CAUSES OF SCHISM; ESPECIALLY THOSE WHICH EXISTED FROM APOSTOLIC TIMES то THE PERIOD OF THE REFORMATION.

IN attempting to investigate the causes of schism, we have to turn to those dark pages of ecclesiastical history from which the sceptic derives his strongest objection to Christianity, and which contain, according to his representations, the substance of its annals. Having gratuitously asserted, and ostentatiously displayed, the mild and tolerant nature of ancient polytheism, he places it in invidious contrast with the contentions and persecutions which from age to age have stained the Christian name; and then proclaims, as by sound of trumpet, the superior spirit of the former, and denounces the latter as a convicted criminal and a curse. Now, as this is the chief, if not the only point of superiority to the Gospel which the advocates of ancient heathenism claim for it as the impression of its truth, by incessant repetition is so general that even a Bacon* is found unguardedly stating, that "the

quarrels and divisions about religion were evils unknown to the heathen"-and as the supposed tendency of the Gospel to produce dissensions has created, perhaps, stronger prejudices against it than all the other cavils of infidelity combined, it seems not only proper but necessary that a chapter which might otherwise tend to nourish this prejudice, should be introduced by a few warning and corrective remarks.

The following series of hints might easily be illustrated from history, and enlarged to any

extent.

1. Even allowing that the theory of the tolerant spirit of ancient heathenism had ever been carried into practice, it could not have been accounted a virtue. For if polytheism allowed the unlimited reception of new divinities, the admission of an additional god to the Olympian conclave, was not the tolerance of a new religion, but only a step towards the completion of that which already existed. Nor was there any more ground for praise in such admission, than there is in the church of Rome on the canonisation of a saint, or in the act of an officer who registers a baptism or a birth.

2. But the plausible theory of the tolerant spirit of Paganism is never known to have been realised in practice. The Athenians allowed no alteration whatever in the religion of their ancestors; and the lives of Eschylus, Anaxagoras, Diagoras, Protagoras, Prodicus, Socrates, and Alcibiades, decided that innovation in religion was death. The holy or sacred wars among the Grecian states; the sanguinary con

66

tests between the respective votaries of the different gods of Egypt ;* and the cruel extermination of the disciples of every other religion except that of Zoroaster, in Persia, conspire to prove that bigotry is peculiar to no clime, but is indigenous to our nature. As to the vaunted toleration of the Roman government, we learn from Livy that about 430 years before Christ, orders were given to the Ediles to see that none except Roman gods were worshipped, nor in any other than the established forms." Mecenas earnestly exhorted Augustus to "hate and punish" all foreign religions, and to compel all men to conform to the national worship: and Augustus and his successors literally followed his counsel. Tiberius prohibited the Egyptian worship; banished the Jews from Rome; and restrained the worship of the Druids in Gaul. Domitian and Vespasian banished the philosophers from Rome, some of whom were confined in the islands, and others put to death. From all of which it would appear that intolerance was an original law of Rome-that this law was never repealed-and that, from time to time, it was let loose on the professors of other religions with terrible effect. the history of France during the revolution proclaims, that hot as were the fires of persecution which Polytheism often kindled, Atheism has a furnace capable of being "heated seven

* Juvenal, Sat. xv.

While

↑ B. iv. c. 30. See also b. xxxix. c. xvi. Cicero de Legibus c. ii. 8. Valerius Maximus b. i. c. 3. Dio

Cassius, p. 490-2.

times hotter"-that intolerance is inherent in our fallen nature.

3. Not only did persecution exist prior to the introduction of Christianity, it employed its utmost power for the extinction of the Gospel. "The dragon stood . . . to devour the child as soon as it was born." The infant Church was cradled in suffering. Its champions were covered with the scars of conflict. Its members dated from their persecutions. All the instruments of suffering were prepared-all the aparatus of torture and death were brought out and arrayed in its path to arrest its progress. Philosophy, descending from that contempt with which she had professed to view the early steps of the Gospel, joined hands with the pagan priesthood, and conferred on the Church the unintentional honor of distinguishing it from all other "superstitions" by the superior activity of its deadly hate. Armed with the sword of the civil power, and marching under its banners, 300 years were spent in laboring to crush the Christian Church. Yet, during all these ages of persecution, it does not appear that the emperors had occasion to enact any new penal laws. So amply was the ancient armoury of the Roman code stored with the weapons of persecution, that they had only to select and wield them at pleasure. Nor should it be forgotten that the bad pre-eminence of raising persecution from a law to a science, was reserved for a pagan. Julian it was who first taught the theory of persecution, and made it a branch of practical philosophy.

4. If Christianity has practised persecution,

she learned the dreadful art from her own personal sufferings at the hands of her pagan tormentors. Long instructed in the maxims of intolerance, and accustomed to the spectacle of persecution, it was hardly possible that Christians should suddenly forget the lessons of their pagan oppressors; or support with perfect equanimity the transition they experienced from being the offscouring of all things to become the lords of the world. But, to the honor of the Christian name be it remembered, that universal toleration was first taught, even at the time of that transition, and taught by one professedly Christian. Constantine, in his Edict of Milan-whatever his motives, and however inconsistent his subsequent conduct-proclaimed universal toleration; protecting all, pagan as well as Christian, worship; that they who erred might enjoy the blessing of peace and quietness equally with the faithful."*

5. But the greatest waste of human life has been occasioned, not by religion, true or false, but by causes purely political. The wars of political society, says Burke," have slaughtered upwards of seventy times the number of souls this day on the globe." So that if the quarrels and bloodshed occasioned by a nominal Christianity is to be employed as an argument against the Gospel, the greater evils arising from civil society, supply a still stronger argument for returning to a state of savage nature.†

* Apud. Euseb. de Vita Constant.

See that admirable piece of irony by Burke, “A Vindication of Natural Society."