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Title: History of the Warfare of Science with Theology in Christendom
Author: White, Andrew Dickson, 1832-1918
Language: English
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HISTORY OF THE WARFARE OF SCIENCE WITH THEOLOGY IN CHRISTENDOM
By Andrew Dickson White
Two Volumes Combined
To the Memory of
EZRA CORNELL
I DEDICATE THIS BOOK.
Thoughts that great hearts once broke for, we
Breathe cheaply in the common air.--LOWELL
Dicipulus est prioris posterior dies.--PUBLIUS SYRUS
Truth is the daughter of Time.--BACON
The Truth shall make you free.--ST. JOHN, viii, 32.
INTRODUCTION
My book is ready for the printer, and as I begin this preface my eye
lights upon the crowd of Russian peasants at work on the Neva under my
windows. With pick and shovel they are letting the rays of the April sun
into the great ice barrier which binds together the modern quays and the
old granite fortress where lie the bones of the Romanoff Czars.
This barrier is already weakened; it is widely decayed, in many places
thin, and everywhere treacherous; but it is, as a whole, so broad, so
crystallized about old boulders, so imbedded in shallows, so wedged into
crannies on either shore, that it is a great danger. The waters from
thousands of swollen streamlets above are pressing behind it; wreckage
and refuse are piling up against it; every one knows that it must yield.
But there is danger that it may resist the pressure too long and break
suddenly, wrenching even the granite quays from their foundations,
bringing desolation to a vast population, and leaving, after the
subsidence of the flood, a widespread residue of slime, a fertile
breeding-bed for the germs of disease.
But the patient mujiks are doing the right thing. The barrier, exposed
more and more to the warmth of spring by the scores of channels they are
making, will break away gradually, and the river will flow on beneficent
and beautiful.
My work in this book is like that of the Russian mujik on the Neva. I
simply try to aid in letting the light of historical truth into that
decaying mass of outworn thought which attaches the modern world to
mediaeval conceptions of Christianity, and which still lingers among
us--a most serious barrier to religion and morals, and a menace to the
whole normal evolution of society.
For behind this barrier also the flood is rapidly rising--the flood
of increased knowledge and new thought; and this barrier also, though
honeycombed and in many places thin, creates a danger--danger of a
sudden breaking away, distressing and calamitous, sweeping before it not
only out worn creeds and noxious dogmas, but cherished principles
and ideals, and even wrenching out most precious religious and moral
foundations of the whole social and political fabric.
My hope is to aid--even if it be but a little--in the gradual and
healthful dissolving away of this mass of unreason, that the stream of
"religion pure and undefiled" may flow on broad and clear, a blessing to
humanity.
And now a few words regarding the evolution of this book.
It is something over a quarter of a century since I labored with Ezra
Cornell in founding the university which bears his honored name.
Our purpose was to establish in the State of New York an institution for
advanced instruction and research, in which science, pure and applied,
should have an equal place with literature; in which the study of
literature, ancient and modern, should be emancipated as much as
possible from pedantry; and which should be free from various useless
trammels and vicious methods which at that period hampered many, if not
most, of the American universities and colleges.
We had especially determined that the institution should be under the
control of no political party and of no single religious sect, and with
Mr. Cornell's approval I embodied stringent provisions to this effect in
the charter.
It had certainly never entered into the mind of either of us that in all
this we were doing anything irreligious or unchristian. Mr. Cornell
was reared a member of the Society of Friends; he had from his fortune
liberally aided every form of Christian effort which he found going on
about him, and among the permanent trustees of the public library
which he had already founded, he had named all the clergymen of
the town--Catholic and Protestant. As for myself, I had been bred a
churchman, had recently been elected a trustee of one church college,
and a professor in another; those nearest and dearest to me were
devoutly religious; and, if I may be allowed to speak of a matter so
personal to my self, my most cherished friendships were among deeply
religious men and women, and my greatest sources of enjoyment were
ecclesiastical architecture, religious music, and the more devout forms
of poetry. So, far from wishing to injure Christianity, we both hoped to
promote it; but we did not confound religion with sectarianism, and we
saw in the sectarian character of American colleges and universities as
a whole, a reason for the poverty of the advanced instruction then given
in so many of them.
It required no great acuteness to see that a system of control which, in
selecting a Professor of Mathematics or Language or Rhetoric or Physics
or Chemistry, asked first and above all to what sect or even to what
wing or branch of a sect he belonged, could hardly do much to advance
the moral, religious, or intellectual development of mankind.
The reasons for the new foundation seemed to us, then, so cogent that
we expected the co-operation of all good citizens, and anticipated no
opposition from any source.
As I look back across the intervening years, I know not whether to be
more astonished or amused at our simplicity.
Opposition began at once. In the State Legislature it confronted us at
every turn, and it was soon in full blaze throughout the State--from the
good Protestant bishop who proclaimed that all professors should be in
holy orders, since to the Church alone was given the command, "Go, teach
all nations," to the zealous priest who published a charge that Goldwin
Smith--a profoundly Christian scholar--had come to Cornell in order
to inculcate the "infidelity of the Westminster Review"; and from the
eminent divine who went from city to city, denouncing the "atheistic
and pantheistic tendencies" of the proposed education, to the perfervid
minister who informed a denominational synod that Agassiz, the last
great opponent of Darwin, and a devout theist, was "preaching Darwinism
and atheism" in the new institution.
As the struggle deepened, as hostile resolutions were introduced into
various ecclesiastical bodies, as honored clergymen solemnly warned
their flocks first against the "atheism," then against the "infidelity,"
and finally against the "indifferentism" of the university, as devoted
pastors endeavoured to dissuade young men from matriculation, I took the
defensive, and, in answer to various attacks from pulpits and religious
newspapers, attempted to allay the fears of the public. "Sweet
reasonableness" was fully tried. There was established and endowed in
the university perhaps the most effective Christian pulpit, and one of
the most vigorous branches of the Christian Association, then in the
United States; but all this did nothing to ward off the attack.
The clause in the charter of the university forbidding it to give
predominance to the doctrines of any sect, and above all the fact that
much prominence was given to instruction in various branches of science,
seemed to prevent all compromise, and it soon became clear that to stand
on the defensive only made matters worse. Then it was that there was
borne in upon me a sense of the real difficulty--the antagonism between
the theological and scientific view of the universe and of education in
relation to it; therefore it was that, having been invited to deliver a
lecture in the great hall of the Cooper Institute at New York, I took
as my subject The Battlefields of Science, maintaining this thesis which
follows:
In all modern history, interference with science in the supposed
interest of religion, no matter how conscientious such interference
may have been, has resulted in the direst evils both to religion
and science, and invariably; and, on the other hand, all untrammeled
scientific investigation, no matter how dangerous to religion some of
its stages may have seemed for the time to be, has invariably resulted
in the highest good both of religion and science.
The lecture was next day published in the New York Tribune at the
request of Horace Greeley, its editor, who was also one of the Cornell
University trustees. As a result of this widespread publication and
of sundry attacks which it elicited, I was asked to maintain my thesis
before various university associations and literary clubs; and I shall
always remember with gratitude that among those who stood by me and
presented me on the lecture platform with words of approval and cheer
was my revered instructor, the Rev. Dr. Theodore Dwight Woolsey, at that
time President of Yale College.
My lecture grew--first into a couple of magazine articles, and then into
a little book called The Warfare of Science, for which, when republished
in England, Prof. John Tyndall wrote a preface.
Sundry translations of this little book were published, but the
most curious thing in its history is the fact that a very friendly
introduction to the Swedish translation was written by a Lutheran
bishop.
Meanwhile Prof. John W. Draper published his book on The Conflict
between Science and Religion, a work of great ability, which, as I then
thought, ended the matter, so far as my giving it further attention was
concerned.
But two things led me to keep on developing my own work in this field:
First, I had become deeply interested in it, and could not refrain from
directing my observation and study to it; secondly, much as I admired
Draper's treatment of the questions involved, his point of view and mode
of looking at history were different from mine.
He regarded the struggle as one between Science and Religion. I believed
then, and am convinced now, that it was a struggle between Science and
Dogmatic Theology.
More and more I saw that it was the conflict between two epochs in the
evolution of human thought--the theological and the scientific.
So I kept on, and from time to time published New Chapters in the
Warfare of Science as magazine articles in The Popular Science Monthly.
This was done under many difficulties. For twenty years, as President of
Cornell University and Professor of History in that institution, I was
immersed in the work of its early development. Besides this, I could not
hold myself entirely aloof from public affairs, and was three times sent
by the Government of the United States to do public duty abroad: first
as a commissioner to Santo Domingo, in 1870; afterward as minister to
Germany, in 1879; finally, as minister to Russia, in 1892; and was
also called upon by the State of New York to do considerable labor in
connection with international exhibitions at Philadelphia and at Paris.
I was also obliged from time to time to throw off by travel the effects
of overwork.
The variety of residence and occupation arising from these causes may
perhaps explain some peculiarities in this book which might otherwise
puzzle my reader.
While these journeyings have enabled me to collect materials over a
very wide range--in the New World, from Quebec to Santo Domingo and from
Boston to Mexico, San Francisco, and Seattle, and in the Old World from
Trondhjem to Cairo and from St. Petersburg to Palermo--they have often
obliged me to write under circumstances not very favorable: sometimes
on an Atlantic steamer, sometimes on a Nile boat, and not only in my
own library at Cornell, but in those of Berlin, Helsingfors, Munich,
Florence, and the British Museum. This fact will explain to the
benevolent reader not only the citation of different editions of the
same authority in different chapters, but some iterations which in the
steady quiet of my own library would not have been made.
It has been my constant endeavour to write for the general reader,
avoiding scholastic and technical terms as much as possible and stating
the truth simply as it presents itself to me.
That errors of omission and commission will be found here and there is
probable--nay, certain; but the substance of the book will, I believe,
be found fully true. I am encouraged in this belief by the fact that, of
the three bitter attacks which this work in its earlier form has already
encountered, one was purely declamatory, objurgatory, and hortatory, and
the others based upon ignorance of facts easily pointed out.
And here I must express my thanks to those who have aided me. First and
above all to my former student and dear friend, Prof. George Lincoln
Burr, of Cornell University, to whose contributions, suggestions,
criticisms, and cautions I am most deeply indebted; also to my friends
U. G. Weatherly, formerly Travelling Fellow of Cornell, and now
Assistant Professor in the University of Indiana,--Prof. and Mrs. Earl
Barnes and Prof. William H. Hudson, of Stanford University,--and Prof.
E. P Evans, formerly of the University of Michigan, but now of Munich,
for extensive aid in researches upon the lines I have indicated to them,
but which I could never have prosecuted without their co-operation.
In libraries at home and abroad they have all worked for me most
effectively, and I am deeply grateful to them.
This book is presented as a sort of Festschrift--a tribute to Cornell
University as it enters the second quarter-century of its existence, and
probably my last tribute.
The ideas for which so bitter a struggle was made at its foundation
have triumphed. Its faculty, numbering over one hundred and, fifty;
its students, numbering but little short of two thousand; its noble
buildings and equipment; the munificent gifts, now amounting to millions
of dollars, which it has received from public-spirited men and women;
the evidences of public confidence on all sides; and, above all,
the adoption of its cardinal principles and main features by various
institutions of learning in other States, show this abundantly. But
there has been a triumph far greater and wider. Everywhere among the
leading modern nations the same general tendency is seen. During the
quarter-century just past the control of public instruction, not only in
America but in the leading nations of Europe, has passed more and more
from the clergy to the laity. Not only are the presidents of the larger
universities in the United States, with but one or two exceptions,
laymen, but the same thing is seen in the old European strongholds of
metaphysical theology. At my first visit to Oxford and Cambridge, forty
years ago, they were entirely under ecclesiastical control. Now, all
this is changed. An eminent member of the present British Government has
recently said, "A candidate for high university position is handicapped
by holy orders." I refer to this with not the slightest feeling of
hostility toward the clergy, for I have none; among them are many of my
dearest friends; no one honours their proper work more than I; but the
above fact is simply noted as proving the continuance of that evolution
which I have endeavoured to describe in this series of monographs--an
evolution, indeed, in which the warfare of Theology against Science has
been one of the most active and powerful agents. My belief is that in
the field left to them--their proper field--the clergy will more
and more, as they cease to struggle against scientific methods and
conclusions, do work even nobler and more beautiful than anything they
have heretofore done. And this is saying much. My conviction is that
Science, though it has evidently conquered Dogmatic Theology based on
biblical texts and ancient modes of thought, will go hand in hand
with Religion; and that, although theological control will continue
to diminish, Religion, as seen in the recognition of "a Power in the
universe, not ourselves, which makes for righteousness," and in the love
of God and of our neighbor, will steadily grow stronger and stronger,
not only in the American institutions of learning but in the world
at large. Thus may the declaration of Micah as to the requirements of
Jehovah, the definition by St. James of "pure religion and undefiled,"
and, above all, the precepts and ideals of the blessed Founder of
Christianity himself, be brought to bear more and more effectively on
mankind.
I close this preface some days after its first lines were written.
The sun of spring has done its work on the Neva; the great river flows
tranquilly on, a blessing and a joy; the mujiks are forgotten. A. D. W.
LEGATION OF THE UNITED STATES, ST. PETERSBURG,
April 14,1894.
P.S.--Owing to a wish to give more thorough revision to some parts of my
work, it has been withheld from the press until the present date. A. D.
W.
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N.Y.,
August 15, 1895.
CONTENTS OF THE FIRST VOLUME.
CHAPTER I.
FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION.
I. The Visible Universe.
Ancient and medieval views regarding the manner of creation
Regarding the matter of creation
Regarding the time of creation
Regarding the date of creation
Regarding the Creator
Regarding light and darkness
Rise of the conception of an evolution: among the Chaldeans, the
Hebrews, the Greeks, the Romans
Its survival through the Middle Ages, despite the disfavour of
the Church
Its development in modern times.--The nebular hypothesis and its
struggle with theology
The idea of evolution at last victorious
Our sacred books themselves an illustration of its truth
The true reconciliation of Science and Theology
II. Theological Teachings regarding the Animals and Man.
Ancient and medieval representations of the creation of man
Literal acceptance of the book of Genesis by the Christian
fathers
By the Reformers
By modern theologians, Catholic and Protestant
Theological reasoning as to the divisions of the animal kingdom
The Physiologus, the Bestiaries, the Exempila
Beginnings of sceptical observation
Development of a scientific method in the study of Nature
Breaking down of the theological theory of creation
III. Theological and Scientific Theories of an Evolution in
Animated Nature.
Ideas of evolution among the ancients
In the early Church
In the medieval Church
Development of these ideas from the sixteenth to the eighteenth
centuries
The work of De Maillet
Of Linneus
Of Buffon
Contributions to the theory of evolution at the close of the
eighteenth century
The work of Treviranus and Lamarck
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire and Cuvier
Development of the theory up to the middle of the nineteenth
century
The contributions of Darwin and Wallace
The opposition of Agassiz
IV. The Final Effort of Theology.
Attacks on Darwin and his theories in England
In America
Formation of sacro-scientific organizations to combat the theory
of evolution
The attack in France
In Germany
Conversion of Lyell to the theory of evolution
The attack of Darwin's Descent of Man
Difference between this and the former attack
Hostility to Darwinism in America
Change in the tone of the controversy.--Attempts at compromise
Dying-out of opposition to evolution
Last outbursts of theological hostility
Final victory of evolution
CHAPTER II.
GEOGRAPHY
I. The Form of the Earth.
Primitive conception of the earth as flat
In Chaldea and Egypt
In Persia
Among the Hebrews
Evolution, among the Greeks, of the idea of its sphericity
Opposition of the early Church
Evolution of a sacred theory, drawn from the Bible
Its completion by Cosmas Indicopleustes
Its influence on Christian thought
Survival of the idea of the earth's sphericity--its acceptance by
Isidore and Bede
Its struggle and final victory
II. The Delineation of the Earth.
Belief of every ancient people that its own central place was the
centre of the earth
Hebrew conviction that the earth's centre was at Jerusalem
Acceptance of this view by Christianity
Influence of other Hebrew conceptions--Gog and Magog, the "four
winds," the waters "on an heap"
III. The Inhabitants of the Earth.
The idea of antipodes
Its opposition by the Christian Church--Gregory Nazianzen,
Lactantius, Basil, Ambrose, Augustine, Procopius of Gaza, Cosmas,
Isidore
Virgil of Salzburg's assertion of it in the eighth century
Its revival by William of Conches and Albert the Great in the
thirteenth
Surrender of it by Nicolas d'Oresme
Fate of Peter of Abano and Cecco d' Ascoli
Timidity of Pierre d'Ailly and Tostatus
Theological hindrance of Columbus
Pope Alexander VI's demarcation line
Cautious conservatism of Gregory Reysch
Magellan and the victory of science
IV. The Size of the Earth.
Scientific attempts at measuring the earth
The sacred solution of the problem
Fortunate influence of the blunder upon Columbus
V. The Character of the Earth's Surface.
Servetus and the charge of denying the fertility of Judea
Contrast between the theological and the religious spirit in
their effects on science
CHAPTER III.
ASTRONOMY.
I. The Old Sacred Theory of the Universe.
The early Church's conviction of the uselessness of astronomy
The growth of a sacred theory--Origen, the Gnostics, Philastrius,
Cosmas, Isidore
The geocentric, or Ptolemaic, theory, its origin, and its
acceptance by the Christian world
Development of the new sacred system of astronomy--the
pseudo-Dionysius, Peter Lombard, Thomas Aquinas
Its popularization by Dante
Its details
Its persistence to modern times
II. The Heliocentric Theory.
Its rise among the Greeks--Pythagoras, Philolaus, Aristarchus
Its suppression by the charge of blasphemy
Its loss from sight for six hundred Years, then for a thousand
Its revival by Nicholas de Cusa and Nicholas Copernicus
Its toleration as a hypothesis
Its prohibition as soon as Galileo teaches it as a truth
Consequent timidity of scholars--Acosta, Apian
Protestantism not less zealous in opposition than
Catholicism--Luther Melanchthon, Calvin, Turretin
This opposition especially persistent in England--Hutchinson,
Pike, Horne, Horsley, Forbes, Owen, Wesley
Resulting interferences with freedom of teaching
Giordano Bruno's boldness and his fate
The truth demonstrated by the telescope of Galileo
III. The War upon Galileo.
Concentration of the war on this new champion
The first attack
Fresh attacks--Elci, Busaeus, Caccini, Lorini, Bellarmin
Use of epithets
Attempts to entrap Galileo
His summons before the Inquisition at Rome
The injunction to silence, and the condemnation of the theory of
the earth's motion
The work of Copernicus placed on the Index
Galileo's seclusion
Renewed attacks upon Galileo--Inchofer, Fromundus
IV. Victory of the Church over Galileo
Publication of his Dialogo
Hostility of Pope Urban VIII
Galileo's second trial by the Inquisition
His abjuration
Later persecution of him
Measures to complete the destruction of the Copernican theory
Persecution of Galileo's memory
Protestant hostility to the new astronomy and its champions
V. Results of the Victory over Galileo.
Rejoicings of churchmen over the victory
The silencing of Descartes
Persecution of Campanella and of Kepler
Persistence and victory of science
Dilemma of the theologians
Vain attempts to postpone the surrender
VI. The Retreat of the Church after its Victory over Galileo.
The easy path for the Protestant theologians
The difficulties of the older Church.--The papal infallibility
fully committed against the Copernican theory
Attempts at evasion--first plea: that Galileo was condemned not
for affirming the earth's motion, but for supporting it from
Scripture
Its easy refutation
Second plea: that he was condemned not for heresy, but for
contumacy
Folly of this assertion
Third plea: that it was all a quarrel between Aristotelian
professors and those favouring the experimental method
Fourth plea: that the condemnation of Galileo was "provisory"
Fifth plea: that he was no more a victim of Catholics than of
Protestants
Efforts to blacken Galileo's character
Efforts to suppress the documents of his trial
Their fruitlessness
Sixth plea: that the popes as popes had never condemned his
theory
Its confutation from their own mouths
Abandonment of the contention by honest Catholics
Two efforts at compromise--Newman, De Bonald
Effect of all this on thinking men
The fault not in Catholicism more than in Protestantism--not in
religion, but in theology
CHAPTER IV.
FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW IN THE HEAVENS.
I. The Theological View.
Early beliefs as to comets, meteors, and eclipses
Their inheritance by Jews and Christians
The belief regarding comets especially harmful as a source of
superstitious terror
Its transmission through the Middle Ages
Its culmination under Pope Calixtus III
Beginnings of scepticism--Copernicus, Paracelsus, Scaliger
Firmness of theologians, Catholic and Protestant, in its support
II. Theological Efforts to crush the Scientific View.
The effort through the universities.--The effort through the
pulpits
Heerbrand at Tubingen and Dieterich at Marburg
Maestlin at Heidelberg
Buttner, Vossius, Torreblanca, Fromundus
Father Augustin de Angelis at Rome
Reinzer at Linz
Celichius at Magdeburg
Conrad Dieterich's sermon at Ulm
Erni and others in Switzerland
Comet doggerel
Echoes from New England--Danforth, Morton, Increase Mather
III. The Invasion of Scepticism.
Rationalism of Cotton Mather, and its cause
Blaise de Vigenere
Erastus
Bekker, Lubienitzky, Pierre Petit
Bayle
Fontenelle
The scientific movement beneath all this
IV. Theological Efforts at Compromise.--The Final Victory of
Science.
The admission that some comets are supralunar
Difference between scientific and theological reasoning
Development of the reasoning of Tycho and Kepler--Cassini, Hevel,
Doerfel, Bernouilli, Newton
Completion of the victory by Halley and Clairaut
Survivals of the superstition--Joseph de Maistre, Forster Arago's
statistics
The theories of Whiston and Burnet, and their influence in
Germany
The superstition ended in America by the lectures of Winthrop
Helpful influence of John Wesley
Effects of the victory
CHAPTER V.
FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY.
I. Growth of Theological Explanations
Germs of geological truth among the Greeks and Romans
Attitude of the Church toward science
Geological theories of the early theologians
Attitude of the schoolmen
Contributions of the Arabian schools
Theories of the earlier Protestants
Influence of the revival of learning
II. Efforts to Suppress the Scientific View.
Revival of scientific methods
Buffon and the Sorbonne
Beringer's treatise on fossils
Protestant opposition to the new geology---the works of Burnet,
Whiston, Wesley, Clark,
Watson, Arnold, Cockburn, and others
III. The First Great Effort of Compromise, based on the Flood of
Noah.
The theory that fossils were produced by the Deluge
Its acceptance by both Catholics and Protestants--Luther, Calmet
Burnet, Whiston, Woodward, Mazurier, Torrubia, Increase Mather
Scheuchzer
Voltaire's theory of fossils
Vain efforts of enlightened churchmen in behalf of the scientific
view
Steady progress of science--the work of Cuvier and Brongniart
Granvile Penn's opposition
The defection of Buckland and Lyell to the scientific side
Surrender of the theologians
Remnants of the old belief
Death-blow given to the traditional theory of the Deluge by the
discovery of the Chaldean accounts
Results of the theological opposition to science
IV. Final Efforts at Compromise--The Victory of Science
complete.
Efforts of Carl von Raumer, Wagner, and others
The new testimony of the caves and beds of drift as to the
antiquity of man
Gosse's effort to save the literal interpretation of Genesis
Efforts of Continental theologians
Gladstone's attempt at a compromise
Its demolition by Huxley
By Canon Driver
Dean Stanley on the reconciliation of Science and Scripture
CHAPTER VI.
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN, EGYPTOLOGY, AND ASSYRIOLOGY.
I. The Sacred Chronology.
Two fields in which Science has gained a definite victory over
Theology
Opinions of the Church fathers on the antiquity of man
The chronology of Isidore
Of Bede
Of the medieval Jewish scholars
The views of the Reformers on the antiquity of man
Of the Roman Church
Of Archbishop Usher
Influence of Egyptology on the belief in man's antiquity
La Peyrere's theory of the Pre-Adamites
Opposition in England to the new chronology
II. The New Chronology.
Influence of the new science of Egyptology on biblical chronology
Manetho's history of Egypt and the new chronology derived from it
Evidence of the antiquity of man furnished by the monuments of
Egypt
By her art
By her science
By other elements of civilization
By the remains found in the bed of the Nile
Evidence furnished by the study of Assyriology
CHAPTER VII.
THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN AND PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY.
I. The Thunder-stones.
Early beliefs regarding "thunder-stones"
Theories of Mercati and Tollius regarding them
Their identification with the implements of prehistoric man
Remains of man found in caverns
Unfavourable influence on scientific activity of the political
conditions of the early part of the nineteenth century
Change effected by the French Revolution of to {??}
Rallying of the reactionary clerical influence against science
II. The Flint Weapons and Implements.
Boucher de Perthes's contributions to the knowledge of
prehistoric man
His conclusions confirmed by Lyell and others
Cave explorations of Lartet and Christy
Evidence of man's existence furnished by rude carvings
Cave explorations in the British Islands
Evidence of man's existence in the Drift period
In the early Quaternary and in the Tertiary periods
CHAPTER VIII.
THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY.
The two antagonistic views regarding the life of man on the
earth
The theory of "the Fall" among ancient peoples
Inheritance of this view by the Christian Church
Appearance among the Greeks and Romans of the theory of a rise of
man
Its disappearance during the Middle Ages
Its development since the seventeenth century
The first blow at the doctrine of "the Fall" comes from geology
Influence of anthropology on the belief in this doctrine
The finding of human skulls in Quaternary deposits
Their significance
Results obtained from the comparative study of the remains of
human handiwork
Discovery of human remains in shell-heaps on the shores of the
Baltic Sea
In peat-beds
The lake-dwellers
Indications of the upward direction of man's development
Mr. Southall's attack on the theory of man's antiquity
An answer to it
Discovery of prehistoric human remains in Egypt
Hamard's attack on the new scientific conclusions
The survival of prehistoric implements in religious rites
Strength of the argument against the theory of "the Fall of Man"
CHAPTER IX.
THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ETHNOLOGY.
The beginnings of the science of Comparative Ethnology
Its testimony to the upward tendency of man from low beginning
Theological efforts to break its force--De Maistre and DeBonald
Whately's attempt
The attempt of the Duke of Argyll
Evidence of man's upward tendency derived from Comparative
Philology
From Comparative Literature and Folklore
From Comparative Ethnography
From Biology
CHAPTER X.
THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY.
Proof of progress given by the history of art
Proofs from general history
Development of civilization even under unfavourable circumstances
Advancement even through catastrophes and the decay of
civilizations
Progress not confined to man's material condition
Theological struggle against the new scientific view
Persecution of Prof. Winchell
Of Dr. Woodrow
Other interferences with freedom of teaching
The great harm thus done to religion
Rise of a better spirit
The service rendered to religion by Anthropology
CHAPTER XI.
FROM "THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR" TO METEOROLOGY.
I. Growth of a Theological Theory.
The beliefs of classical antiquity regarding storms, thunder, and
lightning
Development of a sacred science of meteorology by the fathers of
the Church
Theories of Cosmas Indicopleustes
Of Isidore
Of Seville
Of Bede
Of Rabanus Maurus
Rational views of Honorius of Autun
Orthodox theories of John of San Geminiano
Attempt of Albert the Great to reconcile the speculations of
Aristotle with the theological views
The monkish encyclopedists
Theories regarding the rainbow and the causes of storms
Meteorological phenomena attributed to the Almighty
II. Diabolical Agency in Storms.
Meteorological phenomena attributed to the devil--"the prince of
the power of the air"
Propagation of this belief by the medieval theologians
Its transmission to both Catholics and Protestants--Eck, Luther
The great work of Delrio
Guacci's Compendium
The employment of prayer against "the powers of the air"
Of exorcisms
Of fetiches and processions
Of consecrated church bells
III. The Agency of Witches.
The fearful results of the witch superstition
Its growth out of the doctrine of evil agency in atmospheric
phenomena
Archbishop Agobard's futile attempt to dispel it
Its sanction by the popes
Its support by confessions extracted by torture
Part taken in the persecution by Dominicans and Jesuits
Opponents of the witch theory--Pomponatius, Paracelsus, Agrippa
of Nettesheim
Jean Bodin's defence of the superstition
Fate of Cornelius Loos
Of Dietrich Flade
Efforts of Spee to stem the persecution
His posthumous influence
Upholders of the orthodox view--Bishop Binsfeld, Remigius
Vain protests of Wier
Persecution of Bekker for opposing the popular belief
Effect of the Reformation in deepening the superstition
The persecution in Great Britain and America
Development of a scientific view of the heavens
Final efforts to revive the old belief
IV. Franklin's Lightning-Rod.
Franklin's experiments with the kite
Their effect on the old belief
Efforts at compromise between the scientific and theological
theories
Successful use of the lightning-rod
Religious scruples against it in America
In England
In Austria
In Italy
Victory of the scientific theory
This victory exemplified in the case of the church of the
monastery of Lerins
In the case of Dr. Moorhouse
In the case of the Missouri droughts
CHAPTER XII.
FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
I. The Supremacy of Magic.
Primitive tendency to belief in magic
The Greek conception of natural laws
Influence of Plato and Aristotle on the growth of science
Effect of the establishment of Christianity on the development of
the physical sciences
The revival of thought in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries
Albert the Great
Vincent of Beauvais
Thomas Aquinas
Roger Bacon's beginning of the experimental method brought to
nought
The belief that science is futile gives place to the belief that
it is dangerous
The two kinds of magic
Rarity of persecution for magic before the Christian era
The Christian theory of devils
Constantine's laws against magic
Increasing terror of magic and witchcraft
Papal enactments against them
Persistence of the belief in magic
Its effect on the development of science
Roger Bacon
Opposition of secular rulers to science
John Baptist Porta
The opposition to scientific societies in Italy
In England
The effort to turn all thought from science to religion
The development of mystic theology
Its harmful influence on science
Mixture of theological with scientific speculation
This shown in the case of Melanchthon
In that of Francis Bacon
Theological theory of gases
Growth of a scientific theory
Basil Valentine and his contributions to chemistry
Triumph of the scientific theory
II. The Triumph of Chemistry and Physics.
New epoch in chemistry begun by Boyle
Attitude of the mob toward science
Effect on science of the reaction following the French
Revolution: {?}
Development of chemistry since the middle of the nineteenth
century
Development of physics
Modern opposition to science in Catholic countries
Attack of scientific education in France
In England
In Prussia
Revolt against the subordination of education to science
Effect of the International Exhibition of ii {?} at London
Of the endowment of State colleges in America by the Morrill
Act of 1862
The results to religion
CHAPTER XIII.
FROM MIRACLES TO MEDICINE.
I. THE EARLY AND SACRED THEORIES OF DISEASE.
Naturalness of the idea of supernatural intervention in causing
and curing disease
Prevalence of this idea in ancient civilizations
Beginnings of a scientific theory of medicine
The twofold influence of Christianity on the healing art
II. GROWTH OF LEGENDS OF HEALING.--THE LIFE OF XAVIER AS A
TYPICAL EXAMPLE.
Growth of legends of miracles about the lives of great
benefactors of humanity
Sketch of Xavier's career
Absence of miraculous accounts in his writings and those of his
contemporaries
Direct evidence that Xavier wrought no miracles
Growth of legends of miracles as shown in the early biographies
of him
As shown in the canonization proceedings
Naturalness of these legends
III. THE MEDIAEVAL MIRACLES OF HEALING CHECK MEDICAL SCIENCE.
Character of the testimony regarding miracles
Connection of mediaeval with pagan miracles
Their basis of fact
Various kinds of miraculous cures
Atmosphere of supernaturalism thrown about all cures
Influence of this atmosphere on medical science
IV. THE ATTRIBUTION OF DISEASE TO SATANIC INFLUENCE.--"PASTORAL
MEDICINE" CHECKS SCIENTIFIC EFFORT.
Theological theory as to the cause of disease
Influence of self-interest on "pastoral medicine"
Development of fetichism at Cologne and elsewhere
Other developments of fetich cure
V. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO ANATOMICAL STUDIES.
Medieval belief in the unlawfulness of meddling with the bodies
of the dead
Dissection objected to on the ground that "the Church abhors the
shedding of blood"
The decree of Boniface VIII and its results
VI. NEW BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.
Galen
Scanty development of medical science in the Church
Among Jews and Mohammedans
Promotion of medical science by various Christian laymen of the
Middle Ages
By rare men of science
By various ecclesiastics
VII. THEOLOGICAL DISCOURAGEMENT OF MEDICINE.
Opposition to seeking cure from disease by natural means
Requirement of ecclesiastical advice before undertaking medical
treatment
Charge of magic and Mohammedanism against men of science
Effect of ecclesiastical opposition to medicine
The doctrine of signatures
The doctrine of exorcism
Theological opposition to surgery
Development of miracle and fetich cures
Fashion in pious cures
Medicinal properties of sacred places
Theological argument in favour of miraculous cures
Prejudice against Jewish physicians
VIII. FETICH CURES UNDER PROTESTANTISM.--THE ROYAL TOUCH.
Luther's theory of disease
The royal touch
Cures wrought by Charles II
By James II
By William III
By Queen Anne
By Louis XIV
Universal acceptance of these miracles
IX. THE SCIENTIFIC STRUGGLE FOR ANATOMY.
Occasional encouragement of medical science in the Middle Ages
New impulse given by the revival of learning and the age of
discovery
Paracelsus and Mundinus
Vesalius, the founder of the modern science of anatomy.--His
career and fate
X. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO INOCULATION, VACCINATION, AND THE
USE OF ANAESTHETICS.
Theological opposition to inoculation in Europe
In America
Theological opposition to vaccination
Recent hostility to vaccination in England
In Canada, during the smallpox epidemic
Theological opposition to the use of cocaine
To the use of quinine
Theological opposition to the use of anesthetics
XI. FINAL BREAKING AWAY OF THE THEOLOGICAL THEORY IN MEDICINE.
Changes incorporated in the American Book of Common Prayer
Effect on the theological view of the growing knowledge of the
relation between imagination and medicine
Effect of the discoveries in hypnotism
In bacteriology
Relation between ascertained truth and the "ages of faith"
CHAPTER XIV.
FROM FETICH TO HYGIENE.
I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW OF EPIDEMICS AND SANITATION.
The recurrence of great pestilences
Their early ascription to the wrath or malice of unseen powers
Their real cause want of hygienic precaution
Theological apotheosis of filth
Sanction given to the sacred theory of pestilence by Pope Gregory
the Great
Modes of propitiating the higher powers
Modes of thwarting the powers of evil
Persecution of the Jews as Satan's emissaries
Persecution of witches as Satan's emissaries
Case of the Untori at Milan
New developments of fetichism.--The blood of St. Januarius at
Naples
Appearance of better methods in Italy.--In Spain
II. GRADUAL DECAY OF THEOLOGICAL VIEWS REGARDING SANITATION.
Comparative freedom of England from persecutions for
plague-bringing, in spite of her wretched sanitary condition
Aid sought mainly through church services
Effects of the great fire in London
The jail fever
The work of John Howard
Plagues in the American colonies
In France.--The great plague at Marseilles
Persistence of the old methods in Austria
In Scotland
III. THE TRIUMPH OF SANITARY SCIENCE.
Difficulty of reconciling the theological theory of pestilences
with accumulating facts
Curious approaches to a right theory
The law governing the relation of theology to disease
Recent victories of hygiene in all countries
In England.---Chadwick and his fellows
In France
IV. THE RELATION OF SANITARY SCIENCE TO RELIGION.
The process of sanitary science not at the cost of religion
Illustration from the policy of Napoleon III in France
Effect of proper sanitation on epidemics in the United States
Change in the attitude of the Church toward the cause and cure of
pestilence
CHAPTER XV.
FROM "DEMONIACAL POSSESSION" TO INSANITY.
I. THEOLOGICAL IDEAS OF LUNACY AND ITS TREATMENT.
The struggle for the scientific treatment of the insane
The primitive ascription of insanity to evil spirits
Better Greek and Roman theories--madness a disease
The Christian Church accepts the demoniacal theory of insanity
Yet for a time uses mild methods for the insane
Growth of the practice of punishing the indwelling demon
Two sources whence better things might have been hoped.--The
reasons of their futility
The growth of exorcism
Use of whipping and torture
The part of art and literature in making vivid to the common mind
the idea of diabolic activity
The effects of religious processions as a cure for mental disease
Exorcism of animals possessed of demons
Belief in the transformation of human beings into animals
The doctrine of demoniacal possession in the Reformed Church
II. BEGINNINGS OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM.
Rivalry between Catholics and Protestants in the casting out of
devils
Increased belief in witchcraft during the period following the
Reformation
Increase of insanity during the witch persecutions II {?}
Attitude of physicians toward witchcraft I
Religious hallucinations of the insane I
Theories as to the modes of diabolic entrance into the possessed
Influence of monastic life on the development of insanity
Protests against the theological view of insanity--Wier,
Montaigue Bekker
Last struggles of the old superstition
III. THE FINAL STRUGGLE AND VICTORY OF SCIENCE.--PINEL AND TUKE.
Influence of French philosophy on the belief in demoniacal
possession
Reactionary influence of John Wesley
Progress of scientific ideas in Prussia
In Austria
In America
In South Germany
General indifference toward the sufferings of madmen
The beginnings of a more humane treatment
Jean Baptiste Pinel
Improvement in the treatment of the insane in England.--William
Tuke
The place of Pinel and Tuke in history
CHAPTER XVI.
FROM DIABOLISM TO HYSTERIA.
I. THE EPIDEMICS OF "POSSESSION."
Survival of the belief in diabolic activity as the cause of such
epidemics
Epidemics of hysteria in classical times
In the Middle Ages
The dancing mania
Inability of science during the fifteenth century to cope with
such diseases
Cases of possession brought within the scope of medical research
during the sixteenth century
Dying-out of this form of mental disease in northern Europe
In Italy
Epidemics of hysteria in the convents
The case of Martha Brossier
Revival in France of belief in diabolic influence
The Ursulines of Loudun and Urbain Grandier
Possession among the Huguenots
In New England.--The Salem witch persecution
At Paris.--Alleged miracles at the grave of Archdeacon Paris
In Germany.--Case of Maria Renata Sanger
More recent outbreaks
II. BEGINNINGS OF HELPFUL SCEPTICISM.
Outbreaks of hysteria in factories and hospitals
In places of religious excitement
The case at Morzine
Similar cases among Protestants and in Africa
III. THEOLOGICAL "RESTATEMENTS."--FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE
SCIENTIFIC VIEW AND METHODS.
Successful dealings of medical science with mental diseases
Attempts to give a scientific turn to the theory of diabolic
agency in disease
Last great demonstration of the old belief in England
Final triumph of science in the latter half of the present
century
Last echoes of the old belief
CHAPTER XVII.
FROM BABEL TO COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY.
I. THE SACRED THEORY IN ITS FIRST FORM.
Difference of the history of Comparative Philology from that of
other sciences as regards the attitude of theologians
Curiosity of early man regarding the origin, the primitive form,
and the diversity of language
The Hebrew answer to these questions
The legend of the Tower of Babel
The real reason for the building of towers by the Chaldeans and
the causes of their ruin
Other legends of a confusion of tongues
Influence upon Christendom of the Hebrew legends
Lucretius's theory of the origin of language
The teachings of the Church fathers on this subject
The controversy as to the divine origin of the Hebrew vowel
points
Attitude of the reformers toward this question
Of Catholic scholars.--Marini Capellus and his adversaries
The treatise of Danzius
II. THE SACRED THEORY OF LANGUAGE IN ITS SECOND FORM.
Theological theory that Hebrew was the primitive tongue, divinely
revealed
This theory supported by all Christian scholars until the
beginning of the eighteenth century
Dissent of Prideaux and Cotton Mather
Apparent strength of the sacred theory of language
III. BREAKING DOWN OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.
Reason for the Church's ready acceptance of the conclusions of
comparative philology
Beginnings of a scientific theory of language
Hottinger
Leibnitz
The collections of Catharine the Great, of Hervas, and of Adelung
Chaotic period in philology between Leibnitz and the beginning of
the study of Sanskrit
Illustration from the successive editions of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica
IV. TRIUMPH OF THE NEW SCIENCE.
Effect of the discovery of Sanskrit on the old theory
Attempts to discredit the new learning
General acceptance of the new theory
Destruction of the belief that all created things were first
named by Adam
Of the belief in the divine origin of letters
Attempts in England to support the old theory of language
Progress of philological science in France
In Germany
In Great Britain
Recent absurd attempts to prove Hebrew the primitive tongue
V. SUMMARY.
Gradual disappearance of the old theories regarding the origin of
speech and writing
Full acceptance of the new theories by all Christian scholars
The result to religion, and to the Bible
CHAPTER XVIII.
FROM THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS TO COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY,
I. THE GROWTH OF EXPLANATORY TRANSFORMATION MYTHS.
Growth of myths to account for remarkable appearances in
Nature--mountains, rocks, curiously marked stones, fossils,
products of volcanic action
Myths of the transformation of living beings into natural objects
Development of the science of Comparative Mythology
II. MEDIAEVAL GROWTH OF THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS.
Description of the Dead Sea
Impression made by its peculiar features on the early dwellers in
Palestine
Reasons for selecting the Dead Sea myths for study
Naturalness of the growth of legend regarding the salt region of
Usdum
Universal belief in these legends
Concurrent testimony of early and mediaeval writers, Jewish and
Christian, respecting the existence of Lot's wife as a "pillar of
salt," and of the other wonders of the Dead Sea
Discrepancies in the various accounts and theological
explanations of them
Theological arguments respecting the statue of Lot's wife
Growth of the legend in the sixteenth century
III. POST-REFORMATION CULMINATION OF THE DEAD SEA
LEGENDS.--BEGINNINGS OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM.
Popularization of the older legends at the Reformation
Growth of new myths among scholars
Signs of scepticism among travellers near the end of the
sixteenth century
Effort of Quaresmio to check this tendency
Of Eugene Roger
Of Wedelius
Influence of these teachings
Renewed scepticism--the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries
Efforts of Briemle and Masius in support of the old myths
Their influence
The travels of Mariti and of Volney
Influence of scientific thought on the Dead Sea legends during
the eighteenth century
Reactionary efforts of Chateaubriand
Investigations of the naturalist Seetzen
Of Dr. Robinson
The expedition of Lieutenant Lynch
The investigations of De Saulcy
Of the Duc de Luynes.--Lartet's report
Summary of the investigations of the nineteenth
century.--Ritter's verdict
IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.--TRIUMPH OF THE
SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
Attempts to reconcile scientific facts with the Dead Sea legends
Van de Velde's investigations of the Dead Sea region
Canon Tristram's
Mgr. Mislin's protests against the growing rationalism
The work of Schaff and Osborn
Acceptance of the scientific view by leaders in the Church
Dr. Geikie's ascription of the myths to the Arabs
Mgr. Haussmann de Wandelburg and his rejection of the scientific
view
Service of theologians to religion in accepting the conclusions
of silence in this field
CHAPTER XIX.
FROM LEVITICUS TO POLITICAL ECONOMY
I. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF HOSTILITY TO LOANS AT INTEREST.
Universal belief in the sin of loaning money at interest
The taking of interest among the Greeks and Romans
Opposition of leaders of thought, especially Aristotle
Condemnation of the practice by the Old and New Testaments
By the Church fathers
In ecclesiastical and secular legislation
Exception sometimes made in behalf of the Jews
Hostility of the pulpit
Of the canon law
Evil results of the prohibition of loans at interest
Efforts to induce the Church to change her position
Theological evasions of the rule
Attitude of the Reformers toward the taking of interest
Struggle in England for recognition of the right to accept
interest
Invention of a distinction between usury and interest
II. RETREAT OF THE CHURCH, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC.
Sir Robert Filmer's attack on the old doctrine
Retreat of the Protestant Church in Holland
In Germany and America
Difficulties in the way of compromise in the Catholic Church
Failure of such attempts in France
Theoretical condemnation of usury in Italy
Disregard of all restrictions in practice
Attempts of Escobar and Liguori to reconcile the taking of
interest with the teachings of the Church
Montesquieu's attack on the old theory
Encyclical of Benedict XIV permitting the taking of interest
Similar decision of the Inquisition at Rome
Final retreat of the Catholic Church
Curious dealings of theology with public economy in other fields
CHAPTER XX.
FROM THE DIVINE ORACLES TO THE HIGHER CRITICISM.
I. THE OLDER INTERPRETATION.
Character of the great sacred
books of the world
General laws governing the development and influence of sacred
literature.--The law of its origin
Legends concerning the Septuagint
The law of wills and causes
The law of inerrancy
Hostility to the revision of King James's translation of the
Bible
The law of unity
Working of these laws seen in the great rabbinical schools
The law of allegorical interpretation
Philo
Judaeus
Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria
Occult significance of numbers
Origen
Hilary of Poitiers and Jerome
Augustine
Gregory the Great
Vain attempts to check the flood of allegorical interpretations
Bede.--Savonarola
Methods of modern criticism for the first time employed by
Lorenzo Valla
Erasmus
Influence of the Reformation on the belief in the infallibility
of the sacred books.--Luther and Melanchthon
Development of scholasticism in the Reformed Church
Catholic belief in the inspiration of the Vulgate
Opposition in Russia to the revision of the Slavonic Scriptures
Sir Isaac Newton as a commentator
Scriptural interpretation at the beginning of the eighteenth
century
II. BEGINNINGS OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
Theological beliefs regarding the Pentateuch
The book of Genesis
Doubt thrown on the sacred theory by Aben Ezra
By Carlstadt and Maes
Influence of the discovery that the Isidorian
Decretals were forgeries
That the writings ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite were
serious
Hobbes and La Peyrere
Spinoza
Progress of biblical criticism in France.--Richard Simon
LeClerc
Bishop Lowth
Astruc
Eichhorn's application of the "higher criticism" to biblical
research
Isenbiehl
Herder
Alexander Geddes
Opposition to the higher criticism in Germany
Hupfeld
Vatke and Reuss
Kuenen
Wellhausen
III. THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
Progress of the higher criticism in Germany and Holland
Opposition to it in England
At the University of Oxford
Pusey
Bentley
Wolf
Niebuhr and Arnold
Milman
Thirlwall and Grote
The publication of Essays and Reviews, and the storm raised by
book
IV. THE CLOSING STRUGGLE.
Colenso's work on the Pentateuch
The persecution of him
Bishop Wilberforce's part in it
Dean Stanley's
Bishop Thirlwall's
Results of Colenso's work
Sanday's Bampton Lectures
Keble College and Lux
Mundi
Progress of biblical criticism among the dissenters
In France.--Renan
In the Roman Catholic Church
The encyclical letter of Pope Leo XIII
In America.--Theodore Parker
Apparent strength of the old theory of inspiration
Real strength of the new movement
V. VICTORY OF THE SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY METHODS.
Confirmation of the conclusions of the higher criticism by
Assyriology and Egyptology
Light thrown upon Hebrew religion by the translation of the
sacred books of the East
The influence of Persian thought.--The work of the Rev. Dr. Mills
The influence of Indian thought.--Light thrown by the study of
Brahmanism and Buddhism
The work of Fathers Huc and Gabet
Discovery that Buddha himself had been canonized as a Christian
saint
Similarity between the ideas and legends of Buddhism and those of
Christianity
The application of the higher criticism to the New Testament
The English "Revised Version" of Studies on the formation of the
canon of Scripture
Recognition of the laws governing its development
Change in the spirit of the controversy over the higher criticism
VI. RECONSTRUCTIVE FORCE OF SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM.
Development of a scientific atmosphere during the last three
centuries
Action of modern science in reconstruction of religious truth
Change wrought by it in the conception of a sacred literature
Of the Divine Power.--Of man.---Of the world at large
Of our Bible
CHAPTER I. FROM CREATION TO EVOLUTION.
I. THE VISIBLE UNIVERSE.
Among those masses of cathedral sculpture which preserve so much of
medieval theology, one frequently recurring group is noteworthy for
its presentment of a time-honoured doctrine regarding the origin of the
universe.
The Almighty, in human form, sits benignly, making the sun, moon, and
stars, and hanging them from the solid firmament which supports the
"heaven above" and overarches the "earth beneath."
The furrows of thought on the Creator's brow show that in this work he
is obliged to contrive; the knotted muscles upon his arms show that he
is obliged to toil; naturally, then, the sculptors and painters of
the medieval and early modern period frequently represented him as the
writers whose conceptions they embodied had done--as, on the seventh
day, weary after thought and toil, enjoying well-earned repose and the
plaudits of the hosts of heaven.
In these thought-fossils of the cathedrals, and in other revelations of
the same idea through sculpture, painting, glass-staining, mosaic work,
and engraving, during the Middle Ages and the two centuries following,
culminated a belief which had been developed through thousands of years,
and which has determined the world's thought until our own time.
Its beginnings lie far back in human history; we find them among the
early records of nearly all the great civilizations, and they hold a
most prominent place in the various sacred books of the world. In nearly
all of them is revealed the conception of a Creator of whom man is an
imperfect image, and who literally and directly created the visible
universe with his hands and fingers.
Among these theories, of especial interest to us are those which
controlled theological thought in Chaldea. The Assyrian inscriptions
which have been recently recovered and given to the English-speaking
peoples by Layard, George Smith, Sayce, and others, show that in the
ancient religions of Chaldea and Babylonia there was elaborated a
narrative of the creation which, in its most important features, must
have been the source of that in our own sacred books. It has now become
perfectly clear that from the same sources which inspired the accounts
of the creation of the universe among the Chaldeo-Babylonian, the
Assyrian, the Phoenician, and other ancient civilizations came the ideas
which hold so prominent a place in the sacred books of the Hebrews. In
the two accounts imperfectly fused together in Genesis, and also in
the account of which we have indications in the book of Job and in the
Proverbs, there, is presented, often with the greatest sublimity,
the same early conception of the Creator and of the creation--the
conception, so natural in the childhood of civilization, of a Creator
who is an enlarged human being working literally with his own hands,
and of a creation which is "the work of his fingers." To supplement this
view there was developed the belief in this Creator as one who, having
... "from his ample palm Launched forth the rolling planets into space."
sits on high, enthroned "upon the circle of the heavens," perpetually
controlling and directing them.
From this idea of creation was evolved in time a somewhat nobler view.
Ancient thinkers, and especially, as is now found, in Egypt, suggested
that the main agency in creation was not the hands and fingers of the
Creator, but his VOICE. Hence was mingled with the earlier, cruder
belief regarding the origin of the earth and heavenly bodies by
the Almighty the more impressive idea that "he spake and they were
made"--that they were brought into existence by his WORD.(1)
(1) Among the many mediaeval representations of the creation of the
universe, I especially recall from personal observation those sculptured
above the portals of the cathedrals of Freiburg and Upsala, the
paintings on the walls of the Campo Santo at Pisa, and most striking of
all, the mosaics of the Cathedral of Monreale and those in the Capella
Palatina at Palermo. Among peculiarities showing the simplicity of the
earlier conception the representation of the response of the Almighty
on the seventh day is very striking. He is shown as seated in almost the
exact attitude of the "Weary Mercury" of classic sculpture--bent, and
with a very marked expression of fatigue upon his countenance and in the
whole disposition of his body.
The Monreale mosaics are pictured in the great work of Gravina, and in
the Pisa frescoes in Didron's Iconographie, Paris, 1843, p. 598. For
an exact statement of the resemblances which have settled the question
among the most eminent scholars in favour of the derivation of the
Hebrew cosmogony from that of Assyria, see Jensen, Die Kosmologie
der Babylonier, Strassburg, 1890, pp. 304,306; also Franz Lukas, Die
Grundbegriffe in den Kosmographien der alten Volker, Leipsic, 1893,
pp. 35-46; also George Smith's Chaldean Genesis, especially the German
translation with additions by Delitzsch, Leipsic, 1876, and Schrader,
Die Keilinschriften und das Alte Testament, Giessen, 1883, pp. 1-54,
etc. See also Renan, Histoire du peuple d'Israel, vol. i, chap i,
L'antique influence babylonienne. For Egyptian views regarding creation,
and especially for the transition from the idea of creation by the hands
and fingers of the Creator to creation by his VOICE and his "word," see
Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of Civilization, pp. 145-146.
Among the early fathers of the Church this general view of creation
became fundamental; they impressed upon Christendom more and more
strongly the belief that the universe was created in a perfectly literal
sense by the hands or voice of God. Here and there sundry theologians of
larger mind attempted to give a more spiritual view regarding some parts
of the creative work, and of these were St. Gregory of Nyssa and St.
Augustine. Ready as they were to accept the literal text of Scripture,
they revolted against the conception of an actual creation of the
universe by the hands and fingers of a Supreme Being, and in this
they were followed by Bede and a few others; but the more material
conceptions prevailed, and we find these taking shape not only in the
sculptures and mosaics and stained glass of cathedrals, and in the
illuminations of missals and psalters, but later, at the close of the
Middle Ages, in the pictured Bibles and in general literature.
Into the Anglo-Saxon mind this ancient material conception of the
creation was riveted by two poets whose works appealed especially to the
deeper religious feelings. In the seventh century Caedmon paraphrased
the account given in Genesis, bringing out this material conception in
the most literal form; and a thousand years later Milton developed out
of the various statements in the Old Testament, mingled with a theology
regarding "the creative Word" which had been drawn from the New, his
description of the creation by the second person in the Trinity, than
which nothing could be more literal and material:
"He took the golden compasses, prepared
In God's eternal store, to circumscribe
This universe and all created things.
One foot he centred, and the other turned
Round through the vast profundity obscure,
And said, 'Thus far extend, thus far thy bounds:
This be thy just circumference, O world!'"(2)
(2) For Gregory of Nyssa, Augustine, and the general subject of the
development of an evolution theory among the Greeks, see the excellent
work by Dr. Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin, pp.33 and following; for
Caedmon, see any edition--I have used Bouterwek's, Gutersloh, 1854; for
Milton, see Paradise Lost, book vii, lines 225-231.
So much for the orthodox view of the MANNER of creation.
The next point developed in this theologic evolution had reference to
the MATTER of which the universe was made, and it was decided by an
overwhelming majority that no material substance existed before the
creation of the material universe--that "God created everything out of
nothing." Some venturesome thinkers, basing their reasoning upon the
first verses of Genesis, hinted at a different view--namely, that the
mass, "without form and void," existed before the universe; but this
doctrine was soon swept out of sight. The vast majority of the fathers
were explicit on this point. Tertullian especially was very severe
against those who took any other view than that generally accepted as
orthodox: he declared that, if there had been any pre-existing matter
out of which the world was formed, Scripture would have mentioned it;
that by not mentioning it God has given us a clear proof that there
was no such thing; and, after a manner not unknown in other theological
controversies, he threatens Hermogenes, who takes the opposite view,
with the woe which impends on all who add to or take away from the
written word.
St. Augustine, who showed signs of a belief in a pre-existence of
matter, made his peace with the prevailing belief by the simple
reasoning that, "although the world has been made of some material, that
very same material must have been made out of nothing."
In the wake of these great men the universal Church steadily followed.
The Fourth Lateran Council declared that God created everything out
of nothing; and at the present hour the vast majority of the
faithful--whether Catholic or Protestant--are taught the same doctrine;
on this point the syllabus of Pius IX and the Westminster Catechism
fully agree.(3)
(3) For Tertullian, see Tertullian against Hermogenes, chaps. xx and
xxii; for St. Augustine regarding "creation from nothing," see the De
Genesi contra Manichaeos, lib, i, cap. vi; for St. Ambrose, see the
Hexameron, lib, i, cap iv; for the decree of the Fourth Lateran Council,
and the view received in the Church to-day, see the article Creation in
Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary.
Having thus disposed of the manner and matter of creation, the next
subject taken up by theologians was the TIME required for the great
work.
Here came a difficulty. The first of the two accounts given in Genesis
extended the creative operation through six days, each of an evening
and a morning, with much explicit detail regarding the progress made in
each. But the second account spoke of "THE DAY" in which "the Lord God
made the earth and the heavens." The explicitness of the first account
and its naturalness to the minds of the great mass of early theologians
gave it at first a decided advantage; but Jewish thinkers, like Philo,
and Christian thinkers, like Origen, forming higher conceptions of
the Creator and his work, were not content with this, and by them was
launched upon the troubled sea of Christian theology the idea that the
creation was instantaneous, this idea being strengthened not only by the
second of the Genesis legends, but by the great text, "He spake, and
it was done; he commanded, and it stood fast"--or, as it appears in
the Vulgate and in most translations, "He spake, and they were made; he
commanded, and they were created."
As a result, it began to be held that the safe and proper course was to
believe literally BOTH statements; that in some mysterious manner God
created the universe in six days, and yet brought it all into existence
in a moment. In spite of the outcries of sundry great theologians,
like Ephrem Syrus, that the universe was created in exactly six days of
twenty-four hours each, this compromise was promoted by St. Athanasius
and St. Basil in the East, and by St. Augustine and St. Hilary in the
West.
Serious difficulties were found in reconciling these two views, which
to the natural mind seem absolutely contradictory; but by ingenious
manipulation of texts, by dexterous play upon phrases, and by the
abundant use of metaphysics to dissolve away facts, a reconciliation
was effected, and men came at least to believe that they believed in
a creation of the universe instantaneous and at the same time extended
through six days.(4)
(4) For Origen, see his Contra Celsum, cap xxxvi, xxxvii; also his
De Principibus, cap. v; for St. Augustine, see his De Genesi conta
Manichaeos and De Genesi ad Litteram, passim; for Athanasius, see his
Discourses against the Arians, ii, 48,49.
Some of the efforts to reconcile these two accounts were so fruitful as
to deserve especial record. The fathers, Eastern and Western, developed
out of the double account in Genesis, and the indications in the Psalms,
the Proverbs, and the book of Job, a vast mass of sacred science bearing
upon this point. As regards the whole work of creation, stress was laid
upon certain occult powers in numerals. Philo Judaeus, while believing
in an instantaneous creation, had also declared that the world was
created in six days because "of all numbers six is the most productive";
he had explained the creation of the heavenly bodies on the fourth day
by "the harmony of the number four"; of the animals on the fifth day
by the five senses; of man on the sixth day by the same virtues in the
number six which had caused it to be set as a limit to the creative
work; and, greatest of all, the rest on the seventh day by the vast mass
of mysterious virtues in the number seven.
St. Jerome held that the reason why God did not pronounce the work of
the second day "good" is to be found in the fact that there is something
essentially evil in the number two, and this was echoed centuries
afterward, afar off in Britain, by Bede.
St. Augustine brought this view to bear upon the Church in the following
statement: "There are three classes of numbers--the more than perfect,
the perfect, and the less than perfect, according as the sum of them
is greater than, equal to, or less than the original number. Six is the
first perfect number: wherefore we must not say that six is a perfect
number because God finished all his works in six days, but that God
finished all his works in six days because six is a perfect number."
Reasoning of this sort echoed along through the mediaeval Church until
a year after the discovery of America, when the Nuremberg Chronicle
re-echoed it as follows: "The creation of things is explained by the
number six, the parts of which, one, two, and three, assume the form of
a triangle."
This view of the creation of the universe as instantaneous and also as
in six days, each made up of an evening and a morning, became virtually
universal. Peter Lombard and Hugo of St. Victor, authorities of vast
weight, gave it their sanction in the twelfth century, and impressed it
for ages upon the mind of the Church.
Both these lines of speculation--as to the creation of everything out
of nothing, and the reconciling of the instantaneous creation of the
universe with its creation in six days--were still further developed by
other great thinkers of the Middle Ages.
St. Hilary of Poictiers reconciled the two conceptions as follows: "For,
although according to Moses there is an appearance of regular order
in the fixing of the firmament, the laying bare of the dry land, the
gathering together of the waters, the formation of the heavenly bodies,
and the arising of living things from land and water, yet the creation
of the heavens, earth, and other elements is seen to be the work of a
single moment."
St. Thomas Aquinas drew from St. Augustine a subtle distinction which
for ages eased the difficulties in the case: he taught in effect that
God created the substance of things in a moment, but gave to the work of
separating, shaping, and adorning this creation, six days.(5)
(5) For Philo Judaeus, see his Creation of the World, chap. iii; for
St. Augustine on the powers of numbers in creation, see his De Genesi ad
Litteram iv, chap. ii; for Peter Lombard, see the Sententiae, lib. ii,
dist. xv, 5; and for Hugo of St. Victor, see De Sacrementis, lib i, pars
i; also, Annotat, Elucidat in Pentateuchum, cap. v, vi, vii; for St.
Hilary, see De Trinitate, lib. xii; for St. Thomas Aquinas, see his
Summa Theologica, quest lxxxiv, arts. i and ii; the passage in the
Nuremberg Chronicle, 1493, is in fol. iii; for Vousset, see his Discours
sur l'Histoire Universelle; for the sacredness of the number seven among
the Babylonians, see especially Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das
Alte Testament, pp. 21,22; also George Smith et al.; for general ideas
on the occult powers of various numbers, especially the number seven,
and the influence of these ideas on theology and science, see my chapter
on astronomy. As to medieaval ideas on the same subject, see Detzel,
Christliche Ikonographie, Frieburg, 1894, pp. 44 and following.
The early reformers accepted and developed the same view, and Luther
especially showed himself equal to the occasion. With his usual boldness
he declared, first, that Moses "spoke properly and plainly, and neither
allegorically nor figuratively," and that therefore "the world with all
creatures was created in six days." And he then goes on to show how, by
a great miracle, the whole creation was also instantaneous.
Melanchthon also insisted that the universe was created out of nothing
and in a mysterious way, both in an instant and in six days, citing the
text: "He spake, and they were made."
Calvin opposed the idea of an instantaneous creation, and laid especial
stress on the creation in six days: having called attention to the
fact that the biblical chronology shows the world to be not quite
six thousand years old and that it is now near its end, he says that
"creation was extended through six days that it might not be tedious for
us to occupy the whole of life in the consideration of it."
Peter Martyr clinched the matter by declaring: "So important is it to
comprehend the work of creation that we see the creed of the Church take
this as its starting point. Were this article taken away there would be
no original sin, the promise of Christ would become void, and all the
vital force of our religion would be destroyed." The Westminster divines
in drawing up their Confession of Faith specially laid it down as
necessary to believe that all things visible and invisible were created
not only out of nothing but in exactly six days.
Nor were the Roman divines less strenuous than the Protestant reformers
regarding the necessity of holding closely to the so-called Mosaic
account of creation. As late as the middle of the eighteenth century,
when Buffon attempted to state simple geological truths, the theological
faculty of the Sorbonne forced him to make and to publish a most
ignominious recantation which ended with these words: "I abandon
everything in my book respecting the formation of the earth, and
generally all which may be contrary to the narrative of Moses."
Theologians, having thus settled the manner of the creation, the matter
used in it, and the time required for it, now exerted themselves to fix
its DATE.
The long series of efforts by the greatest minds in the Church, from
Eusebius to Archbishop Usher, to settle this point are presented in
another chapter. Suffice it here that the general conclusion arrived
at by an overwhelming majority of the most competent students of the
biblical accounts was that the date of creation was, in round numbers,
four thousand years before our era; and in the seventeenth century, in
his great work, Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the University
of Cambridge, and one of the most eminent Hebrew scholars of his time,
declared, as the result of his most profound and exhaustive study of
the Scriptures, that "heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were
created all together, in the same instant, and clouds full of water,"
and that "this work took place and man was created by the Trinity on
October 23, 4004 B. C., at nine o'clock in the morning."
Here was, indeed, a triumph of Lactantius's method, the result of
hundreds of years of biblical study and theological thought since Bede
in the eighth century, and Vincent of Beauvais in the thirteenth, had
declared that creation must have taken place in the spring. Yet, alas!
within two centuries after Lightfoot's great biblical demonstration as
to the exact hour of creation, it was discovered that at that hour
an exceedingly cultivated people, enjoying all the fruits of a highly
developed civilization, had long been swarming in the great cities of
Egypt, and that other nations hardly less advanced had at that time
reached a high development in Asia.(6)
(6) For Luther, see his Commentary on Genesis, 1545, introduction,
and his comments on chap. i, verse 12; the quotations from Luther's
commentary are taken mainly from the translation by Henry Cole, D.D.,
Edinburgh, 1858; for Melanchthon, see Loci Theologici, in Melanchthon,
Opera, ed. Bretschneider, vol. xxi, pp. 269, 270, also pp. 637, 638--in
quoting the text (Ps. xxiii, 9) I have used, as does Melanchthon
himself, the form of the Vulgate; for the citations from Calvin, see his
Commentary on Genesis (Opera omnia, Amsterdam, 1671, tom. i, cap. ii, p.
8); also in the Institutes, Allen's translation, London, 1838, vol.
i, chap. xv, pp. 126,127; for the Peter Martyr, see his Commentary
on Genesis, cited by Zockler, vol. i, p. 690; for articles in the
Westminster Confession of Faith, see chap. iv; for Buffon's recantation,
see Lyell, Principles of Geology, chap iii, p. 57. For Lightfoot's
declaration, see his works, edited by Pitman, London, 1822.
But, strange as it may seem, even after theologians had thus settled the
manner of creation, the matter employed in it, the time required for it,
and the exact date of it, there remained virtually unsettled the
first and greatest question of all; and this was nothing less than the
question, WHO actually created the universe?
Various theories more or less nebulous, but all centred in texts of
Scripture, had swept through the mind of the Church. By some theologians
it was held virtually that the actual creative agent was the third
person of the Trinity, who, in the opening words of our sublime creation
poem, "moved upon the face of the waters." By others it was held that
the actual Creator was the second person of the Trinity, in behalf of
whose agency many texts were cited from the New Testament. Others held
that the actual Creator was the first person, and this view was embodied
in the two great formulas known as the Apostles' and Nicene Creeds,
which explicitly assigned the work to "God the Father Almighty, Maker of
heaven and earth." Others, finding a deep meaning in the words "Let US
make," ascribed in Genesis to the Creator, held that the entire Trinity
directly created all things; and still others, by curious metaphysical
processes, seemed to arrive at the idea that peculiar combinations of
two persons of the Trinity achieved the creation.
In all this there would seem to be considerable courage in view of the
fearful condemnations launched in the Athanasian Creed against all who
should "confound the persons" or "divide the substance of the Trinity."
These various stages in the evolution of scholastic theology were
also embodied in sacred art, and especially in cathedral sculpture, in
glass-staining, in mosaic working, and in missal painting.
The creative Being is thus represented sometimes as the third person of
the Trinity, in the form of a dove brooding over chaos; sometimes as the
second person, and therefore a youth; sometimes as the first person,
and therefore fatherly and venerable; sometimes as the first and second
persons, one being venerable and the other youthful; and sometimes
as three persons, one venerable and one youthful, both wearing papal
crowns, and each holding in his lips a tip of the wing of the dove,
which thus seems to proceed from both and to be suspended between them.
Nor was this the most complete development of the medieval idea. The
Creator was sometimes represented with a single body, but with three
faces, thus showing that Christian belief had in some pious minds gone
through substantially the same cycle which an earlier form of belief had
made ages before in India, when the Supreme Being was represented with
one body but with the three faces of Brahma, Vishnu, and Siva.
But at the beginning of the modern period the older view in its
primitive Jewish form was impressed upon Christians by the most mighty
genius in art the world has known; for in 1512, after four years of
Titanic labour, Michael Angelo uncovered his frescoes within the vault
of the Sistine Chapel.
They had been executed by the command and under the sanction of the
ruling Pope, Julius II, to represent the conception of Christian
theology then dominant, and they remain to-day in all their majesty
to show the highest point ever attained by the older thought upon the
origin of the visible universe.
In the midst of the expanse of heaven the Almighty Father--the first
person of the Trinity--in human form, august and venerable, attended by
angels and upborne by mighty winds, sweeps over the abyss, and, moving
through successive compartments of the great vault, accomplishes the
work of the creative days. With a simple gesture he divides the light
from the darkness, rears on high the solid firmament, gathers together
beneath it the seas, or summons into existence the sun, moon, and
planets, and sets them circling about the earth.
In this sublime work culminated the thought of thousands of years; the
strongest minds accepted it or pretended to accept it, and nearly two
centuries later this conception, in accordance with the first of the
two accounts given in Genesis, was especially enforced by Bossuet,
and received a new lease of life in the Church, both Catholic and
Protestant.(7)
(7) For strange representations of the Creator and of the creation by
one, two, or three persons of the Trinity, see Didron, Iconographie
Chretienne, pp. 35, 178, 224, 483, 567-580, and elsewhere; also Detzel
as already cited. The most naive of all survivals of the mediaeval idea
of creation which the present writer has ever seen was exhibited in
1894 on the banner of one of the guilds at the celebration of the
four-hundredth anniversary of the founding of the Munich Cathedral.
Jesus of Nazareth, as a beautiful boy and with a nimbus encircling his
head, was shown turning and shaping the globe on a lathe, which he keeps
in motion with his foot. The emblems of the Passion are about him,
God the Father looking approvingly upon him from a cloud, and the dove
hovering between the two. The date upon the banner was 1727.
But to these discussions was added yet another, which, beginning in the
early days of the Church, was handed down the ages until it had died out
among the theologians of our own time.
In the first of the biblical accounts light is created and the
distinction between day and night thereby made on the first day,
while the sun and moon are not created until the fourth day. Masses of
profound theological and pseudo-scientific reasoning have been developed
to account for this--masses so great that for ages they have obscured
the simple fact that the original text is a precious revelation to us of
one of the most ancient of recorded beliefs--the belief that light and
darkness are entities independent of the heavenly bodies, and that the
sun, moon, and stars exist not merely to increase light but to "divide
the day from the night, to be for signs and for seasons, and for days
and for years," and "to rule the day and the night."
Of this belief we find survivals among the early fathers, and especially
in St. Ambrose. In his work on creation he tells us: "We must remember
that the light of day is one thing and the light of the sun, moon,
and stars another--the sun by his rays appearing to add lustre to
the daylight. For before sunrise the day dawns, but is not in full
refulgence, for the sun adds still further to its splendour." This
idea became one of the "treasures of sacred knowledge committed to the
Church," and was faithfully received by the Middle Ages. The medieval
mysteries and miracle plays give curious evidences of this: In a
performance of the creation, when God separates light from darkness, the
stage direction is, "Now a painted cloth is to be exhibited, one half
black and the other half white." It was also given more permanent form.
In the mosaics of San Marco at Venice, in the frescoes of the Baptistery
at Florence and of the Church of St. Francis at Assisi, and in the altar
carving at Salerno, we find a striking realization of it--the Creator
placing in the heavens two disks or living figures of equal size, each
suitably coloured or inscribed to show that one represents light and the
other darkness. This conception was without doubt that of the person or
persons who compiled from the Chaldean and other earlier statements the
accounts of the creation in the first of our sacred books.(8)
(8) For scriptural indications of the independent existence of light and
darkness, compare with the first verses of the chapter of Genesis such
passages as Job xxxviii, 19,24; for the general prevalence of this early
view, see Lukas, Kosmogonie, pp. 31, 33, 41, 74, and passim; for the
view of St. Ambrose regarding the creation of light and of the sun, see
his Hexameron, lib. 4, cap. iii; for an excellent general statement,
see Huxley, Mr. Gladstone and Genesis, in the Nineteenth Century, 1886,
reprinted in his Essays on Controverted Questions, London, 1892,
note, pp. 126 et seq.; for the acceptance in the miracle plays of the
scriptural idea of light and darkness as independent creations, see
Wright, Essays on Archeological Subjects, vol. ii, p.178; for an
account, with illustrations, of the mosaics, etc., representing this
idea, see Tikkanen, Die Genesis-mosaiken von San Marco, Helsingfors,
1889, p. 14 and 16 of the text and Plates I and II. Very naively the
Salerno carver, not wishing to colour the ivory which he wrought, has
inscribed on one disk the word "LUX" and on the other "NOX." See also
Didron, Iconographie, p. 482.
Thus, down to a period almost within living memory, it was held,
virtually "always, everywhere, and by all," that the universe, as we now
see it, was created literally and directly by the voice or hands of the
Almighty, or by both--out of nothing--in an instant or in six days, or
in both--about four thousand years before the Christian era--and for the
convenience of the dwellers upon the earth, which was at the base and
foundation of the whole structure.
But there had been implanted along through the ages germs of another
growth in human thinking, some of them even as early as the
Babylonian period. In the Assyrian inscriptions we find recorded the
Chaldeo-Babylonian idea of AN EVOLUTION of the universe out of the
primeval flood or "great deep," and of the animal creation out of the
earth and sea. This idea, recast, partially at least, into monotheistic
form, passed naturally into the sacred books of the neighbours and
pupils of the Chaldeans--the Hebrews; but its growth in Christendom
afterward was checked, as we shall hereafter find, by the more powerful
influence of other inherited statements which appealed more intelligibly
to the mind of the Church.
Striking, also, was the effect of this idea as rewrought by the early
Ionian philosophers, to whom it was probably transmitted from the
Chaldeans through the Phoenicians. In the minds of Ionians like
Anaximander and Anaximenes it was most clearly developed: the first of
these conceiving of the visible universe as the result of processes of
evolution, and the latter pressing further the same mode of reasoning,
and dwelling on agencies in cosmic development recognised in modern
science.
This general idea of evolution in Nature thus took strong hold upon
Greek thought and was developed in many ways, some ingenious, some
perverse. Plato, indeed, withstood it; but Aristotle sometimes developed
it in a manner which reminds us of modern views.
Among the Romans Lucretius caught much from it, extending the
evolutionary process virtually to all things.
In the early Church, as we have seen, the idea of a creation direct,
material, and by means like those used by man, was all-powerful for the
exclusion of conceptions based on evolution. From the more simple and
crude of the views of creation given in the Babylonian legends, and
thence incorporated into Genesis, rose the stream of orthodox thought
on the subject, which grew into a flood and swept on through the Middle
Ages and into modern times. Yet here and there in the midst of this
flood were high grounds of thought held by strong men. Scotus Erigena
and Duns Scotus, among the schoolmen, bewildered though they were,
had caught some rays of this ancient light, and passed on to their
successors, in modified form, doctrines of an evolutionary process in
the universe.
In the latter half of the sixteenth century these evolutionary theories
seemed to take more definite form in the mind of Giordano Bruno, who
evidently divined the fundamental idea of what is now known as the
"nebular hypothesis"; but with his murder by the Inquisition at Rome
this idea seemed utterly to disappear--dissipated by the flames which in
1600 consumed his body on the Campo dei Fiori.
Yet within the two centuries divided by Bruno's death the world was led
into a new realm of thought in which an evolution theory of the visible
universe was sure to be rapidly developed. For there came, one after
the other, five of the greatest men our race has produced--Copernicus,
Kepler, Galileo, Descartes, and Newton--and when their work was done
the old theological conception of the universe was gone. "The spacious
firmament on high"--"the crystalline spheres"--the Almighty enthroned
upon "the circle of the heavens," and with his own lands, or with angels
as his agents, keeping sun, moon, and planets in motion for the benefit
of the earth, opening and closing the "windows of heaven," letting down
upon the earth the "waters above the firmament," "setting his bow in the
cloud," hanging out "signs and wonders," hurling comets, "casting forth
lightnings" to scare the wicked, and "shaking the earth" in his wrath:
all this had disappeared.
These five men had given a new divine revelation to the world; and
through the last, Newton, had come a vast new conception, destined to
be fatal to the old theory of creation, for he had shown throughout the
universe, in place of almighty caprice, all-pervading law. The bitter
opposition of theology to the first four of these men is well known;
but the fact is not so widely known that Newton, in spite of his deeply
religious spirit, was also strongly opposed. It was vigorously urged
against him that by his statement of the law of gravitation he "took
from God that direct action on his works so constantly ascribed to him
in Scripture and transferred it to material mechanism," and that he
"substituted gravitation for Providence."
But, more than this, these men gave a new basis for the theory of
evolution as distinguished from the theory of creation.
Especially worthy of note is it that the great work of Descartes,
erroneous as many of its deductions were, and, in view of the lack of
physical knowledge in his time, must be, had done much to weaken the
old conception. His theory of a universe brought out of all-pervading
matter, wrought into orderly arrangement by movements in accordance with
physical laws--though it was but a provisional hypothesis--had done much
to draw men's minds from the old theological view of creation; it was an
example of intellectual honesty arriving at errors, but thereby aiding
the advent of truths. Crippled though Descartes was by his almost
morbid fear of the Church, this part of his work was no small factor
in bringing in that attitude of mind which led to a reception of the
thoughts of more unfettered thinkers.
Thirty years later came, in England, an effort of a different sort, but
with a similar result. In 1678 Ralph Cudworth published his Intellectual
System of the Universe. To this day he remains, in breadth of
scholarship, in strength of thought, in tolerance, and in honesty, one
of the greatest glories of the English Church, and his work was
worthy of him. He purposed to build a fortress which should protect
Christianity against all dangerous theories of the universe, ancient
or modern. The foundations of the structure were laid with old thoughts
thrown often into new and striking forms; but, as the superstructure
arose more and more into view, while genius marked every part of it,
features appeared which gave the rigidly orthodox serious misgivings.
From the old theories of direct personal action on the universe by the
Almighty he broke utterly. He dwelt on the action of law, rejected the
continuous exercise of miraculous intervention, pointed out the fact
that in the natural world there are "errors" and "bungles," and argued
vigorously in favour of the origin and maintenance of the universe as
a slow and gradual development of Nature in obedience to an inward
principle. The Balaks of seventeenth-century orthodoxy might well
condemn this honest Balaam.
Toward the end of the next century a still more profound genius,
Immanuel Kant, presented the nebular theory, giving it, in the light of
Newton's great utterances, a consistency which it never before had; and
about the same time Laplace gave it yet greater strength by mathematical
reasonings of wonderful power and extent, thus implanting firmly in
modern thought the idea that our own solar system and others--suns,
planets, satellites, and their various movements, distances, and
magnitudes--necessarily result from the obedience of nebulous masses to
natural laws.
Throughout the theological world there was an outcry at once against
"atheism," and war raged fiercely. Herschel and others pointed out
many nebulous patches apparently gaseous. They showed by physical and
mathematical demonstrations that the hypothesis accounted for the great
body of facts, and, despite clamour, were gaining ground, when the
improved telescopes resolved some of the patches of nebulous matter
into multitudes of stars. The opponents of the nebular hypothesis were
overjoyed; they now sang paeans to astronomy, because, as they said,
it had proved the truth of Scripture. They had jumped to the conclusion
that all nebula must be alike; that, if SOME are made up of systems of
stars, ALL must be so made up; that none can be masses of attenuated
gaseous matter, because some are not.
Science halted for a time. The accepted doctrine became this: that the
only reason why all the nebula are not resolved into distinct stars is
that our telescopes are not sufficiently powerful. But in time came
the discovery of the spectroscope and spectrum analysis, and thence
Fraunhofer's discovery that the spectrum of an ignited gaseous body is
non-continuous, with interrupting lines; and Draper's discovery that the
spectrum of an ignited solid is continuous, with no interrupting lines.
And now the spectroscope was turned upon the nebula, and many of them
were found to be gaseous. Here, then, was ground for the inference
that in these nebulous masses at different stages of condensation--some
apparently mere pitches of mist, some with luminous centres--we have the
process of development actually going on, and observations like those of
Lord Rosse and Arrest gave yet further confirmation to this view. Then
came the great contribution of the nineteenth century to physics, aiding
to explain important parts of the vast process by the mechanical theory
of heat.
Again the nebular hypothesis came forth stronger than ever, and about
1850 the beautiful experiment of Plateau on the rotation of a fluid
globe came in apparently to illustrate if not to confirm it. Even so
determined a defender of orthodoxy as Mr. Gladstone at last acknowledged
some form of a nebular hypothesis as probably true.
Here, too, was exhibited that form of surrendering theological views
to science under the claim that science concurs with theology, which we
have seen in so many other fields; and, as typical, an example may
be given, which, however restricted in its scope, throws light on the
process by which such surrenders are obtained. A few years since one of
the most noted professors of chemistry in the city of New York, under
the auspices of one of its most fashionable churches, gave a lecture
which, as was claimed in the public prints and in placards posted in the
streets, was to show that science supports the theory of creation given
in the sacred books ascribed to Moses. A large audience assembled, and
a brilliant series of elementary experiments with oxygen, hydrogen,
and carbonic acid was concluded by the Plateau demonstration. It was
beautifully made. As the coloured globule of oil, representing the
earth, was revolved in a transparent medium of equal density, as it
became flattened at the poles, as rings then broke forth from it and
revolved about it, and, finally, as some of these rings broke into
satellites, which for a moment continued to circle about the central
mass, the audience, as well they might, rose and burst into rapturous
applause.
Thereupon a well-to-do citizen arose and moved the thanks of the
audience to the eminent professor for "this perfect demonstration of the
exact and literal conformity of the statements given in Holy Scripture
with the latest results of science." The motion was carried unanimously
and with applause, and the audience dispersed, feeling that a great
service had been rendered to orthodoxy. Sancta simplicitas!
What this incident exhibited on a small scale has been seen elsewhere
with more distinguished actors and on a broader stage. Scores of
theologians, chief among whom of late, in zeal if not in knowledge, has
been Mr. Gladstone, have endeavoured to "reconcile" the two accounts in
Genesis with each other and with the truths regarding the origin of
the universe gained by astronomy, geology, geography, physics, and
chemistry. The result has been recently stated by an eminent theologian,
the Hulsean Professor of Divinity at the University of Cambridge.
He declares, "No attempt at reconciling genesis with the exacting
requirements of modern sciences has ever been known to succeed without
entailing a degree of special pleading or forced interpretation to
which, in such a question, we should be wise to have no recourse."(9)
(9) For an interesting reference to the outcry against Newton, see
McCosh, The Religious Aspect of Evolution, New York, 1890, pp. 103,
104; for germs of an evolutionary view among the Babylonians, see George
Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, New York, 1876, pp. 74, 75; for a
germ of the same thought in Lucretius, see his De Natura Rerum, lib.
v, pp.187-194, 447-454; for Bruno's conjecture (in 1591), see Jevons,
Principles of Science, London, 1874, vol. ii, p. 36; for Kant's
statement, see his Naturgeschichte des Himmels; for his part in the
nebular hypothesis, see Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, vol. i,
p.266; for the value of Plateau's beautiful experiment, very cautiously
estimated, see Jevons, vol. ii, p. 36; also Elisee Reclus, The Earth,
translated by Woodward, vol. i, pp. 14-18, for an estimate still more
careful; for a general account of discoveries of the nature of nebulae
by spectroscope, see Draper, Conflict between Religion and Science; for
a careful discussion regarding the spectra of solid, liquid, and gaseous
bodies, see Schellen, Spectrum Analysis, pp. 100 et seq.; for a very
thorough discussion of the bearings of discoveries made by spectrum
analysis upon the nebular hypothesis, ibid., pp. 532-537; for a
presentation of the difficulties yet unsolved, see an article by Plummer
in the London Popular Science Review for January, 1875; for an excellent
short summary of recent observations and thoughts on this subject, see
T. Sterry Hunt, Address at the Priestley Centennial, pp. 7, 8; for an
interesting modification of this hypothesis, see Proctor's writings; for
a still more recent view see Lockyer's two articles on The Sun's Place
in Nature for February 14 and 25, 1895.
The revelations of another group of sciences, though sometimes bitterly
opposed and sometimes "reconciled" by theologians, have finally set
the whole question at rest. First, there have come the biblical
critics--earnest Christian scholars, working for the sake of truth--and
these have revealed beyond the shadow of a reasonable doubt the
existence of at least two distinct accounts of creation in our book of
Genesis, which can sometimes be forced to agree, but which are generally
absolutely at variance with each other. These scholars have further
shown the two accounts to be not the cunningly devised fables of
priestcraft, but evidently fragments of earlier legends, myths, and
theologies, accepted in good faith and brought together for the noblest
of purposes by those who put in order the first of our sacred books.
Next have come the archaeologists and philologists, the devoted students
of ancient monuments and records; of these are such as Rawlinson, George
Smith, Sayce, Oppert, Jensen, Schrader, Delitzsch, and a phalanx of
similarly devoted scholars, who have deciphered a multitude of ancient
texts, especially the inscriptions found in the great library of
Assurbanipal at Nineveh, and have discovered therein an account of the
origin of the world identical in its most important features with the
later accounts in our own book of Genesis.
These men have had the courage to point out these facts and to connect
them with the truth that these Chaldean and Babylonian myths, legends,
and theories were far earlier than those of the Hebrews, which so
strikingly resemble them, and which we have in our sacred books; and
they have also shown us how natural it was that the Jewish accounts of
the creation should have been obtained at that remote period when the
earliest Hebrews were among the Chaldeans, and how the great Hebrew
poetic accounts of creation were drawn either from the sacred traditions
of these earlier peoples or from antecedent sources common to various
ancient nations.
In a summary which for profound thought and fearless integrity does
honour not only to himself but to the great position which he holds,
the Rev. Dr. Driver, Professor of Hebrew and Canon of Christ Church at
Oxford, has recently stated the case fully and fairly. Having pointed
out the fact that the Hebrews were one people out of many who thought
upon the origin of the universe, he says that they "framed theories to
account for the beginnings of the earth and man"; that "they either did
this for themselves or borrowed those of their neighbours"; that "of the
theories current in Assyria and Phoenicia fragments have been preserved,
and these exhibit points of resemblance with the biblical narrative
sufficient to warrant the inference that both are derived from the same
cycle of tradition."
After giving some extracts from the Chaldean creation tablets he says:
"In the light of these facts it is difficult to resist the conclusion
that the biblical narrative is drawn from the same source as these other
records. The biblical historians, it is plain, derived their materials
from the best human sources available.... The materials which with other
nations were combined into the crudest physical theories or associated
with a grotesque polytheism were vivified and transformed by the
inspired genius of the Hebrew historians, and adapted to become the
vehicle of profound religious truth."
Not less honourable to the sister university and to himself is the
statement recently made by the Rev. Dr. Ryle, Hulsean Professor of
Divinity at Cambridge. He says that to suppose that a Christian "must
either renounce his confidence in the achievements of scientific
research or abandon his faith in Scripture is a monstrous perversion of
Christian freedom." He declares: "The old position is no longer tenable;
a new position has to be taken up at once, prayerfully chosen, and
hopefully held." He then goes on to compare the Hebrew story of creation
with the earlier stories developed among kindred peoples, and especially
with the pre-existing Assyro-Babylonian cosmogony, and shows that they
are from the same source. He points out that any attempt to explain
particular features of the story into harmony with the modern scientific
ideas necessitates "a non-natural" interpretation; but he says that, if
we adopt a natural interpretation, "we shall consider that the Hebrew
description of the visible universe is unscientific as judged by modern
standards, and that it shares the limitations of the imperfect knowledge
of the age at which it was committed to writing." Regarding the account
in Genesis of man's physical origin, he says that it "is expressed
in the simple terms of prehistoric legend, of unscientific pictorial
description."
In these statements and in a multitude of others made by eminent
Christian investigators in other countries is indicated what the victory
is which has now been fully won over the older theology.
Thus, from the Assyrian researches as well as from other sources, it
has come to be acknowledged by the most eminent scholars at the leading
seats of Christian learning that the accounts of creation with which
for nearly two thousand years all scientific discoveries have had to
be "reconciled"--the accounts which blocked the way of Copernicus, and
Galileo, and Newton, and Laplace--were simply transcribed or evolved
from a mass of myths and legends largely derived by the Hebrews from
their ancient relations with Chaldea, rewrought in a monotheistic sense,
imperfectly welded together, and then thrown into poetic forms in the
sacred books which we have inherited.
On one hand, then, we have the various groups of men devoted to the
physical sciences all converging toward the proofs that the universe,
as we at present know it, is the result of an evolutionary process--that
is, of the gradual working of physical laws upon an early condition of
matter; on the other hand, we have other great groups of men devoted to
historical, philological, and archaeological science whose researches
all converge toward the conclusion that our sacred accounts of creation
were the result of an evolution from an early chaos of rude opinion.
The great body of theologians who have so long resisted the conclusions
of the men of science have claimed to be fighting especially for "the
truth of Scripture," and their final answer to the simple conclusions
of science regarding the evolution of the material universe has been the
cry, "The Bible is true." And they are right--though in a sense nobler
than they have dreamed. Science, while conquering them, has found in our
Scriptures a far nobler truth than that literal historical exactness for
which theologians have so long and so vainly contended. More and more
as we consider the results of the long struggle in this field we are
brought to the conclusion that the inestimable value of the great sacred
books of the world is found in their revelation of the steady striving
of our race after higher conceptions, beliefs, and aspirations, both
in morals and religion. Unfolding and exhibiting this long-continued
effort, each of the great sacred books of the world is precious, and
all, in the highest sense, are true. Not one of them, indeed, conforms
to the measure of what mankind has now reached in historical and
scientific truth; to make a claim to such conformity is folly, for it
simply exposes those who make it and the books for which it is made to
loss of their just influence.
That to which the great sacred books of the world conform, and our own
most of all, is the evolution of the highest conceptions, beliefs,
and aspirations of our race from its childhood through the great
turning-points in its history. Herein lies the truth of all bibles, and
especially of our own. Of vast value they indeed often are as a record
of historical outward fact; recent researches in the East are constantly
increasing this value; but it is not for this that we prize them most:
they are eminently precious, not as a record of outward fact, but as
a mirror of the evolving heart, mind, and soul of man. They are true
because they have been developed in accordance with the laws governing
the evolution of truth in human history, and because in poem, chronicle,
code, legend, myth, apologue, or parable they reflect this development
of what is best in the onward march of humanity. To say that they are
not true is as if one should say that a flower or a tree or a planet is
not true; to scoff at them is to scoff at the law of the universe. In
welding together into noble form, whether in the book of Genesis, or in
the Psalms, or in the book of Job, or elsewhere, the great conceptions
of men acting under earlier inspiration, whether in Egypt, or Chaldea,
or India, or Persia, the compilers of our sacred books have given to
humanity a possession ever becoming more and more precious; and modern
science, in substituting a new heaven and a new earth for the old--the
reign of law for the reign of caprice, and the idea of evolution for
that of creation--has added and is steadily adding a new revelation
divinely inspired.
In the light of these two evolutions, then--one of the visible universe,
the other of a sacred creation-legend--science and theology, if the
master minds in both are wise, may at last be reconciled. A great
step in this reconciliation was recently seen at the main centre
of theological thought among English-speaking people, when, in the
collection of essays entitled Lux Mundi, emanating from the college
established in these latter days as a fortress of orthodoxy at Oxford,
the legendary character of the creation accounts in our sacred books was
acknowledged, and when the Archbishop of Canterbury asked, "May not the
Holy Spirit at times have made use of myth and legend?"(10)
(10) For the first citations above made, see The Cosmogony of Genesis,
by the Rev. S. R. Driver, D.D., Canon of Christ Church and Regius
Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, in the Expositor for January, 1886; for
the second series of citations, see the Early Narratives of Genesis, by
Herbert Edward Ryle, Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, London,
1892. For evidence that even the stiffest of Scotch Presbyterians have
come to discard the old literal biblical narrative of creation and
to regard the declaration of the Westminster Confession thereon as
a "disproved theory of creation," see Principal John Tulloch,
in Contemporary Review, March, 1877, on Religious Thought in
Scotland--especially page 550.
II. THEOLOGICAL TEACHINGS REGARDING THE ANIMALS AND MAN.
In one of the windows of the cathedral at Ulm a mediaeval glass-stainer
has represented the Almighty as busily engaged in creating the animals,
and there has just left the divine hands an elephant fully
accoutred, with armour, harness, and housings, ready-for war. Similar
representations appear in illuminated manuscripts and even in early
printed books, and, as the culmination of the whole, the Almighty is
shown as fashioning the first man from a hillock of clay and extracting
from his side, with evident effort, the first woman.
This view of the general process of creation had come from far,
appearing under varying forms in various ancient cosmogonies. In
the Egyptian temples at Philae and Denderah may still be seen
representations of the Nile gods modelling lumps of clay into men, and
a similar work is ascribed in the Assyrian tablets to the gods of
Babylonia. Passing into our own sacred books, these ideas became the
starting point of a vast new development of theology.(11)
(11) For representations of Egyptian gods creating men out of lumps
of clay, see Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of History, p. 156; for the
Chaldean legends of the creation of men and animals, see ibid., p. 543;
see also George Smith, Chaldean Accounts of Genesis, Sayce's edition,
pp. 36, 72, and 93; also for similar legends in other ancient nations,
Lenormant, Origines de l'Histoire, pp. 17 et seq.; for mediaeval
representations of the creation of man and woman, see Didron,
Iconographie, pp. 35, 178, 224, 537.
The fathers of the Church generally received each of the two conflicting
creation legends in Genesis literally, and then, having done their best
to reconcile them with each other and to mould them together, made them
the final test of thought upon the universe and all things therein. At
the beginning of the fourth century Lactantius struck the key-note of
this mode of subordinating all other things in the study of creation to
the literal text of Scripture, and he enforces his view of the creation
of man by a bit of philology, saying the final being created "is called
man because he is made from the ground--homo ex humo."
In the second half of the same century this view as to the literal
acceptance of the sacred text was reasserted by St. Ambrose, who, in his
work on the creation, declared that "Moses opened his mouth and poured
forth what God had said to him." But a greater than either of them
fastened this idea into the Christian theologies. St. Augustine,
preparing his Commentary on the Book of Genesis, laid down in one famous
sentence the law which has lasted in the Church until our own time:
"Nothing is to be accepted save on the authority of Scripture, since
greater is that authority than all the powers of the human mind." The
vigour of the sentence in its original Latin carried it ringing down the
centuries: "Major est Scripturae auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenii
capacitas."
Through the mediaeval period, in spite of a revolt led by no other
than St. Augustine himself, and followed by a series of influential
churchmen, contending, as we shall hereafter see, for a modification of
the accepted view of creation, this phrase held the minds of men firmly.
The great Dominican encyclopaedist, Vincent of Beauvais, in his Mirror
of Nature, while mixing ideas brought from Aristotle with a theory
drawn from the Bible, stood firmly by the first of the accounts given in
Genesis, and assigned the special virtue of the number six as a reason
why all things were created in six days; and in the later Middle Ages
that eminent authority, Cardinal d' Ailly, accepted everything regarding
creation in the sacred books literally. Only a faint dissent is seen
in Gregory Reisch, another authority of this later period, who, while
giving, in his book on the beginning of things, a full length woodcut
showing the Almighty in the act of extracting Eve from Adam's side,
with all the rest of new-formed Nature in the background, leans in his
writings, like St. Augustine, toward a belief in the pre-existence of
matter.
At the Reformation the vast authority of Luther was thrown in favour
of the literal acceptance of Scripture as the main source of natural
science. The allegorical and mystical interpretations of earlier
theologians he utterly rejected. "Why," he asks, "should Moses use
allegory when he is not speaking of allegorical creatures or of an
allegorical world, but of real creatures and of a visible world, which
can be seen, felt, and grasped? Moses calls things by their right names,
as we ought to do.... I hold that the animals took their being at once
upon the word of God, as did also the fishes in the sea."
Not less explicit in his adherence to the literal account of creation
given in Genesis was Calvin. He warns those who, by taking another view
than his own, "basely insult the Creator, to expect a judge who will
annihilate them." He insists that all species of animals were created
in six days, each made up of an evening and a morning, and that no new
species has ever appeared since. He dwells on the production of birds
from the water as resting upon certain warrant of Scripture, but adds,
"If the question is to be argued on physical grounds, we know that
water is more akin to air than the earth is." As to difficulties in the
scriptural account of creation, he tells us that God "wished by these to
give proofs of his power which should fill us with astonishment."
The controlling minds in the Roman Church steadfastly held this view. In
the seventeenth century Bossuet threw his vast authority in its favour,
and in his Discourse on Universal History, which has remained the
foundation not only of theological but of general historical teaching
in France down to the present republic, we find him calling attention to
what he regards as the culminating act of creation, and asserting that,
literally, for the creation of man earth was used, and "the finger of
God applied to corruptible matter."
The Protestant world held this idea no less persistently. In the
seventeenth century Dr. John Lightfoot, Vice-Chancellor of the
University of Cambridge, the great rabbinical scholar of his time,
attempted to reconcile the two main legends in Genesis by saying that of
the "clean sort of beasts there were seven of every kind created, three
couples for breeding and the odd one for Adam's sacrifice on his fall,
which God foresaw"; and that of unclean beasts only one couple was
created.
So literal was this whole conception of the work of creation that in
these days it can scarcely be imagined. The Almighty was represented
in theological literature, in the pictured Bibles, and in works of art
generally, as a sort of enlarged and venerable Nuremberg toymaker. At
times the accounts in Genesis were illustrated with even more literal
exactness; thus, in connection with a well-known passage in the sacred
text, the Creator was shown as a tailor, seated, needle in hand,
diligently sewing together skins of beasts into coats for Adam and Eve.
Such representations presented no difficulties to the docile minds of
the Middle Ages and the Reformation period; and in the same spirit, when
the discovery of fossils began to provoke thought, these were declared
to be "models of his works approved or rejected by the great Artificer,"
"outlines of future creations," "sports of Nature," or "objects placed
in the strata to bring to naught human curiosity"; and this kind of
explanation lingered on until in our own time an eminent naturalist,
in his anxiety to save the literal account in Genesis, has urged that
Jehovah tilted and twisted the strata, scattered the fossils through
them, scratched the glacial furrows upon them, spread over them
the marks of erosion by water, and set Niagara pouring--all in an
instant--thus mystifying the world "for some inscrutable purpose, but
for his own glory."(12)
(12) For the citation from Lactantius, see Divin. Instit., lib. ii, cap.
xi, in Migne, tome vi, pp. 311, 312; for St. Augustine's great phrase,
see the De Genes. ad litt., ii, 5; for St. Ambrose, see lib. i, cap. ii;
for Vincent of Beauvais, see the Speculum Naturale, lib. i, cap. ii, and
lib. ii, cap. xv and xxx; also Bourgeat, Etudes sur Vincent de Beauvais,
Paris, 1856, especially chaps. vii, xii, and xvi; for Cardinal d"ailly,
see the Imago Mundi, and for Reisch, see the various editions of the
Margarita Philosophica; for Luther's statements, see Luther's Schriften,
ed. Walch, Halle, 1740, Commentary on Genesis, vol. i; for Calvin's view
of the creation of the animals, including the immutability of Species,
see the Comm. in Gen., tome i of his Opera omnia, Amst., 1671, cap. i,
v, xx, p. 5, also cap. ii, v, ii, p. 8, and elsewhere; for Bossuet, see
his Discours sur l'Histoire universelle (in his OEuvres, tome v, Paris,
1846); for Lightfoot, see his works, edited by Pitman, London, 1822;
for Bede, see the Hexaemeron, lib. i, in Migne, tome xci, p.21; for Mr.
Gosse'smodern defence of the literal view, see his Omphalos, London,
1857, passim.
The next important development of theological reasoning had regard to
the DIVISIONS of the animal kingdom.
Naturally, one of the first divisions which struck the inquiring
mind was that between useful and noxious creatures, and the question
therefore occurred, How could a good God create tigers and serpents,
thorns and thistles? The answer was found in theological considerations
upon SIN. To man's first disobedience all woes were due. Great men
for eighteen hundred years developed the theory that before Adam's
disobedience there was no death, and therefore neither ferocity nor
venom.
Some typical utterances in the evolution of this doctrine are worthy of
a passing glance. St. Augustine expressly confirmed and emphasized the
view that the vegetable as well as the animal kingdom was cursed on
account of man's sin. Two hundred years later this utterance had been
echoed on from father to father of the Church until it was caught by
Bede; he declared that before man's fall animals were harmless, but were
made poisonous or hurtful by Adam's sin, and he said, "Thus fierce and
poisonous animals were created for terrifying man (because God foresaw
that he would sin), in order that he might be made aware of the final
punishment of hell."
In the twelfth century this view was incorporated by Peter Lombard into
his great theological work, the Sentences, which became a text-book of
theology through the middle ages. He affirmed that "no created things
would have been hurtful to man had he not sinned; they became hurtful
for the sake of terrifying and punishing vice or of proving and
perfecting virtue; they were created harmless, and on account of sin
became hurtful."
This theological theory regarding animals was brought out in the
eighteenth century with great force by John Wesley. He declared that
before Adam's sin "none of these attempted to devour or in any wise hurt
one another"; "the spider was as harmless as the fly, and did not lie
in wait for blood." Not only Wesley, but the eminent Dr. Adam Clarke and
Dr. Richard Watson, whose ideas had the very greatest weight among the
English Dissenters, and even among leading thinkers in the Established
Church, held firmly to this theory; so that not until, in our own
time, geology revealed the remains of vast multitudes of carnivorous
creatures, many of them with half-digested remains of other animals in
their stomachs, all extinct long ages before the appearance of man upon
earth, was a victory won by science over theology in this field.
A curious development of this doctrine was seen in the belief drawn
by sundry old commentators from the condemnation of the serpent in
Genesis--a belief, indeed, perfectly natural, since it was evidently
that of the original writers of the account preserved in the first of
our sacred books. This belief was that, until the tempting serpent was
cursed by the Almighty, all serpents stood erect, walked, and talked.
This belief was handed down the ages as part of "the sacred deposit of
the faith" until Watson, the most prolific writer of the evangelical
reform in the eighteenth century and the standard theologian of the
evangelical party, declared: "We have no reason at all to believe
that the animal had a serpentine form in any mode or degree until its
transformation; that he was then degraded to a reptile to go upon his
belly imports, on the contrary, an entire loss and alteration of the
original form." Here, again, was a ripe result of the theologic method
diligently pursued by the strongest thinkers in the Church during nearly
two thousand years; but this "sacred deposit" also faded away when the
geologists found abundant remains of fossil serpents dating from periods
long before the appearance of man.
Troublesome questions also arose among theologians regarding animals
classed as "superfluous." St. Augustine was especially exercised
thereby. He says: "I confess I am ignorant why mice and frogs were
created, or flies and worms.... All creatures are either useful, hurtful,
or superfluous to us.... As for the hurtful creatures, we are either
punished, or disciplined, or terrified by them, so that we may not
cherish and love this life." As to the "superfluous animals," he says,
"Although they are not necessary for our service, yet the whole design
of the universe is thereby completed and finished." Luther, who followed
St. Augustine in so many other matters, declined to follow him fully in
this. To him a fly was not merely superfluous, it was noxious--sent by
the devil to vex him when reading.
Another subject which gave rise to much searching of Scripture and long
trains of theological reasoning was the difference between the creation
of man and that of other living beings.
Great stress was laid by theologians, from St. Basil and St. Augustine
to St. Thomas Aquinas and Bossuet, and from Luther to Wesley, on the
radical distinction indicated in Genesis, God having created man "in his
own image." What this statement meant was seen in the light of the later
biblical statement that "Adam begat Seth in his own likeness, after his
image."
In view of this and of well-known texts incorporated from older creation
legends into the Hebrew sacred books it came to be widely held that,
while man was directly moulded and fashioned separately by the Creator's
hand, the animals generally were evoked in numbers from the earth and
sea by the Creator's voice.
A question now arose naturally as to the DISTINCTIONS OF SPECIES among
animals. The vast majority of theologians agreed in representing all
animals as created "in the beginning," and named by Adam, preserved in
the ark, and continued ever afterward under exactly the same species.
This belief ripened into a dogma. Like so many other dogmas in the
Church, Catholic and Protestant, its real origins are to be found rather
in pagan philosophy than in the Christian Scriptures; it came far more
from Plato and Aristotle than from Moses and St. Paul. But this was not
considered: more and more it became necessary to believe that each
and every difference of species was impressed by the Creator "in the
beginning," and that no change had taken place or could have taken place
since.
Some difficulties arose here and there as zoology progressed and
revealed ever-increasing numbers of species; but through the Middle
Ages, and indeed long after the Reformation, these difficulties were
easily surmounted by making the ark of Noah larger and larger, and
especially by holding that there had been a human error in regard to its
measurement.(13)
(13) For St. Augustine, see De Genesis and De Trinitate, passim; for
Bede, see Hexaemeron, lib. i, in Migne, tome xci, pp. 21, 36-38, 42; and
De Sex Dierum Criatione, in Migne, tome xciii, p. 215; for Peter Lombard
on "noxious animals," see his Sententiae, lib. ii, dist. xv, 3, Migne,
tome cxcii, p. 682; for Wesley, Clarke, and Watson, see quotations from
them and notes thereto in my chapter on Geology; for St. Augustine
on "superfluous animals," see the De Genesi, lib. i, cap. xvi, 26; on
Luther's view of flies, see the Table Talk and his famous utterance,
"Odio muscas quia sunt imagines diaboli et hoereticorum"; for the agency
of Aristotle and Plato in fastening the belief in the fixity of species
into Christian theology, see Sachs, Geschichte der Botanik, Munchen,
1875, p. 107 and note, also p. 113.
But naturally there was developed among both ecclesiastics and laymen
a human desire to go beyond these special points in the history of
animated beings--a desire to know what the creation really IS.
Current legends, stories, and travellers' observations, poor as they
were, tended powerfully to stimulate curiosity in this field.
Three centuries before the Christian era Aristotle had made the
first really great attempt to satisfy this curiosity, and had begun
a development of studies in natural history which remains one of the
leading achievements in the story of our race.
But the feeling which we have already seen so strong in the early
Church--that all study of Nature was futile in view of the approaching
end of the world--indicated so clearly in the New Testament and voiced
so powerfully by Lactantius and St. Augustine--held back this current
of thought for many centuries. Still, the better tendency in humanity
continued to assert itself. There was, indeed, an influence coming from
the Hebrew Scriptures themselves which wrought powerfully to this end;
for, in spite of all that Lactantius or St. Augustine might say as to
the futility of any study of Nature, the grand utterances in the Psalms
regarding the beauties and wonders of creation, in all the glow of the
truest poetry, ennobled the study even among those whom logic drew away
from it.
But, as a matter of course, in the early Church and throughout the
Middle Ages all such studies were cast in a theologic mould. Without
some purpose of biblical illustration or spiritual edification they were
considered futile too much prying into the secrets of Nature was very
generally held to be dangerous both to body and soul; only for showing
forth God's glory and his purposes in the creation were such studies
praiseworthy. The great work of Aristotle was under eclipse. The early
Christian thinkers gave little attention to it, and that little was
devoted to transforming it into something absolutely opposed to his
whole spirit and method; in place of it they developed the Physiologus
and the Bestiaries, mingling scriptural statements, legends of the
saints, and fanciful inventions with pious intent and childlike
simplicity. In place of research came authority--the authority of the
Scriptures as interpreted by the Physio Cogus and the Bestiaries--and
these remained the principal source of thought on animated Nature for
over a thousand years.
Occasionally, indeed, fear was shown among the rulers in the Church,
even at such poor prying into the creation as this, and in the fifth
century a synod under Pope Gelasius administered a rebuke to the
Physiologus; but the interest in Nature was too strong: the great
work on Creation by St. Basil had drawn from the Physiologus precious
illustrations of Holy Writ, and the strongest of the early popes,
Gregory the Great, virtually sanctioned it.
Thus was developed a sacred science of creation and of the divine
purpose in Nature, which went on developing from the fourth century to
the nineteenth--from St. Basil to St. Isidore of Seville, from Isidore
to Vincent of Beauvais, and from Vincent to Archdeacon Paley and the
Bridgewater Treatises.
Like all else in the Middle Ages, this sacred science was developed
purely by theological methods. Neglecting the wonders which the
dissection of the commonest animals would have afforded them, these
naturalists attempted to throw light into Nature by ingenious use of
scriptural texts, by research among the lives of the saints, and by the
plentiful application of metaphysics. Hence even such strong men as
St. Isidore of Seville treasured up accounts of the unicorn and dragons
mentioned in the Scriptures and of the phoenix and basilisk in profane
writings. Hence such contributions to knowledge as that the basilisk
kills serpents by his breath and men by his glance, that the lion when
pursued effaces his tracks with the end of his tail, that the pelican
nourishes her young with her own blood, that serpents lay aside their
venom before drinking, that the salamander quenches fire, that the hyena
can talk with shepherds, that certain birds are born of the fruit of a
certain tree when it happens to fall into the water, with other masses
of science equally valuable.
As to the method of bringing science to bear on Scripture, the
Physiologus gives an example, illustrating the passage in the book of
Job which speaks of the old lion perishing for lack of prey. Out of
the attempt to explain an unusual Hebrew word in the text there came a
curious development of error, until we find fully evolved an account of
the "ant-lion," which, it gives us to understand, was the lion mentioned
by Job, and it says: "As to the ant-lion, his father hath the shape of
a lion, his mother that of an ant; the father liveth upon flesh and the
mother upon herbs; these bring forth the ant-lion, a compound of both
and in part like to either; for his fore part is like that of a lion and
his hind part like that of an ant. Being thus composed, he is neither
able to eat flesh like his father nor herbs like his mother, and so he
perisheth."
In the middle of the thirteenth century we have a triumph of this
theological method in the great work of the English Franciscan
Bartholomew on The Properties of Things. The theological method as
applied to science consists largely in accepting tradition and in
spinning arguments to fit it. In this field Bartholomew was a master.
Having begun with the intent mainly to explain the allusions in
Scripture to natural objects, he soon rises logically into a survey of
all Nature. Discussing the "cockatrice" of Scripture, he tells us: "He
drieth and burneth leaves with his touch, and he is of so great venom
and perilous that he slayeth and wasteth him that nigheth him without
tarrying; and yet the weasel overcometh him, for the biting of the
weasel is death to the cockatrice. Nevertheless the biting of the
cockatrice is death to the weasel if the weasel eat not rue before. And
though the cockatrice be venomous without remedy while he is alive,
yet he looseth all the malice when he is burnt to ashes. His ashes be
accounted profitable in working of alchemy, and namely in turning and
changing of metals."
Bartholomew also enlightens us on the animals of Egypt, and says, "If
the crocodile findeth a man by the water's brim he slayeth him, and then
he weepeth over him and swalloweth him."
Naturally this good Franciscan naturalist devotes much thought to the
"dragons" mentioned in Scripture. He says: "The dragon is most greatest
of all serpents, and oft he is drawn out of his den and riseth up into
the air, and the air is moved by him, and also the sea swelleth against
his venom, and he hath a crest, and reareth his tongue, and hath teeth
like a saw, and hath strength, and not only in teeth but in tail, and
grieveth with biting and with stinging. Whom he findeth he slayeth.
Oft four or five of them fasten their tails together and rear up their
heads, and sail over the sea to get good meat. Between elephants and
dragons is everlasting fighting; for the dragon with his tail spanneth
the elephant, and the elephant with his nose throweth down the
dragon.... The cause why the dragon desireth his blood is the coldness
thereof, by the which the dragon desireth to cool himself. Jerome saith
that the dragon is a full thirsty beast, insomuch that he openeth his
mouth against the wind to quench the burning of his thirst in that wise.
Therefore, when he seeth ships in great wind he flieth against the sail
to take the cold wind, and overthroweth the ship."
These ideas of Friar Bartholomew spread far and struck deep into the
popular mind. His book was translated into the principal languages of
Europe, and was one of those most generally read during the Ages of
Faith. It maintained its position nearly three hundred years; even after
the invention of printing it held its own, and in the fifteenth century
there were issued no less than ten editions of it in Latin, four in
French, and various versions of it in Dutch, Spanish, and English.
Preachers found it especially useful in illustrating the ways of God
to man. It was only when the great voyages of discovery substituted
ascertained fact for theological reasoning in this province that its
authority was broken.
The same sort of science flourished in the Bestiaries, which were used
everywhere, and especially in the pulpits, for the edification of the
faithful. In all of these, as in that compiled early in the thirteenth
century by an ecclesiastic, William of Normandy, we have this lesson,
borrowed from the Physiologus: "The lioness giveth birth to cubs which
remain three days without life. Then cometh the lion, breatheth upon
them, and bringeth them to life.... Thus it is that Jesus Christ
during three days was deprived of life, but God the Father raised him
gloriously."
Pious use was constantly made of this science, especially by monkish
preachers. The phoenix rising from his ashes proves the doctrine of the
resurrection; the structure and mischief of monkeys proves the existence
of demons; the fact that certain monkeys have no tails proves that Satan
has been shorn of his glory; the weasel, which "constantly changes its
place, is a type of the man estranged from the word of God, who findeth
no rest."
The moral treatises of the time often took the form of works on natural
history, in order the more fully to exploit these religious teachings of
Nature. Thus from the book On Bees, the Dominican Thomas of Cantimpre,
we learn that "wasps persecute bees and make war on them out of natural
hatred"; and these, he tells us, typify the demons who dwell in the
air and with lightning and tempest assail and vex mankind--whereupon he
fills a long chapter with anecdotes of such demonic warfare on mortals.
In like manner his fellow-Dominican, the inquisitor Nider, in his book
The Ant Hill, teaches us that the ants in Ethiopia, which are said to
have horns and to grow so large as to look like dogs, are emblems of
atrocious heretics, like Wyclif and the Hussites, who bark and bite
against the truth; while the ants of India, which dig up gold out of
the sand with their feet and hoard it, though they make no use of it,
symbolize the fruitless toil with which the heretics dig out the gold of
Holy Scripture and hoard it in their books to no purpose.
This pious spirit not only pervaded science; it bloomed out in art, and
especially in the cathedrals. In the gargoyles overhanging the walls, in
the grotesques clambering about the towers or perched upon pinnacles, in
the dragons prowling under archways or lurking in bosses of foliage, in
the apocalyptic beasts carved upon the stalls of the choir, stained into
the windows, wrought into the tapestries, illuminated in the letters
and borders of psalters and missals, these marvels of creation suggested
everywhere morals from the Physiologus, the Bestiaries, and the
Exempla.(14)
(14) For the Physiologus, Bestiaries, etc., see Berger de Xivrey,
Traditions Teratologiques; also Hippeau's edition of the Bestiare de
Guillaume de Normandie, Caen, 1852, and such medieaval books of Exempla
as the Lumen Naturae; also Hoefer, Histoire de la Zoologie; also
Rambaud, Histoire de la Civilisation Francaise, Paris, 1885, vol i, pp.
368, 369; also Cardinal Pitra, preface to the Spicilegium Solismense,
Paris, 1885, passim; also Carus, Geschichte der Zoologie; and for
an admirable summary, the article Physiologus in the Encyclopedia
Britannica. In the illuminated manuscripts in the Library of Cornell
University are some very striking examples of grotesques. For admirably
illustrated articles on the Bestiaries, see Cahier and Martin, Melanges
d'Archeologie, Paris, 1851, 1852, and 1856, vol. ii of the first series,
pp. 85-232, and second series, volume on Curiosities Mysterieuses, pp.
106-164; also J. R. Allen, Early Christian Symbolism in Great Britain
and Ireland (London, 1887), lecture vi; for an exhaustive discussion of
the subject, see Das Thierbuch des normannischen Dichters Guillaume le
Clerc, herausgegeben von Reinisch, Leipsic, 1890; and for an Italian
examlpe, Goldstaub and Wendriner, Ein Tosco-Venezianischer Bestiarius,
Halle, 1892, where is given, on pp. 369-371, a very pious but very
comical tradition regarding the beaver, hardly mentionable to ears
polite. For Friar Bartholomew, see (besides his book itself) Medieval
Lore, edited by Robert Steele, London, 1893, pp. 118-138.
Here and there among men who were free from church control we have work
of a better sort. In the twelfth and thirteenth centuries Abd Allatif
made observations upon the natural history of Egypt which showed a truly
scientific spirit, and the Emperor Frederick II attempted to promote a
more fruitful study of Nature; but one of these men was abhorred as a
Mussulman and the other as an infidel. Far more in accordance with the
spirit of the time was the ecclesiastic Giraldus Cambrensis, whose book
on the topography of Ireland bestows much attention upon the animals
of the island, and rarely fails to make each contribute an appropriate
moral. For example, he says that in Ireland "eagles live for so many
ages that they seem to contend with eternity itself; so also the saints,
having put off the old man and put on the new, obtain the blessed fruit
of everlasting life." Again, he tells us: "Eagles often fly so high that
their wings are scorched by the sun; so those who in the Holy Scriptures
strive to unravel the deep and hidden secrets of the heavenly mysteries,
beyond what is allowed, fall below, as if the wings of the presumptuous
imaginations on which they are borne were scorched."
In one of the great men of the following century appeared a gleam of
healthful criticism: Albert the Great, in his work on the animals,
dissents from the widespread belief that certain birds spring from trees
and are nourished by the sap, and also from the theory that some are
generated in the sea from decaying wood.
But it required many generations for such scepticism to produce much
effect, and we find among the illustrations in an edition of Mandeville
published just before the Reformation not only careful accounts but
pictured representations both of birds and of beasts produced in the
fruit of trees.(15)
(15) For Giraldus Cambrensis, see the edition in the Bohn Library,
London, 1863, p. 30; for the Abd Allatif and Frederick II, see Hoefer,
as above; for Albertus Magnus, see the De Animalibus, lib. xxiii; for
the illustrations in Mandeville, see the Strasburg edition, 1484;
for the history of the myth of the tree which produces birds, see Max
Muller's lectures on the Science of Language, second series, lect. xii.
This general employment of natural science for pious purposes went on
after the Reformation. Luther frequently made this use of it, and his
example controlled his followers. In 1612, Wolfgang Franz, Professor of
Theology at Luther's university, gave to the world his sacred history of
animals, which went through many editions. It contained a very ingenious
classification, describing "natural dragons," which have three rows of
teeth to each jaw, and he piously adds, "the principal dragon is the
Devil."
Near the end of the same century, Father Kircher, the great Jesuit
professor at Rome, holds back the sceptical current, insists upon the
orthodox view, and represents among the animals entering the ark sirens
and griffins.
Yet even among theologians we note here and there a sceptical spirit
in natural science. Early in the same seventeenth century Eugene
Roger published his Travels in Palestine. As regards the utterances
of Scripture he is soundly orthodox: he prefaces his work with a map
showing, among other important points referred to in biblical history,
the place where Samson slew a thousand Philistines with the jawbone of
an ass, the cavern which Adam and Eve inhabited after their expulsion
from paradise, the spot where Balaam's ass spoke, the place where Jacob
wrestled with the angel, the steep place down which the swine possessed
of devils plunged into the sea, the position of the salt statue which
was once Lot's wife, the place at sea where Jonah was swallowed by
the whale, and "the exact spot where St. Peter caught one hundred and
fifty-three fishes."
As to natural history, he describes and discusses with great theological
acuteness the basilisk. He tells us that the animal is about a foot and
a half long, is shaped like a crocodile, and kills people with a single
glance. The one which he saw was dead, fortunately for him, since in
the time of Pope Leo IV--as he tells us--one appeared in Rome and killed
many people by merely looking at them; but the Pope destroyed it with
his prayers and the sign of the cross. He informs us that Providence
has wisely and mercifully protected man by requiring the monster to cry
aloud two or three times whenever it leaves its den, and that the divine
wisdom in creation is also shown by the fact that the monster is obliged
to look its victim in the eye, and at a certain fixed distance, before
its glance can penetrate the victim's brain and so pass to his heart.
He also gives a reason for supposing that the same divine mercy has
provided that the crowing of a cock will kill the basilisk.
Yet even in this good and credulous missionary we see the influence of
Bacon and the dawn of experimental science; for, having been told many
stories regarding the salamander, he secured one, placed it alive upon
the burning coals, and reports to us that the legends concerning its
power to live in the fire are untrue. He also tried experiments with
the chameleon, and found that the stories told of it were to be received
with much allowance: while, then, he locks up his judgment whenever he
discusses the letter of Scripture, he uses his mind in other things much
after the modern method.
In the second half of the same century Hottinger, in his Theological
Examination of the History of Creation, breaks from the belief in the
phoenix; but his scepticism is carefully kept within the limits imposed
by Scripture. He avows his doubts, first, "because God created the
animals in couples, while the phoenix is represented as a single,
unmated creature"; secondly, "because Noah, when he entered the ark,
brought the animals in by sevens, while there were never so many
individuals of the phoenix species"; thirdly, because "no man is known
who dares assert that he has ever seen this bird"; fourthly, because
"those who assert there is a phoenix differ among themselves."
In view of these attacks on the salamander and the phoenix, we are not
surprised to find, before the end of the century, scepticism regarding
the basilisk: the eminent Prof. Kirchmaier, at the University of
Wittenberg, treats phoenix and basilisk alike as old wives' fables. As
to the phoenix, he denies its existence, not only because Noah took no
such bird into the ark, but also because, as he pithily remarks, "birds
come from eggs, not from ashes." But the unicorn he can not resign, nor
will he even concede that the unicorn is a rhinoceros; he appeals to
Job and to Marco Polo to prove that this animal, as usually conceived,
really exists, and says, "Who would not fear to deny the existence of
the unicorn, since Holy Scripture names him with distinct praises?"
As to the other great animals mentioned in Scripture, he is so
rationalistic as to admit that behemoth was an elephant and leviathan a
whale.
But these germs of a fruitful scepticism grew, and we soon find
Dannhauer going a step further and declaring his disbelief even in the
unicorn, insisting that it was a rhinoceros--only that and nothing more.
Still, the main current continued strongly theological. In 1712 Samuel
Bochart published his great work upon the animals of Holy Scripture. As
showing its spirit we may take the titles of the chapters on the horse:
"Chapter VI. Of the Hebrew Name of the Horse."
"Chapter VII. Of the Colours of the Six Horses in Zechariah."
"Chapter VIII. Of the Horses in Job."
"Chapter IX. Of Solomon's Horses, and of the Texts wherein the Writers
praise the Excellence of Horses."
"Chapter X. Of the Consecrated Horses of the Sun."
Among the other titles of chapters are such as: Of Balaam's Ass; Of the
Thousand Philistines slain by Samson with the Jawbone of an Ass; Of
the Golden Calves of Aaron and Jeroboam; Of the Bleating, Milk, Wool,
External and Internal Parts of Sheep mentioned in Scripture; Of Notable
Things told regarding Lions in Scripture; Of Noah's Dove and of the
Dove which appeared at Christ's Baptism. Mixed up in the book, with
the principal mass drawn from Scripture, were many facts and reasonings
taken from investigations by naturalists; but all were permeated by the
theological spirit.(16)
(16) For Franz and Kircher, see Perrier, La Philosophie Zoologique avant
Darwin, 1884, p. 29; for Roger, see his La Terre Saincte, Paris, 1664,
pp. 89-92, 130, 218, etc.; for Hottinger, see his Historiae
Creatonis Examen theologico-philologicum, Heidelberg, 1659, lib.
vi, quaest lxxxiii; for Kirchmaier, see his Disputationes Zoologicae
(published collectively after his death), Jena, 1736; for Dannhauer, see
his Disputationes Theologicae, Leipsic, 1707, p. 14; for Bochart, see
his Hierozoikon, sive De Animalibus Sacre Scripturae, Leyden, 1712.
The inquiry into Nature having thus been pursued nearly two thousand
years theologically, we find by the middle of the sixteenth century some
promising beginnings of a different method--the method of inquiry into
Nature scientifically--the method which seeks not plausibilities but
facts. At that time Edward Wotton led the way in England and Conrad
Gesner on the Continent, by observations widely extended, carefully
noted, and thoughtfully classified.
This better method of interrogating Nature soon led to the formation of
societies for the same purpose. In 1560 was founded an Academy for the
Study of Nature at Naples, but theologians, becoming alarmed, suppressed
it, and for nearly one hundred years there was no new combined effort
of that sort, until in 1645 began the meetings in London of what was
afterward the Royal Society. Then came the Academy of Sciences in
France, and the Accademia del Cimento in Italy; others followed in all
parts of the world, and a great new movement was begun.
Theologians soon saw a danger in this movement. In Italy, Prince Leopold
de' Medici, a protector of the Florentine Academy, was bribed with a
cardinal's hat to neglect it, and from the days of Urban VIII to Pius
IX a similar spirit was there shown. In France, there were frequent
ecclesiastical interferences, of which Buffon's humiliation for stating
a simple scientific truth was a noted example. In England, Protestantism
was at first hardly more favourable toward the Royal Society, and the
great Dr. South denounced it in his sermons as irreligious.
Fortunately, one thing prevented an open breach between theology and
science: while new investigators had mainly given up the medieval method
so dear to the Church, they had very generally retained the conception
of direct creation and of design throughout creation--a design having
as its main purpose the profit, instruction, enjoyment, and amusement of
man.
On this the naturally opposing tendencies of theology and science were
compromised. Science, while somewhat freed from its old limitations,
became the handmaid of theology in illustrating the doctrine of creative
design, and always with apparent deference to the Chaldean and other
ancient myths and legends embodied in the Hebrew sacred books.
About the middle of the seventeenth century came a great victory of
the scientific over the theologic method. At that time Francesco Redi
published the results of his inquiries into the doctrine of spontaneous
generation. For ages a widely accepted doctrine had been that water,
filth, and carrion had received power from the Creator to generate
worms, insects, and a multitude of the smaller animals; and this
doctrine had been especially welcomed by St. Augustine and many of the
fathers, since it relieved the Almighty of making, Adam of naming, and
Noah of living in the ark with these innumerable despised species.
But to this fallacy Redi put an end. By researches which could not be
gainsaid, he showed that every one of these animals came from an egg;
each, therefore, must be the lineal descendant of an animal created,
named, and preserved from "the beginning."
Similar work went on in England, but under more distinctly theological
limitations. In the same seventeenth century a very famous and popular
English book was published by the naturalist John Ray, a fellow of the
Royal Society, who produced a number of works on plants, fishes, and
birds; but the most widely read of all was entitled The Wisdom of God
manifested in the Works of Creation. Between the years 1691 and 1827 it
passed through nearly twenty editions.
Ray argued the goodness and wisdom of God from the adaptation of the
animals not only to man's uses but to their own lives and surroundings.
In the first years of the eighteenth century Dr. Nehemiah Grew, of the
Royal Society, published his Cosmologia Sacra to refute anti-scriptural
opinions by producing evidences of creative design. Discussing "the ends
of Providence," he says, "A crane, which is scurvy meat, lays but two
eggs in the year, but a pheasant and partridge, both excellent meat, lay
and hatch fifteen or twenty." He points to the fact that "those of value
which lay few at a time sit the oftener, as the woodcock and the dove."
He breaks decidedly from the doctrine that noxious things in Nature are
caused by sin, and shows that they, too, are useful; that, "if nettles
sting, it is to secure an excellent medicine for children and cattle";
that, "if the bramble hurts man, it makes all the better hedge"; and
that, "if it chances to prick the owner, it tears the thief." "Weasels,
kites, and other hurtful animals induce us to watchfulness; thistles and
moles, to good husbandry; lice oblige us to cleanliness in our
bodies, spiders in our houses, and the moth in our clothes." This very
optimistic view, triumphing over the theological theory of noxious
animals and plants as effects of sin, which prevailed with so much force
from St. Augustine to Wesley, was developed into nobler form during the
century by various thinkers, and especially by Archdeacon Paley, whose
Natural Theology exercised a powerful influence down to recent
times. The same tendency appeared in other countries, though various
philosophers showed weak points in the argument, and Goethe made sport
of it in a noted verse, praising the forethought of the Creator in
foreordaining the cork tree to furnish stoppers for wine-bottles.
Shortly before the middle of the nineteenth century the main movement
culminated in the Bridgewater Treatises. Pursuant to the will of the
eighth Earl of Bridgewater, the President of the Royal Society selected
eight persons, each to receive a thousand pounds sterling for writing
and publishing a treatise on the "power, wisdom, and goodness of God, as
manifested in the creation." Of these, the leading essays in regard
to animated Nature were those of Thomas Chalmers, on The Adaptation of
External Nature to the Moral and Intellectual Condition of Man; of Sir
Charles Bell, on The Hand as evincing Design; of Roget, on Animal and
Vegetable Physiology with reference to Natural Theology; and of Kirby,
on The Habits and Instincts of Animals with reference to Natural
Theology.
Besides these there were treatises by Whewell, Buckland, Kidd, and
Prout. The work was well done. It was a marked advance on all that had
appeared before, in matter, method, and spirit. Looking back upon it
now we can see that it was provisional, but that it was none the less
fruitful in truth, and we may well remember Darwin's remark on
the stimulating effect of mistaken THEORIES, as compared with the
sterilizing effect of mistaken OBSERVATIONS: mistaken observations lead
men astray, mistaken theories suggest true theories.
An effort made in so noble a spirit certainly does not deserve the
ridicule that, in our own day, has sometimes been lavished upon it.
Curiously, indeed, one of the most contemptuous of these criticisms has
been recently made by one of the most strenuous defenders of orthodoxy.
No less eminent a standard-bearer of the faith than the Rev. Prof.
Zoeckler says of this movement to demonstrate creative purpose and
design, and of the men who took part in it, "The earth appeared in their
representation of it like a great clothing shop and soup kitchen, and
God as a glorified rationalistic professor." Such a statement as this
is far from just to the conceptions of such men as Butler, Paley,
and Chalmers, no matter how fully the thinking world has now outlived
them.(17)
(17) For a very valuable and interesting study on the old idea of the
generation of insects from carrion, see Osten-Sacken, on the Oxen-born
Bees of the Ancients, Heidelberg, 1894; for Ray, see the work cited,
London, 1827, p. 153; for Grew, see Cosmologia Sacra, or a Discourse on
the Universe, as it is the Creature and Kingdom of God; chiefly written
to demonstrate the Truth and Excellency of the Bible, by Dr. Nehemiah
Grew, Fellow of the College of Physicians and of the Royal Society of
London, 1701; for Paley and the Bridgewater Treatises, see the usual
editions; also Lange, History of Rationalism. Goethe's couplet ran as
follows:
"Welche Verehrung verdient der Weltenerschopfer, der Gnadig, Als er den
Korkbaum erschuf, gleich auch die Stopfel erfand."
For the quotation from Zoeckler, see his work already cited, vol. ii,
pp. 74, 440.
But, noble as the work of these men was, the foundation of fact on which
they reared it became evidently more and more insecure. For as far
back as the seventeenth century acute theologians had begun to discern
difficulties more serious than any that had before confronted them.
More and more it was seen that the number of different species was far
greater than the world had hitherto imagined. Greater and greater had
become the old difficulty in conceiving that, of these innumerable
species, each had been specially created by the Almighty hand; that each
had been brought before Adam by the Almighty to be named; and that each,
in couples or in sevens, had been gathered by Noah into the ark. But the
difficulties thus suggested were as nothing compared to those raised by
the DISTRIBUTION of animals.
Even in the first days of the Church this had aroused serious thought,
and above all in the great mind of St. Augustine. In his City of God he
had stated the difficulty as follows: "But there is a question about all
these kinds of beasts, which are neither tamed by man, nor spring from
the earth like frogs, such as wolves and others of that sort,.... as
to how they could find their way to the islands after that flood which
destroyed every living thing not preserved in the ark.... Some, indeed,
might be thought to reach islands by swimming, in case these were very
near; but some islands are so remote from continental lands that it does
not seem possible that any creature could reach them by swimming. It
is not an incredible thing, either, that some animals may have been
captured by men and taken with them to those lands which they intended
to inhabit, in order that they might have the pleasure of hunting;
and it can not be denied that the transfer may have been accomplished
through the agency of angels, commanded or allowed to perform this
labour by God."
But this difficulty had now assumed a magnitude of which St. Augustine
never dreamed. Most powerful of all agencies to increase it were the
voyages of Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magellan, Amerigo Vespucci, and
other navigators of the period of discovery. Still more serious did it
become as the great islands of the southern seas were explored. Every
navigator brought home tidings of new species of animals and of races of
men living in parts of the world where the theologians, relying on the
statement of St. Paul that the gospel had gone into all lands, had for
ages declared there could be none; until finally it overtaxed even
the theological imagination to conceive of angels, in obedience to
the divine command, distributing the various animals over the earth,
dropping the megatherium in South America, the archeopteryx in Europe,
the ornithorhynchus in Australia, and the opossum in North America.
The first striking evidence of this new difficulty was shown by the
eminent Jesuit missionary, Joseph Acosta. In his Natural and Moral
History of the Indies, published in 1590, he proved himself honest and
lucid. Though entangled in most of the older scriptural views, he broke
away from many; but the distribution of animals gave him great trouble.
Having shown the futility of St. Augustine's other explanations, he
quaintly asks: "Who can imagine that in so long a voyage men woulde
take the paines to carrie Foxes to Peru, especially that kinde they call
'Acias,' which is the filthiest I have seene? Who woulde likewise say
that they have carried Tygers and Lyons? Truly it were a thing worthy
the laughing at to thinke so. It was sufficient, yea, very much, for
men driven against their willes by tempest, in so long and unknowne a
voyage, to escape with their owne lives, without busying themselves to
carrie Woolves and Foxes, and to nourish them at sea."
It was under the impression made by this new array of facts that in 1667
Abraham Milius published at Geneva his book on The Origin of Animals
and the Migration of Peoples. This book shows, like that of Acosta,
the shock and strain to which the discovery of America subjected the
received theological scheme of things. It was issued with the special
approbation of the Bishop of Salzburg, and it indicates the possibility
that a solution of the whole trouble may be found in the text, "Let the
earth bring forth the living creature after his kind." Milius goes on to
show that the ancient philosophers agree with Moses, and that "the earth
and the waters, and especially the heat of the sun and of the genial
sky, together with that slimy and putrid quality which seems to be
inherent in the soil, may furnish the origin for fishes, terrestrial
animals, and birds." On the other hand, he is very severe against those
who imagine that man can have had the same origin with animals. But the
subject with which Milius especially grapples is the DISTRIBUTION of
animals. He is greatly exercised by the many species found in America
and in remote islands of the ocean--species entirely unknown in the
other continents--and of course he is especially troubled by the fact
that these species existing in those exceedingly remote parts of the
earth do not exist in the neighbourhood of Mount Ararat. He confesses
that to explain the distribution of animals is the most difficult part
of the problem. If it be urged that birds could reach America by flying
and fishes by swimming, he asks, "What of the beasts which neither fly
nor swim?" Yet even as to the birds he asks, "Is there not an infinite
variety of winged creatures who fly so slowly and heavily, and have such
a horror of the water, that they would not even dare trust themselves to
fly over a wide river?" As to fishes, he says, "They are very averse
to wandering from their native waters," and he shows that there are
now reported many species of American and East Indian fishes entirely
unknown on the other continents, whose presence, therefore, can not be
explained by any theory of natural dispersion.
Of those who suggest that land animals may have been dispersed over the
earth by the direct agency of man for his use or pleasure he asks: "Who
would like to get different sorts of lions, bears, tigers, and other
ferocious and noxious creatures on board ship? who would trust himself
with them? and who would wish to plant colonies of such creatures in
new, desirable lands?"
His conclusion is that plants and animals take their origin in the lands
wherein they are found; an opinion which he supports by quoting from the
two narrations in Genesis passages which imply generative force in earth
and water.
But in the eighteenth century matters had become even worse for the
theological view. To meet the difficulty the eminent Benedictine, Dom
Calmet, in his Commentary, expressed the belief that all the species of
a genus had originally formed one species, and he dwelt on this view
as one which enabled him to explain the possibility of gathering all
animals into the ark. This idea, dangerous as it was to the fabric of
orthodoxy, and involving a profound separation from the general doctrine
of the Church, seems to have been abroad among thinking men, for we
find in the latter half of the same century even Linnaeus inclining to
consider it. It was time, indeed, that some new theological theory be
evolved; the great Linnaeus himself, in spite of his famous declaration
favouring the fixity of species, had dealt a death-blow to the
old theory. In his Systema Naturae, published in the middle of the
eighteenth century, he had enumerated four thousand species of animals,
and the difficulties involved in the naming of each of them by Adam and
in bringing them together in the ark appeared to all thinking men more
and more insurmountable.
What was more embarrassing, the number of distinct species went on
increasing rapidly, indeed enormously, until, as an eminent zoological
authority of our own time has declared, "for every one of the species
enumerated by Linnaeus, more than fifty kinds are known to the
naturalist of to-day, and the number of species still unknown doubtless
far exceeds the list of those recorded."
Already there were premonitions of the strain made upon Scripture by
requiring a hundred and sixty distinct miraculous interventions of the
Creator to produce the hundred and sixty species of land shells found
in the little island of Madeira alone, and fourteen hundred distinct
interventions to produce the actual number of distinct species of a
single well-known shell.
Ever more and more difficult, too, became the question of the
geographical distribution of animals. As new explorations were made in
various parts of the world, this danger to the theological view went on
increasing. The sloths in South America suggested painful questions: How
could animals so sluggish have got away from the neighbourhood of Mount
Ararat so completely and have travelled so far?
The explorations in Australia and neighbouring islands made matters
still worse, for there was found in those regions a whole realm of
animals differing widely from those of other parts of the earth.
The problem before the strict theologians became, for example, how to
explain the fact that the kangaroo can have been in the ark and be now
only found in Australia: his saltatory powers are indeed great, but
how could he by any series of leaps have sprung across the intervening
mountains, plains, and oceans to that remote continent? and, if the
theory were adopted that at some period a causeway extended across the
vast chasm separating Australia from the nearest mainland, why did not
lions, tigers, camels, and camelopards force or find their way across
it?
The theological theory, therefore, had by the end of the eighteenth
century gone to pieces. The wiser theologians waited; the unwise
indulged in exhortations to "root out the wicked heart of unbelief," in
denunciation of "science falsely so called," and in frantic declarations
that "the Bible is true"--by which they meant that the limited
understanding of it which they had happened to inherit is true.
By the middle of the nineteenth century the whole theological theory
of creation--though still preached everywhere as a matter of form--was
clearly seen by all thinking men to be hopelessly lost: such strong men
as Cardinal Wiseman in the Roman Church, Dean Buckland in the Anglican,
and Hugh Miller in the Scottish Church, made heroic efforts to save
something from it, but all to no purpose. That sturdy Teutonic and
Anglo-Saxon honesty, which is the best legacy of the Middle Ages to
Christendom, asserted itself in the old strongholds of theological
thought, the universities. Neither the powerful logic of Bishop Butler
nor the nimble reasoning of Archdeacon Paley availed. Just as the line
of astronomical thinkers from Copernicus to Newton had destroyed the old
astronomy, in which the earth was the centre, and the Almighty sitting
above the firmament the agent in moving the heavenly bodies about it
with his own hands, so now a race of biological thinkers had destroyed
the old idea of a Creator minutely contriving and fashioning all animals
to suit the needs and purposes of man. They had developed a system of a
very different sort, and this we shall next consider.(18)
(18) For Acosta, see his Historia Natural y moral de las Indias,
Seville, 1590--the quaint English translation is of London, 1604; for
Abraham Milius, see his De Origine Animalium et Migratione Popularum,
Geneva, 1667; also Kosmos, 1877, H. I, S. 36; for Linnaeus's declaration
regarding species, see the Philosophia Botanica, 99, 157; for Calmet and
Linnaeus, see Zoeckler, vol. ii, p. 237. As to the enormously increasing
numbers of species in zoology and botany, see President D. S. Jordan,
Science Sketches, pp. 176, 177; also for pithy statement, Laing's
Problems of the Future, chap. vi.
III. THEOLOGICAL AND SCIENTIFIC THEORIES, OF AN EVOLUTION IN ANIMATED
NATURE.
We have seen, thus far, how there came into the thinking of mankind
upon the visible universe and its inhabitants the idea of a creation
virtually instantaneous and complete, and of a Creator in human form
with human attributes, who spoke matter into existence literally by the
exercise of his throat and lips, or shaped and placed it with his hands
and fingers.
We have seen that this view came from far; that it existed in the
Chaldaeo-Babylonian and Egyptian civilizations, and probably in others
of the earliest date known to us; that its main features passed thence
into the sacred books of the Hebrews and then into the early Christian
Church, by whose theologians it was developed through the Middle Ages
and maintained during the modern period.
But, while this idea was thus developed by a succession of noble and
thoughtful men through thousands of years, another conception, to all
appearance equally ancient, was developed, sometimes in antagonism to
it, sometimes mingled with it--the conception of all living beings as
wholly or in part the result of a growth process--of an evolution.
This idea, in various forms, became a powerful factor in nearly all the
greater ancient theologies and philosophies. For very widespread among
the early peoples who attained to much thinking power was a conception
that, in obedience to the divine fiat, a watery chaos produced the
earth, and that the sea and land gave birth to their inhabitants.
This is clearly seen in those records of Chaldaeo-Babylonian thought
deciphered in these latter years, to which reference has already been
made. In these we have a watery chaos which, under divine action, brings
forth the earth and its inhabitants; first the sea animals and then the
land animals--the latter being separated into three kinds, substantially
as recorded afterward in the Hebrew accounts. At the various stages in
the work the Chaldean Creator pronounces it "beautiful," just as the
Hebrew Creator in our own later account pronounces it "good."
In both accounts there is placed over the whole creation a solid,
concave firmament; in both, light is created first, and the heavenly
bodies are afterward placed "for signs and for seasons"; in both, the
number seven is especially sacred, giving rise to a sacred division of
time and to much else. It may be added that, with many other features in
the Hebrew legends evidently drawn from the Chaldean, the account of the
creation in each is followed by a legend regarding "the fall of man" and
a deluge, many details of which clearly passed in slightly modified form
from the Chaldean into the Hebrew accounts.
It would have been a miracle indeed if these primitive conceptions,
wrought out with so much poetic vigour in that earlier civilization
on the Tigris and Euphrates, had failed to influence the Hebrews, who
during the most plastic periods of their development were under the
tutelage of their Chaldean neighbours. Since the researches of Layard,
George Smith, Oppert, Schrader, Jensen, Sayce, and their compeers, there
is no longer a reasonable doubt that this ancient view of the world,
elaborated if not originated in that earlier civilization, came thence
as a legacy to the Hebrews, who wrought it in a somewhat disjointed but
mainly monotheistic form into the poetic whole which forms one of the
most precious treasures of ancient thought preserved in the book of
Genesis.
Thus it was that, while the idea of a simple material creation literally
by the hands and fingers or voice of the Creator became, as we have
seen, the starting-point of a powerful stream of theological thought,
and while this stream was swollen from age to age by contributions from
the fathers, doctors, and learned divines of the Church, Catholic
and Protestant, there was poured into it this lesser current, always
discernible and at times clearly separated from it--a current of belief
in a process of evolution.
The Rev. Prof. Sayce, of Oxford, than whom no English-speaking scholar
carries more weight in a matter of this kind, has recently declared his
belief that the Chaldaeo-Babylonian theory was the undoubted source of
the similar theory propounded by the Ionic philosopher Anaximander--the
Greek thinkers deriving this view from the Babylonians through the
Phoenicians; he also allows that from the same source its main features
were adopted into both the accounts given in the first of our
sacred books, and in this general view the most eminent Christian
Assyriologists concur.
It is true that these sacred accounts of ours contradict each other. In
that part of the first or Elohistic account given in the first chapter
of Genesis the WATERS bring forth fishes, marine animals, and birds
(Genesis, i, 20); but in that part of the second or Jehovistic account
given in the second chapter of Genesis both the land animals and birds
are declared to have been created not out of the water, but "OUT OF THE
GROUND" (Genesis, ii, 19).
The dialectic skill of the fathers was easily equal to explaining away
this contradiction; but the old current of thought, strengthened by both
these legends, arrested their attention, and, passing through the
minds of a succession of the greatest men of the Church, influenced
theological opinion deeply, if not widely, for ages, in favour of an
evolution theory.
But there was still another ancient source of evolution ideas.
Thoughtful men of the early civilizations which were developed along the
great rivers in the warmer regions of the earth noted how the sun-god as
he rose in his fullest might caused the water and the rich soil to teem
with the lesser forms of life. In Egypt, especially, men saw how
under this divine power the Nile slime brought forth "creeping things
innumerable." Hence mainly this ancient belief that the animals and
man were produced by lifeless matter at the divine command, "in the
beginning," was supplemented by the idea that some of the lesser
animals, especially the insects, were produced by a later evolution,
being evoked after the original creation from various sources, but
chiefly from matter in a state of decay.
This crude, early view aided doubtless in giving germs of a better
evolution theory to the early Greeks. Anaximander, Empedocles,
Anaxagoras, and, greatest of all, Aristotle, as we have seen, developed
them, making their way at times by guesses toward truths since
established by observation. Aristotle especially, both by speculation
and observation, arrived at some results which, had Greek freedom
of thought continued, might have brought the world long since to its
present plane of biological knowledge; for he reached something like the
modern idea of a succession of higher organizations from lower, and made
the fruitful suggestion of "a perfecting principle" in Nature.
With the coming in of Christian theology this tendency toward a yet
truer theory of evolution was mainly stopped, but the old crude view
remained, and as a typical example of it we may note the opinion of St.
Basil the Great in the fourth century. Discussing the work of creation,
he declares that, at the command of God, "the waters were gifted with
productive power"; "from slime and muddy places frogs, flies, and gnats
came into being"; and he finally declares that the same voice which gave
this energy and quality of productiveness to earth and water shall be
similarly efficacious until the end of the world. St. Gregory of Nyssa
held a similar view.
This idea of these great fathers of the Eastern Church took even
stronger hold on the great father of the Western Church. For St.
Augustine, so fettered usually by the letter of the sacred text, broke
from his own famous doctrine as to the acceptance of Scripture and
spurned the generally received belief of a creative process like that by
which a toymaker brings into existence a box of playthings. In his great
treatise on Genesis he says: "To suppose that God formed man from the
dust with bodily hands is very childish.... God neither formed man with
bodily hands nor did he breathe upon him with throat and lips."
St. Augustine then suggests the adoption of the old emanation or
evolution theory, shows that "certain very small animals may not have
been created on the fifth and sixth days, but may have originated later
from putrefying matter," argues that, even if this be so, God is still
their creator, dwells upon such a potential creation as involved in the
actual creation, and speaks of animals "whose numbers the after-time
unfolded."
In his great treatise on the Trinity--the work to which he devoted the
best thirty years of his life--we find the full growth of this opinion.
He develops at length the view that in the creation of living beings
there was something like a growth--that God is the ultimate author,
but works through secondary causes; and finally argues that certain
substances are endowed by God with the power of producing certain
classes of plants and animals.(19)
(19) For the Chaldean view of creation, see George Smith, Chaldean
Account of Genesis, New York, 1876, pp. 14,15, and 64-86; also Lukas, as
above; also Sayce, Religion of the Ancient Babylonians, Hibbert Lectures
for 1887, pp. 371 and elsewhere; as to the fall of man, Tower of Babel,
sacredness of the number seven, etc., see also Delitzsch, appendix to
the German translation of Smith, pp. 305 et seq.; as to the almost exact
adoption of the Chaldean legends into the Hebrew sacred account, see
all these, as also Schrader, Die Keilinschriften und das Alte
Testament, Giessen, 1883, early chapters; also article Babylonia in
the Encyclopedia Britannica; as to similar approval of creation by the
Creator in both accounts, see George Smith, p. 73; as to the migration
of the Babylonian legends to the Hebrews, see Schrader, Whitehouse's
translation, pp. 44,45; as to the Chaldaean belief ina solid firmament,
while Schrader in 1883 thought it not proved, Jensen in 1890 has found
it clearly expresses--see his Kosmologie der Babylonier, pp.9 et seq.,
also pp. 304-306, and elsewhere. Dr. Lukas in 1893 also fully accepts
this view of a Chaldean record of a "firmament"--see Kosmologie, pp.
43, etc.; see also Maspero and Sayce, the Dawn of Civilization, and for
crude early ideas of evolution in Egypt, see ibid., pp. 156 et seq.
For the seven-day week among the Chaldeans and rest on the seventh day,
and the proof that even the name "Sabbath" is of Chaldean origin, see
Delitzsch, Beiga-ben zu Smith's Chald. Genesis, pp. 300 and 306; also
Schrader; for St. Basil, see Hexaemeron and Homilies vii-ix; but for the
steadfastness of Basil's view in regard to the immutability of species,
see a Catholic writer on evolution and Faith in the Dublin Review for
July, 1871, p. 13; for citations of St. Augustine on Genesis, see the De
Genesi contra Manichoeos, lib. ii, cap. 14, in Migne, xxxiv, 188,--lib.
v, cap. 5 and cap. 23,--and lib vii, cap I; for the citations from his
work on the Trinity, see his De Trinitate, lib. iii, cap. 8 and 9, in
Migne, xlii, 877, 878; for the general subject very fully and adequately
presented, see Osborn, From the Greeks to Darwin, New York, 1894, chaps.
ii and iii.
This idea of a development by secondary causes apart from the original
creation was helped in its growth by a theological exigency. More and
more, as the organic world was observed, the vast multitude of petty
animals, winged creatures, and "creeping things" was felt to be a
strain upon the sacred narrative. More and more it became difficult to
reconcile the dignity of the Almighty with his work in bringing each
of these creatures before Adam to be named; or to reconcile the human
limitations of Adam with his work in naming "every living creature"; or
to reconcile the dimensions of Noah's ark with the space required for
preserving all of them, and the food of all sorts necessary for their
sustenance, whether they were admitted by twos, as stated in one
scriptural account, or by sevens, as stated in the other.
The inadequate size of the ark gave especial trouble. Origen had dealt
with it by suggesting that the cubit was six times greater than had been
supposed. Bede explained Noah's ability to complete so large a vessel by
supposing that he worked upon it during a hundred years; and, as to the
provision of food taken into it, he declared that there was no need of
a supply for more than one day, since God could throw the animals into
a deep sleep or otherwise miraculously make one day's supply sufficient;
he also lessened the strain on faith still more by diminishing
the number of animals taken into the ark--supporting his view upon
Augustine's theory of the later development of insects out of carrion.
Doubtless this theological necessity was among the main reasons which
led St. Isidore of Seville, in the seventh century, to incorporate
this theory, supported by St. Basil and St. Augustine, into his great
encyclopedic work which gave materials for thought on God and Nature to
so many generations. He familiarized the theological world still further
with the doctrine of secondary creation, giving such examples of it as
that "bees are generated from decomposed veal, beetles from horseflesh,
grasshoppers from mules, scorpions from crabs," and, in order to give
still stronger force to the idea of such transformations, he dwells
on the biblical account of Nebuchadnezzar, which appears to have taken
strong hold upon medieval thought in science, and he declares that
other human beings had been changed into animals, especially into swine,
wolves, and owls.
This doctrine of after-creations went on gathering strength until, in
the twelfth century, Peter Lombard, in his theological summary, The
Sentences, so powerful in moulding the thought of the Church, emphasized
the distinction between animals which spring from carrion and those
which are created from earth and water; the former he holds to have been
created "potentially" the latter "actually."
In the century following, this idea was taken up by St. Thomas Aquinas
and virtually received from him its final form. In the Summa, which
remains the greatest work of medieval thought, he accepts the idea that
certain animals spring from the decaying bodies of plants and animals,
and declares that they are produced by the creative word of God either
actually or virtually. He develops this view by saying, "Nothing was
made by God, after the six days of creation, absolutely new, but it was
in some sense included in the work of the six days"; and that "even
new species, if any appear, have existed before in certain native
properties, just as animals are produced from putrefaction."
The distinction thus developed between creation "causally" or
"potentially," and "materially" or "formally," was made much of by
commentators afterward. Cornelius a Lapide spread it by saying that
certain animals were created not "absolutely," but only "derivatively,"
and this thought was still further developed three centuries later by
Augustinus Eugubinus, who tells us that, after the first creative energy
had called forth land and water, light was made by the Almighty, the
instrument of all future creation, and that the light called everything
into existence.
All this "science falsely so called," so sedulously developed by the
master minds of the Church, and yet so futile that we might almost
suppose that the great apostle, in a glow of prophetic vision, had
foreseen it in his famous condemnation, seems at this distance very
harmless indeed; yet, to many guardians of the "sacred deposit of
doctrine" in the Church, even so slight a departure from the main
current of thought seemed dangerous. It appeared to them like pressing
the doctrine of secondary causes to a perilous extent; and about the
beginning of the seventeenth century we have the eminent Spanish Jesuit
and theologian Suarez denouncing it, and declaring St. Augustine a
heretic for his share in it.
But there was little danger to the older idea just then; the main
theological tendency was so strong that the world kept on as of old.
Biblical theology continued to spin its own webs out of its own bowels,
and all the lesser theological flies continued to be entangled in them;
yet here and there stronger thinkers broke loose from this entanglement
and helped somewhat to disentangle others.(20)
(20) For Bede's view of the ark and the origin of insects, see his
Hexaemeron, i and ii; for Isidore, see the Etymologiae, xi, 4, and xiii,
22; for Peter Lombard, see Sent., lib. ii, dist. xv, 4 (in Migne,
cxcii, 682); for St. Thomas Aquinas as to the laws of Nature, see Summae
Theologica, i, Quaest. lxvii, art. iv; for his discussion on Avicenna's
theory of the origin of animals, see ibid., i Quaest. lxxi, vol. i,
pp. 1184 and 1185, of Migne's edit.; for his idea as to the word of God
being the active producing principle, see ibid., i, Quaest. lxxi, art.
i; for his remarks on species, see ibid, i, Quaest. lxxii, art. i;
for his ideas on the necessity of the procreation of man, see ibid, i,
Quaest. lxxii, art. i; for the origin of animals from putrefaction,
see ibid, i, Quaest. lxxix, art. i, 3; for Cornelius a Lapide on the
derivative creation of animals, see his In Genesim Comment., cap. i,
cited by Mivart, Genesis of Species, p. 282; for a reference to Suarez's
denunciation of the view of St. Augustine, see Huxley's Essays.
At the close of the Middle Ages, in spite of the devotion of the
Reformed Church to the letter of Scripture, the revival of learning and
the great voyages gave an atmosphere in which better thinking on the
problems of Nature began to gain strength. On all sides, in every field,
men were making discoveries which caused the general theological view to
appear more and more inadequate.
First of those who should be mentioned with reverence as beginning to
develop again that current of Greek thought which the system drawn
from our sacred books by the fathers and doctors of the Church had
interrupted for more than a thousand years, was Giordano Bruno. His
utterances were indeed vague and enigmatical, but this fault may well be
forgiven him, for he saw but too clearly what must be his reward for
any more open statements. His reward indeed came--even for his faulty
utterances--when, toward the end of the nineteenth century, thoughtful
men from all parts of the world united in erecting his statue on the
spot where he had been burned by the Roman Inquisition nearly three
hundred years before.
After Bruno's death, during the first half of the seventeenth century,
Descartes seemed about to take the leadership of human thought: his
theories, however superseded now, gave a great impulse to investigation
then. His genius in promoting an evolution doctrine as regards the
mechanical formation of the solar system was great, and his mode of
thought strengthened the current of evolutionary doctrine generally; but
his constant dread of persecution, both from Catholics and Protestants,
led him steadily to veil his thoughts and even to suppress them. The
execution of Bruno had occurred in his childhood, and in the midst of
his career he had watched the Galileo struggle in all its stages. He had
seen his own works condemned by university after university under the
direction of theologians, and placed upon the Roman Index. Although
he gave new and striking arguments to prove the existence of God, and
humbled himself before the Jesuits, he was condemned by Catholics and
Protestants alike. Since Roger Bacon, perhaps, no great thinker had been
so completely abased and thwarted by theological oppression.
Near the close of the same century another great thinker, Leibnitz,
though not propounding any full doctrine on evolution, gave it an
impulse by suggesting a view contrary to the sacrosanct belief in the
immutability of species--that is, to the pious doctrine that every
species in the animal kingdom now exists as it left the hands of the
Creator, the naming process by Adam, and the door of Noah's ark.
His punishment at the hands of the Church came a few years later, when,
in 1712, the Jesuits defeated his attempt to found an Academy of Science
at Vienna. The imperial authorities covered him with honours, but the
priests--ruling in the confessionals and pulpits--would not allow
him the privilege of aiding his fellow-men to ascertain God's truths
revealed in Nature.
Spinoza, Hume, and Kant may also be mentioned as among those whose
thinking, even when mistaken, might have done much to aid in the
development of a truer theory had not the theologic atmosphere of their
times been so unpropitious; but a few years after Leibnitz's death came
in France a thinker in natural science of much less influence than any
of these, who made a decided step forward.
Early in the eighteenth century Benoist de Maillet, a man of the world,
but a wide observer and close thinker upon Nature, began meditating
especially upon the origin of animal forms, and was led into the idea of
the transformation of species and so into a theory of evolution, which
in some important respects anticipated modern ideas. He definitely,
though at times absurdly, conceived the production of existing species
by the modification of their predecessors, and he plainly accepted one
of the fundamental maxims of modern geology--that the structure of the
globe must be studied in the light of the present course of Nature.
But he fell between two ranks of adversaries. On one side, the Church
authorities denounced him as a freethinker; on the other, Voltaire
ridiculed him as a devotee. Feeling that his greatest danger was from
the orthodox theologians, De Maillet endeavoured to protect himself
by disguising his name in the title of his book, and by so wording its
preface and dedication that, if persecuted, he could declare it a mere
sport of fancy; he therefore announced it as the reverie of a Hindu sage
imparted to a Christian missionary. But this strategy availed nothing:
he had allowed his Hindu sage to suggest that the days of creation named
in Genesis might be long periods of time; and this, with other ideas of
equally fearful import, was fatal. Though the book was in type in 1735,
it was not published till 1748--three years after his death.
On the other hand, the heterodox theology of Voltaire was also aroused;
and, as De Maillet had seen in the presence of fossils on high mountains
a proof that these mountains were once below the sea, Voltaire,
recognising in this an argument for the deluge of Noah, ridiculed the
new thinker without mercy. Unfortunately, some of De Maillet's vagaries
lent themselves admirably to Voltaire's sarcasm; better material for it
could hardly be conceived than the theory, seriously proposed, that the
first human being was born of a mermaid.
Hence it was that, between these two extremes of theology, De Maillet
received no recognition until, very recently, the greatest men of
science in England and France have united in giving him his due. But
his work was not lost, even in his own day; Robinet and Bonnet pushed
forward victoriously on helpful lines.
In the second half of the eighteenth century a great barrier was thrown
across this current--the authority of Linnaeus. He was the most eminent
naturalist of his time, a wide observer, a close thinker; but the
atmosphere in which he lived and moved and had his being was saturated
with biblical theology, and this permeated all his thinking.
He who visits the tomb of Linnaeus to-day, entering the beautiful
cathedral of Upsala by its southern porch, sees above it, wrought in
stone, the Hebrew legend of creation. In a series of medallions, the
Almighty--in human form--accomplishes the work of each creative day. In
due order he puts in place the solid firmament with the waters above it,
the sun, moon, and stars within it, the beasts, birds, and plants below
it, and finishes his task by taking man out of a little hillock of "the
earth beneath," and woman out of man's side. Doubtless Linnaeus, as he
went to his devotions, often smiled at this childlike portrayal. Yet
he was never able to break away from the idea it embodied. At times, in
face of the difficulties which beset the orthodox theory, he ventured
to favour some slight concessions. Toward the end of his life he timidly
advanced the hypothesis that all the species of one genus constituted
at the creation one species; and from the last edition of his Systema
Naturae he quietly left out the strongly orthodox statement of the
fixity of each species, which he had insisted upon in his earlier works.
But he made no adequate declaration. What he might expect if he openly
and decidedly sanctioned a newer view he learned to his cost; warnings
came speedily both from the Catholic and Protestant sides.
At a time when eminent prelates of the older Church were eulogizing
debauched princes like Louis XV, and using the unspeakably obscene
casuistry of the Jesuit Sanchez in the education of the priesthood as to
the relations of men to women, the modesty of the Church authorities was
so shocked by Linnaeus's proofs of a sexual system in plants that for
many years his writings were prohibited in the Papal States and in
various other parts of Europe where clerical authority was strong enough
to resist the new scientific current. Not until 1773 did one of the
more broad-minded cardinals--Zelanda--succeed in gaining permission that
Prof. Minasi should discuss the Linnaean system at Rome.
And Protestantism was quite as oppressive. In a letter to Eloius,
Linnaeus tells of the rebuke given to science by one of the great
Lutheran prelates of Sweden, Bishop Svedberg. From various parts of
Europe detailed statements had been sent to the Royal Academy of Science
that water had been turned into blood, and well-meaning ecclesiastics
had seen in this an indication of the wrath of God, certainly against
the regions in which these miracles had occurred and possibly against
the whole world. A miracle of this sort appearing in Sweden, Linnaeus
looked into it carefully and found that the reddening of the water
was caused by dense masses of minute insects. News of this explanation
having reached the bishop, he took the field against it; he denounced
this scientific discovery as "a Satanic abyss" (abyssum Satanae), and
declared "The reddening of the water is NOT natural," and "when God
allows such a miracle to take place Satan endeavours, and so do his
ungodly, self-reliant, self-sufficient, and worldly tools, to make it
signify nothing." In face of this onslaught Linnaeus retreated; he tells
his correspondent that "it is difficult to say anything in this matter,"
and shields himself under the statement "It is certainly a miracle that
so many millions of creatures can be so suddenly propagated," and "it
shows undoubtedly the all-wise power of the Infinite."
The great naturalist, grown old and worn with labours for science, could
no longer resist the contemporary theology; he settled into obedience
to it, and while the modification of his early orthodox view was, as we
have seen, quietly imbedded in the final edition of his great work, he
made no special effort to impress it upon the world. To all appearance
he continued to adhere to the doctrine that all existing species had
been created by the Almighty "in the beginning," and that since "the
beginning" no new species had appeared.
Yet even his great authority could not arrest the swelling tide;
more and more vast became the number of species, more and more
incomprehensible under the old theory became the newly ascertained
facts in geographical distribution, more and more it was felt that the
universe and animated beings had come into existence by some process
other than a special creation "in the beginning," and the question was
constantly pressing, "By WHAT process?"
Throughout the whole of the eighteenth century one man was at work on
natural history who might have contributed much toward an answer to this
question: this man was Buffon. His powers of research and thought were
remarkable, and his gift in presenting results of research and thought
showed genius. He had caught the idea of an evolution in Nature by the
variation of species, and was likely to make a great advance with it;
but he, too, was made to feel the power of theology.
As long as he gave pleasing descriptions of animals the Church petted
him, but when he began to deduce truths of philosophical import the
batteries of the Sorbonne were opened upon him; he was made to know that
"the sacred deposit of truth committed to the Church" was, that "in the
beginning God made the heavens and the earth" and that "all things were
made at the beginning of the world." For his simple statement of truths
in natural science which are to-day truisms, he was, as we have seen,
dragged forth by the theological faculty, forced to recant publicly, and
to print his recantation. In this he announced, "I abandon everything in
my book respecting the formation of the earth, and generally all which
may be contrary to the narrative of Moses."(21)
(21) For Descartes and his relation to the Copernican theory, see
Saisset, Descartes et ses Precurseurs; also Fouillee, Descartes, Paris,
1893, chaps. ii and iii; also other authorities cited in my chapter
on Astronomy; for his relation to the theory of evolution, see the
Principes de Philosophie, 3eme partie, S 45. For de Maillet, see
Quatrefages, Darwin et ses Precurseurs francais, chap i, citing
D'Archiac, Paleontologie, Stratigraphie, vol. i; also, Perrier, La
Philosophie zoologique avant Darwin, chap. vi; also the admirable
article Evolution, by Huxley, in Ency. Brit. The title of De Maillet's
book is Telliamed, ou Entretiens d'un Philosophe indien avec un
Missionaire francais sur la Diminution de la Mer, 1748, 1756. For
Buffon, see the authorities previously given, also the chapter on
Geology in this work. For the resistance of both Catholic and Protestant
authorities to the Linnaean system and ideas, see Alberg, Life of
Linnaeus, London, 1888, pp. 143-147, and 237. As to the creation
medallions at the Cathedral of Upsala, it is a somewhat curious
coincidence that the present writer came upon them while visiting that
edifice during the preparation of this chapter.
But all this triumph of the Chaldeo-Babylonian creation legends which
the Church had inherited availed but little.
For about the end of the eighteenth century fruitful suggestions and
even clear presentations of this or that part of a large evolutionary
doctrine came thick and fast, and from the most divergent quarters.
Especially remarkable were those which came from Erasmus Darwin in
England, from Maupertuis in France, from Oken in Switzerland, and from
Herder, and, most brilliantly of all, from Goethe in Germany.
Two men among these thinkers must be especially mentioned--Treviranus in
Germany and Lamarck in France; each independently of the other drew the
world more completely than ever before in this direction.
From Treviranus came, in 1802, his work on biology, and in this he gave
forth the idea that from forms of life originally simple had arisen all
higher organizations by gradual development; that every living feature
has a capacity for receiving modifications of its structure from
external influences; and that no species had become really extinct, but
that each had passed into some other species. From Lamarck came
about the same time his Researches, and a little later his Zoological
Philosophy, which introduced a new factor into the process of
evolution--the action of the animal itself in its efforts toward a
development to suit new needs--and he gave as his principal conclusions
the following:
1. Life tends to increase the volume of each living body and of all its
parts up to a limit determined by its own necessities.
2. New wants in animals give rise to new organs.
3. The development of these organs is in proportion to their employment.
4. New developments may be transmitted to offspring.
His well-known examples to illustrate these views, such as that of
successive generations of giraffes lengthening their necks by stretching
them to gather high-growing foliage, and of successive generations of
kangaroos lengthening and strengthening their hind legs by the necessity
of keeping themselves erect while jumping, provoked laughter, but
the very comicality of these illustrations aided to fasten his main
conclusion in men's memories.
In both these statements, imperfect as they were, great truths were
embodied--truths which were sure to grow.
Lamarck's declaration, especially, that the development of organs is in
ratio to their employment, and his indications of the reproduction
in progeny of what is gained or lost in parents by the influence of
circumstances, entered as a most effective force into the development of
the evolution theory.
The next great successor in the apostolate of this idea of the universe
was Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire. As early as 1795 he had begun to form a
theory that species are various modifications of the same type, and this
theory he developed, testing it at various stages as Nature was more
and more displayed to him. It fell to his lot to bear the brunt in a
struggle against heavy odds which lasted many years.
For the man who now took up the warfare, avowedly for science
but unconsciously for theology, was the foremost naturalist then
living--Cuvier. His scientific eminence was deserved; the highest
honours of his own and other countries were given him, and he bore
them worthily. An Imperial Councillor under Napoleon; President of the
Council of Public Instruction and Chancellor of the University under
the restored Bourbons; Grand Officer of the Legion of Honour, a Peer of
France, Minister of the Interior, and President of the Council of State
under Louis Philippe; he was eminent in all these capacities, and yet
the dignity given by such high administrative positions was as nothing
compared to his leadership in natural science. Science throughout the
world acknowledged in him its chief contemporary ornament, and to this
hour his fame rightly continues. But there was in him, as in Linnaeus,
a survival of certain theological ways of looking at the universe and
certain theological conceptions of a plan of creation; it must be said,
too, that while his temperament made him distrust new hypotheses, of
which he had seen so many born and die, his environment as a great
functionary of state, honoured, admired, almost adored by the greatest,
not only in the state but in the Church, his solicitude lest science
should receive some detriment by openly resisting the Church, which
had recaptured Europe after the French Revolution, and had made of its
enemies its footstool--all these considerations led him to oppose the
new theory. Amid the plaudits, then, of the foremost church-men he
threw across the path of the evolution doctrines the whole mass of
his authority in favour of the old theory of catastrophic changes and
special creations.
Geoffroy Saint-Hilaire stoutly withstood him, braving non-recognition,
ill-treatment, and ridicule. Treviranus, afar off in his mathematical
lecture-room at Bremen, seemed simply forgotten.
But the current of evolutionary thought could not thus be checked:
dammed up for a time, it broke out in new channels and in ways and
places least expected; turned away from France, it appeared especially
in England, where great paleontologists and geologists arose whose work
culminated in that of Lyell. Specialists throughout all the world now
became more vigorous than ever, gathering facts and thinking upon them
in a way which caused the special creation theory to shrink more and
more. Broader and more full became these various rivulets, soon to unite
in one great stream of thought.
In 1813 Dr. Wells developed a theory of evolution by natural selection
to account for varieties in the human race. About 1820 Dean Herbert,
eminent as an authority in horticulture, avowed his conviction that
species are but fixed varieties. In 1831 Patrick Matthews stumbled upon
and stated the main doctrine of natural selection in evolution; and
others here and there, in Europe and America, caught an inkling of it.
But no one outside of a circle apparently uninfluential cared for
these things: the Church was serene: on the Continent it had obtained
reactionary control of courts, cabinets, and universities; in England,
Dean Cockburn was denouncing Mary Somerville and the geologists to the
delight of churchmen; and the Rev. Mellor Brown was doing the same thing
for the edification of dissenters.
In America the mild suggestions of Silliman and his compeers were met
by the protestations of the Andover theologians headed by Moses Stuart.
Neither of the great English universities, as a rule, took any notice of
the innovators save by sneers.
To this current of thought there was joined a new element when, in
1844, Robert Chambers published his Vestiges of Creation. The book was
attractive and was widely read. In Chambers's view the several series of
animated beings, from the simplest and oldest up to the highest and most
recent, were the result of two distinct impulses, each given once and
for all time by the Creator. The first of these was an impulse imparted
to forms of life, lifting them gradually through higher grades; the
second was an impulse tending to modify organic substances in accordance
with external circumstances; in fact, the doctrine of the book was
evolution tempered by miracle--a stretching out of the creative act
through all time--a pious version of Lamarck.
Two results followed, one mirth-provoking, the other leading to serious
thought. The amusing result was that the theologians were greatly
alarmed by the book: it was loudly insisted that it promoted atheism.
Looking back along the line of thought which has since been developed,
one feels that the older theologians ought to have put up thanksgivings
for Chambers's theory, and prayers that it might prove true. The
more serious result was that it accustomed men's minds to a belief in
evolution as in some form possible or even probable. In this way it was
provisionally of service.
Eight years later Herbert Spencer published an essay contrasting the
theories of creation and evolution--reasoning with great force in favour
of the latter, showing that species had undoubtedly been modified by
circumstances; but still only few and chosen men saw the significance
of all these lines of reasoning which had been converging during so many
years toward one conclusion.
On July 1, 1858, there were read before the Linnaean Society at London
two papers--one presented by Charles Darwin, the other by Alfred Russel
Wallace--and with the reading of these papers the doctrine of evolution
by natural selection was born. Then and there a fatal breach was made in
the great theological barrier of the continued fixity of species since
the creation.
The story of these papers the scientific world knows by heart: how
Charles Darwin, having been sent to the University of Cambridge to
fit him for the Anglican priesthood, left it in 1831 to go upon the
scientific expedition of the Beagle; how for five years he studied with
wonderful vigour and acuteness the problems of life as revealed on
land and at sea--among volcanoes and coral reefs, in forests and on the
sands, from the tropics to the arctic regions; how, in the Cape Verde
and the Galapagos Islands, and in Brazil, Patagonia, and Australia
he interrogated Nature with matchless persistency and skill; how he
returned unheralded, quietly settled down to his work, and soon set the
world thinking over its first published results, such as his book on
Coral Reefs, and the monograph on the Cirripedia; and, finally, how he
presented his paper, and followed it up with treatises which made him
one of the great leaders in the history of human thought.
The scientific world realizes, too, more and more, the power of
character shown by Darwin in all this great career; the faculty of
silence, the reserve of strength seen in keeping his great thought--his
idea of evolution by natural selection--under silent study and
meditation for nearly twenty years, giving no hint of it to the world
at large, but working in every field to secure proofs or disproofs,
and accumulating masses of precious material for the solution of the
questions involved.
To one man only did he reveal his thought--to Dr. Joseph Hooker, to
whom in 1844, under the seal of secrecy, he gave a summary of his
conclusions. Not until fourteen years later occurred the event which
showed him that the fulness of time had come--the letter from Alfred
Russel Wallace, to whom, in brilliant researches during the decade from
1848 to 1858, in Brazil and in the Malay Archipelago, the same truth of
evolution by natural selection had been revealed. Among the proofs that
scientific study does no injury to the more delicate shades of sentiment
is the well-known story of this letter. With it Wallace sent Darwin a
memoir, asking him to present it to the Linnaean Society: on examining
it, Darwin found that Wallace had independently arrived at conclusions
similar to his own--possibly had deprived him of fame; but Darwin was
loyal to his friend, and his friend remained ever loyal to him. He
publicly presented the paper from Wallace, with his own conclusions; and
the date of this presentation--July 1, 1858--separates two epochs in the
history, not merely of natural science, but of human thought.
In the following year, 1859, came the first instalment of his work in
its fuller development--his book on The Origin of Species. In this
book one at least of the main secrets at the heart of the evolutionary
process, which had baffled the long line of investigators and
philosophers from the days of Aristotle, was more broadly revealed. The
effective mechanism of evolution was shown at work in three ascertained
facts: in the struggle for existence among organized beings; in the
survival of the fittest; and in heredity. These facts were presented
with such minute research, wide observation, patient collation,
transparent honesty, and judicial fairness, that they at once commanded
the world's attention. It was the outcome of thirty years' work and
thought by a worker and thinker of genius, but it was yet more than
that--it was the outcome, also, of the work and thought of another man
of genius fifty years before. The book of Malthus on the Principle
of Population, mainly founded on the fact that animals increase in a
geometrical ratio, and therefore, if unchecked, must encumber the earth,
had been generally forgotten, and was only recalled with a sneer. But
the genius of Darwin recognised in it a deeper meaning, and now the
thought of Malthus was joined to the new current. Meditating upon it in
connection with his own observations of the luxuriance of Nature, Darwin
had arrived at his doctrine of natural selection and survival of the
fittest.
As the great dogmatic barrier between the old and new views of the
universe was broken down, the flood of new thought pouring over the
world stimulated and nourished strong growths in every field of research
and reasoning: edition after edition of the book was called for; it
was translated even into Japanese and Hindustani; the stagnation of
scientific thought, which Buckle, only a few years before, had so deeply
lamented, gave place to a widespread and fruitful activity; masses of
accumulated observations, which had seemed stale and unprofitable,
were made alive; facts formerly without meaning now found their
interpretation. Under this new influence an army of young men took
up every promising line of scientific investigation in every land.
Epoch-making books appeared in all the great nations. Spencer, Wallace,
Huxley, Galton, Tyndall, Tylor, Lubbock, Bagehot, Lewes, in England,
and a phalanx of strong men in Germany, Italy, France, and America gave
forth works which became authoritative in every department of biology.
If some of the older men in France held back, overawed perhaps by the
authority of Cuvier, the younger and more vigorous pressed on.
One source of opposition deserves to be especially mentioned--Louis
Agassiz.
A great investigator, an inspired and inspiring teacher, a noble man, he
had received and elaborated a theory of animated creation which he could
not readily change. In his heart and mind still prevailed the atmosphere
of the little Swiss parsonage in which he was born, and his religious
and moral nature, so beautiful to all who knew him, was especially
repelled by sundry evolutionists, who, in their zeal as neophytes, made
proclamations seeming to have a decidedly irreligious if not immoral
bearing. In addition to this was the direction his thinking had received
from Cuvier. Both these influences combined to prevent his acceptance of
the new view.
He was the third great man who had thrown his influence as a barrier
across the current of evolutionary thought. Linnaeus in the second half
of the eighteenth century, Cuvier in the first half, and Agassiz in the
second half of the nineteenth--all made the same effort. Each remains
great; but not all of them together could arrest the current. Agassiz's
strong efforts throughout the United States, and indeed throughout
Europe, to check it, really promoted it. From the great museum he had
founded at Cambridge, from his summer school at Penikese, from his
lecture rooms at Harvard and Cornell, his disciples went forth full of
love and admiration for him, full of enthusiasm which he had stirred
and into fields which he had indicated; but their powers, which he had
aroused and strengthened, were devoted to developing the truth he failed
to recognise; Shaler, Verrill, Packard, Hartt, Wilder, Jordan, with a
multitude of others, and especially the son who bore his honoured name,
did justice to his memory by applying what they had received from him to
research under inspiration of the new revelation.
Still another man deserves especial gratitude and honour in this
progress--Edward Livingston Youmans. He was perhaps the first in America
to recognise the vast bearings of the truths presented by Darwin,
Wallace, and Spencer. He became the apostle of these truths, sacrificing
the brilliant career on which he had entered as a public lecturer,
subordinating himself to the three leaders, and giving himself to
editorial drudgery in the stimulation of research and the announcement
of results.
In support of the new doctrine came a world of new proofs; those which
Darwin himself added in regard to the cross-fertilization of plants,
and which he had adopted from embryology, led the way, and these were
followed by the discoveries of Wallace, Bates, Huxley, Marsh, Cope,
Leidy, Haeckel, Muller, Gaudry, and a multitude of others in all
lands.(22)
(22) For Agassiz's opposition to evolution, see the Essay on
Classification, vol. i, 1857, as regards Lamark, and vol. iii, as
regards Darwin; also Silliman's Journal, July 1860; also the Atlantic
Monthly, January 1874; also his Life and Correspondence, vol. ii, p.
647; also Asa Gray, Scientific Papers, vol. ii, p. 484. A reminiscence
of my own enables me to appreciate his deep ethical and religious
feeling. I was passing the day with him at Nahant in 1868, consulting
him regarding candidates for various scientific chairs at the newly
established Cornell University, in which he took a deep interest. As we
discussed one after another of the candidates, he suddenly said: "Who is
to be your Professor of Moral Philosophy? That is a far more important
position than all the others."
IV. THE FINAL EFFORT OF THEOLOGY.
Darwin's Origin of Species had come into the theological world like
a plough into an ant-hill. Everywhere those thus rudely awakened from
their old comfort and repose had swarmed forth angry and confused.
Reviews, sermons, books light and heavy, came flying at the new thinker
from all sides.
The keynote was struck at once in the Quarterly Review by Wilberforce,
Bishop of Oxford. He declared that Darwin was guilty of "a tendency to
limit God's glory in creation"; that "the principle of natural selection
is absolutely incompatible with the word of God"; that it "contradicts
the revealed relations of creation to its Creator"; that it is
"inconsistent with the fulness of his glory"; that it is "a dishonouring
view of Nature"; and that there is "a simpler explanation of the
presence of these strange forms among the works of God": that
explanation being--"the fall of Adam." Nor did the bishop's efforts end
here; at the meeting of the British Association for the Advancement
of Science he again disported himself in the tide of popular applause.
Referring to the ideas of Darwin, who was absent on account of illness,
he congratulated himself in a public speech that he was not descended
from a monkey. The reply came from Huxley, who said in substance: "If
I had to choose, I would prefer to be a descendant of a humble monkey
rather than of a man who employs his knowledge and eloquence in
misrepresenting those who are wearing out their lives in the search for
truth."
This shot reverberated through England, and indeed through other
countries.
The utterances of this the most brilliant prelate of the Anglican Church
received a sort of antiphonal response from the leaders of the English
Catholics. In an address before the "Academia," which had been organized
to combat "science falsely so called," Cardinal Manning declared his
abhorrence of the new view of Nature, and described it as "a brutal
philosophy--to wit, there is no God, and the ape is our Adam."
These attacks from such eminent sources set the clerical fashion for
several years. One distinguished clerical reviewer, in spite of Darwin's
thirty years of quiet labour, and in spite of the powerful summing up
of his book, prefaced a diatribe by saying that Darwin "might have been
more modest had he given some slight reason for dissenting from
the views generally entertained." Another distinguished clergyman,
vice-president of a Protestant institute to combat "dangerous" science,
declared Darwinism "an attempt to dethrone God." Another critic spoke of
persons accepting the Darwinian views as "under the frenzied inspiration
of the inhaler of mephitic gas," and of Darwin's argument as "a jungle
of fanciful assumption." Another spoke of Darwin's views as suggesting
that "God is dead," and declared that Darwin's work "does open violence
to everything which the Creator himself has told us in the Scriptures
of the methods and results of his work." Still another theological
authority asserted: "If the Darwinian theory is true, Genesis is a
lie, the whole framework of the book of life falls to pieces, and the
revelation of God to man, as we Christians know it, is a delusion and
a snare." Another, who had shown excellent qualities as an observing
naturalist, declared the Darwinian view "a huge imposture from the
beginning."
Echoes came from America. One review, the organ of the most widespread
of American religious sects, declared that Darwin was "attempting to
befog and to pettifog the whole question"; another denounced Darwin's
views as "infidelity"; another, representing the American branch of
the Anglican Church, poured contempt over Darwin as "sophistical and
illogical," and then plunged into an exceedingly dangerous line of
argument in the following words: "If this hypothesis be true, then is
the Bible an unbearable fiction;... then have Christians for nearly two
thousand years been duped by a monstrous lie.... Darwin requires us to
disbelieve the authoritative word of the Creator." A leading journal
representing the same church took pains to show the evolution theory to
be as contrary to the explicit declarations of the New Testament as to
those of the Old, and said: "If we have all, men and monkeys, oysters
and eagles, developed from an original germ, then is St. Paul's grand
deliverance--'All flesh is not the same flesh; there is one kind of
flesh of men, another of beasts, another of fishes, and another of
birds'--untrue."
Another echo came from Australia, where Dr. Perry, Lord Bishop of
Melbourne, in a most bitter book on Science and the Bible, declared that
the obvious object of Chambers, Darwin, and Huxley is "to produce in
their readers a disbelief of the Bible."
Nor was the older branch of the Church to be left behind in this chorus.
Bayma, in the Catholic World, declared, "Mr. Darwin is, we have reason
to believe, the mouthpiece or chief trumpeter of that infidel clique
whose well-known object is to do away with all idea of a God."
Worthy of especial note as showing the determination of the theological
side at that period was the foundation of sacro-scientific organizations
to combat the new ideas. First to be noted is the "Academia," planned by
Cardinal Wiseman. In a circular letter the cardinal, usually so moderate
and just, sounded an alarm and summed up by saying, "Now it is for the
Church, which alone possesses divine certainty and divine discernment,
to place itself at once in the front of a movement which threatens even
the fragmentary remains of Christian belief in England." The necessary
permission was obtained from Rome, the Academia was founded, and the
"divine discernment" of the Church was seen in the utterances which
came from it, such as those of Cardinal Manning, which every thoughtful
Catholic would now desire to recall, and in the diatribes of Dr. Laing,
which only aroused laughter on all sides. A similar effort was seen in
Protestant quarters; the "Victoria institute" was created, and perhaps
the most noted utterance which ever came from it was the declaration of
its vice-president, the Rev. Walter Mitchell, that "Darwinism endeavours
to dethrone God."(23)
(23) For Wilberforce's article, see Quarterly Review, July, 1860. For
the reply of Huxley to the bishop's speech I have relied on the account
given in Quatrefages, who had it from Carpenter; a somewhat different
version is given in the Life and Letters of Darwin. For Cardinal
Manning's attack, see Essays on Religion and Literature, London, 1865.
For the review articles, see the Quarterly already cited, and that
for July, 1874; also the North British Review, May 1860; also, F. O.
Morris's letter in the Record, reprinted at Glasgow, 1870; also the
Addresses of Rev. Walter Mitchell before the Victoria Institute, London,
1867; also Rev. B. G. Johns, Moses not Darwin, a Sermon, March 31, 1871.
For the earlier American attacks, see Methodist Quarterly Review, April
1871; The American Church Review, July and October, 1865, and January,
1866. For the Australian attack, see Science and the Bible, by the Right
Reverend Charles Perry, D. D., Bishop of Melbourne, London, 1869. For
Bayma, see the Catholic World, vol. xxvi, p.782. For the Academia, see
Essays edited by Cardinal Manning, above cited; and for the Victoria
Institute, see Scientia Scientarum, by a member of the Victoria
Institute, London, 1865.
In France the attack was even more violent. Fabre d'Envieu brought
out the heavy artillery of theology, and in a long series of elaborate
propositions demonstrated that any other doctrine than that of the
fixity and persistence of species is absolutely contrary to Scripture.
The Abbe Desorges, a former Professor of Theology, stigmatized Darwin as
a "pedant," and evolution as "gloomy". Monseigneur Segur, referring
to Darwin and his followers, went into hysterics and shrieked: "These
infamous doctrines have for their only support the most abject
passions. Their father is pride, their mother impurity, their offspring
revolutions. They come from hell and return thither, taking with them
the gross creatures who blush not to proclaim and accept them."
In Germany the attack, if less declamatory, was no less severe. Catholic
theologians vied with Protestants in bitterness. Prof. Michelis declared
Darwin's theory "a caricature of creation." Dr. Hagermann asserted that
it "turned the Creator out of doors."
Dr. Schund insisted that "every idea of the Holy Scriptures, from
the first to the last page, stands in diametrical opposition to
the Darwinian theory"; and, "if Darwin be right in his view of the
development of man out of a brutal condition, then the Bible teaching in
regard to man is utterly annihilated." Rougemont in Switzerland called
for a crusade against the obnoxious doctrine. Luthardt, Professor of
Theology at Leipsic, declared: "The idea of creation belongs to religion
and not to natural science; the whole superstructure of personal
religion is built upon the doctrine of creation"; and he showed the
evolution theory to be in direct contradiction to Holy Writ.
But in 1863 came an event which brought serious confusion to the
theological camp: Sir Charles Lyell, the most eminent of living
geologists, a man of deeply Christian feeling and of exceedingly
cautious temper, who had opposed the evolution theory of Lamarck
and declared his adherence to the idea of successive creations, then
published his work on the Antiquity of Man, and in this and other
utterances showed himself a complete though unwilling convert to the
fundamental ideas of Darwin. The blow was serious in many ways, and
especially so in two--first, as withdrawing all foundation in fact from
the scriptural chronology, and secondly, as discrediting the creation
theory. The blow was not unexpected; in various review articles against
the Darwinian theory there had been appeals to Lyell, at times almost
piteous, "not to flinch from the truths he had formerly proclaimed." But
Lyell, like the honest man he was, yielded unreservedly to the mass of
new proofs arrayed on the side of evolution against that of creation.
At the same time came Huxley's Man's Place in Nature, giving new and
most cogent arguments in favour of evolution by natural selection.
In 1871 was published Darwin's Descent of Man. Its doctrine had been
anticipated by critics of his previous books, but it made, none the
less, a great stir; again the opposing army trooped forth, though
evidently with much less heart than before. A few were very violent.
The Dublin University Magazine, after the traditional Hibernian fashion,
charged Mr. Darwin with seeking "to displace God by the unerring action
of vagary," and with being "resolved to hunt God out of the world." But
most notable from the side of the older Church was the elaborate
answer to Darwin's book by the eminent French Catholic physician, Dr.
Constantin James. In his work, On Darwinism, or the Man-Ape, published
at Paris in 1877, Dr. James not only refuted Darwin scientifically but
poured contempt on his book, calling it "a fairy tale," and insisted
that a work "so fantastic and so burlesque" was, doubtless, only a huge
joke, like Erasmus's Praise of Folly, or Montesquieu's Persian Letters.
The princes of the Church were delighted. The Cardinal Archbishop
of Paris assured the author that the book had become his "spiritual
reading," and begged him to send a copy to the Pope himself. His
Holiness, Pope Pius IX, acknowledged the gift in a remarkable letter. He
thanked his dear son, the writer, for the book in which he "refutes
so well the aberrations of Darwinism." "A system," His Holiness adds,
"which is repugnant at once to history, to the tradition of all peoples,
to exact science, to observed facts, and even to Reason herself, would
seem to need no refutation, did not alienation from God and the leaning
toward materialism, due to depravity, eagerly seek a support in all this
tissue of fables.... And, in fact, pride, after rejecting the Creator of
all things and proclaiming man independent, wishing him to be his own
king, his own priest, and his own God--pride goes so far as to degrade
man himself to the level of the unreasoning brutes, perhaps even of
lifeless matter, thus unconsciously confirming the Divine declaration,
WHEN PRIDE COMETH, THEN COMETH SHAME. But the corruption of this age,
the machinations of the perverse, the danger of the simple, demand that
such fancies, altogether absurd though they are, should--since they
borrow the mask of science--be refuted by true science." Wherefore the
Pope thanked Dr. James for his book, "so opportune and so perfectly
appropriate to the exigencies of our time," and bestowed on him the
apostolic benediction. Nor was this brief all. With it there came
a second, creating the author an officer of the Papal Order of St.
Sylvester. The cardinal archbishop assured the delighted physician that
such a double honour of brief and brevet was perhaps unprecedented, and
suggested only that in a new edition of his book he should "insist a
little more on the relation existing between the narratives of Genesis
and the discoveries of modern science, in such fashion as to convince
the most incredulous of their perfect agreement." The prelate urged also
a more dignified title. The proofs of this new edition were accordingly
all submitted to His Eminence, and in 1882 it appeared as Moses and
Darwin: the Man of Genesis compared with the Man-Ape, or Religious
Education opposed to Atheistic. No wonder the cardinal embraced the
author, thanking him in the name of science and religion. "We have at
last," he declared, "a handbook which we can safely put into the hands
of youth."
Scarcely less vigorous were the champions of English Protestant
orthodoxy. In an address at Liverpool, Mr. Gladstone remarked: "Upon
the grounds of what is termed evolution God is relieved of the labour
of creation; in the name of unchangeable laws he is discharged from
governing the world"; and, when Herbert Spencer called his attention
to the fact that Newton with the doctrine of gravitation and with the
science of physical astronomy is open to the same charge, Mr. Gladstone
retreated in the Contemporary Review under one of his characteristic
clouds of words. The Rev. Dr. Coles, in the British and Foreign
Evangelical Review, declared that the God of evolution is not the
Christian's God. Burgon, Dean of Chichester, in a sermon preached before
the University of Oxford, pathetically warned the students that "those
who refuse to accept the history of the creation of our first parents
according to its obvious literal intention, and are for substituting the
modern dream of evolution in its place, cause the entire scheme of man's
salvation to collapse." Dr. Pusey also came into the fray with most
earnest appeals against the new doctrine, and the Rev. Gavin Carlyle
was perfervid on the same side. The Society for Promoting Christian
Knowledge published a book by the Rev. Mr. Birks, in which the evolution
doctrine was declared to be "flatly opposed to the fundamental doctrine
of creation." Even the London Times admitted a review stigmatizing
Darwin's Descent of Man as an "utterly unsupported hypothesis," full of
"unsubstantiated premises, cursory investigations, and disintegrating
speculations," and Darwin himself as "reckless and unscientific."(24)
(24) For the French theological opposition to the Darwinian theory, see
Pozzy, La Terre at le Recit Biblique de la Creation, 1874, especially
pp. 353, 363; also Felix Ducane, Etudes sur la Transformisme, 1876,
especially pp. 107 to 119. As to Fabre d'Envieu, see especially
his Proposition xliii. For the Abbe Desogres, "former Professor of
Philosophy and Theology," see his Erreurs Modernes, Paris, 1878, pp. 677
and 595 to 598. For Monseigneur Segur, see his La Foi devant la Science
Moderne, sixth ed., Paris, 1874, pp. 23, 34, etc. For Herbert Spencer's
reply to Mr. Gladstone, see his study of Sociology; for the passage in
the Dublin Review, see the issue for July, 1871. For the Review in the
London Times, see Nature for April 20, 1871. For Gavin Carlyle, see The
Battle of Unbelief, 1870, pp. 86 and 171. For the attacks by Michelis
and Hagermann, see Natur und Offenbarung, Munster, 1861 to 1869. For
Schund, see his Darwin's Hypothese und ihr Verhaaltniss zu Religion
und Moral, Stuttgart, 1869. For Luthardt, see Fundamental Truths of
Christianity, translated by Sophia Taylor, second ed., Edinburgh, 1869.
For Rougemont, see his L'Homme et le Singe, Neuchatel, 1863 (also
in German trans.). For Constantin James, see his Mes Entretiens avec
l'Empereur Don Pedro sur la Darwinisme, Paris, 1888, where the papal
briefs are printed in full. For the English attacks on Darwin's Descent
of Man, see the Edinburgh Review July, 1871 and elsewhere; the Dublin
Review, July, 1871; the British and Foreign Evangelical Review, April,
1886. See also The Scripture Doctrine of Creation, by the Rev. T.
R. Birks, London, 1873, published by the S. P. C. K. For Dr. Pusey's
attack, see his Unscience, not Science, adverse to Faith, 1878; also
Darwin's Life and Letters, vol. ii, pp. 411, 412.
But it was noted that this second series of attacks, on the Descent
of Man, differed in one remarkable respect--so far as England was
concerned--from those which had been made over ten years before on the
Origin of Species. While everything was done to discredit Darwin, to
pour contempt upon him, and even, of all things in the world, to make
him--the gentlest of mankind, only occupied with the scientific side of
the problem--"a persecutor of Christianity," while his followers were
represented more and more as charlatans or dupes, there began to be in
the most influential quarters careful avoidance of the old argument that
evolution--even by natural selection--contradicts Scripture.
It began to be felt that this was dangerous ground. The defection of
Lyell had, perhaps, more than anything else, started the question among
theologians who had preserved some equanimity, "WHAT IF, AFTER ALL, THE
DARWINIAN THEORY SHOULD PROVE TO BE TRUE?" Recollections of the position
in which the Roman Church found itself after the establishment of the
doctrines of Copernicus and Galileo naturally came into the minds of
the more thoughtful. In Germany this consideration does not seem to
have occurred at quite so early a day. One eminent Lutheran clergyman at
Magdeburg called on his hearers to choose between Darwin and religion;
Delitszch, in his new commentary on Genesis, attempted to bring science
back to recognise human sin as an important factor in creation; Prof.
Heinrich Ewald, while carefully avoiding any sharp conflict between the
scriptural doctrine and evolution, comforted himself by covering Darwin
and his followers with contempt; Christlieb, in his address before the
Evangelical Alliance at New York in 1873, simply took the view that
the tendencies of the Darwinian theory were "toward infidelity," but
declined to make any serious battle on biblical grounds; the Jesuit,
Father Pesch, in Holland, drew up in Latin, after the old scholastic
manner, a sort of general indictment of evolution, of which one may say
that it was interesting--as interesting as the display of a troop in
chain armour and with cross-bows on a nineteenth-century battlefield.
From America there came new echoes. Among the myriad attacks on the
Darwinian theory by Protestants and Catholics two should be especially
mentioned. The first of these was by Dr. Noah Porter, President of
Yale College, an excellent scholar, an interesting writer, a noble
man, broadly tolerant, combining in his thinking a curious mixture
of radicalism and conservatism. While giving great latitude to the
evolutionary teaching in the university under his care, he felt it his
duty upon one occasion to avow his disbelief in it; but he was too wise
a man to suggest any necessary antagonism between it and the Scriptures.
He confined himself mainly to pointing out the tendency of the evolution
doctrine in this form toward agnosticism and pantheism.
To those who knew and loved him, and had noted the genial way in which
by wise neglect he had allowed scientific studies to flourish at Yale,
there was an amusing side to all this. Within a stone's throw of his
college rooms was the Museum of Paleontology, in which Prof. Marsh
had laid side by side, among other evidences of the new truth, that
wonderful series of specimens showing the evolution of the horse from
the earliest form of the animal, "not larger than a fox, with five
toes," through the whole series up to his present form and size--that
series which Huxley declared an absolute proof of the existence of
natural selection as an agent in evolution. In spite of the veneration
and love which all Yale men felt for President Porter, it was hardly
to be expected that these particular arguments of his would have much
permanent effect upon them when there was constantly before their eyes
so convincing a refutation.
But a far more determined opponent was the Rev. Dr. Hodge, of Princeton;
his anger toward the evolution doctrine was bitter: he denounced it as
thoroughly "atheistic"; he insisted that Christians "have a right to
protest against the arraying of probabilities against the clear evidence
of the Scriptures"; he even censured so orthodox a writer as the Duke of
Argyll, and declared that the Darwinian theory of natural selection is
"utterly inconsistent with the Scriptures," and that "an absent God, who
does nothing, is to us no God"; that "to ignore design as manifested in
God's creation is to dethrone God"; that "a denial of design in Nature
is virtually a denial of God"; and that "no teleologist can be a
Darwinian." Even more uncompromising was another of the leading
authorities at the same university--the Rev. Dr. Duffield. He declared
war not only against Darwin but even against men like Asa Gray, Le
Conte, and others, who had attempted to reconcile the new theory with
the Bible: he insisted that "evolutionism and the scriptural account of
the origin of man are irreconcilable"--that the Darwinian theory is
"in direct conflict with the teaching of the apostle, 'All scripture
is given by inspiration of God'"; he pointed out, in his opposition to
Darwin's Descent of Man and Lyell's Antiquity of Man, that in the Bible
"the genealogical links which connect the Israelites in Egypt with
Adam and Eve in Eden are explicitly given." These utterances of Prof.
Duffield culminated in a declaration which deserves to be cited as
showing that a Presbyterian minister can "deal damnation round the land"
ex cathedra in a fashion quite equal to that of popes and bishops. It is
as follows: "If the development theory of the origin of man," wrote
Dr. Duffield in the Princeton Review, "shall in a little while take
its place--as doubtless it will--with other exploded scientific
speculations, then they who accept it with its proper logical
consequences will in the life to come have their portion with those who
in this life 'know not God and obey not the gospel of his Son.'"
Fortunately, at about the time when Darwin's Descent of Man was
published, there had come into Princeton University "deus ex machina"
in the person of Dr. James McCosh. Called to the presidency, he at once
took his stand against teachings so dangerous to Christianity as those
of Drs. Hodge, Duffield, and their associates. In one of his personal
confidences he has let us into the secret of this matter. With that hard
Scotch sense which Thackeray had applauded in his well-known verses, he
saw that the most dangerous thing which could be done to Christianity
at Princeton was to reiterate in the university pulpit, week after week,
solemn declarations that if evolution by natural selection, or indeed
evolution at all, be true, the Scriptures are false. He tells us that he
saw that this was the certain way to make the students unbelievers;
he therefore not only checked this dangerous preaching but preached an
opposite doctrine. With him began the inevitable compromise, and, in
spite of mutterings against him as a Darwinian, he carried the day.
Whatever may be thought of his general system of philosophy, no one can
deny his great service in neutralizing the teachings of his predecessors
and colleagues--so dangerous to all that is essential in Christianity.
Other divines of strong sense in other parts of the country began to
take similar ground--namely, that men could be Christians and at the
same time Darwinians. There appeared, indeed, here and there, curious
discrepancies: thus in 1873 the Monthly Religious Magazine of Boston
congratulated its readers that the Rev. Mr. Burr had "demolished the
evolution theory, knocking the breath of life out of it and throwing it
to the dogs." This amazing performance by the Rev. Mr. Burr was repeated
in a very striking way by Bishop Keener before the Oecumenical Council
of Methodism at Washington in 1891. In what the newspapers described
as an "admirable speech," he refuted evolution doctrines by saying that
evolutionists had "only to make a journey of twelve hours from the place
where he was then standing to find together the bones of the muskrat,
the opossum, the coprolite, and the ichthyosaurus." He asserted that
Agassiz--whom the good bishop, like so many others, seemed to think
an evolutionist--when he visited these beds near Charleston, declared:
"These old beds have set me crazy; they have destroyed the work of a
lifetime." And the Methodist prelate ended by saying: "Now, gentlemen,
brethren, take these facts home with you; get down and look at them.
This is the watch that was under the steam hammer--the doctrine of
evolution; and this steam hammer is the wonderful deposit of the Ashley
beds." Exhibitions like these availed little. While the good bishop amid
vociferous applause thus made comically evident his belief that Agassiz
was a Darwinian and a coprolite an animal, scientific men were recording
in all parts of the world facts confirming the dreaded theory of an
evolution by natural selection. While the Rev. Mr. Burr was so loudly
praised for "throwing Darwinism to the dogs," Marsh was completing his
series leading from the five-toed ungulates to the horse. While Dr.
Tayler Lewis at Union, and Drs. Hodge and Duffield at Princeton, were
showing that if evolution be true the biblical accounts must be false,
the indefatigable Yale professor was showing his cretaceous birds, and
among them Hesperornis and Ichthyornis with teeth. While in Germany
Luthardt, Schund, and their compeers were demonstrating that Scripture
requires a belief in special and separate creations, the Archaeopteryx,
showing a most remarkable connection between birds and reptiles, was
discovered.
While in France Monseigneur Segur and others were indulging in diatribes
against "a certain Darwin," Gaudry and Filhol were discovering a
striking series of "missing links" among the carnivora. In view of the
proofs accumulating in favour of the new evolutionary hypothesis, the
change in the tone of controlling theologians was now rapid. From all
sides came evidences of desire to compromise with the theory. Strict
adherents of the biblical text pointed significantly to the verses in
Genesis in which the earth and sea were made to bring forth birds and
fishes, and man was created out of the dust of the ground. Men of larger
mind like Kingsley and Farrar, with English and American broad churchmen
generally, took ground directly in Darwin's favour. Even Whewell took
pains to show that there might be such a thing as a Darwinian argument
for design in Nature; and the Rev. Samuel Houghton, of the Royal
Society, gave interesting suggestions of a divine design in evolution.
Both the great English universities received the new teaching as a
leaven: at Oxford, in the very front of the High Church party at Keble
College, was elaborated a statement that the evolution doctrine is "an
advance in our theological thinking." And Temple, Bishop of London,
perhaps the most influential thinker then in the Anglican episcopate,
accepted the new revelation in the following words: "It seems something
more majestic, more befitting him to whom a thousand years are as one
day, thus to impress his will once for all on his creation, and provide
for all the countless varieties by this one original impress, than
by special acts of creation to be perpetually modifying what he had
previously made."
In Scotland the Duke of Argyll, head and front of the orthodox party,
dissenting in many respects from Darwin's full conclusions, made
concessions which badly shook the old position.
Curiously enough, from the Roman Catholic Church, bitter as some of its
writers had been, now came argument to prove that the Catholic faith
does not prevent any one from holding the Darwinian theory, and
especially a declaration from an authority eminent among American
Catholics--a declaration which has a very curious sound, but which it
would be ungracious to find fault with--that "the doctrine of evolution
is no more in opposition to the doctrine of the Catholic Church than is
the Copernican theory or that of Galileo."
Here and there, indeed, men of science like Dawson, Mivart, and Wigand,
in view of theological considerations, sought to make conditions; but
the current was too strong, and eminent theologians in every country
accepted natural selection as at least a very important part in the
mechanism of evolution.
At the death of Darwin it was felt that there was but one place in
England where his body should be laid, and that this place was next the
grave of Sir Isaac Newton in Westminster Abbey. The noble address of
Canon Farrar at his funeral was echoed from many pulpits in Europe and
America, and theological opposition as such was ended. Occasionally
appeared, it is true, a survival of the old feeling: the Rev. Dr. Laing
referred to the burial of Darwin in Westminster Abbey as "a proof that
England is no longer a Christian country," and added that this burial
was a desecration--that this honour was given him because he had been
"the chief promoter of the mock doctrine of evolution of the species and
the ape descent of man."
Still another of these belated prophets was, of all men, Thomas Carlyle.
Soured and embittered, in the same spirit which led him to find more
heroism in a marauding Viking or in one of Frederick the Great's
generals than in Washington, or Lincoln, or Grant, and which caused him
to see in the American civil war only the burning out of a foul chimney,
he, with the petulance natural to a dyspeptic eunuch, railed at Darwin
as an "apostle of dirt worship."
The last echoes of these utterances reverberated between Scotland and
America. In the former country, in 1885, the Rev. Dr. Lee issued a
volume declaring that, if the Darwinian view be true, "there is no place
for God"; that "by no method of interpretation can the language of Holy
Scripture be made wide enough to re-echo the orang-outang theory of
man's natural history"; that "Darwinism reverses the revelation of God"
and "implies utter blasphemy against the divine and human character of
our Incarnate Lord"; and he was pleased to call Darwin and his followers
"gospellers of the gutter." In one of the intellectual centres
of America the editor of a periodical called The Christian urged
frantically that "the battle be set in array, and that men find out
who is on the Lord's side and who is on the side of the devil and the
monkeys."
To the honour of the Church of England it should be recorded that a
considerable number of her truest men opposed such utterances as these,
and that one of them--Farrar, Archdeacon of Westminster--made a protest
worthy to be held in perpetual remembrance. While confessing his own
inability to accept fully the new scientific belief, he said: "We should
consider it disgraceful and humiliating to try to shake it by an
ad captandum argument, or by a clap-trap platform appeal to the
unfathomable ignorance and unlimited arrogance of a prejudiced assembly.
We should blush to meet it with an anathema or a sneer."
All opposition had availed nothing; Darwin's work and fame were secure.
As men looked back over his beautiful life--simple, honest, tolerant,
kindly--and thought upon his great labours in the search for truth, all
the attacks faded into nothingness.
There were indeed some dark spots, which as time goes on appear darker.
At Trinity College, Cambridge, Whewell, the "omniscient," author of the
History of the Inductive Sciences, refused to allow a copy of the Origin
of Species to be placed in the library. At multitudes of institutions
under theological control--Protestant as well as Catholic--attempts were
made to stamp out or to stifle evolutionary teaching. Especially was
this true for a time in America, and the case of the American College
at Beyrout, where nearly all the younger professors were dismissed for
adhering to Darwin's views, is worthy of remembrance. The treatment of
Dr. Winchell at the Vanderbilt University in Tennessee showed the same
spirit; one of the truest of men, devoted to science but of deeply
Christian feeling, he was driven forth for views which centred in the
Darwinian theory.
Still more striking was the case of Dr. Woodrow. He had, about 1857,
been appointed to a professorship of Natural Science as connected with
Revealed Religion, in the Presbyterian Seminary at Columbia, South
Carolina. He was a devoted Christian man, and his training had led him
to accept the Presbyterian standards of faith. With great gifts
for scientific study he visited Europe, made a most conscientious
examination of the main questions under discussion, and adopted the
chief points in the doctrine of evolution by natural selection. A
struggle soon began. A movement hostile to him grew more and more
determined, and at last, in spite of the efforts made in his behalf by
the directors of the seminary and by a large and broad-minded minority
in the representative bodies controlling it, an orthodox storm, raised
by the delegates from various Presbyterian bodies, drove him from
his post. Fortunately, he was received into a professorship at the
University of South Carolina, where he has since taught with more power
than ever before.
This testimony to the faith by American provincial Protestantism was
very properly echoed from Spanish provincial Catholicism. In the year
1878 a Spanish colonial man of science, Dr. Chil y Marango, published a
work on the Canary Islands. But Dr. Chil had the imprudence to sketch,
in his introduction, the modern hypothesis of evolution, and to exhibit
some proofs, found in the Canary Islands, of the barbarism of primitive
man. The ecclesiastical authorities, under the lead of Bishop Urquinaona
y Bidot, at once grappled with this new idea. By a solemn act they
declared it "falsa, impia, scandalosa"; all persons possessing copies
of the work were ordered to surrender them at once to the
proper ecclesiastics, and the author was placed under the major
excommunication.
But all this opposition may be reckoned among the last expiring
convulsions of the old theologic theory. Even from the new Catholic
University at Washington has come an utterance in favour of the new
doctrine, and in other universities in the Old World and in the New the
doctrine of evolution by natural selection has asserted its right to
full and honest consideration. More than this, it is clearly evident
that the stronger men in the Church have, in these latter days, not
only relinquished the struggle against science in this field, but have
determined frankly and manfully to make an alliance with it. In two
very remarkable lectures given in 1892 at the parish church of Rochdale,
Wilson, Archdeacon of Manchester, not only accepted Darwinism as true,
but wrought it with great argumentative power into a higher view of
Christianity; and what is of great significance, these sermons were
published by the same Society for the Promotion of Christian Knowledge
which only a few years before had published the most bitter attacks
against the Darwinian theory. So, too, during the year 1893, Prof. Henry
Drummond, whose praise is in all the dissenting churches, developed a
similar view most brilliantly in a series of lectures delivered before
the American Chautauqua schools, and published in one of the most
widespread of English orthodox newspapers.
Whatever additional factors may be added to natural selection--and
Darwin himself fully admitted that there might be others--the theory of
an evolution process in the formation of the universe and of animated
nature is established, and the old theory of direct creation is gone
forever. In place of it science has given us conceptions far more noble,
and opened the way to an argument for design infinitely more beautiful
than any ever developed by theology.(24)
(24) For the causes of bitterness shown regarding the Darwinian
hypothesis, see Reusch, Bibel und Natur, vol. ii, pp. 46 et seq. For
hostility in the United States regarding the Darwinian theory, see,
among a multitude of writers, the following: Dr. Charles Hodge, of
Princeton, monograph, What is Darwinism? New York, 1874; also his
Systematic Theology, New York, 1872, vol. ii, part 2, Anthropology; also
The Light by which we see Light, or Nature and the Scriptures, Vedder
Lectures, 1875, Rutgers College, New York, 1875; also Positivism and
Evolutionism, in the American Catholic Quarterly, October 1877, pp. 607,
619; and in the same number, Professor Huxley and Evolution, by Rev. A.
M. Kirsch, pp. 662, 664; The Logic of Evolution, by Prof. Edward F. X.
McSweeney, D. D., July, 1879, p. 561; Das Hexaemeron und die Geologie,
von P. Eirich, Pastor in Albany, N. Y., Lutherischer Concordia-Verlag,
St. Louis, Mo., 1878, pp. 81, 82, 84, 92-94; Evolutionism respecting
Man and the Bible, by John T. Duffield, of Princeton, January, 1878,
Princeton Review, pp. 151, 153, 154, 158, 159, 160, 188; a Lecture on
Evolution, before the Nineteenth Century Club of New York, May 25, 1886,
by ex-President Noah Porter, pp. 4, 26-29. For the laudatory notice of
the Rev. E. F. Burr's demolition of evolution in his book Pater Mundi,
see Monthly Religious Magazine, Boston, May, 1873, p. 492. Concerning
the removal of Dr. James Woodrow, Professor of Natural Science in the
Columbia Theological Seminary, see Evolution or Not, in the New York
Weekly Sun, October 24, 1888. For the dealings of Spanish
ecclesiastics with Dr. Chil and his Darwinian exposition, see the Revue
d'Anthropologie, cited in the Academy for April 6, 1878; see also the
Catholic World, xix, 433, A Discussion with an Infidel, directed against
Dr. Louis Buchner and his Kraft und Stoff; also Mind and Matter, by Rev.
james Tait, of Canada, p. 66 (in the third edition the author bemoans
the "horrible plaudits" that "have accompanied every effort to establish
man's brutal descent"); also The Church Journal, New York, May 28, 1874.
For the effort in favour of a teleological evolution, see Rev. Samuel
Houghton, F. R. S., Principles of Animal Mechanics, London, 1873,
preface and p. 156 and elsewhere. For the details of the persecutions
of Drs. Winchell and Woodrow, and of the Beyrout professors, with
authorities cited, see my chapter on The Fall of Man and Anthropology.
For more liberal views among religious thinkers regarding the Darwinian
theory, and for efforts to mitigate and adapt it to theological
views, see, among the great mass of utterances, the following: Charles
Kingsley's letters to Darwin, November 18, 1859, in Darwin's Life and
Letters, vol. ii, p. 82; Adam Sedgwick to Charles Darwin, December 24,
1859, see ibid., vol. ii, pp. 356-359; the same to Miss Gerard, January
2, 1860, see Sedgewick's Life and Letters, vol. ii, pp. 359, 360; the
same in The Spectator, London, March 24, 1860; The Rambler, March 1860,
cited by Mivart, Genesis of Species, p. 30; The Dublin Review, May,
1860; The Christian Examiner, May, 1860; Charles Kingsley to F. D.
Maurice in 1863, in Kingsley's Life, vol. ii, p. 171; Adam Sedgwick
to Livingstone (the explorer), March 16, 1865, in Life and Letters of
Sedgwick, vol. ii, pp. 410-412; the Duke of Argyll, The Reign of Law,
New York, pp. 16, 18, 31, 116, 117, 120, 159; Joseph P. Thompson, D. D.,
LL.D., Man in Genesis and Geology, New York, 1870, pp. 48, 49, 82; Canon
H. P. Liddon, Sermons preached before the University of Oxford,
1871, Sermon III; St. George Mivart, Evolution and its Consequences,
Contemporary Review, Jan. 1872; British and Foreign Evangelical Review,
1872, article on The Theory of Evolution; The Lutheran Quarterly,
Gettysburg, Pa., April, 1872, article by Rev. Cyrus Thomas, Assistant
United States Geological Survey on The Descent of Man, pp. 214, 239,
372-376; The Lutheran Quarterly, July, 1873, article on Some Assumptions
against Christianity, by Rev. C. A. Stork, Baltimore, Md., pp. 325, 326;
also, in the same number, see a review of Dr. Burr's Pater Mundi, pp.
474, 475, and contrast with the review in the Andover Review of that
period; an article in the Religious Magazine and Monthly Review, Boston,
on Religion and Evolution, by Rev. S. R. Calthrop, September, 1873,
p. 200; The Popular Science Monthly, January, 1874, article Genesis,
Geology, and Evolution; article by Asa Gray, Nature, London, June 4,
1874; Materialism, by Rev. W. Streissguth, Lutheran Quarterly, July,
1875, originally written in German, and translated by J. G. Morris,
D. D., pp. 406, 408; Darwinismus und Christenthum, von R. Steck, Ref.
Pfarrer in Dresden, Berlin, 1875, pp. 5,6, and 26, reprinted from
the Protestantische Kirchenzeitung, and issued as a tract by the
Protestantenverein; Rev. W. E. Adams, article in the Lutheran Quarterly,
April, 1879, on Evolution: Shall it be Atheistic? John Wood, Bible
Anticipations of Modern Science, 1880, pp. 18, 19, 22; Lutheran
Quarterly, January, 1881, Some Postulates of the New Ethics, by Rev.
C. A. Stork, D. D.; Lutheran Quarterly, January, 1882, The Religion of
Evolution as against the Religion of Jesus, by Prof. W. H. Wynn, Iowa
State Agricultural College--this article was republished as a pamphlet;
Canon Liddon, prefatory note to sermon on The Recovery of St. Thomas,
pp. 4, 11, 12, 13, and 26, preached in St. Paul's Cathedral, April 23,
1882; Lutheran Quarterly, January 1882, Evolution and the Scripture, by
Rev. John A. Earnest, pp. 101, 105; Glimpses in the Twilight, by Rev.
F. G. Lee, D. D., Edinburgh, 1885, especially pp. 18 and 19; the Hibbert
Lectures for 1883, by Rev. Charles Beard, pp. 392, 393, et seq.; F.
W. Farrar, D. D., Canon of Westminster, The History of Interpretation,
being the Bampton Lectures for 1885, pp. 426, 427; Bishop Temple,
Bampton Lectures, pp. 184-186; article Evolution in the Dictionary
of Religion, edited by Rev. William Benham, 1887; Prof. Huxley, An
Episcopal Trilogy, Nineteenth Century, November, 1887--this article
discusses three sermons delivered by the bishops of Carlisle, Bedford,
and Manchester, in Manchester Cathedral, during the meeting of the
British Association, September, 1887--these sermons were afterward
published in pamphlet form under the title The Advance of Science; John
Fiske, Darwinism, and Other Essays, Boston, 1888; Harriet Mackenzie,
Evolution illuminating the Bible, London, 1891, dedicated to Prof.
Huxley; H. E. Rye, Hulsean Professor of Divinity at Cambridge, The Early
Narratives of Genesis, London, 1892, preface, pp. vii-ix, pp. 7, 9, 11;
Rev. G. M. Searle, of the Catholic University, Washington, article in
the Catholic World, November, 1892, pp. 223, 227, 229, 231; for the
statement from Keble College, see Rev. Mr. Illingworth, in Lux Mundi.
For Bishop Temple, see citation in Laing. For a complete and admirable
acceptance of the evolutionary theory as lifting Christian doctrine and
practice to a higher plane, with suggestions for a new theology, see two
Sermons by Archdeacon Wilson, of Manchester, S. P. C. K.. London,
and Young & Co., New York, 1893; and for a characteristically lucid
statement of the most recent development of evolution doctrines, and the
relations of Spencer, Weismann, Galton, and others to them, see Lester
F. Ward's Address as President of the Biological Society, Washington,
1891; also, recent articles in the leading English reviews. For a
brilliant glorification of evolution by natural selection as a doctrine
necessary to then highest and truest view of Christianity, see Prof.
Drummond's Chautauqua Lectures, published in the British Weekly, London,
from April 20 to May 11, 1893.
CHAPTER II. GEOGRAPHY.
I. THE FORM OF THE EARTH.
Among various rude tribes we find survivals of a primitive idea that the
earth is a flat table or disk, ceiled, domed, or canopied by the sky,
and that the sky rests upon the mountains as pillars. Such a belief is
entirely natural; it conforms to the appearance of things, and hence at
a very early period entered into various theologies.
In the civilizations of Chaldea and Egypt it was very fully developed.
The Assyrian inscriptions deciphered in these latter years represent the
god Marduk as in the beginning creating the heavens and the earth: the
earth rests upon the waters; within it is the realm of the dead; above
it is spread "the firmament"--a solid dome coming down to the horizon on
all sides and resting upon foundations laid in the "great waters" which
extend around the earth.
On the east and west sides of this domed firmament are doors, through
which the sun enters in the morning and departs at night; above it
extends another ocean, which goes down to the ocean surrounding the
earth at the horizon on all sides, and which is supported and kept away
from the earth by the firmament. Above the firmament and the upper ocean
which it supports is the interior of heaven.
The Egyptians considered the earth as a table, flat and oblong, the sky
being its ceiling--a huge "firmament" of metal. At the four corners of
the earth were the pillars supporting this firmament, and on this solid
sky were the "waters above the heavens." They believed that, when chaos
was taking form, one of the gods by main force raised the waters on high
and spread them out over the firmament; that on the under side of this
solid vault, or ceiling, or firmament, the stars were suspended to light
the earth, and that the rains were caused by the letting down of the
waters through its windows. This idea and others connected with it seem
to have taken strong hold of the Egyptian priestly caste, entering
into their theology and sacred science: ceilings of great temples, with
stars, constellations, planets, and signs of the zodiac figured upon
them, remain to-day as striking evidences of this.
In Persia we have theories of geography based upon similar conceptions
and embalmed in sacred texts.
From these and doubtless from earlier sources common to them all came
geographical legacies to the Hebrews. Various passages in their sacred
books, many of them noble in conception and beautiful in form, regarding
"the foundation of the earth upon the waters," "the fountains of the
great deep," "the compass upon the face of the depth," the "firmament,"
the "corners of the earth," the "pillars of heaven," the "waters above
the firmament," the "windows of heaven," and "doors of heaven," point us
back to both these ancient springs of thought.(25)
(25) For survivals of the early idea, among the Eskimos, of the sky as
supported by mountains, and, among sundry Pacific islanders, of the sky
as a firmament or vault of stone, see Tylor, Early History of Mankind,
second edition, London, 1870, chap. xi; Spencer, Sociology, vol. i, chap
vii, also Andrew Lang, La Mythologie, Paris, 1886, pp. 68-73. For the
Babylonian theories, see George Smith's Chaldean Genesis, and especially
the German translation by Delitzsch, Leipsic, 1876; also, Jensen, Die
Kosmogonien der Babylonier, Strasburg, 1890; see especially in the
appendices, pp. 9 and 10, a drawing representing the whole Babylonian
scheme so closely followed in the Hebrew book Genesis. See also Lukas,
Die Grundbegriffe in den Kosmogonien der alten Volker, Leipsic, 1893,
for a most thorough summing up of the whole subject, with texts showing
the development of Hebrew out of Chaldean and Egyptian conceptions, pp.
44, etc.; also pp. 127 et seq. For the early view in India and
Persia, see citations from the Vedas and the Zend-Avesta in Lethaby,
Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth, chap. i. For the Egyptian view, see
Champollion; also Lenormant, Histoire Ancienne, Maspero, and others. As
to the figures of the heavens upon the ceilings of Egyptian temples,
see Maspero, Archeologie Egyptienne, Paris, 1890; and for engravings of
them, see Lepsius, Denkmaler, vol. i, Bl. 41, and vol. ix, Abth. iv, Bl.
35; also the Description de l'Egypte, published by order of Napoleon,
tome ii, Pl. 14; also Prisse d'Avennes, Art Egyptien, Atlas, tome i, Pl.
35; and especially for a survival at the Temple of Denderah, see Denon,
Voyage en Egypte, Planches 129, 130. For the Egyptian idea of "pillars
of heaven," as alluded to on the stele of victory of Thotmes III,in the
Cairo Museum, see Ebers, Uarda, vol. ii, p. 175, note, Leipsic, 1877. For
a similar Babylonian belief, see Sayce's Herodotus, Appendix, p. 403.
For the belief of Hebrew scriptural writers in a solid "firmament,"
see especially Job, xxxviii, 18; also Smith's Bible Dictionary. For
engravings showing the earth and heaven above it as conceived by
Egyptians and Chaldeans, with "pillars of heaven" and "firmament," see
Maspero and Sayce, Dawn of Civilization, London, 1894, pp. 17 and 543.
But, as civilization was developed, there were evolved, especially among
the Greeks, ideas of the earth's sphericity. The Pythagoreans, Plato,
and Aristotle especially cherished them. These ideas were vague, they
were mixed with absurdities, but they were germ ideas, and even amid the
luxuriant growth of theology in the early Christian Church these germs
began struggling into life in the minds of a few thinking men, and these
men renewed the suggestion that the earth is a globe.(26)
(26) The agency of the Pythagoreans in first spreading the doctrine of
the earth's sphericity is generally acknowledged, but the first full and
clear utterance of it to the world was by Aristotle. Very fruitful, too,
was the statement of the new theory given by Plato in the Timaeus; see
Jowett's translation, 62, c. Also the Phaedo, pp.449 et seq. See also
Grote on Plato's doctrine on the sphericity of the earth; also Sir G. C.
Lewis's Astronomy of the Ancients, London, 1862, chap. iii, section i,
and note. Cicero's mention of the antipodes, and his reference to the
passage in the Timaeus, are even more remarkable than the latter, in
that they much more clearly foreshadow the modern doctrine. See his
Academic Questions, ii; also Tusc. Quest., i and v, 24. For a very full
summary of the views of the ancients on the sphericity of the earth,
see Kretschmer, Die physische Erkunde im christlichen Mittelalter,
Wien, 1889, pp. 35 et seq.; also Eiken, Geschichte der mittelalterlichen
Weltanschauung, Stuttgart, 1887, Dritter Theil, chap. vi. For citations
and summaries, see Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, vol. i, p. 189, and
St. Martin, Hist. de la Geog., Paris, 1873, p. 96; also Leopardi, Saggio
sopra gli errori popolari degli antichi, Firenze, 1851, chap. xii, pp.
184 et seq.
A few of the larger-minded fathers of the Church, influenced possibly
by Pythagorean traditions, but certainly by Aristotle and Plato, were
willing to accept this view, but the majority of them took fright at
once. To them it seemed fraught with dangers to Scripture, by which, of
course, they meant their interpretation of Scripture. Among the first
who took up arms against it was Eusebius. In view of the New Testament
texts indicating the immediately approaching, end of the world, he
endeavoured to turn off this idea by bringing scientific studies
into contempt. Speaking of investigators, he said, "It is not through
ignorance of the things admired by them, but through contempt of their
useless labour, that we think little of these matters, turning our
souls to better things." Basil of Caesarea declared it "a matter of no
interest to us whether the earth is a sphere or a cylinder or a disk, or
concave in the middle like a fan." Lactantius referred to the ideas
of those studying astronomy as "bad and senseless," and opposed the
doctrine of the earth's sphericity both from Scripture and reason.
St. John Chrysostom also exerted his influence against this scientific
belief; and Ephraem Syrus, the greatest man of the old Syrian Church,
widely known as the "lute of the Holy Ghost," opposed it no less
earnestly.
But the strictly biblical men of science, such eminent fathers and
bishops as Theophilus of Antioch in the second century, and Clement of
Alexandria in the third, with others in centuries following, were not
content with merely opposing what they stigmatized as an old heathen
theory; they drew from their Bibles a new Christian theory, to which
one Church authority added one idea and another, until it was fully
developed. Taking the survival of various early traditions, given in
the seventh verse of the first chapter of Genesis, they insisted on the
clear declarations of Scripture that the earth was, at creation, arched
over with a solid vault, "a firmament," and to this they added the
passages from Isaiah and the Psalms, in which it declared that the
heavens are stretched out "like a curtain," and again "like a tent to
dwell in." The universe, then, is like a house: the earth is its ground
floor, the firmament its ceiling, under which the Almighty hangs out
the sun to rule the day and the moon and stars to rule the night. This
ceiling is also the floor of the apartment above, and in this is a
cistern, shaped, as one of the authorities says, "like a bathing-tank,"
and containing "the waters which are above the firmament." These waters
are let down upon the earth by the Almighty and his angels through the
"windows of heaven." As to the movement of the sun, there was a citation
of various passages in Genesis, mixed with metaphysics in various
proportions, and this was thought to give ample proofs from the Bible
that the earth could not be a sphere.(27)
(27) For Eusebius, see the Proep. Ev., xv, 61. For Basil, see the
Hexaemeron, Hom. ix. For Lactantius, see his Inst. Div., lib. iii, cap.
3; also citations in Whewell, Hist. Induct. Sciences, London, 1857, vol.
i, p. 194, and in St. Martin, Histoire de la Geographie, pp. 216, 217.
For the views of St. John Chrysostom, Ephraem Syrus, and other great
churchmen, see Kretschmer as above, chap i.
In the sixth century this development culminated in what was nothing
less than a complete and detailed system of the universe, claiming to
be based upon Scripture, its author being the Egyptian monk Cosmas
Indicopleustes. Egypt was a great treasure-house of theologic thought
to various religions of antiquity, and Cosmas appears to have urged upon
the early Church this Egyptian idea of the construction of the world,
just as another Egyptian ecclesiastic, Athanasius, urged upon the Church
the Egyptian idea of a triune deity ruling the world. According to
Cosmas, the earth is a parallelogram, flat, and surrounded by four seas.
It is four hundred days' journey long and two hundred broad. At the
outer edges of these four seas arise massive walls closing in the whole
structure and supporting the firmament or vault of the heavens, whose
edges are cemented to the walls. These walls inclose the earth and all
the heavenly bodies.
The whole of this theologico-scientific structure was built most
carefully and, as was then thought, most scripturally. Starting with the
expression applied in the ninth chapter of Hebrews to the tabernacle in
the desert, Cosmas insists, with other interpreters of his time, that it
gives the key to the whole construction of the world. The universe
is, therefore, made on the plan of the Jewish tabernacle--boxlike and
oblong. Going into details, he quotes the sublime words of Isaiah: "It
is He that sitteth upon the circle of the earth;... that stretcheth out
the heavens like a curtain, and spreadeth them out like a tent to dwell
in"; and the passage in Job which speaks of the "pillars of heaven." He
works all this into his system, and reveals, as he thinks, treasures of
science.
This vast box is divided into two compartments, one above the other. In
the first of these, men live and stars move; and it extends up to the
first solid vault, or firmament, above which live the angels, a main
part of whose business it is to push and pull the sun and planets to and
fro. Next, he takes the text, "Let there be a firmament in the midst
of the waters, and let it divide the waters from the waters," and other
texts from Genesis; to these he adds the text from the Psalms, "Praise
him, ye heaven of heavens, and ye waters that be above the heavens"
then casts all, and these growths of thought into his crucible together,
finally brings out the theory that over this first vault is a vast
cistern containing "the waters." He then takes the expression in Genesis
regarding the "windows of heaven" and establishes a doctrine regarding
the regulation of the rain, to the effect that the angels not only push
and pull the heavenly bodies to light the earth, but also open and close
the heavenly windows to water it.
To understand the surface of the earth, Cosmas, following the methods
of interpretation which Origen and other early fathers of the Church had
established, studies the table of shew-bread in the Jewish tabernacle.
The surface of this table proves to him that the earth is flat, and
its dimensions prove that the earth is twice as long as broad; its four
corners symbolize the four seasons; the twelve loaves of bread,
the twelve months; the hollow about the table proves that the ocean
surrounds the earth. To account for the movement of the sun, Cosmas
suggests that at the north of the earth is a great mountain, and that
at night the sun is carried behind this; but some of the commentators
ventured to express a doubt here: they thought that the sun was pushed
into a pit at night and pulled out in the morning.
Nothing can be more touching in its simplicity than Cosmas's summing up
of his great argument, He declares, "We say therefore with Isaiah that
the heaven embracing the universe is a vault, with Job that it is joined
to the earth, and with Moses that the length of the earth is greater
than its breadth." The treatise closes with rapturous assertions that
not only Moses and the prophets, but also angels and apostles, agree to
the truth of his doctrine, and that at the last day God will condemn all
who do not accept it.
Although this theory was drawn from Scripture, it was also, as we have
seen, the result of an evolution of theological thought begun long
before the scriptural texts on which it rested were written. It was not
at all strange that Cosmas, Egyptian as he was, should have received
this old Nile-born doctrine, as we see it indicated to-day in the
structure of Egyptian temples, and that he should have developed it by
the aid of the Jewish Scriptures; but the theological world knew nothing
of this more remote evolution from pagan germs; it was received as
virtually inspired, and was soon regarded as a fortress of scriptural
truth. Some of the foremost men in the Church devoted themselves to
buttressing it with new texts and throwing about it new outworks of
theological reasoning; the great body of the faithful considered it a
direct gift from the Almighty. Even in the later centuries of the Middle
Ages John of San Geminiano made a desperate attempt to save it. Like
Cosmas, he takes the Jewish tabernacle as his starting-point, and shows
how all the newer ideas can be reconciled with the biblical accounts of
its shape, dimensions, and furniture.(28)
(28) For a notice of the views of Cosmas in connection with those of
Lactantius, Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, and others, see Schoell,
Histoire de la Litterature Grecque, vol. vii, p. 37. The main scriptural
passages referred to are as follows: (1) Isaiah xi, 22; (2) Genesis
i, 6; (3) Genesis vii, 11; (4) Exodus xxiv, 10; (5) Job xxvi, 11, and
xxxvii, 18 (6) Psalm cxlviii, 4, and civ, 9; (7) Ezekiel i, 22-26. For
Cosmas's theory, see Montfaucon, Collectio Nova Patrum, Paris, 1706,
vol. ii, p.188; also pp. 298, 299. The text is illustrated with
engravings showing walls and solid vault (firmament), with the whole
apparatus of "fountains of the great deep," "windows of heaven," angels,
and the mountain behind which the sun is drawn. For reduction of one of
them, see Peschel, Gesschichte der Erdkunds, p. 98; also article
Maps, in Knight's Dictionary of Mechanics, New York, 1875. For curious
drawings showing Cosmas's scheme in a different way from that given by
Montfaucon, see extracts from a Vatican codex of the ninth century in
Garucci, Storia de l'Arte Christiana, vol. iii, pp. 70 et seq. For
a good discussion of Cosmas's ideas, see Santarem, Hist. de la
Cosmographie, vol. ii, pp. 8 et seq., and for a very thorough discussion
of its details, Kretschmer, as above. For still another theory, very
droll, and thought out on similar principles, see Mungo Park, cited
in De Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 309. For Cosmas's joyful summing up, see
Montfaucon, Collectio Nova Patrum, vol. ii, p. 255. For the curious
survival in the thirteenth century of the old idea of the "waters above
the heavens," see the story in Gervase of Tilbury, how in his time some
people coming out of church in England found an anchor let down by a
rope out of the heavens, how there came voices from sailors above trying
to loose the anchor, and, finally, how a sailor came down the rope,
who, on reaching the earth, died as if drowned in water. See Gervase of
Tilbury, Otia Imperialia, edit. Liebrecht, Hanover, 1856, Prima Decisio,
cap. xiii. The work was written about 1211. For John of San Germiniano,
see his Summa de Exemplis, lib. ix, cap. 43. For the Egyptian
Trinitarian views, see Sharpe, History of Egypt, vol. i, pp. 94, 102.
From this old conception of the universe as a sort of house, with heaven
as its upper story and the earth as its ground floor, flowed important
theological ideas into heathen, Jewish, and Christian mythologies.
Common to them all are legends regarding attempts of mortals to invade
the upper apartment from the lower. Of such are the Greek legends of
the Aloidae, who sought to reach heaven by piling up mountains, and were
cast down; the Chaldean and Hebrew legends of the wicked who at Babel
sought to build "a tower whose top may reach heaven," which Jehovah
went down from heaven to see, and which he brought to naught by the
"confusion of tongues"; the Hindu legend of the tree which sought to
grow into heaven and which Brahma blasted; and the Mexican legend of the
giants who sought to reach heaven by building the Pyramid of Cholula,
and who were overthrown by fire from above.
Myths having this geographical idea as their germ developed in
luxuriance through thousands of years. Ascensions to heaven and descents
from it, "translations," "assumptions," "annunciations," mortals "caught
up" into it and returning, angels flying between it and the earth,
thunderbolts hurled down from it, mighty winds issuing from its corners,
voices speaking from the upper floor to men on the lower, temporary
openings of the floor of heaven to reveal the blessedness of the good,
"signs and wonders" hung out from it to warn the wicked, interventions
of every kind--from the heathen gods coming down on every sort of
errand, and Jehovah coming down to walk in Eden in the cool of the day,
to St. Mark swooping down into the market-place of Venice to break the
shackles of a slave--all these are but features in a vast evolution of
myths arising largely from this geographical germ.
Nor did this evolution end here. Naturally, in this view of things, if
heaven was a loft, hell was a cellar; and if there were ascensions
into one, there were descents into the other. Hell being so near,
interferences by its occupants with the dwellers of the earth just above
were constant, and form a vast chapter in medieval literature. Dante
made this conception of the location of hell still more vivid, and we
find some forms of it serious barriers to geographical investigation.
Many a bold navigator, who was quite ready to brave pirates and
tempests, trembled at the thought of tumbling with his ship into one of
the openings into hell which a widespread belief placed in the Atlantic
at some unknown distance from Europe. This terror among sailors was one
of the main obstacles in the great voyage of Columbus. In a medieval
text-book, giving science the form of a dialogue, occur the following
question and answer: "Why is the sun so red in the evening?" "Because he
looketh down upon hell."
But the ancient germ of scientific truth in geography--the idea of the
earth's sphericity--still lived. Although the great majority of the
early fathers of the Church, and especially Lactantius, had sought to
crush it beneath the utterances attributed to Isaiah, David, and
St. Paul, the better opinion of Eudoxus and Aristotle could not be
forgotten. Clement of Alexandria and Origen had even supported it.
Ambrose and Augustine had tolerated it, and, after Cosmas had held sway
a hundred years, it received new life from a great churchman of southern
Europe, Isidore of Seville, who, however fettered by the dominant
theology in many other things, braved it in this. In the eighth century
a similar declaration was made in the north of Europe by another great
Church authority, Bede. Against the new life thus given to the old
truth, the sacred theory struggled long and vigorously but in vain.
Eminent authorities in later ages, like Albert the Great, St. Thomas
Aquinas, Dante, and Vincent of Beauvais, felt obliged to accept the
doctrine of the earth's sphericity, and as we approach the modern period
we find its truth acknowledged by the vast majority of thinking men. The
Reformation did not at first yield fully to this better theory. Luther,
Melanchthon, and Calvin were very strict in their adherence to the exact
letter of Scripture. Even Zwingli, broad as his views generally were,
was closely bound down in this matter, and held to the opinion of the
fathers that a great firmament, or floor, separated the heavens from the
earth; that above it were the waters and angels, and below it the earth
and man.
The main scope given to independent thought on this general subject
among the Reformers was in a few minor speculations regarding the
universe which encompassed Eden, the exact character of the conversation
of the serpent with Eve, and the like.
In the times immediately following the Reformation matters were even
worse. The interpretations of Scripture by Luther and Calvin became as
sacred to their followers as the Scripture itself. When Calixt ventured,
in interpreting the Psalms, to question the accepted belief that "the
waters above the heavens" were contained in a vast receptacle upheld by
a solid vault, he was bitterly denounced as heretical.
In the latter part of the sixteenth century Musaeus interpreted the
accounts in Genesis to mean that first God made the heavens for the roof
or vault, and left it there on high swinging until three days later he
put the earth under it. But the new scientific thought as to the earth's
form had gained the day. The most sturdy believers were obliged to
adjust their, biblical theories to it as best they could.(29)
(29) For a discussion of the geographical views of Isidore and Bede, see
Santarem, Cosmographie, vol i, pp. 22-24. For the gradual acceptance
of the idea of the earth's sphericity after the eighth century, see
Kretschmer, pp. 51 et seq., where citations from a multitude of authors
are given. For the views of the Reformers, see Zockler, vol. i, pp. 679
and 693. For Calixt, Musaeus, and others, ibid., pp. 673-677 and 761.
II. THE DELINEATION OF THE EARTH.
Every great people of antiquity, as a rule, regarded its own central
city or most holy place as necessarily the centre of the earth.
The Chaldeans held that their "holy house of the gods" was the centre.
The Egyptians sketched the world under the form of a human figure,
in which Egypt was the heart, and the centre of it Thebes. For the
Assyrians, it was Babylon; for the Hindus, it was Mount Meru; for the
Greeks, so far as the civilized world was concerned, Olympus or the
temple at Delphi; for the modern Mohammedans, it is Mecca and its sacred
stone; the Chinese, to this day, speak of their empire as the "middle
kingdom." It was in accordance, then, with a simple tendency of human
thought that the Jews believed the centre of the world to be Jerusalem.
The book of Ezekiel speaks of Jerusalem as in the middle of the earth,
and all other parts of the world as set around the holy city. Throughout
the "ages of faith" this was very generally accepted as a direct
revelation from the Almighty regarding the earth's form. St. Jerome, the
greatest authority of the early Church upon the Bible, declared, on
the strength of this utterance of the prophet, that Jerusalem could
be nowhere but at the earth's centre; in the ninth century Archbishop
Rabanus Maurus reiterated the same argument; in the eleventh
century Hugh of St. Victor gave to the doctrine another scriptural
demonstration; and Pope Urban, in his great sermon at Clermont urging
the Franks to the crusade, declared, "Jerusalem is the middle point of
the earth"; in the thirteenth century an ecclesiastical writer much in
vogue, the monk Caesarius of Heisterbach, declared, "As the heart in
the midst of the body, so is Jerusalem situated in the midst of our
inhabited earth,"--"so it was that Christ was crucified at the centre
of the earth." Dante accepted this view of Jerusalem as a certainty,
wedding it to immortal verse; and in the pious book of travels ascribed
to Sir John Mandeville, so widely read in the Middle Ages, it is
declared that Jerusalem is at the centre of the world, and that a spear
standing erect at the Holy Sepulchre casts no shadow at the equinox.
Ezekiel's statement thus became the standard of orthodoxy to early
map-makers. The map of the world at Hereford Cathedral, the maps of
Andrea Bianco, Marino Sanuto, and a multitude of others fixed this view
in men's minds, and doubtless discouraged during many generations any
scientific statements tending to unbalance this geographical centre
revealed in Scripture.(30)
(30) For beliefs of various nations of antiquity that the earth's center
was in their most sacred place, see citations from Maspero, Charton,
Sayce, and others in Lethaby, Architecture, Mysticism, and Myth, chap.
iv. As to the Greeks, we have typical statements in the Eumenides of
Aeschylus, where the stone in the altar at Delphi is repeatedly called
"the earth's navel"--which is precisely the expression used regarding
Jerusalem in the Septuagint translation of Ezekiel (see below). The
proof texts on which the mediaeval geographers mainly relied as to the
form of the earth were Ezekiel v, 5, and xxxviii, 12. The progress
of geographical knowledge evidently caused them to be softened down
somewhat in our King James's version; but the first of them reads, in
the Vulgate, "Ista est Hierusalem, in medio gentium posui eam et in
circuitu ejus terrae"; and the second reads, in the Vulgate, "in medio
terrae," and in the Septuagint, [Greek]. That the literal centre of the
earth was understood, see proof in St. Jerome, Commentat. in Ezekiel,
lib. ii; and for general proof, see Leopardi, Saggio sopra gli errori
popolari degli antichi, pp. 207, 208. For Rabanus Maurus, see his De
Universo, lib. xii, cap. 4, in Migne, tome cxi, p. 339. For Hugh of
St. Victor, se his De Situ Terrarum, cap. ii. For Dante's belief, see
Inferno, canto xxxiv, 112-115:
"E se' or sotto l'emisperio giunto, Ch' e opposito a quel che la gran secca
Coverchia, e sotto il cui colmo consunto Fu l'uom che nacque e visse senza pecca."
For orthodox geography in the Middle Ages, see Wright's Essays on
Archaeology, vol. ii, chapter on the map of the world in Hereford
Cathedral; also the rude maps in Cardinal d'Ailly's Ymago Mundi; also
copies of maps of Marino Sanuto and others in Peschel, Erdkunde, p. 210;
also Munster, Fac Simile dell' Atlante di Andrea Bianco, Venezia, 1869.
And for discussions of the whole subject, see Satarem, vol. ii, p. 295,
vol. iii, pp. 71, 183, 184, and elsewhere. For a brief summary with
citations, see Eiken, Geschichte, etc., pp. 622, 623.
Nor did medieval thinkers rest with this conception. In accordance with
the dominant view that physical truth must be sought by theological
reasoning, the doctrine was evolved that not only the site of the cross
on Calvary marked the geographical centre of the world, but that on this
very spot had stood the tree which bore the forbidden fruit in Eden.
Thus was geography made to reconcile all parts of the great theologic
plan. This doctrine was hailed with joy by multitudes; and we find in
the works of medieval pilgrims to Palestine, again and again, evidence
that this had become precious truth to them, both in theology and
geography. Even as late as 1664 the eminent French priest Eugene Roger,
in his published travels in Palestine, dwelt upon the thirty-eighth
chapter of Ezekiel, coupled with a text from Isaiah, to prove that the
exact centre of the earth is a spot marked on the pavement of the Church
of the Holy Sepulchre, and that on this spot once stood the tree which
bore the forbidden fruit and the cross of Christ.(31)
(31) For the site of the cross on Calvary, as the point where stood "the
tree of the knowledge of good and evil" in Eden, at the centre of the
earth, see various Eastern travellers cited in Tobler; but especially
the travels of Bishop Arculf in the Holy Land, in Wright's Early Travels
in Palestine, p. 8; also Travels of Saewulf, ibid, p. 38; also Sir John
Mandeville, ibid., pp. 166, 167. For Roger, see his La Terre Saincte,
Paris, 1664, pp. 89-217, etc.; see also Quaresmio, Terrae Sanctae
Elucidatio, 1639, for similar view; and, for one narrative in which the
idea was developed into an amazing mass of pious myths, see Pilgrimage
of the Russian Abbot Daniel, edited by Sir C. W. Wilson, London, 1885,
p. 14. (The passage deserves to be quoted as an example of myth-making;
it is as follows: "At the time of our Lord's crucifixion, when he gave
up the ghost on the cross, the veil of the temple was rent, and the rock
above Adam's skull opened, and the blood and water which flowed from
Christ's side ran down through the fissure upon the skull, thus washing
away the sins of men.")
Nor was this the only misconception which forced its way from our sacred
writings into medieval map-making: two others were almost as marked.
First of these was the vague terror inspired by Gog and Magog. Few
passages in the Old Testament are more sublime than the denunciation
of these great enemies by Ezekiel; and the well-known statement in the
Apocalypse fastened the Hebrew feeling regarding them with a new meaning
into the mind of the early Church: hence it was that the medieval
map-makers took great pains to delineate these monsters and their
habitations on the maps. For centuries no map was considered orthodox
which did not show them.
The second conception was derived from the mention in our sacred books
of the "four winds." Hence came a vivid belief in their real existence,
and their delineation on the maps, generally as colossal heads with
distended cheeks, blowing vigorously toward Jerusalem.
After these conceptions had mainly disappeared we find here and there
evidences of the difficulty men found in giving up the scriptural idea
of direct personal interference by agents of Heaven in the ordinary
phenomena of Nature: thus, in a noted map of the sixteenth century
representing the earth as a sphere, there is at each pole a crank, with
an angel laboriously turning the earth by means of it; and, in another
map, the hand of the Almighty, thrust forth from the clouds, holds the
earth suspended by a rope and spins it with his thumb and fingers.
Even as late as the middle of the seventeenth century Heylin, the most
authoritative English geographer of the time, shows a like tendency to
mix science and theology. He warps each to help the other, as follows:
"Water, making but one globe with the earth, is yet higher than it.
This appears, first, because it is a body not so heavy; secondly, it is
observed by sailors that their ships move faster to the shore than from
it, whereof no reason can be given but the height of the water above the
land; thirdly, to such as stand on the shore the sea seems to swell into
the form of a round hill till it puts a bound upon our sight. Now that
the sea, hovering thus over and above the earth, doth not overwhelm
it, can be ascribed only to his Providence who 'hath made the waters to
stand on an heap that they turn not again to cover the earth.'"(32)
(32) For Gog and Magog, see Ezekiel xxxviii and xxxix, and Rev. xx,
8; and for the general subject, Toy, Judaism and Christianity, Boston,
1891, pp. 373, 374. For maps showing these two great terrors, and for
geographical discussion regarding them, see Lelewel, Geog. du Moyen
Age, Bruxelles, 1850, Atlas; also Ruge, Gesch. des Zeitalters der
Entdeckungen, Berlin, 1881, pp. 78, 79; also Peschel's Abhandlungen,
pp.28-35, and Gesch. der Erdkunde, p. 210. For representations on maps
of the "Four Winds," see Charton, Voyageurs, tome ii, p. 11; also Ruge,
as above, pp. 324, 325; also for a curious mixture of the scriptural
winds issuing from the bags of Aeolus, see a map of the twelfth century
in Leon Gautier, La Chevalerie, p. 153; and for maps showing additional
winds, see various editions of Ptolemy. For a map with angels turning
the earth by means of cranks at the poles, see Grynaeus, Novus Orbis,
Basileae, 1537. For the globe kept spinning by the Almighty, see J.
Hondius's map, 1589; and for Heylin, his first folio, 1652, p. 27.
III. THE INHABITANTS OF THE EARTH.
Even while the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth was undecided,
another question had been suggested which theologians finally came to
consider of far greater importance. The doctrine of the sphericity
of the earth naturally led to thought regarding its inhabitants, and
another ancient germ was warmed into life--the idea of antipodes: of
human beings on the earth's opposite sides.
In the Greek and Roman world this idea had found supporters and
opponents, Cicero and Pliny being among the former, and Epicurus,
Lucretius, and Plutarch among the latter. Thus the problem came into the
early Church unsolved.
Among the first churchmen to take it up was, in the East, St. Gregory
Nazianzen, who showed that to sail beyond Gibraltar was impossible; and,
in the West, Lactantius, who asked: "Is there any one so senseless as
to believe that there are men whose footsteps are higher than their
heads?... that the crops and trees grow downward?... that the rains and
snow and hail fall upward toward the earth?... I am at a loss what to
say of those who, when they have once erred, steadily persevere in their
folly and defend one vain thing by another."
In all this contention by Gregory and Lactantius there was nothing to be
especially regretted, for, whatever their motive, they simply supported
their inherited belief on grounds of natural law and probability.
Unfortunately, the discussion was not long allowed to rest on these
scientific and philosophical grounds; other Christian thinkers followed,
who in their ardour adduced texts of Scripture, and soon the question
had become theological; hostility to the belief in antipodes became
dogmatic. The universal Church was arrayed against it, and in front of
the vast phalanx stood, to a man, the fathers.
To all of them this idea seemed dangerous; to most of them it seemed
damnable. St. Basil and St. Ambrose were tolerant enough to allow that
a man might be saved who thought the earth inhabited on its opposite
sides; but the great majority of the fathers doubted the possibility of
salvation to such misbelievers. The great champion of the orthodox view
was St. Augustine. Though he seemed inclined to yield a little in regard
to the sphericity of the earth, he fought the idea that men exist on the
other side of it, saying that "Scripture speaks of no such descendants
of Adam," he insists that men could not be allowed by the Almighty to
live there, since if they did they could not see Christ at His second
coming descending through the air. But his most cogent appeal, one which
we find echoed from theologian to theologian during a thousand years
afterward, is to the nineteenth Psalm, and to its confirmation in the
Epistle to the Romans; to the words, "Their line is gone out through
all the earth, and their words to the end of the world." He dwells with
great force on the fact that St. Paul based one of his most powerful
arguments upon this declaration regarding the preachers of the gospel,
and that he declared even more explicitly that "Verily, their sound
went into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world."
Thenceforth we find it constantly declared that, as those preachers
did not go to the antipodes, no antipodes can exist; and hence that the
supporters of this geographical doctrine "give the lie direct to King
David and to St. Paul, and therefore to the Holy Ghost." Thus the great
Bishop of Hippo taught the whole world for over a thousand years that,
as there was no preaching of the gospel on the opposite side of the
earth, there could be no human beings there.
The great authority of Augustine, and the cogency of his scriptural
argument, held the Church firmly against the doctrine of the antipodes;
all schools of interpretation were now agreed--the followers of the
allegorical tendencies of Alexandria, the strictly literal exegetes of
Syria, the more eclectic theologians of the West. For over a thousand
years it was held in the Church, "always, everywhere, and by all," that
there could not be human beings on the opposite sides of the earth, even
if the earth had opposite sides; and, when attacked by gainsayers, the
great mass of true believers, from the fourth century to the fifteenth,
simply used that opiate which had so soothing an effect on John Henry
Newman in the nineteenth century--securus judicat orbis terrarum.
Yet gainsayers still appeared. That the doctrine of the antipodes
continued to have life, is shown by the fact that in the sixth century
Procopius of Gaza attacks it with a tremendous argument. He declares
that, if there be men on the other side of the earth, Christ must have
gone there and suffered a second time to save them; and, therefore, that
there must have been there, as necessary preliminaries to his coming, a
duplicate Eden, Adam, serpent, and deluge.
Cosmas Indicopleustes also attacked the doctrine with especial
bitterness, citing a passage from St. Luke to prove that antipodes are
theologically impossible.
At the end of the sixth century came a man from whom much might be
expected--St. Isidore of Seville. He had pondered over ancient thought
in science, and, as we have seen, had dared proclaim his belief in the
sphericity of the earth; but with that he stopped. As to the antipodes,
the authority of the Psalmist, St. Paul, and St. Augustine silences him;
he shuns the whole question as unlawful, subjects reason to faith, and
declares that men can not and ought not to exist on opposite sides of
the earth.(33)
(33)For the opinions of Basil, Ambrose, and others, see Lecky, History
of Rationalism in Europe, New York, 1872, vol. i, p. 279. Also Letronne,
in Revue des Deux Mondes, March, 1834. For Lactantius, see citations
already given. For St. Augustine's opinion, see the De Civitate Dei,
xvi, 9, where this great father of the church shows that the antipodes
"nulla ratione credendum est." For the unanimity of the fathers against
the antipodes, see Zockler, vol. 1, p. 127. For a very naive summary,
see Joseph Acosta, Natural and Moral History of the Indies, Grimston's
translation, republished by the Hakluyt Soc., chaps. vii and viii; also
citations in Buckle's Posthumous Works, vol. ii, p. 645. For Procopius
of Gaza, see Kretschmer, p. 55. See also, on the general subject,
Peschel, Geschichte der Erdkunde, pp. 96-97. For Isidore, see citations
already given. To understand the embarrassment caused by these
utterances of the fathers to scientific men of a later period, see
letter of Agricola to Joachim Vadianus in 1514. Agricola asks Vadianus
to give his views regarding the antipodes, saying that he himself does
not know what to do, between the fathers on the one side and the
learned men of modern times on the other. On the other hand, for the
embarrassment caused to the Church by this mistaken zeal of the
fathers, see Kepler's references and Fromund's replies; also De Morgan,
Paradoxes, p. 58. Kepler appears to have taken great delight in throwing
the views of Lactantius into the teeth of his adversaries.
Under such pressure this scientific truth seems to have disappeared for
nearly two hundred years; but by the eighth century the sphericity
of the earth had come to be generally accepted among the leaders of
thought, and now the doctrine of the antipodes was again asserted by a
bishop, Virgil of Salzburg.
There then stood in Germany, in those first years of the eighth century,
one of the greatest and noblest of men--St. Boniface. His learning was
of the best then known. In labours he was a worthy successor of the
apostles; his genius for Christian work made him unwillingly primate of
Germany; his devotion to duty led him willingly to martyrdom. There sat,
too, at that time, on the papal throne a great Christian statesman--Pope
Zachary. Boniface immediately declared against the revival of such
a heresy as the doctrine of the antipodes; he stigmatized it as an
assertion that there are men beyond the reach of the appointed means of
salvation; he attacked Virgil, and called on Pope Zachary for aid.
The Pope, as the infallible teacher of Christendom, made a strong
response. He cited passages from the book of Job and the Wisdom of
Solomon against the doctrine of the antipodes; he declared it "perverse,
iniquitous, and against Virgil's own soul," and indicated a purpose of
driving him from his bishopric. Whether this purpose was carried out or
not, the old theological view, by virtue of the Pope's divinely ordered
and protected "inerrancy," was re-established, and the doctrine that
the earth has inhabitants on but one of its sides became more than ever
orthodox, and precious in the mind of the Church.(34)
(34) For Virgil of Salzburg, see Neander's History of the Christian
Church, Torrey's translation, vol. iii, p. 63; also Herzog,
Real-Encyklopadie, etc., recent edition by Prof. Hauck, s. v. Virgilius;
also Kretschmer, pp. 56-58; also Whewell, vol. i, p. 197; also De
Morgan, Budget of Paradoxes, pp. 24-26. For very full notes as to pagan
and Christian advocates of the doctrine of the sphericity of the earth
and of the antipodes, and for extract from Zachary's letter, see Migne,
Patrologia, vol. vi, p. 426, and vol. xli, p. 487. For St. Boniface's
part, see Bonifacii Epistolae, ed. Giles, i, 173. Berger de Xivrey,
Traditions Teratologiques, pp. 186-188, makes a curious attempt to show
that Pope Zachary denounced the wrong man; that the real offender was
a Roman poet--in the sixth book of the Aeneid and the first book of the
Georgics.
This decision seems to have been regarded as final, and five centuries
later the great encyclopedist of the Middle Ages, Vincent of Beauvais,
though he accepts the sphericity of the earth, treats the doctrine
of the antipodes as disproved, because contrary to Scripture. Yet the
doctrine still lived. Just as it had been previously revived by William
of Conches and then laid to rest, so now it is somewhat timidly brought
out in the thirteenth century by no less a personage than Albert the
Great, the most noted man of science in that time. But his utterances
are perhaps purposely obscure. Again it disappears beneath the
theological wave, and a hundred years later Nicolas d'Oresme, geographer
of the King of France, a light of science, is forced to yield to the
clear teaching of the Scripture as cited by St. Augustine.
Nor was this the worst. In Italy, at the beginning of the fourteenth
century, the Church thought it necessary to deal with questions of this
sort by rack and fagot. In 1316 Peter of Abano, famous as a physician,
having promulgated this with other obnoxious doctrines in science, only
escaped the Inquisition by death; and in 1327 Cecco d'Ascoli, noted as
an astronomer, was for this and other results of thought, which brought
him under suspicion of sorcery, driven from his professorship at Bologna
and burned alive at Florence. Nor was this all his punishment: Orcagna,
whose terrible frescoes still exist on the walls of the Campo Santo at
Pisa, immortalized Cecco by representing him in the flames of hell.(35)
(35) For Vincent of Beauvais and the antipode, see his Speculum
Naturale, Book VII, with citations from St. Augustine, De Civitate
Dei, cap. xvi. For Albert the Great's doctrine regarding the antipodes,
compare Kretschmer, as above, with Eicken, Geschichte, etc., p. 621.
Kretschmer finds that Albert supports the doctrine, and Eicken finds
that he denies it--a fair proof that Albert was not inclined to state
his views with dangerous clearness. For D'Oresme, see Santerem, Histoire
de la Cosmographie, vol. i, p. 142. For Peter of Abano, or Apono, as he
is often called, see Tiraboschi, also Guinguene, vol. ii, p. 293;
also Naude, Histoire des Grands Hommes soupconnes de Magie. For Cecco
d'Ascoli, see Montucla, Histoire de Mathematiques, i, 528; also Daunou,
Etudes Historiques, vol. vi, p. 320; also Kretschmer, p. 59. Concerning
Orcagna's representation of Cecco in the flames of hell, see Renan,
Averroes et l'Averroisme, Paris, 1867, p. 328.
Years rolled on, and there came in the fifteenth century one from
whom the world had a right to expect much. Pierre d'Ailly, by force of
thought and study, had risen to be Provost of the College of St. Die
in Lorraine; his ability had made that little village a centre of
scientific thought for all Europe, and finally made him Archbishop of
Cambray and a cardinal. Toward the end of the fifteenth century was
printed what Cardinal d'Ailly had written long before as a summing up
of his best thought and research--the collection of essays known as the
Ymago Mundi. It gives us one of the most striking examples in history
of a great man in theological fetters. As he approaches this question
he states it with such clearness that we expect to hear him assert the
truth; but there stands the argument of St. Augustine; there, too, stand
the biblical texts on which it is founded--the text from the Psalms and
the explicit declaration of St. Paul to the Romans, "Their sound went
into all the earth, and their words unto the ends of the world." D'Ailly
attempts to reason, but he is overawed, and gives to the world virtually
nothing.
Still, the doctrine of the antipodes lived and moved: so much so that
the eminent Spanish theologian Tostatus, even as late as the age of
Columbus, felt called upon to protest against it as "unsafe." He had
shaped the old missile of St. Augustine into the following syllogism:
"The apostles were commanded to go into all the world and to preach the
gospel to every creature; they did not go to any such part of the world
as the antipodes; they did not preach to any creatures there: ergo, no
antipodes exist."
The warfare of Columbus the world knows well: how the Bishop of Ceuta
worsted him in Portugal; how sundry wise men of Spain confronted him
with the usual quotations from the Psalms, from St. Paul, and from St.
Augustine; how, even after he was triumphant, and after his voyage had
greatly strengthened the theory of the earth's sphericity, with which
the theory of the antipodes was so closely connected, the Church by its
highest authority solemnly stumbled and persisted in going astray. In
1493 Pope Alexander VI, having been appealed to as an umpire between the
claims of Spain and Portugal to the newly discovered parts of the earth,
issued a bull laying down upon the earth's surface a line of demarcation
between the two powers. This line was drawn from north to south a
hundred leagues west of the Azores; and the Pope in the plenitude of his
knowledge declared that all lands discovered east of this line should
belong to the Portuguese, and all west of it should belong to the
Spaniards. This was hailed as an exercise of divinely illuminated power
by the Church; but difficulties arose, and in 1506 another attempt
was made by Pope Julius II to draw the line three hundred and seventy
leagues west of the Cape Verde Islands. This, again, was supposed to
bring divine wisdom to settle the question; but, shortly, overwhelming
difficulties arose; for the Portuguese claimed Brazil, and, of course,
had no difficulty in showing that they could reach it by sailing to the
east of the line, provided they sailed long enough. The lines laid down
by Popes Alexander and Julius may still be found upon the maps of
the period, but their bulls have quietly passed into the catalogue of
ludicrous errors.
Yet the theological barriers to this geographical truth yielded but
slowly. Plain as it had become to scholars, they hesitated to declare
it to the world at large. Eleven hundred years had passed since St.
Augustine had proved its antagonism to Scripture, when Gregory Reysch
gave forth his famous encyclopaedia, the Margarita Philosophica. Edition
after edition was issued, and everywhere appeared in it the orthodox
statements; but they were evidently strained to the breaking point; for
while, in treating of the antipodes, Reysch refers respectfully to St.
Augustine as objecting to the scientific doctrine, he is careful not to
cite Scripture against it, and not less careful to suggest geographical
reasoning in favour of it.
But in 1519 science gains a crushing victory. Magellan makes his
famous voyage. He proves the earth to be round, for his expedition
circumnavigates it; he proves the doctrine of the antipodes, for his
shipmates see the peoples of the antipodes. Yet even this does not end
the war. Many conscientious men oppose the doctrine for two hundred
years longer. Then the French astronomers make their measurements of
degrees in equatorial and polar regions, and add to their proofs that
of the lengthened pendulum. When this was done, when the deductions of
science were seen to be established by the simple test of measurement,
beautifully and perfectly, and when a long line of trustworthy
explorers, including devoted missionaries, had sent home accounts of the
antipodes, then, and then only, this war of twelve centuries ended.
Such was the main result of this long war; but there were other results
not so fortunate. The efforts of Eusebius, Basil, and Lactantius to
deaden scientific thought; the efforts of Augustine to combat it; the
efforts of Cosmas to crush it by dogmatism; the efforts of Boniface
and Zachary to crush it by force, conscientious as they all were, had
resulted simply in impressing upon many leading minds the conviction
that science and religion are enemies.
On the other hand, what was gained by the warriors of science for
religion? Certainly a far more worthy conception of the world, and a far
more ennobling conception of that power which pervades and directs
it. Which is more consistent with a great religion, the cosmography
of Cosmas or that of Isaac Newton? Which presents a nobler field for
religious thought, the diatribes of Lactantius or the calm statements of
Humboldt?(36)
(36) For D'Ailly's acceptance of St. Augustine's argument, see the Ymago
Mundi, cap. vii. For Tostatus, see Zockler, vol. i, pp. 467, 468. He
based his opposition on Romans x, 18. For Columbus, see Winsor,
Fiske, and Adams; also Humboldt, Histoire de la Geographie du Nouveau
Continent. For the bull of Alexander VI, see Daunou, Etudes Historiques,
vol. ii, p. 417; also Peschel, Zeitalter der Entdeckungen, Book II,
chap. iv. The text of the bull is given with an English translation
in Arber's reprint of The First Three English Books on America, etc.,
Birmingham, 1885, pp. 201-204; also especially Peschel, Die Theilung der
Erde unter Papst Alexander VI and Julius II, Leipsic, 1871, pp. 14
et seq. For remarks on the power under which the line was drawn by
Alexander VI, see Mamiani, Del Papato nei Tre Ultimi Secoli, p. 170.
For maps showing lines of division, see Kohl, Die beiden altesten
General-Karten von Amerika, Weimar, 1860, where maps of 1527 and 1529
are reproduced; also Mercator, Atlas, tenth edition, Amsterdam, 1628,
pp. 70, 71. For latest discussion on The Demarcation Line of Alexander
VI, see E. G. Bourne in Yale Review, May, 1892. For the Margarita
Philosophica, see the editions of 1503, 1509, 1517, lib. vii, cap. 48.
For the effect of Magellan's voyages, and the reluctance to yield to
proof, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xiv, p. 395; St.
Martin's Histoire de la Geographie, p. 369; Peschel, Geschichte des
Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, concluding chapters; and for an admirable
summary, Draper, Hist. Int. Devel. of Europe, pp. 451-453; also an
interesting passage in Sir Thomas Brown's Vulgar and Common Errors, Book
I, chap. vi; also a striking passage in Acosta, chap. ii. For general
statement as to supplementary proof by measurement of degrees and by
pendulum, see Somerville, Phys. Geog., chap. i, par. 6, note; also
Humboldt, Cosmos, vol. ii, p. 736, and vol. v, pp. 16, 32; also
Montucla, iv, 138. As to the effect of travel, see Acosta's history
above cited. The good missionary says, in Grimston's quaint translation,
"Whatsoever Lactantius saith, wee that live now at Peru, and inhabite
that parte of the worlde which is opposite to Asia and theire Antipodes,
finde not ourselves to bee hanging in the aire, our heades downward and
our feete on high."
IV. THE SIZE OF THE EARTH.
But at an early period another subject in geography had stirred the
minds of thinking men--THE EARTH'S SIZE. Various ancient investigators
had by different methods reached measurements more or less near the
truth; these methods were continued into the Middle Ages, supplemented
by new thought, and among the more striking results were those obtained
by Roger Bacon and Gerbert, afterward Pope Sylvester II. They handed
down to after-time the torch of knowledge, but, as their reward among
their contemporaries, they fell under the charge of sorcery.
Far more consonant with the theological spirit of the Middle Ages was a
solution of the problem from Scripture, and this solution deserves to
be given as an example of a very curious theological error, chancing to
result in the establishment of a great truth. The second book of Esdras,
which among Protestants is placed in the Apocrypha, was held by many of
the foremost men of the ancient Church as fully inspired: though Jerome
looked with suspicion on this book, it was regarded as prophetic
by Clement of Alexandria, Tertullian, and Ambrose, and the Church
acquiesced in that view. In the Eastern Church it held an especially
high place, and in the Western Church, before the Reformation, was
generally considered by the most eminent authorities to be part of the
sacred canon. In the sixth chapter of this book there is a summary of
the works of creation, and in it occur the following verses:
"Upon the third day thou didst command that the waters should be
gathered in the seventh part of the earth; six parts hast thou dried up
and kept them to the intent that of these some, being planted of God and
tilled, might serve thee."
"Upon the fifth day thou saidst unto the seventh part where the waters
were gathered, that it should bring forth living creatures, fowls and
fishes, and so it came to pass."
These statements were reiterated in other verses, and were naturally
considered as of controlling authority.
Among the scholars who pondered on this as on all things likely to
increase knowledge was Cardinal Pierre d'Ailly. As we have seen, this
great man, while he denied the existence of the antipodes, as St.
Augustine had done, believed firmly in the sphericity of the earth, and,
interpreting these statements of the book of Esdras in connection with
this belief, he held that, as only one seventh of the earth's surface
was covered by water, the ocean between the west coast of Europe and the
east coast of Asia could not be very wide. Knowing, as he thought, the
extent of the land upon the globe, he felt that in view of this divinely
authorized statement the globe must be much smaller, and the land of
"Zipango," reached by Marco Polo, on the extreme east coast of Asia,
much nearer than had been generally believed.
On this point he laid stress in his great work, the Ymago Mundi, and
an edition of it having been published in the days when Columbus
was thinking most closely upon the problem of a westward voyage, it
naturally exercised much influence upon his reasonings. Among the
treasures of the library at Seville, there is nothing more interesting
than a copy of this work annotated by Columbus himself: from this very
copy it was that Columbus obtained confirmation of his belief that the
passage across the ocean to Marco Polo's land of Zipango in Asia was
short. But for this error, based upon a text supposed to be inspired, it
is unlikely that Columbus could have secured the necessary support for
his voyage. It is a curious fact that this single theological error thus
promoted a series of voyages which completely destroyed not only
this but every other conception of geography based upon the sacred
writings.(37)
(37) For this error, so fruitful in discovery, see D'Ailly, Ymago Mundi;
the passage referred to is fol. 12 verso. For the passage from Esdras,
see chap. vi, verses 42, 47, 50, and 52; see also Zockler, Geschichte
der Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und Naturweissenschaft, vol. i,
p. 461. For one of the best recent statements, see Ruge, Gesch. des
Zeitalters der Entdeckungen, Berlin, 1882, pp. 221 et seq. For a letter
of Columbus acknowledging his indebtedness to this mistake in Esdras,
see Navarrete, Viajes y Descubrimientos, Madrid, 1825, tome i, pp. 242,
264; also Humboldt, Hist. de la Geographie du Nouveau Continent, vol. i,
pp. 68, 69.
V. THE CHARACTER OF THE EARTH'S SURFACE.
It would be hardly just to dismiss the struggle for geographical truth
without referring to one passage more in the history of the Protestant
Church, for it shows clearly the difficulties in the way of the simplest
statement of geographical truth which conflicted with the words of the
sacred books.
In the year 1553 Michael Servetus was on trial for his life at Geneva
on the charge of Arianism. Servetus had rendered many services
to scientific truth, and one of these was an edition of Ptolemy's
Geography, in which Judea was spoken of, not as "a land flowing with
milk and honey," but, in strict accordance with the truth, as, in
the main, meagre, barren, and inhospitable. In his trial this simple
statement of geographical fact was used against him by his arch-enemy
John Calvin with fearful power. In vain did Servetus plead that he had
simply drawn the words from a previous edition of Ptolemy; in vain did
he declare that this statement was a simple geographical truth of which
there were ample proofs: it was answered that such language "necessarily
inculpated Moses, and grievously outraged the Holy Ghost."(38)
(38) For Servetus's geographical offense, see Rilliet, Relation du
Proces criminel contre Michel Servet d'apres les Documents originaux,
Geneva, 1844, pp. 42,43; also Willis, Servetus and Calvin, London, 1877,
p. 325. The passage condemned is in the Ptolemy of 1535, fol. 41. It was
discreetly retrenched in a reprint of the same edition.
In summing up the action of the Church upon geography, we must say,
then, that the dogmas developed in strict adherence to Scripture and
the conceptions held in the Church during many centuries "always, every
where, and by all," were, on the whole, steadily hostile to truth; but
it is only just to make a distinction here between the religious and the
theological spirit. To the religious spirit are largely due several
of the noblest among the great voyages of discovery. A deep longing to
extend the realms of Christianity influenced the minds of Prince John
of Portugal, in his great series of efforts along the African coast;
of Vasco da Gama, in his circumnavigation of the Cape of Good Hope; of
Magellan, in his voyage around the world; and doubtless found a place
among the more worldly motives of Columbus.(39)
(39) As to the earlier mixture in the motives of Columbus, it may be
well to compare with the earlier biographies the recent ones by Dr.
Winsor and President Adams.
Thus, in this field, from the supremacy accorded to theology, we find
resulting that tendency to dogmatism which has shown itself in all
ages the deadly foe not only of scientific inquiry but of the higher
religious spirit itself, while from the love of truth for truth's sake,
which has been the inspiration of all fruitful work in science, nothing
but advantage has ever resulted to religion.
CHAPTER III. ASTRONOMY.
I. THE OLD SACRED THEORY OF THE UNIVERSE.
The next great series of battles was fought over the relations of the
visible heavens to the earth.
In the early Church, in view of the doctrine so prominent in the New
Testament, that the earth was soon to be destroyed, and that there were
to be "new heavens and a new earth," astronomy, like other branches of
science, was generally looked upon as futile. Why study the old heavens
and the old earth, when they were so soon to be replaced with something
infinitely better? This feeling appears in St. Augustine's famous
utterance, "What concern is it to me whether the heavens as a sphere
inclose the earth in the middle of the world or overhang it on either
side?"
As to the heavenly bodies, theologians looked on them as at best only
objects of pious speculation. Regarding their nature the fathers of the
Church were divided. Origen, and others with him, thought them living
beings possessed of souls, and this belief was mainly based upon the
scriptural vision of the morning stars. singing together, and upon
the beautiful appeal to the "stars and light" in the song of the three
children--the Benedicite--which the Anglican communion has so wisely
retained in its Liturgy.
Other fathers thought the stars abiding-places of the angels, and that
stars were moved by angels. The Gnostics thought the stars spiritual
beings governed by angels, and appointed not to cause earthly events but
to indicate them.
As to the heavens in general, the prevailing view in the Church
was based upon the scriptural declarations that a solid vault--a
"firmament"--was extended above the earth, and that the heavenly
bodies were simply lights hung within it. This was for a time held
very tenaciously. St. Philastrius, in his famous treatise on heresies,
pronounced it a heresy to deny that the stars are brought out by God
from his treasure-house and hung in the sky every evening; any other
view he declared "false to the Catholic faith." This view also survived
in the sacred theory established so firmly by Cosmas in the sixth
century. Having established his plan of the universe upon various texts
in the Old and New Testaments, and having made it a vast oblong box,
covered by the solid "firmament," he brought in additional texts from
Scripture to account for the planetary movements, and developed at
length the theory that the sun and planets are moved and the "windows of
heaven" opened and shut by angels appointed for that purpose.
How intensely real this way of looking at the universe was, we find in
the writings of St. Isidore, the greatest leader of orthodox thought
in the seventh century. He affirms that since the fall of man, and
on account of it, the sun and moon shine with a feebler light; but he
proves from a text in Isaiah that when the world shall be fully redeemed
these "great lights" will shine again in all their early splendour.
But, despite these authorities and their theological finalities, the
evolution of scientific thought continued, its main germ being the
geocentric doctrine--the doctrine that the earth is the centre, and that
the sun and planets revolve about it.(40)
(40) For passage cited from Clement of Alexandria, see English
translation, Edinburgh, 1869, vol. ii, p. 368; also the Miscellanies,
Book V, cap. vi. For typical statements by St. Augustine, see De Genesi,
ii, cap. ix, in Migne, Patr. Lat., tome xxiv, pp. 270-271. For Origen's
view, see the De Principiis, lib. i, cap. vii; see also Leopardi's
Errori Populari, cap. xi; also Wilson's Selections from the Prophetic
Scriptures in Ante-Nicene Library, p. 132. For Philo Judaeus, see On the
Creation of the World, chaps. xviii and xix, and On Monarchy, chap. i.
For St. Isidore, see the De Ordine Creaturarum, cap v, in Migne, Patr.
Lat., lxxxiii, pp. 923-925; also 1000, 1001. For Philastrius, see the
De Hoeresibus, chap. cxxxiii, in Migne, tome xii, p. 1264. For Cosmas's
view, see his Topographia Christiana, in Montfaucon, Col. Nov. Patrum,
ii, p. 150, and elsewhere as cited in my chapter on Geography.
This doctrine was of the highest respectability: it had been developed
at a very early period, and had been elaborated until it accounted
well for the apparent movements of the heavenly bodies; its final name,
"Ptolemaic theory," carried weight; and, having thus come from antiquity
into the Christian world, St. Clement of Alexandria demonstrated that
the altar in the Jewish tabernacle was "a symbol of the earth placed
in the middle of the universe": nothing more was needed; the geocentric
theory was fully adopted by the Church and universally held to agree
with the letter and spirit of Scripture.(41)
(41) As to the respectibility of the geocentric theory, etc., see
Grote's Plato, vol. iii, p. 257; also Sir G. C. Lewis's Astronomy of the
Ancients, chap. iii, sec. 1, for a very thoughtful statement of Plato's
view, and differing from ancient statements. For plausible elaboration
of it, and for supposed agreement of the Scripture with it, see
Fromundus, Anti-Aristarchus, Antwerp, 1631; also Melanchthon's Initia
Doctrinae Physicae. For an admirable statement of the theological view
of the geocentric theory, antipodes, etc., see Eicken, Geschichte und
System der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, pp. 618 et seq.
Wrought into this foundation, and based upon it, there was developed
in the Middle Ages, mainly out of fragments of Chaldean and other early
theories preserved in the Hebrew Scriptures, a new sacred system of
astronomy, which became one of the great treasures of the universal
Church--the last word of revelation.
Three great men mainly reared this structure. First was the unknown who
gave to the world the treatises ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite.
It was unhesitatingly believed that these were the work of St. Paul's
Athenian convert, and therefore virtually of St. Paul himself. Though
now known to be spurious, they were then considered a treasure of
inspiration, and an emperor of the East sent them to an emperor of the
West as the most worthy of gifts. In the ninth century they were widely
circulated in western Europe, and became a fruitful source of thought,
especially on the whole celestial hierarchy. Thus the old ideas of
astronomy were vastly developed, and the heavenly hosts were classed
and named in accordance with indications scattered through the sacred
Scriptures.
The next of these three great theologians was Peter Lombard, professor
at the University of Paris. About the middle of the twelfth century he
gave forth his collection of Sentences, or Statements by the Fathers,
and this remained until the end of the Middle Ages the universal manual
of theology. In it was especially developed the theological view of
man's relation to the universe. The author tells the world: "Just as
man is made for the sake of God--that is, that he may serve Him,--so the
universe is made for the sake of man--that is, that it may serve HIM;
therefore is man placed at the middle point of the universe, that he may
both serve and be served."
The vast significance of this view, and its power in resisting any real
astronomical science, we shall see, especially in the time of Galileo.
The great triad of thinkers culminated in St. Thomas Aquinas--the
sainted theologian, the glory of the mediaeval Church, the "Angelic
Doctor," the most marvellous intellect between Aristotle and Newton; he
to whom it was believed that an image of the Crucified had spoken words
praising his writings. Large of mind, strong, acute, yet just--even more
than just--to his opponents, he gave forth, in the latter half of the
thirteenth century, his Cyclopaedia of Theology, the Summa Theologica.
In this he carried the sacred theory of the universe to its full
development. With great power and clearness he brought the whole vast
system, material and spiritual, into its relations to God and man.(42)
(42) For the beliefs of Chaldean astronomers in revolving spheres
carrying sun, moon, and planets, in a solid firmament supporting the
celestial waters, and in angels as giving motion to the planets, see
Lenormant; also Lethaby, 13-21; also Schroeder, Jensen, Lukas, et al.
For the contribution of the pseudo-Dionysius to mediaeval cosmology, see
Dion. Areopagita, De Coelesti Hierarchia, vers. Joan. Scoti, in Migne,
Patr. Lat., cxxii. For the contribution of Peter Lombard, see Pet.
Lomb., Libr. Sent., II, i, 8,-IV, i, 6, 7, in Migne, tome 192. For the
citations from St. Thomas Aquinas, see the Summa, ed. Migne, especially
Pars I, Qu. 70, (tome i, pp. 1174-1184); also Quaestio 47, Art. iii. For
good general statement, see Milman, Latin Christianity, iv, 191 et seq.;
and for relation of Cosmas to these theologians of western Europe, see
Milman, as above, viii, 228, note.
Thus was the vast system developed by these three leaders of mediaeval
thought; and now came the man who wrought it yet more deeply into
European belief, the poet divinely inspired who made the system part
of the world's LIFE. Pictured by Dante, the empyrean and the concentric
heavens, paradise, purgatory, and hell, were seen of all men; the God
Triune, seated on his throne upon the circle of the heavens, as real as
the Pope seated in the chair of St. Peter; the seraphim, cherubim, and
thrones, surrounding the Almighty, as real as the cardinals surrounding
the Pope; the three great orders of angels in heaven, as real as the
three great orders, bishops, priests, and deacons, on earth; and the
whole system of spheres, each revolving within the one above it, and
all moving about the earth, subject to the primum mobile, as real as the
feudal system of western Europe, subject to the Emperor.(43)
(43) For the central sun, hierarchy of angels, and concentric circles,
see Dante, Paradiso, canto xxviii. For the words of St. Thomas Aquinas,
showing to Virgil and Dante the great theologians of the Middle Ages,
see canto x, and in Dean Plumptre's translation, vol. ii, pp. 56 et
seq.; also Botta, Dante, pp. 350, 351. As to Dante's deep religious
feeling and belief in his own divine mission, see J. R. Lowell, Among
my Books, vol. i, p. 36. For a remarkable series of coloured engravings,
showing Dante's whole cosmology, see La Materia della Divina Comedia di
Dante dichiriata in vi tavole, da Michelangelo Caetani, published by the
monks of Monte Cassino, to whose kindness I am indebted for my copy.
Let us look into this vast creation--the highest achievement of
theology--somewhat more closely.
Its first feature shows a development out of earlier theological ideas.
The earth is no longer a flat plain inclosed by four walls and solidly
vaulted above, as theologians of previous centuries had believed it,
under the inspiration of Cosmas; it is no longer a mere flat disk, with
sun, moon, and stars hung up to give it light, as the earlier cathedral
sculptors had figured it; it has become a globe at the centre of the
universe. Encompassing it are successive transparent spheres, rotated
by angels about the earth, and each carrying one or more of the heavenly
bodies with it: that nearest the earth carrying the moon; the next,
Mercury; the next, Venus; the next, the Sun; the next three, Mars,
Jupiter, and Saturn; the eighth carrying the fixed stars. The ninth was
the primum mobile, and inclosing all was the tenth heaven--the Empyrean.
This was immovable--the boundary between creation and the great outer
void; and here, in a light which no one can enter, the Triune God sat
enthroned, the "music of the spheres" rising to Him as they moved. Thus
was the old heathen doctrine of the spheres made Christian.
In attendance upon the Divine Majesty, thus enthroned, are vast hosts
of angels, who are divided into three hierarchies, one serving in the
empyrean, one in the heavens, between the empyrean and the earth, and
one on the earth.
Each of these hierarchies is divided into three choirs, or orders; the
first, into the orders of Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones; and the main
occupation of these is to chant incessantly--to "continually cry" the
divine praises.
The order of Thrones conveys God's will to the second hierarchy, which
serves in the movable heavens. This second hierarchy is also made up of
three orders. The first of these, the order of Dominions, receives the
divine commands; the second, the order of Powers, moves the heavens,
sun, moon, planets, and stars, opens and shuts the "windows of heaven,"
and brings to pass all other celestial phenomena; the third, the order
of Empire, guards the others.
The third and lowest hierarchy is also made up of three orders. First
of these are the Principalities, the guardian spirits of nations and
kingdoms. Next come Archangels; these protect religion, and bear the
prayers of the saints to the foot of God's throne. Finally come Angels;
these care for earthly affairs in general, one being appointed to each
mortal, and others taking charge of the qualities of plants, metals,
stones, and the like. Throughout the whole system, from the great Triune
God to the lowest group of angels, we see at work the mystic power
attached to the triangle and sacred number three--the same which gave
the triune idea to ancient Hindu theology, which developed the triune
deities in Egypt, and which transmitted this theological gift to the
Christian world, especially through the Egyptian Athanasius.
Below the earth is hell. This is tenanted by the angels who rebelled
under the lead of Lucifer, prince of the seraphim--the former favourite
of the Trinity; but, of these rebellious angels, some still rove among
the planetary spheres, and give trouble to the good angels; others
pervade the atmosphere about the earth, carrying lightning, storm,
drought, and hail; others infest earthly society, tempting men to sin;
but Peter Lombard and St. Thomas Aquinas take pains to show that the
work of these devils is, after all, but to discipline man or to mete out
deserved punishment.
All this vast scheme had been so riveted into the Ptolemaic view by
the use of biblical texts and theological reasonings that the resultant
system of the universe was considered impregnable and final. To attack
it was blasphemy.
It stood for centuries. Great theological men of science, like Vincent
of Beauvais and Cardinal d'Ailly, devoted themselves to showing not only
that it was supported by Scripture, but that it supported Scripture.
Thus was the geocentric theory embedded in the beliefs and aspirations,
in the hopes and fears, of Christendom down to the middle of the
sixteenth century.(44)
(44) For the earlier cosmology of Cosmas, with citations from
Montfaucon, see the chapter on Geography in this work. For the views
of mediaeval theologians, see foregoing notes in this chapter. For the
passages of Scripture on which the theological part of this structure
was developed, see especially Romans viii, 38; Ephesians i, 21;
Colossians i, 16 and ii, 15; and innumerable passages in the Old
Testament. As to the music of the spheres, see Dean Plumptre's Dante,
vol. ii, p. 4, note. For an admirable summing up of the mediaeval
cosmology in its relation to thought in general, see Rydberg, Magic of
the Middle Ages, chap. i, whose summary I have followed in the main. For
striking woodcuts showing the view taken of the successive heavens with
their choirs of angels, the earth being at the centre with the spheres
about it, and the Almighty on his throne above all, see the Neuremberg
Chronicle, ff. iv and v; its date is 1493. For charts showing the
continuance of this general view down to the beginning of the sixteenth
century, see the various editions of the Margarita Philosophica, from
that of 1503 onward, astronomical part. For interesting statements
regarding the Trinities of gods in ancient Egypt, see Sharpe, History of
Egypt, vol. i, pp. 94 and 101. The present writer once heard a lecture
in Cairo, from an eminent Scotch Doctor of Medicine, to account for the
ancient Hindu and Egyptian sacred threes and trinities. The lecturer's
theory was that, when Jehovah came down into the Garden of Eden and
walked with Adam in "the cool of the day," he explained his triune
character to Adam, and that from Adam it was spread abroad to the
various ancient nations.
II. THE HELIOCENTRIC THEORY.
But, on the other hand, there had been planted, long before, the
germs of a heliocentric theory. In the sixth century before our era,
Pythagoras, and after him Philolaus, had suggested the movement of the
earth and planets about a central fire; and, three centuries later,
Aristarchus had restated the main truth with striking precision. Here
comes in a proof that the antagonism between theological and scientific
methods is not confined to Christianity; for this statement brought
upon Aristarchus the charge of blasphemy, and drew after it a cloud of
prejudice which hid the truth for six hundred years. Not until the fifth
century of our era did it timidly appear in the thoughts of Martianus
Capella: then it was again lost to sight for a thousand years, until
in the fifteenth century, distorted and imperfect, it appeared in the
writings of Cardinal Nicholas de Cusa.
But in the shade cast by the vast system which had grown from the minds
of the great theologians and from the heart of the great poet there had
come to this truth neither bloom nor fruitage.
Quietly, however, the soil was receiving enrichment and the air warmth.
The processes of mathematics were constantly improved, the heavenly
bodies were steadily observed, and at length appeared, far from the
centres of thought, on the borders of Poland, a plain, simple-minded
scholar, who first fairly uttered to the modern world the truth--now so
commonplace, then so astounding--that the sun and planets do not revolve
about the earth, but that the earth and planets revolve about the sun:
this man was Nicholas Copernicus.
Copernicus had been a professor at Rome, and even as early as 1500
had announced his doctrine there, but more in the way of a scientific
curiosity or paradox, as it had been previously held by Cardinal de
Cusa, than as the statement of a system representing a great fact in
Nature. About thirty years later one of his disciples, Widmanstadt, had
explained it to Clement VII; but it still remained a mere hypothesis,
and soon, like so many others, disappeared from the public view. But
to Copernicus, steadily studying the subject, it became more and more
a reality, and as this truth grew within him he seemed to feel that at
Rome he was no longer safe. To announce his discovery there as a theory
or a paradox might amuse the papal court, but to announce it as a
truth--as THE truth--was a far different matter. He therefore returned
to his little town in Poland.
To publish his thought as it had now developed was evidently dangerous
even there, and for more than thirty years it lay slumbering in the mind
of Copernicus and of the friends to whom he had privately intrusted it.
At last he prepared his great work on the Revolutions of the Heavenly
Bodies, and dedicated it to the Pope himself. He next sought a place of
publication. He dared not send it to Rome, for there were the rulers of
the older Church ready to seize it; he dared not send it to Wittenberg,
for there were the leaders of Protestantism no less hostile; he
therefore intrusted it to Osiander, at Nuremberg.(45)
(45) For the germs of heliocentric theory planted long before, see Sir
G. C. Lewis; and for a succinct statement of the claims of Pythagoras,
Philolaus, Aristarchus, and Martianus Capella, see Hoefer, Histoire de
l'Astronomie, 1873, p. 107 et seq.; also Heller, Geschichte der Physik,
Stuttgart, 1882, vol. i, pp. 12, 13; also pp. 99 et seq. For germs among
thinkers of India, see Whewell, vol. i, p. 277; also Whitney, Oriental
and Linguistic Studies, New York, 1874; Essay on the Lunar Zodiac, p.
345. For the views of Vincent of Beauvais, see his Speculum Naturale,
lib. xvi, cap. 21. For Cardinal d'Ailly's view, see his treatise De
Concordia Astronomicae Veritatis cum Theologia (in his Ymago Mundi
and separately). For general statement of De Cusa's work, see Draper,
Intellectual Development of Europe, p. 512. For skilful use of De Cusa's
view in order to mitigate censure upon the Church for its treatment
of Copernicus's discovery, see an article in the Catholic World for
January, 1869. For a very exact statement, in the spirit of judicial
fairness, see Whewell, History of the Inductive Sciences, p. 275, and
pp. 379, 380. In the latter, Whewell cites the exact words of De Cusa
in the De Docta Ignorantia, and sums up in these words: "This train
of thought might be a preparation for the reception of the Copernican
system; but it is very different from the doctrine that the sun is the
centre of the planetary system." Whewell says: "De Cusa propounded the
doctrine of the motion of the earth more as a paradox than as a reality.
We can not consider this as any distinct anticipation of a profound and
consistent view of the truth." On De Cusa, see also Heller, vol. i, p.
216. For Aristotle's views, and their elaboration by St. Thomas Aquinas,
see the De Coelo et Mundo, sec. xx, and elsewhere in the latter. It is
curious to see how even such a biographer as Archbishop Vaughan slurs
over the angelic Doctor's errors. See Vaughan's Life and Labours of St.
Thomas of Aquin, pp. 459, 460.
As to Copernicus's danger at Rome, the Catholic World for January, 1869,
cites a speech of the Archbishop of Mechlin before the University of
Louvain, to the effect that Copernicus defended his theory at Rome, in
1500, before two thousand scholars; also, that another professor taught
the system in 1528, and was made apostolic notary by Clement VIII. All
this, even if the doctrines taught were identical with Copernicus as
finally developed--which is simply not the case--avails nothing
against the overwhelming testimony that Copernicus felt himself in
danger--testimony which the after-history of the Copernican theory
renders invincible. The very title of Fromundus's book, already cited,
published within a few miles of the archbishop's own cathedral, and
sanctioned expressly by the theological faculty of that same University
of Louvain in 1630, utterly refutes the archbishop's idea that the
Church was inclined to treat Copernicus kindly. The title is as
follows: Ant-Aristarchus sive Orbis-Terrae Immobilis, in quo decretum
S. Congregationis S. R. E. Cardinal. an. M.DC.XVI adversus
Pythagorico-Copernicanos editum defenditur, Antverpiae, MDCXXI.
L'Epinois, Galilee, Paris, 1867, lays stress, p. 14, on the broaching of
the doctrine by De Cusa in 1435, and by Widmanstadt in 1533, and their
kind treatment by Eugenius IV and Clement VII; but this is absolutely
worthless in denying the papal policy afterward. Lange, Geschichte des
Materialismus, vol. i, pp. 217, 218, while admitting that De Cusa
and Widmanstadt sustained this theory and received honors from
their respective popes, shows that, when the Church gave it serious
consideration, it was condemned. There is nothing in this view
unreasonable. It would be a parallel case to that of Leo X, at first
inclined toward Luther and others, in their "squabbles with the envious
friars," and afterward forced to oppose them. That Copernicus felt
the danger, is evident, among other things, by the expression in the
preface: "Statim me explodendum cum tali opinione clamitant." For
dangers at Wittenberg, see Lange, as above, vol. i, p. 217.
But Osiander's courage failed him: he dared not launch the new thought
boldly. He wrote a grovelling preface, endeavouring to excuse Copernicus
for his novel idea, and in this he inserted the apologetic lie that
Copernicus had propounded the doctrine of the earth's movement not as
a fact, but as a hypothesis. He declared that it was lawful for an
astronomer to indulge his imagination, and that this was what Copernicus
had done.
Thus was the greatest and most ennobling, perhaps, of scientific
truths--a truth not less ennobling to religion than to science--forced,
in coming before the world, to sneak and crawl.(46)
(46) Osiander, in a letter to Copernicus, dated April 20, 1541, had
endeavored to reconcile him to such a procedure, and ends by saying,
"Sic enim placidiores reddideris peripatheticos et theologos quos
contradicturos metuis." See Apologia Tychonis in Kepler's Opera Omnia,
Frisch's edition, vol. i, p. 246. Kepler holds Osiander entirely
responsible for this preface. Bertrand, in his Fondateurs de
l'astronomie moderne, gives its text, and thinks it possible that
Copernicus may have yielded "in pure condescension toward his disciple."
But this idea is utterly at variance with expressions in Copernicus's
own dedicatory letter to the Pope, which follows the preface. For a good
summary of the argument, see Figuier, Savants de la Renaissance, pp.
378, 379; see also citation from Gassendi's Life of Copernicus, in
Flammarion, Vie de Copernic, p. 124. Mr. John Fiske, accurate as
he usually is, in his Outlines of Cosmic Philosophy appears to have
followed Laplace, Delambre, and Petit into the error of supposing that
Copernicus, and not Osiander, is responsible for the preface. For the
latest proofs, see Menzer's translation of Copernicus's work, Thorn,
1879, notes on pp. 3 and 4 of the appendix.
On the 24th of May, 1543, the newly printed book arrived at the house of
Copernicus. It was put into his hands; but he was on his deathbed. A few
hours later he was beyond the reach of the conscientious men who would
have blotted his reputation and perhaps have destroyed his life.
Yet not wholly beyond their reach. Even death could not be trusted to
shield him. There seems to have been fear of vengeance upon his corpse,
for on his tombstone was placed no record of his lifelong labours, no
mention of his great discovery; but there was graven upon it simply a
prayer: "I ask not the grace accorded to Paul; not that given to Peter;
give me only the favour which Thou didst show to the thief on the
cross."
Not till thirty years after did a friend dare write on his tombstone a
memorial of his discovery.(47)
(47) See Flammarion, Vie de Copernic, p. 190.
The preface of Osiander, pretending that the book of Copernicus
suggested a hypothesis instead of announcing a truth, served its purpose
well. During nearly seventy years the Church authorities evidently
thought it best not to stir the matter, and in some cases professors
like Calganini were allowed to present the new view purely as a
hypothesis. There were, indeed, mutterings from time to time on the
theological side, but there was no great demonstration against the
system until 1616. Then, when the Copernican doctrine was upheld by
Galileo as a TRUTH, and proved to be a truth by his telescope, the book
was taken in hand by the Roman curia. The statements of Copernicus
were condemned, "until they should be corrected"; and the corrections
required were simply such as would substitute for his conclusions the
old Ptolemaic theory.
That this was their purpose was seen in that year when Galileo was
forbidden to teach or discuss the Copernican theory, and when were
forbidden "all books which affirm the motion of the earth." Henceforth
to read the work of Copernicus was to risk damnation, and the world
accepted the decree.(48) The strongest minds were thus held fast. If
they could not believe the old system, they must PRETEND that they
believed it;--and this, even after the great circumnavigation of the
globe had done so much to open the eyes of the world! Very striking is
the case of the eminent Jesuit missionary Joseph Acosta, whose great
work on the Natural and Moral History of the Indies, published in the
last quarter of the sixteenth century, exploded so many astronomical and
geographical errors. Though at times curiously credulous, he told the
truth as far as he dared; but as to the movement of the heavenly bodies
he remained orthodox--declaring, "I have seen the two poles, whereon the
heavens turn as upon their axletrees."
(48) The authorities deciding this matter in accordance with the wishes
of Pope V and Cardinal Bellarmine were the Congregation of the Index,
or cardinals having charge of the Index Librorum Prohibitorum. Recent
desperate attempts to fasten the responsibility on them as individuals
seem ridiculous in view of the simple fact that their work was
sanctioned by the highest Church authority, and required to be
universally accepted by the Church. Eleven different editions of the
Index in my own possession prove this. Nearly all of these declare on
their title-pages that they are issued by order of the pontiff of the
period, and each is preface by a special papal bull or letter. See
especially the Index of 1664, issued under order of Alexander VII,
and that of 1761, under Benedict XIV. Copernicus's statements were
prohibited in the Index "donec corrigantur." Kepler said that it ought
to be worded "donec explicetur." See Bertand, Fondateurs de l'Astronomie
moderne, p. 57. De Morgan, pp. 57-60, gives the corrections required by
the Index of 1620. Their main aim seems to be to reduce Copernicus
to the grovelling level of Osiander, making his discovery a mere
hypothesis; but occasionally they require a virtual giving up of the
whole Copernican doctrine--e.g., "correction" insisted upon for chap.
viii, p. 6. For a scholarly account of the relation between Prohibitory
and Expurgatory Indexes to each other, see Mendham, Literary Policy
of the Church of Rome; also Reusch, Index der verbotenen Bucher, Bonn,
1855, vol. ii, chaps i and ii. For a brief but very careful statement,
see Gebler, Galileo Galilei, English translation, London, 1879, chap. i;
see also Addis and Arnold's Catholic Dictionary, article Galileo, p.8.
There was, indeed, in Europe one man who might have done much to check
this current of unreason which was to sweep away so many thoughtful men
on the one hand from scientific knowledge, and so many on the other from
Christianity. This was Peter Apian. He was one of the great mathematical
and astronomical scholars of the time. His brilliant abilities had
made him the astronomical teacher of the Emperor Charles V. His work on
geography had brought him a world-wide reputation; his work on astronomy
brought him a patent of nobility; his improvements in mathematical
processes and astronomical instruments brought him the praise of Kepler
and a place in the history of science: never had a true man better
opportunity to do a great deed. When Copernicus's work appeared, Apian
was at the height of his reputation and power: a quiet, earnest
plea from him, even if it had been only for ordinary fairness and a
suspension of judgment, must have carried much weight. His devoted
pupil, Charles V, who sat on the thrones of Germany and Spain, must at
least have given a hearing to such a plea. But, unfortunately, Apian
was a professor in an institution of learning under the strictest Church
control--the University of Ingolstadt. His foremost duty was to teach
SAFE science--to keep science within the line of scriptural truth as
interpreted by theological professors. His great opportunity was lost.
Apian continued to maunder over the Ptolemaic theory and astrology
in his lecture-room. The attack on the Copernican theory he neither
supported nor opposed; he was silent; and the cause of his silence
should never be forgotten so long as any Church asserts its title to
control university instruction.(49)
(49) For Joseph Acosta's statement, see the translation of his History,
published by the Hakluyt Society, chap. ii. For Peter Apian, see Madler,
Geschichte der Astronomie, Braunschweig, 1873, vol. i, p. 141. For
evidences of the special favour of Charles V, see Delambre, Histoire
de l'Astronomie au Moyen Age, p. 390; also Bruhns, in the Allgemeine
deutsche Biographie. For an attempted apology for him, see Gunther,
Peter and Philipp Apian, Prag, 1822, p. 62.
Doubtless many will exclaim against the Roman Catholic Church for this;
but the simple truth is that Protestantism was no less zealous
against the new scientific doctrine. All branches of the Protestant
Church--Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican--vied with each other in
denouncing the Copernican doctrine as contrary to Scripture; and, at a
later period, the Puritans showed the same tendency.
Said Martin Luther: "People gave ear to an upstart astrologer who strove
to show that the earth revolves, not the heavens or the firmament, the
sun and the moon. Whoever wishes to appear clever must devise some
new system, which of all systems is of course the very best. This fool
wishes to reverse the entire science of astronomy; but sacred Scripture
tells us that Joshua commanded the sun to stand still, and not the
earth." Melanchthon, mild as he was, was not behind Luther in condemning
Copernicus. In his treatise on the Elements of Physics, published six
years after Copernicus's death, he says: "The eyes are witnesses that
the heavens revolve in the space of twenty-four hours. But certain men,
either from the love of novelty, or to make a display of ingenuity,
have concluded that the earth moves; and they maintain that neither the
eighth sphere nor the sun revolves.... Now, it is a want of honesty and
decency to assert such notions publicly, and the example is pernicious.
It is the part of a good mind to accept the truth as revealed by God and
to acquiesce in it." Melanchthon then cites the passages in the Psalms
and Ecclesiastes, which he declares assert positively and clearly that
the earth stands fast and that the sun moves around it, and adds eight
other proofs of his proposition that "the earth can be nowhere if not
in the centre of the universe." So earnest does this mildest of the
Reformers become, that he suggests severe measures to restrain such
impious teachings as those of Copernicus.(50)
(50) See the Tischreden in the Walsch edition of Luther's Works, 1743,
vol. xxii, p. 2260; also Melanchthon's Initia Doctrinae Physicae.
This treatise is cited under a mistaken title by the Catholic World,
September, 1870. The correct title is as given above; it will be found
in the Corpus Reformatorum, vol. xiii (ed. Bretschneider, Halle, 1846),
pp. 216, 217. See also Madler, vol. i, p. 176; also Lange, Geschichte
des Materialismus, vol. i, p. 217; also Prowe, Ueber die Abhangigkeit
des Copernicus, Thorn, 1865, p. 4; also note, pp. 5, 6, where text is
given in full.
While Lutheranism was thus condemning the theory of the earth's
movement, other branches of the Protestant Church did not remain behind.
Calvin took the lead, in his Commentary on Genesis, by condemning all
who asserted that the earth is not at the centre of the universe. He
clinched the matter by the usual reference to the first verse of the
ninety-third Psalm, and asked, "Who will venture to place the authority
of Copernicus above that of the Holy Spirit?" Turretin, Calvin's famous
successor, even after Kepler and Newton had virtually completed the
theory of Copernicus and Galileo, put forth his compendium of theology,
in which he proved, from a multitude of scriptural texts, that the
heavens, sun, and moon move about the earth, which stands still in the
centre. In England we see similar theological efforts, even after they
had become evidently futile. Hutchinson's Moses's Principia, Dr. Samuel
Pike's Sacred Philosophy, the writings of Horne, Bishop Horsley, and
President Forbes contain most earnest attacks upon the ideas of Newton,
such attacks being based upon Scripture. Dr. John Owen, so famous in
the annals of Puritanism, declared the Copernican system a "delusive
and arbitrary hypothesis, contrary to Scripture"; and even John Wesley
declared the new ideas to "tend toward infidelity."(51)
(51) On the teachings on Protestantism as regards the Copernican theory,
see citations in Canon Farrar's History of Interpretation, preface,
xviii; also Rev. Dr. Shields, of Princeton, The Final Philosophy, pp.
60, 61.
And Protestant peoples were not a whit behind Catholic in following out
such teachings. The people of Elbing made themselves merry over a farce
in which Copernicus was the main object of ridicule. The people of
Nuremberg, a Protestant stronghold, caused a medal to be struck with
inscriptions ridiculing the philosopher and his theory.
Why the people at large took this view is easily understood when we note
the attitude of the guardians of learning, both Catholic and Protestant,
in that age. It throws great light upon sundry claims by modern
theologians to take charge of public instruction and of the evolution
of science. So important was it thought to have "sound learning" guarded
and "safe science" taught, that in many of the universities, as late as
the end of the seventeenth century, professors were forced to take an
oath not to hold the "Pythagorean"--that is, the Copernican--idea as to
the movement of the heavenly bodies. As the contest went on, professors
were forbidden to make known to students the facts revealed by
the telescope. Special orders to this effect were issued by the
ecclesiastical authorities to the universities and colleges of Pisa,
Innspruck, Louvain, Douay, Salamanca, and others. During generations we
find the authorities of these Universities boasting that these godless
doctrines were kept away from their students. It is touching to hear
such boasts made then, just as it is touching now to hear sundry
excellent university authorities boast that they discourage the reading
of Mill, Spencer, and Darwin. Nor were such attempts to keep the truth
from students confined to the Roman Catholic institutions of learning.
Strange as it may seem, nowhere were the facts confirming the Copernican
theory more carefully kept out of sight than at Wittenberg--the
university of Luther and Melanchthon. About the middle of the sixteenth
century there were at that centre of Protestant instruction two
astronomers of a very high order, Rheticus and Reinhold; both of these,
after thorough study, had convinced themselves that the Copernican
system was true, but neither of them was allowed to tell this truth to
his students. Neither in his lecture announcements nor in his published
works did Rheticus venture to make the new system known, and he at
last gave up his professorship and left Wittenberg, that he might have
freedom to seek and tell the truth. Reinhold was even more wretchedly
humiliated. Convinced of the truth of the new theory, he was obliged to
advocate the old; if he mentioned the Copernican ideas, he was compelled
to overlay them with the Ptolemaic. Even this was not thought safe
enough, and in 1571 the subject was intrusted to Peucer. He was
eminently "sound," and denounced the Copernican theory in his lectures
as "absurd, and unfit to be introduced into the schools."
To clinch anti-scientific ideas more firmly into German Protestant
teaching, Rector Hensel wrote a text-book for schools entitled The
Restored Mosaic System of the World, which showed the Copernican
astronomy to be unscriptural.
Doubtless this has a far-off sound; yet its echo comes very near modern
Protestantism in the expulsion of Dr. Woodrow by the Presbyterian
authorities in South Carolina; the expulsion of Prof. Winchell by the
Methodist Episcopal authorities in Tennessee; the expulsion of Prof. Toy
by Baptist authorities in Kentucky; the expulsion of the professors at
Beyrout under authority of American Protestant divines--all for holding
the doctrines of modern science, and in the last years of the nineteenth
century.(52)
(52) For treatment of Copernican ideas by the people, see The Catholic
World, as above; also Melanchthon, ubi supra; also Prowe, Copernicus,
Berlin, 1883, vol. i, p. 269, note; also pp. 279, 280; also Madler, i,
p.167. For Rector Hensel, see Rev. Dr. Shield's Final Philosophy, p. 60.
For details of recent Protestant efforts against evolution doctrines,
see the chapter on the Fall of Man and Anthropology in this work.
But the new truth could not be concealed; it could neither be laughed
down nor frowned down. Many minds had received it, but within the
hearing of the papacy only one tongue appears to have dared to utter it
clearly. This new warrior was that strange mortal, Giordano Bruno. He
was hunted from land to land, until at last he turned on his pursuers
with fearful invectives. For this he was entrapped at Venice, imprisoned
during six years in the dungeons of the Inquisition at Rome, then burned
alive, and his ashes scattered to the winds. Still, the new truth lived
on.
Ten years after the martyrdom of Bruno the truth of Copernicus's
doctrine was established by the telescope of Galileo.(53)
(53) For Bruno, see Bartholmess, Vie de Jordano Bruno, Paris, 1846,
vol. i, p.121 and pp. 212 et seq.; also Berti, Vita di Giordano Bruno,
Firenze, 1868, chap. xvi; also Whewell, vol. i, pp. 272, 273. That
Whewell is somewhat hasty in attributing Bruno's punishment entirely
to the Spaccio della Bestia Trionfante will be evident, in spite
of Montucla, to anyone who reads the account of the persecution in
Bartholmess or Berti; and even if Whewell be right, the Spaccio would
never have been written but for Bruno's indignation at ecclesiastical
oppression. See Tiraboschi, vol. vii, pp. 466 et seq.
Herein was fulfilled one of the most touching of prophecies. Years
before, the opponents of Copernicus had said to him, "If your doctrines
were true, Venus would show phases like the moon." Copernicus answered:
"You are right; I know not what to say; but God is good, and will in
time find an answer to this objection." The God-given answer came when,
in 1611, the rude telescope of Galileo showed the phases of Venus.(54)
(54) For the relation of these discoveries to Copernicus's work, see
Delambre, Histoire de l'Astronomie moderne, discours preliminaire,
p. xiv; also Laplace, Systeme du Monde, vol. i, p. 326; and for more
careful statements, Kepler's Opera Omnia, edit. Frisch, tome ii, p. 464.
For Copernicus's prophecy, see Cantu, Histoire Univerelle, vol. xv, p.
473. (Cantu was an eminent Roman Catholic.)
III. THE WAR UPON GALILEO.
On this new champion, Galileo, the whole war was at last concentrated.
His discoveries had clearly taken the Copernican theory out of the list
of hypotheses, and had placed it before the world as a truth. Against
him, then, the war was long and bitter. The supporters of what was
called "sound learning" declared his discoveries deceptions and his
announcements blasphemy. Semi-scientific professors, endeavouring to
curry favour with the Church, attacked him with sham science;
earnest preachers attacked him with perverted Scripture; theologians,
inquisitors, congregations of cardinals, and at last two popes
dealt with him, and, as was supposed, silenced his impious doctrine
forever.(55)
(55) A very curious example of this sham science employed by theologians
is seen in the argument, frequently used at that time, that, if the
earth really moved, a stone falling from a height would fall back of a
point immediately below its point of starting. This is used by Fromundus
with great effect. It appears never to have occurred to him to test the
matter by dropping a stone from the topmast of a ship. Bezenburg has
mathematically demonstrated just such an aberration in falling bodies,
as is mathematically required by the diurnal motion of the earth. See
Jevons, Principles of Science, pp. 388, 389, second edition, 1877.
I shall present this warfare at some length because, so far as I can
find, no careful summary of it has been given in our language, since the
whole history was placed in a new light by the revelations of the trial
documents in the Vatican Library, honestly published for the first
time by L'Epinois in 1867, and since that by Gebler, Berti, Favaro, and
others.
The first important attack on Galileo began in 1610, when he announced
that his telescope had revealed the moons of the planet Jupiter. The
enemy saw that this took the Copernican theory out of the realm of
hypothesis, and they gave battle immediately. They denounced both
his method and its results as absurd and impious. As to his method,
professors bred in the "safe science" favoured by the Church argued that
the divinely appointed way of arriving at the truth in astronomy was
by theological reasoning on texts of Scripture; and, as to his
results, they insisted, first, that Aristotle knew nothing of these new
revelations; and, next, that the Bible showed by all applicable types
that there could be only seven planets; that this was proved by the
seven golden candlesticks of the Apocalypse, by the seven-branched
candlestick of the tabernacle, and by the seven churches of Asia; that
from Galileo's doctrine consequences must logically result destructive
to Christian truth. Bishops and priests therefore warned their flocks,
and multitudes of the faithful besought the Inquisition to deal speedily
and sharply with the heretic.(56)
(56) See Delambre on the discovery of the satellites of Jupiter as
the turning-point with the heliocentric doctrine. As to its effects
on Bacon, see Jevons, p. 638, as above. For argument drawn from the
candlestick and the seven churches, see Delambre, p. 20.
In vain did Galileo try to prove the existence of satellites by showing
them to the doubters through his telescope: they either declared it
impious to look, or, if they did look, denounced the satellites as
illusions from the devil. Good Father Clavius declared that "to see
satellites of Jupiter, men had to make an instrument which would
create them." In vain did Galileo try to save the great truths he
had discovered by his letters to the Benedictine Castelli and the
Grand-Duchess Christine, in which he argued that literal biblical
interpretation should not be applied to science; it was answered that
such an argument only made his heresy more detestable; that he was
"worse than Luther or Calvin."
The war on the Copernican theory, which up to that time had been carried
on quietly, now flamed forth. It was declared that the doctrine was
proved false by the standing still of the sun for Joshua, by the
declarations that "the foundations of the earth are fixed so firm that
they can not be moved," and that the sun "runneth about from one end of
the heavens to the other."(57)
(57) For principle points as given, see Libri, Histoire des Sciences
mathematiques en Italie, vol. iv, p. 211; De Morgan, Paradoxes, p. 26,
for account of Father Clavius. It is interesting to know that Clavius,
in his last years, acknowledged that "the whole system of the heavens is
broken down, and must be mended," Cantu, Histoire Universelle, vol.
xv, p. 478. See Th. Martin, Galilee, pp. 34, 208, and 266; also Heller,
Geschichte der Physik, Stuttgart, 1882, vol. i, p. 366. For the original
documents, see L'Epinois, pp.34 and 36; or better, Gebler's careful
edition of the trial (Die Acten des Galileischen Processes, Stuttgart,
1877), pp. 47 et seq. Martin's translation seems somewhat too free. See
also Gebler, Galileo Galilei, English translation, London, 1879, pp.
76-78; also Reusch, Der Process Galilei's und die Jesuiten, Bonn, 1879,
chaps. ix, x, xi.
But the little telescope of Galileo still swept the heavens, and another
revelation was announced--the mountains and valleys in the moon. This
brought on another attack. It was declared that this, and the statement
that the moon shines by light reflected from the sun, directly
contradict the statement in Genesis that the moon is "a great light."
To make the matter worse, a painter, placing the moon in a religious
picture in its usual position beneath the feet of the Blessed Virgin,
outlined on its surface mountains and valleys; this was denounced as a
sacrilege logically resulting from the astronomer's heresy.
Still another struggle was aroused when the hated telescope revealed
spots upon the sun, and their motion indicating the sun's rotation.
Monsignor Elci, head of the University of Pisa, forbade the astronomer
Castelli to mention these spots to his students. Father Busaeus, at the
University of Innspruck, forbade the astronomer Scheiner, who had also
discovered the spots and proposed a SAFE explanation of them, to allow
the new discovery to be known there. At the College of Douay and the
University of Louvain this discovery was expressly placed under the ban,
and this became the general rule among the Catholic universities and
colleges of Europe. The Spanish universities were especially intolerant
of this and similar ideas, and up to a recent period their presentation
was strictly forbidden in the most important university of all--that of
Salamanca.(58)
(58) See Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, vol. iii.
Such are the consequences of placing the instruction of men's minds in
the hands of those mainly absorbed in saving men's souls. Nothing
could be more in accordance with the idea recently put forth by sundry
ecclesiastics, Catholic and Protestant, that the Church alone
is empowered to promulgate scientific truth or direct university
instruction. But science gained a victory here also. Observations of
the solar spots were reported not only from Galileo in Italy, but from
Fabricius in Holland. Father Scheiner then endeavoured to make the
usual compromise between theology and science. He promulgated a
pseudo-scientific theory, which only provoked derision.
The war became more and more bitter. The Dominican Father Caccini
preached a sermon from the text, "Ye men of Galilee, why stand ye gazing
up into heaven?" and this wretched pun upon the great astronomer's name
ushered in sharper weapons; for, before Caccini ended, he insisted that
"geometry is of the devil," and that "mathematicians should be banished
as the authors of all heresies." The Church authorities gave Caccini
promotion.
Father Lorini proved that Galileo's doctrine was not only heretical but
"atheistic," and besought the Inquisition to intervene. The Bishop
of Fiesole screamed in rage against the Copernican system, publicly
insulted Galileo, and denounced him to the Grand-Duke. The Archbishop
of Pisa secretly sought to entrap Galileo and deliver him to the
Inquisition at Rome. The Archbishop of Florence solemnly condemned the
new doctrines as unscriptural; and Paul V, while petting Galileo, and
inviting him as the greatest astronomer of the world to visit Rome, was
secretly moving the Archbishop of Pisa to pick up evidence against the
astronomer.
But by far the most terrible champion who now appeared was Cardinal
Bellarmin, one of the greatest theologians the world has known. He was
earnest, sincere, and learned, but insisted on making science conform to
Scripture. The weapons which men of Bellarmin's stamp used were purely
theological. They held up before the world the dreadful consequences
which must result to Christian theology were the heavenly bodies proved
to revolve about the sun and not about the earth. Their most tremendous
dogmatic engine was the statement that "his pretended discovery vitiates
the whole Christian plan of salvation." Father Lecazre declared "it
casts suspicion on the doctrine of the incarnation." Others declared,
"It upsets the whole basis of theology. If the earth is a planet, and
only one among several planets, it can not be that any such great things
have been done specially for it as the Christian doctrine teaches. If
there are other planets, since God makes nothing in vain, they must be
inhabited; but how can their inhabitants be descended from Adam? How
can they trace back their origin to Noah's ark? How can they have
been redeemed by the Saviour?" Nor was this argument confined to the
theologians of the Roman Church; Melanchthon, Protestant as he was, had
already used it in his attacks on Copernicus and his school.
In addition to this prodigious theological engine of war there was kept
up a fire of smaller artillery in the shape of texts and scriptural
extracts.
But the war grew still more bitter, and some weapons used in it are
worth examining. They are very easily examined, for they are to be found
on all the battlefields of science; but on that field they were used
with more effect than on almost any other. These weapons are the
epithets "infidel" and "atheist." They have been used against almost
every man who has ever done anything new for his fellow-men. The list of
those who have been denounced as "infidel" and "atheist" includes
almost all great men of science, general scholars, inventors, and
philanthropists.
The purest Christian life, the noblest Christian character, have not
availed to shield combatants. Christians like Isaac Newton, Pascal,
Locke, Milton, and even Fenelon and Howard, have had this weapon
hurled against them. Of all proofs of the existence of a God, those of
Descartes have been wrought most thoroughly into the minds of modern
men; yet the Protestant theologians of Holland sought to bring him to
torture and to death by the charge of atheism, and the Roman Catholic
theologians of France thwarted him during his life and prevented any due
honours to him after his death.(59)
(59) For various objectors and objections to Galileo by his
contemporaries, see Libri, Histoire des Sciences mathematiques en
Italie, vol. iv, p. 233, 234; also Martin, Vie de Galilee. For Father
Lecazre's argument, see Flammarion, Mondes imaginaires et mondes reels,
6th ed., pp. 315, 316. For Melanchthon's argument, see his Initia in
Opera, vol. iii, Halle, 1846.
These epithets can hardly be classed with civilized weapons. They are
burning arrows; they set fire to masses of popular prejudice, always
obscuring the real question, sometimes destroying the attacking party.
They are poisoned weapons. They pierce the hearts of loving women; they
alienate dear children; they injure a man after life is ended, for they
leave poisoned wounds in the hearts of those who loved him best--fears
for his eternal salvation, dread of the Divine wrath upon him. Of
course, in these days these weapons, though often effective in vexing
good men and in scaring good women, are somewhat blunted; indeed, they
not infrequently injure the assailants more than the assailed. So it was
not in the days of Galileo; they were then in all their sharpness and
venom.(60)
(60) For curious exemplification of the way in which these weapons
have been hurled, see lists of persons charged with "infidelity" and
"atheism," in the Dictionnaire des Athees., Paris, (1800); also Lecky,
History of Rationalism, vol. ii, p. 50. For the case of Descartes, see
Saisset, Descartes et ses Precurseurs, pp. 103, 110. For the facility
with which the term "atheist" has been applied from the early Aryans
down to believers in evolution, see Tylor, Primitive Culture, vol. i, p.
420.
Yet a baser warfare was waged by the Archbishop of Pisa. This man, whose
cathedral derives its most enduring fame from Galileo's deduction of a
great natural law from the swinging lamp before its altar, was not an
archbishop after the noble mould of Borromeo and Fenelon and Cheverus.
Sadly enough for the Church and humanity, he was simply a zealot and
intriguer: he perfected the plan for entrapping the great astronomer.
Galileo, after his discoveries had been denounced, had written to his
friend Castelli and to the Grand-Duchess Christine two letters to show
that his discoveries might be reconciled with Scripture. On a hint from
the Inquisition at Rome, the archbishop sought to get hold of these
letters and exhibit them as proofs that Galileo had uttered heretical
views of theology and of Scripture, and thus to bring him into the
clutch of the Inquisition. The archbishop begs Castelli, therefore, to
let him see the original letter in the handwriting of Galileo. Castelli
declines. The archbishop then, while, as is now revealed, writing
constantly and bitterly to the Inquisition against Galileo, professes
to Castelli the greatest admiration of Galileo's genius and a sincere
desire to know more of his discoveries. This not succeeding, the
archbishop at last throws off the mask and resorts to open attack.
The whole struggle to crush Galileo and to save him would be
amusing were it not so fraught with evil. There were intrigues and
counter-intrigues, plots and counter-plots, lying and spying; and in
the thickest of this seething, squabbling, screaming mass of priests,
bishops, archbishops, and cardinals, appear two popes, Paul V and Urban
VIII. It is most suggestive to see in this crisis of the Church, at the
tomb of the prince of the apostles, on the eve of the greatest errors
in Church policy the world has known, in all the intrigues and
deliberations of these consecrated leaders of the Church, no more
evidence of the guidance or presence of the Holy Spirit than in a caucus
of New York politicians at Tammany Hall.
But the opposing powers were too strong. In 1615 Galileo was summoned
before the Inquisition at Rome, and the mine which had been so long
preparing was sprung. Sundry theologians of the Inquisition having
been ordered to examine two propositions which had been extracted from
Galileo's letters on the solar spots, solemnly considered these points
during about a month and rendered their unanimous decision as follows:
"THE FIRST PROPOSITION, THAT THE SUN IS THE CENTRE AND DOES NOT REVOLVE
ABOUT THE EARTH, IS FOOLISH, ABSURD, FALSE IN THEOLOGY, AND HERETICAL,
BECAUSE EXPRESSLY CONTRARY TO HOLY SCRIPTURE"; AND "THE SECOND
PROPOSITION, THAT THE EARTH IS NOT THE CENTRE BUT REVOLVES ABOUT THE
SUN, IS ABSURD, FALSE IN PHILOSOPHY, AND, FROM A THEOLOGICAL POINT OF
VIEW AT LEAST, OPPOSED TO THE TRUE FAITH."
The Pope himself, Paul V, now intervened again: he ordered that Galileo
be brought before the Inquisition. Then the greatest man of science in
that age was brought face to face with the greatest theologian--Galileo
was confronted by Bellarmin. Bellarmin shows Galileo the error of his
opinion and orders him to renounce it. De Lauda, fortified by a letter
from the Pope, gives orders that the astronomer be placed in the
dungeons of the Inquisition should he refuse to yield. Bellarmin now
commands Galileo, "in the name of His Holiness the Pope and the whole
Congregation of the Holy Office, to relinquish altogether the opinion
that the sun is the centre of the world and immovable, and that the
earth moves, nor henceforth to hold, teach, or defend it in any way
whatsoever, verbally or in writing." This injunction Galileo acquiesces
in and promises to obey.(61)
(61) I am aware that the theory proposed by Wohwill and developed by
Gebler denied that this promise was ever made by Galileo, and holds that
the passage was a forgery devised later by the Church rulers to justify
the proceedings of 1632 and 1644. This would make the conduct of the
Church worse, but authorities as eminent consider the charge not proved.
A careful examination of the documents seems to disprove it.
This was on the 26th of February, 1616. About a fortnight later the
Congregation of the Index, moved thereto, as the letters and documents
now brought to light show, by Pope Paul V, solemnly rendered a decree
that "THE DOCTRINE OF THE DOUBLE MOTION OF THE EARTH ABOUT ITS AXIS AND
ABOUT THE SUN IS FALSE, AND ENTIRELY CONTRARY TO HOLY SCRIPTURE"; and
that this opinion must neither be taught nor advocated. The same decree
condemned all writings of Copernicus and "ALL WRITINGS WHICH AFFIRM THE
MOTION OF THE EARTH." The great work of Copernicus was interdicted until
corrected in accordance with the views of the Inquisition; and the works
of Galileo and Kepler, though not mentioned by name at that time, were
included among those implicitly condemned as "affirming the motion of
the earth."
The condemnations were inscribed upon the Index; and, finally, the
papacy committed itself as an infallible judge and teacher to the world
by prefixing to the Index the usual papal bull giving its monitions the
most solemn papal sanction. To teach or even read the works denounced or
passages condemned was to risk persecution in this world and damnation
in the next. Science had apparently lost the decisive battle.
For a time after this judgment Galileo remained in Rome, apparently
hoping to find some way out of this difficulty; but he soon discovered
the hollowness of the protestations made to him by ecclesiastics, and,
being recalled to Florence, remained in his hermitage near the city in
silence, working steadily, indeed, but not publishing anything save by
private letters to friends in various parts of Europe.
But at last a better vista seemed to open for him. Cardinal Barberini,
who had seemed liberal and friendly, became pope under the name of Urban
VIII. Galileo at this conceived new hopes, and allowed his continued
allegiance to the Copernican system to be known. New troubles ensued.
Galileo was induced to visit Rome again, and Pope Urban tried to cajole
him into silence, personally taking the trouble to show him his errors
by argument. Other opponents were less considerate, for works appeared
attacking his ideas--works all the more unmanly, since their authors
knew that Galileo was restrained by force from defending himself. Then,
too, as if to accumulate proofs of the unfitness of the Church to
take charge of advanced instruction, his salary as a professor at the
University of Pisa was taken from him, and sapping and mining began.
Just as the Archbishop of Pisa some years before had tried to betray him
with honeyed words to the Inquisition, so now Father Grassi tried
it, and, after various attempts to draw him out by flattery, suddenly
denounced his scientific ideas as "leading to a denial of the Real
Presence in the Eucharist."
For the final assault upon him a park of heavy artillery was at last
wheeled into place. It may be seen on all the scientific battlefields.
It consists of general denunciation; and in 1631 Father Melchior
Inchofer, of the Jesuits, brought his artillery to bear upon Galileo
with this declaration: "The opinion of the earth's motion is of all
heresies the most abominable, the most pernicious, the most scandalous;
the immovability of the earth is thrice sacred; argument against the
immortality of the soul, the existence of God, and the incarnation,
should be tolerated sooner than an argument to prove that the earth
moves." From the other end of Europe came a powerful echo.
From the shadow of the Cathedral of Antwerp, the noted theologian
Fromundus gave forth his famous treatise, the Ant-Aristarclius. Its very
title-page was a contemptuous insult to the memory of Copernicus, since
it paraded the assumption that the new truth was only an exploded theory
of a pagan astronomer. Fromundus declares that "sacred Scripture fights
against the Copernicans." To prove that the sun revolves about the
earth, he cites the passage in the Psalms which speaks of the sun "which
cometh forth as a bridegroom out of his chamber." To prove that the
earth stands still, he quotes a passage from Ecclesiastes, "The earth
standeth fast forever." To show the utter futility of the Copernican
theory, he declares that, if it were true, "the wind would constantly
blow from the east"; and that "buildings and the earth itself would fly
off with such a rapid motion that men would have to be provided with
claws like cats to enable them to hold fast to the earth's surface."
Greatest weapon of all, he works up, by the use of Aristotle and St.
Thomas Aquinas, a demonstration from theology and science combined, that
the earth MUST stand in the centre, and that the sun MUST revolve about
it.(62) Nor was it merely fanatics who opposed the truth revealed by
Copernicus; such strong men as Jean Bodin, in France, and Sir Thomas
Browne, in England, declared against it as evidently contrary to Holy
Scripture.
(62) For Father Inchofer's attack, see his Tractatus Syllepticus, cited
in Galileo's letter to Deodati, July 28, 1634. For Fromundus's more
famous attack, see his Ant-Aristarchus, already cited, passim, but
especially the heading of chap. vi, and the argument in chapters x and
xi. A copy of this work may be found in the Astor Library at New York,
and another in the White Library at Cornell University. For interesting
references to one of Fromundus's arguments, showing, by a mixture of
mathematics and theology, that the earth is the centre of the universe,
see Quetelet, Histoire des Sciences mathematiques et physiques,
Bruxelles, 1864, p. 170; also Madler, Geschichte der Astronomie, vol.
i, p. 274. For Bodin's opposition to the Copernican theory, see Hallam,
Literature of Europe; also Lecky. For Sir Thomas Brown, see his Vulgar
and Common Errors, book iv, chap. v; and as to the real reason for his
disbelief in the Copernican view, see Dr. Johnson's preface to his Life
of Browne, vol. i, p. xix, of his collected works.
IV. VICTORY OF THE CHURCH OVER GALILEO.
While news of triumphant attacks upon him and upon the truth he had
established were coming in from all parts of Europe, Galileo prepared a
careful treatise in the form of a dialogue, exhibiting the arguments for
and against the Copernican and Ptolemaic systems, and offered to submit
to any conditions that the Church tribunals might impose, if they
would allow it to be printed. At last, after discussions which extended
through eight years, they consented, imposing a humiliating condition--a
preface written in accordance with the ideas of Father Ricciardi, Master
of the Sacred Palace, and signed by Galileo, in which the Copernican
theory was virtually exhibited as a play of the imagination, and not
at all as opposed to the Ptolemaic doctrine reasserted in 1616 by the
Inquisition under the direction of Pope Paul V.
This new work of Galileo--the Dialogo--appeared in 1632, and met with
prodigious success. It put new weapons into the hands of the supporters
of the Copernican theory. The pious preface was laughed at from one end
of Europe to the other. This roused the enemy; the Jesuits, Dominicans,
and the great majority of the clergy returned to the attack more violent
than ever, and in the midst of them stood Pope Urban VIII, most bitter
of all. His whole power was now thrown against Galileo. He was touched
in two points: first, in his personal vanity, for Galileo had put the
Pope's arguments into the mouth of one of the persons in the dialogue
and their refutation into the mouth of another; but, above all, he was
touched in his religious feelings. Again and again His Holiness
insisted to all comers on the absolute and specific declarations of Holy
Scripture, which prove that the sun and heavenly bodies revolve about
the earth, and declared that to gainsay them is simply to dispute
revelation. Certainly, if one ecclesiastic more than another ever seemed
NOT under the care of the Spirit of Truth, it was Urban VIII in all this
matter.
Herein was one of the greatest pieces of ill fortune that has ever
befallen the older Church. Had Pope Urban been broad-minded and tolerant
like Benedict XIV, or had he been taught moderation by adversity like
Pius VII, or had he possessed the large scholarly qualities of Leo XIII,
now reigning, the vast scandal of the Galileo case would never have
burdened the Church: instead of devising endless quibbles and special
pleadings to escape responsibility for this colossal blunder, its
defenders could have claimed forever for the Church the glory of
fearlessly initiating a great epoch in human thought.
But it was not so to be. Urban was not merely Pope; he was also a prince
of the house of Barberini, and therefore doubly angry that his arguments
had been publicly controverted.
The opening strategy of Galileo's enemies was to forbid the sale of his
work; but this was soon seen to be unavailing, for the first edition had
already been spread throughout Europe. Urban now became more angry than
ever, and both Galileo and his works were placed in the hands of the
Inquisition. In vain did the good Benedictine Castelli urge that Galileo
was entirely respectful to the Church; in vain did he insist that
"nothing that can be done can now hinder the earth from revolving."
He was dismissed in disgrace, and Galileo was forced to appear in the
presence of the dread tribunal without defender or adviser. There, as
was so long concealed, but as is now fully revealed, he was menaced with
torture again and again by express order of Pope Urban, and, as is also
thoroughly established from the trial documents themselves, forced to
abjure under threats, and subjected to imprisonment by command of
the Pope; the Inquisition deferring in this whole matter to the papal
authority. All the long series of attempts made in the supposed interest
of the Church to mystify these transactions have at last failed. The
world knows now that Galileo was subjected certainly to indignity, to
imprisonment, and to threats equivalent to torture, and was at last
forced to pronounce publicly and on his knees his recantation, as
follows:
"I, Galileo, being in my seventieth year, being a prisoner and on my
knees, and before your Eminences, having before my eyes the Holy Gospel,
which I touch with my hands, abjure, curse, and detest the error and the
heresy of the movement of the earth."(63)
(63) For various utterances of Pope Urban against the Copernican theory
at this period, see extracts from the original documents given by
Gebler. For punishment of those who had shown some favor to Galileo,
see various citations, and especially those from the Vatican manuscript,
Gebler, p. 216. As to the text of the abjuration, see L'Epinois; also
Polacco, Anticopernicus, etc., Venice, 1644; and for a discussion
regarding its publication, see Favaro, Miscellanea Galileana, p. 804. It
is not probable that torture in the ordinary sense was administered to
Galileo, though it was threatened. See Th. Martin, Vie de Galilee, for a
fair summing up of the case.
He was vanquished indeed, for he had been forced, in the face of all
coming ages, to perjure himself. To complete his dishonour, he was
obliged to swear that he would denounce to the Inquisition any other man
of science whom he should discover to be supporting the "heresy of the
motion of the earth."
Many have wondered at this abjuration, and on account of it have denied
to Galileo the title of martyr. But let such gainsayers consider the
circumstances. Here was an old man--one who had reached the allotted
threescore years and ten--broken with disappointments, worn out with
labours and cares, dragged from Florence to Rome, with the threat from
the Pope himself that if he delayed he should be "brought in chains";
sick in body and mind, given over to his oppressors by the Grand-Duke
who ought to have protected him, and on his arrival in Rome threatened
with torture. What the Inquisition was he knew well. He could remember
as but of yesterday the burning of Giordano Bruno in that same city for
scientific and philosophic heresy; he could remember, too, that only
eight years before this very time De Dominis, Archbishop of Spalatro,
having been seized by the Inquisition for scientific and other heresies,
had died in a dungeon, and that his body and his writings had been
publicly burned.
To the end of his life--nay, after his life was ended--the persecution
of Galileo was continued. He was kept in exile from his family, from his
friends, from his noble employments, and was held rigidly to his
promise not to speak of his theory. When, in the midst of intense bodily
sufferings from disease, and mental sufferings from calamities in his
family, he besought some little liberty, he was met with threats of
committal to a dungeon. When, at last, a special commission had reported
to the ecclesiastical authorities that he had become blind and wasted
with disease and sorrow, he was allowed a little more liberty, but
that little was hampered by close surveillance. He was forced to bear
contemptible attacks on himself and on his works in silence; to see the
men who had befriended him severely punished; Father Castelli banished;
Ricciardi, the Master of the Sacred Palace, and Ciampoli, the papal
secretary, thrown out of their positions by Pope Urban, and the
Inquisitor at Florence reprimanded for having given permission to print
Galileo's work. He lived to see the truths he had established carefully
weeded out from all the Church colleges and universities in Europe; and,
when in a scientific work he happened to be spoken of as "renowned," the
Inquisition ordered the substitution of the word "notorious."(64)
(64) For the substitution of the word "notorious" for "renowned" by
order of the Inquisition, see Martin, p.227.
And now measures were taken to complete the destruction of the
Copernican theory, with Galileo's proofs of it. On the 16th of June,
1633, the Holy Congregation, with the permission of the reigning Pope,
ordered the sentence upon Galileo, and his recantation, to be sent to
all the papal nuncios throughout Europe, as well as to all archbishops,
bishops, and inquisitors in Italy and this document gave orders that the
sentence and abjuration be made known "to your vicars, that you and all
professors of philosophy and mathematics may have knowledge of it, that
they may know why we proceeded against the said Galileo, and recognise
the gravity of his error, in order that they may avoid it, and thus not
incur the penalties which they would have to suffer in case they fell
into the same."(65)
(65) For a copy of this document, see Gebler, p. 269. As to the
spread of this and similar documents notifying Europe of Galileo's
condemnation, see Favaro, pp. 804, 805.
As a consequence, the processors of mathematics and astronomy in various
universities of Europe were assembled and these documents were read to
them. To the theological authorities this gave great satisfaction. The
Rector of the University of Douay, referring to the opinion of Galileo,
wrote to the papal nuncio at Brussels: "The professors of our university
are so opposed to this fanatical opinion that they have always held that
it must be banished from the schools. In our English college at Douay
this paradox has never been approved and never will be."
Still another step was taken: the Inquisitors were ordered, especially
in Italy, not to permit the publication of a new edition of any
of Galileo's works, or of any similar writings. On the other hand,
theologians were urged, now that Copernicus and Galileo and Kepler were
silenced, to reply to them with tongue and pen. Europe was flooded with
these theological refutations of the Copernican system.
To make all complete, there was prefixed to the Index of the Church,
forbidding "all writings which affirm the motion of the earth," a bull
signed by the reigning Pope, which, by virtue of his infallibility as
a divinely guided teacher in matters of faith and morals, clinched this
condemnation into the consciences of the whole Christian world.
From the mass of books which appeared under the auspices of the Church
immediately after the condemnation of Galileo, for the purpose of
rooting out every vestige of the hated Copernican theory from the mind
of the world, two may be taken as typical. The first of these was a
work by Scipio Chiaramonti, dedicated to Cardinal Barberini. Among
his arguments against the double motion of the earth may be cited the
following:
"Animals, which move, have limbs and muscles; the earth has no limbs
or muscles, therefore it does not move. It is angels who make Saturn,
Jupiter, the sun, etc., turn round. If the earth revolves, it must also
have an angel in the centre to set it in motion; but only devils live
there; it would therefore be a devil who would impart motion to the
earth....
"The planets, the sun, the fixed stars, all belong to one
species--namely, that of stars. It seems, therefore, to be a grievous
wrong to place the earth, which is a sink of impurity, among these
heavenly bodies, which are pure and divine things."
The next, which I select from the mass of similar works, is the
Anticopernicus Catholicus of Polacco. It was intended to deal a
finishing stroke at Galileo's heresy. In this it is declared:
"The Scripture always represents the earth as at rest, and the sun and
moon as in motion; or, if these latter bodies are ever represented as at
rest, Scripture represents this as the result of a great miracle....
"These writings must be prohibited, because they teach certain
principles about the position and motion of the terrestrial globe
repugnant to Holy Scripture and to the Catholic interpretation of it,
not as hypotheses but as established facts...."
Speaking of Galileo's book, Polacco says that it "smacked of
Copernicanism," and that, "when this was shown to the Inquisition,
Galileo was thrown into prison and was compelled to utterly abjure the
baseness of this erroneous dogma."
As to the authority of the cardinals in their decree, Polacco asserts
that, since they are the "Pope's Council" and his "brothers," their
work is one, except that the Pope is favoured with special divine
enlightenment.
Having shown that the authority of the Scriptures, of popes, and of
cardinals is against the new astronomy, he gives a refutation based on
physics. He asks: "If we concede the motion of the earth, why is it that
an arrow shot into the air falls back to the same spot, while the earth
and all things on it have in the meantime moved very rapidly toward
the east? Who does not see that great confusion would result from this
motion?"
Next he argues from metaphysics, as follows: "The Copernican theory of
the earth's motion is against the nature of the earth itself, because
the earth is not only cold but contains in itself the principle of cold;
but cold is opposed to motion, and even destroys it--as is evident in
animals, which become motionless when they become cold."
Finally, he clinches all with a piece of theological reasoning, as
follows: "Since it can certainly be gathered from Scripture that the
heavens move above the earth, and since a circular motion requires
something immovable around which to move,... the earth is at the centre
of the universe."(66)
(66) For Chiaramonti's book and selections given, see Gebler as above,
p. 271. For Polacco, see his work as cited, especially Assertiones i,
ii, vii, xi, xiii, lxxiii, clcccvii, and others. The work is in the
White Library at Cornell University. The date of it is 1644.
But any sketch of the warfare between theology and science in this field
would be incomplete without some reference to the treatment of Galileo
after his death. He had begged to be buried in his family tomb in Santa
Croce; this request was denied. His friends wished to erect a monument
over him; this, too, was refused. Pope Urban said to the ambassador
Niccolini that "it would be an evil example for the world if such
honours were rendered to a man who had been brought before the Roman
Inquisition for an opinion so false and erroneous; who had communicated
it to many others, and who had given so great a scandal to Christendom."
In accordance, therefore, with the wish of the Pope and the orders of
the Inquisition, