Many strange ideas entered into the expectation of the coming of Christ. It was even thought that at the last moment he would convert and save those who had been unreached by his earthly envoys. St. Paul believed that then, “after the fulness of the Gentiles had come in,” Israel would at length be saved.66As to what was to follow the second advent, opinions slightly varied. According to St. Paul,67Christ would establish after it an eternal and heavenly kingdom of the Christian living and risen dead; but according to the bookof Revelation,68he would then reign for a thousand years on earth, afterwards beginning his everlasting rule.
From the new world then to be completed the Christians believed sin to have been put away by the death of Christ. The doctrine of the Atonement, as they understood it, meant actual deliverance from sin, and not mere deliverance from its penalty. Nothing could be clearer than St. Paul’s statement of this.69All St. Paul’s epistles are pervaded by a tone of grieved surprise that sin should be found existing within the Church. Sin in his eyes was essentially the mark of the old world. If, then, a Christian sinned, he showed that he did not really belong to the new world; he was under the law, and not under grace, and by the law he would be condemned; he would perish with the perishing world. Probably, under the pressure of such a belief, the Church at this time was the purest society of men that has ever existed. Considering the moral condition of the period, it is likely that the distinction then made between believer and sinner almost corresponded to actual fact. Practically within all was good, and without all was evil. In modern evangelical Protestantism language of the same kind is often used, but only as the shadowy semblance of what was once substantial reality.
The belief in the second advent of Christ in another way must have helped to maintain the purity of the early Christians. Living in the constant expectation of his immediate coming, worldly pleasures seemed too transient and unsure to be worthy of attention. Their belief too, was invested with a vivid sense of reality. They expected to see their lord in all his heavenly majesty, not under strange and unknown conditions only to be experienced by passing through the gate of death, but in the midst of the familiar associations of earth. They awaited his appearance “in the very world which is the world of all of us,” and the shadow of his coming lay on all the thoughts and actions of their lives.
With the fading of so beautiful a dream the real corruption of Christianity began. As the years passed by, and Christ did not appear, the hopes of the Church gradually died away. The doctrine of his speedy coming at length became the last refuge of fanaticism. With it “the freshness of the early world” of Christianity finally perished; the Church never knew again the simplicity and purity which marked this period of its youth.
The expectation of the immediate coming of Christ was the sustaining principle of Jewish Christianity. The loss of it threw the Church completely into Pagan hands. While it prevailed, Christians cared little about the explanation oftheir theology; existing conditions were regarded as too provisional. But afterwards, when a long life seemed to lie before the Church, theological “pseudo-science” was born. New and complex doctrines were needed to engage the thoughts of Christians, and these Pagan Christianity supplied.
Though the Christianity of this period was thoroughly Jewish in the character of its doctrines, the preaching of it was addressed chiefly to Pagans. St. Paul was their representative among the heads of the Church, and preached almost exclusively to them. In turning to them, Christianity had to a certain extent to adapt itself to their ideas. The nature of this adaptation is clearly visible in the writings of St. Paul.
I have said that, in preaching to Jews, the watchwords of Christianity probably were “Jesus and the remission of sins.” In preaching to Pagans, these watchwords would not have been worth much. Pagans looked for no Messiah, nor were they likely to be inconveniently conscious of sin. The great doctrine of the Church on which stress was laid when it preached to Pagans, as we have clear evidence in St. Paul’s epistles, was the resurrection. Christianity attracted Pagans mainly by promising them the resurrection of the dead. This was naturally the case, as to them, unlike Jews, it was a novel doctrine. But the strength of Christianity in dealing with Pagans lay notmerely in its assertion of the resurrection of the dead, but in the proof of the resurrection it professed to give. This, again, is plainly evident in the epistles of St. Paul. He dwells so much on the resurrection of Christ that we might suspect him to have been tainted originally with the scepticism of the Sadducees. By this peculiarity, however, he was exactly fitted to be the apostle of the Gentiles. With his writings before us, we may be sure that he preached to Pagans, as he is made to do in the Acts of the Apostles, “Jesus and the resurrection.”70To him the resurrection of Christ was the evidence for the general resurrection of the dead; while his conviction that Christ had risen from the dead rested on the belief that he as well as others had seen Christ after his death.71And so St. Paul could preach the resurrection to Pagans in a very effective manner, declaring that the dead would rise again, and giving as proof of this the fact that one man, Jesus, was known thus to have risen, as after his death he had been seen by many credible witnesses, including St. Paul himself. If God had raised Jesus, why should he not also raise other men? Christ had risen from the dead, and become the first-fruits of them that slept.
Thus while the watchwords of the Church in preaching to Jews were “Jesus and the remissionof sins,” its watchwords in preaching to Pagans were “Jesus and the resurrection.” That the evidence on which this preaching was founded should have existed is natural enough. The disciples of Christ, as Jews, necessarily believed that he, after his death, had ascended to heaven, and was living there with God. Such being the case, there is nothing strange in their fancying that he occasionally appeared to them.72The death of Christ must have immediately weeded out of the Church all but his most faithful followers. It is not surprising that these, in the midst of the disturbance and excitement of those early days, should have seen visions of their lord, should have imagined that he came sometimes from heaven to console them and strengthen them in their weakness. People so superstitious, in a period of so much supernaturalism, were almost certain to see such visions. St. Paul’s own particular vision, which played so important a part in the history of early Christianity, of course can only be explained by referring to the peculiarities of his personal character.
This basing the doctrine of the resurrection of the dead on the resurrection of Christ had nothing to do with the subsequent belief that he rose on earth and stayed there for a time. St. Paul evidently believed that Christ appeared to othersas well as to himself by coming straight from heaven, and that his resurrection had been his entrance into heavenly glory.73
In another and a more important respect the influence of its Pagan proselytes affected the principles of Jewish Christianity. In preaching to Pagans it was necessary to determine the nature of Christ. For Jews it was enough to call him the Messiah; their imagination supplied the rest. But Pagans, who had no Messianic expectations, required an explanation of his position as founder of the Church. This influence naturally was most felt by St. Paul, and through him it had a considerable effect in shaping the development of Christian doctrine.
