THE PAGAN GODS. The Greeks and Romans believed their gods were endowed with immortal youth, clothed with supernal beauty, and inspired with divine wisdom, and that they controlled the destinies of the human race. These gods were, however, themselves governed by an eternal and immutable principle called Fate or Necessity. They were larger than men, for size was formerly considered a beauty both in men and women, and therefore an attribute of divinity. A fluid named "Ichor" supplied the place of blood in their veins. Their food was called "Ambrosia," and their drink "Nectar." The beautiful Hebe (youth) presented the viands at their meals, and while these immortals ate their celestial food, Apollo struck his golden lyre, and the nine muses, (Clio, Euterpe, Melpomene, Terpsichore, Erato, Polymnia, Calliope, Urania, and Thalia), sang responsive strains. As gods are always made in the image of men, these gods were endowed with human desires and human frailties. They loved, hated, agreed, quarreled, fought, and became reconciled like ordinary saints and sinners. 'The Sons of God saw the daughters of men, that they were fair, and begat a race of giants," who inherited the good and bad qualities of their parents. Interbreeding between gods and men, between mortals and immortals, between the genus Homo and the genus Deus, which is vouched for by the most popular religions, is strangely omitted from works of natural history. The god Jupiter, who should have set a better example to mankind, surreptitiously left his wife and family on the serene heights of Mount Olympus, and invaded the home of a Spartan citizen. By transforming himself into a swan he overcame the reserve of Leda, a respectable married woman, the wife of Tyndareus, king of Sparta. Castor, Pollux, and the beautiful Helena were born, and a divorce suit should have followed this divine and human transgression. A similar event is recorded in the Christian scriptures, which bears a family resemblance to the Grecian myth, and suggests a common origin. Joseph was troubled in his mind, and dreamed a holy spirit in the form of a dove was the father of his unborn child. The first narrative is now an exploded Pagan superstition. The second is the foundation of the dominant religion of the world! Let us hope the revolving ages will yet witness a sublimer faith and a purer creed. The Egyptians, to perpetuate their mythology, constructed their records in enduring granite; yet after the lapse of forty centuries the world has forgotten. the builders and their creeds. The pyramids remain, but the purpose of their construction can only be conjectured, and the mystery of the Sphinx remains unsolved. The shrines of Isis and Osiris are forsaken and desolate. The Medes and Persians ordained their "immutable" statutes in vain. In vain the Assyrians proclaimed their solemn rites. Mylitta's temple at Babylon is overthrown. Dagon the Phoenician god, has fallen. The altar of Moloch-besmeared with human blooderected by Solomon in Jerusalem, has vanished like a hideous dream. The temple of Jupiter Ammon at Libya is in ruins. The oracles of the Greeks proclaim no more the mandates of the gods. The Scandinavian dreads not the power of the stern god Thor or the invincible Odin. The religion of the Magi, of the great Zoroaster, or Dodonean Jove has felt the corroding tooth of time. The Olympic games in Elis are forgotten, and their glories survive but as an echo of departed greatness. The colossal statue of Zeus by Phidias in the Olympitum has crumbled into dust; and can we believe that time has decreed a nobler fate for modern faith?-a kindlier destiny for modern superstition? Lord Byron sings in Childe Harold: "Even Gods must yield-religions take their turn; "Poor child of Doubt and Death, whose hope is built on reeds."— E, (Geese of the Capitol.*) II. THE PROGRESS OF THE CHRISTIAN RELIGION, AND THE SENTIMENTS, MANNERS, NUMBERS, AND CONDITION OF THE PRIMITIVE CHRISTIANS.† A Importance of the inquiry. CANDID but rational inquiry into the progress and establishment of Christianity may be considered as a very essential part of the history of the Roman empire. While that great body was invaded by open violence, or undermined by slow decay, a pure and humble religion gently insinuated itself into the minds of men, grew up in silence and obscurity, derived new vigor from opposition, and finally erected the triumphant banner of the cross on the ruins of the Capitol. Nor was the influence of Christianity confined to the period or to the limits of the Roman empire. After a revolution of thirteen or fourteen centuries, that religion is still professed by the nations of Europe,-the most distinguished portion of human kind in arts and learning as well as in arms. By the industry and zeal of the Europeans, it has been widely *Three hundred and ninety years before the Christian era the Gauls, under Brennus, besieged Rome. A daring party of these barbarians undertook at night to climb the steep rock of the Capitoline on the river side. The guards slept, not even a watch-dog bayed, and the foremost of the party had nearly reached the top when certain sacred geese in the temple of Juno, which stood near, began to cackle aloud and flap their wings. This tumult aroused the Romans, who repelled the invaders, and thus Rome was saved.-E. + Chap. XV. Gibbon's History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.-E. In spite of my resolution, Lardner led me to look through the famous fifteenth and sixteenth chapters of Gibbon. I could not lay them down without finishing them. The causes assigned in the fifteenth chapter, for the diffusion of Christianity, must, no doubt, have contributed to it materially; but I doubt whether he saw them all. Perhaps those which he enumerates are among the most obvious. They might all be safely adopted by a Christian writer, with some change in the language and manner. Mackintosh; see Life, i. p. 244. — MILMAN, (105) 106 SECONDARY CAUSES. diffused to the most distant shores of Asia and Africa: and by the means of their colonies has been firmly established from Canada to Chili in a world unknown to the ancients. But this inquiry, however useful or entertainIts difficulties. ing, is attended with two peculiar difficulties.