nitions to Bardesenes, but Justin does not think that he could have been the author of so many shameless lies.' 16

Thus, by the close of the third century we have the absurdity of Baptism regenerating the soul, and the Supper feeding it, an episcopacy with which is lodged eternal life, a Catholic Church,' outside of which all are heretics, and no salvation out of the Church. For this, Cyprian, a converted pagan, rhetorician and bishop of Carthage, is more to blame than any other man. Pupianus, like a simpleton, took it into his head to 'inquire carefully into our character,' says Cyprian. But in his reply to that callow brother, the gentle bishop reads him this sweet lecture: 'What presumption! What arrogance! What pride it is, to call the prelates and priests to account! The bees have their queen; the armies have their generals; and they preserve their loyalty; the robbers obey their captains with humble obsequiousness! How much more upright, and how much better are the unreasonable and dumb animals, and the bloody robbers, and swords and weapons, than you are. There the ruler is acknowledged and feared, whom not a divine mandate has set up, but whom the reprobate rout have appointed of themselves.' He then warns him that as one who calls his brother Fool' is in danger of hell fire, he is in greater peril who inveighs against 'priests.' 17

6

6

Well may Isaac Taylor say in his Primitive Christianity: The first three (centuries) of the Christian history, comprise a sample of every form and variety of intellectual or moral observation of which human nature is at all susceptible, under the influence of religious excitement. No great ingenuity, therefore, can be needed in watching any modern form of error or extravagance, with its like, to be produced from the museum of antique specimens.' And he deprecates the abject slavery of so prostrating 'our understandings before the phantom, venerable antiquity, as to be inflamed with the desire of inducing the Christian world to imitate what really asks for apology and extenuation.' 18

14

N

CHAPTER IV.

THE FOURTH CENTURY.

EAR Geneva the Rhone flows in swift but calm majesty at the foot of those Alps, which are more majestic than itself. There its waters are a dark blue and beautifully crystal, as they flow from a cool azure lake far up in the region of alternate snow and sunshine. The river Avre comes rushing down from those horrid valleys where the glaciers grow and grind, striking the Rhone at almost right angles. It is a little, furious, brawling, muddy stream worthy of its fountain; it scowls like the brow of a dark villain rushing from his den, and launches its dirty current into the sheet of light. The Rhone, as the daughter of purity, shrinks from its defilement and glides on in disdain, refusing all amalgamation. Long they move on side by side in the same channel, parted by a deep-drawn line between them, but without one spot on the mountain maiden. Thus repelled, the Avre sinks to quiet, softened into decency by the sun-lit side of the Rhone, which melts, first into pity then into compassion. And why? At every rock the impudent intruder breaks into foam and then lulls into murmurs, as if it were pleading for tolerance, till quietly the larger stream consents to absorb the less, eddy by eddy, and so at last it is overcome by importunity and embraces what it first spurned. From that hour the glory of the Rhone is gone, a few leagues below the two are one, and in their turbid dishonor they rush down together as one polluted stream. This is but a faint image of the River of Life, mingled with the tide of pagan philosophy, which have come down to us confluent from the opening of the fourth century.

It would require a volume to trace the corruption of Christianity with Platonism, for we have this heresy in germ in the Apostolic Churches long before the Gnostics injected it into the truth at Alexandria, as the exalters and defenders of knowledge against faith. Paul found it creeping in at Crete, Colosse and Ephesus. The ideas of Pythagorus had prepared its way in Crete, Ephesus was the center of all pretentious philosophy, and Colosse was full of Phrygian pantheism entwined with the mysteries of Pan, Cybele and Bacchus. All these were dexterously interwoven into Christianity by Simon Magus, the real father of Christianized Gnosticism; others fostered it, and Manes led it to full manhood by the end of the third century. Paul saw its drift and warned Timothy against the opposition of 'knowledge falsely so called.' At first it was simple, without system or great power, never arraying itself openly against the truth; hence, its danger lay not in

CHRISTIAN DOCTRINE CORRUPTED.

195

the violence of its attacks, but in its secret aggressions. Hippolytus calls it a 'hydra,' which had been pushing its way in the dark for many years; but no error matched it in efficiency. In his time it had corrupted between thirty and forty sects and subsects, who differed amongst themselves, all holding principles contrary to the simple faith of Christ and putting it under the control of Oriental paganisın. The Gnosis of Alexandria is not easily defined; for it was a compound of monotheism, materialism, pantheism and spiritualism, taken from the heart of Platonism and the reasoning of Aristotle, with an admixture of native Egyptian thought. It professed to be the essence of intelligence, and so won the learned by its liberal speculations, the rationalist by its mastery of all logic, the superstitious by its many mysteries and the ignorant by its pretense, that it explained every thing. The Greek philosophy was too narrow for its tastes, and the teachings of Jesus too practical for its uses, so it made sad havoc of Homer's pure literature and Christ's plain revelations. It refused to take any thing in the proper and natural meaning of its words, and its allegory distorted every thing by the attempt to transfigure its simplicity. Hippolytus says that the whole system reminded him of Thales, who, 'Looking toward heaven, alleging that he was carefully examining supernal objects, fell into a well; and a certain maid, Thratta, remarked of him derisively that while intent on beholding things in heaven, he did not know what was at his feet.'

