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Title: The Transformation of Early Christianity from an Eschatological to a Socialized Movement

Author: Lyford P. Edwards

Release date: October 3, 2012 [eBook #40929]

Language: English

Credits: Produced by Charlene Taylor, Paul Clark and the Online
        Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
        file was produced from images generously made available
        by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE TRANSFORMATION OF EARLY CHRISTIANITY FROM AN ESCHATOLOGICAL TO A SOCIALIZED MOVEMENT ***




Produced by Charlene Taylor, Paul Clark and the Online
Distributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This
file was produced from images generously made available
by The Internet Archive/American Libraries.)





    Transcriber's Note:

    Every effort has been made to replicate this text as faithfully
    aspossible, including some inconsistencies of hyphenation. Some
    changes of spelling and punctuation have been made.  They are listed
    at the end of the text.

    Italic text has been marked with _underscores_.




 The University of Chicago

 THE TRANSFORMATION OF
 EARLY CHRISTIANITY FROM
 AN ESCHATOLOGICAL
 TO A SOCIALIZED
 MOVEMENT

 A DISSERTATION

 SUBMITTED TO THE FACULTY
 OF THE GRADUATE SCHOOL OF ARTS AND LITERATURE
 IN CANDIDACY FOR THE DEGREE OF
 DOCTOR OF PHILOSOPHY

 DEPARTMENT OF CHURCH HISTORY IN THE GRADUATE DIVINITY SCHOOL

 BY
 LYFORD PATERSON EDWARDS

 The Collegiate Press
 GEORGE BANTA PUBLISHING COMPANY
 MENASHA, WISCONSIN
 1919




CONTENTS


 Chapter   I. Political Theories of the Early Christians     1

 Chapter  II. The Early Church and Property Concepts        24

 Chapter III. The Early Church and the Populace             50

 Chapter  IV. Chiliasm and Patriotism                       70

 Chapter   V. Chiliasm and Social Theory                    83




CHAPTER I

THE POLITICAL THEORIES OF THE EARLY CHRISTIANS


When Christianity came into the world it found a number of different
political theories already in existence. These various conflicting
concepts; Hebrew, Greek and Roman, influenced Christianity in varying
degrees and in varying degrees were influenced by Christianity.
Christianity as such added no new ideas to the current stock of
political notions. The Hebrew Christian retained his Jewish theory; as
did the Greek and the Roman in perhaps a less degree. The development of
the Christian conception of the state, the Church, and history generally
is a process of elimination, selection, adaptation, and synthesis of the
various elements of political theory current in contemporary Hebrew and
pagan thought.

The characteristic modern separation of Church and State, the divorce
between religion and government, existed as a matter of fact in early
Christianity. But it was forced upon the Christians by the historical
situation. As an idea it was foreign alike to Jews and Christians,
Greeks and Romans. It was contrary to the whole body of contemporary
political theory. The union of Church and State in the Fourth century,
which has been so deplored by many modern historians and moralists was
in reality perfectly inevitable. The social mind of the whole ancient
world made any other course impossible either to Christians or Pagans
once Christianity had developed to the point where it was the most
powerful religious force in society.

The theocratic nature of Jewish thought and practice is generally
recognized but the close connection of religion and government in the
pagan educational system is not perhaps so much emphasized. To quote
Pollock: "It costs us something to realize the full importance of
philosophy to the Greek or Roman citizen who had received a liberal
education. For him it combined in one whole body of doctrine all the
authority and influence which nowadays are divided, not without
contention, by science, philosophy, and religion in varying shares. It
was not an intellectual exercise or special study, but a serious
endeavor to gather up the results of all human knowledge in their most
general form, and make them available for the practical conduct of
life."[1]

It was this fact which made Christianity's progress among the educated
classes so slow. Once it had made its way, however, the taking over of
political control by the Church was both easy and natural.

One of the most notable characteristics of the New Testament and of all
early Christianity in its relation to the existing political system was
the doctrine of obedience to the constituted authorities. That a man
like St. Paul should advocate submission to a man like Nero seems like
the negation of elementary morality. The reasons for this attitude are
many. In this paper we are concerned only with one of them--but possibly
the most important one. The submissiveness of the early Christians to
tyranny and despotism was not due primarily to impotence nor yet to
excessive mildness of disposition. Many emperors before Constantine were
deposed and slain by political groups smaller and feebler than the
Christians. St. Paul and St. Ignatius, to go no farther, were not by
nature pacifists. It would be difficult to find a book of a more
militant tone than the Revelation of St. John.

The main reason for the political non-resistance of the early Christians
is to be sought in their philosophy; their views of the world. These
views were of a very special and very peculiar kind. They were in large
part either directly inherited from Jewish thought or adapted from it.
While they are in some respects inconsistent with one another, they have
a common element. They are all catastrophic. In all of them the
catastrophe is more or less immediately imminent.

The Old Testament Prophets taught the establishment, in the indefinite
future, of an eternal Messianic kingdom on this present earth. For a
long time this hope was cherished by every Jew. But some time before the
beginning of the First Century B.C. a change took place. The old
conception was abandoned, slowly indeed, but at last absolutely. In its
place arose a belief which developed into Chiliasm or Millenarianism.
Perhaps the first clear statement of this new idea is to be found in the
book known as I Enoch. In this work which dates from 104-95 B.C., the
Messianic kingdom is for the first time conceived of as of temporary
duration. The resurrection and final judgment which in the preceding
form of belief were the prelude to the everlasting Messianic kingdom on
earth, are now transposed to the end of the transitory, early kingdom of
the Messiah. This temporary earthly kingdom is no longer the final abode
of the risen righteous. They are to enjoy a blessed immortality in the
eternal heaven.[2]

We have in this author a practically complete statement of later
Christian Chiliasm. There is indeed one important feature missing. The
specific duration of the Messianic kingdom is not given. The advent of
the kingdom also is not pressingly imminent.

In the Parables 94-64 B.C. we find certain other elements. This writer
holds to the eternal Messianic kingdom but the scene of this kingdom is
not the earth as at present existing but a new heaven and a new earth.
The Messiah is no longer a mere man but a supernatural being. Four
titles characteristic of the New Testament are for the first time
applied to him: "The Christ," "The Righteous One," "The Elect One," "The
Son of Man." He executes judgment on man and enjoys universal dominion.
The resurrection is not of the old body but of a body of glory and
light, of an angelic nature, in short a spiritual body, though the
specific word spiritual is not used.[3]

In the other eschatological works of this period: e.g. Psalms of Solomon
70-40 B.C. Judith (circa 50 B.C.) [one reference]; The Sibylline Oracles
III 1-62 (before 31 B.C.); The Epitomiser of Jason of Cyrene (between
100-40 B.C.) and the fragmentary Zadokite Work, 18 B.C., the tradition
of the temporary kingdom is carried on but without the addition of any
concepts essential to our purpose.

In the first century A.D., still confining ourselves to specifically
Jewish Apocalyptic literature we find various changes taking place. The
eternal Messianic kingdom passes largely out. The temporary Messianic
kingdom becomes an eternal national one. The interest of the individual
Jew comes to center on his own lot in the future life.[4] We have to
pass a number of writers; Assumption of Moses, Philo, etc., before we
come to the specific statement of Chiliasm proper, i.e., the duration of
the Messianic kingdom for 1000 years. In the Book of The Secrets of
Enoch commonly known as II Enoch (1-50 A.D.) we find for the first time
the doctrine which was taken over to make the Christian Millennium. The
writer of II Enoch was an Egyptian Jew. He says that as the world was
made in six days, its course will run for six thousand years. The 6000
years will be followed by a Messianic kingdom of rest and blessedness
lasting 1000 years. After that follows the final judgment, "The great
day of the Lord."

Passing now to the New Testament, it is only necessary for our purpose
to enumerate three different concepts of the Messianic kingdom that are
found therein. In these concepts contemporaneous Jewish ideas are taken
with more or less transformation.

The first conception perhaps holds the idea of a present world kingdom
but puts emphasis on the futurity of the kingdom. Its ultimate
consumation is not by gradual, natural development, but by the
catastrophic reappearance of Christ. This Second Advent is to be
preceded by tremendous portents of the most terrible sort.

The second conception is that the kingdom is already present in Christ's
appearance as the Messiah. It is to grow by the natural laws of
spiritual development to its full realization. A considerable length of
time is conceived as necessary for the attainment of mature growth. The
consumation of the kingdom in the Second Advent is to be unexpected and
sudden and none but the Father knows when it will take place.

The third conception, that of Chiliasm, is that the Second Advent of
Christ is close at hand. Anti Christ and his confederates are to be
destroyed at Megiddo. Satan is to be bound for 1000 years during which
is the Millennium, when the martyrs are raised in the first resurrection
and reign with Christ at Jerusalem. This conception is found in the
Revelation and perhaps I Cor. XV, 24-27. All the essential elements of
it are to be found in pre-existing sources, e.g., the 1000 years in II
Enoch, the reign of the saints in Testaments of the XII Patriarchs, etc.

These three conceptions were variously confused in early Christianity.
All the New Testament writers hold, for instance, to the immediately
imminent Second Advent. How many of them were Chiliasts we have no way
of knowing. The earliest, Christian writing extant outside the New
Testament, which deals with this subject is perhaps Papias, 70-155 A.D.
He is a most materialistic Chiliast and quotes II Baruch as an authentic
utterance of Christ handed to himself by apostolic tradition.[5]

Barnabas is another apostolic Chiliast. He expressly teaches a
millennial reign of Christ on earth. The six days of creation are the
type of six periods of 1000 years each. The seventh day is the
millennium, since with God "one day is as a thousand years." The
earthly, millennial sabbath is to be followed by an eighth and eternal
day in heaven. The Millennium is near at hand. Barnabas does not quote
Revelation. His views can be drawn equally well or better from II Enoch,
I Enoch and other Jewish sources.

The first Chiliast we know of to get into disrepute was the famous
heretic, Cerinthus, (last part of first century). His heresy had nothing
to do with his Chiliasm, as it seems to have been a sort of Judaistic
Gnosticism and Gnosticism in general was not favorable to Chiliasm.
However the fact that so abhorrent a heretic held Chiliastic views did
not help those views in the judgment of later Christians.

About the end of the first century also Chiliasm came into rather
disreputable prominence as a leading doctrine of the Ebionites, a sect
of antitrinitarian Judaistic-Christian heretics. This sect was wide
spread though not particularly numerous and aroused the bitter
antagonism of the orthodox. As in the case of Cerinthus, their heresy
had nothing necessarily to do with Chiliasm. But here again Chiliasm had
the misfortune to get into bad company.

In the middle of the second century Chiliasm appears to have been the
belief of the majority of Christians though it never found formal
expression in any creed. Justin Martyn, 110-165 A.D., tells us that
Christ is to reign with the patriarchs for 1000 years in a rebuilt
Jerusalem. He bases this belief on Rev. XX, 4-5 and says he holds this
doctrine as part of the body of Christian faith. He adds, however, that
"many good and true Christians think otherwise." This later statement is
the more notable as it is the only difference between orthodox
Christians which he mentions. He places the Ebionites outside the
Christian pale.

The first non-Chiliasts we meet with in Christian history are the
Gnostics. Of their actual position on Chiliasm we know practically
nothing except by inference. They did not apparently fight it. They
simply tacitly ignored it. In the long and minute descriptions of
various Gnostic systems that have come down to us nothing is said on the
subject; but the systems as outlined leave no place for the Chiliastic
doctrines.

The first open enemies of Chiliasm that are to be found in the Church
are the Alogi, a sect that flourished in Asia Minor about 160-180 A.D.
According to Harnack: "The representatives of this movement were, as far
as we know, the first in the Church to undertake a historical criticism,
worthy of the name, of the Christian scriptures and the Church
tradition."[6] They were rationalisticly inclined, desired to keep
prophecy out of the Church and denied on essentially the same internal
grounds as modern students, the Johannine authorship of the Revelation
and also of the Fourth Gospel. With less reason they ascribed the
Revelation to the heretic Cerinthus. Unfortunately we know but little
about them. Hippolytus wrote against them and defended the apostolic
authorship of Revelation and the Fourth Gospel in two books now lost.
But the Alogi are criticised only mildly, and indeed Irenaeus does not
class them as heretics at all. Opposition to Chiliasm was manifestly not
looked upon as an important matter in the last quarter of the second
century--at least in Rome.[7] To this same period belong the writings of
Gaius of Rome who asserts that the Heretic Cerinthus wrote the
Revelation, and also those of Bishop Melito of Sardis, a saint of great
repute, who was an ardent Chiliast. So that at this period both Chiliasm
and non-Chiliasm would seem to be perhaps equally wide spread and
certainly equally permissable. Irenaeus, Bishop of Lyons 120-202 A.D.,
was a strong Chiliast. He describes in minute detail the overthrow of
the Roman Empire, the reign of Anti-Christ for 1260 days (three and half
years) the visible advent of Christ, the binding of Satan, the joyful
reign of Christ in the rebuilt Jerusalem with the risen saints and
martyrs over the nations of the world for a thousand years. Then follows
the temporary raging of Satan, the last victory, the general
resurrection and judgment, and the consumation of all things in a new
heaven and a new earth.

The ascription of genuine divine inspiration to the Sibylline Oracles by
the early Church writers is well known. It is a noteworthy fact that the
Chiliasts[8] seem to be much more inclined to quote the Oracles than the
non-Chiliasts. The Christians' addiction to the Oracles called forth the
derision of Celsus.[9] Origen makes no defense and it is at least
possible to conjecture that the reason is that he disapproved of the use
made of the Oracles by the Chiliasts. The Oracles were of course made
use of by all sorts of agencies which for any reason wished ill to the
Roman authority and yet dared not indulge in secular sedition. Some
enthusiastic Chiliast put forth an Oracle, probably in the reign of
Marcus Aurelius, which was more definite than prudent. According to this
prediction the end of Rome and the final consumation of all things was
due in the year 195-196 A.D.[10] There is reason to believe that this
prophecy represented the belief of a considerable number of Christian
Chiliasts. While there is no extant evidence to that effect, it is a
rational deduction, that when the year 195-196 A.D. passed without any
unusual occurrences, the prestige of the persons trusting the Oracle
would be damaged. So far as these persons were Chiliasts, Chiliasm would
suffer in repute. That this was actually the case is as nearly certain
as any logical conclusion about psychological reactions well can be.

About the year 156 A.D. there arose in Phrygia the movement called
Montanism. Essentially it was a reaction against the growing
secularization of Christianity. It spread to the rest of Asia Minor,
Egypt, Italy, Spain, and especially Carthage and surrounding districts
in North Africa. It was the strongest movement in favor of a revival of
primitive Puritanism that occurs in early Church history. It lasted in
the East almost till the Arab Invasion; in the West it did not die out
until the time of Augustine. The Montanists are the most pronounced
Chiliasts we meet with. Not indeed in their theory but in their
practice. One Syrian Montanist bishop "Persuaded many brethren with
their wives and children to go to meet Christ in the wilderness; another
in Pontus induced his people to sell all their possessions, to cease
tilling their lands, to conclude no more marriages, etc., because the
coming of the Lord was nigh at hand."[11] The Montanist prophetess,
Prisca, about 165 A.D. said: "After me there will come no other
prophetess but the end." A peculiarity of eastern Montanistic Chiliasm
was the idea that Christ would reign not in Jerusalem but in Pepuza, a
small town in Phrygia. In accord with this idea Montanus tried to get
all believers to settle in this town to await the Lord's coming. The
western Montanists however, of whom Tertullian was chief, held to the
regular belief that the Messianic kingdom would be centered in
Jerusalem.

Because of certain theological beliefs aside from Chiliasm, the
Montanists aroused the antagonism of the Church authorities. The
earliest Church councils to be met with after New Testament times were
called for the purpose of dealing with Montanism which was finally
denounced as a heresy and after the triumph of the Church some imperial
edicts were issued against the sect. For the first time in the attack on
Montanism at the end of the second and early part of the third Century
we find Chiliastic beliefs referred to as 'carnal and Jewish.' There is
no formal condemnation of Chiliasm as such, but once more, and much more
seriously than in the case of the Ebionites, Chiliasm suffered from
being associated in the minds of orthodox Christians with heresy and
schism. It would however be very easy to exaggerate the effect of this
and it is necessary to bear in mind that while the literature of
Montanism is fairly considerable, Chiliasm is an entirely subordinate
matter in the controversy and indeed seems sometimes to be mentioned
merely casually. The Chiliastic writers are perhaps more inclined to
view Montanism leniently. Irenaeus does not include it in his list of
heresies.

Its association with Montanism brought Chiliasm into disrepute and
suspicion with the Church hierarchy and it is not surprising that
beginning with the last years of the second century we find a
deliberate system of suppression adopted by certain ecclesiastical
authorities--notably in Egypt. As we shall try to show later, the
declension of Chiliasm can be only very imperfectly explained by
official antagonism. But so far as this declension can be ascribed to
individuals, the three great Alexandrian divines; Clement, Origen, and
Dionysius have a prominent part. The influence of these men counted the
more as it was consistently exercised in the same locality with
increasing force during a period of more than half a century. The first
of these writers, Clement (150-216 A.D.) does not specifically refer to
the Chiliasts but there are a number of passages where he evidently has
them in mind.[12] However the probability is that this very refraining
from direct attack made his efforts the more successful. He emphasizes
the fact that scriptural statements--particularly scriptural
numbers--are not to be taken literally but are to be understood as of
mystical significance. If Clement consciously aimed at the extirpation
of Chiliasm (which is not absolutely certain) he at any rate took the
most effective means for accomplishing that result. The great
presupposition upon which Christian Chiliasm has been based is that
of the literal interpretation of Scripture. By attacking that
presupposition Clement caused the doctrine to be questioned by many
persons whose attachment to Chiliasm would doubtless have only been
strengthened by direct attack upon that tenet in particular. He prepared
the way for the open and far more powerful attacks upon Chiliasm made by
his great successor in the Catechetical School, Origen (185-254 A.D.).
The position of this great theologian is the most equivocal of any
writer who has attained eminence in Christian theology. How far anything
he wrote is to be considered as orthodox is a most difficult matter to
determine. The fact that Origen opposed Chiliasm, taken by itself, apart
from the subsequent fate of the doctrine, could just as easily be made a
commendation as a condemnation of that belief. Almost alone among
Christian men Origen has been removed from the calendar of Catholic
saints after having been duly received as a saint for the space of more
than a hundred and fifty years. This unique fact, which is of course of
far more importance for theology than for history, has nevertheless a
bearing on our subject. The condemnation of Origen came too late to save
the Chiliastic apologetic in the East but it very possibly may have had
an indirect influence in the matter of continuing the repute of western
Chiliasm.

Origen attacked Chiliasm in two vital points: First he insisted even
more strongly than Clement upon the figurative or mystical or 'typical'
interpretation of Scripture. In this regard he specifically quotes a
number of Chiliastic passages of scripture and definitely says that
their meaning is to be taken figuratively.[13] But more important than
that, he definitely substitutes the theory of progressive development of
the intellectual and spiritual element of man for the physical and
sensuous earthly kingdom of the Chiliasts. This was certainly a great
gain for the anti-Chiliastic theory which for the first time took a
logical and comprehensible if a somewhat metaphysical form. However it
must be admitted that the argument of Origen though wonderfully clear
headed and almost miraculously modern[14] is too purely intellectual and
cast in too philosophical a form to have any direct influence on
ordinary individuals. It was doubtless quite in place in the
Catechetical School and among scholars in the great centers of ancient
learning but outside those limits its influence--at least directly--must
have been very small. Nepos, an Egyptian bishop, answered Origen in a
book entitled: "Refutation of Allegorists." This book is lost but we
know that it was considered by the Chiliasts to be a work of the most
powerful and indeed irrefutable sort. In the Arsinoite nome (on the west
bank of the Nile south of Memphis) the Chiliastic doctrines were held by
whole villages together and Dionysius the Great (Bishop of Alexandria
247-264 A.D.) found it necessary to visit this region and hold a public
argument and instruction in order to avert a schism. By the tact and
conciliatory attitude of the Bishop the Chiliasts were either won over
to the non-Chiliastic view or at least expressed their gratification at
the conference. It would appear, however, as if this synod or meeting
was not sufficient to destroy the influence of Nepos' book so Dionysius
wrote in refutation of it two books "On the Promises." Except for a few
fragments these books have perished. We know merely that the first book
contained a statement of the non-Chiliastic view and the second a
detailed discussion of the Revelation in relation to Chiliasm and to the
views of Nepos.

However, Dionysius, who was well aware that as long as the 'Revelation
of St. John' was received as a genuine work of the Apostle it would be
difficult to oppose Chiliasm, gives a very strong argument against the
apostolic authorship while diplomatically saying at the beginning of his
discussion that he is able to agree that the Revelation is the work of
a holy and inspired man.[15] There is no reason to doubt that this
refutation of Nepos by Dionysius met with success wherever Christian
Hellenisticism exercised influence. But it by no means extirpated
Chiliasm in Egypt. For many generations after its author's death
Chiliasm was still believed by the monks of the Thebiad. In fact a large
number of Jewish Apocalypses which the early Christians accepted as
inspired are preserved to us bound up in Coptic and Ethiopic copies of
the scriptures. The Alexandrians had, however, succeeded so well that in
the subsequent period there are only two defenders of Chiliasm in the
Eastern Church that are worthy of mention. These two are Methodius of
Tyre and Apollinaris of Laodicea.

Methodius 260-312 A.D. was bishop first of Olympus and Patara in Lycia
and afterwards of Tyre in Phoenicia. He is notable for his opposition to
Origen and for his relatively more spiritualized Chiliasm. He maintains
that in the Millennium, death will be abolished and the inhabitants of
the earth will not marry or beget children but live in all happiness
like the angels without change or decay. He is very careful to insist
upon the literal resurrection of the body, however, and emphasizes the
fact that the risen saints while like the angels do not become
angels.[16] He died a martyr at Chalcis in Greece.

Apollinaris of Laodicea (300?-390 A.D.) is a notable figure in
Christological controversy but unfortunately very little that he wrote
has come down to us, and of that little the authenticity is not entirely
unimpeachable. We are constrained to get his Chiliastic views from the
writings of his theological opponents and unfortunately there is not
wanting evidence to the effect that these opponents, Basil the Great and
Gregory Nazianzen, notable Christians as they were, were not lacking in
bias. Gregory[17] calls the Chiliastic doctrine of the Apolinarians
'gross and carnal,' a 'second Judaism' and speaks of 'their silly
thousand years delight in paradise.' Basil[18] calls the Chiliasm of
Apolinaris 'mythical or rather Jewish,' 'ridiculous,' and 'contrary to
the doctrines of the Gospel.' This is, so far as the writer is aware,
the first instance in which any great theologian goes to such extremes
and Basil's language, though strong, is not altogether without an
element of hesitation and questioning. In short it would seem that he
asserted more than he felt sure of being able to prove--no rare
phenomenon unfortunately in certain of the great contraversialists. If
Basil's statements are to be taken at their face value Apollinaris was
indeed the most Judaizing Christian in his Chiliasm of any of whom we
have record. He would seem to justify Basil's jibe 'we are to be
altogether turned from Christians into Jews,' for in his Messianic
kingdom not only is the Temple at Jerusalem to be restored but also the
worship of the old Law, with high priest, sacrifices, the ashes of a
heifer, the jealousy offering, shew bread, burning lamps, circumcision
and other such things which Basil indignantly denounces as 'figments,'
'mere old wives' fables' and 'doctrines of Jews.'[19] Although
Apollinarianism was condemned by a council at Alexandria as early as 362
A.D. and Roman councils followed suit in 377 and 378 and the second
Ecumenical Council in 381 and though Imperial degrees were issued
against it in 388, 397 and 428 it persisted for many generations. The
last condemnation on record is that of the Quinisextum Synod 691 A.D.

