accompany the establishment of religious liberty,
and the suppression of the persecuting spirit ? And,
finally, what happy results may accrue in the social
life of the home and the community from a faithful
and cheerful observance of one day in seven as a
Sabbath of rest and religious culture ?
The perils of formalism are recognized by all stu-
dents of the religious progress of the race, and no one
can doubt that it detracts seriously from the social
value of religion. It deadens the moral perceptions
of the individual member of society, so that his example
to others, who quickly detect externalism, becomes
profitless, if not wholly inoperative, and the incentive
which attaches to sincerity and heart fervour is either
wanting, or leads in the wrong direction. '* If, there-
fore, the light that is in thee be darkness, how great
is that darkness ! *' is the scriptural monition in all
such cases. The Gospel quickens the spiritual per-
ceptions, and guides men into a more adequate com-
prehension of what religion should mean to humanity.
It gives a joyous and hopeful outlook to Hfe, guides
the conscience aright, resists the tendencies of pessi-
mism, opens the door of usefulness, and restores, as
it were, a character to manhood which is of public
value. Is it not plain that the character of a spiritual
Christian is a valuable asset of society, his example
a power for good, his kindness of heart a benediction,
his missionary zeal a leaven in the social lump, and
his life itself an evangel ? .
48o SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
The decline of idolatry assuredly opens another
vista of social advance. The waning of the worship
of idols lifts a national and racial peril, which tends
irresistibly in the direction of degeneracy, and, if
persiste'd in, must result in moral captivity, sorrow,
and demoralization. The idolatrous world of to-day
is no exception to this law of social deterioration,
which has worked inexorably through all ages, and
will continue so to do as long as man clings to the
worship of what is beneath him in the scale of creation,
thus humihating his manhood, and forfeiting his
standing in the ranks of God's nobler creatures. The
dominance of idolatry works in many ways to the
detriment of society. It is costly, and involves an
enormous economic waste, without adequate or help-
ful return. It imposes needless suffering upon multi-
tudes through their vain dependence upon the assumed
healing power of a graven image. In seasons of pes-
tilence and calamity the thoughts of whole communi-
ties are turned toward the dumb, unresponsive idols,
believing them to have the power of intervention and
relief. It becomes, therefore, a beneficent ministry,
as well as an imperative duty, for Christian missions
to endeavour, with all kindness and tact, yet with
loving firmness, to discredit idolatry and to lead
men to the more rational worship of the true God.
Testimony from every section of the mission world
indicates that the reign of the idol is waning, and
that men are becoming manlier, and women nobler,
because of the passing of its deadly sway.
Superstition, like idolatry, is a social incubus, and
for similar reasons. It involves the same tendency
to useless expense, amounting to scores of millions
annually. It implies the same vain struggles, the
same blind gropings, the same debasing fears, the
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 481
same cruel devices, and the same misguided efforts
to meet the problems, anxieties, and emergencies of
life, with only wasteful and worthless remedial expe-
dients. There is no more pitiful and depressing
spectacle than to witness the impotent appeals and
the futile sacrifices — many of them costly and horri-
fying— to which the deluded victims of superstition
resort, in order to escape impending perils, and to
secure deliverance from present calamities. The spec-
tral throng of demons seems to haunt the imagination
of the victim of superstitious delusions. The wiles
of sorcery, and the often cruel decrees of masters of
the Black Arts, not only are regarded as law to be
implicitly obeyed, but they represent, as a rule, the
last hope of despairing souls. To the fraudulent,
haphazard diagnosis and quack treatment of these
wizards of sin many of the most important and vital
interests of life are submitted. Can any one doubt
that these besetments of superstition involve an
incalculable social injury wherever they hold sway,
and that their debasing power where the best interests
of society are concerned is literally beyond estimate ?
The witch-doctor may assume almost any role of
criminal attack upon society which his puerile ignorance
or knavish design may suggest. The attempt to pre-
vent or cure disease by superstitious means deprives
a community of the advantage of sane and scientific
ministrations. In the same misguided fashion false
and ruinous judgments are pronounced concerning
the secrets of success and prosperity, when the real
credit should be accorded to commendable diligence,
faithfulness, and capacity. It follows, therefore, that
the man who by the proper use of means has achieved
success becomes at once an object of unjust suspicion,
and malicious evil is quickly plotted against him, on
CO. I I
482 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
the ground that it is only by the aid of the spirits that
he has been able to surpass others. He is thus sum-
marily condemned as an enemy of society, in league
with demons, so that disaster, and perhaps death,
are considered but his rightful deserts.
In every mission field — we may say it without
hesitation — the break with superstition is constantly
growing more pronounced and uncompromising. In
many places — even amid the darkest African environ-
ment— we may read of souls set free, and enabled to
effect a final breach with the dismal and enslaving
past, culminating often in the burning of charms, the
destruction of fetiches, and the stout-hearted, resolute
casting out of the whole brood of unseemly errors.
Men and women breathe more freely, and life is bright-
ened with new hopes, while in thousands of communi-
ties the dread visit of the witch-doctor has been
exchanged for the gentle evangel of the messenger
of Christ. The distressing terrors of superstitious
fears give place to the calm trustfulness, the cheering
assurance, and the orderly peacefulness of a Christian
community. The whole spirit and atmosphere of
society can thus be transformed by the freedom and
joy of an abiding hope in Christ. Communities
hitherto demon-ridden may sit clothed and in their
right mind, under the protecting care of the all-loving
and all-powerful God, who becomes their *' refuge
and strength, a very present help in trouble."
It is also an essential feature of the missionary
programme to bring about in every community those
wholesome social results which follow the association
of morality with religion. Missionary instruction,
whether religious or educational, may be regarded
in all its bearings upon moral standards as unreservedly
committed to the advocacy and defence of the moral
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 483
code. That this struggle toward the goal of morality
as inseparably identified with religion is producing
hopeful results in mission lands cannot be doubted.
Testimony to this effect is to be found in the Report
of the recent " South African Commission on Native
Affairs.'* The Commission was appointed in 1903,
and its Report was published in 1905, under the title
of '* The Natives of South Africa," followed in 1909
by a supplemental volume, entitled " The South
African Natives.'* In the Report of 1905 the influence
and necessity of religion as an incentive to good morals
is strongly advocated, and it is stated that *' the
weight of evidence is in favour of the improved morality
of the Christian section of the population,'' while it is
further asserted that " there appears to be in the native
mind no inherent incapacity to apprehend the truths
of Christian teaching, or to adopt Christian morals
as a standard." Christianity is declared to be one
great element for the civilization of the natives, and
the Commission is of the opinion that regular moral
and religious instruction should be given in all native
schools. It can be clearly demonstrated from the
criminal records of native society in South Africa
that only an infinitesimal percentage of those who
are connected with Christian Churches is convicted
of crime. It was stated in a recent Church Council
that the proportion in Natal was only four per cent.,
and, according to the testimony of Mr. H. H. Pritchard,
Public Prosecutor of Boksburg, out of 13,000 natives
convicted there of offences against the law, ranging
from being without passes to the crime of murder,
only four were in the membership of one or other
of the native Churches.
The supplemental volume of 1909 contains (page
229) this important testimony : ** One thing is clear.
484 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
The results achieved by the missionaries of the various
Churches show that by reUgious and moral training
and education adapted to his needs and capacities,
the native can be fitted to fill a place of great useful-
ness in the community. He can be raised to higher
levels of living. He can be disciplined in habits
of independence and self-control. But the work of
the missionaries needs general recognition and sup-
port."
So also moraUty in India, China, and Japan is
being recognized as a necessity in a true and wholesome
life. There is much ethical discontent at present in
Japan. The standards of Christian morality are
attracting thoughtful attention, and exacting in some
instances the most respectful and even reverent
admiration from the leaders of national thought. It
is being frankly acknowledged among Japanese patriots
that the morals of Christianity are needed in Japan
as well as elsewhere. Exemplary religious leader-
ship is also a public benefit which missionary success
brings to society. Pastor Hsi's name is fragrant in
the Churches of Christendom wherever his biography,
by Mrs. Howard Taylor, has been read. He repre-
sents hundreds among Chinese Christians of like
character and devotion. Dr. Neesima has been hon-
oured and loved in the West almost as much as in
his own country, and a throng of noble Japanese
pastors, philanthropists, and educators have followed
in his steps. Dr. Imad-ud-Din — preacher, scholar, and
author — of India, and a long list of men of devout
character and sterling worth, as well as of sincerely
pious women, whose lives have been a power in all
sections of the country, give added lustre to the
Christian leadership of the Indian Churches. The
Rev. Boon Boon-Itt, whose recent decease is so deeply
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 485
lamented, was a '' crown of rejoicing*' in Siam. Pao,
the " Apostle of Lifu," one of the Loyalty Islands,
may be justly regarded as an evangelist of heroic
type. The native preachers and teachers in New
Guinea, gathered largely from among the converts
of the South Sea Islands, have been men and women
of courageous spirit and lofty faith. Bishop Crowther
may be counted as a typical man of God amid the
African darkness. Numerous pastors, teachers, and
evangelists, of fine record in other African mission
fields, including Madagascar, might be named in this
list of worthy religious leaders. There have been
many native women, also, who have served in various
missions as teachers, visitors, and Bible-women, with
signal credit to the Christian name.
The promotion of religious liberty is another
ennobUng social result of the missionary propaganda.
The persecuting spirit has long been a relentless foe
to the social peace and happiness of mankind. Untold
misery has been inflicted upon human society through
the workings of religious tyranny, which has proved
itself one of the most subtle and resistless instruments
of injustice and cruelty that, in various ways, and
under different auspices, has tortured the race. It
is only by slow and painful struggles that religious
freedom has been attained in certain favoured por-
tions of the earth. Even the lessons of a generous
tolerance in religious opinion and practice have been
learned by many with more or less reluctance, and in
some instances only after bitter conflicts, bringing
in their train much distress and suffering.
In connexion with the entrance and work of the
missionary, and no doubt, in a measure, in response
to his influence and the beneficent trend of his enter-
prise, a great and marvellous change has come about
486 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
in the attitude of many foreign states toward religious
liberty. Credit should be given, however, in this
connexion, and that generously, to the political
influence of Western power, as embodied either in
their colonial administration, or in their treaty pro-
visions, which has secured immunity from reUgious
persecution on the part of Asiatic or African states.
This is well, and a cause for thanksgiving, but its
effectiveness after all depends largely upon the courage
and energy with which these public guarantees are
guarded by the foreign powers. It may be noted
with gratitude, however, that in India, Burma, Uganda,
and elsewhere under British rule, as well as in almost
all the Native Feudatory States of India, and in Siam,
under her enlightened ruler, there is recognized free-
dom of conscience. This is also notably true in Japan,
since the voluntary withdrawal, in 1873, of the Edicts
against Christianity, and the promulgation of the
Constitution in 1889, with its famous Twenty-eighth
Article granting full religious liberty. It should
never be forgotten that to Verbeck, an American
missionary of the Reformed Church, as much as to
any other one man, the establishment of religious
liberty in Japan is due. Not that this fact is for-
mally and officially on record in Japanese history,
but rather that it may be credited to him as the result
of his unofficial influence and steady advocacy of the
principle of religious liberty, during the entire period
of his contact with the Japanese authorities in the
formative era which shaped to such a momentous
extent the future of the empire. The Japanese them-
selves are now discovering that at the time of their
great national transformation Verbeck was an inspira-
tion, a guide, and a prophet, in one of the most stren-
uous periods of their history. On the day of his funeral
IN MODERN FOREIGN MISSIONS 487
a remark of a Christian Japanese layman was over-
heard, to the effect that : ''To this man alone we
Japanese are indebted for the religious liberty we
enjoy to-day/*
The benign provision of the Sabbath as a day of
rest and religious privilege has been carefully guarded
and conserved by missions. The " Japan Sabbath
Alliance/' constituted in 1902, is creating a public
interest in behalf of a becoming respect for Sunday.
In India, also, there are organizations whose object
is to safeguard the Sabbath as a sacred rather than a
secular day. The " Lord's Day Union " of Calcutta,
and the " Lord's Day Observance Committee " of
Madras, are examples. Thus, in various mission
fields, in spite of difficulties and hindrances, the Lord's
Day is honoured in native Christian communities,
and the social as well as the religious life of converts
has become in this respect exemplary and creditable.
Only one who has lived amid the turmoil, confusion,
and noisy business activity of the non-Christian
Sabbath, can fully appreciate the quiet dignity, the
peaceful calm, and the charming social uplift which
the introduction of the Christian Sabbath, with its
privileges and the hallowing power of its sanctity,
brings into a community where it is gladly and cheer-
fully observed.
We may say in conclusion that the outstanding
need of the world just now is the exaltation of religion
to its proper place, as the controlling and guiding
force in the entire life of man — individual, social,
national, and international. We would not hesitate
to add also, as a suitable and even necessary corollary
of this attitude toward religion, the recognition of
Christianity as a divinely appointed and supremely
efficacious ministry to the higher nature of man, em-
488 SOCIAL INFLUENCE OF CHRISTIANITY
bodying the noblest rule of righteousness for the
practical guidance of his life, with Christ Himself as
its central figure, combining in His exalted personality
the supreme fact of an Incarnation, and the com-
passionate mission of a Saviour.
The study of social phenomena, especially in their
ethical relationships, without due attention to a
supernatural revelation, or rather without taking
into consideration religious influences from a higher
source than man's immediate environment, is like
the study of plant life without reference to the sun,
or the investigation of astronomical and meteorological
phenomena while ignoring the solar system. Some
light, no doubt, may be obtained, but it will be only
dim, partial, and inadequate, as compared with the
clearer vision which a more inclusive survey will
give. The basic moralities, and the uplifting spiritual
tendencies, of a truly helpful social code will be found
in the last analysis to be given from above, rather
than evolved from beneath.
XII
Modern Scientific and Philosophical Thought
Regarding Human Society
By henry JONES, M.A., LL.D., Professor of Moral
Philosophy in the University of Glasgow.
ARGUMENT.
I. Much Confusion of Thought exists regarding the Value of Scientific or
Philosophic Theories of Human Society, but some things stand out clear
amidst the Confusion : (i) It is too soon to speak of a science or philoso-
phy of Human Sciences ; (2) Practice must precede Theory ; yet
(3) Moral and Social Sciences are not helpless ; (4) Society progresses
by Reflexion ; (5) such Reflexion is not exclusively philosophical ; (6)
Difference between " ordinary " " scientific " and " philosophic "
consciousness is over-accentuated ; (7) Philosophy and Ordinary
Reflexion are rooted on the same general Experience ; (8) The Contri-
bution of Philosophical Thought needs to be valued more accurately.
II. The Contrast between Scientific and Philosophical Thought regarding
Human Society and Christian Thought is Injurious to Both, for (i)
Authoritative Rehgious Truth cannot suffer from examination ;
(2) Intellect and Emotion must not be divorced in the field of Social
Science : and (3) Christianity is wronged in being distinguished from the
purpose of science and philosophy or denied the use of their methods,
results and spirit.
III. Christianity is not identical with any Special Theory of Social and
Political Life, and our conceptions of Citizenship are due to Greece and
Rome, and not to the Hebrews.
IV. While too much value cannot be attributed to the Ideals of Christianity
they are practical hypotheses that gain as well as give meaning in
being applied, (i) The splendour of the Christian ideals lies in the great-
ness of their promise ; but (2) the hfe that reveals it must be experi-
enced and (3) the significance of the conception native to Christianity
has been only slowly discerned by poets and philosophers. {4) The
same service is being done by science and philosophy in regard to
human society. (5) Hence the Christian Ideals must be placed in
the context of the ordinary world.
V. Philosophy appears when some form of civilization has grown old. (i) Its
primary function is to be a witness to the unity of the world, and the
wholeness of life, (2) To-day the task of scientific and philosophic
thought is to teach the implication of man in mankind, of mankind in
man, and of nature in both. (3) In endeavouring to substitute one
metaphor for another, that of society as an organism for society as a
machine, it is not only recognizing a principle, but seeking to follow
out its consequences. (4) It insists that rights can be claimed only
on the ground of the performance of duties, for bankruptcy lies in
the way of claiming the one and neglecting the other. {5) The attempt
might be made to gain rights without accepting duties, but this is not
likely, for the acquisition of power generally teaches the use of it,
and the Christian ideals will right themselves after every trial, provided
they are trusted.
XII
Modern Scientific and Philosophical Thought
Regarding Human Society
There is much confusion of opinion regarding the
value of scientific or philosophic theories of Human
Society. We do not know with any precision what to
expect from them in the way of practical guidance.
We are divided between mistrust of abstract theorizing
and our clear consciousness of the efficacy of systematic
thought in other provinces. We can hardly maintain
that ignorance of social laws brings no risks, or deny
that mere empiricism in politics, which finds the right
way by exhausting the possibilities of error, is a very
expensive method. On the other hand we are not
prepared to take the advice of Plato and make our
philosophers kings — if we could find them — or our kings
philosophers. We do not know how either to accept
or to reject the pretensions of the political theorist,
nor what value to set upon his contributions. And I
am not sure that we do not sometimes accept what
we should reject, and reject what we should lay to
heart.
But there are one or two things which stand out
clear amidst the confusion.
In the first place, it is too soon to speak of a science
<91
492 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
or philosophy of human society. It has not come as
yet. There is no theory which commands or has a
claim to general acceptance. " Principles taken upon
trust, conclusions tamely deduced from them, want
of coherence in the parts and of evidence in the
whole " — the well-known plaint of David Hume, applies
in this province. Not that human society is devoid of
its own essential structure and functions. There are
conditions without which it could not arise, or main-
tain itself. Human Society is the expression, and, by
far the fullest expression, of human nature, and is as
much subject to laws. But our accounts of them differ.
There are many theories of the origin and nature of
human society and, at best, only one of them is correct.
Political philosophy at present is very much in the
condition of the science of biology before Darwin. Its
votaries are accumulating data ; there is much observ-
ation of social phenomena and we are rich in " Re-
ports." But the architectonic principles that shall
give systematic coherence to these data, and set free
their significance, have not emerged. Our reflexions
upon social phenomena are tentative, hypothetical
and sporadic. The sciolists have all the confidence.
Men who have some sense of the severity of the scientific
or of the negative dynamism of the philosophic method
have only hope. They find the path of systematic
thought much^obstructed in this region. It is not easy
to be dispassionate, or to strike the personal equation
in social matters. Human society is very complex;
it comprises the premisses and all the conclusions of
man's interaction with his fellows and with his natural
environment. It is the expression of endlessly numer-
ous and diverse passions and warring purposes ; and
all of these are in constant process of change. It is
never the same at different epochs ; history repeats
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 493
itself, but never accurately. The changes in the
structure of society are all organic, for it is a living
thing : and all organic changes travel through and
modify the whole structure.
In the second place, there is a very real sense in
which practice must precede theory. The meaning
of an action is never clear nor full till after it is done :
we must see how it interacts with its context and await
the issue. Hegel, who did not want speculative bold-
ness and who has done more towards social philosophy
than any other writer except Plato and Aristotle, warns
the philosopher away from the didactic method.