* The scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church. The great law of impartiality too often obliges us to reveal the imperfections of the uninspired teachers and believers of the gospel; and, to a careless observer, their faults may seem to cast a shade on the faith which they professed. But the scandal of the pious Christian and the fallacious triumph of the Infidel, should cease as soon as they recollect not only by whom, but likewise to whom, the Divine Revelation was given. theologian may indulge in the pleasing task of describing Religion as she descended from Heaven, arrayed in her native purity. A more melancholy duty is imposed upon the historian. He must discover the inevitable mixture of error and corruption, which she contracted in a long residence upon earth, among a weak and degenerate race of beings.t The *After he had published this part of his work, Gibbon became aware of a third difficulty attending such an inquiry, (See his Memoirs, p. 230.) The prejudice which at first existed against these chapters is now abated. The milder tone, in which the errors of Gibbon are noticed by such translators as M. Guizot and such editors as Dean Milman, attests the improved feeling of the age; while successive editions continue to prove the popularity and standard value of the work.-ENG. CHURCHMAN. After the clerical abuse so long showered upon Gibbon's writings, it is refreshing to see evidences of this "milder tone" which" attests the improved feeling of the age. - E. The art of Gibbon, or at least the unfair impressions produced by these two memorable chapters, consists in confounding together, in one undistinguishable mass, the origin and apostolic propagation of the Christian religion with its later progress. The main question, the divine origin of the religion, is dexterously eluded or speciously conceded; his plan enables him to commence his account, in most parts, below the apostolic times; and it is only by the strength of the dark coloring with which he has brought out the failings and the follies of succeeding ages, that a shadow of doubt and suspicion is thrown back on the primitive period of Christianity. Divest this whole passage of the latent sarcasm betrayed by the subsequent tone of the whole disquisition, and it might commence a Christian history, written in the most Christian spirit of candor. - MILMAN. Gibbon was a historian, not a theologian, and left to others the discussion of theological questions. He employed his great talents in writing an impartial history of the human origin of the Christian religion; but as this origin is involved in doubt and obscurity, he was compelled to admit at the commencement of his work that, the scanty and suspicious materials of ecclesiastical history seldom enable us to dispel the dark cloud that hangs over the first age of the church." The "art of Gibbon," to which Milman objects, consists in telling the exact and simple truth; and the unfair impressions produced by these two memorable chapters upon the minds of certain over-zealous theologians, arises from their aversion to Gibbon's impartial narrative, which exposes, to use Milman's own words, "the "melancholy and humiliating views of the early progress of Christianity."-E. PROGRESS OF CHRISTIANITY. 107 Five causes of the growth of Christianity. Our curiosity is naturally prompted to inquire by what means the Christian faith obtained so remarkable a victory over the established religions of the earth. To this inquiry, an obvious but satisfactory answer may be returned; that it was owing to the convincing evidence of the doctrine itself, and to the ruling providence of its great Author. But as truth and reason seldom find so favorable a reception in the world, and as the wisdom of Providence frequently condescends to use the passions of the human heart and the general circumstances of mankind as instruments to execute its purpose; we may still be permitted, though with becoming submission, to ask, not indeed what were the first, but what were the secondary causes of the rapid growth of the Christian church. It will, perhaps, appear, that it was most effectually favored and assisted by the five following causes: I. The inflexible, and, if we may use the expression, the intolerant zeal of the Christians, derived, it is true, from the Jewish religion, but purified from the narrow and unsocial spirit, which, instead of inviting, had deterred the Gentiles from embracing the law of Moses.* II. The doctrine of a future life, improved by every additional circumstance which could give weight and efficacy to that important truth. III. The miraculous powers ascribed to the primitive church. IV. The pure and austere morals of the Christians. V. The union and discipline of the Christian republic, which gradually formed an independent and increasing state in the heart of the Roman empire.† Though we are thus far agreed with respect to the inflexibility and intolerance of Christian zeal, yet, as to the principle from which it was derived, we are, toto cœlo, divided in opinion. You deduce it from the Jewish religion; I would refer it to a more adequate and a more obvious source, a full persuasion of the truth of Christianity. Watson, Letters to Gibbon, i. 9.-MILMAN. In justice to Bishop Watson, we quote from his letter another paragraph, which explains and qualifies the above extract made by Milman, whose zeal, if not his candor and sincerity, was always apparent "when religion demanded his services," as the "English Churchman" truly remarks. 44 "I mean not to produs these instances of apostolic zeal as direct proofs of the "truth of Christianity; 1 every religion, nay, every absurd sect of every religion, "has had its zealots, who have not scrupled to maintain their principles at the expense of their lives: and we ought no more to infer the truth of Christianity from the mere zeal of its propagator, than the truth of Mahometanism from that of a "Turk. When a man suffers himself to be covered with infamy, pillaged of his property, and d. rged at last to the block or the stake, rather than give up his opinion, the proper inference is, not that his opinion is true, but that he believes "it to be true; and a question of serious discussion immediately presents itself, "Upon what foundation has he built his belief?"- E. 44 There is a sixth cause, to which the others owed their efficacy. This was the want of a better religion, then beginning to be widely felt in the Greek and Roman world. They were outgrowing their polytheism; beginning to be ashamed of what Gibbon too flatteringly calls their " elegant mythology." From the days of |