In this case, as in others mentioned, we see the unfortunate fate of
Chiliasm in getting mixed up with heresies with which it, as such, had
nothing to do. The extraordinary detestation which overtook Apollinaris
as arch-heretic par excellence seems to have finally discouraged
Chiliasm in the Eastern Church. It was reckoned as a heresy thereafter
and though it appears sporadically down to our own day it is of no more
interest for our purpose.

In the Western Church Chiliasm prevailed until the time of Augustine. It
seems to have provoked very little discussion or controversy.
Hippolytus, 235 A.D., carries on the Chiliastic tradition of Irenaeus
but with a certain degree of assured futurity about the Second Advent
not found in the earlier writers. This pushing of the Second Advent into
the future is a marked feature of Western Chiliasm. By a weird use of
'types' Hippolytus proves with entire conclusiveness to himself that the
Second Advent is to occur in the year 500 A.D.[20] The overthrow of Rome
has a prominent part in his elaborate description of the last times but
he veils his statements with a certain amount of transparent
discretion.[21] He has in all other essential respects the same ideas as
Irenaeus but expressed in a less naïve form. He is a transition figure.
His Second Advent is far enough off to allow some considerable latitude
for the building up of the ecclesiastical hierarchy which was the
business of Rome and he emphasizes the point that the "gospel must first
be preached to all nations." John the Baptist reappears as the precursor
of Christ.

Commodianus, a North African bishop, 240 A.D., represents the generation
after Hippolytus. His two poems present rather different versions of
Chiliasm. The first is a simple and rather pleasing version.[22] The
only notable variation it contains is that the risen saints in the
Millennial Kingdom are to be served by the nobles of the conquered
anti-Christ. The second poem is an apologetic against Jews and Gentiles.
"The author expects the end of the world will come with the seventh
persecution. The Goths will conquer Rome and redeem the Christians; but
then Nero will appear again as the heathen anti-Christ, reconquer Rome
and rage against the Christians three years and a half. He will in turn
be conquered by the Jewish and real anti-Christ from the East, who,
after the defeat of Nero and the burning of Rome, will return to Judea,
perform false miracles and be worshipped by the Jews. At last Christ
appears with the lost tribes, as his army, who had lived beyond Persia
in happy simplicity and virtue. Under astounding phenomena of nature he
will conquer anti-Christ and his host, convert all nations and take
possession of the holy city of Jerusalem."[23] This double anti-Christ
is perhaps the most notable variation. This idea reappears later, as
does the Nero return which would seem to have been current belief.

There are perhaps only two other writers before Augustine that are
worthy of mention, Victorinus and Lactantius. Victorinus, bishop of
Poetovio, i.e., Petair in Austria, martyred 304 A.D., is the earliest
exegete of the Latin Church. His 'Commentary on the Apocalypse' has come
down to us in bad shape. The Chiliasm is of a type which may be
described as formal and ritualistic in the sense that it is expressed in
a matter of fact way as something not needing explanation, much less
proof. There are only two new ideas: "The first resurrection is now of
the souls that are by the faith, which does not permit men to pass over
to the second death"[24] and "Those years wherein Satan is bound are in
the first advent of Christ even to the end of the age; and they are
called a thousand according to that mode of speaking wherein a part is
signified by the whole--although they are not a thousand."[25]

Lactantius the preceptor of Crispus, son of Constantine, brings us to
the Chiliasm of the established Church. The end of the present age and
the coming of the millennial kingdom are at the latest 200 years in the
future, probably nearer, but the event instead of being looked toward
to, is dreaded. The forthcoming destruction of Rome is bewailed. The
world is safe as long as Rome stands. Nero is to be anti-Christ. "They
who shall be alive in their bodies shall not die, but during those
thousand years shall produce an infinite multitude, and their offspring
shall be holy and beloved of God; but they who shall be raised from the
dead shall preside over the living as judges. The nations shall not be
entirely extinguished, but some shall be left as a victory for God, that
they may be the occasion of triumph to the righteous and may be
subjected to perpetual slavery."[26] The Chiliasm of Lactantius is
proved from the Sibylline Oracles and from the philosopher Chrysippus, a
Stoic. For the rest Lactantius repeats the traditional Christian and
pre-Christian Jewish Chiliastic concepts with very little variation, but
it is evident that the fact that the fall of Rome is dreaded will work
out a change. The Chiliasm of Lactantius is unstable, not that there is
the slightest breath of doubt about it, but that the attitude of mind
which looked forward with dread to the Second Advent could be depended
upon to find a theory for postponing it. Chiliasm is ready for its
transformation.

In the century between Lactantius and Augustine there is no Chiliast of
note in the west. It is abundantly evident however, from the works of
Augustine that Chiliasm was common during that period as well as in the
time of Augustine. Indeed Augustine himself was a Chiliast though
probably not an exceedingly literal one, during his early period in the
Church.[27] It is certain that he never regarded the doctrine as
heretical. Even in the very book in which he puts forth the doctrine
which eventually superseded Chiliasm he says: "This opinion would not be
objectionable if it were believed that the joys of the saints in that
Sabbath[27] shall be spiritual and consequent on the presence of
God."[28] We have in this quotation a hint as to the reason why he
abandoned Chiliasm. He elaborates this in the immediately following
passage: "As they say that those who then rise again shall enjoy the
leisure of immoderate carnal banquets, furnished with an amount of meat
and drink such as not only to shock the feeling of the temperate, but
even to surpass the measure of credulity itself, such assertions can be
believed only by the carnal."[29]

Disgust with this literal interpretation of the scripture was thus one
of the reasons which drew Augustine away from Chiliasm. A more direct
reason was that he had an idea of his own as to how the Chiliastic
Scriptural passage[30] should be interpreted.

The discussion in which he vanquishes the Chiliastic concept is a model
of contraversial method. It would be difficult to find its superior
either in sacred or profane polemics. Perfectly conscious of his own
powers to make Chiliasm appear at once absurd and ridiculous he refrains
from doing so. Abundantly able though he was to refute the Millennians
point by point he deliberately foregoes that method of attack. His
argument which overthrew an ancient, famous, and widespread doctrine of
primitive Christianity contains hardly a line either of refutation or
condemnation. It is perhaps the finest example in Christian literature
of the 'positive apologetic.' The Chiliastic literature, even that which
has come down to us, contains so much that is fantastic and ludicrous
that it would have been very easy for a man of far less power than
Augustine to hold it up to contempt and scorn. It abounds in the same
kind of absurdities and incongruities as the pagan myths which provoked
so many stinging pages from the early apologists and from Augustine
himself. The fact that Augustine did not yield to the temptation to make
his opponents ridiculous is in the highest degree creditable to his
head and his heart. He did not violate the precepts of Christian
charity and he obtained a victory greater than would have been within
even his power had he yielded to the natural temptation of a great
intellect to show up the mental inferiority of his opponents.

It is interesting to compare Augustine's treatment of Chiliasm with
Origen's. The two men are very comparable as regards extent and variety
of knowledge, intellectual power, and philosophic insight. They are very
unlike however, in their treatment of the subject. Origen simply
explains away the whole Chiliastic concept or rather so spiritualizes it
that nothing resembling the original idea is left. His whole insistence
is that it must be taken figuratively, and without the least warrant he
asserts that his interpretation is "according to the understanding of
the apostles."[31] He makes the whole subject so subjective, so
intellectual, so metaphysical that there is left no content for the
ordinary man to hold to in place of that which is demolished. In the
overthrow of Eastern Chiliasm Origen holds as conspicuous a position as
Augustine in the overthrow of Western. He did away with a doctrine, too
carnal perhaps, but at any rate concrete and comforting, and he
substituted an intellectual abstraction. For instance in explaining, or
better explaining away, the Chiliastic feasts in the New Jerusalem he
says:[32] "The rational nature growing by each individual step, enlarged
in understanding and in power of perception is increased in intellectual
growth; and ever gazing purely on the causes of things it attains
perfection, firstly, viz., that by which it ascends to the truth, and
secondly that by which it abides in it, having problems and the
understanding of things and the causes of things as the food on which it
may feast. And in all things this food is to be understood as the
contemplation and understanding of God, which is of a measure
appropriate and suitable to this nature, which was made and created,
etc."

This kind of thing is the intellectual equivalent of the process in
physics by which the scientist takes some tangible solid body and
proceeds first to liquify it, then to volitilize it and finally to blow
it entirely away. We strongly suspect that the Eastern Chiliasts felt
that the whole thing was a kleptistic legerdemain by which they were
deprived of a favorite doctrine without receiving anything in place of
it.

Augustine's method differs toto caelo from this. While Origen handles
the subject like a metaphysician, Augustine handles it like a statesman.
His doctrine is just as concrete as the one he displaces. He takes
nothing away without giving something equally tangible and of better
quality in its place. The transition from Chiliasm to the Origenistic
conception of the future, would be, for the ordinary person, an
incredible and almost impossible intellectual feat. The transition from
Chiliasm to the Augustinian conception of the future is natural, easy,
and perfectly within the power of a very ordinary and commonplace
mentality. As a matter of fact it made its way without the smallest
difficulty into the religious consciousness of the whole of western
Christianity. Any person who aims at changing the theological opinions
of others can find no better manual of method than the twentieth book of
the City of God. Augustine was very careful to keep all the symbols,
catch words, and paraphernalia of Chiliasm. He was careful not only to
keep them all but to keep them all in their literal sense. He explains
away none of them and allegorizes none of them. By carefully preserving
the ancient shibboleths he was easily able to empty them of their former
content. He holds to the millennium, the idea that is, of thousand
years, as firmly as any Chiliast but he says the thousand years is to be
reckoned as dating from the establishment of the Church on earth i.e.,
the first coming of Christ. So he is careful to preserve the phrase:
"The Reign of the Saints"; he merely substitutes for the Chiliastic
content of that phase the very comfortable and plausable doctrine that
the saints are his own Christian contemporaries. He is very skillful,
not to say flattering, in his method of 'putting this across.' So he
retains similarly the old formula about the two resurrections--but makes
the first resurrection out to be the marvelous transformation and
participation in the resurrection of Christ which the Christian
experiences by virtue of the sacrament of baptism. More important still
is his new content for the phrase "Kingdom of Heaven." This instead of a
state of future blessedness becomes the already existing church on
earth. Finally he indulges in a long and apparently straight faced
discussion as to whether the reign of anti-Christ--which he preserves in
its most literal form with the regulation duration of three years and a
half--whether this is to be reckoned as part of the thousand years or
not. This inconsequential detail is labored at length in such a manner
as to delight the soul of any good Bible reading Chiliast. By preserving
till the last this single element of Chiliasm which he leaves untouched
and then treating it in the good, old, religious fashion of Irenaeus or
some other primitive worthy, he very skillfully disarms criticism and it
is only by a strong effort that the reader realizes what a tremendous
blow has been struck at the original Chiliastic doctrine.

Let us see what the changes of Augustine amount to. It is not less than
the total destruction of Chiliasm, or at the very least the postponement
of the end of the world till the year 1000 A.D. Augustine's doctrine is
essentially that of the ordinary, orthodox, Bible Christian today.
Sometime in the future--Augustine said possibly in the year 1000
A.D.--Christ was to come again to the earth. Then follows the
resurrection of the dead, the final judgment, and heaven and hell. The
questions about the three years and a half of anti-Christ, together with
Gog and Magog--great favorites with the Chiliasts--are held to be
insoluble as to the time of their appearance; whether to be reckoned as
part of the thousand years or immediately succeeding it.

It is commonly said that Augustine is responsible for the belief that
the world was to come to an end in the year 1000 A.D. This is not
strictly correct. Augustine nowhere makes that direct assertion. He
nowhere--so far as the writer is aware--even implies it. What he does is
to offer it as a possible alternative hypothesis to the idea that the
thousand years, (since 1000 is the cube of 10,) is to be taken as a
statement of the total duration of the world. As the matter is of some
interest we give the original passage in Dod's translation:[33] "Now the
thousand years may be understood in two ways so far as occurs to me:
either because these things happen in the sixth thousand of years or
sixth millennium (the latter part of which is now passing) as if during
the sixth day, which is to be followed by a sabbath which has no
evening, the endless rest of the saints, so that, speaking of a
part under the name of the whole, he calls the last part of the
millennium--the part that is which had yet to expire before the end of
the world--a thousand years; or he used the thousand years as an
equivalent for the whole duration of this world, employing the number of
perfection to mark the fullness of time. For a thousand is the cube of
ten.... For the same reason we cannot better interpret the words of the
psalm. "The word which he commanded to a thousand generations," than by
understanding it to mean, "to all generations."

The above sketch summarizes essentially all that has survived about the
Chiliasm of the early Church. The Chiliastic passages in the Church
literature up to and including Augustine, though rather widely
scattered, are not great in bulk. If printed together they would make
only a moderate sized pamphlet. But their importance is by no means to
be measured by their size. Chiliasm, better than any other movement of
the early period, serves as a standard for measuring the degree of the
socialization of Christianity. It comprises the only body of doctrine
which passed from practically universal acceptance to practically
universal repudiation during the period when the Church changed from a
small esoteric cult to a dominant factor of society. Considered from
this point of view, the causes of the decline of Chiliasm possess a
historical importance out of all proportion to the importance of
Chiliasm itself. More than any other religious movement of the time
Chiliasm was free from the direct pressure of distinctly religious
influences. Its declension was more nearly a case of unconscious social
and psychological determinism than any other contemporary theological
phenomenon. Its chief supporters and opponents are not to be regarded so
much as factors in its history, as points where the socializing forces
operating in the early Church become for the moment visible.

Certain facts stand out even in the short epitome we have given.
Chiliasm never became powerful in the great cities. It survived longest
and was most popular in regions[34] comparatively cut off from the great
centers of civilization. Hellenizing influences were unfavorable to it,
Romanizing influences indifferent to it.

The reasons for this are numerous and most of them have been treated
sufficiently by previous investigators, but in the writer's judgment
certain other important influences have been either slighted or entirely
ignored. We shall consider one or two.

The supremely important fact in early Christian history is the
development of the concept of "The Church" as an independent,
self-existing, metaphysical entity. This metaphysical entity was
conceived as embodying itself in the whole body of believers; living,
dead, and yet to be born. The entity was eternal, indestructible, and in
its essence immutable. Although partially embodied in a visible society
its essential being was conceived as independently sustained in the
nature of the universe. It was an idea in the strict Platonic sense. No
concept like this is found in the contemporary pagan cults. Even the
Jewish concept of the 'chosen people' is ethnic or national rather than
purely religious and it has no tinge of that metaphysical existence
which is the most notable element in the Catholic concept of the Church.
The elements out of which 'the Church' concept was constructed were
four: two Roman, one Greek and one Hebrew. The Roman lawyers, in the
process of fitting a municipal legal system to a world empire, evolved
the twin legal entities, 'state' and 'sovereignty.' These entities were
endowed with divers qualities; eternity, immutability, etc., but
especially with the quality of having existential reality apart from any
individual embodiment thereof. Greek philosophy contributed the idea of
the Cosmopolis, the ideal world-city in which the fullest development of
human personality was to be attained. This concept was as purely
metaphysical as the self-existing, absolute 'state' of the Roman law,
but unlike the Roman concept it had no concrete existence. The Jewish
contribution was that of the 'chosen people,' 'the elect nation.' These
four concepts were transferred from their original loci to the Christian
society. The fact that all of these concepts were combined and centered
on the same social group and the further fact that each of these
concepts supplemented the others in a remarkable way resulted in the
formation of one of the most powerful ideas in religious history.

This Church concept, thus built up, had already become widespread in the
time of Augustine and this fact helps us to understand the otherwise
unintelligible success of that saint in combatting Chiliasm. The real
truth is seen to be that Augustine's ideas succeeded because they were
not peculiarly his at all--they already existed, implicitly but really,
in the mind of the generation which he addressed. The elements of the
concept 'the Church' being what they were, Augustine's explanation of,
or rather abolition of, Chiliasm follows of inevitable logical and
intellectual necessity. It was the genius of Augustine that he
recognized and gave formulated, concrete expression to this accomplished
fact and it is no derogation of his genius to say that had he never
existed the accomplished fact would eventually have been given
expression to by some one else.

Another little considered element in Chiliasm is that of masochism, and
sadism, the two being merely the opposite sides of the same psychical
phenomenon. This element is found more or less prominently in all the
Chiliastic literature from the early fragment of Papias to the elaborate
discussions of Augustine. The masochistic phenomena are the most
remarkable characteristics of the early martyrdoms and if a collection
were made of the masochistic passages of the writings of the Chiliasts,
the bulk of them would be as great as that of the Chiliastic passages
proper.

It is necessary to bear in mind that masochism necessarily, in any
advanced society, disguises itself under some socially acceptable form
of sentiment or emotion, i.e., admiration for the constancy of the
confessors or martyrs, suffering as a mark of the true Church, etc. It
is always associated with the reality or idea of struggle. It has a high
'survival value' in the struggle for existence by heightening individual
power in conflict. Like other human characteristics it is seen most
clearly in the exaggerated form it assumes in its crowd manifestations.
Its most evident expression is in the 'mob mind.' Our problem, then, is
to discover how the declension of Chiliasm is to be explained by the
transfer of the masochistic element in it to other vehicles of
expression. The masochistic element was a vital factor in Chiliasm;
without it almost the whole force of 'the thousand years reign of the
saints' is lost. The explanation of the transfer is difficult.
Undoubtedly some of the masochistic values of Chiliasm were taken over
by the various, previously mentioned concepts that combined to make up
the idea of the Catholic Church. 'Extra ecclesia nulla salus' accounts
for part of the phenomena previously expressed Chiliastically. It is
notable in this connection that there is no word of Chiliasm in Cyprian.
But a more important transfer was that which took place in the course of
the development of the doctrine of purgatory. It may perhaps seem
incongruous to say that purgatory took over the values of the millennium
and from the point of view of formal theology it is so. But the only
point we are trying to make here, namely, the fundamental fact of the
expression of masochistic impulses, is as evidently shown in the
purgatory as in the millennium concept. The desire for a heightened
sense of self-realization, a richer content of experience, is the cause
of the appearance of both concepts and they are closely allied
psychologically. This fact comes out in the large part played by the
Chiliasts in the evolution of the purgatory concept.[35] What we find
here is a concurrent declension of Chiliasm and development of
purgatory. For about two centuries the two concepts existed side by
side; then the superior social value of purgatory asserting itself, that
doctrine gradually took over the masochistic values of Chiliasm; the
supersession of the later being rendered thereby more rapid and easy.

However it is probably that the transfer of the psychological values
from Chiliasm was more to be ascribed to the rising asceticism of the
early Church than to the concept of the Church as such, or even to the
rise of the purgatory concept. Asceticism in some form is a permanent
element in any wide spread religion and the values later expressed in
Christian asceticism were in the earlier period mediated through
Chiliasm. When St. Paul advocated abstinence from marriage 'because the
time is short' he was not expressing asceticism. He was expressing a
sensible idea based on belief in one of the chief Chiliastic doctrines,
the immediate imminence of the Second Advent. In the case of such
teachers as Tertullian the doctrine of marriage is the result of a
combination of Chiliasm and asceticism. At a later date asceticism took
over the doctrine of celibacy as meritorious on its own account but it
never outgrew the original Chiliastic view that it was a logical
preparation for the Second Advent. In other words restriction in
matrimony whether Chiliastic or monastic is due to the same inherent
element in human nature, i.e., the masochistic. Similarly those good
Phrygian Chiliasts who abandoned all their possessions and went out into
the desert to meet the Lord were moved by the same psychological impulse
that actuated the monks of the Thebaid. Historically the one set of
concepts imperceptibly gave way to the other. Those same Thebaid monks
are a good illustration of the fact. Some of them, at least in the
earlier stages of the movement, were influenced more by Chiliastic
concepts than by monastic ones. Many were influenced by both. Here again
the superior value of the ascetic concepts for the ecclesiastical
organization determined the eventual survival of the monastic
institution. But whatever the conceptual images employed to give
expression to the masochistic impulse, that impulse was psychologically
the same. Organized monachism furnished a more convenient outlet for the
stronger masochistic impulses than Chiliasm and so superseded it. The
fact that monachism grew in proportion as Chiliasm declined is in this
respect merely a case of trans-shipment. The vehicle was different but
the goods carried were the same.

There are numerous other social and psychological, as well as economic
causes for the declension of Chiliasm but they can perhaps be more
conveniently considered in connection with the socialization of the
early Church.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] F. Pollock, Essays in Jurisprudence and Ethics, p. 314.

[2] Cf. I Enoch XCI-CIV.

[3] Cf. Parables in I Enoch XXXVII-LXXI.

[4] Cf. Apocalypse of Baruch; 4 Ezra, 4 Maccabees.

[5] Irenaeus Adv. Haer. V 33. II Baruch XXIX.

[6] Hist. of Dogma, Vol. III, p. 19.

[7] Ens. H. E. VI 27-2.

[8] Justin Martyn, Tertullian, Lactantius.

[9] Ad. Celsus LXI.

[10] Sib. Orac. VIII, 148 seq.

[11] Hippolytus, Com. on Daniel.

[12] Strom. VII, 17; VI 16; IV 25; V 6, 14.

[13] De Princ, II, 11.

[14] Cf. e.g., A. R. Wallace, The World of Life.

[15] Eus. H. E. VII 25.

[16] Discourse on the Resurrection, I, 9 seq. See also Conviv. IX, 1, 5.

[17] Ep. CII, 4.

[18] Ep. CCLXIII, 4.

[19] Cp. CCLXV, 2.

[20] Frag. Dan. I, 5, 6.

[21] De Christo et Antic. 50.

[22] Instructions, LXXX.

[23] Schaff Hist., ii, 855. Sec. LXVII of poem.

[24] Comm. XX 4.5.

[25] Comm. XX 1.3.

[26] Div. Ins. Bk. 7 XXIV.

[27] C.D. XX 7.

[28] I.e., the Millennium.

[29] C.D. XX 7.

[30] Rev. XX.

[31] De Prin. II, 11, 3.

[32] De Prin. II, 11, 7.

[33] City of God in Nicene and Post Nicene Fathers, 1st Series, Vol. II,
p. 427.

[34] E.g., Lydia, Phrygia, The Thebaid.

[35] Clem. Alex. Paed., iii, Strom. VII. Origen, Hom. on Num., XXV. Hom.
on Ps. XXVI. Lactantius, VII, 20.




CHAPTER II

THE EARLY CHURCH AND PROPERTY CONCEPTS


The Chiliasm of the early Christians had a direct bearing upon their
attitude toward the property institutions and property concepts of the
time. Neither the declension of Chiliasm nor the progressive
socialization of the Church can be understood without some consideration
of the attitude of the Christians toward property, and conversely the
effect of the existing economic system upon the Christians.