Philosophy comes too late to say how the world* 'ought
to go." The fact must come before the theory : stars
and planets before astronomy : the moral and social
world before moral and social philosophy. *' Philo-
sophy gathers up the meaning of a civilization which
is growing old : it comes out, like the owl of Minerva,
in the evening twilight.''
But if the moral and social sciences can never be
predictive in the way in which natural science can fore-
tell the tides, it does not follow that they are helpless.
Society changes because it is permanent. It is ** immor-
tal through generation,'* to use the phrase of Plato.
''There is an immortal principle in the mortal crea-
ture." There are conditions without which no society
can come to be or prosper ; and we are not ignorant of
all of them. The vast experimentation of human
history has not been void of results.
Tradition is continuous and cumulative, and society
progresses, were it only in the poor sense that it is be-
coming more complex and that both its evils and good
are on a larger scale. This takes place through re-
flexion, by which the lessons of the past are extracted,
and it is the special business of philosophy to reflect
494 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
— to turn the mind inwards or backwards upon its
own operations and results.
But it is an error to attribute such reflexion ex-
clusively to philosophy : just as it is to think that babes
and sucklings are wise because they are babes and suck-
hngs. Philosophy suffers detriment from being dis-
tinguished too abruptly from ordinary experience.
When the philosopher is about to speak, men are apt
to strike an attitude, not always reverential. He is
supposed to lack the experience of ordinary men, as
if he did not feel when pinched, or ginger were not hot
in his mouth ; and he is supposed also to be more in-
different to the teachings of experience. Does he not
employ a peculiar method of his own, moving to his
results along an d priori road ; and does he not delight
in abstractions ? He is very well-meaning and estim-
able, in his own transcendental way, but is he not a
somewhat poor judge of the shadows of the cave and
an unpractical guide in the business of living ? The
man of the world turns a deaf ear to the theorist,
quite unconscious that in rejecting the theories of his
contemporaries he is the victim of the theories of their
predecessors. But Naaman, the practical politician,
never does listen to Elisha the prophet. " Are not
Abana and Pharphar better than all the waters of
Israel ? May I not wash in them, and be clean ? *'
How far the theorist is himself responsible for the
impression he has made I do not know. The philo-
sopher is certainly a charlatan if he puts on airs ; for
no one should know better how vast is the ocean and
how small is his boat. But the difference between ** the
ordinary,'' " the scientific '' and " the philosophic
consciousness " has been over-accentuated. After all
there is only one way of knowing. All minds
have the same essential structure and perform, more
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 495
or less successfully, the same functions. There is no
difference between thinking and thinking, except in
persistence and thoroughness. No one neglects facts
— not even the philosopher : and no one takes them as
they stand — not even the most sturdy member of the
common-sense school. There is no d priori method,
for there is no thinking without premisses ; and even
abstractions are extracted from '* facts *' and from
nowhere else. The philosopher is the brother of the
ordinary man ; and even the latter cannot get at '' facts "
without considerable thinking ; for, unfortunately, facts
are not ** given " unless they are ** taken '' ; and if their
meaning is in them, it has to be apprehended.
Furthermore, both philosophy and ordinary re-
flexion at any period have their roots in the same general
experience. We are all alike the vehicles of traditional
conceptions and social customs. Society forms us,
and its beliefs and habits enter into the very constitu-
tion of our minds, long before we can react upon them
in the way of criticism. So that, in truth, it is society
which criticizes itself in us, producing us for that end
that its wisdom may ripen through the spirits which it
educates. The philosopher differs from his neighbours
only in that his reaction is more deliberate and purposive.
So far from deriving pre-eminence from his singularity,
it can come only by his entering more fully into the
common traditions. To become the teacher of his
times he must learn from his times, and be their fore-
most pupil. He will be the more effective critic and
reformer, the more ardent his discipleship. I should be
inclined to estimate the value of a philosophic theory
by its affinity to the general thought of its time,
although sometimes it has to wait a little for recog-
nition, especially if, like Carlyle's Sartor, it appears in
a strange garb. It is a strong presupposition in favour
496 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
of a philosophic theory that it is in essential accord
with the spirit of the period in which it flourishes.
There is no better indication of the value of
Modern Idealism, for instance, than that it cannot
pride itself upon its uniqueness. The main conceptions
it would demonstrate and apply find expression in the
music of our great poets ; they inspire much of our
religious teaching, and they are even working blindly
in the practical efforts of our social reformers and
statesmen. The theory of Hegel differs from that of
Locke and Hume not more than the poetry of Goethe
or Wordsworth from that of Pope and Swift, or the
social and political life of our day from that of the age
of Fielding. And it differs in the same way. The
world is too intensely practical a place not to make use
of great thoughts : and is not much interested in the
garb of him who utters them.
If this affinity between philosophical and all other
thinking were more clearly recognized its contribu-
tions would be valued more accurately. We should
listen first to the reflexions which carry our own best
thoughts just a stage further. We should be less con-
fident of the value'of reforms which involve violent de-
partures from our present ways of life. We should
discover, once more, that the true prophet comes not
to destroy but to fulfil. The stars in their courses fight
for him, because he has made out the paths they were
travelling upon ; and he hitches his projects to the best
tendencies of his time.
Amongst the contrasts which most call for examin-
ation in these days is that between scientific or
philosophic thought regarding human society, and
what is called Christian thought. The contrast is
generally drawn in favour of the latter ; but I think
it misleading and mischievous. It injures both, and
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 497
the latter most of all. The authority of Christianity
is pledged to unripe and unsound causes, and it is
implicated in social projects for which it cannot be
held responsible.
The contrast runs somewhat as follows.
1. The premisses of scientific and philosophic
thought when it deals with human society are regarded,
quite justly, as at once the results of, and open to, in-
quiry : those of Christian thought are, unwisely in my
opinion, attributed to a different origin and endowed
with a different authority. They are supposed to be
ultimate starting points rather than results, and to
await application rather than verification.
2. Scientific or philosophic thought is supposed to
be guided by a cold and abstract logic. It moves in
the domain of the mere intellect. But Christian
thought draws its material and its inspiration from
the emotional and volitional depths of human nature.
The experience it strives to interpret is more rich. It
accepts the nuances of human life amongst its pre-
misses. It is sensitive to the chromatic colours on the
limiting edges of human destiny, and catches the subtle
suggestions which, like the rays of the sun when not
yet above the horizon, shoot upwards from the region
where the finite dips down into the infinite. But
Philosophy rejects what it cannot define. It forgets
that there are ways to truth besides ratiocination ;
that the heart has its language as well as the head ;
and that its language is as much richer as is that of an
ancient literature saturated with associations than a
crabbed, commercial Volapuk.
3. It is only the language which comes from the
heart that can reach the heart. It alone can change
men and reform the world : for every true change
is a change of heart. But science and philosophy
c.c. KK
498 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
convict without convincing, and enlighten without
illuminating. They throw a cold and unimpassioned
light over the affairs of men. They help to reveal
things as they are ; but they kindle no revolt against
the wrongs of the world, and awaken no resolve to
combat them. Reason may be the source of truth, but
it is not the fount of desire. It may bring forth ideas,
but it fashions no ideals. It is only a spectator in the
market-place, and takes no part in the buying and
selling.
Now, I am not prepared to say that these contrasts
are altogether false : I do not think that any pure
falsehoods go about amongst mankind. It is certain
that the most mischievous falsehoods are half-truths.
I. I do not deny, for instance, that the Christian
religion furnishes truths which are authoritative ; that
they are adopted without examination and supposed
to need no verification. But they are authoritative
only because they are believed to be true. Hence they
cannot suffer from examination : and if they could be
proved they would not be less secure. The mathe-
matician has his intuitions, he anticipates results ;
but he never dreams that his intuitions are injured by
demonstration, which is the discovery of the implicit
premisses on which they rested. '' Christian thought '*
cannot gain by repudiating the methods of science
and the searching criticisms of philosophy on social
matters : least of all in an age which has become as
impatient of dogmatism in religion as it is of despotism
in politics. Wherever convictions are being formed
the individual judgment claims a vote ; and the period
of dictation is closed. '* Who knows not that Truth
is strong, next to the Almighty : she needs no policies
nor stratagems, nor licensings to make her victorious.
These are the shifts and the defences that error uses
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 499
against her power. Give her but room, and do not
bind her when she sleeps.*' I wonder when the Chris-
tian Church will listen to Milton, and trust her cause
enough to put it quite frankly in the context of
human history. For my part I think it can hold
its own. I should as soon buttress mathematics or
chemistry by calling it Christian Mathematics or Chris-
tian Chemistry, as cite Christianity in favour of my own
social or political convictions, and speak of ** Christian
Socialism,'* or " Christian Social Science.'* I do not
need the adjective if I am sufficiently convinced that
my principles are true ; and if I am to convince my
opponent I must first of all try to meet him on ground
that is open and common, and after granting him the
choice of weapons.
2. It is also just possible to study human society
without regard to the passions and volitions from which
it emanates ; and with as little purpose of reforming it as
the astronomer has of changing the course of the planets.
We can always have abstract thoughts and narrow
ends. A statistician may find nothing in human
society but things to add, subtract, and strike averages,
and a political economist nothing but the production,
distribution and consumption of wealth. Both men
are most useful, so long as they do not take the parti-
cular aspect of social life which interests them for the
complex whole of multitudinous facets, with which it
sparkles in ever changing colours.
But even the statistician and the economist do
not indulge in pure intellectualism, nor fail to convert
their thoughts into volitions. The avenue between
thought and practice is always open, and no one can
close it. Men act from their beliefs, however much
they may betray their creeds. Ideas are at once the
products and the grounds of volition. They 'come
500 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
from purpose, and pass into purposes, as naturally as
buds burst into flowers. The intellect is never
" mere,'* or " pure '* ; and the charge of '' Intellectual-
lism " is only an indication of shallow psychology,
and men make it only against opponents whose argu-
ments they cannot meet. Man's spirit is no loose com-
pound of intellectual and volitional and passionate ele-
ments, acting separately. One might as well suspect the
brain of working when the heart is dead as maintain that
the intellect speculates while the will and passions sleep.
Not even the most abstract truth is sought without being
desired or attained without the due degree of emotion.
The desire for truth, for mere truth, is a desire for the
good, and not seldom for that precise kind of good
which men most need. It is the pressure of the felt
need which directs the will to its intellectual research
and gives it purpose. They also serve who only stand
and think. And when, by much thinking upon human
society a philosophy or science of its structure and
laws emerges, our practical statesmanship will surely
be a little less blind, its paths a little less tortuous, and
its results a little less costly. Invention will follow
discovery, and the regulation of human affairs will fol-
low the comprehension of them, as surely — and with no
less vast an advantage — as in the domain of natural
science.
It is peculiarly inept and mal-d-propos to decry
intellectualism, or to appeal to the emotions against
the intelligence, in the field of social science. Passion
is apt to be too unbridled in this sphere, and to exercise
all too successfully its own destructive methods of
shutting out the wide world and shutting in the mind
amongst narrow issues and one-sided views. Passion is
never wise except when it is based upon reflexion ; it is
always foolish when it is opposed to the intelligence.
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 501
It " can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth."
No political philosopher known to me has lacked passion
for improving the world. He is doing the duty next
to hand, only it happens that his duty is to try to think
with all the power he can command ; for he believes
that if men are to walk more securely it must be in a
better light. It was deep love for the State and a
strong desire to see it based upon foundations that
endure which led Plato to conceive his ideal republic,
" on the pattern of the state which is in heaven." It
never dawned upon Aristotle, any more than upon
Kant, that there can be truths which are not practical.
It was his heart-weariness of the anarchy of the Civil
War which led Hobbes to write his Leviathan, and
it was his eminently practical interests which both
inspired and limited the speculations of Locke regarding
Civil Government. Spinoza strove to contemplate all
things sub specie ceternitatis, but he desired a better life
for mankind as ardently as Rousseau, even although
he did not tip his thoughts with the fire which kindles
revolutions. And can any one discover cold Intel-
lectualism in Burke, or Bentham, or Carlyle, or Mill,
or Green, the latest of the great exponents of the nature
of human society ?
It is a wrong to scientific men and philosophers
to charge them with lack of passion in their dealings
with human society; although they have striven to
prevent their own private passions from mingling
amongst their premisses, setting an example we should
try to follow. That they have neglected the play of
human passion in human history is a charge which
cannot be substantiated. Least of all can the social
philosopher who deals with Western Civilization refuse
to admit amongst its premisses the vast emotional
power of the eternal verities of the Christian religion.
502 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
Any science or philosophy which did that would stand
convicted of flagrant abstractness.
The wrong to Christianity that comes from dis-
tinguishing it from the dehberate reflexion and high
trust in truth which animates science and philosophy, or
from denying to it the use of their methods, results,
and spirit, is still deeper. To withdraw its doctrines
from their scrutiny is not to establish their authority
but to render them suspect, and at the same time it
throws the door open for any false prophet to prophesy
in its name.
The contrast between Christian and scientific or
philosophic thought is entirely unjustifiable. If Chris-
tianity is true it is scientifically and philosophically
true. There is no such thing as '' Christian thought,**
any more than there is Mohammedan, or Buddhist,
or Parsee thought ; though fortunately there is much
rational thought from Christian premisses. Nor is
there " Christian Science,** except that which is neither
Christianity nor Science. Least of all is there a
Christian theory of human society, which more deserves
the name of " Christian Socialism ** than '' Christian
Individualism.** Its characteristic doctrines, such as
the doctrine of the Fatherhood of God, and the brother-
hood of man, and of Love as the fulfilment of the law
express the ultimate conditions of both social and
individual welfare.
But it is a grave wrong to identify Christianity
with any special theory of social and political life. The
Christian religion is interested primarily in individual
character, that is, in the direct relation of man*s most
sacred inner life to his God. No doubt the light of
religion once kindled within will cast its rays upon the
whole region of man*s activities. Its supreme prin-
ciples are destined, I believe, to inform and to inspire
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 503
and to sanctify the secular states of the world, so that
they shall be merely secular no more. " In that day
shall there be upon the bells of the horses, Holiness
unto the Lord ; and the pots in the Lord's house shall
be like the bowls upon the altar. Yea every pot in
Jerusalem and in Judah shall be holiness unto the
Lord of hosts.'* But it by no means follows that
these principles can express themselves, or make
themselves good, in only one form of social or industrial
organization ; or that when they rule the world there
shall be property no more, or ' masters ' no more, and
' men * no more. A living principle can take many
forms in the course of its evolution. The Christianity
which can reform the world must retain its
universality ; and we had better not bind it down to
our own political creed, or make it responsible for
our social specifics and nostrums. Its business lies
amongst motives. It concentrates its forces upon the
citadel. Secure of the heart it is secure of the whole
domain of man's nature and actions. Looking to its
founder, and to his immediate disciples, I find in
their teachings the minimum of social theory, and in
their example the minimum of direct interest in social
and political questions. Jesus of Nazareth refused to
be entangled in questions of rights of property. '* Man,
who made me a judge, or a divider, over you? " Nor
would he assist the patriot, if patriot he was, to decide
whether tribute should or should not be given to Csesar.
There is as little political theory in His teachings as
there is biology or astronomy ; and Christian teachers
should be wary, after the sharp lessons of the past, of
extracting specific doctrines, socialistic or other, from
a teacher who was content to let loose upon the world
great principles and to let them work amongst the mass
of motives and institutions, even as the leaven works.
504 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
Stung with the evils of our industrial civilization and
its all too evidently tragical wrongs many good men
would overturn its institutions and advocate methods
of revolution. I should say to them that this cannot
be done, in the name of Christianity ; any more than
can the defence of them come from Christianity.
Christianity is silent as to the forms of social and politi-
cal life. Its hope, and its task, lies neither in over-
turning nor in maintaining the relations which connect
men in society, but in moralizing them. The method
of overturn (or of defence, for that matter) is much
more simple : it is always easier to deal with the outer
husk than with the inner life. But such a method is
not radical enough for Christianity. Its business is to
change the heart. The main relations which now
divide man from man, and link man to man in dividing
them, giving to each his own station and duties, are
probably essential to society. In any case they can be
adequately changed only from within. The ordinary
daily connexions by which man is bound to man in
his business, in public works, in offices, in all avocations
are capable of being touched to higher issues by the
Christian ideal. The workshops can become schools of
virtue, makers and not destroyers of men. Masters
may come to care for their men, even as they care for
their machines ; and men for their masters even as
they care for wage and short hours. Social relations are
meant to be moral relations, and to be interpreted first
as duties, and as rights only as a secondary consequence.
And Christianity, it seems to me, is a witness to this
cardinal fact. Silent about social machinery, leaving
that to be invented little by Uttle from age to age, it
inspires men with principles too great to be bound to
any fixed and final social or political form. It would
not be difficult to show, I believe, that for many cen-
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 505
turies together its primary task and best influence
consisted in liberating man from the world, and teaching
him the worth of individuality ; buying his spiritual
freedom at a great price. But it was not disqualified
thereby, when civilization was ripe to receive the
lessons, from teaching mankind the opposite aspect
of the same truth, namely that spiritual life consists
not in freedom from the world, but in freedom in a
world saturated with a spiritual meaning. Christi-
anity has helped to destroy empires ; for it was no
doubt responsible in great part for the decline and
fall of Rome, detaching from its service men capable
of generous aims and contemning all secular interests.
It is destined yet to help to build empires on a surer
foundation, and to come to a truer sense of its own
significance in doing so. But it was never a political
or social theory. Indeed, at no period in their history
have the Hebrew people differed from other Eastern
nations in the crudeness of their social and political
conceptions. We owe our conceptions of citizenship
to Greece and Rome, not less conspicuously than we
owe the inspiration of personal religion to the Hebrews.
And if I confess readily that the personal religion which
is adequate to the Christian idea must ultimately ex-
press itself in the free institutions of moralized states,
I must insist on the other hand that without the testi-
mony to the value of such institutions which came
from other peoples than the Hebrews, personal religion
was impossible. If perfect citizens imply a perfect
state : a perfect state no less implies perfect citizens ;
and state and citizen move towards perfection pari
passu,
I cannot give priority to either, for neither can attain
its best except through the other. And having been
freed from the narrow conception of history which
5o6 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
made only selected bits of it sacred, and from the dis-
tressing view of a God who was a Father to one Child
amongst the nations, and a Step-father to all the others
on His hearth, I am not able to fall back upon a less
generous creed. Christianity cannot gain by isolation,
nor does the preeminence of its religious and moral
revelation rest upon the impotence or worthlessness
of a social environment which was not of its crea-
tion.
'' The Christian ideal,'' it is said, '' and the influences
of Christian thought and faith have elevated and pene-
trated scientific and philosophic thought respecting hu-
man society, and scientific and philosophic thought can
concur with, encourage and strengthen the aspira-
tions and activities of the Christian Church/' This
is quite true. That the dynamic power which moves
the world lies concentrated in ideals is a truth which
neither individuals nor nations can lay too much to
heart. And the religious ideal is the most potent of
them all ; for in it is concentrated all the others. The
object of religion, whom we call God, stands at all times
for the best conception we can form of a perfection
that is in no wise limited. The exercise of religion is
life in direct relation to this perfection : life in God,
through God, for God. In this light and context, regarded
suh specie ceternitatis, ideas and desires are placed in their
true perspective. We come to see what is great and
what is little, what is well worth doing and better let
alone. So that the religious ideal is the dominant lord
of a good life. It is impossible to attribute too much
value to the ideals of Christianity.
But ideals do not come out upon the world in full
potency, as Minerva sprang from the head of Jove.
They are practical hypotheses that gain as well as give
meaning in being applied. To know what the Christian
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 507
principle of love means we must live the life of love.
It is in doing the will of God that man learns the doc-
trine. If at every step in its advance human society
must be guided by the ideals of the Founder of Christi-
anity, these ideals themselves in order to acquire their
meaning need the expanding forms of secular civiliza-
tion. We confess only a part of the truth if we speak
of these ideals as " penetrating and elevating scientific
and philosophic thought respecting human society."
Such a statement implies that the ideals have stood
fixed in their perfection from the first, and that science
and philosophy can only concur and substantiate
them. No ideals have such fixity, and philosophy can
have no dogmatic kernel. If Christian truth is to rank
first for philosophy, philosophy must discover its prim-
acy from its truth. Philosophy may find that in
*' Him '* all things consist, but it cannot presume it.
The world has already rejected the formula of Credo
ut intelligam, in favour of the formula of intellec-
tual freedom, Intelligo ut credam. Philosophy must
treat Christianity, even in its ideals, as part of the warp
and woof of human history, and subject it in all ways
to the laws of its development. And those whose faith
in Christianity is full and without flaw will welcome
the inquiry. There is no testimony better worth
obtaining than that of the impartial witness, except
that of the unwilling witness.
The splendour of the Christian ideals lies in the
greatness of their promise. The conception of the
Fatherhood of God is meant, I believe, to emancipate
nature from the bonds of mere naturaHsm. There
are explosive utterances in the New Testament
which are prophetic of the complete dominion of
spirit over nature. " Seek ye first the Kingdom of
God and his righteousness, and all these things
5o8 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
shall be added unto you " : for there is no rift,
or inconsequence between the moral order and the
natural. " If thou canst believe, all things are possible
to him that believeth." '' All things are yours for ye
are Christ's.'* " Be ye of good cheer for I have over-
come the world.*' " We know that all things work
together for good to them that love God." '* For the
earnest expectation of the creature waiteth for the mani-
festation of the sons of God." " If God be for us, who
can be against us?" asks St. Paul, and the question
leads to the magnificent challenge of all the powers,
and the confidence that in all these things we are
*' more than conquerors." The spirit of Christianity
at its highest is inconsistent with the view that the
victory of spirit is to be partial, and that " Nature "
can remain an exception to the benevolent purposes
of a benevolent will which can neither fail nor falter.
But the deeper meanings of such utterances are lost
to the world till it has experienced the life that reveals
it. A little child may understand in his way that
the Lord is his shepherd, and that he shall not want ;
but his understanding of it is not what it can be, if he
can say it after a long life during which he has often
strayed in the wilderness, known the pathos of sins
forgiven, become saturated with the sense of his weak-
ness and ill-desert, and lonely after many bereave-
ments. In a similar way the free enterprise of science
and philosophy has been necessary to lift the veil of
naturalism from the face of nature. For the deists of
the eighteenth century it was "a brass eight-day clock
set going long ago," with its author looking at it and not
interfering, except at times miraculously to move the
hands : for Arnold, and how many more, in our own
day, it is a monstrous mechanism indifferent to the
moral fate of man, never curbing its pride *' to give his
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 509
virtues room *' : to Professor Huxley it was a Macrocosm
pitted against the Mikrocosm, not even indifferent, but
biased against the good, encouraging with its rewards
of food and drink and Hfe and pleasure, the greedy maw
and the brute powers which win the battle in '* the
struggle for existence," and by no means the qualities
of meekness and lowliness, and patience and loving-
kindness. To meet such views, to make good the
Christian conception of a dominion of love which is
universal and knows no shallows or shores, we require
the poet and philosopher; so that to Goethe nature
might be the transparent vesture of divinity ; to Carlyle
the region of the Natural super-natural; to Words-
worth a world interfused with a Presence
Whose dwelling is the light of setting suns . . .
A motion and a spirit that impels
All thinking things, all objects of all thought.
If the conception is native to Christianity from the
first, the labour of many ages has been needed to bring
forth the poets and philosophers who could discern its
significance. Nor is the truth made out yet. It is
still a vision to the poet and a hypothesis — the sanest
he knows — for the philosopher. The principle of the
spirituality of nature is meant to be like the ocean
*' whose waters cover the sea " ; but the tide is not yet
full, and the waters have not as yet crept up the
creeks. Spirit, says Wordsworth,
Knows no insulated spot,. ^ .
No chasm, no solitude, but
From link to link
It circulates, the soul of all the world.
There are Christians who cannot say this, for fear of
Pantheism. They know no better way of leaving room
for man than by excluding God. And science has to
510 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
come in to support the visions of the poet, the hope of
rehgious faith and the anticipations of the philosopher.
It is coming in : it is experiencing, not the untruth, but
the insufficiency of its mechanical categories ; and in
its own slow, patient spirit, indurated by its habit of
meeting hard facts face to face, it is pointing to the
need of the conception of final ends, aware of the rela-
tion of nature to mind, and materialistic no more.
It is the same service that is being slowly done by
science and philosophy in regard to human society.
I have no doubt that the single principle of Christian
Love is adequate to the needs of man, whether as indi-
vidual, or as forming with his fellows the multiform
social institutions which are the fullest exposition of his
nature. But it needs experience, and reflexion upon
experience to lead out its contents. Nothing is truly
learnt except by experiencing it. The thought must
become a will, and the will a deed. To seek to learn
morality by rote, a religion by means of doctrine and
nothing more, is as futile as to try to learn carpentry
without handling tools. Our real knowledge coincides
with our real life. Indeed, moral and religious princi-
ples may become trite and stale if they are much talked
about before experience comes to give their meaning
reality. There are people from whose tongues moral
saws and religious maxims come all too trippingly,
souls made dull of hearing with talk that makes the
things of the Spirit cheap, who will hardly feel the
power of truths made trite. This is what makes the
times of religious revival, and the use of the methods
of revival so doubtful, or at least, so mixed, in their
influence. They aim at the emotions, and sometimes
exhaust them on emptiness. There are spirits which
will hardly bear bud and leaf any more ; for the flame of
emotion has passed over them and they stand seared, like
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 511
trees after a forest fire. This is also what makes the oral
teaching of morality and religion in schools so difficult
and even so dangerous an enterprise. Spiritual ideals
must be the immediate prelude to, nay must straight-
way pass into action. It is not enough that fine senti-
ments should be engendered, for we are not mere
spectators at a play. The doctrine cannot be divorced
from the doing, nor the life of the Church from that of
the world.
Once more, we thus arrive at the need of placing
the Christian ideals frankly in the context of the ordin-
ary world, claiming for them no privilege, or aloofness,
using no stratagems, but trusting to the power of their
truth. Science and philosophy must be left absolutely
free to inquire, and the world must be given ample
scope to test by actual experience the value of its
practical ideals. It must exhaust their abstract
aspects one by one, be stung by the falsehood of half-
truths, and driven from one imperfect rendering after
another of the Good it seeks, defining its visions as it
gains a less distant view of its goal. One form of civiliz-
ation after another has to be tried ; social institutions
must be set up and pulled down again in endless series ;
the tribal community must become the civic state, and
the civic state a nation and an empire, and nations and
empires must be bound together more and more intim-
ately in mutual dependence and usefulness. Status
must pass into contract, and contract into a unity of
spirit deeper than any contract. The rule of one must
become the rule of the few, and the rule of the few the
rule of the many and of all ; until there is attained
the service which is perfect freedom and the freedom
which is loyal obedience. And the spirit which ani-
mates the successive social forms must change step by
step with the forms themselves, for it cannot live except
512 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
in the body which it has itself built up little by little
from its environment. Indeed, the military state
implies the military spirit in its members ; and the
industrial state is the index, nay, the natural and inevit-
able expression, of minds set first upon material good.
A socialist state, even were it to be brought forth with
all the ideal perfection of machinery that enthusiasts
could desire, would be for citizens prone to assert their
'' rights " rather than to recognize their '' duties,"
only a more powerful and destructive weapon for indi-
vidualism. Ideals can live only in the medium of their
own atmosphere.
I have already said that philosophy appears when
some form of civilization has grown old. Ages of
reflexion are not, as a rule, times of great enterprise.
We are spurred into thinking, the psychologists tell
us, when we discover that appearances are false, that
we have been harbouring illusions and contradictions.
We reflect when we find ourselves in trouble. Old
traditions have turned out false, old formulae in politi-
cal and religious life have become inadequate. We
are not at peace, our life is divided against itself, and
we know not why. It is at such times that philosophy
finds its supreme function — and with it, always, poetry
if they are both at their best. By its reflexion it
accentuates the contradictions which irk and pain the
ordinary consciousness, it knows not why. It discovers
the seat of the disease.
He took the suffering human race.
He read each wound, each weakness clear.
And struck his finger on the place,
And said : Thou ailest here, and here !
Sometimes, though by no means always, it discovers
the truth which underlies, or rather which is implicitly
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 513
present in the contradicting elements and points out
the remedy as well as the disease.
The primary function of philosophy is to be a
witness to the unity of the world and the wholeness of
life. But the task it first performs in exercising its
function is that of criticism. It exposes the inade-
quacy of the principles which the working world has
adopted, it knows not whence, nor why. It traces
back its unrest, its doubts and its bewilderment to
these ideal causes ; for in the world of human action
there are no causes except ideals. It shows, in the last
resort, that human ills, social and individual, come
from man's ignorance of himself. For ages together
abstract and misleading conceptions of the nature of
the individual and of society have been entertained,
and have ruled men all the more despotically because
they had not thought about them. Individuality
seemed to mean independence ; personality to rest on
exclusion and to have uniqueness and particularity as
its essence ; freedom to be isolation and detachment ;
society to be an artificial convention that limited indi-
viduality and hindered freedom ; and social functions
to be merely negative and regulative and therefore to
be reduced to a minimum. Led by such conceptions,
for the world always follows them, we find a nation
striving to cast away its customs and traditions. It
would be without social conventions, a '' Nation of
Sanscullotes '' '* free ", beginning the world over again
at the ** Year One." But the attainment of such
freedom is found to be somehow the attainment of
what was not wanted after all. A great price has been
paid for a false good. Then reflexion, aided by cir-
cumstance, philosophy taught by the world (and by no
means always wearing the philosopher's garb) comes
in to explain. We have Lessing and Goethe, Kant
CO. L L
514 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
and Hegel at war with the ancient duahsms, which
set man against the world, nature against Spirit, the
citizen against the State and the State against Society.
An exclusive personality is found to be empty ; nega-
tive freedom to be mere impotence, for one can do
nothing against the world, but with it. Society is
bound not to be artificial, or alien ; not a limit nor a
hindrance to the individual, but the very stuff of the
individuality of its citizens. Bentham yields to Mill
and Mill to Carlyle (whom we have not done with),
and Green. Little by little philosophy, aided by the
poets, is teaching the implication of man in mankind,
of mankind in man, and of nature in both.
This, I conceive, is the task on which at the present
day the scientific and philosophic thought regarding
human society is engaged. It is making good gradually,
painfully and against much resistance, the practical
validity of this conception of the mutual implication
of man with mankind. It is helping men, not so much
by constructing plans of an ideal society as by indicat-
ing the causes of the unrest of our present practical
social life. It takes up social life as it finds it, and is
endeavouring to bring into explicit view its implicit
better thoughts — "helping Nature,'* as wise physicians
do, to medicate its own evils.
It finds men aware, as they never were before, of
their need of one another. They know that Society
is like a machine, whose parts are necessary, and must
fit into one another. Labour knows that it needs
Capital, and Capital that it needs Labour. But, as a
machine works under the law of stress and strain, every
wheel turning round by friction against its neighbours
which turn in the opposite direction, so do Labour and
Capital, each fortifying itself within itself by means of
unions and combinations, strive with much friction and
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 515
mutual loss against the other. Philosophy points to a
better conception, and indicates that the stress and
strain of a machine might conceivably pass into organic
co-operation. We have states in need of each other,
not one of them wilhng to be shut out of the world's
mart, but fully aware that to prosper it must trade in
the open market. Yet they would fain sell and not
buy, seeking their own good by hindering others,
and restoring the methods of mechanism ! Philosophy
tries to point out that such projects have to reckon with
the nature of things, and that the nature of things
prescribes the better method of organic unity, a com-
munity of enterprise and participation in a good which
is greater for each because it is common to all.
There is a sense in which the service of scientific
and philosophic thought is humble enough. It is in a
manner of speaking only endeavouring to substitute
one metaphor for another — that of society as an
organism for society as a machine. It is bearing
witness only to a hoary truth ; for who does not con-
fess that every real good is a common good, and
selfishness but stupidity, not meant to prosper.
But it is one thing to recognize a principle and an-
other to follow out its consequences. There is nothing
in all mathematics except the addition of one to one,
or the subtraction of one from one. The crudest
mathematician can do no less nor the greatest more ;
and yet they differ. So is it with regard to the ideal
aims of human society. It is one thing to admit
their abstract truth, and another to trace their way of
operation and to increase their power within the actual
structure of human society as it stands at this hour ;
and to make men see that the individualism which
is the assertion of a self that is exclusive, and industrial-
ism which is the pursuit of a good that we are unwilling
5i6 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
to be a common good, is neither good theory nor
successful practice.
We are slow to realize that the individuars own
substance is social, and that if in any way he thrusts
society from him, he is '^ tearing his own vitals/'
Our recognition of this truth is blind, as of a man who
holds a treasure in his hands and is not aware of its
worth. It is plain enough to the seller of goods that
if he is to prosper he must persuade his fellows of his
use to them. Does he not advertise to the whole world
that he is seeking their good, selling them the best
goods at the lowest prices ? The rewards of society
are evidently intended to pay for services. Let the
individual but supply its needs, perform in the niche of
his station the services it wants, and he will find, on
the whole, that society will ask and pay him for a larger
service. Even as things are, the world insists somewhat
punctiliously that the man who performs his duties
well will get his rights.
But plain as this truth is — plain as that one plus one
makes two — it is difficult to follow it in its application.
And in consequence we see men on all hands claiming
their rights on quite other grounds than the perform-
ance of their duties. I do not find myself compelled
to admit that the change from the military to the
industrial organization is merely the substitution of an
'' Age of Greed " for an '' Age of Violence." But there
is much truth in the view that for whole classes of
men '' the defence of personal rights in an indifferent
or hostile world is the first canon of duty. Till this
canon is satisfied, all else must be deferred. The moral
type which emerges, approved and enticing, is one in
which integrity is at least nominally honoured, and
justice is not nominally ignored, but in which alertness
and prudence, energy and practical judgment, point the
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 517
way to victory, while mercy, humility, indifference to
personal gain, exercised otherwise than as an indul-
gence supplementary to the serious business of life,
spell social failure and breed contempt.'' ^
Our very remedies too often imply that we are still
in the toils of the fallacy that our own good can come
only by the assertion of it against the good of others.
To do good to others it is held we must renounce our
own ; our own and that of others being incompatible !
" What if the times were ripe for the sacrifice of in-
dividual rights to a wider good?" asks the Socialist.
" Now that democracy is for the first time coming to
its own, does it not whisper in our ear a new possibility
— a social organization in which equality of opportunity
shall be created by the deliberate surrender of private
privilege." 2
** Not so ! " protest Science and philosophy, if I
comprehend their meaning. The social and the indi-
vidual good, not being incompatible, the individual is
asked to give up nothing worth holding. It is not
negation but dedication which the times demand ;
not the overturn of institutions by '' a democracy come
to its own," but the better interpretation of their ideal
meaning and the transformation of them from within.
Let me try to explain. A man's rights are things
he can justly demand from some one ; that is, his rights
against his fellows are their duties to him, and similarly
his duties to them are their rights against him. The
master's rights against his men are their duties to
him ; their rights against him are his duties to them.
Abolish duties and no rights remain. Duties and
1 Hihhert Journal, January 1909, pp. 317, 318. A most
excellent article.
* Ibid, p. 324.
5i8 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
rights are two names for the same things. But it makes
the greatest difference which of the two conceptions
we habitually employ : whether we seek our rights by
doing our duty, or claim our rights apart from service.
The spirit which does the latter is egoistic and unsocial,
whatever may be the forms of government or industrial
production which it employs ; on the other hand,
there is hardly any social structure that the former spirit
could not inspire to new usefulness and lift to a higher
power. I am not contending that the external body
does not matter, or that the spirit within is indifferent
to the social environment without : but I am maintain-
ing that a community whose spirit remains egoistic,
while *' democracy " exerts its power and changes the
machinery of the state, will have gained nothing by
the change except more efficient weapons for a more
universal greed.
I do not think that is the '* Socialism '' which
Socialists desire. But it is very much what the demos
is taught. Compared with the emphasis laid upon
rights and privileges in these times, whether we are
protecting those we possess or seeking those which
we do not, little is said of the duties. '' The sure
growth of the working people in class-consciousness,
and their entrance on political power, the consider-
ation of industry, the spread of social compunction —
all point the same way. Apparently the great changes
that are coming will divide the future order from the
present as widely as we are divided from the feudal
system.*' ^ Hence, concludes the writer, " It would
certainly do no harm to prepare ourselves, and yet
more our children, for these probably imminent and
drastic changes. We might well resume a somewhat
1 Hibbert /owm«/,January, 1909, p. 319.
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 519
discredited pursuit — the culture and training of the
interior Ufe from a new point of view."
There never was a time in the history of the world
when the inner life of a people was not to some extent
at war with its outward order, except in stagnant
communities. But the contradiction between them
was never so tragical or so monstrous as would exist in
a state whose political and industrial order demanded
of its members a clear consciousness of their own duties
and of the rights of others, and found in them only
the consciousness of their own rights and of the duties
of others. Nor do I think such a ''drastic change*' is
'' imminent " ; though I confess that many men seem
to be more eager nowadays to live on the State than
to live for the State. Bankruptcy lies that way, as we
all see clearly ; hence the poorer classes object to the
wealth of the rich, and the rich to the few shillings a
week of pension to men and women over seventy.
The view seems to be gaining ground that the State is
really a charitable institution, on whose resources each
class, and each townlet, must draw as much as it can,
putting as many of its causes on the local rates as can-
not be put on the imperial taxes and asking the Govern-
ment to protect its industry ; while the Chancellor of
the Exchequer stands alone for economy amongst the
warring claims, like Athanasius contra mtindum.