At the opening of the fourth century none of the Churches were entirely free from this corrupt leaven. It affected their doctrine and practice, had created an aristocracy in their ministry, pushed aside the letter of Scripture in sublimating its interpretation in relation to the person of God, of Christ, good and evil, incarnation and atonement; and had left but little in the Gospel unchanged, either in theory or experience. Almost all the African fathers had gone after it, and it had produced swarms of monastic orders in Greece, Gaul and Italy. Worse than this, it had destroyed the common bond of brotherhood between the rich and poor; and because of its pomp, ceremony, symbol, mystery and liturgical worship, it had found that favor with the nobles which exalted Christ's religion into an awful. sacredness, and well nigh made the Church a secret society, which now cared little to uplift the slave, the poor and the downtrodden. This explains why Christianity took the shape that it did in its final struggle with paganism. Having corrupted itself and become weak, the steps were easy to popular influence, and the unity of the temporal with the spiritual power. For forty years the law of Gallienus had recognized the Christians as a legal community. They had become numerons and influential. In the great cities they had large and costly temples furnished with vessels of gold and silver; their faith was much the rising fashion; the army, the civil service, the court, were filled with Christians, and the old Christ-likeness had nearly gone. A century had passed since the Antonines; the Empire was fast breaking up of its own heterogeneous elements; and one more attempt was made

to recast it on the old faith and a more absolute model, if possible, by two Emperors after the Oriental fashion. Now we have the last bitter persecution, for the modified Christian faith was supplanting heathenism faster than had the simple Gospel. This persecution burst forth Feb. 23, 303, at Nicomedia, where the Imperial Palace was then located. Because the Scriptures were regarded as the source of all Christian aggression, the aim of the persecutors was to destroy every copy, and the cry passed up and down the empire: Burn their Testaments!' This Bible burning was firmly resisted, and at Carthage, Mensurius the bishop removed all copies from the sanctuary, putting worthless MSS. in their place. Afterward he was accused of betraying the Bible, a charge never sustained. Many gave up the sacred book willingly to be burnt in the market-places, and were expelled from the Churches, while others preferred death to this treachery. An African magistrate demanded that Felix should give up his Bible for burning, when he answered that he would rather be burnt himself. He was loaded with chains, sent to Italy and beheaded. In Sicily Euplius was seized with the Gospels in his hand and put on the rack. When asked, 'Why do you keep the Scriptures forbidden by the Emperor?' he answered: Because I am a Christian. Life eternal is in them; he that gives them up loses life eternal.' The Gospels were hung about his neck when led to execution and he was beheaded. At Elia, in Palestine, Valens, an aged deacon, proved his love for the Scriptures by committing large portions of them to memory, and repeating them with accuracy. John, a blind Egyptian, did the same with such perfection that he could repeat the whole of the books of Moses, the Prophets and the Apostles.1 Hot irons were thrust into the sockets of his eyes.

This persecution lasted ten years, and was severer than all that had gone before. But it acted like fire on incense, in drawing out the finest and richest essences in Christian character. One day, when it was beginning to abate, the Emperor's bed-chamber was found in flames. Diocletian was stricken with terror, and suspecting his Christian servants, he put them to torture and stood by to extort their confessions. Two weeks later a second fire occurred in the same room. He was more enraged than ever, and made closer inquisition for blood in the palace. Several servants were put to death, and the Empress and his daughter, who were Christians, were compelled to sacrifice to the gods. No language can describe the brutality of this persecution under Diocletian, Galerius and Maximian, whom Lactantius calls three ravenous wild beasts.' It is estimated that 17,000 suffered death in one month, that 144,000 were martyred in Egypt alone; and of the banished, and those condemned to the public works, no less than 700,000 died. In some provinces scarcely a Christian was left. So great was the triumph against Christianity that it was commemorated by striking off a gold coin. On one side was the head of Diocletian, crowned with laurel, and on the reverse, Jupiter, brandishing a thunder-bolt, and trampling upon the genius of Christianity-a human figure with

feet of serpents. This Dance of Death was revived, however, under one Emperor after another, until Constantine conquered Rome, A. D. 312. At that time he reigned over the Western Empire only, but in 323, after the battle of Chalcedon, he became sole Emperor of the Roman world. He published an edict concerning Christians in 312, at Rome, but this document is lost. In 313 another, issued at Milan, gave toleration to all religions, and restored the confiscated property of Christians; he also gave large sums of money to rebuild their places of worship. But in 324 he inflicted a blow upon the Christian system from which it has not yet recovered, by making it the religion of the State. Between 315 and 323 he had sent forth five edicts admitting Christians to offices of state, civil and military; had taken measures to emancipate Christian slaves; had exempted the clergy from municipal burdens, and had made Sunday a legal day of rest from public work. But in 325 he attempted to settle the disputes in the Church by presiding at the first General Council which ever was held, that of Nicæa, in which Arianism was condemned, the unity of the Catholic party proclaimed, and the last step taken to establish the union between Church and State.

This great historical character has been the subject of malignant depreciation

mother, who must have been troubled with Baptist notions, for she never had him christened. His disposition was naturally mild and tolerant; and his father, who was not a Christian, being moved by clemency toward Christians, had probably influenced him in the same direction, as well as the counsel and example of his mother. In his early manhood he worshiped at the shrine of the gods, but after the removal of the government to Constantinople he forbade pagan worship in that city, and leveled its temples throughout the Empire. Having renounced that religion himself, he persecuted the unconverted pagan for his constancy therein. He is said to have seen the cross in the sky, but possibly his Christianity had borne a higher character had he discovered love for the true cross of Christ in his soul; crosses in the firmament are of rather light moral worth. Unfortunately, it was years after this traditional vision that his nominal Christianity allowed him to kill his son, his second wife and others of his family. Full of ambition and passionate resent