The early Church made its appearance in a world where the institution of
private property was supreme in fact and very largely unquestioned in
theory. It is recognized with perfect clearness by all the ancient
thinkers who refer to the subject that their civilization was based upon
the property rights of man in man. It is not true that slavery was
invariably considered part of the unalterable law of nature. Aristotle
expressly states that a sufficient development of mechanistic technology
would abrogate slavery. But such a technological development was not
expected nor indeed wished for. Contempt for mechanical processes of
industry was universal, with the dubious exception of the application of
science to military engines. There is a similar unanimity in regard to
commercial enterprise. Money obtained by ordinary mercantile methods was
considered as dishonestly acquired. It was assumed as self-evident that
the merchant had to be a thief. Interest on money was of course
reprobated as contrary to nature.[1] Return from landed property was
almost the only socially reputable form of income--with the exception of
spoils of war. Free wage labor was so unimportant that the Roman law did
not even develop a set of legal principles regarding it.

The Jewish property system, which originally had some notable
peculiarities of its own, had by the first century A.D. become of
necessity so like the Roman that the differences may for our purposes be
disregarded. The more so as Christianity very early came almost
exclusively under the influence of the Roman institutions and concepts
in this regard. It is perhaps unnecessary to add that Roman practice in
regard to property was widely at variance with Roman theory, with the
result that serious moral disintegration came over persons engaging in
commercial enterprises. The moral lapses of the early Christians are
largely to be set down to this cause, on the principle that a
destruction of moral integrity in one respect makes other delinquencies
easy.

With respect to the attitude of Christ towards contemporary property
institutions, it is unnecessary for our purpose to regard any
conclusions of modern criticism. The synoptic gospels were uncritically
accepted by the early Church and we are concerned merely with what was
commonly accepted as the teaching of Christ.

Perhaps as convenient a way as any of illustrating the breadth of view
in Christ's attitude toward property institutions would be to take a
single illustration and apply to it the whole range of property concepts
found in the teachings of Christ. No single illustration is so applied
in the Gospels as we have them, but the principles will be the clearer
for the consistent use of the same illustration. We shall take as our
type case one which Christ himself used; the case of a thief who steals
a coat. The teachings of Christ about property can conveniently be put
down under four heads, each illustrating, by a different way of treating
the thief, a different property concept.

First: The ordinary or conventional manner of treating the thief, based
on the concept of the morality and sacredness of private property; i.e.,
catching the thief, recovering the stolen property and punishing the
crime by fine or imprisonment or torture. This conventional standard of
morality and attitude towards property is illustrated, e.g., in the
story of the man with one talent in the parable. It is very concisely
summed up in the expression: "To him that hath shall be given and he
shall have abundance and from him that hath not shall be taken away even
that which he hath."

Second: What may be called for convenience the socialistic manner of
treating the thief--no implications either good or bad being intended by
the use of the term socialistic. This treatment would consist of
catching the thief, recovering the stolen property but letting the thief
go free with merely an admonition to future good behavior. This
treatment is based on the concept that the institution of private
property has only a partial validity and that violations of private
property rights are to be blamed not alone upon the violator but upon
society at large in equal degree. This attitude is illustrated in the
case of the woman taken in adultery: "Neither do I condemn thee; go and
sin no more." The illustration is perhaps more apt than appears at first
glance for female chastity is and was legally possessed of tangible
economic value i.e., adultery was viewed as a violation of a property
right belonging to the husband of the adultress.

Third: What may be termed the anarchistic manner of treating the
thief--here again no implications either good or bad are intended by the
employment of the term anarchistic. This treatment consists essentially
in pacificism, in Tolstoi's non-resistance. It is purely negative and
allows the thief to get away with the stolen coat without anyone making
any move to recover the property. This treatment is based on the concept
that private property institutions have no validity at all, but that the
only valid property arrangement is that of pure communism. This attitude
toward property is illustrated by such sayings of Christ as "Of him that
taketh away thy goods ask them not again;" "Resist not him that is
evil," etc.

Fourth: What may be distinguished as the specifically Christian manner
of treating the thief--using the word Christian as appertaining strictly
to the founder of the Church. This treatment consists of running after
the thief not for the purpose of capturing and punishing him; not even
for the purpose of recovering the stolen coat but for the purpose of
giving him a vest and an overcoat in addition to what he has stolen. It
amounts to the direct encouragement and reward of the thief for doing
what is presumably a meritorious action by stealing. This way of
treating a thief is not socialistic, or communistic; it is not even
anarchistic. It is something as far beyond anarchy, as anarchy is beyond
socialism, or socialism beyond ordinary conventional individualism. It
is specifically and peculiarly and uniquely Christian, using that word
as above defined. This treatment is not based on any concept of any kind
of property institution. Its logical, intellectual position is the
denial of the validity or worth of any property institutions, private or
communistic. It involves indeed the destruction of the very concept
property as implying possession by right of social agreement. This
attitude of Christ toward property finds expression in such sayings as:
"From him that taketh away thy cloke withhold not thy coat also."
"Blessed are ye poor." "Woe unto you that are rich." It is easier for a
camel to go through the eye of a needle, etc. etc. The great bulk of
Christ's statements about property are to be classified under this
fourth head. The views are probably connected, with just what degree of
closeness it is impossible to say, to the belief in the immediately
imminent catastrophe of the world. With somewhat less certainty, it may
be ventured that certain of Christ's sayings which we have listed as
anarchistic are perhaps influenced by the same idea.

It is of course obvious that the above four fold division is not exact
in the strict scientific sense, or that any teaching of Christ
concerning property can be unhesitatingly classified under one head or
another. Still less is anything intended to be implied as to the
existence or non-existence of any underlying, universal, theological
principle which would reconcile apparent divergencies. Theological
metaphysics as such, lie outside the scope of this chapter which is
intended as an objective study of concepts of property. From an
objective point of view it is evident that the four divisions
imperceptibly shade into one another and form a continuous series,
nevertheless for the sake of convenience it may be considered as
approximating a rational organization of the material under distinct
heads.

Immediately after the time of Christ the Christians in Jerusalem
developed a communistic organization. "All that believed were together
and had all things in common and sold their possessions and goods and
parted them to all men, as every man had need." "Neither said any of
them that ought of the things which he possessed was his own; but they
had all things common. Neither was there any among them that lacked; for
as many as were possessors of lands or houses sold them, and brought the
prices of the things that were sold and laid them at the apostles' feet;
and distribution was made unto every man according as he had need."[2]

It is doubtless true that the participants in this communistic society
believed themselves to be living according to the principles and
precepts of Christ. Yet there is some evidence which would lead to the
conclusion that perhaps this experiment was less a deliberate and
reasoned out endeavor to organize a permanent society on a new economic
basis, than an instinctive movement, entered upon under the influence of
a belief in the immediately imminent second advent of Christ and
therefore expected to be of only very limited duration. The collections
subsequently taken up in other Christian communities 'for the relief of
the poor saints in Jerusalem' would seem to lend color to this view of
the matter.

In St. Paul's teaching about property there is a fundamental
inconsistency. He makes statements which taken separately are applicable
to particular situations but which are not in harmony with one another.
He loyally supported the established right of private property, even in
slaves. But at another time he pronounced that property right depended
upon service rendered. In one place we have: "Slaves obey your masters"
in another: "If any will not work neither let him eat." But if a man's
slaves obey him he can eat without working. There is no suggestion of
communism in St. Paul's writings. If all the 'property passages' in the
epistles are collected and read in connection with their contexts two
facts come into prominence, First: Property institutions as such have
only a relative validity. They are not viewed as ends valuable in
themselves but are subordinated to religious ends, and the concept of an
immediately imminent second advent lies at the base of this relative
valuation.[3] Second: Economic arrangements of the existing social
order, like similar political arrangements, are to be strictly conformed
to, in spite of their merely relative validity, for fear of jeopardizing
the more important religious movement.[4] St. Paul whether consciously
or not, is, in regard to social institutions, an evolutionary
revolutionist. He would doubtless have been the first to admit that his
doctrine of human brotherhood, for example, would eventually overthrow
his doctrine of slavery, supposing--as there is no ground for thinking
he did suppose--that time enough elapsed for his doctrine of brotherhood
to permeate the general social consciousness. In so far as property
concepts are concerned it would probably be difficult to maintain that
there is any essential divergence between the teachings of St. Paul and
some at least of the teachings of Christ. St. Paul was by nature an
ecclesiastical statesman. He seems to have taken such of Christ's
property concepts as served his purposes and ignored the others.

In the epistle of St. James are to be found very bitter complaints as to
the working of property institutions. These complaints are so serious as
to suggest the inevitable attempt to make over the institutions and the
fact that no such attempt is indicated is due to the manifestly lively
expectation of the second advent. Yet even so it was necessary for the
writer to council patience to his brethren.[5]

In the Revelation there is a passage, xviii, 12 seq., quite in the
manner of the most violent of the ancient prophets or the modern
anarchists. In this passage property is conceived as evil and the
destruction of civilization as it then was, is conceived as a cause of
rejoicing to saints, apostles, and prophets. On the other hand the New
Jerusalem in the same book[6] is a 'wholesale jewelers paradise' and
involves the property concepts of those cities of Asia Minor who did
most of the jewelry manufacturing of the Roman Empire. It is very
doubtful how far anything in such a description can be said to embody
property concepts but the ideal put forth is the communistic enjoyment
of incredible luxury.

The epistle of Clement of Rome has only incidental references to
property. They can be well summed up in the quotation:[7] "Let the rich
man provide for the wants of the poor; and let the poor man bless God,
because He hath given him one by whom his need may be supplied." There
is manifestly no question of tampering with received property
institutions and concepts on the part of the writer of such a sentence.
It is equally evident that such an attitude in regard to property is
eminently well calculated to enable the holder to propagate specifically
theological opinions with a minimum of interested opposition.

The Didache holds a naïve and touching communistic creed.[8] "Thou shalt
not turn away from him that hath need but shalt share all things with
thy brother and shalt not say that they are thine own." This passage,
the only one on the subject in the Didache, would seem to indicate that
the institution of private property existed as a matter of fact in the
writer's community, but that the validity of it was not acknowledged.
The position may perhaps be called one of conceptual and constructive
communism.

The Epistle of Barnabas holds exactly the same view in almost exactly
the same words:[9] "Thou shalt communicate to thy neighbor all that thou
hast, thou shalt not call anything thine own."

Early in the second century we come upon the Ebionites who in the matter
of property held very strong views.[10] The stricter of them made
poverty a condition of salvation. They refused to acknowledge the
validity of the concept property--that is in theory. In practice some of
them seem to have been influenced by the doctrine and practice of the
Essenes in regard to communism.

All through the second century we find a continuous succession of
heretical sects, Gnostics and others, who held either the doctrine of
the wickedness of property-ownership as such, 'holy poverty,' or else
objected to individual ownership of property and preached or practiced
communism in such degree as might be possible under the circumstances.
Of these sects it is sufficient to name the Marcionites 110 A.D. The
Carpocratians 135 A.D. The Procidians 160 A.D.(?) The Basilidians 138
A.D. It is evident that there was in progress in the second century an
ascetic movement which later took on the forms of Manichaeism and
Christian asceticism. The Church consistently opposed all these sects
and maintained the validity of private property without condemning
communism as such, except in extreme cases, such as that of Epiphanes of
Alexandria, a Carpocriation, who in a book on Justice, 125 A.D., defined
virtue as consisting in absolute communism of goods and women.

To return to orthodox Christianity, Hermas shows very clearly the
inconsistencies which beset Christian theory and practice in the first
half of the second century. All who are rich must be deprived of their
wealth in order to be good Christians.[11] Yet this deprivation of
wealth must be only relative; there must be wealth enough left for the
giving of alms.[12] There is no trace of communism in Hermas and no
praise of poverty as such. The chief justification for the existence of
property institutions would seem to be that they are social structures
which can be utilized for the giving and receiving of alms. Perhaps one
paragraph is worth quoting as giving possibly the earliest formulation
extant of the property concepts that finally became dominant. "The rich
man has much wealth but is poor in matters relating to the Lord because
he is distracted about his riches and he offers very few confessions and
intercessions to the Lord and those which he does offer are small and
weak, and have no power above. But when the rich man refreshes the poor
and assists him in his necessities, believing that which he does to the
poor man will be able to find its reward with God--because the poor man
is rich in intercessions and confession and his intercession has great
power with God--then the rich man helps the poor in all things without
hesitation; and the poor man, being helped by the rich, intercedes for
him, giving thanks to God for him who bestows gifts upon him. And he
still continues earnestly to interest himself for the poor man, that his
want may be constantly supplied. For he knows that the intercession of
the poor man is acceptable and influential with God. Both accordingly
accomplish their work. The poor man makes intercession; a work in which
he is rich, which he received from the Lord, and with which he
recompenses the master who helps him. And the rich man in like manner,
unhesitatingly bestows upon the poor man the riches which he received
from the Lord. And this is a great work and acceptable before God,
because he understands the object of his wealth and has given to the
poor of the gifts of the Lord and rightly discharged his service to
Him."[13]

The inconsistent and irreconcilable nature of the evidence about early
Christian property institutions is well illustrated in Justin Martyr.
Two short extracts are sufficient for the purpose. "We who valued above
all things the acquisition of wealth and possessions, now bring what we
have into a common stock and communicate to every one in need."[14] "We
carry on us all we possess and share everything with the poor."[15]

The second of these passages would indicate that the first is not to be
taken in a too literal and comprehensive sense. It may perhaps be
ventured as an opinion that the truth of the matter, as regards the
Christians of whom Justin wrote, is that the concept of private property
was largely invalidated and that personal possessions were thought of as
owned in common while the 'common stock' consisted in reality of
contributions--it may be large contributions--given for the relief of
necessity among the members.

The account preserved to us in Lucian of the Christian communities of
Judea in the later half of the second Century would seem to bear out
this opinion. Lucian says: "The activity of these people in dealing with
any matter that affects their community is something extraordinary. They
spare no trouble, no expense. Peregrine all this time was making quite
an income on the strength of his bondage. Money came pouring in. You see
these misguided creatures start with the general conviction that they
are immortal for all time, which explains the contempt of death and
voluntary self devotion which are so common among them and then it was
impressed upon them by their original law giver that they are all
brothers from the moment that they are converted and deny the gods of
Greece and worship the crucified sage and live after his laws. All this
they take quite on trust with the result that they despise all worldly
goods alike, regarding them merely as common property."[16]

In Tertullian we find the same contradiction as regards private
ownership and communism which has already been noted in Justin. The
contradiction is more glaring, but possibly the explanation of the real
situation is similar. The following two extracts from the same chapter
bring this contradiction out in high relief: "Family possessions which
generally destroy brotherhood among you, create fraternal bonds among
us. One in mind and soul, we do not hesitate to share our earthly goods
with one another. All things are common among us but our wives." "On the
monthly collection day, if he likes, each puts in a small donation; but
only if it be his pleasure and only if he be able, for there is no
compulsion, all is voluntary."[17]

Tertullian was a Montanist and one of the most serious charges made
against the Montanists was that some of their prophets received interest
on money loaned by them.[18] Tertullian is above suspicion in this
respect. He demonstrates by quotations from both the Old and New
Testaments that it is absolutely contradictory to Christianity. Interest
on money is the only property institution in regard to which the
teaching of the early Church is consistent. Every reference we have in
regard to this practice condemns it--not mildly as a venial offense--but
fiercely and savagely as a heinous crime like incest or murder.
"Fenerare est hominem occidere" is a favorite formula. In this respect
the most pronounced apologists of private wealth like Clement of
Alexandria are in perfect accord with the most pronounced communists
like Tertullian. The only difference to be noted is one of emphasis. In
the earlier writers there are relatively few references to interest,
which may perhaps be due to the fact that in the earlier time there were
relatively few Christians possessed of surplus means requiring
investment. As might naturally be expected, the writers of the period
after the establishment of Christianity as a legal religion make more
frequent and more bitter reference to the matter. The vehemence of
denunciation indulged in by these later writers almost exceeds
credibility. The most improbable and strained exegesis is resorted to in
an effort to explain away the words of Christ in the parables of the
pounds and talents. But this vehemence is by no means confined to the
Nicene and post-Nicene fathers. So statesmanlike a bishop as Cyprian, in
a long railing accusation against certain opposition bishops brings
forth as their final sin that they had "multiplied gain by usury."[19]
Usury is not to be taken, of course, in its present sense of excessive
or burdensome interest and it is evident that Cyprian did not use it in
such a sense. He is simply condemning interest as such. In the minds of
the early Christians the difference between taking five percent interest
or fifty percent was exactly the same as the difference between stealing
one dollar or ten. The sin was essentially the same irrespective of the
particular amount involved. Indeed this comparison is scarcely a valid
one; for taking interest was conceived as a much worse sin than plain
robbery. It is perhaps worth noting that the moral distinction between
interest and usury is of very late development. The credit, if it be
such, of making it, is to be ascribed to Calvin and is not unconnected
with the predilection of certain types of pecuniary interest for that
reformer's system of ecclesiastical polity. The Roman law did indeed fix
a maximum legal rate of interest, varying at different times and even
at the same time for different forms of commercial risk. During the
first three centuries A.D. it was, for example, consistently twelve
percent on ships and varied from six to twelve percent on other forms of
investment. But this has little moral connotation.

Early Christian condemnation of interest on loans was by no means
confined to the expression of opinion by church writers. Council after
council legislated against it with ever increasing severity. The
forty-fourth Apostolic Canon prohibited the practice to clerics. The
Council of Elvira 310 A.D. forbade it to both clerics and laity. The
Council of Arles 314 A.D. provided that clerics guilty of the practice
should be deposed from the ministry. The seventeenth canon of the
Council of Nicea 325 A.D. provided that they should be excommunicated.
The penalty is reiterated in the twelfth canon of the First Council of
Carthage 345 A.D. There is no need to continue the list. It is
sufficient to say that nearly every council whose canons have come down
to us has legislation against interest. Again and again it is absolutely
forbidden to clergy and laity alike under the severest ecclesiastical
penalties--and it is necessary to remember that after 325 A.D. these
penalties could, if need be, be enforced by governmental authority.

This attitude of the early Church toward interest on loans is a matter
of very considerable historical importance. Although, as we shall
endeavor to show later, the ecclesiastical laws were frequently and
largely evaded, they still had such influence that their contribution to
the sum of economic forces which accomplished the overthrow of ancient
civilization is by no means an insignificant one. Nor did the influence
of this attitude cease at the fall of Rome. It rather increased
thereafter and for several centuries, the so-called "Dark Ages,"
civilization was strangled by the power of this idea of the sin of
usury. To this day the Roman Church regards interest on money as a
reprehensible thing which, however, is not, for practical reasons, to be
spoken of as sinful by the clergy.[20] This attitude has been no
inconsiderable factor in the relatively late industrial development in
Catholic countries.

The early Christian concept of interest was not an idea original with
Christianity. It was not derived from Christ at all. It was taken over
bodily from Old Testament Judaism and contemporary pagan philosophy. It
is a well known fact that the views of Plato and Aristotle, of Cicero
and Seneca on interest, correspond in a very astonishing way to the
views of Deuteronomy and Isaiah, of the Psalms and Ezekiel. The strength
of the concept in the early Church was due to this fact. In regard to no
other concept was there such a unanimity of opinion. The Christian
convert found that the sacred scriptures of his new faith confirmed in
the strongest language the condemnation of interest which he had become
familiar with from the writings of the noblest pagan philosophers. When
reason and religion were in accord it is not wonderful that their
judgment was accepted--as a theory.

In spite of this union of pagan philosophers and Hebrew prophets, of
Christian Fathers and Ecclesiastical Canons, the condemnation and
prohibition of interest on money was a theory only. A very ordinary
knowledge of classical civilization is sufficient to explain the reason
of this. More nearly than any other institution, the financial machinery
of antiquity corresponds to that of modern life. Trusts and millionaires
were phenomena of their economic life as of ours. Banks were numerous
and ubiquitous. They were of all sizes and degrees; from the great
metropolitan corporation with correspondents all over the civilized
world, to the hated money lender in a shabby office on a side street.
The great bankers were men of the first importance in society. From
their number were regularly recruited the officials of the imperial
treasury. They were almost without exception men of the strictest
financial integrity. The Roman banking laws protected the depositor more
securely than the laws of any modern nation, and these Roman laws were
rigidly enforced. Every banking institution had to obtain government
authorization in order to do business and this authorization was
withdrawn on the discovery of the smallest discrepancy in the accounts.
The regular rate of interest on ordinary deposits was four percent;
under certain peculiar conditions the rate went as low as two and a half
and as high as six percent. The rate published by a bank had to be paid
even though payment swept away the banker's entire private property. The
banker lost everything before the depositor lost anything. The banks
were used by the government in carrying out such fiscal measures as
could not be conveniently handled by the treasury department directly.
They played a still more important part in the ordinary commercial life
of the times. A relatively small volume of business was, or could be,
carried on by transfers of specie. The great bulk of commercial
transactions were of necessity carried on by checks, drafts, discounts,
bills of exchange and similar instruments of credit. It was a
matter of simple impossibility for any man in ordinary commercial or
industrial life to carry on his business for even a single day without
participating directly or indirectly in transactions involving loans and
interest.

Our excuse for reciting these commonplace details of Roman commercial
life is that their very commonplaceness explains the discrepancy between
early Christian theory and practice in the matter of interest. It would
be an easy task to convict the early Christians of hypocritical pretense
in this regard. Nothing more would be necessary than to print their
theory in one column and their practice in a parallel one. Yet the early
Christians were not hypocrites. As regards sincerity of profession they
compare very favorably with any religionists of any age. As a matter of
fact the historians have long ago shown that it is altogether impossible
and unjust to argue from a sect's opinions to their feelings and
actions. To quote Macauley[21] "Only imagine a man acting for one single
day on the supposition that all his neighbors believe all that they
profess or act up to all that they believe. Imagine a man acting on the
supposition that he may safely offer the deadliest injuries and insults
to everybody who says that revenge is sinful; or that he may safely
intrust all his property without security to any person who says it is
wrong to steal. Such a character would be too absurd for the wildest
farce." "The law which is inscribed on the walls of the synagogues
prohibits covetousness. But if we were to say that a Jew mortgagee would
not foreclose because God had commanded him not to covet his neighbor's
house, everybody would think us out of our wits."[22] Yet that Jew is no
hypocrite in his religion. He is sincerely and honestly devoted to his
faith and will sacrifice time and money; will undergo social obloquy and
contempt in support of it. So it was with the early Christians. By the
process of abstracting their theory and practice of interest from the
social matrix which alone makes the theory or practice intelligible, it
is easy to show a logical inconsistency. It would be equally foolish and
false to deduce from this inconsistency any conclusions one way or the
other as to early Christian morality. It is if course no aim of this
thesis to attack or defend any religious or moral opinions. It is a
matter entirely apart from our present concern to evaluate interest or
non-interest in ethical terms. Our purpose is not to explain away the
inconsistency of the early Christians. Admitting the inconsistency in
the fullest degree, our aim is to explain it as natural, and, under the
social conditions then prevailing, practically inevitable. The early
Christians left funds to care in perpetuity for the family burial
lot.[23] Under any religious creed; Pagan, Jewish, or Christian, decent
provision for the care of graves of relatives was not only admissible,
it was a positive demand of social reputability; to say nothing of the
demand of natural affection.

Similarly annual agapes were established by bequests as a charity to the
poor brethren.[24] These agapes were no innovation. As an institution
they were perfectly familiar and in universal observance among the
pagans. The agapes were simply ordinary Roman silicernia with the name
changed. To the Romans, founding a silicernium was like wearing a toga
or going to a bath. It possessed the sanction of law and the benediction
of religion; but its real compulsion lay in social custom. No person
could escape this pressure of the mores and retain self respect, to say
nothing of the respect of others. The pagan silicernium was morally
respectable; it perpetuated friendship and promoted good feeling. There
was no reason for avoiding it, if avoidance had been possible--as it was
not. The Christians not only preserved this pious institution; they
improved it. Their annual agapes fed the poor, which the silicernia,
excellent as they were, seldom did.

The explanation we have endeavored to give of the endowment of family
burial lots and annual agapes is applicable, mutis mutandis, to other
cases of interest. It therefore is not surprising to learn that
Callixtus (pope 218-223 A.D.) was a banker previous to his elevation to
the papacy; that large numbers of Christians, particularly widows and
orphans--entrusted their money to his bank, and that he had large loans
out at good interest to Jewish bankers.[25]

The truth is that the early Christian horror of interest, while
absolutely honest and even desperately sincere, was a strictly
legalistic, ceremonial, and ritualistic horror. It was purely formal and
was not at all concerned with any economic principle. The thing that was
wicked, was not income from capital invested, but income _in the form of
interest on money_. To own a ship and sail it and make profits from
ownership by freight charges was perfectly honest, but to invest money
in a shipping corporation and receive dividends was wicked. So it was
honest to own a building and get money as rent. It was immoral to invest
money in the construction company that erected that building and receive
income in the form of interest. Rent, profit, and interest are merely
three forms of the same thing, income from invested capital. Any
endeavor to distinguish between them in this respect is entirely devoid
of moral or economic justification. The ancient Church fathers were as
well aware of this as we are. The real point and importance of their
concept of interest was their defense of that concept. That defense was
a curious one and illustrates the difference between ancient and modern
reasoning on economic matters--and on other matters also. The difference
in a word is that of mistaking means for ends on the theory of course
that we moderns are right and the prophets, philosophers, Christian
fathers, et al. wrong. According to modern social science, interest is
merely a means adopted for the attainment of certain ends--economic,
educational, religious or whatever. The goodness or badness of interest
is to be judged strictly and solely by the convenience and economy with
which it serves these ends. If any other property institution can, in a
given situation, serve a given end more easily and more cheaply than the
institution of interest, then, in that situation, the institution of
interest--other things being equal--is immoral and should be abolished.
If, in the given situation, no other property institution can serve the
given end more easily and more cheaply than the institution of interest,
then that institution is moral and should be retained. That is, from the
modern sociological point of view, the institution of interest is
inconceivable except as a means to some end outside itself. As a means
it is to be judged in a purely objective and pragmatic manner by the
ordinary standards of cost price, economic, social, and other.

The method of the ancients is entirely otherwise. Assuming still the
correctness of the modern viewpoint, which viewpoint be it said is not
unassailable and indeed is assailed by divers radicals, socialists and
others, but for the most part persons lacking in pecuniary reputability;
the mistake then, that the Early Church fathers make is that of taking
the means for an end. They have many arguments against interest but all
these arguments can be criticised for this one error. The fathers
elevate interest to the dignity of an end in itself. Interest, qua
interest, is condemned. It is taking advantage of a brother's necessity.
It is grinding the face of the poor. It is producing pride, luxury, and
vice. As soon as moral value is attached to anything, it of course, is
viewed as an end in itself. If it be true that interest is an end in
itself, then the fiercest diatribes of the fathers are none too severe.
Assuming their premises, their conclusions follow inevitably. The modern
man--he is not unknown--who talks about the "sacred rights" of private
property is guilty of the same error as the ancient Christians, the
error of mistaking means for ends. The early Christians could not see
that the property institution of interest is neither good nor bad except
as it is good or bad _for something_. The _something_ determines the
judgment. As a matter of historical fact the condemnation of interest
developed in certain early stages of human civilization and at those
stages interest was socially detrimental. At those stages, however, it
was exceedingly rare and correspondingly infamous. In any country where
there is abundance of good, free land the phenomenon of interest on
money will disappear, provided labor is free. So it disappeared in the
northern states of this Union in the later part of the 18th century.
These phenomena caused the southerners to adopt slavery though all their
English traditions had declared it immoral for more than three
centuries. The relation of interest to slavery under a condition of free
land is the relation of cause and effect, i.e., the requirement of
interest will produce slavery and the abolition of interest will abolish
slavery.[26] These social phenomena are of importance in our
consideration of the early Christian doctrine of interest. That doctrine
was largely evaded and disobeyed but it still had great effect and that
effect was toward the abolition of slavery. We do not mean that this
economic doctrine alone resulted in the abolition of slavery, or even
that it was a chief cause in the abolition of slavery, it was not obeyed
well enough to be such a chief cause; but so far as it was obeyed, it
tended in that direction.

The net result of all Christian teaching together was to prolong the
existence of the institution of slavery for two centuries, perhaps for
three. The doctrine of the sinfulness of interest however, worked toward
emancipation and forced slavery in its later end to become almost wholly
agricultural, i.e., to yield income as rent. Slaves cannot be employed
in commerce or industry in sufficient numbers to be profitable where the
institution of interest is banned as it was in the 'dark ages.' The
Christian concept of interest undermined ancient civilization by
abrogating, slowly but surely, the institution of property by which such
gangs of 'manufacturing slaves' as made the fortune of Crassus, could
alone be made profitable. It is an historical curiosity that it
accomplished this result without any attack on the institution of
slavery itself.

As soon as Christian doctrines became widespread enough to produce
important social results we find Christian slave owners manumitting
their slaves in considerable numbers. It is no derogation to the
influence of the doctrine of human brotherhood or to the humanity of the
Christian slave owners to mention the fact that the doctrine of the
sinfulness of interest, by tending to make slavery unprofitable, aided
in the process of bringing to light the real content of the doctrine of
human brotherhood, and of making the humane practice of manumission
easier by the removal of certain economic impediments.

In order to understand properly the working of the prohibition of
interest and its relation to manumission, it is necessary to carry the
analysis one step farther to its ultimate physical basis, which was the
conditioning factor of actual practice and eventually of theory also.
The exhaustion of the soil of western Europe which was the result of
ancient methods of agriculture, together with the rising standard of
living and the competition of other more fertile agricultural regions
like Egypt and North Africa resulted in the substitution of the
latifundi for small landholdings.[27] As the pressure continued the
latifundi in turn became economically unprofitable under forced labor
(slavery) and large tracts of land were abandoned. In order to put this
land under agriculture again the charge upon it had to be reduced by the
substitution of (relatively) free associated labor, villeinage or
serfdom. But this change cut off the economic margin upon which the
structure of ancient civilization was built and is the ultimate economic
reason assignable for the fall of Rome. Of course the collapse of the
empire could, theoretically, have been avoided had the Romans of the
first three centuries A.D. been content to live the toilsome and frugal
life of the Romans of the early republic. But this was an utter
impossibility in practice. This slowly working and hardly understood
decline in the relative and actual ability of ancient agriculture to
sustain the weight imposed upon it, enables us to see why the sinfulness
of interest could be steadily indoctrined even though steadily evaded,
by Christians from the beginning, while manumission was not taught at
all in the beginning and only worked up to the dignity of a pious action
relatively late.[28] It also explains why manumission of household and
personal slaves preceded that of agricultural slaves. Of course there is
nothing peculiarly Christian about this later phenomenon and the
operation of other causes is discernable, but it is important for our
purpose to observe that Christian practice, and Christian theory in
property matters in the long run, followed the broad lines of the
underlying economic evolution.[29] The application of this to the origin
of Christian monasticism and to the revival of communistic theories by
the later Church fathers lies at the very outside limit of our study but
will be briefly touched on after we have considered the final overthrow
of the communistic property concept as they appear in the earlier
fathers up to and including Tertullian.

Clement of Alexandria 153-217 A.D. has the distinction of being the
first Christian theological writer who clearly expounds the concept of
private property which has held sway without substantial change in the
Church until the present time. This statement does not apply to the
doctrine of receiving interest on money. In respect to this doctrine
Clement is in perfect accord with all other early Christians both
before and after himself. Indeed he specifically states that the Mosaic
prohibition against taking interest from one's brother extends in the
case of a Christian to all mankind. But in regard to all other property
institutions Clement's attitude is essentially that of any modern
Christian of generous disposition.

In all that Clement has to say about property, and the 'bulk' of his
'property passages' is as great as that of all previous Christian
writers together, he speaks like a man on the defensive. Indeed there
has come down to us no other Christian writing earlier than his time
which presents his view, with the dubious exception of some passages in
Hermas. The fact seems to be that while Clement is undoubtedly
presenting an apologetic for the existing practice in the Church of his
day, that practice was felt to be more or less open to attack in the
light of certain scripture passages. Communism as an existential
reality was gone by the time of Clement--whatever may have been the
extent--probably a limited one--to which it had existed in the earlier
ages. But while communism as a fact was dead, communism as an idea or
ideal of Christian economy was not dead. Indeed Clement's views about
the morality of wealth were so different from those of previous writers
that a great modern economist[30] in treating of this subject ventures
the opinion, though doubtfully, that the reason why Clement, alone among
the great early theologians, was never canonized by the Church was that
he ran counter to popular belief on this subject. This opinion is
probably erroneous. Clement's theological opinions have a semi-Gnostic
tinge quite sufficient to explain the absence of his name from the
calendar of saints.

Clement justifies the institution of private property. He justifies, on
the highest ethical and philosophical principles, the possession by
Christians of even the most enormous wealth. His apologetic is not an
original one. He borrows it bodily from Plato. Indeed he quotes Plato
verbatim, invocation to Pan and the other heathen gods included.[31] The
originality lies in applying this Platonic doctrine to the exposition of
Christian scripture. Clement's method is strictly that of Biblical
exegesis. In the well known sermon or essay on: "Who is the Rich Man
that shall be saved" he takes up practically all of the scriptural
passages which seem opposed to the institutions of private property and
explains them in so modern a spirit that the whole sermon might be
delivered today in any ordinary Church and would be readily accepted as
sound and reliable doctrine. His thesis is that wealth or poverty are
matters in themselves indifferent. That riches are not to be bodily
gotten rid of, but are to be wisely conserved and treated as a
stewardship intrusted to the owner by God. That charity to the poor
should be in proportion to one's wealth and that a right use of wealth
will secure salvation to the upright Christian even though he possesses
great riches all his life and leaves them to his heirs. The wealth that
is dangerous to the soul is not physical possessions, but spiritual
qualities of greed and avarice.

His views can be best expressed by himself. We give two characteristic
passages from the sermon above referred to.[32] "Rich men that shall
with difficulty enter into the kingdom, is to be apprehended in a
scholarly way, not awkwardly, or rustically, or carnally. For if the
expression is used thus, salvation does not depend upon external things,
whether they be many or few, small or great, or illustrious or obscure
or esteemed or disesteemed; but on the virtue of the soul, on faith and
hope and love and brotherliness, and knowledge, and meekness and
humility and truth the reward of which is salvation." "Sell thy
possessions. What is this? He does not, as some off hand conceive, bid
him throw away the substance he possesses and abandon his property; but
he bids him banish from his soul his notions about wealth, his
excitement and morbid feeling about it, the anxieties, which are the
thorns of existence which choke the seed of life. And what peculiar
thing is it that the new creature, the Son of God intimates and teaches?
It is not the outward act which others have done, but something else
indicated by it, greater, more godlike, more perfect, the stripping off
of the passions from the soul itself and from the disposition, and the
cutting up by the roots and casting out of what is alien to the mind."
"One, after ridding himself of the burden of wealth, may none the less
have still the lust and desire for money innate and living; and may have
abandoned the use of it, but being at once destitute of and desiring
what he spent may doubly grieve both on account of the absence of
attendance and the presence of regret."[33]

We have now come to the beginning of what is in many respects the most
interesting period in the history of property concepts. It is a period
in which everything is upside down and wrong end to. In that strange age
we find a famous archbishop, one of the world's noblest orators, a man
of the most spotless integrity and the most saintly life, publicly
preaching in the foremost pulpit of Christendom doctrines of property,
the implications of which, the most hardened criminal would scarcely
venture to breathe to a gang of thieves.[34] We find the most learned
scholar of the century, in the weightiest expositions of Christian
Scripture, penning the most powerful apologetic of anarchy that is to be
found in the literature of the world.[35] We find one of the greatest of
the popes, a man whose genius as a statesman will go down to the latest
ages of history, setting forth in a manual for the instruction of
Christian bishops, property concepts more radical than those of the
fiercest Jacobins in the bloodiest period of the Terror.[36]

Stranger still, these incredible performances are the strongest proofs
of the wisdom and piety of the men responsible for them. These men are
today honored as the saviors of civilized religion and their images in
bronze and marble and painted glass adorn the proudest temples of the
most conservative denominations of Christians. The strange history of
these famous men: Athanasius, the two Gregories, Basil and Chrysostom in
the East; Augustine, Ambrose, Jerome and Gregory in the West, lies
outside the limits of our study. But the explanation of their desperate
and uncompromising communism can be given in a word. It was the
communism of crisis: the communism of shipwrecked sailors forced to
trust their lives to a frail lifeboat with an insufficient supply of
provisions. These great Christian scholars, enriched by all the
accumulated culture of their civilization, saw that culture falling into
ruin all around them; they felt the foundations of that civilization
trembling beneath their feet. To vary the figure, they beheld the rising
tide of ignorance and barbarism rapidly engulfing the world and with
desperate haste they set to work rebuilding and strengthening the ark of
the Church that in it, religion, and so much of civilization as
possible, might be saved till the flood subsided. Their task, perhaps
the most important and most urgent, that men have ever had to perform,
was of such a nature that they cared not what they wrecked in order to
accomplish it. They ripped up the floor of the bridal chamber for timber
and took the doors of the bank-safe for iron.

These rhetorical figures are violent; but they are less violent than the
reality they are intended to express. Monasticism was the last desperate
hope of civilized Christianity and these men knew it. To establish
monasticism they degraded the sanctity of marriage and denounced the
sacredness of property. They conferred the most sacred honors upon the
lowliest drudgery;[37] they turned princes into plowmen and nobles into
breakers of the soil. Some historians, judging them by the different
standards of a later age, have pronounced them fanatics led astray by
vulgar superstition. But judged by the needs of their own age, judged by
the inestimable services rendered to the world by the monastic system
they instituted, they are entitled to a place far up in the list of the
wisest and the ablest of the human kind.

Sketchy and imperfect as the above study necessarily is, it nevertheless
gives the primary facts which are essential to an understanding of the
important part played by property concepts and property institutions in
the transformation of early Christianity from a predominantly
eschatological to a practically socialized movement.

We have seen,[38] that the earliest generations of Christians took over
from contemporary Judaism a strongly Chiliastic eschatology. The logical
consequence of such an eschatology is an indifference to, or
undervaluation of, the existing social arrangements including the
property concepts and institutions. One form easily taken by this
indifference and undervaluation is that of practical communism. We
accordingly find in the Acts and in such early writings as the Didache
and the Epistle of Barnabas a distinctly communistic theory and the
traces of more or less effort to put this theory into some degree of
practical effect. Chiliasm and communism in these writers go together
naturally.

Pari passu with this logical, communistic Chiliasm we can trace the
development of an illogical, individualistic Chiliasm in St. Paul,
Clement of Rome and Hermas. It is already manifest even at this early
stage, that the weight of influence and power of control in the
Christian societies is on the side of the individualists. This is due to
two causes. In the first place the communists among the Christians
worked under a great handicap. The underlying economic institutions of
society can indeed be changed. But they can be changed--on any
considerable scale--only very slowly and by enormous effort. At any
attempt to change them a thousand interested and determined antagonists
at once arise. It is not too much to say that had all Christians
insisted upon communism as an essential element of the Christian faith
and practice, Christianity in the Roman world could never have developed
into anything more than an unimportant sect. The very fact that
Christianity spread as rapidly as it did in the first century of its
existence is proof that the communists in the Church made very little
headway. It was hard enough to combat pagan religion and philosophy. Had
the property institutions been attacked also, the primary religious
objects would have been lost sight of in the conflict.

In the second place the more practical minded Christian leaders would be
antagonistic to a doctrine and practice which alienated many persons who
might otherwise be won to the Church, and practically minded persons
outside the Church regarded the individualists with more favor and were
more easily influenced by them to become Christians themselves. The
early importance attained by the Church of Rome is to be largely
ascribed to the predominance in its councils of such practical
persons.[39] Communism had no hold there at all and Chiliasm was never
allowed to interfere with the practical workings of society.

By the time of Justin the three concepts; Chiliasm, Communism, and
Individualism had arrived at a modus vivendi. According to this
arrangement Chiliasm and Communism held sway as theories while
individualism ruled in the world of fact. This agreement proved very
satisfactory and for more than half a century was the accepted
thing. It is seen in full force in Tertullian.

There is a general tendency, due to the natural effects of use and
disuse, for theories which do not correspond to realities to become
discredited, even as theories. Conversely realities which at first lack
theoretical justification tend to accumulate such justification with
the lapse of time. It is therefore not surprising to find by the
beginning of the Third Century, a movement to discard theoretical
Chiliasm and communism and to validate by theoretical apologetic the
actually existing individualism. These two processes in the nature of
the case are closely connected with one another and it is not by mere
chance that they find a common exponent in Clement of Alexandria. That
famous opponent of Chiliasm is equally well known as the justifier of an
extreme individualism. He greatly facilitated the spread of Christian
theology by liberating it from the burden of an eschatological theory
increasingly hard to reconcile with reality and also by bringing the
economic teachings of Christianity into conformity with current
practice. As noted above, there was one economic doctrine which neither
he nor any other early Christian teacher ever attempted to reconcile
with the facts, and it is undoubtedly true that the doctrine of the
sinfulness of interest was alike detrimental to the spread of
Christianity and to the general well being of society as it then
existed. The reasons why this particular reality i.e., interest on
money, was so slow in receiving its theoretical justification are
numerous. The only ones that need concern us here are that the
opposition to be overcome in this case was much more formidable than in
the cases of Chiliasm and communism and the fact that this inconsistency
on the part of the Christians did not in reality offer any very serious
obstacle to the growth of the Church. Communism had no great body of
Biblical authority at its back. There are indeed some texts in its favor
but there are plenty of an opposite nature. The doctrine had no great
popular prejudice in its favor. In addition it was insuperably difficult
of realization in fact. It was otherwise with interest. The theoretical
prejudice against interest was almost as great among the Jews and Pagans
as among the Christians themselves. The Scriptures were unequivocal in
their denunciation of it. Furthermore the correlative institutions of
rent and profit offered so many opportunities to disguise the fact of
interest that it was exceedingly easy to retain the theoretical
opposition without ceasing the actual practice. Although Clement's
condemnation of interest was probably merely an inherited prejudice it
is by no means impossible that he considered that an attempt to justify
it would endanger his defense of the more fundamental institution of
private property. At any rate his course can be defended as a practical
one under the circumstances. Whatever may be said of its consistency,
the Christian custom of condemning the theory and winking at the
practice of interest worked well. The inconsistency which seems so
glaring to us, was probably very largely unperceived by the ancient
pagans--they had exactly the same inconsistency themselves.

In regard to Chiliasm and property, practically the same attitude
prevailed. It worked indeed even more easily. In the West there seems to
have been a considerable Chiliastic tradition. So long as this tradition
did not result in any practices which interfered with the actual
progress of the Church, the Fathers were content to let it alone. It did
not, till at least the Third Century, hinder the acceptance of Christian
doctrine by the pagans and may even have aided the process among some of
the lower classes. Its long survival can be taken as sure proof that it
did not effect either the development of the hierarchy or the
institution of property.

As regards property of man in man, the superior power of the Christian
religion to keep slaves in subjection accounts in no small measure for
its relatively rapid rise to power in the ancient world. The pagan
religion was inferior in usefulness to the Christian religion because it
could not keep the slave contented with his position. The next world in
the pagan theology was only a worse copy of this world. Christianity, in
glaring contrast to paganism, proclaimed that the despised and afflicted
were to sit on golden thrones in the next life. The more they were
exploited in this life, the brighter their crown in the next one. The
pagan slave was dangerous. The whole pre-Christian literature of
Classical antiquity shows the ever present fear of a servile outbreak.
There were good grounds for that fear. Outbreaks were frequent and of a
most ferocious character. On more than one occasion they threatened the
very existence of the ancient civilization. Christianity was able to
make the slave contented to be a slave. It was economically an enormous
advance over paganism. A master whose slaves were Christians was not
afraid of being murdered by them. Not only was the master's life secure,
his property was secure also. The pagan slaves were notorious thieves.
The Christian slave did not rob his master. These facts gave
Christianity an enormous leverage in its efforts to force its way into
social recognition. It went far toward securing a favorable disposition
toward the new religion on the part of the influential, wealthy, and
conservative elements in the population.

Into the general economic changes which began to operate toward the end
of our period it is not our purpose to enter, but it is worth notice
that the efforts made by the Church to save itself in the general ruin
which overtook the ancient world, chiefly the institution of
monasticism, were such as to secure more firmly than ever the hold of
the Church upon society. The Church rapidly became an economic factor of
the first importance. The only secure basis of lasting social influence
is economic. Christianity by teaching the virtues of honesty, frugality,
simplicity, and charity laid the foundations of her subsequent triumph,
and when she had great societies of men and women working hard and
living plainly and adding all their accumulations to institutions
belonging to the Church and directly under the supervision and control
of the ecclesiastical authority, the Church paved the way for her
subsequent domination of the civil government. Monastic communism, being
economically superior to Chiliastic Communism, inevitably superseded it.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cf. Plato, Laws, V, 742. Aristotle, Politics, 1:X, XI. Cicero, De
Officus, II, XXV. Seneca, De Beneficus, VII, X.

[2] Acts IV.

[3] I. Cor. vii 30.

[4] Rom. xiii 3.

[5] Jas. Chap. V.

[6] Chaps. 21-22.

[7] Chap. xxxviii.

[8] Did. IV. 8.

[9] Barn. XIV. 16.

[10] Schaff, Vol. 1.

[11] Past. V. vi. 6.

[12] Past. S. IX. XXX. 5.

[13] Past III. 2.

[14] Apol. I. IV.

[15] Apol. I. xiv.

[16] De Mort. Per. XIV.

[17] Apol. XXXIX.

[18] Eus., E. H., V. 18.

[19] De Lapsis, VI.

[20] See Pronouncement of the Sacred Penitentiary, 11 Feb., 1832.

[21] Sir James Macintosh.

[22] Civil Disabilities of the Jews.

[23] Lourie, Monuments of the Early Church, Chap. II.

[24] Lourie, _ibid._

[25] Cf. Hypolytus.

[26] A. Loria. Cf. Economic Basis of Society. (Int.)

[27] Cf. A. Loria, Economic Foundations of Society. (Int.)

[28] Circa 200(?).

[29] Cf. K. Marx, Das Kapital, Vol. 1.

[30] F. Nitti in Catholic Socialism.

[31] Phaedus, The Laws, in Strom. II, 6.

[32] Chap. XIV.

[33] Chap. XXXI.

[34] Chrysostom, Sermons Rich Man and Lazarus, etc.

[35] Jerome, Commentaries.

[36] Gregory, Pastoralis Cura.

[37] Laborare est orare.

[38] Chap. I.

[39] E.g., Clement and Hermas.




CHAPTER III

THE EARLY CHURCH AND THE POPULACE


The transformation of early Christianity from an eschatological to a
socialized movement was the result of the interaction of three social
groups--three 'publics'--the Jewish, the Pagan, and the Christian. It
was a single movement, working itself out through these three 'crowds'.
Christianity, like all other great religions, was in its first
beginnings essentially a mob phenomenon--that is to say it was a very
slow movement which had a long history back of it.

Perhaps no current opinion is more unfounded than the notion that mob
movements are sudden and unpredictable. They are almost incredibly slow
of development. The range of action found in the mob is more narrowly
and rigidly circumscribed than in almost any other social group. A crowd
is open to suggestions that are in line with its previous experience,
and to no others.

The initial success of Christ with the Jewish crowds was only possible
because for generations the whole Jewish public had been looking forward
to a Messiah and a Messianic kingdom. In so far as Christ appeared to
fulfill this preconceived expectation he gained popular support. When he
disappointed it, he lost his popularity and his life.

The early and enormous success of the apostles on the day of Pentecost
and immediately afterwards was due primarily to the fact that the
Chiliastic expectation preached to the Jerusalem crowds was very closely
in line with their inherited beliefs. As soon as Christianity began to
develop doctrines and practices even slightly at variance with those
traditional to Judaism it lost the support of the Jewish public.
Beginning as a strictly Jewish sect, it alienated practically the whole
Jewish race within little more than a generation. This alienation was
the inevitable effect of an idea of universalism opposed to the
hereditary Jewish nationalism. This idea of universalism was not a new
thing. It was to be found in the ancient Jewish scriptures. But it had
never become popularized. It formed no part of the content of
contemporary public opinion among the Jews. Christianity met with
success in the great cosmopolitan centers, like Antioch and Alexandria,
where universalism was a tradition and had become a part of the crowd
sentiment. It succeeded best of all in Rome where universalism reached
its highest development. Yet even here a limitation is to be noted.
Christianity was universal in its willingness to receive people of all
races and nations. It was not universal in its willingness to
acknowledge the validity of other religions. This variation from the
traditional Greek and Roman universalism had momentous results. It made
the propagation of the Christian Gospel much more difficult and involved
the church, at least temporarily, in the current syncretism which was a
popular movement. So e.g., we find Justin calling Socrates a Christian
and asserting that the stories of Noah and Deucalion are merely versions
of the same event.

The main characteristics of crowd psychology are familiar enough. Crowds
do not reason. They accept or reject ideas as a whole. They are governed
by phrases, symbols, and shibboleths. They tolerate neither discussion
nor contradiction. The suggestions brought to bear on them invade the
whole of their understanding and tend to transform themselves into acts.
Crowds entertain only violent and extreme sentiments and they
unconsciously accord a mysterious power to the formula or leader that
for the moment arouses their enthusiasm.

Any movement in order to become popular, in order to 'get over' to the
general public, has to operate within the limits set by this psychology.
The amount of change, adaptation, and development necessary before a
movement can fit into these limitations and express itself powerfully
within them is so considerable that no historical example can probably
be found where the required accommodation has been accomplished in less
than three generations. It is the purpose of this chapter to trace, so
far as the surviving source material permits, the steps of this
accommodation in the case of early Christianity.

For some time before Christ the Jewish people had been restless. Their
desires and aspirations for national and religious greatness had been
repressed and inhibited. The unrest thus generated took various forms;
patriotic uprisings, religious revivals, etc. Christ was at first
considered merely as another Theudas or Judas of Galilee or John the
Baptist. In the pagan world the pax Romana produced a somewhat similar
restlessness. Travel increased; wandering, much of it aimless,
characterized whole classes of people;[1] there was a marked increase in
crime, vice, insanity, and suicide which alarmed all the moralists. This
condition of affairs was eminently suitable for the first beginnings of
a crowd movement; indeed no great crowd movement can begin except under
such circumstances. The wanderings of St. Paul and the other Christians
apostles--called missionary journeys--were really only particular cases
of a general condition. The same organic demand for new stimulation, the
same sense of shattered religious and philosophic ideals prevailed in
the pagan as in the Jewish world. It would be hard to find a greater
contrast of character than Christ and Lucian. Yet the fiery earnestness
with which Christ denounces contemporary Jewish religiosity and the cool
cynicism with which Lucian mocks at the pagan piety of the same age have
a like cause. Economic pressure on the lower strata of society
contributed to the unrest. The slave, the small shopkeeper, and the free
artisan had a hard time of it in the Roman world. Economically oppressed
classes are material ready to the hand of the agitator, religious or
other. In the crowd movements recorded in the Acts we can trace the
first beginnings of the Christian populace.[2] "In Iconium a great
multitude both of Jews and of Greeks believed but the Jews that were
disobedient stirred up the souls of the Gentiles and made them evil
affected against the brethren. But the multitude of the city was divided
and part held with the Jews and part with the apostles." At Lytra there
was a typical case of mob action where the apostles were first
worshipped and then stoned. In the cases of the mobs at Philippi and
Ephesus we see the economic motive, the threatened loss of livelihood,
entering along with anger at an attack on the received religion. In the
case of the Jerusalem and Athenian crowds we see acceptance, or at least
acquiescence, on the part of the crowd up to the point where
Christianity breaks with their tradition. In general we see anger on the
part of the crowds only after agitation deliberately stirred up by
interested parties; priests, sorcerers, craftsmen or the like. Generally
speaking the antipathy is no part of the crowd psychology, and on
occasion the crowd may be on the side of the missionaries of the new
religion. In general also the Christians were not sufficiently numerous
to make a counter crowd demonstration of their own.

In Pliny's letter to Trojan, although it is a generation later than the
Acts and refers to a region where Christianity had been preached for a
considerable period of time, we find a marked instability in the
attitude of the public: "Many of every age, every rank and even of both
sexes are brought into danger and will be in the future. The contagion
of that superstition has penetrated not only the cities but also the
villages and country places and yet it seems possible to stop it and set
it right. At any rate it is certain enough that the temples deserted
until quite recently begin to be frequented, that the ceremonies of
religion, long disused, are restored and that fodder for the victims
comes to market, whereas buyers for it were until now very few. From
this it may easily be supposed that a multitude of men can be reclaimed
if there be a place of repentence."[3]

There seems no reasonable ground for doubting that Pliny's judgment was
correct. While the blood of the martyrs is doubtless the seed of the
church, a continuous, general, and relentless persecution can extirpate
a religion in a given nation; as the history of the Inquisition
abundantly proves. Still more easily can propaganda for the older
religion win back its former adherents of the first and second
generations. It is not, in general, till a generation has grown up
entirely inside a new religion that such a religion is well established.
The generation which at maturity makes the rupture with the older faith
can be brought back to it by less expenditure of energy than was
expended by them in breaking away in the first place. The success of the
Jesuits e.g., is quite inexplicable on any other hypothesis. The
generation who are children at the time their parents make the break
with the old religion are notoriously undependable in the religious
matters. It was in all probability these people that Pliny had to deal
with. It is at least permissable to hazard the guess that the Laodiceans
who aroused the wrath of the author of the Revelation were of this
generation. It is certain that many of the 'Lapsi' who caused so much
trouble to Christian apologists and church councils belonged in this
chronological class.

In Justin Martyr we have a hint of a further development in the crowd
attitude toward the Christians. Justin says: "When you (Jews) knew that
He had risen from the dead and ascended to heaven as the prophets
foretold He would, you not only did not repent of the wickedness you had
committed, but at that time you selected and sent out from Jerusalem
chosen men through all the land to tell that the godless heresy of the
Christians had sprung up and to publish those things which all they, who
knew us not, speak against us. So that you are the cause not only of
your own unrighteousness but that of all other men."[4]

Irrespective of the exact historical accuracy of this statement, it is
indicative of the process, technically known as 'circular interaction,'
which is so essential a step in the development of popular opinion and
the building up of crowd sentiment. Before any group of people can
become either popular or unpopular there must be a focusing and fixation
of public attention upon them. Even in the new Testament we find the
Jews sending emissaries from city to city to call attention to the
Christian propaganda. Prejudice against the Christians was thus aroused
in persons who had never either seen or heard them. The basis of
'circular interaction' is unconscious or subconscious emotional
reaction. A's frown brings a frown to the face of B. B's frown in turn
intensifies A's. This simple process is the source of all expressions of
crowd emotion. By multiplication of numbers and increase in the stimuli
employed it is capable of provoking a vicious circle of feeling which
eventually causes individuals in a crowd to do things and feel things
which no individual in the crowd would do or feel when outside the
circle. It is to the credit or discredit of the Jews that they first set
this 'vicious circle' in operation against the Christians. Of course the
same psychological principle operated to produce zeal and enthusiasm and
contempt of pain and death in the Christian 'crowd'. By this process of
'circular interaction' the name, 'Christian,' had already in the time of
Justin become a mob shibboleth. It seems to have operated precisely as
the shibboleth 'traitor' operates on a patriotic crowd in war time, or
'scab' on a labor group. It became a shibboleth of exactly opposite
significance in the Christian 'crowd'. The way was thus prepared for the
next step in the process of developing the ultimate crisis. This
step--the disparate 'universe of discourse'--is exhibited in process of
formation in the account of the martyrdom of Polycarp. The account, as
we have it, undoubtedly contains later additions, but these additions
even of miraculous elements, do not necessarily invalidate those
portions of the story with which we are alone concerned. The
martyrologist certainly had no intention of writing his story for the
purpose of illustrating the principles of group psychology and the
undesigned and incidental statements of crowd reactions are precisely
the ones of value for our purpose. A few brief excerpts are sufficient
to illustrate the stage reached in the growth of the disparate 'universe
of discourse.' "The whole multitude, marvelling at the nobility of mind
displayed by the devout and godly race of Christians cried out: "Away
with the Atheists: let Polycarp be sought out."[5] He went eagerly
forward with all haste and was conducted to the Stadium where the tumult
was so great that there was no possibility of being heard."[6]

"Polycarp has confessed that he is Christian. This proclamation having
been made by the herald, the whole multitude both of the heathen and
Jews who dwelt in Smyrna cried out with uncontrollable fury and in a
loud voice: "This is the teacher of Asia, the father of the Christians
and the overthrower of our gods, he who has been teaching many not to
sacrifice or to worship the gods." Speaking thus they cried out and
besought Phillip, the Asiarch, to let loose a lion upon Polycarp. But
Philip answered that it was not lawful for him to do so seeing the shows
of beasts were already finished. Then it seemed good to them to cry out
with one voice that Polycarp should be burned alive."[7]

"This then was carried into effect with greater speed than it was
spoken, the multitude immediately gathering together wood and fagots out
of the shops and baths, the Jews especially, according to custom eagerly
assisting them in it."[8]

"We afterwards took up his bones, as being more precious than the most
exquisite jewels and more purified than gold and deposited them in a
fitting place, whither, being gathered together as opportunity is
allowed us, with joy and rejoicing the Lord shall grant us to celebrate
the anniversary of his martyrdom both in memory of those who have
already finished their course and for the exercising and preparation of
those yet to walk in their steps."[9]

In the disparate universe of discourse in its complete form common
shibboleths produce entirely different mental reactions--usually
antagonistic ones. There is also complete accord as to the shibboleths.
The cry here is at one time against the Atheists, then against the
Christians. But the Christians could and did deny the charge of Atheism.
They were as antagonistic to Atheism as the Pagans. An incomplete
development of crowd feeling is evident on the part of the pagans. The
Jews are still the inciters and leading spirits of the mob. The very
statement that the Jews acted 'according to custom' shows that mobbing
Christians was still looked upon as a peculiarly Jewish trait. It was
not yet entirely spontaneous on the part of the pagan public. Most
noticeable of all is the indifference of the mob toward the Christians'
adoration of relics of the martyrs. No effort was made to prevent the
Christians from obtaining the bones of Polycarp. Either the cult of
relics was not known to the pagans and Jews--though it seems to be
firmly established among the Christians--or else, the effect of the cult
in perpetuating Christianity had not yet had time to make itself
manifest to the pagan public--or to the Jewish. In any case we have here
the plain evidence of the imperfectly developed condition of the crowd
mind, owing perhaps to a too short tradition.

Our next evidence is the martyrdoms of Lyons and Vienne preserved in a
letter quoted by Eusebius. "They (the Christians) endured nobly the
injuries inflicted upon them by the populace, clamor and blows and
draggings and robberies and stonings and imprisonments and all things
which an infuriated mob delight in inflicting on enemies and
adversaries."[10]

"When these accusations were reported all the people raged like wild
beasts against us, so that even if any had before been moderate on
account of friendship, they were now exceedingly furious and gnashed
their teeth against us.

"When he (Bishop Pothinus) was brought to the tribunal accompanied by a
multitude who shouted against him in every manner as if he were Christ
himself, he bore noble witness. Then he was dragged away harshly and
received blows of every kind. Those men near him struck him with their
hands and feet, regardless of his age, and those at a distance hurled at
him whatever they could seize, all of them thinking that they would be
guilty of great wickedness and impiety if any possible abuse were
omitted. For thus they thought to avenge their own deities."[11]

"But not even thus was their madness and cruelty toward the saints
satisfied. Wild and barbarous tribes were not easily appeased and their
violence found another peculiar opportunity in the dead bodies. For they
cast to the dogs those who had died of suffocation in the prison and
they exposed the remains left by the wild beasts and by fire mangled and
charred. And some gnashed their teeth against them, but others mocked at
them. The bodies of the martyrs having thus in every manner been exposed
for six days were afterwards burned and reduced to ashes and swept into
the Rhone so that no trace of them might appear on the earth. And this
they did as if able to conquer God and prevent their new birth; 'that',
as they said, 'they may have no hope of a resurrection through trust in
which they bring to us this foreign and new religion.' "[12]

We have in this account a marked advance, as regards the development of
the mob mind, over what is found in the martyrdom of Polycarp. Many of
the 'crowd' phenomena are indeed the same but the differences are even
more striking than the similarities. We find in Lyons no body of Jews or
other especially interested persons leading the mob on by manifestations
of peculiar zeal and forwardness. When the accounts are compared in
their entirety it becomes at once manifest that there is a consistency
of attitude, a whole heartedness in the actions of the Lyons mob
that is lacking in the case of the Syrmnaens. There is a degree of
familiarity with Christian doctrine--especially the doctrine of the
resurrection--which denotes a much more thorough permeation of the
public mind by Christianity. There may be no difference in the hatred of
the two mobs for the new faith, but it had more content in the mind of
the Gallic crowd. The degree of thought and pains taken by the Lyonese
persecutors--the guards placed to prevent the Christians from stealing
the relics of the martyrs, the elaborate efforts to nullify the
possibility of a resurrection--the very extent and thoroughness and
duration of the persecution are different from anything to be found in
the other martyrdom.

The difficulty to be explained--if it is a difficulty--from the point of
view of crowd psychology is that there is difference of only eleven
years--taking the ordinary chronology--between the two persecutions. It
is true that the Lyons persecution is the later, but the difference in
the mob behavior is such as might well demand the lapse of a generation
had the phenomena been exhibited by the public of the same city. There
must unquestionably have been a great difference in the demotic
composition of the populations of Lyons and Smyrna; the reference to
barbarians in Lyons shows as much, but the behavior of mobs as
controlled by the time needed for the focusing and fixation of attention
and the development of a disparate universe of discourse is very little
effected by difference of demotic composition. It has indeed been
suggested by one critic,[13] that the persecution at Lyons belongs in
the reign of Septimus Severus instead of that of Marcus Aurelius. This
would explain away the difficulty, but there seems no necessary reason
for adopting this opinion. It would rather appear that there existed
peculiar conditions in Lyons and vicinity which account for the fact
that the persecution, so far as we know, was confined to that locality
and also for the fact that the mob mind was in a maturer state of
antagonism to Christianity. Just what these peculiar conditions were, it
is impossible to say with entire certainty. However there is at least a
very suggestive hint in a paragraph by the greatest modern authority on
Roman Gaul[14] contained in his well known volume on Ancient France.[15]
The paragraph is also worth quoting as giving a valuable insight into
the psychology of the peoples of the ancient Roman World. "The Roman
Empire was in no wise maintained by force but by the religious
admiration it inspired. It would be without a parallel in the history of
the world that a form of government held in popular detestation should
have lasted for five centuries. It would be inexplicable that the thirty
legions of the Empire should have constrained a hundred million men to
obedience. The reason of their obedience was that the Emperor, who
personified the greatness of Rome was worshipped like a divinity by
unanimous consent. There were altars in honor of the Emperor in the
smallest townships of his realm. From one end of the Empire to the other
a new religion was seen to arise in those days which had for its
divinities the Emperors themselves. Some years before the Christian era
the whole of Gaul, represented by sixty cities, built in common a temple
near the city of Lyons in honor of Augustus. Its priests, elected by the
united Gallic cities, were the principal personages in their country. It
is impossible to attribute all this to fear and servility. Whole nations
are not servile and especially for three centuries. It was not the
courtiers who worshipped the prince, it was Rome, and it was not Rome
merely but it was Gaul, it was Spain. It was Greece and Asia."

While no dogmatic assertion is justified, it does not, perhaps, exceed
the limits of reasonable inference to suppose that the existence of this
noted center of Emperor worship in the immediate neighborhood of Lyons
may account, in part at least, for the especial hatred of the populace
of that city for persons who refused to sacrifice to the Emperor and
also for the maturity of their feeling against the Christians, who were
as far as we are aware, probably the only persons who refused thus to
sacrifice. This stray bit of evidence is admittedly not conclusive. It
is offered merely for what it may be worth. There is evidence that by
the middle of the second Century popular opinion was sufficiently
inflamed against the Christians to render the administration of justice
precarious because of mob violence. Edicts of Hadrian and Antonius Pious
specifically declared that the clamor of the multitude should not be
received as legal evidence to convict or to punish them, as such
tumultuous accusations were repugnant both to the firmness and the
equity of the law.[16]

This attitude seems to have persisted with relatively little change for
about a century. During this period the official 'persecutions' were
neither numerous nor severe. From the very few scattered and incidental
references which have alone survived regarding the mob feeling of the
time, we can assert no more than that it was an exasperated one, likely
to break out upon provocation but under ordinary circumstances more or
less in abeyance. On the whole it was undoubtedly more violent at the
end of the period than at the beginning.

Fortunately from the middle of the third Century onwards we have a
fairly continuous history of a single 'public' (Alexandria) which is
lacking before this time. The Alexandrian populace were noted for their
tumultuous disposition, but we have no reliable account of their
behavior towards the Christians until the time of Severus, 202 A.D. In
the account given by Eusebius of the martyrdom of the beautiful virgin,
Potamiaena, it is stated that: "the people attempted to annoy and insult
her with abusive words." As however the intervention of a single officer
sufficed to protect her from the people on this occasion, the public
sentiment cannot have been inflamed to any alarming extent. If we may
trust Palladius, her martyrdom was the result of a plot of a would-be
ravisher and in any case it was not the product of any spontaneous
popular movement.

In the period between 202 A.D. and 249 A.D. a well developed tradition
of hatred and violence grew up in the popular mind. We have no record of
the steps in the process but the extant accounts of the Decian and
Valerian persecutions in Alexandria leave no doubt of the fact. These
persecutions can only be called 'legal' by a violent stretch of verbal
usage. They were mob lynchings, sometimes sanctioned by the forms of
law, but quite as often without even the barest pretense of judicial
execution. They were quite as frequent and as savage in the later part
of the reign of Philip, as in the time of Decius. They were not called
forth by any imperial edict--they preceded the edict by at least a year
and were of a character such as no merely governmental, legal process
would ever, or could ever, take on. Mobbing Christians had become a form
of popular sport, a generally shared sort of public amusement--exciting
and not dangerous. The letter of Bishop Dionysius makes this very clear.
To quote: "The persecution among us did not begin with the royal decree
but preceded it an entire year. The prophet and author of evils to this
city moved and aroused against us the masses of the heathen rekindling
among them the superstition of their country and finding full
opportunity for any wickedness. They considered this the only pious
service of their demons that they should slay us." Then follows a long
list of mob lynchings of which we take a single specimen: "They seized
Serapion in his own house and tortured him and having broken all his
limbs, they threw him headlong from an upper story."[17] "And there was
no street, nor public read, nor lane open to us night or day but always
and everywhere all them cried out that if anyone would not repeat their
impious words, he should be immediately dragged away and burned. And
matters continued thus for a considerable time. But a sedition and civil
war came upon the wretched people and turned their cruelty toward us
against one another. So we breathed for a while as they ceased from
their rage against us."[18]

The mob broke loose against the Christians again the following year, but
there is no object in cataloguing the grewsome exhibitions of crowd
brutality. It is evident that what we have in this account is no
exhibition of political oppression by a tyrannical government, but a
genuine outbreak of group animosity which had been long incubating in
the popular mind. All the phenomena which are characteristic of fully
matured public feeling are found complete; circular interaction,
shibboleths, sect isolation devices and the rest. When public feeling
has developed to such a degree of intensity as this, the accumulated
sentiment and social unrest must of necessity discharge themselves in
some form of direct group action. This direct action however may take
the from either of physical violence or, under certain conditions, of
some sort of mystical experience; conversion, dancing, rolling on the
ground, etc. In exceptional cases the two forms are combined. An
illustration of this latter phenomenon is given by Bishop Dionysius in
this same letter; "In Cephus, a large assembly gathered with us and God
opened for us a door for the word. At first we were persecuted and
stoned but afterward not a few of the heathen forsook their idols and
turned to God."[19] It is necessary to mention perhaps the largest, and
certainly the most dignified and respectable crowd that is to be met
with in connection with this persecution--that of Carthage on the
occasion of the martyrdom of Bishop Cyprian. We find here neither rage
on one side nor unseemly exaltation on the other. Pagans and Christians
alike behaved with decent seriousness at the death of that famous man
who was equally respected by all classes of the population. But martyrs
of the social eminence of Cyprian were very rare, and orderly behaviour
in such a vast multitude as witnessed his end was still rarer.

To return to the populace of Alexandria. The long peace of the Church
which intervened between the persecution of Valerian and that of
Diocletian witnessed in Alexandria, as elsewhere, a great growth of
Christianity in numbers, influence, and wealth. It would perhaps be
going beyond the evidence to say that in this interval, the majority of
the population of the city were won over to the new faith, but it is
certain that the number of Christians became so great as to intimidate
the pagan portion of the people. The Alexandrian mob was still very much
in evidence but it gradually ceased to harrass the Christians except
under the most exceptional circumstances. The dangers of such action
became so considerable and the chances of success so problematical that
we find a period when a practice of mutual forbearance governed the
behavior of the hostile groups.

The study of crowd psychology presents no more impressive contrast than
that exhibited by the people of Alexandria during the Diocletian
persecution compared with their behavior during that of Decius. In the
last and greatest of the persecutions, in the most tumultuous city of
the empire, the mob took no part. Like the famous image of Brutus, it is
more conspicuous by its absence than it would be by its presence. The
persecution was a purely governmental measure officially carried out by
judges and executioners in accordance with orders. In one obscure and
doubtful instance we are told that the bystanders beat certain martyrs
when legal permission was given to the people to treat them so. In
another case we are told that the cruelty of the punishments filled the
spectators with fear. These are the only references to the public that
occur in the long and minute account of an eye witness of famous events
extending over a considerable number of years. Both before and after
this period the mob of the Egyptian metropolis exhibits the utmost
extreme of religious fanaticism. During this period that mob had to be
most carefully considered by the government in other than religious
matters. But as a religious power it did not exist. Had the persecution
of Diocletian happened a generation earlier it could have counted on a
very considerable degree of popular support, had it happened a
generation later it would have caused a revolt that could only have
been put down by a large army. Happening at the precise time it did, it
provoked no popular reaction at all.

This strange apathy is not peculiar to Alexandria. Practically without
exception the authentic acts of the martyrs of this persecution are
court records taken down by the official stenographers in the ordinary
course of the day's work. They are dry, mechanical, and repetitious to a
degree. They exhibit, in general, harrassed and exasperated judges
driven to the infliction of extreme penalties in the face of a cold and
skeptical public. One imperial decree ordered that all men, women, and
children, even infants at the breast, should sacrifice and offer
oblations, that guards should be placed in the markets and at the baths
in order to enforce sacrifices there. The popular reaction in Caesarea
is thus recorded: "The heathen blamed the severity and exceeding
absurdity of what was done for these things appeared to them extreme and
burdensome."[20] "He (the Judge) ordered the dead to be exposed in the
open air as food for wild beasts; and beasts and birds of prey scattered
the human limbs here and there, so that nothing appeared more horrible
even to those who formerly hated us, though they bewailed not so much
the calamity of those against whom these things were done as the outrage
against themselves and the common nature of man."[21]

The one thing to be said of this type of mob mind is manifestly that it
is transitional. The pendulum has swung through exactly half its arc and
for the brief instant presents the fallacious appearance of quiescence.
How transitory this quiet was on the part of the Alexandrian mob is
evidenced by the history of Athanasius. That great statesman conciliated
and consolidated public opinion in Egypt. Backed by this opinion he
practically cancelled the power of the civil authorities of the country
and negotiated as an equal with the emperors. For the first time in more
than three centuries the will of the common people again became a power
able to limit the military despotism which dominated the civilized
world.

The re-birth of popular government in the Fourth century through the
agency of Christian mobs is the most important preliminary step in the
growth of the political power of the Catholic Church. A study of the
mobs of Alexandria, Rome, Constantinople and other great cities shows
beyond question that the political power of the Church had its origin in
no alliance with imperial authority, but was independent of and
generally antagonistic to that authority. The history of these Christian
mobs lies outside the limits of our study but it is worth while in the
case of the Alexandrian populace to give two or three brief extracts
illustrating the final steps of the process which changed a fanatically
pagan mob into an equally fanatical Christian one. What we have to
consider is only the last stage of an evolution already more than half
complete at the time of the Nicene Council. Under extreme provocation
and certain of imperial complacency at their excesses, the pagan mob
during the reign of Julian indulged in one last outburst against the
exceedingly unpopular George of Cappadocia who had been forcibly
intruded into the seat of Athanasius. To quote the Historian Socrates:
"The Christians on discovering these abominations went forth eagerly to
expose them to the view and execration of all and therefore carried the
skulls throughout the city in a kind of triumphal procession for the
inspection of the people. When the pagans of Alexandria beheld this,
unable to bear the insulting character of the act, they became so
exasperated that they assailed the Christians with whatever weapons
chanced to come to hand, in their fury destroying numbers of them in a
variety of ways and, as it generally happens in such a case, neither
friends or relations were spared but friends, brothers, parents, and
children imbued their hands in each others blood. The pagans having
dragged George out of the church, fastened him to a camel and when they
had torn him to pieces they burned him together with the camel."[22] In
this account we see the last expiring efforts of the pagan mob movement.
Any mob movement collapses rapidly when it turns in upon itself, and the
evil results of its violence react immediately upon the members of the
mob. By this time it is evident that the number of Christians in
Alexandria was so large that any public persecution of them brought
serious and unendurable consequences upon the populace generally. Then
the movement ended.

But in the two centuries or more that the pagan movement lasted, a
contrary Christian mob movement had been developing along the same
general lines as the other. This movement, being later in its
inception, came to a head correspondingly later and reached its crisis
under the patriarch Cyril. Its violence was first directed against the
Jews whom the Christians appear to have hated even more than they hated
the pagans. The Jews were the weaker and less numerous faction opposed
to the Christians and as the Pagans seem to have liked them too little
to support them against the Christians, it is not surprising that the
Christian mob, which had pretty well reduced the political authorities
to impotence, should vent its rage against the Jews and their
synagogues. "Cyril accompanied by an immense crowd of people, going to
their synagogues, took them away from them and drove the Jews out of the
city, permitting the multitude to plunder their goods. Thus the Jews who
had inhabited the city from the time of Alexander were expelled from
it."[23]

Sometime after the expulsion of the Jews, the Christian mob, now
directing its spite against the rapidly disappearing paganism,
perpetrated perhaps the most atrocious crime that stains the history of
Alexandria--the murder of Hypatia. This beautiful, learned, and virtuous
woman, 'the fairest flower of paganism' is one of the very few members
of her sex who has attained high eminence in the realm philosophical
speculation. She enjoyed the deserved esteem of all the intellectual
leaders of her age--Christian as well as pagan--and to the latest ages
her name will be mentioned with respect by all those speculative
thinkers whose respect can confer honor. Socrates describes her murder
as follows: "It was calumniously reported among the Christian populace
that it was she who prevented Orestes from being reconciled to the
bishop. Some of them therefore hurried away by a fierce and bigoted
zeal, whose ringleader was a reader named Peter, waylaid her returning
home and dragged her from her carriage; they took her to the church
called Ceasareum where they completely stripped her and then murdered
her with oyster shells. After tearing her body in pieces, they took her
mangled limbs to a place called Cinaron and there burned them."[24]

Christian crowd sentiment when hardly yet at its full power was deprived
of its original object of animosity by the collapse of paganism. Being
under the psychological necessity of expressing itself, this mob feeling
happened to take as shibboleths some current theological catchwords.
The subsequent history of Alexandria and other great cities presents
therefore the strange scene of rival sects disturbing public order and
profoundly agitating vast throngs of people in a struggle over the most
abstruse and recondite metaphysical concepts. For the sake of clear
thinking it is necessary for us to remind ourselves that these concepts
are merely weird garments fortuitously snatched up to cover the
nakedness of a profound social and economic revolution.

The above sketch, imperfect as it is and full of lacunae due to the
inadequacy of the primary source material, is yet perhaps complete
enough to enable us to summarize the chief steps in the process of the
socialization in its aspect of a crowd movement. We have seen that this
crowd movement, like all others, had its origin in social unrest due to
shattered private and community ideals. The customary forms of
expression being inhibited or repressed, the balked disposition
experienced an organic demand for new stimulation. This new stimulation
was sought in various ways; aimless or practically aimless travelling or
local wandering, local disorder and agitation, increase in crime--and
insanity. Gradually this unrest focused itself and public attention
became fixed on Christianity. By the process of circular interaction,
the so-called 'vicious circle', public sentiment increased in intensity,
the name 'Christian' became a shibboleth. When applied to an individual
it let loose upon him the pent up emotion of the mob--an emotion or
unreflective rage and anger. By the further process of idealization or
sublimation, using the terms in their technical sense, the populace came
to believe that Christianity was the great and superhuman (daemoniac)
source of all evils; earthquakes, disease epidemics, famine etc. Seeking
release for psychic tensions which were not understood and largely
subconscious, they found it in a reversion to the oldest of the
'releasing instincts' that of hunting. The primary thing about the
persecutions is that they were man hunts. The cruelty exhibited, while
also serving as a tension release for mob feeling, is psychologically a
secondary form of such release--though a very old form. The discharge of
the accumulated public sentiment and of the severe social tensions
produced group action of two kinds: (a) Direct action: tearing the
victim in pieces, gathering wood to burn him, striking him with sticks,
stones, etc. (b) Expressive action, taking the form of shouts, cries
and ejaculations which became customary and traditional, 'Christianos ad
leones.' The very methods of lynching became ceremonial and even
ritualistic. The beasts were first choice, then burning and then other
forms in descending scale. The narrow range of the mob mind is
illustrated by the closeness with which it adhered to contemporary
judicial methods of punishment. The most obvious method of killing, and
one which had the advantage of enabling a great number of people to see
what was going on, the method of hanging, which is in such common use by
mobs of our day, does not seem to have been employed by the ancient
crowds--at any rate its use was rare in the modern form, strangling.
There are some cases of hanging naked women by one foot. Expressive
action also took the form of wild and fantastic legends of cannibalism,
child murder and such like. The crisis of this pagan mob movement came
about the middle of the third century. The Decian persecution appears to
have been 'popular' in the strict etymological sense of that word. The
persecution of Diolection, though the most severe, seems to have had no
great force of pagan public sentiment behind it. That sentiment was not
hostile; it was neutral. The populace did nothing to hinder the measures
of the government and it did nothing to help them. In another generation
the pagan movement had spent itself. This analysis of the pagan mob
sentiment against the Christians is applicable mutatis nominibus, to the
Christians' mob movement against the pagans and to the movement of the
'orthodox' Christians against the 'heretics.' Perhaps we should say
here, in defense of human nature, that these mob movements were not due
to human depravity; they were, in strict literalness, diseases,
epidemics of nervous disorder induced by pathological social conditions.
Before any persecuting attitude became habitual to the pagan populace
pagan common sense had exhausted argument, persuasion, expostulation and
every other intellectual device. Only after reason and religion (in the
pagan sense) had been employed in vain; only after long exasperation at
a hopeless situation, when absolutely nothing else could be done, was
popular violence aroused. Social conditions being what they were,
traditional mental attitudes common to pagan and Christians alike
required that something be done and mob action was the last desperate
alternative to the admission of a new intellectual concept.

The function of Chiliasm in this crowd movement is plain from its
history as previously sketched. It was a Christian shibboleth peculiarly
valuable for securing group cohesion, and for arousing individual
staying power in times of persecution. Of the numerous characteristics
of successful 'sect shibboleths' three are perhaps especially note
worthy: (a) Satisfaction of the demand for mystical experience. (b)
Operation as an isolating device. (c) Revolt against the prevailing
moral order. In the period of greatest need Chiliasm fulfilled these
requirements very well. Many a Christian of little education was lifted
out of himself to endure martyrdom by somewhat crass imaginations of
participation in the reign of the saints in the rebuilt Jerusalem. Many
a little band of sectaries maintained their group solidarity because of
the belief that they were the elect people 'chosen of God' for future
glory in the millennial kingdom. Many a faithful one who would otherwise
have given up in despair, must have gained strength and courage from the
thought of that happy era, soon to come, when the cruel persecutors of
the church would be slaves suffered to live only that their servitude
might augment the dignity and honor of the saints in the beatific
kingdom.

The relation of the Chiliastic expectation to that strange insensibility
to pain which was so remarkable a characteristic of the early martyrs
cannot be stated with exactness. It was probably close--at least in
numerous cases. We have what seems to be entirely trustworthy evidence
that not only strong men but even delicate and sensitive women exhibited
the power of inhibiting the normal reactions to the most excruciating
torments. This almost incredible power of inhibition can only be
explained as the result of the building up of a pathologically intense,
ecstatic, mental state. This ecstatic mental state would appear to have
been acquired by a series of psychic changes and organic, neuronic
adjustments requiring, ordinarily, a fairly considerable amount of time.
This peculiar psychological condition had not merely to be built up. It
must have attained an extraordinary degree of habituation in order to
render its subjects impervious to such extreme sensory excitations. The
requisite degree of imperviousness can hardly have been acquired without
such permeation of consciousness by imagination as constituted a
complete subjective universe. Many of the martyrs would seem to have
lived, more or less habitually, in a mental world of their own which
shut them off from susceptibility to external stimuli. This condition is
frequently found in artists and thinkers, and with the accompanying
insensibility to pain, is a common phenomenon in the 'trance' state as
well as in some forms of insanity.[25]

It would go beyond the evidence to claim that Chiliastic concepts
functioned exclusively, or even predominantly, in the production of the
'martyr psychosis,' but the evidence does point to the conclusion
that apocalyptic expectations held a more prominent place in the
consciousness of the martyrs than in that of the generality of
Christians. It is certain that Chiliasm became especially manifest in
times of persecution but Chiliasm must have operated even in ordinary
times to produce the phenomena which persecution brought into
prominence. Even today, in the entire absence of persecution, Chiliastic
excitement among certain groups of secretaries produces types of
religious psychosis closely similar to those exhibited by the
martyrs.[26]

On the whole the conclusion appears warranted that the increasing power
and progressive socialization of the church, which made persecution at
first hopeless and at last impossible, rendered Chiliasm, as a
crowd shibboleth, gradually useless and finally pernicious to the
ecclesiastical hierarchy. Had further persecutions been possible
Chiliasm would no doubt have been retained longer, but its usefulness
was fatally impaired when the majority of people nominally embraced
Christianity. It was of little or no value in those struggles with
heretical Christian sects which engaged the activities of orthodox mobs
from the time of Constantine onwards. Other shibboleths such as 'The
Church' and 'Catholicism' were more effective in this contest. Similarly
for the larger purpose of ecclesiastical polity, agencies like
monasticism and missionary enterprise were employed, which conserved the
shibboleth values of Chiliasm and were free from its defects as an
instrument of hierarchical ambition. The aims of the rulers of the
Church became increasingly social and political and with such aims
Chiliasm was fundamentally incompatible.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] E.g., the pagan philosophers.

[2] Acts 14:1-6.

[3] Pliny, Ep. xcvi.

[4] Dialogue XVIII.

[5] Mart. Poly. III.

[6] _Ibid._, VIII.

[7] _Ibid._, XII.

[8] _Ibid._, XIII.

[9] _Ibid._, XVIII.

[10] Hist. Ecc. VI.

[11] Hist. Ecc. V, I.

[12] Hist. Ecc. V, II.

[13] Prof. J. W. Thompson.

[14] Fustel de Coulanges.

[15] Hist. des insts. politique de l'ancienne France. Par. II.

[16] Eus. H. E. IV, 26.

[17] Eus. His. Ecc. VI, 41.

[18] Eus. His. Ecc. VI, 41.

[19] His. Ecc. VII, 11.

[20] Eus. Mart. Pal. II.

[21] _Ibid._, Chap. II.

[22] Hist. Ecc. III, 1.

[23] Socrates Hist. Ecc. IIII, 13.

[24] Hist. Ecc. VII, 15.

[25] Cf. E. Underhill 'Mysticism.'

[26] E.g., The Dukhabours.




CHAPTER IV

CHILIASM AND PATRIOTISM


Perhaps the most pronounced characteristic of pre-Christian, Judaistic
Chiliasm is its nationalistic or ethnic patriotism. Of course any
attempt to rigidly differentiate the nationalistic and religious
concepts of the Hebrews of the two centuries preceding the advent of
Christianity would be foredoomed to failure. Never perhaps were
patriotism and religion more nearly synonymous than at this period among
this people. That their Chiliasm has a strongly nationalistic content is
therefore natural and inevitable. The same patriotic animus is to be
found in a great number of their other religious tenets and practices.
The emphasis is perpetually upon the enhancement of the value of the
Jewish race and nation and the corresponding depreciation of other
nations and faiths.

But while it is true, that, owing to the inseparable integration of
Church and State in Judea, in the first two centuries before Christ, we
find a very considerable proportion of the religious beliefs and
observances highly charged with nationalistic patriotism; this is
perhaps more noticeable in the case of Chiliasm than in the case of any
other contemporary theological concept. The nature of the Millennial
belief was such as qualified it to function with especial ease and
success in that particular historical situation. For considerably more
than half a century before the birth of Christ the dominant fact in
Hebrew history is the increase of the power and influence of the Roman
state in the political life of the Jewish people. This increase was
perfectly natural. Indeed it was inevitable. That the petty Judean state
would eventually be absorbed in the world wide republic was a fact
patent to any reasonably intelligent student of the situation.[1] Under
the circumstances it could hardly fail to take place even without any
direct provocation to overt action on the part of either Jews or Romans.
It is not our purpose to follow the long, hopeless struggle of the Jews
against the inevitable extinction of their political independence. The
Jew was fighting against fate. From the first interference of Rome in
the affairs of Palestine to the last execution of Bar Cochba rebels, the
end was never in real doubt--humanly speaking. The inevitableness of
the catastrophe in this long drawn out tragedy is, in the writer's
judgment, in some measurable degree connected both with the nature and
subsequent history of Jewish Chiliasm. Later Hebrew Chiliasm is a very
peculiar form of belief. It is characterized by what can only be called
a crass and exaggerated anthropomorphic supernaturalism. It would seem
as if pari passu with the increasing conviction of the futility of
opposition to the power of Rome, there was an increasing conviction of a
catastrophic supernal manifestation, which manifestation in its details
became ever more and more crude and vulgar. The developing knowledge and
conviction of the invincible power of Rome is sufficient to explain the
increasing dependence upon supernatural aid for deliverance--but the
peculiar crassness of the supernaturalism is the arresting element in
the later Jewish Chiliastic writings. When every allowance has been made
for the natural exuberance of the Oriental imagination something still
remains to be accounted for. It is at least possible that the, to our
taste, repulsive features of supernalistic vengeance and glory are the
result of a long process of selection. In no people of whom we have
historical knowledge is the spirit of nationalistic patriotism more
deeply rooted than in the Jew. We may take it that practically all the
Hebrews of the generations under discussion believed in an eventually
triumphant Jewish state. Differences of education, and religious faith,
however, conditioned the opinions as to the time when this triumphant
state would appear and still more the method by which it would appear.
The better educated Jews, who were conversant with the political
conditions of the contemporary world and whose belief in supernatural
aid was perhaps weakest, appear to have adopted a laissez-faire
attitude. They seem to have been advocates of a pro-Roman policy; to
make the best of the existing Roman supremacy waiting for the
unpredictable time when Rome should follow the path of Egypt, Assyria,
and other world powers who in their several ages had subjugated the
children of Abraham. This party would perhaps have been willing to take
advantage of any condition of affairs which offered a reasonably safe
opportunity of successful revolt but under existing conditions they were
opposed to armed resistance to the mistress of the world.

At the other end of the scale was a party of bigotedly and fanatically
zealous patriots obsessed with the idea that immediate supernatural
assistance would be forthcoming in the event of armed revolt. Between
these two parties was another party--if it may be called such--partaking
in various degrees of the characteristics of these two extremists
parties. The Apocaliptic and Chiliastic literature of the period was
extensive. It would be possible to arrange even such fragments as
remain, according to the preponderance of supernal elements. It would
seem to be a rational deduction that if we possessed this literature in
its completeness we should be able (bearing in mind that we are dealing
with a relatively considerable period of time) to follow the whole
process of the supersession of more rational Chiliastic concepts in
favor of the more crudely supernaturalistic ones. Rome was at once
strongly repressive of movements for political liberty and tolerant of
religious liberty. Those writings in which Chiliastic expectations took
the form of advocating the active preparing for and co-operating with
the expected Messiah would suffer extinction. On the other hand those
Chiliastic beliefs which inculcated absolute and entire dependence upon
supernatural aid for the achievement of national independence would be
politically harmless and exuberance in such imaginings might flourish
unhindered. The more fantastic and absurd the expectations the less
likely they were to be suppressed by the imperial authorities. Whatever
the measure of truth in the above conjecture it is certain that Jewish
Chiliasm developed to the last extreme of extravagance. With the
doubtful exception of some Hindu legends, there is nothing, which more
exceeds the bounds of reason and common sense, in the literature of the
world. It is perhaps not too much to say that Jewish Chiliasm died of
excess development--a method of extinction of which nature makes liberal
use.

The later history of Jewish Chiliasm does not concern us. Under the
constantly repeated blows of disappointment it changed its form and
content into the more rational concept of salvation and glorification of
the individual human soul after death. What does concern us is that this
Jewish Chiliasm in all but its most extreme form was taken over by
Christianity. The intellectual background of Hebrew patriotism of course
persisted in the Christians of the first generation who were largely
Jews or Proselytes. The imminent divine kingdom of Christ does indeed
take the place of the lower concept of a rigidly nationalistic kingdom.
The kingdom of Christ even to the first generation of Christians must
have had a larger content than the previous Jewish belief which it
fulfilled and supplemented. Yet the essential thing to remember is that
so far at least as the Jewish Christians were concerned Chiliastic
expectations, though somewhat further extended, were still a form of
expression for the forces of Hebrew nationalistic patriotism. The
kingdom of the Jews had been transformed, or perhaps better,
transmogrified, into the Kingdom of Christ and his saints[2] but its
essential content was unchanged and so long at least as a considerable
proportion of Christians were converted Jews this condition of affairs
persisted. The constant criticism of Chiliasm by Gentile Christians is
that it is Judaizing. It is perhaps not exceeding the limits of
permissable hypothesis to suppose that one of the reasons why Chiliasm
failed to make a permanent place for itself in the belief of the
universal church is to be found in this very fact that it was in essence
a form of political, Jewish, nationalistic patriotism, to which the
other portions of the Christian world, perhaps unconsciously, but not
the less effectively, objected.

The success of Roman imperialism in denationalizing conquered peoples
was truly remarkable. In this most difficult task of practical
statesmanship its accomplishments far surpass those of any other empire,
ancient or modern. But this success, great and unparalleled as it was,
nevertheless was not absolute. Except in particular cases it was never
really complete. The measure of its accomplishment was very different in
different parts of the empire. In Italy, Gaul, Spain, and perhaps
Britain its success may fairly be considered complete, but these were
countries where the proportion of Roman settlers and colonists was
very large. They were countries, furthermore, which were early
conquered--countries, which, at the time of the Roman conquest, had not
advanced a great distance toward the attainment of national solidarity
in politics, religion, art, literature, war or social intercourse. This
lack of development of local, national institutions and psychology left
the ground relatively free for the development of distinctively Roman
civilization and habits of thought. The comparative freedom of these
Western provinces of the empire from religious heresies at the time
that the Eastern provinces were so prolific of them, is commonly
ascribed to inferior aptitude of these Western peoples for metaphysical
speculation. We do not attempt to deny such inferiority, though the
subsequent development of metaphysical speculation in Western Europe
during the time that the reviving sense of nationality first began to be
felt in the Middle Ages and Reformation Era, suggests another cause as
operative.

If we consider three regions where Chiliasm, and also unquestionable
heresies, were particularly rife; i.e., Phrygia, Egypt, and Roman Africa
we see at once that these regions were seats of old, deeply rooted, and
thoroughly developed civilizations. To go into the subject merely a
little way we find that a nationalistic tradition existed in Phrygia at
the time of the composition of the Iliad.[3] This nationalistic
tradition was considerably more than a thousand years old at the time of
the introduction of Christianity. Roman political power had by this time
been thoroughly established in the country and there is no reason to
believe that political rebellion was contemplated at the time of the
rise of Chiliasm and the heresies. But while armed revolt may not have
been considered as practicable, or even as desirable, the fundamental,
nationalistic characteristics of the underlying strata of the population
do not seem to have been very greatly altered. Long before the advent
either of the Roman political power or the Christian religion a
homogenous, national psychology had become characteristic of the
Phrygian population. The Phrygian seems to have put on Christianity very
much as he put on the toga. He wore the toga regularly and easily enough
it may be, but in gestures and action, in speech and manner, he was
still a Phrygian. This typical Phrygian seems to have been commonly
regarded in the contemporary world as a bucolic sort of individual, much
perhaps as a Kansan is regarded in the United States, and with perhaps
as much or as little reason. The fact is that while ancient Phrygia
without question possessed a large rural population, it also possessed
numerous cities where the graces and amenities of life were as fully
developed as in any of the neighboring provinces which did not suffer
from the attribution of rusticity. The human instinct to botanize a
neighboring people while doubtless adding to the gaiety of nations has
to be taken _magno_ cum grano salis by the historian.

Whatever may be said of their other cultural institutions it is a fact
that the Phrygians at the time of the introduction of Christianity
had already developed certain distinctively national, religious
characteristics which marked them off from their neighbors.

The Phrygian Mysteries while doubtless in certain broad characteristics
similar to the Eleusinian Mysteries had peculiarities of their own and
were cherished by the people as something particularly expressive of
their especial form of the philosophy of life. In spite of any decay and
degradation which may have overtaken these mysteries in the course of a
long history, it is certain that their primary object was the elevation
and enhancement of life.

The national religious consciousness of Phrygia was peculiar in the
prominent place given to women. To this day it is impossible to say with
certainty whether the superior place in their religious system is held
by the male or female concepts of deity. Perhaps on the whole the female
concept preponderates.[4] What is true of theology is also true of
cultus. Priestesses and prophetesses held a position of marked
prominence and importance. Possibly the most pronouncedly distinctive
mark of Phrygian religion was the emphasis upon inspiration, immediate
divine revelation, exstatic conditions of religious excitation, the well
known "Phrygian Frenzy." If now, with even this meagre, historical,
nationalistic background in view, we examine the expression of Chiliasm
in Phrygia we see at once how it took the form and color of the national
psychology. The most pronounced Chiliastic expectations are found in
Montanism, which was so strongly marked by characteristics of its place
of origin that it was known throughout the rest of the Christian world
as the 'Phrygian Heresy.' So strong was the influence of national
sentiment that a very marked change was introduced in one, most
important particular. Christian Chiliasm, originating as a Jewish form
of nationalistic patriotism, emphasized the fact that in the Millennium
Christ was to reign in Jerusalem, which was to supplant Rome as the
center and ruler of the world. In this respect Phrygian Chiliasm makes a
complete break with the Hebrew tradition. Christ was to appear and
reign, not in Jerusalem, but in Pepuza. An insignificant town of
Phrygia was to become the capital of the world wide kingdom of Christ on
earth, displacing both Rome and Jerusalem. Nationalistic patriotism--not
to say megalomania--could scarcely go farther.

So too Phrygian Chiliasm is remarkable for the prominence and importance
of the position of women in the movement. The women, Prisca and the
others, seem to have been fully as prominent in the movement as Montanus
himself and they exercised a degree of influence to which it would be
difficult to find a parallel in contemporary Christian movements in
other countries.

Similarly, visions, revelations, inspirations, extraordinary conditions
of religious excitation are a marked feature of Phrygian Chiliasm. They
are of course the old 'Phrygian Frenzy' in Christian guise.

Not to pursue this phase of the subject in more detail, it is evident
that Phrygian Chiliasm bore in a marked degree the impress of the
national, religious psychology. Those bishops of Pontus and Syria who
persuaded their people to settle all their worldly affairs and go out
into neighboring deserts to await the coming of Christ in glory, exhibit
in a more naïve form the power of local group habits of thought to
transform concepts intruded from outside the group.

In the case of Egypt it is gratuitous labor to dwell upon the fact that
the native population at the advent of Christianity had developed a
nationalistic like-mindedness. This nation even in the year 1 A.D. had
an historical antiquity greater than any other nation can show
today--with the doubtful exception of China. In no other nation in the
world has there been such an opportunity for climatic and geographic
influences to work their full effect in producing psychological
homogeneity among a population on the whole remarkably little disturbed
in demotic composition. It is to be remarked also that the climatic and
geographic environments are themselves remarkably homogeneous throughout
the whole extent of the nation. The deterministic school of historians
have a model made to hand in the history of Egypt--a model of which it
must be confessed they have made very skillful use.[5] This is not the
place, even if the writer had the requisite knowledge, to enter into any
extended discussion of the national psychology of the Egyptian populace.
It is sufficient to mention one predominating feature of that
psychology, a feature so persistent and ubiquitous that the study of it
alone, enables the investigator to obtain a true insight into much that
is otherwise obscure in almost every variety of social expression among
the Egyptians; law, politics, government, art, science, literature, and
religion. This predominating feature can perhaps be best defined as a
certain low estimate of the value of individuality in the common man, a
cheap appraisal of the worthwhileness of the life of the ordinary
person. It seems to have a relatively slight ethnic element--if indeed
it can be truthfully said to have any. It makes its appearance
substantially unchanged in all subtropical countries situated in the
same general physical environment as Egypt; e.g., Southern China, India,
Mesopotamia, Mexico and Yucatan; in all countries that is, where the
natural conditions for sustaining and propagating human life are
relatively easy and where the economic surplus of productive physical,
as opposed to intellectual, labor is unusually great. Nevertheless the
fact that Egypt is in this category is due to a highly special
geographic phenomenon, the overflow of the river Nile. So that by
comparison with the nations immediately contiguous to Egypt, this
psychology may be truly said to be distinctively national in spite of
its similarity to that of other peoples more remote geographically.

It is perhaps unnecessary to do more than mention a very few of the ways
in which this characteristic of Egyptian psychology has affected the
national life. It has rendered the population largely passive under the
successive yolks of Persians, Greeks, Romans, Arabs, Turks, and
Englishmen, to mention only some of the more prominent exploiters. It
has made possible the erection of those vast pyramids of stone, devoid
alike of necessity or use, which remain to this day one of the wonders
of the world. It has enabled religions at once superstitious and
debasing to flourish in the midst of a high degree of material
civilization.

For our purpose it is sufficient to call attention to the fact that this
mental bias makes any change, even in the acquired concepts of the
people, especially difficult of accomplishment. This is very well
illustrated, in the study of Egyptian Chiliasm. In no other country were
the efforts necessary to overthrow Chiliastic concepts so long drawn
out, so persistent, so futile of immediate success. Indeed they did not
finally succeed till long after the period embraced in this study. When
the good bishop Dionysius of Alexandria 247-264 A.D., held his
conference with the village Chiliasts of the Arsinoite nome, some of
them were indeed won over, but we are told that 'others expressed their
gratification at the conference'. It is evident that they were 'of the
same opinion still', Dionysius himself[6] was not the first of the
Alexandrians to oppose Chiliasm. There was much effort, both by him and
others, to eradicate the concept before and after this Arsinoite
conference. Yet we know that later on, villagers from this region became
monks in the Thebiad, and manuscripts still surviving from the Thebiad,
show that apocalyptic and Chiliastic literature was popular with the
monks, generations, and even centuries, after the death of Dionysius. It
is a notable example of the national character of the Egyptians. They
let their aggressive and dominating superiors have their own way in
appearance--but in appearance only. The underlying currents of thought
remained essentially unchanged among the commonality. The resistance was
passive--perhaps almost imperceptible--but it was real and persistent.
In the case of Roman Africa--the country north of the Sahara Desert and
west of Egypt--the problem is more complicated. In Roman times down to
the Vandal invasion, the population of this region, leaving out of
account certain small and relatively negligible numbers of Greeks,
Egyptians and others found mainly in the larger cities, the population
was composed of three distinct strata. At the top were the dominant
Romans, insignificant in point of numbers but having the monopoly of
government, law, and administration. They were practically undisguised
exploiters; government officials whose main business was to forward corn
and oil to Rome and incidentally enrich themselves; agents of the great
Roman landlords intent on transmitting rents to their patrician
employers--already in the time of Nero the Senatorial Province of Africa
was owned by as few as nine landlords--absentee landlords living in
Rome,--and finally, the numerous body of inferior agents; lawyers, money
lenders, and estate managers whose services were indispensable to the
carrying on of the vast system of economic exploitation.

Beneath this thin, dominant, Roman upper crust was a vast population of
artisans, tradesmen, agricultural and other laborers, serfs, and
slaves. This great body of the commonality was to a remarkable degree
still very purely Punic even in late Roman times. They differed
ethnically, linguistically, religiously, and otherwise from their
rulers.[7] We find St. Augustine, centuries after the Roman conquest,
writing a letter in Latin to one of his clergy, but requesting him to
translate it into Punic and communicate it to his congregation. It is
useful to remind ourselves of the fact that the population of north
Africa in the first centuries of the Christian era was much greater than
it is now. Centuries of Mohammedan mis-government account for this in
part but the chief cause is to be found in those profound climatic
changes, the origins of which are still obscure, that have reduced to
desolate and barren wilderness whole regions which in Roman times
abounded in populous cities and in rich and fertile agricultural lands.
This large population had the cohesion which results from centuries of
similar and essentially unchanged social habits and it had also that
sense of strength which comes from large numbers, and that pride which
results from the inheritance of a proud history. They never wholly lost
that spirit which had made their ancestors great. They never forgot that
in former ages they had competed as the equals of Rome for the lordship
of the world.

To the South toward the Desert and the Atlas Mountains dwelt a third
section of the population. They were nomads or semi-nomads, troglodytes,
and mountain peoples. Their manner of life remains essentially the same
today as it was in Roman times and as it was for centuries before Rome
set foot in Africa. The Romans never succeeded in subduing this
population except temporarily and for short periods. The imperial
government did what it could, and by means of military posts and patrols
kept a kind of order, but its success was only moderate.

Christianity in Roman Africa reflects this threefold division of the
population, as is to be expected. Cyprian, in spite of the sincere
religious faith and high moral character which elevates him so high
above the social class to which he belonged, is still the most typical
hierarch of his age. In his writings we find the whole philosophy of the
governing class translated into ecclesiastical language. It is highly
significant that in all the numerous and voluminous writings of this
Father there is not a line about Chiliasm. Ideas of such a nature found
little reception in the minds of men daily engaged in the practical
duties of making as much as possible out of the management and control
of a vast population economically and politically subordinated to them.

It would seem that Chiliasm was in fact very largely confined to the
Punic commonality. Tertullian is the great representative of this class.
The very considerable success of his views can only be ascribed to their
being acceptable to the general body of his local, Christian
contemporaries. It is at least imaginable this success was due to the
fact that the personal characteristics of this great African; his
impetuosity, his boldness, his sternness, his pride, his vengeful spirit
were truly representative of the psychology of the people whose
spokesman he was. It is notable that he was perhaps the greatest of the
Chiliasts.

The reader who has followed the argument thus far may be saying to
himself at this point: "If it be granted that the national characters of
the peoples of Phrygia, Egypt, North Africa or elsewhere, conditioned
their acceptance of Chiliastic beliefs and the ways in which these
beliefs found expression, what has that to do with the subject of this
chapter which is Chiliasm and Patriotism?" It is to that point we shall
now direct our attention, but what has been said above is necessary to
the proper consideration of the matter. We have endeavored to show that
in Phrygia, Egypt, and North Africa there existed nationalistic
psychologies in the commonality. It will be recalled that we have shown
in an earlier chapter the curious fact that Chiliasm, though originally
a perfectly orthodox doctrine--indeed one of the most important portions
of the true faith, nevertheless in the course of its historical
development, became mixed up with heresies to a degree beyond any
rational explanation by the law of chance or the rule of average. It
would seem almost as though there was some natural affinity between this
particular orthodox doctrine and almost any heresy; which finally
resulted in its being itself condemned as heretical.

The reason for this was that Chiliasm, like the heresies, was a psychic
equivalent for patriotism. No stranger or more unwarranted delusion is
to be found in the whole range of church history than the one still
unfortunately common, to the effect that for several centuries at the
beginning of the Christian era the populace of whole religions were
obsessed with incredible zeal over the most abstruse, metaphysical
speculations. It is indeed true that the ostensible objects of the
conflict were philosophical ideas but the realities behind these symbols
were tangibles of a very genuinely mundane order; economic exploitation,
social inequality, and suppressed national patriotism. This is evident
enough in cases like the Donatists in Africa, but a little consideration
of the evidence in the light of the developments of the Freudian
psychology, will make it clear in almost all of the heresies, and in the
case of orthodoxy also, when the imperial government chanced to be
itself heretical. So far as the writer is aware no study of any great
length has been made of this matter, which would richly repay
investigation; but our concern is more directly with Chiliasm and the
larger problem must be left to others for solution.

Freud has shown beyond reasonable hope of successful refutation, that
experiences which the mind has completely forgotten leave emotional
'tones' which remain active and are the determining cause of physical
and mental conditions. A thought 'complex' is a system of ideas or
associations with an especially strong emotional tone. A complex may be
of extreme interest to an individual by reason of his social education
and hereditary mentality and yet be out of harmony with e.g., security
of life and property: so a conflict arises in the mind. This conflicting
complex is gotten rid of in various ways; rationalization, repression,
disassociation, or what not, but the energy or interest which initiated
the complex remains none the less and something must become of its
force. This undirected emotional force is the cause of dreams, neuroses,
and psychic trauma.[8] Such in the most sketchy outline is Freud's idea.
The application to the case under consideration is obvious. Patriotism
was a repressed 'complex' to the peoples of Phrygia, Egypt, and Roman
Africa. The mental conflict brought on by the repression was
rationalized easily enough, no doubt, so far as the conscious mind of
the populace was concerned, but the disassociated emotional energy was
let loose on other concepts with which it had no proper connection
originally, i.e., problems of philosophical speculation. Chiliasm was a
speculative concept of a sort to make an especial appeal under the
circumstances. So far as his conscious mind was concerned the Phrygian
might be perfectly reconciled to Roman political supremacy. He might
rationally prove to his own satisfaction that such political supremacy
was really to his own advantage in the long run. Any idea of resistance
was sure to be repressed by the certainty of losing his property and
life. Yet the emotional energy of his patriotism remained and it
naturally associated itself with any idea that lay at hand. Chiliasm
happened to be at hand. The glorified, divine kingdom of the Saints of
God on earth was the psychic equivalent of that Phrygian kingdom whose
national existence had been forever extinguished by Rome. Similarly that
national patriotism which under other historical circumstances might
have found satisfaction in the glory of an independent Egypt now found
expression in the borrowed phraseology of Jewish and Christian
apocalyptical literature. The same is true of course of the Punic and
Nomadic strata of the population of Roman Africa. To the new Jerusalem
which was to come down out of heaven from God, these peoples transferred
their now useless and hopeless longing for the Carthage of the days of
Hannibal and for Jugurthan Numidia.

If, as we have endeavored to show, Chiliasm represented the strivings of
repressed, national patriotisms, we can readily understand the
increasing opposition it encountered on the part of the great
dignitaries of the Church. As the Christian hierarchy became
increasingly perfected, the desire of the prelates for unity and
cohesion in the Church became correspondingly greater. But national
patriotism is essentially a disrupting and disintegrating force to any
imperialistic organization, civil or ecclesiastical. Chiliasm being
associated with this separatist tendency, naturally came to be regarded
as heretical, and as such, was suppressed.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] Cf. R. Charles, Doctrine of a Future Life.

[2] Cf. S. J. Case, The Messianic Hope.

[3] Cf. Il., III, 187.

[4] Cf. W. M. Ramsay., Art. _Phrygians_, Enc. of Religion and Ethics.

[5] Cf. Buckle, Intro. to the Hist. of Civilization in England.

[6] Cf. Eusebius, Eccl. Hist., VII, 24 seq.

[7] Cf. Alex. Graham, Roman Africa.

[8] Cf. A. H. Ring, Psychoanalysis.




CHAPTER V

CHILIASM AND SOCIAL THEORY


We have seen that in the first generations of the Church's existence the
rapidly approaching end of the world was a doctrine firmly held by
almost all Christians. We have seen how by the fifth century this
doctrine, though doubtless still believed by small numbers of
individuals and isolated groups, was practically dead. We have
endeavored to show some of the more important political, economic,
social, and religious effects of this belief and of its declension. The
changes which took place almost imperceptibly during the course of more
than three centuries in the status of this doctrine make any evaluation
of its influence very difficult. It is, however, probably well within
the truth to say that the transformation of early Christianity from an
eschatological to a socialized movement is, in some respects, one of the
most important changes in its history. The change was actual and
objective rather than formal and theoretical. It profoundly influenced
the practical lives of Christians, but it produced no alteration
whatever in the creeds of the Church. As has been shown in the preceding
chapters it is for these reasons at once more difficult to investigate
and more troublesome to evaluate.

The difficulties of the subject itself, considerable as they are; lack
of adequate source material, doubt as to the authenticity and
reliability of such sources as we have; and ever present theological
prepossession, these difficulties after all do not offer such hindrances
to fruitful investigation as another factor, the present condition of
sociological methodology. The writer is not learned in the various forms
of scientific method, but he doubts whether any other science is, in
this respect, in such a chaotic condition as sociology. It is reasonable
to expect of any science that it will have some general rules for the
investigation of the data in its field, and some general principles for
the interpretation of the results of investigation. Sociology is no
exception in this respect. In fact the number of sociological
'principles,' so called, is almost incredibly great. A mere descriptive
enumeration of them, and a by no means exhaustive one, fills a
considerable volume.[1] But so far as the writer is aware, no effort
has been made to apply these principles or any considerable number of
them, systematically, to the elucidation of any movement, contemporary
or historical. In general each principle has had its own advocates who
have applied it to varying ranges of historical phenomena--generally to
the total or at least considerable, exclusion of other principles.

These sociological principles are not only very numerous--they are of
very various value. No successful classification of them has thus far
been made. It is very possible that in the present state of the science
no successful classification can be made. Yet no study of an historical
movement can, without loss, dispense with the aid given by these general
sociological principles. The writer will, therefore, in the briefest
possible manner, try to show some of the aspects of early Chiliasm as
they appear in the light of a few of these principles.

The list of principles employed is not an exhaustive one. It can not
even claim to be comprehensive of all the principles which might fairly
be said to be important. On the other hand it perhaps includes some
principles which some sociologists would probably consider of minor
importance. There is as yet, unfortunately, no considerable agreement on
this matter among sociologists of different nationalities and schools.
The reason of course, is that the social reality which these principles
endeavor to explain contains facts which are intellectually incompatible
but which nevertheless, do actually exist together.

One of the most important and one of the most convenient methods of
investigating social phenomena is the statistical method. In all cases
of social pathology this method is so valuable as to be almost
indispensable. In other cases its use needs to be more carefully
guarded. In the problem we have considered the use of the statistical
method has been evidently impossible except in the most incidental
manner. We do not know how many Christians expected any particular kind
of Second Advent to take place within any given length of time. If we
had information for each decade to the time of Augustine, of the number
of 'convinced' Chiliasts and the number of 'adherents' who were inclined
toward that belief, together with information as to the number of years
within which each of these groups expected the Second Advent, it is
needless to say that such facts would enable us to judge the movement
with a considerable approach to historical certainty. Even such
incidental and fragmentary information as has come down to us in regard
to the number of Chiliastic believers is most valuable and such use has
been made of it as may be. If the use of the statistical method has not
been more extensive, it is because of lack of data.

Perhaps the most widely known of all sociological principles is that
called Economic Determinism, or the Economic Interpretation of History,
or Historical Materialism. More and more, of recent years, this
principle has been employed by historians. The classic statement of the
doctrine is found in the Communist Manifesto. The Introduction to the
second edition states: "In every historical epoch the prevailing mode of
economic production and exchange and the social organization necessarily
following from it, form the basis upon which is built up, and from which
alone can be explained, the political and intellectual history of that
epoch; that consequently the whole history of mankind (since the
dissolution of primitive tribal society holding land in common
ownership) has been a history of class, struggles, contests between
exploiting and exploited, ruling and oppressed classes."[2]

In the application of this principle to our subject we are lead to
expect a genuine, though not necessarily direct, connection between the
declension of eschatological expectations, the increase of socialization
in early Christianity and such broad economic movements as resulted from
the soil exhaustion of Western Europe and the decreased productivity of
compulsory associated labor. In the substitution of serfdom for slavery
and in the growth of monasticism we certainly have two movements which
profoundly affected the Church, and had a considerable part in altering
the attitude of mind which made Chiliastic expectations tenable. It is
probably true that what we have here is considerably more than a mere
coincidence of time, i.e., that Chiliasm declined as serfdom developed
and was dead by the time the patronage system was established on the
great estates. Indeed, in the West at least, Chiliasm was dead before
the country regions were to any measurable degree Christian at all.

It is not too much to say that the apologetic used by St. Augustine to
extirpate primitive, Chiliastic belief was only made plausable, or even
possible, by profound changes, of an economic nature, in the early
Church. The central point of Augustine's apologetic is that the Church,
as actually existing at the time, was the promised kingdom of Christ and
the reign of the Saints on earth. Such an explanation would have been
absurd in the days when the Christian Church consisted only of a few,
small companies of sectaries, lost among the lower strata of the
population of the cities on the Mediterranean litoral. But by
Augustine's time the Church was something quite different. It was
enormously wealthy; owning farms, orchards, vineyards, olive yards,
mines, quarries, timberlands, horses, cattle, sheep, goats, slaves and
serfs, to say nothing of the purely ecclesiastical properties like
Churches, schools, bishops' residences and similar structures, and the
land they occupied.

The possession of this great wealth inevitably brought with it social
position, prestige, and political power. The psychical reaction produced
by wealth, rank, and power was naturally unfavorable to the growth of
any lively desire for the termination of the existing order of things.
Indeed it was an active force in displacing and eliminating Chiliasm
from the minds of the hierarchy. On the reverse side we have seen that
the times of persecution, when the property of the Church was
confiscated and the lives and liberty of Christians endangered or lost,
coincided with the recrudescence of Messianic expectations. So that,
whichever way the subject is approached, it would seem that the
contentions of the advocates of the economic interpretation of history
can make out a very good case in the instance of the early Christian
Church and Chiliasm. Without raising economic determinism to the rank of
a dogma and while admitting that it has very real limitations, it would
nevertheless appear from the present study, that the following
contention of one of its leading exponents contains an important degree
of truth. "The relations of men to one another in the matter of making a
living are the main, underlying causes of men's habits of thought and
feeling, their notions of right, propriety, and legality, their
institutions of society and government, their wars and revolutions."[3]

A principle somewhat allied to the doctrine of Economic Determinism, is
that of progress by 'Group Conflict.' Perhaps the most notable exponent
of this principle is the Austrian sociologist, Ludwig Gumplowicz, who
states: "When two distinct (heterogen) groups come together the natural
tendency of each is to exploit the other to use the most general
expression. This indeed is what gives the first impulse to the social
process.[4]

According to this principle we should expect to find the cause of the
transformation of early Christianity in the conflicts of various groups
within the Christian community and in the conflicts between the
Christians as a group, and various other groups in the world of that
time. The truth of this is so obvious that it is a mere waste of words
to point it out. That Christian theology evolved by a series of
conflicts with various pagan theologies on the one side, and with
various groups within the Church on the other side, which were
successively branded as heretical, is the most patent fact in the
theological history. What is true of the theology in general is true of
Chiliasm in particular. It was very largely during the conflicts with a
long series of heretical groups; Gnostics, Ebionites, Alogi, Montanists
and Apolinarians that the blows were given which finally vanquished
Chiliasm. Its elimination, or at least the rapidity of its elimination,
was very measurably due to the fact that it was involved in these group
conflicts, and as it was almost invariably associated with the losing
group, it suffered the natural fate of the vanquished.

While the principle of which Gumplowicz was so able a supporter leads us
to expect changes in the Chiliastic doctrine wherever it appears in
connection with the phenomenon of group conflict, both within and
without the Church, this principle does not, in itself, enable us to
state anything definitely concerning the nature of these changes.

There is, however, another sociological principle which we can call to
our aid--the principle of Imitation. According to M. Tarde: "The
unvarying characteristic of every social fact whatever is that it is
imitative and this characteristic belongs exclusively to social facts.
This imitation however, is not absolute and the various degrees of
exactness in imitation and the complexes resulting from the various
combinations and oppositions of imitations form the dynamic of
progress."[5]

By the help of this principle we can in a certain measure estimate the
general nature of the changes which took place in early Christianity
during the process of its socialization. The conversion of the Roman
Empire to Christianity is, according to this principle, merely half of
the actual occurrence. The other half might be called the conversion of
Christianity to the Roman Empire. The fact that this second conversion
took place; that the Christian Church became a hierarchic, bureaucratic,
legalistic, monarchical imperialism is evidence enough that the
principle of Imitation operated powerfully in early Christian history.

What is true of the early Church as a whole is true of Chiliasm in
particular. There was no very powerful Second Adventist or other
Chiliastic influence in the heathen world with which the early
Christians were in contact. Their beliefs were, therefore according to
this theory, weakened by dilution; vice versa the pagans were gradually
converted to an enfeebled eschatological belief by imitation of the
Christians, but the net result was a compromise, i.e., a far off and
indefinite eschatology.

The concrete evidence in support of this contention is not abundant
being confined to a few lines in the Sibylline Oracles, Hippolytus,
Lactantius and Augustine. Such as the evidence is, however, it is
entirely on the side of the theory of imitation. It is moreover a very
defensible position that if we were not dealing with such a stereotyped
literary form, the evidence would be much stronger. One arresting
feature of the Chiliastic passages that have come down to us, is their
uniformity. They are repetitions, very often actual, verbal repetitions
of one another. What is of real interest in this connection however, is
not the form of words, used, but the varying degrees of earnestness,
sincerity, and eagerness with which the beliefs, embodied in the form,
were held. This is a thing difficult if not impossible of measurement.
Practically our only means of arriving at the facts is to compare the
relatively slight changes in the _form_ of the Chiliastic tradition.
This has already been done[6] and favors the contention which the theory
of Imitation seeks to maintain. The passage in the Oracles, while
undoubtedly Chiliastic, is doubtfully orthodox and is found in a context
showing the influence of paganism in almost every line. Similarly
Hippolytus and still more Lactantius and Augustine being situated so as
to be peculiarly susceptible to the pagan environment show a marked
tendency to make the Second Advent a far off event. St. Augustine, whose
contact with the contemporary pagan world was more complete at more
points than that of any other Church father, puts the Second Advent out
of all connection with his own generation.

Another sociological principle of considerable importance for our
purpose is that sometimes spoken of as the transfer of the allegiance of
the unproductive laborers. The most prominent upholder of this principle
is probably the Italian economist Achille Loria. According to Loria, the
history of civilization is the history of the struggle for the economic
surplus. The existence of an economic margin above the necessities of
subsistence at once divides society into three classes: exploiters,
unproductive laborers,[7] and productive laborers. "In order to exert
moral suasion enough to pervert the egoism of the oppressed classes, the
cooperation of unproductive laborers is required. The decomposition of
an established system of capitalistic economy carried with it a
progressive diminution of the income from property and consequently
involves a corresponding falling off in the unproductive laborers' share
therein. This in turn dissolves their partnership with capital and puts
an end to their task of psychologically coercing the productive
laborers. The bandage is thus suddenly removed from the eyes of the
oppressed and the systematic perversion of human egoism up to this time
in force, is abruptly brought to an end.

"But scarcely has the inevitable course of events hounded to its grave
the existing order of oppression, when there arises another. Under the
new system of suppression the ancient alliance between capital and
unproductive labor is reestablished and at once inaugurates a new
process better adapted to pervert the egoism of the productive
laborers."[8]

The importance of this principle for the understanding of our subject
cannot easily be overstated. The socialization of early Christianity
proceeded in almost direct ratio to the number of 'unproductive'
laborers coming over to it. If Christianity had had in the First
Century, such an array of theologians, philosophers, apologists,
statesmen, and intellectuals generally, as it had in the Fourth Century,
there can be no reasonable doubt that its triumph would have been much
more rapid and complete. On the other hand had the Pagan cults been able
to show as numerous and as able a body of intellectual defenders in the
Fourth Century as in the First, the success of the Church must have been
much retarded. The declension of the artistic, literary, and general
intellectual level of ancient, pagan civilization during the first three
or four centuries of the Christian era is a fact so well known as to
call for no remark. What is not perhaps, so well recognized is that
during the very time that the pagan world presents an almost incredible
degree of intellectual feebleness and sterility, the actual proportion
of intellectually able men in society was remarkably great. Rome, never,
perhaps in her whole history, had to her credit so many men of
statesman-like ability as at the time her empire was falling to pieces.
The explanation is simple. The men of genius and ability were no longer
interested in the political fortunes of the pagan empire. They had gone
over to a new allegiance, and expended in the foundation of the Catholic
Church a degree of intelligence and ability which, had it been placed at
the service of the Empire, might very conceivably have enabled that
Empire to survive to this day.

It is certain that one of the leading causes of the collapse of the
pagan cults was their increasing inability to command the support of the
intellectual leaders in society, and it is no less true that the
increasing success of the Church was to be ascribed to the ever larger
number of men of intellectual gifts who enrolled themselves in her
support. The fact, of course, is that Christianity offered increasingly
an outlet for the expression of abilities and capacities of mind and
soul such as no pagan cult could provide. The most superficial
comparison of the intellectual forces for and against Christianity in
the first century, with the corresponding array in the fourth or fifth
centuries is sufficient to show the enormous progress made by the
process of socialization in the interval.

Our more particular concern is, however, with the eschatological
concepts. A comparison of the supporters and opponents of Chiliasm at
different periods brings into clear view the rate of its decline.
Without repeating what has been dealt with already,[9] it is sufficient
to recall that in the first century Chiliasm had the support of men like
St. Paul and the authors of the Gospels and other New Testament books,
notably Revelation. Indeed, as far as we can judge, every intellectual
leader of the Christian movement for nearly a century supported the
apocolyptic concepts. But as time went on the proportionate number and
ability of its defenders declines. Finally in the person of Origen in
the East and Augustine in the West we find the undisputed intellectual
leaders turning the whole intellectual class against it, and so bringing
about its overthrow.

Still another sociological principle of high importance because of its
pervasiveness and ubiquity is that propounded by Prof. Veblen in what is
perhaps the best known of American works on sociology.[10] This
principle, which may be summed up by the words Conspicuous Honorific
Consumption, is that beliefs and customs, in order to establish
themselves and to survive as socially reputable, must involve their
holders in purely honorific consumption of time and economic goods. This
consumption may be, and in fact very largely is, vicarious. In this case
the functionaries of the vicarious extravagance must be distinguished
from their masters by the introduction of the element of personal
inconvenience into the performance of their functions.

Of the various sociological principles, so far brought to our attention
this one of Conspicuous Honorific Consumption gives us what is probably
the most useful clew to follow for the understanding of the relatively
rapid decline and the immediately subsequent social disrepute of the
eschatological elements in early Christianity. No set of theological
concepts can be easily imagined which are more antagonistic to the canon
of honorific, conspicuous consumption than are the eschatological ones.

But the principle of the reputability of waste is so intercalated into
every form of social usage; it plays so large a part in all moral,
religious, literary, artistic, political, military, and other judgments,
that in a society like that of the Roman Empire where pecuniary
emulation and invidious comparison were the forms taken by the 'instinct
of workmanship'--the propensity for achievement--no set of beliefs or
observances which ran counter to this principle could, in a prolonged
contest, stand the smallest chance of success.

In this respect, early Christianity was the more unequal to the struggle
in so much as it was the strongest in the cities. The trend of affairs
is observable in the Church as early as the appearance of the Epistle of
James. Under urban conditions the law of conspicuous consumption works
with peculiar power and it tended toward the rapid elimination of those
doctrines and observances which operated to keep out of the Church the
wealthy, powerful, and fashionable elements of society. Within a
relatively short time, by the operation of this principle, the
originally respectable doctrine of Millenananism was rendered
disreputable and even heretical. It was an important agency in bringing
into sharp relief the distinction of clergy and laity, while in the
appearance of monasticism we see the working out of this principle among
the strongest (theoretical) opponents.

Had Christianity in the beginning found a considerable proportion of its
adherents among the laboring classes in the rural regions there can be
very little doubt that it would have maintained the purity of its early
doctrines for a much more considerable period of time than was actually
the case. There is no reason to doubt that, in that event, Chiliastic
expectations would have survived in Christian theology far longer than
they did. "Among the working classes in a sedentary community which is
at an agricultural stage of industry in which there is a considerable
subdivision of property and whose laws and customs secure to these
classes a more or less definite share of the product of their industry,
pecuniary emulation tends in a certain measure to such industry and
frugality as serve to weaken in some degree the full force of the
principle of honorific, and more especially of vicariously honorific
wastefulness." That is to say such conditions tend to conservatism in
general and possibly to religious conservatism in particular. But for
this very reason Christianity made its way only very slowly into the
rural regions. In the West, indeed, Chiliasm was already dead
before the Church had won any great headway among the agricultural
population--which was not until the sixth and seventh centuries. Had
Chiliasm been able to hold its own until the conversion of the rural
regions, it would certainly have survived there for generations if not
centuries--even if it had died out in the urban centers.

In the East, where Christianity made its way among the rural population,
at least in some degree, considerably earlier than was the case in the
West, Chiliasm did get a hold in certain agricultural regions of
Phrygia, Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere, and it was in precisely such
regions, as we have already seen, that it was held most tenaciously and
abandoned most slowly.

Prof. F. H. Giddings of Columbia University is the sponsor of the last
sociological principle which will be mentioned in this connection. His
principle is known as the "Consciousness of Kind." According to Prof.
Giddings: "Consciousness of Kind is that pleasurable state of mind which
includes organic sympathy, the perception of resemblance conscious or
reflective sympathy, affection and the desire for recognition."[11]
"This consciousness is a social and socializing force, sometimes
exceedingly delicate and subtle in its action, sometimes turbulent and
all powerful. Assuming endlessly varied modes of prejudice and of
prepossession, of liking and of disliking, of love and of hate, it tends
always to reconstruct and to dominate every mode of association and
every social grouping."[12]

By means of this very comprehensive principle many otherwise merely
stray and isolated items of information that have come down to use
regarding early Christianity can be given a place and a meaning in the
graduated series of phenomena which mark the transition from the
eschatological to the socialized movement. Such, for instance, are the
exhibitions of consciousness of kind according to differences and
similarities of sex, age, kinship, language, political beliefs,
occupations, rank, locality, wealth, and the like. The very number of
ways in which consciousness of kind exerts influence makes this
principle of very great use when the task is that of forming a general
conclusion from the investigation of sources which are incomplete,
inconclusive and sometimes contradictory.

The different sociological principles mentioned above are intended as
specimens only. The list is not in any sense complete. No attention is
paid to other principles held as coordinates or as correlates of those
referred to. Whole classes of principles, the anthropological and
geographic, for instance, are consciously omitted. The list is in the
highest degree a hit-and-miss selection and the more casual it is, the
better for the purpose in hand. This purpose is to show that any given
series of principles elucidated by students of our contemporary modern
civilization, will be found to have been operating in discernable
fashion in the case of an obscure form of theological speculation in the
first centuries of the Christian era. That Chiliasm was the natural
result of the heredity and environment of the early Christians, or
perhaps better, the natural result of the reaction of inherited elements
in vital contact with the contemporary world, will probably be admitted
readily enough by anyone who has followed the discussion thus far. But
the aim of this thesis, particularly of this last chapter, is something
more than that. Its aim is to uphold the contention that the forces now
operating in society to shape and reshape beliefs and opinions are the
very same in kind as operated in the society of the Roman Empire. In
short, any explanation of early Christian Chiliasm which seeks to bring
in the operation of any social principles which cannot be shown to be
objectively operative in contemporary society is to be viewed with a
certain measure of doubt, if not of suspicion.

It may be taken as a safe assumption that all attempts to obtain a
complete explanation of any historical event in terms of one principle
of one science are foredoomed to failure. The same is true, in less
degree, even if we take all the so far discovered principles of any one
science. In order to give anything like a really comprehensive
explanation of the historical process which forms the subject of this
thesis there would be required the contributions of the principles of
economics, political science, psychology, and the other social sciences.
Such a synthesis of principles is beyond the ability of any one
individual. The application of them all to our subject would be a task
requiring the cooperation of many specialists in many lines for some not
inconsiderable period of time. The writer's task will not perhaps have
been utterly in vain, if he has, even in the slightest measure, helped
to bring home to a single reader, this important fact.

FOOTNOTES:

[1] L. M. Bristol, Social Adaptation, _Harvard Economic Studies_, Vol.
XIV. Cambridge 1915.

[2] Communist Manifesto. Authorized English Translation, Chicago, 1898.

[3] W. J. Ghent, Mass and Class, Chap. 1. New York, 1905.

[4] Grundriss der Sociologie; Moore's Translation, p. 85. Annals Am.
Acad. Pol. Sci. Phil. 1899.

[5] G. Tarde, Social Laws, p. 41. New York, 1899. The Laws of Imitation,
p. 22. New York, 1903.

[6] See Chap. I.

[7] i.e., The so-called, Intellectuals.

[8] Economic Foundations of Society, pp. 51 seq. New York, 1889.

[9] Cf. Chap. I.

[10] The Theory of the Leisure Class. New York, 1899.

[11] Inductive Sociology, p. 99, New York, 1901.

[12] Descriptive and Historical Sociology, p. 275, New York, 1906.




    Transcriber's notes:

    The following is a list of changes made to the original.
    The first line is the original line, the second the corrected one.

    In all of them the catastrophy is more or less immediately
    In all of them the catastrophe is more or less immediately

    and final judgement which in the preceding form of belief were
    and final judgment which in the preceding form of belief were

    is to be preceeded by tremendous portents of the most terrible sort.
    is to be preceded by tremendous portents of the most terrible sort.

    Thebiad. In fact a large number of Jewish Apocalyses which the
    Thebiad. In fact a large number of Jewish Apocalypses which the

    He maintains that in the Mellennium, death will be abolished
    He maintains that in the Millennium, death will be abolished

    Apolinaris was indeed the most Judaising Christian in his Chiliasm
    Apollinaris was indeed the most Judaizing Christian in his Chiliasm

    indignantly denounces as 'figments,' 'mere old wives fables' and
    indignantly denounces as 'figments,' 'mere old wives' fables' and

    'doctrines of Jews.'[19] Although Apolinarianism was condemned
    'doctrines of Jews.'[19] Although Apollinarianism was condemned

    of note in the west. It is aboundantly evident however, from the
    of note in the west. It is abundantly evident however, from the

    and incongruities as the pagan myths which proviked so many
    and incongruities as the pagan myths which provoked so many

    Chiliasts--are held to be insoluable as to the time of their appearance;
    Chiliasts--are held to be insoluble as to the time of their appearance;

    dead, and yet to be born. The entity was eternal, indestructable,
    dead, and yet to be born. The entity was eternal, indestructible,

    the otherwise unintelligible success of that saint in combatting
    the otherwise unintelligible success of that saint in combating

    expression to this accomplished fact and it is no derrogation of his
    expression to this accomplished fact and it is no derogation of his

    words restriction in matrimony whether Chilastic or monastic is due
    words restriction in matrimony whether Chiliastic or monastic is due

    of the movement, were influenced more by Chilastic concepts than
    of the movement, were influenced more by Chiliastic concepts than

    [3] Cf. Parables in I Enoch XXXVII-IXXI.
    [3] Cf. Parables in I Enoch XXXVII-LXXI.

    [4] Cf. Apocalypse of Baurch; 4 Ezra, 4 Maccabees.
    [4] Cf. Apocalypse of Baruch; 4 Ezra, 4 Maccabees.

    Fourth: What may be distinguished as the specifically Christain
    Fourth: What may be distinguished as the specifically Christian

    the pupose of giving him a vest and an overcoat in addition to what
    the purpose of giving him a vest and an overcoat in addition to what

    and rightly discharged his service to Him.[13]
    and rightly discharged his service to Him."[13]

    The inconsistent and irreconciliable nature of the evidence about
    The inconsistent and irreconcilable nature of the evidence about

    references to interest, which may perhpas be due to the fact that in
    references to interest, which may perhaps be due to the fact that in

    condeming interest as such. In the minds of the early Christians the
    condemning interest as such. In the minds of the early Christians the

    prediliction of certain types of pecuniary interest for that reformer's
    predilection of certain types of pecuniary interest for that reformer's

    system of eccliastical polity. The Roman law did indeed fix a
    system of ecclesiastical polity. The Roman law did indeed fix a

    or act up to all thay they believe. Imagine a man acting on the
    or act up to all that they believe. Imagine a man acting on the

    institution they were perfectly familar and in universal observance
    institution they were perfectly familiar and in universal observance

    It was immoral to invest money in the consrtuction company that
    It was immoral to invest money in the construction company that

    economic and matters--and on other matters also. The difference in a
    economic matters--and on other matters also. The difference in a

    As soon as Christain doctrines became widespread enough to
    As soon as Christian doctrines became widespread enough to

    villange or serfdom. But this change cut off the economic margin
    villeinage or serfdom. But this change cut off the economic margin

    that of Bibical exegesis. In the well known sermon or essay on:
    that of Biblical exegesis. In the well known sermon or essay on:

    pyhsical possessions, but spiritual qualities of greed and avarice.
    physical possessions, but spiritual qualities of greed and avarice.

    that shall with difficulty enter into the kingdom," is to be apprehended
    that shall with difficulty enter into the kingdom, is to be apprehended

    the reward of which is salvation." "Sell thy possessions." What is
    the reward of which is salvation." "Sell thy possessions. What is

    expositions of Christian Scripture, penning the most powerful apologitic
    expositions of Christian Scripture, penning the most powerful apologetic

    honors upon the lowliest drugery;[37] they turned princes into plowmen
    honors upon the lowliest drudgery;[37] they turned princes into plowmen

    institutions of society can indeed be changed. But they can be changed--or
    institutions of society can indeed be changed. But they can be changed--on

    lack theoritical justification tend to accumulate such justification
    lack theoretical justification tend to accumulate such justification

    the spread of Chriatian theology by liberating it from the burden
    the spread of Christian theology by liberating it from the burden

    influence is economic. Christianity by teaching the virtues of honesty
    influence is economic. Christianity by teaching the virtues of honesty,

    Penticost and immediately afterwards was due primarily to the fact
    Pentecost and immediately afterwards was due primarily to the fact

    began to develope doctrines and practices even slightly at
    began to develop doctrines and practices even slightly at

    motive, the threatened loss of livlihood, entering along with anger
    motive, the threatened loss of livelihood, entering along with anger

    of the crowds only after agitation diliberately stirred up by interested
    of the crowds only after agitation deliberately stirred up by interested

    also the villages and country places and yet it sees possible to stop it and
    also the villages and country places and yet it seems possible to stop it and

    teaching many not to sacrifice or to worship the gods. Speaking
    teaching many not to sacrifice or to worship the gods." Speaking

    pagan public. Most noticable of all is the indifference of the mob
    pagan public. Most noticeable of all is the indifference of the mob

    clamor and blows and draggings and roberies and stonings and
    clamor and blows and draggings and robberies and stonings and

    more through permeation of the public mind by Christianity. There
    more thorough permeation of the public mind by Christianity. There

    very extent and throughness and duration of the persecution
    very extent and thoroughness and duration of the persecution

    belongs in the reign of Septimus Severns instead of that of Marcus
    belongs in the reign of Septimus Severus instead of that of Marcus

    circumstances more or less in obeyance. On the whole it was undoubtedly
    circumstances more or less in abeyance. On the whole it was undoubtedly

    more violent at the end of the period tham at the beginning.
    more violent at the end of the period than at the beginning.

    Serverus, 202 A.D. In the account given by Eusebius of the martydom
    Severus, 202 A.D. In the account given by Eusebius of the martyrdom

    case it was not the product of any spontanious popular movement.
    case it was not the product of any spontaneous popular movement.

    They were not called forth by any imperial edict--they preceeded the
    They were not called forth by any imperial edict--they preceded the

    governmental, legal precess would ever, or could ever, take on.
    governmental, legal process would ever, or could ever, take on.

    persecution among us did not begin with the royal decree but proceeded
    persecution among us did not begin with the royal decree but preceded

    accumlated sentiment and social unrest must of necessity discharge
    accumulated sentiment and social unrest must of necessity discharge

    perhaps be going beyong the evidence to say that in this interval,
    perhaps be going beyond the evidence to say that in this interval,

    away from them and drove the Jews out of the city, permiting the
    away from them and drove the Jews out of the city, permitting the

    being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore hurrried
    being reconciled to the bishop. Some of them therefore hurried

    people in a struggle over the most obstruse and recondite metaphysical
    people in a struggle over the most abstruse and recondite metaphysical

    to the Christians mob movement against the pagans and to the
    to the Christians' mob movement against the pagans and to the

    experience. (b) Operation as an isolating device (c) Revolt against
    experience. (b) Operation as an isolating device. (c) Revolt against

    were free from its defects as an instrument of hierarchial ambition.
    were free from its defects as an instrument of hierarchical ambition.

    town of Phrygia was to become the capitol of the world wide kingdom
    town of Phrygia was to become the capital of the world wide kingdom

    produced no alternation whatever in the creeds of the Church. As
    produced no alteration whatever in the creeds of the Church. As

    ever possible, by profound changes, of an economic nature, in the
    even possible, by profound changes, of an economic nature, in the

    of men to ane another in the matter of making a living are the main,
    of men to one another in the matter of making a living are the main,

    associated with the loosing group, it suffered the natural fate of the
    associated with the losing group, it suffered the natural fate of the

    But scarcely has the inevitable course of events hounded to its
    "But scarcely has the inevitable course of events hounded to its







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