Of course such a condition of things cannot last ;
neither a state nor aught else can exist in virtue merely
of the forces of repulsion. But this does not secure the
world against attempting it. States, like individuals,
get into the rapids without intending to shoot the falls.
And indubitably a Socialism which has no cry upon its
lips except the Rights of the democracy is only assisting
Individualism to bring about the catastrophe. And it
is just possible that there is no way of learning the
520 SCIENTIFIC & PHILOSOPHICAL THOUGHT
evils of egoism except by exhausting the possibiUties of
it and giving universal greed universal power.
But it is not likely. The acquisition of power
generally teaches the use of it. What every one fears
does not come. The vision of the evils of the greed of
others helps us to understand our own. ** History is
didactic.'' The world is a peripatetic school, learning
wisdom as it goes. And I can imagine a time coming,
and coming all the sooner for the triumphs of democracy,
when men will learn to consider more gravely the social
incidence of their actions. The science and philosophy
of these modern times is certainly engaged precisely
on making this more clear. It is socializing morals ;
and it would moralize politics. For what other car-
dinal doctrine has it to teach except this immanence
of the whole in every part, and the essential implica-
tion of every life in every other ? And it is helped
in its task by the very consolidation of industry. The
growth of industrial organizations, the violence of the
shocks which threaten the stability of the whole state
when these organizations clash, the consciousness of
the need of the sense of responsibility within a demo-
cracy, when all outward checks are abolished and there
can be no restraint at all if the democracy does not
restrain itself, — all these things will help the social
philosopher as he insists that the State is, was, and
always must be, based on the consciousness of duty
rather than of rights. And I look forward to a time
when the Church, having learnt to trust in the virtue
of the ideals of Christianity, shall seek their authority
in themselves, and their meaning in the expanding
civilization of mankind. The geometrician does not
care much who Euclid was, nor the devout soul who
wrote the Psalm cxix. Truths for all time are inde-
pendent of every time — spiritual truths most of all. If
REGARDING HUMAN SOCIETY 521
" Christian Socialism '' is to save the world, it will
save it because the structure of society implies it. And
I would have Christian teachers find the power of their
ideals in the nature of things, guide the world not
in the costume of authority but in hodden grey, and
not implicate their Master in their temporary schemes.
The Christian ideals will right themselves after every
trial, provided they are trusted. The time is coming,
I believe, when the Church will be found ''standing
without at the sepulchre weeping " : '' They have
taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have
laid Him." For doubt is to be deep, and the things
of the Spirit alone will be hearkened unto, as they bear
witness to themselves. But if the Church will only
cease to seek the living among the dead, it will recog-
nize its Founder by His voice, and, turning itself, will
say unto him, " Rabboni.**
INDEX
Aaron's Breastplate, 246
Abailard, 282, 310
Abortion, influence of Mediaeval
Church against, 296
Absolution of Sins, 315
Acilius Glabrio, 202
Acton, Lord, History of Freedom,
336
Actresses, Roman edicts concerning,
269
Acts of the Apostles, on altruism,
160 ; on immortality, 221 note ;
influence of Christian Church, 202
note ; philanthropy, 158
Address to the Nobility, Luther's, 346
Adrian IV, 326
Adultery, Christ's teaching, 94
iEsthetics, 107
Africa, Vandals invade, 275 ; foreign
missions, 458, 483, 485
Against Celsus: see Oiigen
Agape : see Love Feast
Agricultural class. In Israel, 49 ;
period before Canonical Prophets,
51 ; creation of landless class, 53 ;
in eighth century, 56 ; Prophets
assert rights of, 57 et seq. ; laws
in time of Monarchy, 60 ; post-
exilic period, 66 et seq. ; Law of
Jubilee, 67, In Middle Ages,
wages, 338 ; conditions in Ger-
many, 340, 344, Modern, influ-
ence of Evangelical revival upon
conditions of, 383, 386, 391 ; evils
of migration to cities, 18 ; Old
Testament teaching and, 76-7
Alans, the, 275
Alaric, 240, 274
Albert the Bear of Brandenburg, 278
Albigenses, the, 303
Alcuin, 281
Aletta, 300
Alexander of Hales, 317
the Great, 125
Alexandria, Church of. Catechetical
School, 203 ; degeneration of,[232 ;
foundation, 199 ; wealth and social
influence, 203
54- 56; phil-
wealthy
of
Allen, Christian Institutions, quoted,
315
Almsgiving : see Charity
Altkatholische Kirche : see Ritschl
Altruism, Christ's teaching, 83 et
seq. ; in the Didach^, 160, 162 note ;
Old Testament teaching, 74 ;
Pauline teaching, 160 ; Roman
philosophers, 145-149
Ambrose, St., 242 ; De Institutione
Virgin, on women, 251 ; De Offi-
ciis, quoted on definition of Church,
244 ; philanthropy of, 259, 299
American Declaration of Indepen-
dence, 413, 440
Amos, social ideals of,
anthropy, 402
Amos, denunciation
classes, 56 note
Anabaptists, the, 370
Ancien Regime, Taine's, 419
Annates, 423
Anselm, 310
Antonine Empero-„, _:-»
Antoninus, Emperor, 144
Apologetics, 203
Apology, Justin's : see Justin
TertuUian's : see TertuUian
Apolo Kagwa, 454
Apostolic Succession, 432
Apprenticeship system, mediaeval, 369
Aquileia, 276
Aquinas, Thomas, 317 ; quoted, on
kingship, 307
Arcadius, Emperor, 241, 260
Arianism, 288
Aristides, 134, 169 ; Apology of, 261
Aristocracy, Jewish, growth, 52, 54,
56-58 ; absorption of small estates,
53-57 ; during last period of
Monarchy, 60 ; Isaiah's denuncia-
tions, 56-58 ; Nehemiah's reforms,
67-68
Aristotle, theory of State compared
with Christian, 26 ; social ideals
contrasted with Christian, 247-
249 ; how regarded by Mediaeval
Church, 282 ; practical aim of, 501
S23
524
INDEX
Arnold of Brescia, 325
Matthew, 120
Asceticism, Christ's teaching, 97, 106 ;
in Mediaeval Church, 320 ; in philo-
sophy, 146 ; influence of Reforma-
tion, 356
Asia Minor, spread of Christianity in
first century, 198, 199
Associations, a result of Evangelical
revival, 401, 402 ; mediaeval, 299,
300, 302 ; later mediaeval, 310 ;
Primitive Church, 228 ; growth in
Roman Empire, 135
Athanasius, 242
Attila, 275, 277
Augustine, St., quoted on civil life
of Christians, 267 ; his philan-
thropy, 257 ; pessimism, 287 ;
efforts to redeem prisoners of
war, 299 ; opinion of property,
258, 259 ; quoted, on women, 251
Augustus, Emperor, laws concerning
celibacy, 214 note ; family life in
time of, 138 ; the Games, 140
Aulard, M., quoted, on Napoleon, 437
Baptism, Sacrament of, institution
of, 89 ; in Mediaeval Church, 297,
315 ; in Primitive Church, 164
Baptist Missionary Society, 393
Barbarians, and Arianism, 288 ; in-
vasion of Roman Empire, 273-278 ;
effects of their invasion, 279 ;
effect of Roman law upon, 280 ;
influence of the Church upon, 278,
284, 289, 291
Barnabas, Epistle of, 161 note, 256
Barotsi, 468
Basil, St., 259
Baur, F. C, method of his investiga-
tions, 191 ; Church History of the
First Three Centuries, quoted, on
Universalism of Roman Empire,
204, 205, 207 ; on decay of pagan-
ism in Roman Empire, 209 ; on
essence of Christianity, 219
Baxter, Margery, 330
Beatitudes, the, 100
Bede's History of England, 'zS'j note
Beguines, 320
Belief, compared with Creed, 499
Benedict, St., Rule of, 319
Benevolence, Christ's teaching, 87 :
see also Charity and Philan-
thropy
Benifices, and French Revolution, 423
Beugnot, 239
Bible Society, 393
Bigg's Church* s Task under the Roman
Empire, 251
Bishops, the, in Early Christian
Church, 260 ; at time of French
Revolution, ^ig et seq.
Blind, Schools for the, 407
Boissier's La Fin du Paganisme, 251
Bonaparte, Napoleon : see Napoleon
Boniface VIII, Pope, 314
Book of Discipline, by John Knox,
352
Booke concerning True Christians, A,
by R. Browne, 365
Boon Boon-Itt, Rev., 484
Borgeaud's Rise of Democracy, 237,364
Boswell's Life of Dr. Johnson, quoted,
on Methodist preaching, 384
Bosworth-Smith, R., 195 note
Brace, C. Loring, Gesta Christi, 227 ;
quoted, on Church institutions in
Roman Empire, 229 note ; on
slavery, 231 note
Brent, Bishop, 466
Bridget of Sweden, 305
Britain, history in fifth century, 275
Broad Church Party, and Evangelical
revival, 398
Brotherhood : see Fraternity
Browne, Robert, 364, 365
Browning, Robert, 356
Bruce, Dr. A. B., interpretation of
mammon of unrighteousness, 86 ;
on parabolic teaching of Christ, 104
Buddhism, compared with Christi-
anity, III, 193. 195
Bulgarians, the, 277
Bundshuh, mediaeval, 341, 343
Burgundians, the, 275
Burma, Missions in, 486
Bussell, Dr., 123 note, 136
Butzer, 403
Caecilia, St., 202
Caesarism, 206, 247
Caesarius of Aries, 299
(^a Ira, song of 1790, quoted, 418
Caird, Edward, Evolution of Theology,
quoted, 130 note
Calas, Jean, 414
Caliphate, Western, 277
Calvin , and education, 368 ; social
programme contrasted with Knox's,
351 ; contrasted with Luther, 347,
348 ; fundamental principles of
his work, 347 ; nature of his work
in the Reformation, 403, 404 ;
influence in Scotland, 351 ; his ideas
of a theocracy, 348
INDEX
525
Calvinism in Scotland, 351 ; con-
stitution of Church, 364
Cambridge Modern History, 371
Camus, attitude towards State pay-
ment of Clergy, 430
Canaan, Conquest of, 49
Cannibalism, 466
Canon Law, 280
Carey, Wm., 393
Carlyle, A. J., MedicBval Political
Theory in the West, 253 note
Thomas, and Evangelical Re-
vival, 399, 402
Carolingian Empire, 291
Carthage, conquered by Vandals, 275
Church of, 199 ; benevolence,
228 ; degeneration, 232 ; growth,
203
Cartwright, Major, Take your Choice,
quoted, 440 ; principles of Govern-
ment, 441
Caste, Foreign Missions and, 465,
468 ; Primitive Church and, r66
Casuistry, Scribal, 94
Catacombs, the, 201 note, 202
Catechetical School in Alexandria,
203
Catelaunian fields, battle of, 277
Catherine of Siena, 305
Cato the Elder, and slavery, 141
Celebes, Dutch Missions in, 466
Cehbacy, Augustus' laws, 214 note ;
Christ's teaching, 96 ; in Mediaeval
Church, 305, 320, 357 ; and Primi-
tive Church, 261, 262, 266 ; women,
305
Celsus, 165 ; The True Word, 199
Characters and Events of Roman His-
tory, by Ferrero, 134
Charity, Christ's Teaching on, col-
lective, 102; private, [87, loi. In
Israel, legislation during Monarchy,
61, 62 ; In Middle Ages, 299-302 ;
abuses, 366 ; conception of, 366 ;
as penance, 316 ; influence of the
Reformation on, 367, 388 ; soci-
eties, 302, Modern, in relation to
Reform, 40, 41 ; Organization in
United Kingdom, 22 et \seq.y In
Primitive Church, 259, 260 ; effects
in Roman Empire, 227 note, 228,
In Roman Empire, instances of,
137. 138
Charles X of France, 439
the Great, 281
Martel, 277
Chartists, the, 442
Child-marriage, 462
Children, Christ's teaching, 96, 97 ;
exposure of, 214 ; Foreign Mission
work, 462 ; endowed Institutions
in Roman Empire, 137 ; labour
legislation and EvangeUcal Re-
vival, 392 ; Mediaeval Church work,
297 ; Modern problems, need for
scientific treatment, 406 ; Robert
Owen's reforms, 389 ; in Pauline
ethics, 172 ; United Kingdom
Poor Law system, 21 ; influence
of Church in Roman Empire, 250,
269
Chinese Missions, influence on educa-
tion of girls, 463 ; foot-binding,
467 ; morality, 460, 484 ; opium
vice, 467; national progress, 474,484
Chivalry, mediaeval, influence of
Christianity upon, 304
Chlodovech (Clovis), 275
Christian Charity in the Christian
Church : see Uhlhorn
Christian Institutions, Allen's, 315
Christian Philosophy. History of, 286
Christian Science, 502
Christian Socialism, 113, 499; and
Evangelical Revival, 399 ; and
WycHf, 328
Christian Theology of Apostolic Age,
by Reuss, 205 note
Christianity, (for Christ's teaching,
see " Jesus Christ " ; for the Church
as an organism see " Church " ; for
Christian doctrine concerning
marriage, slavery, etc., see those
titles), relation to Old Testament
religious standpoint, 5 ; modern
apphcation, 6 seq. ; continuity
in relation to changing conditions,
its progressive character, 8 seq.,
39 ; relation to social and political
reform, how far it may intervene,
33. 502 ; its fundamental principle
in Christ's teaching, 83, 183 ; its
universality and impartiality, 84,
no ; relation to modern thought
and science (erroneous views), 496
seq., 511
(Periods and landmarks), early
Gentile environment, 119-149;
and Roman philosophers, 144-150 ;
Jewish influences and surroundings,
157-164 ; Pliny's description, 164 ;
St. Paul's doctrine, 171 ; Apos-
tolic Age, 174 et seq., 196 et seq.,
201-204 ; relation to Roman Em-
pire, 205 seq., 227 seq., {see also
" Church " (2)) ; relation to Greek
526
INDEX
philosophy, 207-209 ; the Church
in the Empire contrasted with
Christ's ideal, 238 ; Marcus Aure-
Hus and Seneca, 247 ; monasticism
not a principle of, 261 ; in Middle
Ages, 287 seq. ; Evangelical Re-
vival, 393 ; French Revolution,
443 ; Rousseau's view, 416 ; mis-
sionary enterprise — effect on
heathen, 452, 469
Christianity Judged by its Fruits,
Croslegh's, 257
Christianity and the Social Crisis,
Rauschenbusch's, 254 note
Chromatins, 230
Chrysostom, Homilies quoted on
women, 252
Church, the (i) The Primitive (first
three centuries), the Agape, 175-
179 ; Apostolic Age, expansion in,
193. 194. 196 ; Asia Minor com-
munities, 171 ; " atheism " of , 220 ;
baptism, 8g, 164 ; bibliography,
227 note ; centres of influence, 197-
200 ; charity and benevolence,
227-229, 299 ; Constantine adopts,
184, 199, (numerical strength)
200 ; Corinthian community, 170-
note ; criticism of, 184 et seq. ;
discipline, 175, 180 ; attitude to
the Dispersion communities, 154 ;
guilds, 135 ; hymns, 163 ; Jeru-
salem community, 157 ; leaders
232, 260 ; influence in literary
circles, 203 ; the Martyrs, 219, 221 ;
Mass, origin of, 1 79 ; miracles,
222 ; Palestinian community, 157 ;
persecution 198, 199 ; post- Apos-
tolic Age, expansion in, 198, 200,
204 seq. ; proselytes (Jewish), 157-
164, 197 ; proselytes in Roman
Empire, 165-170 ; sacraments in-
stituted, 89 ; sacrifice and divine
service, 167 ; the State, 182 ;
attitude to State Offices, 182 ;
Thessalonica, 170 note ; unity of
Church life, 177; universalism of
Roman Empire, 204-209 ; attitude
to war, 303 : wealth and social
influence, 201-203 ; see also under
separate communities; and for
doctrine, see Christianity
(2) Influence on Roman Empire
(to end of fifth century), 237-
270 {see argument, 236) ; bibli-
ography, 267 note ; children,
rights of, 250 ; civic ideals, 263,
266 ; communism, 257 ; demo-
cratic character, 260 ; equality,
250-255 ; fraternity, 256 ; effect
on legislation, 267 ; on liberty, 255 ;
effect on monasticism, 261-262 ;
moral purity, 229 ; philanthropy,
228, 259 ; slavery, 230, 252 {see
also s.v. Slavery) ; socialism, type
of, 254 ; rights of women, 251-252 :
see also references (i) " Primitive "
(above)
(3) Mediaeval, 273-332 {see
Argument, 272) ; effect of bar-
barian invasions, 279 ; barbarian
converts, 285 ; catholicity of, 291 ;
child-life under, 296 ; chivalry,
304 ; classical learning, 282-283 ;
commerce, 358 ; education, 281 ;
the guilds, 311 ; liberty, principle
of, 306 ; Lollards, 327-332 ; mar-
riage, 354, 357 ; missions, 278 ;
monasticism, 318 ; papacy, rise
of, 313 ; penal code, 297 ; peni-
tence, doctrine of, 315 ; philan-
thropy, 299 ; poverty, 298-302 ;
the Reformation, 321, (pre-Refor-
mation movements), 335-372 ;
debt to Roman Empire 292 ;
Scholasticism, 309 ; slavery, 298 ;
society (theory as to social rank,
etc.), 369 ; war, 302 ; its wealth