St. Paul believed that Christ “was born of the seed of David according to the flesh, and declared to be the son of God in power by the resurrection from the dead.”74Thus St. Paul, as Strauss says, began the deification of Christ. Of course, as Strauss also points out, this was due to the fact that he had never personally seen Christ. Entering the Church some years after its founder’s death, when already legendary influences must have been active in exalting him, St. Paul had no knowledge of Christ to check his natural tendency to glorify the master whom he believed to have appearedto him in a blaze of heavenly light. The other Christians who saw visions of Christ had probably all known him during his life, and this must have interfered with their impulses to magnify him. Naturally, then, St. Paul went further than the other leaders of the Church, and, having seen Christ only in a heavenly vision, thought of him only as a heavenly being. The conception he ultimately formed of Christ in consequence of this tendency to exalt him is somewhat obscure. The term “son of God” in the mouth of a Jew might have only a vague meaning applicable to any man. As employed by St. Paul, it evidently has a special significance. He seems to have believed that Christ was the true Man, Man as he ought to be. Adam was the first and imperfect man, Christ was the second and perfect man. Thus God was the father of Christ in a fuller sense than that in which he was the father of ordinary men, as he had imparted to Christ more of his own nature. Through this possession of elements of the divine nature, Christ was able to represent and redeem mankind fallen under the power of sin. All faithful followers of him were to be made partakers of his divine characteristics, were to become children and heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ, were to suffer and be glorified with him.75
Christ was evidently regarded by St. Paul as made thus peculiarly the son of God by his possession of God’s spirit. No idea of his having had a miraculous human birth entered into this belief. God in the fulness of time sent forth his son in the likeness of sinful flesh, born under the law, that he might redeem those who were under the law.76St. Paul, however, seems to have believed vaguely in Christ’s pre-human existence;77but the pre-existence he assigned to Christ was potential rather than actual, Christ existing from the beginning of time as the destined deliverer of mankind.78
So the extent of St. Paul’s deification of Christ may be thus generally described. He believed that Christ was in a peculiar sense the son of God—that is, something more than ordinary man. Intermediate between God and man, he was at once God’s agent and man’s representative. But St. Paul clearly makes him inferior to God as well as superior to man, and allows him no power except what is delegated to him by God.79Thus as yet there was no sign of the doctrine of theIncarnation, though a path for it was being prepared. For the doctrine of the Incarnation, it must be remembered, is not a mere deification of Christ. It is important, not because it deifies man, but because it humanizes God. St. Paul undoubtedly, so far as he deified—it would be better to say divinised—Christ, helped the Pagan tendencies of later Christianity, but there was nothing actually Pagan in his belief.
The death of St. Paul marked the beginning of the end of Jewish Christianity. As the Jewish leaders died off, the vast Pagan majority seized upon power and impressed their ideas on the doctrines of the Church. Between the undiluted Jewish Christianity of its origin and the Pagan Christianity of the second century, Paulinism served as a link which enabled them finally to remain in nominal connection. In the spurious epistles attributed to St. Paul we can trace the steps of advancing Paganism, and observe the struggle for reconciliation which his followers inherited from him. Paulinism was ultimately lost in the Paganism with which its Jewish opponents had identified it. But it bridged the interval between the Jewish and Pagan periods of Christianity, and so saved the Church from a rupture it could not have survived.
Whilethe movement within Judaism with which hitherto we have been mainly occupied was tending to create out of it a world-religion, outside of it circumstances were preparing to make this tendency succeed. The later additions to Judaism, the supernatural system of dogma which formed the basis of Christianity, were, as I have already said, favourable to its expansion by reason of their harmony with Pagan ideas. About the time at which they entered strongly into Judaism, began a steady break-up of the religions of the Pagan world. The material power of Rome attacked them from below, by destroying the national foundations on which they rested, while Greek culture and philosophy, advancing under the protection of that power, assailed them from above. Under the double pressure they faded away. In the age of the apostles, over the greater part of the Roman empire religion was a matter of sincere belief onlywith the lower orders of the people. A few men of thought and learning put it utterly aside. Between these two classes there was the great body of ordinary persons mentioned at the beginning of our first chapter, who had lost faith in the popular religions, but were themselves thoroughly religious. The credulity which always characterizes periods of religious change, when some form of religion is destroyed, though the religious spirit retains its energy, was universal. Besides this break-up of the old religions in consequence of the extension of Roman power, in another way that extension of power more directly prepared a path for a great proselytising system. As national limits were overthrown, of course a religion that ignored national distinctions could more easily overspread the world.80Thus when Christianity touched Paganism everything promised it success. In fact, the critical period in the life of Christianity was that which immediately followed its founder’s death. While it existed only in Palestine, it was in great danger. When it spread among the synagogues of Jews in foreign countries, it had a surer footing. And when from these, which served as a means of introducing it to them, it turned to Pagans, it was placed beyond possibility of failure.
It is interesting to note that Christianity failedto conquer the Judaism from which it sprang, while the Paganism seemingly foreign to it everywhere succumbed to it. A few centuries after this time every part of the Roman empire professed Christianity as its religion, while the Jews remained still the same. Paganism was overcome and absorbed by Christianity, but Judaism shook it off as an excrescence without suffering harm. In this fact there is nothing surprising. Judaism was too strong for Christianity to subdue it, while Paganism was a ready prey. The Roman empire, outside Judaism, lay before Christianity like a body without a mind; it needed a unifying religion to match its political unity, and this Christianity supplied.
The general effect likely to be produced on Christianity by its reception of Pagan disciples may now be considered. It is obvious that Pagans, who were steeped in religious ideas very different from those with which the Jews were familiar, would carry with them into Jewish Christianity different principles of religion. To ascertain the extent of this difference, we must compare Judaism and Paganism.
As a pure monotheism, Judaism stood alone in the world. A purely monotheistic religion tends to produce humility and stress on faith. The two great principles of human action, which Mr. Lecky names as the alternative forces that underlie everyimportant movement of mankind,81a sense of human dignity and a sense of sin, are distinctive marks of polytheism and monotheism. Monotheism, with its one God so far removed from man, inspires a feeling of human nothingness in comparison with him. Polytheism, with its far more anthropomorphic and less awful gods, does not dwarf man thus, but enables him freely to compare himself with the divinities he worships. And monotheism, by making man appear nothing beside God, necessarily exalts faith above good works as a means of pleasing him; for when the distance between them is so immense, the best that man can do appears a trifle. Both these tendencies of Judaism, as a monotheism, were more than counterbalanced by other circumstances connected with it. The humility the Jews might feel when conscious of the difference between themselves and God was more than outweighed by the pride they felt in their superiority to the rest of mankind as his chosen people who alone had the knowledge of him.82Their superiority to other men naturally affected them more than their inferiority to God. The strict legalism of Judaism also prevented stress on faith from being developed in it, as a multitude of petty observances made it peculiarly a religion of works. But both these principles were latent inJudaism, and were only checked by special circumstances attending it as a national religion. These circumstances being removed, the latent principles were sure to be developed. And, in fact, in Jewish Christianity, which was neither formal nor exclusive, their development was unmistakable. Early Christianity was essentially distinguished both by humility and stress on faith, as a glance at the New Testament is sufficient to show.
Simplicity of thought also characterized Judaism. Mysticism was abhorrent to a pure Jew, though a hellenised Jew like Philo might be steeped in it. Simplicity of worship, too, was a feature of Judaism; for the splendid ritual connected with the temple at Jerusalem was not properly a part of it, but was merely the expression of national pride. When away from Jerusalem, the Jew worshipped in the simplest and purest manner. And, most of all, morality was closely bound up with Judaism. Josephus justly boasted that his religion made virtue an indispensable part of itself.83The Jews as a whole were certainly far more moral than the Pagans as a whole.
The opposite of all these qualities characterised Pagan religions. Pagans felt no religious humility, for there was no great difference between their gods and themselves. Pride, a sense of human dignity, distinguished them as men. They hadnot to lay stress on faith, for this pride made them fully recognize the value of their own good works. Mysticism marked their religious thought, and sensuousness their religious worship. Between morality and their religions there was only the loosest connection.
Keeping these facts in view, we can easily understand the change in Christianity which now began. All the characteristics of Judaism just mentioned distinguished Jewish Christianity. Humility, stress on faith, simplicity of thought and worship, and the closest connection with morality clearly marked the religion of the early Church. This was evidently the case because the first Christians were Jews. When, then, the Pagans came in, having wrapped up in their religious ideas pride, trust in good works, mysticism, a love of sensuous worship, and a loose regard for morality, and when before long they alone made up the Church, Christianity could not remain unchanged. Christianity became Pagan because Pagans became Christians. And this is the full explanation of its corruption. The Jews, in a religious sense, were more highly developed than the Pagans, and so when it passed from Jews to Pagans it necessarily deteriorated.
As Christianity was preached in the Pagan world, it continually reached lower strata of Paganism. At first only the best Pagans could have entered the Church, but afterwards, as it grewin influence, Pagans of a constantly inferior type must have joined it. Thus the corruption of Christianity proceeded, not merely because Pagans in larger numbers professed it, but because, as time went by, a lower, a more Pagan class became included within its ranks. All during the period we are now examining probably belonged to the great middle order of society before mentioned, philosophers and peasants equally being absent. Christianity clung to the cities, and the restlessness of city life contributed to the growth of its theology. We will now trace the results of the direct influence of Paganism on the dogmas of the Church.
This influence naturally showed itself in a tendency towards the exaltation of Christ. He would seem to Pagans the real god of Christianity. God, the purely Jewish divinity, the national deity of Judaism, must have been from the beginning unattractive to Pagans, who disliked Jews, and were accustomed to gods that differed but little from men. The identification by Marcionite Gnosticism of the Jewish god with the malignant creator of matter showed how strong this feeling could become. But for the most part Pagans would simply put God aside, and fix all their attention on Christ. They would honour and exalt him, and regard him as the representative of heaven. Thus Paganism must have tended to develop still further theChristology of Paulinism. The first result of this probably appeared in connection with the Pauline phrase “son of God.” A Jew could not misinterpret the phrase and give it a literal meaning, but a Pagan might do so easily. Familiar with ideas of extremely anthropomorphic gods, Pagans would naturally consider Christ to be the son of God in the sense in which Herakles was the son of Zeus. As the proportion of Jews in the whole number of Christians grew less, the increasing Paganism of the Church developed this tendency, until finally it resulted in the belief in the miraculous conception of Christ, the first distinctly Pagan dogma of Christianity.
The gospels supply us with almost certain evidence that this was the way in which the dogma originated. The genealogies in Matthew and Luke are clear proof that the earlier traditions of the Church made Joseph the father of Christ, and of course the Church was less Pagan then than it was in later times. The doctrine, as Dean Milman points out, is utterly un-Jewish.84The Jews always expected the Messiah to be born in the ordinary manner, and they reverenced God too much to put him in the place of a human father. So the dogma shows plainly that it was the first triumph of Christian Paganism. Jewish Christianity was only able slightly to spiritualize it, andto found it in appearance upon an absurd misinterpretation of a passage of Isaiah.85
While the beginning of the gospel narratives was being constructed by one influence of Pagan Christianity, the end of them was being constructed by another. When the expectation of the second coming of Christ was abandoned, the Church had to assign a different meaning to his resurrection. Originally, and especially by St. Paul, this was closely connected with the second advent.86St. Paul evidently regarded the appearances of Christ to him and to others as preliminaries of the second advent, but now they seemed to stand in another light. Examining the traditions which preserved the remembrance of the visions of Christ seen by the early Christians, the Church found them, of course, clustered most thickly in the period immediately after his death, when the conditions likely to produce them were strongest. Visions seen after that time were probably only occasional and rare, and, with the exception of St. Paul’s, they were sure to have little importance. Finding, then, that nearly all the appearances of Christ had occurred within a short period after his death, the Church would naturally make a distinction between this period and subsequent times. Christ obviously seemed to have been more present then than afterwards. It would not be long before the belief would follow that he had actually stayed on earth during this period, before he had ascended to heaven. With his second coming no longer expected, that he should have done so would seem quite natural. The Church having to face a long life without Christ, it was reasonable that, before leaving it to its lonely struggle, he should have stayed with it for a time to sustain its immaturity and to strengthen it for its work. A solemn ascension of Christ in presence of his disciples would seem to be demanded as a suitable close to this period, and with the addition of it the dogma was complete.
As we can see by comparing Luke’s gospel with the Acts, this stay on earth was made shorter by an earlier than it was by a later belief. It was probably fixed finally at forty days, in order to include different reports of visions with places other than Jerusalem as their scene, and possibly, through the influence of expiring Christian Judaism, to match the forty days of Moses on Mount Sinai. That Christ rose on the third day after his death was a dogma of older times accepted by St. Paul,87founded, it is likely, on a passage of Hosea,88and there was no difficulty in connecting it with thebelief in his stay on earth. So the final doctrine of the Church was that Christ rose again on the third day after his death, stayed then forty days on earth, and afterwards ascended to heaven, not to return till the day of judgment and the end of mortal things.
The evidence in favour of this explanation of the origin of the orthodox doctrine of the resurrection of Christ is exceptionally strong. The accounts in the gospels, so confused and contradictory even in comparison with the rest of them, and telling only of occasional appearances of Christ to his disciples, show us clearly the underlying basis of dreams and visions on which the legend was founded. The belief in the resurrection of Christ on earth, we may conclude with almost historical certainty, arose from the late combination of the early traditions of Christ’s appearances from heaven to his disciples.
Thus at the time to which we have now come the Church in general believed Christ to be the divinely begotten and humanly conceived son of God, who had risen after his death on earth, and then had finally ascended to heavenly glory. Pagan principles had triumphed, and Paganism was every moment growing stronger in Christianity. The tendency to exalt Christ, already far advanced, had now nothing to check it. Forces were at work which were inevitably destined fullyto deify Christ, to lift him to the level of the Jewish God. The Jewish elements of Christianity, including monotheism, were thus in great danger of utterly perishing. Christianity, in fact, was tending to become a purely Pagan polytheistic religion, with a human being as its most important god, when it was saved by the influence on it at this critical period of a fortunate development in Jewish hands of Pagan philosophy.
Philosophy, from the moment of its first existence, has always by an irresistible pressure been driven towards monotheism. The consciousness in the thinker of his own unity, and the inevitable conditions of thought, alike force him to imagine one power as the cause of all the phenomena of life. Philosophy, when it arises in the midst of polytheism, at first allows the orthodox gods to be the subordinate instruments of this power, but it soon develops a tendency to sweep them utterly away. Then, having shaken itself free of popular religion, it builds up a new religion of its own, in which it asserts the existence of one supreme intelligence, the creator and governor of the world.
When philosophy has got thus far, and has constructed its eternal God, certain difficulties confront it. God, as the great first cause, has to be made perfect, for if he were imperfect thought would have to ascend higher to find a cause of his imperfection. But as the creator of all things, God at one timemust have existed alone, an absolute being simply self-contemplative. When he began to create, he ceased to be absolute, and became a relative being contemplative of his own creation. If as an absolute being he was perfect, how did he remain perfect when he became a relative being? The study of this problem has generally driven philosophy into pantheism, but where it has maintained its hold on theism, it has been forced to suppose that a change occurred in God at the time of creation, by which he remained absolute in regard to himself, though he became relative in regard to that which he created.
Two Gods had thus to be imagined, one absolute and eternal, the other relative and existing from the beginning of created things. But these two had to be one, or else the first or absolute God would have been relative to the second, and so the old difficulty would have been revived. Hence there was need of a mystery; God was one and yet two, two persons and one substance. The first was God as he was through all eternity, the second was God as he was manifested in creation, his representative with everything but himself. Thus the second was a mediator between the first and the world.
While for purely philosophical reasons philosophy was thus compelled to dualise God, other reasons also impelled it to this conclusion. Holding himto be pure mind, it had to explain his action on matter. Here, too, it was necessary to suppose, a mediator between the material world and God. And in proportion as philosophy advanced in its theism, it extended the attributes of God and raised him to a loftier height above created things; and hence, to connect him with what was so far inferior, a mediator again was needed. But in all cases this mediator had to be a part of God himself, or no difficulty was met; and thus in every way philosophy tended towards a divine dualism in mystery.
All Greek philosophy, except where it drifted into pantheism or pure materialism, was more or less influenced by this tendency. In Platonism especially it is clearly marked. The ideal world of Plato fills the place of the second or relative God, and acts as a mediator between God the absolute and the material world. God, according to Plato, is not the creator of matter, which, so far as it is recognized in his system, is given an eternal existence. The action of God is confined to the ideal world, of which material phenomena are a distorted reflection. At the time of the beginning of Christianity these features of Platonism were strongly developed in the theology of an Alexandrian Jew.
Outside Palestine the most important centre of Jewish thought was Alexandria. There from thetime of the captivity a large colony of Jews had been established. This colony became in many respects almost independent of Jerusalem in religion; it formed and translated its own canon of sacred writings, and even set up a temple of its own. Speaking the Greek language and living in the most cosmopolitan city of the world, the meeting-ground of eastern and western thought, the Jews of Alexandria were naturally affected by the speculative activity of Greek philosophy. The high development of Judaism encouraged speculation in its adherents. The Jewish philosopher had not, like the Pagan, to cast his religion aside when he began to seek out the causes of things; on the contrary, his religion seemed to cover a great part of the philosophical path. Under these circumstances, it is not strange that a philosophy should have arisen among the Alexandrian Jews.
For us this philosophy is represented by Philo, who was born about twenty years before Christ. A Jew by birth, and nominally always one in religion, Philo was so steeped in Pagan thought that he really ranks as a Greek philosopher. The chief object of his life was to reconcile Judaism and Hellenism, to give a philosophical reason for every feature of the Jewish religion. In fulfilment of this purpose, he handled Judaism with considerable freedom, and bent its simple theology into a mystical Platonism.
The tendency which inevitably characterized philosophy to push God back from contact with creation, and to preserve his shadowy glory as an absolute being, of course influenced Philo, who simply as a philosopher was bound to be a pure theist. But as a Jew also, Philo was bound to be a pure theist, with the most reverent conception of God. Thus two forces acted on him, as a Jew and as a Greek philosopher, driving him to the most refined theism, and this double pressure produced what Professor Huxley calls Philo’s agnosticism. He was compelled to form a conception of God utterly inconsistent with his character as creator of the world. Philo could not imagine that God had any relations with matter, or that he contemplated anything except the world of his own ideas. So philosophy, helped by his monotheistic religion, forced Philo to pursue the path of theological development which I have described above, to leave God in his pure essence absolute and unknown, and to attribute all the phenomena of creation to a mediator between this pure essence and created things.
In Judaism, language had already been used which, taken literally, almost described such a mediator. Wisdom had been spoken of as God’s companion before creation and his assistant or agent in all that he had done.89In a passage ofthe Psalms the word of God had been called the maker of the heavens.90Language of this kind probably was merely the result of the inveterate tendency of the Jewish mind to express itself by means of personification and symbolism, and had no mystical significance. But the passage last referred to, derived of course from the formula of creation in the first chapter of Genesis, seems to have guided Philo in his difficulty. He made the “Word” of God the required mediator, God’s agent and representative in all his actions.91
Philo’s conception of the Word is shrouded in the deepest mysticism. In language worthy of the Athanasian Creed, he asserts that it is neither created nor uncreated.92At one time he makes it distinct from God, at another a simple manifestation of God. These contradictions reveal his meaning only the more plainly. He regarded the Word as the modification of God which necessarily preceded creation, God the relative, while God the absolute remained outside it and yet not separate from it. Contradiction, of course, was inevitable. As a monotheist, for him there couldbe but one God; as a theistic philosopher, he had to push this God back from contact with the world. Hence he was compelled to imagine a manifestation of God, distinct from him and yet mystically one with him, to bear the burden of creation, and to represent the divine nature with all outside itself.
On the theological system of Philo, which was widely diffused at the period of its greatest danger from the pressure of Paganism, Christianity now drew largely to avert its ruin. This product of Pagan mysticism was exactly what it needed at the time. It was in danger, through its deification of Christ, of losing its monotheism and of worshipping a human God. By identifying Christ with Philo’s Word, every difficulty was overcome. The doctrine of an incarnation of a divine being in a human form had already entered into Asiatic religion, and, in a more familiar shape, was a common feature of western Paganism. Christ, as the Word made flesh, could be raised to the level of God without destroying monotheism; the Jewish God, as the absolute and unknown, could be reduced to the position of a constitutional sovereign; by a mystery the impulses of the Church could be satisfied, and yet the purity of Christianity be preserved.
“Philo,” says Professor Kuenen, “gave the Church a formula commensurate with her ideasof her founder.”93But Philo really did much more. He gave the Church a means of reconciling conflicting tendencies within it, of satisfying at once the higher and the lower class of religious instincts. And by doing so he saved Christianity. If this means of reconciliation had not been provided, Christianity would have sunk to the level of Paganism, and would have fallen among the ruins of the empire. Still we must not conclude that the doctrine of the mystic union of the persons of the Trinity was, except in a secondary sense, derived from Philo. Primarily it was derived from the necessities of Christianity. By deifying Christ, the Church prepared the way for that doctrine and the dogma of the Incarnation depending on it. Before Philonism entered into Christianity, Christ was man made God; afterwards he was God made man; but before and after alike he was the object of Christian worship.
The Church adhered closely to the philosophical basis of the doctrine. Christ, as the Word, was made the sole instrument of creation, God the relative; God the absolute, the Jewish God, was left in lonely supremacy, unnoticed except in the theological philosophy of Christianity. We can see the doctrine in its early shape best in the fourth gospel, which was written about the middle of the first half of the second century, in orderto give it a basis in the life of Christ.94The gospel was probably composed in Asia Minor, where Gnosticism and the Asiatic fondness for mystery would naturally facilitate the development of the doctrine. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. All things were made by means of him, and without him was not anything made.”95That is, at the beginning of creation, the Word existed with and as God, and became the agent by whom all things were created. But of course to the Church the Incarnation was the most important fact. “The Word became flesh;”96Christ was God incarnate. The Church might now safely worship its founder. As God, the human Christ could be adored, while nominally monotheism was maintained.
It was long before the doctrine was finally settled. Not until early in the fourth century, at the Council of Nicæa, did the Church define the dogma in its fulness. During this period different opinions prevailed respecting it, until at last, on the question of Arianism, two great parties madeit their battle-ground. In the controversy the orthodox contention was philosophically justifiable. Christ, as God the relative, had to be of one substance with God the absolute, or no absolute God remained; while if in substance also he was not eternal, he ceased to be God at all. Arianism, in fact, was simply Christian rationalism; it endeavoured to explain the relationship of God the Father and God the Son. But the essence of the dogma is pure inexplicable mystery, and rationalism could not touch it without destroying it. In the Nicene Creed it is stated in its proper form. “I believe in one God, maker of heaven and earth, and in one Lord Jesus Christ, the only-begotten son of God, begotten of his father before all worlds, very God of very God, begotten, not made, being of one substance with the Father, by whom all things were made.” Here the philosophical basis of the dogma is shown in the clearest manner. God was modified and Christ produced before creation began, and by means of Christ the work of creation was performed. We must carefully remember that the Nicene Council did not assert the eternal existence of Christ as a distinct being. He existed eternally, but in God the absolute before the creation of things. This is declared plainly in the damnatory clauses attached to the original creed by the Council, one of which anathematized him who should say thatChrist had not existed before he was begotten. It was not until long afterwards, in the Athanasian Creed, that the eternal existence of Christ as a person of the then fully developed Trinity was made a dogma of the Church, notwithstanding the absurd contradiction in terms involved in its statement. As expressed in the Nicene Creed, putting aside the misleading words “Father” and “Son,” inherited from an earlier belief, there is no such direct contradiction in the doctrine. God as one existed eternally; God as two persons only from the beginning of things.
Thus the mystery of one God in two became a part of Christianity. The Church believed in God, and worshipped him as manifested in Christ. The incarnation of God was henceforth the doctrine dearest to the Christian. His God was thus brought near to him, and presented to him in a form he could readily grasp. And, besides, the love felt by the Church for its founder was strengthened by the belief that he had renounced divine glory to come to the assistance of men. The God who had become man in his love for men, and for their sakes had endured suffering and shame, inspired the passionate devotion which, in the darkness of medieval Christianity, shone with a blaze of light. As the figure of the human Christ faded away in the dim distances of the past, the figure of the divine Christ was able to replace it,and to kindle anew the flame of zeal which had marked the beginning of the Church.
The second great dogma of Christianity had now been developed. The Incarnation took its stand beside the Atonement in the doctrines of the Church. Henceforth Christian theology was a mixture of Judaism and Paganism. For when this new essentially Pagan dogma of the Incarnation was added on, the old essentially Jewish dogma of the Atonement had entered too deeply into the life of Christianity to be laid aside. Both had to be accepted by the Christian. And, unfortunately, they happened to be utterly inconsistent. The doctrine that Christ had borne the penalty of human sins, and had died as an atoning victim, did not harmonize with the doctrine that Christ was God. That God has forgiven human sins and laid the penalty on a victim chosen for the purpose, is a doctrine strange indeed, but perfectly natural when viewed from a Jewish standpoint; but that God has forgiven human sins and laid the penalty on himself is a doctrine which, viewed from any standpoint, cannot be other than a hopeless puzzle.
Incompatible as the two dogmas are, Christian theologians of course have endeavoured to reconcile them. Only one explanation of the difficulty has been seriously offered. This is, that an absolutely sinless victim was required to become an atonement for human sins, and that such a victim could not be found outside the person of God himself. A reference to Pauline Christianity at once disposes of this explanation. Even if Christ as merely a man could not be sinless, he might be more than man without being actually God. From its very beginning, the Church regarded Christ, as the Messiah, as one greater than ordinary men, though still thoroughly human. Long before the dogma of the Incarnation was in existence, Christians looked on Christ as sinless, and connected his sinlessness with the Atonement.97Nevertheless, the explanation is the best available. It has created the doctrine of the “contract in the council of the Trinity,” as Mr. Arnold calls it. God the Father’s sense of justice could be satisfied only by the self-sacrificing love of God the Son, and hence the death of Christ upon the cross. It is certainly a characteristic example of a theological explanation.
The two great dogmas remained really irreconcilable. The Jewish dogma of the Atonement and the Pagan dogma of the Incarnation entered into Christianity as the results of opposite religious tendencies, and they could never be brought into harmony. The inevitable attempt to reconcile them is chiefly responsible for the formation of the complex mass of theology which so greatly distinguishes Christianity. One or the other canstrongly influence individual Christians, but it is impossible for both at once to occupy the same mind.
Now that we have examined the chief consequences of the transition from Jewish to Pagan Christianity, and dealt with the greater part of the doctrine of the Trinity, we must investigate the means by which that doctrine was completed by the inclusion of the third person, the Holy Spirit.
Throughout the earlier books of the New Testament we find constant references to the Spirit as a presence abiding with the Church. As used most frequently, the term simply means inspiration, the influence of God on individual Christians. This sense was derived directly from the Old Testament. Jahveh’s messengers to his people are there often described as filled with his spirit, as inspired by him for their mission. Naturally the early Church believed that this inspiration was continued under the new dispensation, and that the apostles, its leaders, were filled with the spirit of God to enable them to perform their work. But a new feature was introduced into the belief; the Church held that not merely leading Christians but all Christians were thus filled with the spirit of God. This was the natural consequence of the Messianic prophecies. Among the glories of the Messianic times, the prophets often included, as the result of the reconciliation of Jahveh and Israel, the resting of theinspiration of God on all his people, all being his servants just as they were themselves. Of course the early Jewish Christians applied these prophecies to themselves, and believed that the spirit of God rested on all the people of his true Israel, the Christian Church.
But in the early books of the New Testament we also find the term “spirit” used in a sense applicable only to a distinct being. St. Paul, in a remarkable passage, speaks of the Spirit as interceding with God for man.98In order to understand the origin of this belief of the early Church that the spirit of God, as a distinct being, sustained it in its struggle with the world, it must be remembered that the Jewish Christians regarded Christianity as a movement from among the unconverted Jews similar to the movement of ancient Israel from among the Egyptians. They continually looked for analogies between their circumstances and what was related of the exodus from Egypt. An angel was believed to have led the Israelites against their enemies,99and the Church would naturally expect a corresponding representative of God to watch over its progress. But by the prophets the name “spirit” had been given to this angel;100and so the early Christians, believingthat the spirit of God rested on the Church, personified it vaguely and made it a divine representative abiding continually with them. They regarded it as the substitute for the personal presence of Christ which had come to them immediately after his death. And thus the belief in the Holy Spirit was connected with the expectation of the second advent; it had come when Christ had left the Church, and when he returned its mission would be ended.
When the expectation of the second advent was abandoned, and a stay on earth after his death was assigned to Christ, the Church’s ideas of the Spirit underwent a further development. As it was the substitute for his presence, it could only have come after his ascension. Just as the ascension had been imagined as a suitable close of Christ’s stay on earth, so now a solemn ceremony was imagined to mark the entrance of the Spirit on its mission. The day of Pentecost, the recognized anniversary of the delivery of the law on Mount Sinai, appeared the fittest time for this ceremony.101As the founding of the law was regarded as the true beginning of the life of Israel, the coming of the Spirit seemed to match it and to form the true beginning of the life of the Christian Church.The construction of this tradition, as we have it in the Acts of the Apostles, was one of the last results of the influence of Judaism on Christianity.
At about the same time this influence was shown in another doctrine in connection with the belief in the Holy Spirit. I have already said that, when the mainly Pagan dogma of the miraculous conception of Christ was created, Jewish Christianity was able slightly to spiritualize it. By making the Spirit the agent on the divine side of that conception, the dogma was as far as possible purified from its taint of grossness.
Until after the time of the Nicene Council, the general belief in the Holy Spirit remained in this vague undefined form. The Church regarded it as a personified influence, and gave it little attention. In the Nicene Creed there is no dogma of the Trinity; only two persons of the Trinity as yet existed. In the fully developed Creed merely vague language is applied to the Spirit; it is spoken of as a distinct being, but its union with the Father and the Son is not asserted. The phrase, “Who proceedeth from the Father and the Son,” shows, as Feuerbach points out,102how loose an idea of personality was attached to it, and is very different from the precise terms in which the Creed defines the production of the Son. The subsequent dispute between the Eastern and Western Churchesin reference to the “filioque” of the Latin form of this Creed rendered it impossible for Christian theology to remain satisfied with the Nicene definition of the Spirit. Always regarded as divine, there was now a natural tendency to declare it to be God. A mystery of three in one was a puzzle no more perplexing than a mystery of two in one. And so the Holy Spirit was included in the divine Government, and the dogma of the Trinity was complete.
The full doctrine of the Trinity, philosophically expressed, is this. God the Father is God the absolute, incomprehensible and unapproachable by created things. God the Son is part of God the relative, the creator and saviour of the world. God the Holy Spirit is the rest of God the relative, the sustainer and guide of the world. Thus it is evident that the third person of the Trinity philosophically has no existence; its functions are only carved out of those of the second. And this philosophical non-existence of the third person has its reflection in theology. In spite of the Athanasian Creed, the Holy Spirit is only a shadow in Christian belief. Intellectually the sincere Christian is convinced of the existence of God the Father; emotionally he is convinced of the existence of God the Son; but of the existence of God the Holy Spirit he is not convinced at all, and he asserts it merely in the empty forms of traditional dogma.
We have now dealt with all the chief dogmas of Christianity. The Atonement, the Incarnation, the full doctrine of the Trinity, and the more important of the circumstances believed to be connected with the life and death of Christ—in fact, all the dogmas of the Creeds, have passed under our review. Only minor doctrines, in regard to which there are differences of opinion among Christians, remain to be noticed.
Fromthe time of the completion of the doctrine of the Incarnation, Christianity steadily advanced towards Paganism. Gradually all the characteristics of polytheism crept into the Church. Idolatry, embodied specially in an important doctrine to be mentioned presently, was embodied generally in the worship of images. The great principle of local government in religion which distinguished Pagan polytheism became Christian by the worship of saints. This was soon the chief feature of ordinary Christianity. To the average Christian the local saint appeared the representative of heaven, the appointed agent through whom heavenly blessings were to be obtained. The Christian doctrine of the soul’s immortality, originally derived from Judaism, was Paganised into a resemblance to the ideas on the subject which had vaguely entered into most forms of Paganism. The old belief of the Jewish Churchthat dead Christians “slept” until the resurrection had become heretical by the middle of the third century.103The doctrine of purgatorial penance was introduced into Christianity. For this, indeed, quite apart from Pagan influence, there was a very good reason. In the early days of the Church, with the moral influence of Judaism still strong on it, and the danger of persecution keeping it pure from unworthy members, probably almost all Christians were fairly good. Being good, they were fit for heaven or the heavenly reign of Christ; and so there was no difficulty in making the simple acceptance of Christianity the test of salvation. But when the Church became popular, and especially when it became the acknowledged religious system of the empire, it was plain that a large proportion of its members were by no means fit for heaven. And yet, with its looser Pagan hold on morality, it did not care to consign to damnation faithful believers in its doctrines. The old ideas, latent generally in Paganism, and given special expression in the mysteries, of penal purification from evil exactly met the difficulty, and accordingly they were incorporated in Christianity. As before in the case of the Incarnation, it was the need of the Church that really created the doctrine; Paganism only determined its form.
Christianity took all its supernaturalism of evilfrom Judaism, that is, from the later developments of Judaism, with hardly the slightest change. The belief in a chief devil, having subordinates under him, in hell or some such kind of irrevocable punishment, characterized late Judaism as much as Christianity. In general, this supernaturalism of evil was less strongly developed in Pagan religions, or rather, to speak more precisely, it was a feature of eastern far more than of western theology. Still Christian Paganism, though mainly western, had no difficulty in accepting it, and it afterwards became the chief support of medieval superstition.
The decline and final ruin of the empire of Rome transformed the outward structure of Christianity. The empire died under the hands of northern barbarians, but it attained a resurrection in the shape of the Papal Church. After the separation of the Eastern and Western Churches, the line of Christian development passed through the latter alone, the former remaining stagnant in consequence of its union with political despotism. The free Church of the west, becoming the real representative of Christianity, gradually embodied in itself all the attributes of imperial power. The Pope succeeded the Emperor; bishops succeeded the provincial legates; the religious tyranny of Catholicism succeeded the political tyranny of Cesarism. The pomp and ceremonial of the empire were transferred to the Church. The spiritof sensuous worship latent always in Christian Paganism of course was encouraged by this, and expressed itself in a complex ritual. But most of all Catholic imperialism exalted the clergy above the laity.
This exaltation of the clergy was the direct result of the transference of the imperial power to the Church. The long reign of despotism in the empire had unfitted the people of it for any approach to freedom. Just as formerly they had submitted to the material power which had had its centre in Rome, so now they submitted to the spiritual power which had its centre in Rome. Only by the slow training of many centuries was part of the population of Europe prepared for resistance to clerical tyranny. The Reformation rested on the political development of the peoples among whom it was successful. The clergy were the guardians, for good or for evil, of the childhood of the modern world.
The complicated system of sacraments which now arose in Christianity was largely the expression of priestly power. The distinction made between clergy and laity in the celebration of the Eucharist showed this in its clearest form. But most of all the power of absolution gave the priest an unlimited supremacy. Holding the keys of heaven and of hell, he was the master of the Christian’s soul. The foundation of this doctrine,as well as that of the general recognition of an authority peculiar to the clergy, was laid in the willing reverence felt by the early Church for the apostles, for the men who had actually seen its founder. Clerical despotism cannot be ascribed to the spirit of Paganism as distinguished from the spirit of Judaism. But still, in its extreme development under the pressure of changes in the Pagan world, it was a Pagan feature of Christianity.
A most important distinctly Pagan doctrine was connected with this idea of clerical sanctity. I have already referred to the belief of the early Church that the body and blood of Christ were really present in the elements of the Eucharist. It is quite clear from the language of St. Paul that this belief in the real presence was not a belief that the elements were actually changed into Christ’s body and blood.104By the faith of the communicant the sacrament was accomplished, and without faith it had no existence. The Eucharist was evidently then regarded as a constantly recurring sacrament of the once offered sacrifice of Christ’s death, which it commemorated and declared until he came again. That this was an exceedingly delicate doctrine which could be easily misinterpreted is obvious. It naturally developed into a grosser form when Paganism, with its leaning towards idolatry, became paramount in the Church. Theelements were then formally consecrated, and were regarded as the actual flesh and blood of Christ. As his body, they were laid on the altar and made an object of worship. This, of course, was simple idolatry. United with the dogma of the Incarnation, it enabled the Christian to adore God as visibly present in a material shape. The doctrine was connected with the exaltation of the clergy, as the power of consecration was confined to them. Thus the sacrament of the Eucharist became the sacrifice of the mass. The elements being actually changed into his flesh and blood, Christ was again made a victim; his sacrificial death was repeated as often as the ceremony; and so the Jewish dogma of the Atonement was linked with ideas utterly antagonistic to Judaism.105
The deification of the Virgin Mary was another wholly Pagan development of Christianity. Female divinities were common in Pagan polytheism, and female saints replaced them in Christian Paganism. After Christ, as man, had been made the God of Christianity, this tendency to give both sexes divine representatives produced the exaltation of the Virgin as his female correlative. She became the goddess of Christianity, the real third person of the Trinity, as Feuerbach calls her.106As motherand wife of God, she satisfied the human instincts of Pagan religion; and so the Church ultimately put all heavenly power into her hands. The asceticism of later Christianity at the same time created the dogma of her perpetual virginity. At last, as a divine being, she was encircled with an atmosphere of miraculous privilege even from before her birth.
The most striking feature of Pagan Christianity, monasticism, was due to a variety of causes. In part it had its origin in the personal character of Christ. His insistence on inward purity was not far removed from asceticism. But though monastic asceticism may have had some of its roots in later developments of Judaism, it was foreign to Judaism as a whole. Judaism was remarkable for its clearness and balance; it pushed nothing too far. Monasticism in reality was chiefly derived from eastern Paganism, from the tendency towards asceticism so common in Oriental religions. The same tendency produced another important effect on western Christianity, namely, the celibacy of the regular clergy. When this became an accepted doctrine, the finishing touch was given to clerical power. Henceforth the Roman Church was the most highly organized ecclesiastical system the world has ever seen. With no recognized interests outside his calling, every priest belonged body and soul to a vast disciplined mass which moved and acted like one man.
Thus highly organized, the Church plunged into the darkest period of the Middle Ages. For the evils of this period Christianity cannot fairly be held responsible, except in so far as it contributed to the ruin of the Roman empire. Throughout it, on the whole, the Church was a centre of light, keeping alive the embers of civilization, and softening the barbarous tendencies of the time. But in passing through it Christianity suffered fearfully. The ignorance and harshness and corruption of the age were stamped ineffaceably upon it. And this was inevitable. In every civilized country at almost every time there are sure to be two forms of the general religion, one popular, the other that of the more educated classes. The popular religion, resting on ignorance, is always a mere superstition; the other religion, kept clear by partial knowledge from offensive crudities, is the recognized form. But during the worst period of the Middle Ages there was no such distinction; all religion was popular; even the highest classes were hopelessly lost in superstition. The gloom of this superstition, the shadow of the wretchedness of the age, left a lasting mark on Christianity. The terror of life was transferred to death; death was associated with the most repulsive images, and closely connected with hell. The fear of hell became the motive power of religion; to escape hell was to the Christian the end of life.107The superstitious elements from which Christianity is now struggling to release itself were mainly developed in its passage through this period.
During it the moral corruption of Christianity was enormous. The Church laid stress, not on righteous conduct, but on orthodox thinking. Heresy was irremediably damnable, but crimes and sins could be easily compounded for. The immorality of the clergy, due partly to the general corruption of the time, and partly to their legal celibacy, was closely connected with the toleration of sin shown in the action of the Church. Rotten itself, the ecclesiastical power was ever ready, in return for material benefits, to open the gates of heaven to secular sinners. The whole course of medieval Christianity was a progress towards the doctrine of indulgences which immediately provoked the Reformation.
The moral decline of Christianity was the mark of its progress towards Paganism. It receded further from its original basis in Judaism as its dogmas became more complex and its hold on morality more uncertain. The complexity of doctrine encouraged the decline in morality, religious attention being drawn by it from practical conduct to the consideration of nice points of theology. A reaction against this tendency was inevitable. Christianity had shared in the descent of European civilization, and when European civilization began to ascend, Christianity had to ascend along with it. But the reaction, as it was against a corruption which was inextricably linked with the Paganism of the Church, could not fail to oppose itself to Paganism, that is, to recoil back to Judaism. And this is the explanation of the Reformation. It was the revival of Judaism in Christianity. As the revival of Jewish Christianity, it was sure to occur sooner or later; once the thought and knowledge of Europe awakened from their medieval slumber, the revolt against Paganism was bound to begin. The renewal of intellectual life involved the renewal of moral life. The restored conscience of Europe would protest first against the later corruptions of Pagan Christianity; but these were inseparably connected with earlier ones, and so step by step reformers would have to ascend along the line, until at last they would find themselves the champions of Jewish Christianity, contending against the forces of Paganism.
Thus the great schism which the Reformation caused in Christianity was inevitable from the first. Paganism could not be eradicated by therevival of Judaism. The more ignorant and backward races were sure to cling to it in opposition to the progressive spirit which revolted from it. The schism in Christianity was as inevitable as the schism which it occasioned in Judaism, the necessity of which was shown in our second chapter. And just as the expansion of Judaism which Christ made a practical success was in its main features quite independent of the influence of his personal character, so the main features of the Reformation were determined apart from the personal influence of the Reformers.
From the time of the Reformation Jewish and Pagan Christianity stood side by side. Protestantism revived the principles of the early Church; Catholicism retained the principles of Paganism. Within the lifetime of Luther the change was accomplished. He himself, because he assailed one immoral doctrine of the corrupt Roman Church, was forced to travel back along fourteen centuries of religious development.
Of course Protestantism cannot be exactly the same as the religion of the Jewish Church. Just as Pagan Christianity was compelled to retain Jewish dogmas, so Protestantism was compelled to retain Pagan dogmas. It had nothing to rest on except the Canon of Scripture, and part of the New Testament is Pagan in spirit. Accordingly, the dogmas of earlier Paganism, whichwere developed while it was still mixed with Judaism in the Church, were preserved in Protestantism. It kept, for instance, the great Pagan dogma of the Incarnation. Still, so far as general principle is concerned, Protestantism fairly represents Judaism, and Catholicism Paganism in Christianity. This is evident if they are fully compared with each other.
The Pagan character of Catholicism has already been shown. As Catholicism—and this term covers more than the Roman Church—has retained all the doctrines which we have examined as representative of Paganism in Christianity, this is obvious. Similarly the non-Pagan character of Protestantism is clear from its rejection of all the later of these doctrines, from the worship of saints to the immaculate conception. Its Jewish character must be shown by a reference to the principles of our comparison of Judaism and Paganism.
The chief distinctive doctrine of Protestantism is justification by faith alone. That in this it resembles Jewish Christianity, a glance at St. Paul’s epistles is sufficient to show. It is also plain that this doctrine is closely connected with the great Jewish dogma of the Atonement. According to it, sins are washed away by the blood of Christ, the victim offered to God. But the benefits of the sacrifice are obtained solely by faith; the merits of the Christian cannot enhanceits value. Still more closely, however, is the doctrine connected with the feature distinctive of Protestantism as of Judaism, its loftier conception of God. This, as was pointed out in our last chapter, is the peculiarity of monotheism, and it shows the monotheistic character of Protestantism. Catholicism, having inherited polytheistic ideas from Paganism, naturally recognizes the value of man’s good works. In the saints whom he worships the Catholic sees beings who, though they were once fallible like himself, have yet obtained heavenly authority; and, as he is thus conscious of no important difference between his divinities and himself, he is not disposed to underestimate the worth of his virtue.