attacked by Reformers, 324 ; posi-
tion of women, 304
(4) Modern, chaps, viii. (Refor-
mation) ; ix. (Evangelical Revi-
val) ; X. (French Revolution) ;
xi. (Foreign Missions) ; xii, (Rela-
tion to modem science and philo-
sophy) : summary of relation to
Social Problems, 29, 114 {see also
specially headings, " children,"
" slavery," etc.) ; function in
legislative sphere 36 foil. ; duties
towards society, 25, 29 et. seq. ;
inadequacy of machinery, 16
Church and State, relation examined
historically, 412 ; identified in
Israel, 45, 52, 75 ; Christ's teach-
ing, 91 ; Calvin's ideal, 348 ;
mediaeval papacy, 313 ; Mar-
siglio's view, 308 ; Puritan ideal,
365 : see further " State "
Church History of the First Three
Centuries : see Baur
Church Missionary Society, 393
Church in the Roman Empire : see
Ramsay
Church's Task under the Roman
Empire : Bigg's, 251
INDEX
527
Cicero, quoted on gladiators, 125,
139 ; on philosophy, 127
Citizenship, ideals of, Christ's, 108-
109 ; Christian Church 2nd- 5 th
centuries, 263 ; Christian (in relation
to modern state), 26 ; Greek, 125 ;
growth in Israel, 50 ; Prophets,
76 ; effects of Reformation, 358,
363 ; Roman, 125 ; how far due
to Greece, Rome, and Israel, 505
City Life, absorption of rural popula-
tion (its evils), 13, 18
City-State, 125
Civil Constitution of the Clergy, 431
Clan system, in Israel, 48, 49
Clarkson, T., 387
Class distinction, in Israel, 54 ; in
Middle Ages, 300
Claudius, Emperor, 143
Cleanthes, hymn of, 130
Clemens, the Consul, 202
Clement of Alexandria, his teaching
regarding property, 258 ; Pae-
dagogue quoted, on rights of
women, 252
of Rome, 185 ; quoted, on civil
government, 263 ; on fraternity,
257 ; on Christian persecution,
198 note ; on slavery, 85 ; on
thankofferings, 178
Clement to James, Epistle of, 162
Clovis, 275
Clubs, Roman, 135
Cohort, Tatian's, on equality of the
sexes, 252
Collected Essays of Sir J. Stephen
Collectivism, Christ's teaching, 98,
102
Colleges, for working men, 402
" Colossians, Epistle to the," 173 ; on
success of Primitive Church, 197,198
Columban, 315
Combinations, labour, 20
Commerce, Church and State in rela-
tion to, seventeenth and eighteenth
centuries, 383 ; its debt to Foreign
Missions, 473 ; control over legisla-
tion in modem State, 19 ; Luther's
views, 345 ; philosophic basis, 514,
515 ; and the Reformation, 358
Commodus, Emperor, 213
Common Law, 280
Communion, Holy (Eucharist, Last
Supper), institution of, 89 ; in
Primitive Church, 176-178 ; con-
ception of after third century, 179
Communism, Christ's teaching, 257 ;
of Primitive Church, 157-159
Competition, dangers of, in modem
economics, 18
Compulsory education, Luther and
Knox, 368
Concordat of 1802, 436, 438
Concubinage, 462
Conflict of Christianity : see Uhlhom
Congregation, and Revolution of 1830,
439
Conscience, in Christian ethics, 108 ;
in Stoicism, 129
Constance, Council of, 322, 323
Constantine, recognizes Christianity,
184, 199, 412 ; legislation, 268
Constantius, 241
Contemporary Review, August, 1886,
quoted, 192
Co-operative movement, and Evan-
gelical Revival, 402
Corinthians, Epistles to the (Pau-
line), on degree of influence of
Church, 202 note ; on weapons of
Church, 197 ; on Holy Spirit, 225 ;
on immortality, 221 note ; on love
of neighbour, 160 ; on Redemption,
222 ; account of the Last Supper
compared with the Gospels, 89 ;
on the sum of Christian ethics, 1 70 ;
teaching of, 170 note
Epistles to (Clement of Rome's),
on fraternity, 257 ; on slavery, 85 ;
summary, 185
Corsica, 275
Corvee, in Israel, 52, 64
Cosmopolitanism, its financial aspect,
7
Councils, by Haddan and Stubbs, 287
note
Covenant, Book of the, 54, 66 note
Covetousness, Christ's teaching, 99
Cranmer, educational schemes, 369
Creighton, Bishop, 370
Croslegh's Christianity Judged by its
Fruits, 257 note
Crowther, Bishop
Crucifixion, Abolition of, 268
Crusades, the, 303
Cures and the French Revolution,
attitude to Civil Constitution of
the Clergy, 431 ; abolition of cler-
ical privileges, 423 ; " cahiers "
in National Assembly, 422 ; and
rehgious liberty, 244 ; causes of
their revolt, 420-422 ; and State-
payment of, 427, 430 ; stipends
before 1790, 420
Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, 228,
232
528
INDEX
D'Alembert, and French Revolution,
422
Damiani, 317
Danton, 435
Daudi Kasagama. King of Toro, 454
Deaconesses, Homes for, 407
De Aleatoribus, 178
De Benedicta Incarnatione, 330
D6bidour's L'&glise et I'&tat en France,
iy8g-i8yo, quoted, on wealth of
Church, 419 ; on attitude of
Papacy to Revolution, 433
*'Dc Boigne, Comtesse de, Memoires
of, 419
De Broglie's L'Eglise et I'Empire ro-
main au IV ^ Sidcle on favourites
of Emperors, 242 ; on Christian
influence on legislation, 268
Debtors, legislation in Israel, 62 ;
influence of Methodists on legisla-
tion, 1 791, 391
Decius, Emperor, 201 note
Defensor Pads, by Marsiglio, 307,
309 note
De Institutione Virgin, 251
De Ird, (Sgweca's), quoted, on corrup-
tion of Roman Empire, 211 ; on
exposure of children, 215
Deissmann, 121 note
Deists, 378, 508
Democracy, relation to Christian
ideal, 7 ; influence of Evangelical
Revival, 384 et seq. ; and the
Church, 2nd-5th centuries, 260 ;
and the Mediaeval [Church, 307 ;
pre- Reformation tendencies, 324 ;
influence of Reformation upon
modem, 364 ; relation to religion
in England, 1 770-1 780, 439 ; les-
son taught by French Revolution,
443
De Offlciis, Ambrose's, 244
De Otio, Seneca's, 248
De Regno Christi, Butzer's, 403
De Rohan, Bishop of Strasburg, 419
De Tocqueville, and French Revolu-
tion, 421
Deuteronomy, social legislation in, 60,
61 ; quoted on duty, 74
Dexter, 364
Dialogues de darts omton'ftMS, quoted,
on passion for gladiatorial shows,
140
Dickens, Charles, 395
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities,
287
DidacM, the, and Baptism, 164 ;
quoted on brotherhood, 159 ;
quoted on discipline of Church
communities, 175;! on commun-
ism, 258 ; on Holy Communion,
176; on duty to neighbour, 162
note ; and offertory, 1 78 ; ethics
of philanthropy, 161
Didascalia, ethics of, 162 ; on dis-
cipline in Primitive Church, 181 ;
on Holy Communion thankoffer-
ings, 179 note
Diderot, 422
Dill, Dr., Roman Society from Nero
to Aurelius, quoted, on extrava-
gance in, 214 note ; on foreign
cults in, 216 note ; on Mithraism,
194 note, 225 ; on moral corrup-
tion, 210 note, 212 ; on scepticism
in, 215 note ; on social develop-
ment, 122 ; on wealth, 137 ;
Roman Society in the Last Century
of the Eastern Empire, quoted, 270
Dio Chrysostom, 145, 146
Diogenes Laertius, 128, 131
Diognetus, Epistle to, conception of
Christians, 169, 182, 266
Discipline, in Mediaeval Church, 316 ;
in Primitive Church, 175, 180
Divine Institutes, 256
Divine Origin of Christianity, 257 note
Divine Service, meaning in New
Testament, 168
Divorce, Christ's teaching, 94 ; influ-
ence of Foreign Missions, 462 ;
among Primitive Christians, 229 ;
in Roman Empire, 214
Dods, Dr. M., quoted, on Islam, 195
Dogma, History of, Hamack's, 193
Domestic Ethics, Christ's teaching,
93-98 ; of early Christians, 229,
230, 266 ; of Mediaeval Church,
305, 320 ; Pauhne teaching, 171 ;
influence of Reformation, 357 ; in
Roman Empire, 214 : see also
"Family"
Dominicus Loricatus, 317
Dominion, Wyclif's doctrine of, 327
note
Domitian, Emperor, 122, 212
Domitilla, 202
Drunkenness, causes and effects of,
among poorer classes, 15 ; influ-
ence of Foreign Missions upon, 457
Dualism, Christian refutation, 27
Duty, as correlative to " Right," 517 ;
Christ's teaching, 83, 84, 96, 98 ;
in Stoicism, 129 : see also Altru-
ism," " Brotherhood," " Children, "
" Enemy," etc.
INDEX
529
Eastern Empire, 276
Eberlin, 370
Ebionism, 154
Ecce Homo, quoted, 183 note
Ecclesiastcs, social ideals in, 70
Ecclesiastical History : see Eusebius
Economic Interpretation of History,
384
Economic Problems, modem, Christ s
teaching in relation to, 105 et seq. ;
competition, dangers of, 18 ; in-
fluence of the Evangelical Revival
on, 384 et seq. ; Old Testament
teaching, 76-77 ; teaching of the
Reformers, 350, 352 ; in Roman
Empire, 135 ; unemployment, 13
et seq.
Edmunds, John, 331
Education, compulsory, 368 ; ele-
mentary (inadequacy of modern
system,) 16 ; and the Evangelical
Revival, 382-384 ; and Foreign
Missions, 462, 468 ; Knox's
schemes, 352, 368 ; mediaeval
(influence of Roman culture and
the Church contrasted), the Refor-
mation, influence of, 368 ; tech-
nical (influence of Evangelical Re-
vival upon), 406 ; Universities
(mediaeval), 299 ; of women (Early
Church Fathers and), 251 ; work-
ing-men, 386, 401
Edward VI, 369
£glise et V Empire romain au /F»»«
Steele, V : see De Broglie
£glise et I'&tat en France, I' : see
D^bidour
Egoism : see Individualism
Egypt, cults, 193, 216 ; poor rate,
135
Eligius of Noyon, 299
Eliot, George, 395
Elizabeth, Queen, 369, 383
Emotions, the true function in life,
500 ; dangerous to religious growth,
510
Encyclopaedists, the, 414
Endowments, beneficent, growth in
Middle Ages, 299-300, 302 ; Primi-
tive Church, 228 ; in Roman
Empire, ia.d., 137 ; result of
Reformation and, 312
Enemies, love for, Christ's teaching,
84, 108
England, agricultural class (in Eliza-
beth's reign), 383 ; Church of
(influence of Evangelical Revival),
391 ; French Revolution (influence
cc
of), 442 ; Guilds (mediaeval), 310 ;
legislation in nineteenth century,
390 ; philanthropic movement (in-
fluence of Evangelical Revival),
399 ; Reformation (influence of),
369 ; Roman law (influence of), 281 :
see also "Evangelical Revival,"
" Education," " Reformation," etc,
England, History of, Bede's, 287 note
Environment, progressive degenera-
tion among poorer classes, 15 ;
influence on Christian living, 459 ;
influence on Christian thought,
511-512
Ephesians, Epistle to the, teaching
of, 1 71-173 ; on immanence of
Christ, 30 ; on influence of the
Church, 202 ; on martyr-spirit, 221
Epictetus, Dissertations, 127 note,
146 note ; his picture of ideal
missionary, 145 ; definition of
philosophy, 127 ; opinion of
women, 138 ; how far his writings
may be considered as a preparation
for Christianity, 208, 210
Epicurus, philosophy of, 127, 128 ;
contrasted with Christianity, 247 ;
how far a factor in the preparation
for Christianity, 208
Equality, in Christian ethics, 250 ;
in Stoicism, 249
Eschatology, 112; Stoic contrasted
with Christian, 249
Ethics, Aristotle's, 126
Eucharist : see Communion, Holy
European Morals : see Lecky
Eusebius' Ecclesiastical History, pro-
gress of Church, 199 note, 200 ;
social influence of Church, 203 ;
civil government, 264 ; on Martyrs,
221
Evangelical Revival, conditions prior
to, 379 ; characteristics (earliest),
380, 394 ; and Christian Socialism,
399 ; Church of England, its influ-
ence on, 440 ; modem churches,
effect on, 405 ; a non-class move-
ment, 384, 386 ; democratic prin-
ciples, 385 ; description of (by
Dickens and George Eliot), 395 ;
and education, 382 ; ethical and
social character, 396 ; international
and humanitarian character, 393 ;
influence of Moravian Missions on,
394 ; nature of its philanthropy,
381, 895 ; political influence, 389 ;
and Radicalism, 396 ; compared
with the Reformation, 403 ; con-
MM
530
INDEX
Crete results ©t, 402, 407 ; influ-
ence on modern social work, 400 ;
and slavery, 387 ; influence on
technical and scientific training,
406 ; non-theological nature, 377 ;
and the working man, 401, 402
Exodus, on social justice, 55 \
Expansion of Christianity : see Har-
nack
Experience, its necessary relation to
thought, 495 ; basis of all true
understanding, 510
Expositor's Greek Testament, Dr.
Bruce's, 86
Expository Times, November, 1908,
135
Exposure of slaves, 143
Ezekiel, ordinance concerning land
tenure, 64 ; teaching on social
ideals, 63
Ezekiel, land tenure, 64 ; on
egoism of the rich, 63, 64 ; descrip-
tion of a righteous man, 63
Ezra, administration of, 6y
Factory Reforms, Lord Shaftesbury,
389; influence of "Methodist
Party," upon legislation, 392
Fairbairn, Dr., quoted, on Church
and State, 349
Fall, the. Church Fathers on, 253
Family life, Christ's teaching, 93-
98 ; influence of Foreign Missions,
461 ; in Israel, 50, 51, 54, 66; in-
fluence of Monasticism upon
(Mediaeval Church), 305, 320 ;
Pauline teaching, 171 ; among
Primitive Christians, 229 ; influ-
ence of Reformation on, 357 ;
Roman, 132 ; in Roman Empire,
138
Father, the Roman, 132
Felix, St., 264
Fellowship, in Primitive Church, 175
Ferrero's Characters and Events of
Roman History, quoted, 134
Feudal System, influence of Church
upon, 294, 298 ; during Reforma-
tion period, 337
Fin du Paganisme, La, Boissier's, 251
Finance, in modem State, 19
Flagellants, the, 317
Flavians, the, and Christianity, 202
Footbinding, 467
Force, use of, Christ's prohibition,
108; and Mediaeval Church, 207,
297,303
Foreign Missions, educational value,
468 ; economic and commercial
value, 475 ; evangehcal, 393-395 ;
and industrial training, 458, 477 ;
medical, 469 ; native workers and
leaders, 455, 484 ; Purvey's plea
for, 330 ; promotes religious
liberty, 485 ; women's education,
462, 467 ; social influence of, on
heathen, character, 452 ; family
life, 461 ; habits, 457 ; national
developnient, 469; tribal and
communal life, 464
Forgiveness, Christ's teaching, 82
Formalism, in religion, its perils, 479
Fornication, Christ's teaching, 94
Fouche, 435
Foundhng hospitals, mediaeval, 296
Foxe, quoted, on mediaeval humani-
tarianism, 330 note
France, leper hospitals, social condi-
tions prior to Revolution, 415, 422 :
see also " Gaul," " French Revolu-
tion," " Huguenots," " Napoleon,"
and under various kings
Franchise, Cartwright's idea of, 441 ;
and English Independents, 365 ;
in Roman Empire, 240
Francis of Assisi, St., philanthropy,
299
Franciscans, the, 299, 323
Fraternity, bibliography, 257 note ;
Christ's teaching, 83, 88, 116; the
friars, 299, 300 ; in Mediaeval
Church, 300, 320 ; in Mithraism,
246 ; in Primitive Church, 158,
166, 256
Freedom, History of. Lord Acton's,
336
Free food, in Rome; 135, in Empire,
214
Free grace, doctrine of, and Mediaeval
Church, 381 ; and Evangelical
Revival, 381
Freehold, in Law of Jubilee, 67
Freeman's Norman Conquest, quoted,
on influence of Church on war, 303
Freewill Baptists, influence on sla-
very, 387
French Revolution, general causes
of, 421 ; causes of revolt against
the Church, 414 ; Church pro-
perty, and National Assembly,
426 ; Church privileges, and the
National Assembly, 423 ; Civil
Constitution of the Clergy, 431 ;
" Concordat " of 1802, 436 ;
revolt of the cures against the
INDEX
531
Church, reasons for, 418-421 ;
dogma, State interference with,
432; history, 1790-1799, 434;
influence on England, 395, 442 ;
monastic orders, dissolution of,
430 ; and Napoleon, 435 ; Na-
tional Assembly, general reform
proposals, 422 ; " Rights of Man,"
clauses affecting religious hberty,
424 ; Social Contract, 415 ;
Voltaire's teaching, 414 ; lessons
deduced from, for both the Church
and the State, 443
Froude, on corruption in reign of
Commodus, 213 note
Gaiseric, 275
Galatians, Epistle to the 225 note
Gambling, De Aleatoribus, quoted
on, 178
Games, the Roman, 139, 144
Garat, 428
Gaul, history of , 275-277
General Baptist Missionary Society,
393.
Genesis of the Social Conscience : see
Nash, Professor
Geneva, mediaeval, history of its con-
stitution, 347,'; Calvin and its Code,
349
Gentiles, Christian proselytes, 154,
165
George I, 378
Ger, 50 note, 69
Germany, its democracy, divorce
between the Church and, 401 ;
education, influence of Reforma-
tion upon, 368 ; Law, influence of
Roman law upon, 281, 340; Peas-
ants' Revolt, 340-344 : see also
Luther
Gesta Christi : see Brace, C. L. .
Gibbon, " five secondary causes " of
growth of Christianity, 191, 220
note ; view of Marcus Aurelius,
242 ; on Jewish population in time
of Augustus, 193 ; on population
in time of Constantine, 200
Gift of Tongues, 257
Glabrio : see Acilius
Gladiatorial Shows, 139, 145 ; aboli-
tion of, 229, 262, 268
Glover, T. R., 171
Gnosticism, 203
God, Christian conception of, 506-508 ;
Christian conception in relation to
society, 27 ; Man's relation to, 82,
83, 88 ; Sonship of Christ, 81
Good Samaritan, parable of, 85 *
Gospels, the, compared on divorce,
94-95 ; on the Sacraments, 89 ;
on dangers of wealth, 100
Gouttes^ Abbe, and State payment
of clergy, 428
Government, principles of, Aquinas,
conception of, 307 ; Calvin's, 348 ;
Cartwright's, 441 ; in Christ's
teaching, 108 ; English Inde-
pendents', 365 ; Marsiglio's, 308 ;
relation to human development,
511
Grant, Robert, 390
Gratian, Emperor, 241
Gray, and debtors, 391
Greece, 140, 141 : see also Hellenism
Green, Professor J, R., 338
Gregoire, Abbe, Letters to the
Cur 6s 421 ; abolition of annates,
423. 437
Gregory the Great, hostility to classi-
cal culture, 283 ; Letter to
Mellitus, quoted, on policy of
Church, 287 ; missions, 279
VII : see Hildebrand
Bishop of Neocaesarea, 232
Guardians, Poor Law (U.K.) : see
Poor Law
Guilds, mediaeval, 310, 312 note; in
Roman Empire, 135
Guizot, F. P. G., 361
Gwatkin, Professor, quoted on the
Reformation, 355
Haggai, social ideals of, 69
Hammurabi, King, 55
Happiness, in Epicureanism, 128
Hamack's Expansion of Christianity y
on apologists, 191 note ; evidence
of Catacombs, 202 note ; signs
of degeneration in Church, 232
note ; period of greatest expansion,
199 note ; progress in Church, 156,
200-203 ; Jewish population in
Roman Empire at time of Augus-
tus, 193 ; on Mithraism, 194, 198 ;
on slavery and the Church, 252 ;
Contemporary Review, August,
1886, quoted, on Apologetics, 192
note ; Historian' s History of the
World, vi. on citizenship in Chris-
tian Church, two-five centuries, 267
note ; Princeton Review, July,
1878, on evidence of catacombs,
202 ; History of Dogma, on
Mithraism, 193
Hamam Singh, Sir, 454
532
INDEX
Hatch, Dr., quoted on parallels be-
tween modem life and i a.d., 135 ;
on moral condition of Rome in
time of Seneca, 211 note
Heathen, Missions to, 447-488
Hebert, J. R., 435
Hebrew of Pre-Christian era : see
Israel
of Christian era : see Jew
religion : see Judaism
Hebrews, Epistle to the, teaching
on brotherhood, 158 ; sacrificial
language, 168
Hegel, Georg, W, F., on defects of
theoretic method, 493
Heine, 357
Hellenism, 126, 154 ; and Mediaeval
thought, 282
Henricians, the, 324
Henry VIII, 369
Henry of Lausanne, 324
Heredity, cumulative degeneration
among unemployed, 14
Heretics, and the Mediaeval Church,
297 : see also " Huguenots "
Hermas, Shepherd oi, 185
Hermes, Prefect, 230
** Hidden Treasure," parable, 91
Hildebrand (Gregory VII), 284; War
of Investitures, 303
Hildegard of Bingen, 305
Hippolytus, Canons of, 169 note
" Hirelings " in Israel, 61
Hobbes, Thomas, of Malmesbury,
practical attitude {The Levia-
than), 501
Hobhouse, Sir J. C, and child
legislation, 392
Hodgkin's Italy and Her Invaders,
267 note
Holy Spirit, 225
Homilies, Chrysostom's, on women,
252
Horace, 129, 136
Hort's Christian Ecclesia, 174 note
Hosea, philanthropy of, 54, 402
Hospitality, in early Christian Church,
162, 228
Hospitallers, the, 320
Hospitals, and Evangelical Revival,
407
Hours (or Labourers), Parable of
the, 104
Housing and Town Planning Act, 11
Howard, John, reforms of, 389, 391
Hsi, Pastor, 484
Huguenots, the, and Louis XIV, 418 ;
and Louis XVI, 424
Human sacrifices, influence of
Foreign Missions against, 464, 466,
481
Humanism, and Humanitarianism,
the Christian ideal, 26
Huns, the, 274, 275, 277
Hus, John, 322
Husband : see Marriage
Huxley, Thomas, theory of natural
law, 509
Idealism, modern, its practical char-
acter, 496 ; and Stoicism, 129
Idolatry, among modern heathen,
its decline, 480
Ignatius of Antioch, 199, 232 ;
Epistles, quoted on Martyr-spirit,
221 note ; on unity of Chris-
tians, 177
Imad-ud-Din, Dr., 484
Image- worshipping, mediaeval, 331
Immanence of Christ, Pauline doc-
trine, 30
Immortality, doctrine of, a factor in
the expansion of Christianity in
Roman Empire, 215 note, 220
Incarnation, the,. 81
Independents, Enghsh, Church polity,
364 ; " Manifesto " to Parliament,
365
Indian, Missions, education of girls,
463 ; and Lord's Day observance,
487 ; among low-caste population,
465, 468 ; native workers, 454,
484 ; work towards religious
liberty, 486
Individualism, of the Barbarians,
290 ; Calvin's conception, 350,
360 ; not recognized by Christi-
anity, 31 ; erroneous conceptions
of, 361, 514, 515 ; of the Refor-
mation, 294 ; in Roman Empire,
i'a.d., 126; Stoicism, 131, 148
Indulgences, papal, 315
Industry, and Industrial Class,
Christ's teaching, 102 ; Church and
State in relation to (seventeenth
and eighteenth century England),
383, 384 ; Evangelical Revival,
educational influence upon, 386 ;
attitude towards religious conven-
tion (George I's time), 379 ; and
Primitive Church, 231 ; see also
" Labour "
Infanticide, Constantino's edict, 26^ ;
and Mediaeval Church, 296 ; and
Primitive Church, 250, 251
Ingham, B., 384
INDEX
533
Innocent III, 366
IV, 297
Inquisition, the, 297, 353
Inscription Orelli, 138, 139
Institutional Church, basis of, 41
Institutions of Mercy, in Middle Ages,
299, 300, 302 ; and Early Christian
Church, 228
IntellectuaUsm, true and false, 499
et seq.
International relations,
influence of
philosophic
Foreign Missions, 475
conception, 515
Introduction to the Eternal Gospel, by
San Donnino, 324
Investitures, Hildebrand's struggles,
303 ; and French Revolution, 432
Irenaeus, Bishop, 232, 264
Irish Church, 3 1 5
Isaiah, social ideals and teaching, 54,
56, 70 ; nature of his philan-
thropy, 402
Isaiah quoted on dignity of
farmer's calUng, 58 ; on social in-
equalities, 56 ; on social condition
of nobles, 57 ; social ideals, 70 ;
on land grabbing, 57 ; protest
against social decadence, 58 ; on
slavery, 69
Isis, worship of, 216
Islam, compared with Christianity,
III, 195; bibliography, 195 note
Israel, Canaan, settlement in, 49 ;
Captivity, 65 ; Church and State
in, 45, 46 ; Eighth Century, 53-57 ;
post-Exilic period, 66 ; the Judges,
52 ; pre-Canonical Prophets, 49-5 1 ;
Monarchy, 52, 60. 63-65 ; nomad
life, 47, 48 ; Prophets, 56, 60, 69,
75 ; social organization, corv6e, 64 ;
family, 50; land tenure, 51, 56;
legislation, 54, 60, 66, 67 ; rich and
poor, 48, 56; 60-65 ; slavery, 51,
55, 61, 62, 65, 68, 69 ; compared
and contrasted with Christendom,
71-77
Italy, democratic movements of
twelfth century, 324 ; barbarian
invasions, 274-277 ; Ostrogothic
Kingdom, 275 ; Moslem invasions,
277
Italy and Her Invaders, Hodgkin's,
267 note
Jacobins, and the French Revolution,
435 ; influence of, in England, 442
James, 254
James, Epistle of, 158
Jan of Leyden, 370
Jansenists, Papal Bull " Unigenitus,"
419 ; and the French Revolution,
430, 432
Japan, mission - schools for girls,
463 ; influence of Missions, 484,
486
Japan Sabbath Alliance, 487
Jeremiah, and the " corvee," 64 ;
and land tenure, 64 ; and slavery,
65
Jeremiah quoted on " corvee," 64 ;
land tenure, 64 ; nomad period
compared with post- Exile days,
47 ; King Zedekiah and slavery,
65
Jeroboam II, 53
Jerome, St., attitude towards Roman
Empire, 264 ; and education of
women, 264
Jerusalem, Conference of, 166 ; Fall
of, 112; Primitive Christian com-
munity, 157
Jesuits, and the Jansenists, 419 ;
and Louis XV, 427 ; power 1824'-
1830, 439; and 1870,439
Jesus Christ. His teachings, pp. 81-
116 {see "Argument," 80); on
aesthetic side of life, 107 ; alms-
giving, 87, loi ; asceticism, 106,
97 ; ordinance of Baptism, 89 ;
Buddha compared, 1 1 1 ; children,
97 ; the Church (foundation of),
88 ; Church and State, 90 ; col-
lectivism and charity, 10 1, 102 ;
economic problems, 103-105 ;
family, 93-97 ; Holy Spirit, 225 ;
immanence, doctrine concerning,
30 ; Incarnation doctrine, 8 1 ;
industry, attitude to, 102 ; the
Kingdom of God, 90 ; " Logos "
doctrine, 224 ; Lord's Supper, 89 ;
love, 83 seq. ; luxury, 105 ; as
Jewish Messiah, 83, 85, 92 ; mar-
riage, 94 ; mendicancy, 102 ;
Mohammed compared, 1 1 1 ; mon-
asticism, 96 ; His personality, its
absoluteness the secret of success
of Christianity, 222-225 .' political
problems, attitude towards, 503 ;
property as an institution, 98 ; as
Saviour of the world, 225 ; slavery,
103 ; social progress not catastro-
phic, no, 114; social institutions,
attitude towards, 93; war, no;
wealth and poverty, 100, 86 ;
women, 97, 94 : See further
" Church," " Christianity," etc.
534
INDEX
Jews, of Christian era, distribution,
154; proselytes, 154, 157-164;
population in Roman Empire at
time of Augustus, 193 ; modern
legislation, 391 ; of pre-Christian
era : see Israel
Joan of Arc, 505
Job, social ideals of, 70
Job, picture of righteous man, 70
Joel, social ideals of, 69
John, St., mission in Asia Minor, 199
John, St., Gospel of, quoted on duty
of compassion, 28 ; on Kingdom
of God, 92, 197 ; on Redemp-
tion, 222 ; on Sonship of Christ,
82 ; on trust in God, 99 ; on
Christ's attitude to women, 97
John, St., Epistles of, teaching of,
183 ; quoted on main principle of
Christianity, 223, 224 ; on social
status of Church, 202 note
Johnson, Dr., his testimony to
Methodist preaching, 384
Josiah, social reforms, 60
Joshua, on land tenure and the
family, 66
Jubilee, Law of, 67
Judaism, contributions to Christi-
anity, 154; relation to Christi-
anity, 5, 83, 218 ; influence of
Christianity upon, 157-164 ; influ-
ence on modern thought, 505 ;
progress compared with Chris-
tianity, 193-194
Judges, 52
Juhan, Emperor, testimony to Chris-
tian philanthropy, 229, 259
Justin Martyr, his attitude to the
State, 264 ; Apology quoted, on
baptism, 164 ; on his conver-
sion, 221 ; on miracles, 222 ; on
moral influence of Christianity, 226
note ; on oral instruction of
Christianity, 223 note ; on thank-
offerings, 178 ; Dialogue with
Trypho on spread of Christianity,
199 ; on Platonism, 219 ; on rights
of women, 251
Justinian, Emperor, 276, 281
Juvenal, views on moral corruption
of Rome, Dr. Dill's criticism, 212 ;
on popularity of the Games, 140 ;
definition of philosophy, 144 ; on
slavery, 142
Kali Char an Banurji, social influence
of, 454
Kant, Immanuel, attitude to truth,
501
Kautsky, Karl, 269
Kenkichi Kataoka, 454
Khama, 454
King, and Kingship, Aquinas on,
307 ; bibliography of growth in
Middle Ages, 309 note ; in Israel,
61 ; John Knox's conception of,
352 ; Marsiglio's conception, 308
Kingdom of God, Old Testament
anticipations, 5 ; Christ's teaching,
90, 112
Kings, Books of, on corvee, 52 ; on
land tenure, 5 3
Kingsley, Charles, and Evangelical
Revival, 399, 442
Knox, John, Book of Discipline, 352 ;
contrasted with Calvin, 351 ;
quoted on kingship, 352 ; social
programme, 351 ; social and poh-
tical influence, 352
Koberle, 71, 72
Kuenen, 194 note
Labour, and Labour Problem, Cal-
vin's ideals of the relation of State
to, 350 ; Christ's teaching, 103,
105 ; in Israel (corvee), 52, 61 ;
Knox's programme, 352 ; of
modern society, 12 et seq. ; and
Medieeval Church, 319; Sir Thomas
More's conception, 371 ; Old
Testament teaching applied to
Christendom, 71, 76 ; in Primitive
Church, 231 ; teaching of the
Reformation, 358 ; Thorold Rogers
and, 384 ; in Roman Empire i
A.D. 214
Lactantius, 255 ; Divine Institutes,
quoted on brotherhood, 256 ; on
ownership of property, 258 ; on
Stoicism, 146
Land, and land tenure, the Church
as owner, Arnold of Brescia's re-
forms 325, {see also " Property "),
In Israel, period before Canonical
Prophets, 49, 5 1 ; Ezekiel, 64 ;
Isaiah's condemnation, 57 ; Jere-
miah, 64 ; creation of landless
class, eighth century, 53, 57 ; Law
of Jubilee, 67 ; Micah, 58 ; post-
ExiUc period, 67 ; Old Testament
standards apphed to Christendom,
76
Last Judgement, parable of the, 85
Last Supper, the institution of, 89 ;
see also Communion, Holy
INDEX
535
Latin Literature, decline, in Middle
Ages, 282
La Vendee, and the Revolution, 434
Law, Mr,, teaching of, 380
Law of Holiness, 60, 66 note
Laws : see Legislation
Lazar houses, mediaeval, 299
Leaven^ the, parable of, 91
Lecky's History of, European Morals
quoted on Roman Empire, cruelty
in, 214 note; domestic ethics in,
214 note; immorahty, 214 note;
scepticism, 215 ; slavery, 144, 214
note ; on effects of Christian
philanthropy on, 227 note ; on
Roman character, 131
Legislation, Christ's attitude towards
principle of, 108, 109 ; relation
of Christianity to, 32, 443 ; influ-
ence of Evangehcal Revival upon,
393 ; in Israel, 54, 60 ; Roman,
influence of Primitive Church upon,
259, 260, 268 ; Roman, its influ-
ence on mediaeval law, 280
Leo, Bishop of Rome, 277
Leper- hospitals, mediaeval, 299, 300 ;
and Foreign Missions, 467
Leviticus, on duty of love, 74 ;
"Law of Holiness," 60 ; slavery,
69
Liberty, teaching of early Christian
Church, 255 ; French Revolution
and religious, 423 etseq.; influence of
Foreign Missions on, 485 ; influence
of Mediaeval Church on, 306 ; and
Napoleon's '* Concordat," 438 ; and
the Reformation, 361, 363
Lightfoot's Philippians, 210
Lindsay, Dr., quoted, 343
Little Flower of St. Francis, quoted,
300
Livy, quoted on moral corruption of
Rome, 2 1 1
Locke, John, 501
Lofthouse, Professor W. F., quoted,
74
"Logos," 224
Lollards, the, influence, 324 ; social
work, 330
Lomt»ards, the, 276
Lombardy, rise of the republic, 325 ;
influence of Roman Law, 280
London Dock Strike (1889), 20
Jews' Society, 393
Missionary Society, 393
Lord's Day Observance Committee,
487
Union, 487
Louis Napoleon, Prince, 439
XIV, and the Church, 418
XV; 420, 430
XVI, and the Revolution, 422,
434
XVIII, 437, 438
Love, in Christian doctrine, 507
et seq. ; towards God, 83 ; imparti-
ality of, 84, 108 ; expression of in
Holy Communion, 175-179 ; Juda-
ism compared 183 ; its relation to
society, 27 ; Stoicism compared,
249 ; philanthropic, 86 ; univer-
sality, 84, 85 ; universahty, its
function in modern society, 30, 34
Love-Feast (Agape), 175
Loyalty Islands, Missions in, 455
Lucian, 199
Luke, Gospel of St., on aesthetic
aspect of Christianity, 107 ; and
Christ's attitude to women, 97 ;
the Church, influence of, 202 note ;
on divorce, 94, 95 ; on forgiveness
of sins, 82 ; on master and servant,
104 ; on Christ's life taught by
oral instruction, 223 note ; on the
Last Supper (compared with other
Gospels), 89 ; on peril of riches,
86, 100, loi
Luther, Martin, 403 ; Address to the
Nobility quoted, 346 ; quoted on
beggars and poor rehef, 367 ; con-
trasted with Calvin, 347-348 ;
attitude to commerce, 345 ; educa-
tional reforms, 368-383 ; funda-
mental principles, 339, 342, 343,
346 ; attacks monasticism, 356-
357 ; attitude towards the Pea-
sants' Revolt, and effects on Ger-
many and the Reformation, 342,
343 ; and universal priesthood of
behevers, 364 ; compared with
WycHf, 328
Lutheran Church, 343
Luxury, Christ's teaching, 86, 105 ;
in Israel, 47, 49, 57 ; in Mediaeval
Church, 324 ; in Roman Empire
I A.D,, 136, 214 ; in Roman Cathohc
Church prior to French Revolution,
419
Lynn, town, mediaeval guilds, 311
Mackay, 477
Madagascar, missions in, 485
Malachi, social ideals, 69
Malouet, and French Revolution, 428
"Mammon of Unrighteousness," Dr.
Bruce's interpretation, 86
536
INDEX
Manumission, 296
Marat, 435
Marc Aurdle, by Renan, 213
Marcus Aurelius, 215 note; quoted
on altruism, 148 ; social conditions
under, 212, 213 ; and the Games,
140 ; quoted, on philosophy, 145 ;
how far his writings a preparation
for Christianity, 208
Mark, Gospel of St., on duty of
sons to parents, 96 ; on influence
of the Church, 202 note ; on
divorce, 94, 95 ; on ripeness of
time for reception of Christianity,
204 ; " Last Supper," account
compared with other Gospels, 89 ;
on peril of wealth, 100
Marriage, Christ's teaching, 94 ; and
early Christian Church, 229, 262,
266 ; and Mediaeval Church, 357 ;
Pauline teaching, 171 ; in Roman
Empire, first and second centuries,
214
Marshall, Dr., quoted, 358
MarsigHo of Padua, principles of
hberty, 307, 309 note
Martha's Les Moralistes sous l' Empire
remain, 123 note
Martin of Tours, 260
Martyrs, the (early Christian), 219,
221, 255
Mary Queen of Scots, and education,
369 ; and Knox, 352
Marx, Karl, bhndness to EvangeUcal
Revival, 399
Mass, Catholic Mystery of the, com-
pared with the Agape, 179
Master and Servant, Christ's teach-
ing, 103 ; in Rome (laws), 141,
f; 143 ; relation philosophically ex-
pressed, 517
Mathys, Jan, 370
Matthew, Gospel of St., on aesthetic
aspect of Christianity, 107 ; on
almsgiving, 87, 102 ; on bad influ-
ence, Sy ; on Baptism, 89 ; Christ's
attitude to children, 97 ; on
divorce (compared with other
Gospels), 94, 95 ; on use of force,
92 ; on forgiveness of sins, 82 ;
on Fall of Jerusalem, 112; para-
bles of the Kingdom, 91, 112;
"Last Judgment," 85 ; the Last
Supper (compared with other Gos-
pels), 89 ; love of neighbour, 84 ;
master and servant, 104 ; pro-
perty, 98 ; on sacrifice, 82, 83 ; on
Scribes and Pharistes, 83 ; self-
denial, 106 ; trust in God, 100 ;
Christ's attitude to women, 97 ;
on work, 103
Matthews' English Works of Wyclif,
329 note
Maturines : see Trinitarians
Maurice, F.D., and Evangehcal
Revival, 399 ; influence of, 442 ;
Working-men College, 402
Maury, Abbe, 427
Maxentius, 199
MedicBval Political Theory in 'he
West, by A. J. Carlyle, 252 note
Medical missions, 469
Melanchthon, P., 344
Melito of Sardis, 263
Mendicancy, Christ's teacMng
(origin), 103 ; attitude of Medieval
Church towards, 366 ; attitude of
the Reformers towards, 367
Mery-sur-Seine, battle of, 275
Messiah, the, early Christian view,
83, 85, 92
Methodism, and education, 382
" Methodist Party," political influ-
ence, 389 ; remedial legislation,
390 ; criticised as reactionary, 400
Micah, and social conditions, 54, 56,
58
Micah, quoted, on greed for pro-
perty, 58 ; denunciation of social
inequalities, 56, 57
Middle Classes, influence of Evange-
hcal Revival upon, 386 ; influence
of Reformation upon, 369
Military service, in Roman Empire,
Christians' attitude towards, 266
Mill, James, 397
John Stuart, attitude to
Evangelical Revival, 397 ; On
Liberty quoted, on establish-
ment of Church by Constantiae,
242 ; Representative Government
quoted, on strength of Chris-
tianity, 219, 220
Milton, John, quoted on Truth, 498
Minchin, and penal laws, 391
Minority Report (1909) : see Poor
Law (U. K.)
Minucius, Felix, Octavius quoted,
on Christian brotherhood, 256 ; on
attitude of Christians to State, 264
Mirabeau, speech in National As-
sembly on religious hberty (quoted)
424 ; motion in N. A. concerning
Church property, 427
Miracles, as a factor in the expansion
of Christianity, 222
INDEX
537
Missions, influence of Evangelical
Revival upon, 393 ; Foreign : see
Foreign Missions ; Moravian : see
Moravian Missions
Mithraism, progress and scope com-
pared with Christianity, 193, 197 ;
mystery of redemption contrasted
with Christianity, 216, 225 ; soci-
aUty of Christianity contrasted
with, 246
Mohammed, Buddha and Christ, 195
Mohammed and Mohammedanism,
195 note
Mohammedan Empire after Hegira,
193 ; conquests, seventh to ninth
centuries, 276 ; rehgion : see Islam
Mommsen's Provinces of the Roman
Empire, on society, 122 note; on
slavery, 141
Monasticism, and Christ's teaching,
96 ; in Mediaeval Church, 318-321 ;
influence and value in mediaeval
Europe, 318 ; influence of its
philanthropy upon the Wesleys,
380, 381 ; effect of the Reforma-
tion, 355, 358 ; in Roman Church,
fourth century 261-262 ; semi-
monastic orders, 320 ; and slavery,
387 ; women, 305
Monastic Orders, dissolution of,
during French Revolution, 430 :
see also "^Benedict, St." ** Francis,
St." etc.
Money-lending : see Usury.
Monogamy, and Old Testament
teaching, 72
Monopoly, Luther on, quoted, 345
Monotheism, in Roman Empire, 208,
Montanism, 225 [220
Monumenta Franciscana, quoted
on Wychf, 329
Moravians, influence in time of George
I, 380 ; Missions, 394
More, Hannah, 390
Sir Thomas, Utopia, 371
Mornings in Florence, Ruskin's,
quoted, 301 note
Morris, Wm., inspirations of, relation
to Evangelical Revival, 402
Moslems, conquests of, seventh to
ninth centuries, 276
Mother, status in Israel, 50 ; Roman
laws giving right of guardianship
over her children, 269
Municipal Government, relation to
social problems, 23
Miinzer, Peasants' Revolt, 341 ;
social teacliing, 370
Mustard Seed parable, 91
Mutilation, influence of Foreign Mis-
sions against, 464
Naboth, 51
Nahum, 63 note
Napoleon Bonaparte, relations with
the Papacy, 438 ; " Concordat,"
436 ; and the Revolution, 1759-
1799,434
Narbonne, Archbishop of, wealth, 419
Nash, Professor, Genesis of the Social
Conscience, on Monasticism in
fourth century, 262 note ; on
citizenship in Christian Church, 267
note
Natal, criminal statistics 1903-09, in-
fluence of Foreign Missions on, 483
National Assembly of France, 1789 ;
" Civil Constitution of the Clergy,"
432 ; abolition of clerical privi-
leges, 423 ; cures, cahiers of, 422 ;
Church property, confiscation of,
and the results, 426-428 ; attack
religious Uberty, 424 ; " The Rights
of Man," declaration of, 424
Nationalism, consciousness of, a
cause of mediaeval reform move-
ments, 322, 323 ; and a cause of
the Reformation, 295, 314; evils
of, as developed by the Reforma-
tion, 372
Natural History, Pliny's quoted on
scepticism, 215 note
Natural science, its methods com-
pared with those of rehgion, 492
et seq. ; true relation to religion and
hfe, 510, 511
Naturahsm, how modified by Christi-
anity, 507 ,. 4 . :''
Neesima, Dr., 484 '•• ■ "4""- . •
Neglected Factors in the Study of the
Early Progress of Christianity :
see Orr, the Rev. James
Nehemiah, administration of, 67
Nehemiah, social reforms, 69
Nelson, John, 386
Neo-platonism, influence of Christi-
anity upon, 203 ; ideals, 247
Nero, Emperor, persecution of Chris-
tians, 198 ; social conditions under,
120, 122, 212
Nerva, Emperor, charitable endow-
ments, 137
Netherlands, the, the Reformation,
353
New Guinea, evangelism of, 455, 485
538
INDEX
New Testament, on value of suffer-
ing, 28 : see also " Jesus Christ "
Nietzsche's Umwertung alter Werte,
quoted on Christian ideals, 219
Nonconformists, in Walpole's day,
380 : see also Evangelical Revival
Norman Conquest, Freeman's quoted,
304
Obadiah, 63 note
Obedience, emphasis laid by Mon-
asticism upon, 320
Octavius : see Minucius Felix
Offertory, in primitive Church, 178,
179
Old Age Pensions Scheme (U.K.)
significance, 11
Oldcastle, Sir John, 331
Old Testament as basis for Christi-
anity, 5 ; social conditions and
teaching compared with, and ap-
pUed to modern Christendom, 71-
77
On Liberty, J. S. Mill's, quoted on
early Christian Church, 242
Opium - habit, the work of Foreign
Missions against, 457, 467
Origen, Against Celsus, 165 note ; on
charge of " atheism " brought
against Christians, 220 note ; on
miracles, as a factor in success of
Christianity, 222 note ; on moral
effects of Christianity, 226 note ;
on ripeness of time in Roman
Empire for reception of Christi-
anity, 205 ; on growth in wealth
and social influence of Church, 203
note
Orr, Rev. James, Neglected Factors
in the Study of the Early Progress
of Christianity, on ethical revival
of Antonines, 212 ; on evidence
of the Catacombs, 201, 202 ; on
influence of Christianity on literary
and cultured circles, 203 note
Ostrogoths, kingdom of, 27$
Otto the Great, 277
Ottoman Power in Europe, Freeman's,
195 note
Owen, Robert, 379 ; work against
slavery, 389 ; social-ethical valua-
tion of life, 396
Oxburgh, mediaeval guilds, 311
Oxford, University of, in Middle
Ages, 300
Padagogue, the, Clement of Alexan-
dria's, 252
Paine, Tom, 442
Pantheism, relation to Christianity
and naturahsm, 509
Pao, 455, 485
Papacy, the, and " Civil Constitution
of the Clergy," 432 ; influence
and attitude towards civil hberty
after Hildebrand, 307 ; constitu-
tion, 313 ; attitude during French
Revolution, 433 ; reasons for
growth and downfall, 314, 439;
Hildebrand, 284 ; and monasticism
318; Napoleon's Concordat of
1802, 435 ; and the Reformation,
335-372 ; struggles of 1870, 439
Papal Bull ** Unigenitus," 419
Papuan Industries Limited, 477
Parabolic Teaching of Christ, Dr.
Bruce's, 104
Parents, Christ's teaching, 96 ; Paul-
ine teaching, 1 72
Paris, University of, mediaeval, 300
Parry, 390
Party poUtics, the Church's relation
to, 37
Passion (psychological) function in
mental growth, 499 et seq.
Patarines, influence of, 324
Patria potestas, 132
Patriotism, Christian ideal, 25 ; and
early Christians, 267
Pattison, Mark, 351
Paul, St., teaching to the Corin-
thians,170; domestic ethics, 1 71-173;
contrasted with James, 254 ; Mis-
sionary work (basis of), 165 ;
Missionary work (scope and pro-
gress), 197 ; teaching to Roman
Gentiles, 165-170; teaching in
Roman Asia, 171 ; sacrificial lan-
guage, 168 ; his doctrine of " ser-
vice," 168, 169 ; teaching to
Thessalonians, 170 note
Paulinus of Nola, philanthropy of,
259 ; attitude towards the State,
264
Paulus, Jurisconsult, 250
Paupers and Pauperism : see Poor,
the
Pearl of Great Price parable, 91
Peasants' Revolt, causes, 327, 340 ;
their demands, 341 ; Luther's
attitude, 342
Pelagius, 258, 259
Penal code, and Mediaeval Church,
297 ; Minchin, 391
Penance, system of, origin in Mediae-
val Church, 316
INDEX
539
Penitence, Doctrine of, in Mediaeval
Church, 315
Penitentials, origin of, 313
Pentateuch, the (Torah), 66
" People's Charter " of 1838, 441
Persecution, Christ's teaching, 84,
108
Persecution in the Early Church : see
Workman, Rev. H. B.
Personahty, Christian doctrine of,
31, 87; teaching in Primitive
Church, 167 ; teaching of Calvin
and Luther contrasted, 360
Peter, Epistle of, 197
Petronius, on philosophy, 149 ; on
civilization of Roman masses, i
A.D., 121
Pfieiderer, Otto, Primitive Christi-
anity quoted, 192
Pharisees, the, Christ's teaching, 83
Philanthropy, Christ's teaching,
85,86, loi ; the DidachS, 161 ; and
Evangehcal movement, 377 et seq. ;
movement in France and England
compared, 440 ; guilds (mediaeval),
310 ; in Israel, 61, 62 ; and
Mediaeval Church, 298 ; mediaeval
(influence on Wesleys), 381 ;
modern, 382 ; modern (influence of
Evangehcal Revival on), 398 ;
modem (need for more scientific
methods), 405 ; in Primitive
Church, 158, 162-3, 228-9, 259-
260 ; and Reformation, 312, 367 ;
in Roman Empire, 137
Philemon, Epistle to, 202 note
Philippians, by Lightfoot, on Stoi-
cism, 210
Philippians, Epistle to the, on god-
head of Christ, 224 note
Philosophy, post Aristotelian, 127 ;
Eastern, 279 ; Greek, 207-209 ;
Juvenal's definition of, 144 ; Plu-
tarch's definition of, 144 : see also
" Seneca," " Epicurus," etc., In
'■ relation to Christianity, a prepara-
tion for (post Aristotehan), 207,
(Greek), 207, 210; limitations,
146-149 ; sociality compared, 247-
250 ; necessity for practical atti-
tude, 494 ; its general relation to
human life, chapter XII passim
p. 491 following ; true function
of, 513
Pilgrim Fathers, the, 413, 416;
influence on modern democracy,
365
pity, in Stoic philosophy, 147
Pius VI, 433
VII, 438
Plato and Platonism, 127 ; doctrine
of ideas (how regarded by Mediaeval
Church, 282 ; theory of ownership
of property, 258 ; aim of the
** Republic," 501 ; social ideals,
criticised, 247 ; on permanence of
society, 493 ; theory of state com-
pared with Christian, 26 ; how far
the philosophy a preparation for
Christianity, 207, 208 : see also
Neo- Platonism
Pliny, benevolence of, 137, 199;
quoted, on habits of Christians,
163 ; Epistles quoted, on life
in Rome, 137; Natural History
quoted, on his scepticism, 215
note
Plutarch, quoted, on Alexander the
Great, 125 ; Cato Major on
slavery, 141 ; De Liheris Edu-
candis quoted, definition of philo-
sophy, 144 ; how far his writings
a preparation for Christianity, 208,
210
PoUtical economy, philosophic basis,
514
philosophy, relation to Christi-
anity, Chapter XII, p. 491 follow-
ing ; its present development, 492 ;
true function of religion, 502
science, 392
Pollard, Professor, quoted on effects
of Luther's action regarding Pea-
sants' Revolt, 344 ; quoted on
Eberiin's social principles, 371
Polycarp, quoted on widows, 177
note ; martyrdom, 199
Polychrome Bible, Cheyne's, quoted,
56, 57
Polygamy, Israelite standards com-
pared with Christian, 71, 72 ; in-
fluence of Foreign Missions on, 462
Pomponia Graecina, 202
Poor, Poverty, Christ's teaching, 100,
102 ; in Israel, 51, 56, 60, 67, 68 ;
and Mediaeval Church, 299-301,
324; and Primitive Church, 158,
254, 258, 269 ; and the Reforma-
tion, 367-8 ; Modern, Christian
duty, 41 ; poor law system (U.K.)
criticised, 21 ; widespread evil, 13 ;
contrasted with ancient, 102
Poor Law, influence of Evangelical
Revival upon, 391 ; effect of Old
AgefPension scheme, 11 ; United
Kingdom (its value and its inade-
540
INDEX
quacy), 20 et seq. ; first English
(1536), 367
Poor Law Commission (1909), Minor-
ity Report, considered, 21, 22
Poor Men of Lyons, 324
Poor, Overseers of the, first appoint-
ment, 368
Poor Rate, in Egypt, 135
Pounds, the, parable, 104
Predestination, doctrine of, Calvin's,
360
" Priestly Code " of Israel, 66 note
Prison system, influence of Evange-
lical Revival, 391 ; Christian ideals
109 ; modern (need for new
scientific philanthropy) , 406
Prisoners, Roman edicts to alleviate,
269 ; and Foreign missions, 466 ;
of war, and Mediaeval Church, 298,
* 304 ; of war, and Primitive Church,
228
Privileges, of Clergy, and French
Revolution, 423
Property, Christ's teaching, 98 ;
communism (Early Church teach-
ing), 257 ; in Israel, 49, 51, 53, 57,
67 ; Mediaeval Church, 325 ; and
Primitive Church teaching, 161,
179 ; private ownership (Early
Church teaching), 258; Roman
CathoUc Church and French Revo-
lution, 427-429
Prophets, in Israel, social ideals of,
56, 60, 69, 75
Proselyte, to Christianity, 154, 165
Protestantism, 335-373 ; in England,
pre-Evangehcal, 404 ; in time of
George I, 379 ; influence on
hberty (intellectual and political),
362-364; influence (1688), 440;
in France, failure during Revolu-
tion, 436 : see also ** Luther,"
" Calvin," etc.
Provence, Comte de : see Louis
XVIII
Proverbs, social ideals of, 70
Psalms, 74
Psychology, true relation of intellect,
passion, idea, 500
Punishment : see Reward
Puritans, the, 413
Purvey, John,humanitarianism of, 330
Quakers, influence on slavery, 387
Race-hatred, Aristotle and, 124;
Christ's teaching, 85 ; teaching of
Primitive Church, 165
Ramabai, the Pundita, 454
Ramsay's Church in the Roman
Empire, on citizenship in, 267,
note ; on Pauline Mission, 1 98 note
Rashdall's Universities in Middle
Ages, quoted on hostihty to
classical learning, 283
RationaUsm, Christian formula, 507
Rauschenbusch's Christianity and
the Social Crisis, quoted on radi-
calism in the Church, 254 note ;
quoted, Karl Kautsky's opinion of
Church's benevolence in Roman
Empire, 269
Real Presence, doctrine of, 179
Reason, its limited function, 497-8 ;
in Stoic philosophy, 129
Redemption, doctrine of the, 222, 225
Reform Bills, England, 390
Reformation, the, definition of, as
treated in Chapter VIII, 336 ;
Calvin, 346 ; individualism of, 294,
360; Knox, 351; Luther, 339-
344 ; nationahsm of, 295, 372 ;
the Netherlands, 353 ; first origin
of, 314; social ideals, 359, 403;
conditions in Christendom during,
337> 340; Influence and effects on
Charity, 367 ; commercial and
civic hfe, 358, 372 ; growth of
democracy, 364 ; education, 368 ;
conception of ideal life, 355 ;
family hfe, 357; guilds, 312;
hberty (political and social), 360,
363 ; on development of middle
classes 369
Rehef, Poor Law (U.K.) : see Poor
Law.
Remonstrance, Purvey's, quoted, 330
Renan, on civiUzation in Roman
Empire, i a.d , 122 ; les Apdtres,
135 ; Marc Aurdle, on reign of
Commodus, 213
Rendel Harris, Dr., Aaron's Breast-
plate, quoted, on Mithraism, 246
Representation, Thomas Aquinas,
quoted, 307 ; English Independ-
ents, 365 ; Marsigho's conception,
308
Representative Government, J. S.
Mill's, 219
Responsibility, of individuals to-
wards community, 26 ; Christ's
teaching, 87, 106 ; ethics of in
Primitive Church, 162, 181
Resurrection, Doctrine of, points of
contact with pagan mysteries, 221
note
INDEX
541
Retaliation, Christ's teaching, 108 ;
in Laws of Israel, 55 ; Pauline
teaching, 160
Reuss' Christian Theology of Apos-
tolic Age, 205 note
Revenge, Christ's prohibition, 108
Revivalism, its dangers, 510
Revocation of the Edict of Nantes,
418
Revolution of 1830, 439
Reward and Punishment, Christ's
teaching, 104, 109 ; in regard to
doctrine of Penitence of Mediaeval
Church, 316
Rich fool, the, parable, loi
Rich Man and Lazarus, parable, 86,
lOI
Rich and poor, problem of, Christ's
teaching, 86, 100-102 ; in Israel,
56, 60-64, 67, and Mediaeval
Church, 300 ; modern, 1 7
Rights, relation to duties, 516
** Rights of Man," declaration of,
424
Rise of Democracy^ M. Borgeaud's,
quoted, on effects of the Reforma-
tion, 337
Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire :
see Gibbon
Ritschl's Altkatholische Kirche, 198,
note, 224
Ritter's History of Christian Philo-
sophy, quoted, 286
Ritual, in Israel, 66, 75
Robespierre, 417, 435
Rogers, Thorold, Work and Wages,
quoted, 398
Roman Cathohc Church in France
(i), French Revolution, 414-438 ;
Voltaire's attack, 414 ; Rousseau,
416 ; power prior to Revolution,
418 ; revolt of cur6s, 421 ; reforms
of National Assembly, 422-3 ;
attitude of populace (July, 1789),
423 ; right to own property (debate
in Assembly), 426 ; State payment
of clergy, 427, 429 ; dissolution
of monastic orders, 430 ; Civil
Constitution of the Clergy, 431 ;
Napoleon's Concordat (1802), 435,
437 ; effects of Revolution, 438 ;
bibhography, 429 : see also Church,
(3), Mediaeval
(2) power of, 1848-1852, 439
(3) influence in 1870, 439
Roman Empire, Barbarian invasions,
273-278 ; benefactions and Chari-
ties, 13s ; condition before Christi-
anity, 1 19-123, 210, 211 ; causes
and antecedents for conditions in
I A.D., 123-133 ; Christian Church,
establishment of, 184 ; Christian
Church, factors for and against its
expansion, 238-242 ; 205, 208,
165, 171 ; Christians, persecution
of, 1 98 ; commercial and social
development, 134; culture (influ-
ence on civiHzation), 279, 280 ;
extent and homogeneity, 133 ; the
Games, 139; its greatness con-
sidered, and civiUzation's debt to,
273 ; Law, 280 ; material pros-
perity, 1 34 ; modern society (par-
allels with), 134 ; moral corruption,
210-214; population (Christian),
200, (Jewish), 193, (heathen),
239 ; philosophers, 144, 208 ; reh-
gions, 215-217; slavery, 141;
schools, 280 ; solidarity, 292, 314 ;
sumptuary laws, 135 ; external
universaUsm, 205 ; Western, 273,
^ 274; position of women, 138;
Influence and Effects of Christianity
could it be Christianized ? 242-
244 ; on Games, 229 ; on legisla-
tion, 259-260, 267, 268 ; on
philanthropy, 259 ; on reUgions,
245 : on slavery, 253
Roman Society from Nero to Marcus
Aurelius : see DiU, Dr.
Romans, Epistle to the, 182 ; quoted
on Agape, 175 ; on Church in
Rome, 1 98, 202 note ; Gentile
Christian ethics of, 165-170; on
martyr-spirit, 221 ; on love of
neighbour, 160 ; on Redemption,
222
Rome, Alaric invades, 274 ; ancient,
131 ; city-state, 125 ; her con-
quests, changes brought about by,
132 ; conditions prior to Christi-
anity, 120 ; Christians, first to
third centuries, 198, 201, 202 ;
conservatism, 240 ; free food, 135 ;
Huns invade, 277 ; its rehgious
development, 245
Rousseau, Jean Jacques, practical
philosophy, 501 ; attitude to
Christianity, 415 ; Savoyard Vicar
described, 417 ; Social Contract,
414
Ruskin's Lectures on Art, quoted,
on Lollards, 331 ; Mornings in
Florence, quoted, on rapprochement
of the Classes in Little Flower of
St. Francis, 301
542
INDEX
Sacerdotalism, in Mediaeval Church,
315; influence of Reformation on,
360
Sacraments, the, institution of, Gos-
pels compared, 89 ; in Primitive
Church, 164, 175 : see also *' Bap-
tism," " Communion, Holy," etc.
Sacrifice, Christ's teaching, 82 ; signi-
ficance in Primitive Church, 167,
178 ; conception of in relation to
Holy Communion after third cen-
tury, 180
Saint - Etienne, Rabaud, speech in
National Assembly on religious
liberty, quoted, 425
Salian Franks, history of, 275
Salvation, Cluistian doctrine of, its
character and scope, 31, 82, 87
Army, influence of Evangehcal
Revival upon, 386, 407
Samaritan, the Good, 85
San Donnino, Gherarda da Borgo, 324
Saracens, the, influence of their
culture, 279
Savoyard Vicar ^ the, Rousseau's, 417
Scepticism, in Roman Empire, a
factor in the reception of Christi-
anity, 215-217
Schaff, quoted on hberty, 364 ; on
Mediaeval Church's idea of piety, 35 5
Scholasticism, Aquinas, 307 ; An-
selm, 309 ; and Mediaeval Univer-
sities, 299 ; Wyclif, 327
Schmidt, C, Social Results of Early
Christianity, 173 note; 227 note;
on charity towards heathen, 229
note ; on slavery, 230 note
Schultze, v., 193
Science : see Natural Science
Scotland, the Reformation, 351 ;
educational advantages owing to
Knox, 351, 368
Scottish Church Society, 393
Scribes, inferiority to Christian ideal,
83 ; interpretation of law of di-
vorce, 94 ; interpretation of law
concerning support of parents, 96
Second Advent, 112
Secularism, charge made against
Christianity, its refutation, 32-36
Self-denial, Christ's teaching, 106
Seneca, 136, 253 ; quoted, on civiliza-
tion of his day, 120 ; on relation
of pity to clemency, 147 ; de
Clementia quoted, on slavery, 143 ;
Epistles quoted (on Games), 140, (on
slavery), 142; de Beneficiisqnoted,
on his pessimism, 149 ; De Ira on
moral corruption ox Rome, 211;
on exposure of children, 214 note ;
on future state, 248
Serapis, worship of, 216
Serfdom, mediaeval, and the Church,
298, 387 ; in Germany, 344
Sermo, Augustine's, on dignity of
women, 251
** Sermon on the Mount," relation
to modern social problems, 7
Service, in primitive Church, signifi-
cance of, 167, 168
Settlement Movement, modern, and
Evangehcal Revival, 402
Sexes, relation of the, Christ's teach-
ing, 94-99 ; and primitive Church,
229, 230 ; heathen (influence of
Foreign Missions), 461-463 ; in
Roman Empire, 138, 139, 214
Shaftesbury, seventh Earl of, factory
reforms, 389 ; leader of Methodist
party in Parliament, 392
Shepherd of Hermas, 185
Siam, foreign missions, 485, 486
Sibylline Books, 254
Sick, the, and early Church, 259
Sidonius, Bishop, 260
Si^yes, Abbe, 421
Simple Life, the Christian ideal, 105
Sin, Christian doctrine of, 82 ; in
primitive Church (confession of),
176 ; in Mediaeval Church (absolu-
tion), 315-316
Slavery, Christ's view of, 103 ; influ-
ence of Evangelical Revival upon,
387 ; in ancient Greece, 141, in
Israel, period before canonical
Prophets, 51, legislation, eighth
century, 55, legislation during
end of Monarchy, 61-62, Zede-
kiah, 65, Jeremiah, 65, Nehe-
miah, 68, Isaiah, 60 ; in Mediaeval
Church, 297 ; modern, work of
Foreign Missions, 468, Old Testa-
ment conditions and teaching com-
pared and appUed, 71, 72, y6, yy ;
and Primitive Church, 172, 298 ;
In Roman Empire, influence of
Christianity upon, 230, 252, Con-
stantine's legislation, 268, eco-
nomic results, 214, Juvenal on,
142, status and laws, 141-144,
Seneca on, 142, 143, Stoic and
Christian view contrasted, 253
Slavs, the, fifth century invasions,
276
Slum-life, moral and physical de-
generation, 15
INDEX
543
Smith, Adam, Wealth of Nations, 440
Sidney, quoted, on Methodists,
389
Sorcery, social significance, 481
Social Contract, Rousseau's view of
Christianity, 415 ; Robespierre and,
417
SociaUsm, James and Paul's teaching
concerning poverty contrasted,
254 ; contrasted with the Christian
social ideal, 25 ; true philosophic
basis, erroneous conceptions, 516,
517 sei. : see also Christian Social-
ism
Social Organization, problem of the
waste produced by modern system,
17 ; nature of principles govern-
ing, 492 foil. ; true function of
Christianity, 503 foil. ; debt to
science and philosophy, 514;
organic conception of, 515^; modern,
compared with Roman Empire
first century, 134, 135 ; Old Testa-
ment ideals applied to modern
conditions, 71 : see also " State "
Social Problem (modem), Christi-
anity in relation to. Introduction
Chap, passim 7 seq.,2S', its spiritual
relation, 10, 39 ; its spiritual char-
acter contrasted with its economic
relations, 23 ; function of the
Church, inference from Christ's
teaching, 114; not pre-eminent
at Reformation, T)2,6 ; Calvin
makes part of Christian pro-
gramme, 348-354 ; influence of
Evangelical Revival, Chap. IX
passim, 377 ; its philosophic as-
pect, 496
Social Results of Early Christianity :
see Schmidt, C.
Socrates, views on citizenship, 125 ;
his philosophy a preparation for
the reception of Christianity, 207
Sohm, quoted, on indirect effects of
Reformation, 359
Solomon, and forced labour, 52
Son, Christ's teaching regarding, 96 ;
status in Rome, 132
Sonship, of Jesus, Christian ideal
revealed in, 81, 115
Soul, the, Christ's teaching, 8y
South African missions, 483
South African Commission on Native
Affairs, quoted, on value of foreign
missions, 483
South Sea Islands, missions in, 485
Spain, history of in fifth century, 275 ;
conquest by Moslems seventh cen-
tury, 277 ; early Christian Chuich,
203, 232 ; Inquisition and the
Netherlands, 353
Spinoza, practical attitude, 501
Spiritual Franciscans, influence of,
324 ; influence on Wyclif, 329
"Standard of Comfort," increase in
modern society, 19
Stanley, Dean, quoted on Constan-
tine's Christian legislation, 268
State the, Aquinas' theory, 307 ; Cal-
vin, 349 ; relations to Christianity
examined, 244 ; Clement of Rome
on divine origin, 263 ; Eberlin's
theory, 370 ; function considered,
244, 5 1 9 (false views of) ; function
considered, by French National
Assembly 1789, 423 foil. ; Mar-
siglio's theory, 307 ; effects of
Reformation on political theory,
358 ; Rousseau, 415 ; see also
"Church and State"
States General of France, 1789, 421
Stoicism, its founder and principles,
122, 1 29-1 3 1 ; altruism and egot-
ism, 131, 148; attitude to chil-
dren, 250 ; fervour of, 146 ;
sociality of contrasted with Christi-
anity, 247-250 ; attitude to slav-
ery, 252 ; how far a factor for the
reception of Christianity, 208, 210
Storr's Divine Origin of Christianity,
Strikes, their inadequacy, 20
Submission, Christ's teaching, 92,
108 ; practice of, in early Christian
Church, 266
Suetonius, 215 note, Claudius, 143
Suevians, the, 275
Suffering, Christian doctrine, 28
Suicide, influence of Foreign Missions
on, 458
Summer Schools, modern, influence
of Evangelical Revival, 402
Sumptuary laws, 135 : see Luxury
Sunday, Observance of, Constan-
tine's edict, 268 ; Foreign Mission
work, 487
Schools, need for scientific
philanthropy in treatment, 407
Superstition, in Roman Empire, 215,
217 ; growth in Mediaeval Church,
286 ; and modem heathen, 480
Supper, sacrament of the Last ; see
Communion, Holy
" Survival of the Fittest," doctrine of
in modern economics, 18
544
INDEX
Switzerland, condition at time of
Calvin, 346
Symmachus, 240
Syncretism, in Mediaeval Church, 287
Synesius, 260
Tacitus, 215 note ; quoted on corrup-
tion in Rome, 120 ; (Dr. Dill's
criticism), 212 ; Annals quoted,
on Nero's persecution of Christians,
198 ; on Roman philanthropy,
137; on slavery, 143 ; on women,
138
Taine's Ancien Regime on wealth of
Church in France, 419 note
Talents f parable of the, 104
Talleyrand, Bishop of Autun, pro-
poses State confiscation of Church
property, 426; and the "Civil
Constitution of the Clergy," 433
Tatian's Cohort on Christian
Church and education of women,
251
Taxation, in Israel, 52 ; and early
Christians, 263
Technical Education, 407
Temperance Question, 106, 457
Tertiaries of St. Francis, 320
Tertulhan, 199, 255 ; on civil life
of Christians, 266, 267, 164,
Apologies on Agape, 175, on
charity of Church, 228 note, on
influence of Christianity, 226 note,
on collective character of Church
discipline, 1 80 note
Tescehn, 304
Teutonic Knights, Order of, 320 ;
crusade against Wends, 278, 303
Theophilanthropists, the, 437
Thankoffering, in Primitive Church,
178
Theocracy, Calvin's conception, 348
Theodore of Tarsus, 315
Theodoric, 275
Thessalonians, Epistle to the, i7onotej
175, 197
Third Republic of France, 439
Thorntons, the, 389, 390
Thorpe, Wm., 331
Thouret, lawyer, 428
Tiberius, Emperor, philanthropy,.
131 ; society under, 122, 240
Timothy, Epistles to, 202 note, 221
note
Tithes, abolition of by French
National Assembly, 420, 423 ; and
Napoleon's "Concordat," 438 ; re-
stored to Church, 439
Titus, Epistle to, 197
Toleration, Religious, Edict. 313 a.d.,
268 ; and English Independents,
365 ; influence of Evangelical
Revival upon, 392
"Torah" : see Pentateuch
Total Abstinence, true significance,
106
Tours, Battle of, 277
Tractarian Movement, 405
Trades Unions, and mediaeval Guilds,
310
Training Schools, and Evangelical
Revival, 407
TrallianSy Letter to the, quoted, 177
Transcendentahsm, theory of Christi-
anity examined, 32-33 ; its in-
applicability to facts of life, 494
Treasure in the Field, parable, 91
" Treuga dei " : see Truce of God
Tribal system, in Israel, 47, 49
Trinitarians (Maturines), Order of,
299
Troeltsch, quoted on Calvin and
social reform, 354; quoted on
Luther and Calvin's conception of
personality, 360 ; quoted on doc-
trine of universal priesthood of
beUevers, 364
"Truce of God" (Treuga dei), 303
True Word, the, of Celsus, 199
Truth, its practical relation to the
Good, 500
Trypho, Dialogue with : see Justin
Martyr
Tuscany, Republic of, 325
Two Ways J quoted, 158
Uganda Missions, 464, 468, 486
Company, Ltd., origin of, 477
Ulhorn's Christan Charity in the
Christian Church, 123 note ; 227
note ; on Churches of Alexandria
and Carthage, 228 note ; on
charitable institutions in Roman
Empire, 229 note ; Conflict of
Christianity, on external aspects
of the preparation for Christianity,
205 note, 207 note, 209; on ex-
travagance and slavery in Roman
Empire, 214 note ; on philosophies
of Greece, 210 ; on Scepticism in
Roman Empire, 215
Umwertung aller Werte, Nietzsche's,
2 1 9 note
Unemployment, Calvin's solution,
349 ; cause and conditions of
modern, 13
INDEX
545
Unforgiving Servant, parable, 104
United Free Church of Scotland,
foreign missions, 458
Universities, mediaeval, 283, 300, 310
Universities in Middle ^Ages, Rash-
dall's, quoted, 283
University Extension, 402
Unrighteous Steward, parable, 86
Unskilled labour, in DidacM, 162
note; modern problems, 13, 20
Usury (money - lending), laws in
eighth century B.C., 55 ; Nehe-
miah's reforms, 68 ; Luther's
attitude, 345
Utopia, Sir Thomas More's, quoted,
371
Vandals, the, Arianism of, 288 ; inva-
sions of, 275
Venice, reputed foundation of, 276
Verbeck, 486
Vespasian Emperor, 140
Vikings : see Wikings
Villain, mediaeval and land tenure,
298
Virgil, mediaeval neglect, 282
Virgin, cult of, 304
Visigoths, the, and Arianism, 288 ;
defeat Attila, 277 ; invasions, 274,
275 ; establishment of Kingdom,
275
VoUtion, relation to ideas, 499
Voltaire, attitude to Christianity, 414
Von Dobschiitz. E., Christian Life in
the Primitive Church, 17^
Wages, lowness for unskilled work
in modern society, 1 3
Waldensians [Poor Men of Lyons],
324
Walpole, Horace, estimate of, 379
War, Christian principle regarding,
no; and early Cluistians, 266;
influence of Mediaeval Church upon,
302
Watson, Bishop, Apology for Christi-
anity, 191
Wealth, Christ's teaching, 99-102 ;
how regarded by early Church
Fathers, 258 ; teaching of Mediae-
val Church, 302 ; subsequent
reform movements against wealth
of Mediaeval Church, 324 ; re-
garded as a trust in Roman Empire
first century, 137 : see also " Rich
and Poor, Poverty, Property "
Wealth of Nations, Adam Smith's, 440
Wends, the, Christianizing of, 278 ;
crusade against 1333, 303
Wesley, John, educational reforms,
382 ; democratic character, 385 ;
influence on Established Church,
440 ; and the Moravians, 380, 381 ;
preaching against slavery, 387 ;
and Whitefield, 378
Wesleyan Missionary Society, 393
Whitefield, and slavery, 387 ; and
Wesley, 378
Wife : see Marriage
Wikings (Vikings), influence of
Church upon, 284, 285 ; invasions
in ninth century, 277 ; individual-
ism of, 290
Wilberforce, supported by Evan-
geUcal revivalists, 390 ; and child-
labour, 392, and slavery, 387
Will, in Stoicism, 129
Wisdom Literature of Israel, 70
Witch-doctors, 481
Women, Ambrose's opinion of, 251 ;
in post-Aristotelian philosophy,
127 ; Augustine's opinion of, 251 ;
Christ's teaching, 97 ; Clement of
Alexandria's opinion, 252; Chrysos-
tom's opinion, 252 ; educational
missions (modem), 462, 467 ; influ-
ence of Foreign Missions on her
position, 462 ; included in
Guilds (mediaeval), 312; heiresses
(Israelite laws), 67 ; Jerome's
opinion, 251; Justin Martyr on, 251;
labour of (influence of Evangelical
Revival), 389; and marriage: see
Marriage ; and Mithraism (excluded
from its privileges), 246 ; in Middle
Ages (placein Church and State),
304; modern Christendom (status
compared with that in Israel), 7 1 ; in
Pauline ethics, 171 ; teaching of
Primitive Church concerning, 251 ;
status in Primitive Church, 229 ; in
Roman Empire, 138, 214 (made
legal guardians of their children),
269 ; Tatianon, 251
Wordsworth, Wm., 509
Work and Wages, by Thorold Rogers,
398
Working man (modem), education
contrasted with eighteenth cen-
tury, 386 ; Massey's efforts for,
402 ; colleges, 401
Workman, Rev. H. B,, Persecution
in the Early Church, 287, 303 ;
quoted, on early Christians and
state offices, 297
NN
546
INDEX
Worms, Concordat of, 303
Wyclif John, compared with St.
Francis of Assisi, 329 ; his doc-
trine of the humanity of Jesus,
330 ; influence on Peasants' Re-
volt, 327 ; outline of his political
system, 527 ; sympathy with the
poor, 328, 329 note
Young Men's Christian Association,
407
Zechariah, social ideals, 69
Zeno, his philosophy, 129
Zephaniah, 63 note
Zwingli, educational reforms, 368
THIS BOOK IS DtJE ON THE LAST DATE
STAMPED BELOW
AN INITIAL FINE OF 25 CENTS
WILL BE ASSESSED FOR FAILURE TO RETURN
THIS BOOK ON THE DATE DUE. THE PENALTY
WILL INCREASE TO 50 CENTS ON THE FOURTH
DAY AND TO $1.00 ON THE SEVENTH DAY
OVERDUE.
APR 11 1934
If Aiig'5r D?
I'"* V \ *
SEP fi 19S8
MAR 8fi1»36
^A«^-a
C«-T94«
i4May'60RT
r Fr-p LP
WAV 4 1960
^^2B
mf
#Wav'6?.'F
SEP 2 1947
JaMav'SOss
REC'D LIJ
[:aY 9i35Z
tf:-.?6e"'
10bn'52Lll
LD 21-100m-7,'33
' ^ OUUDC.
240067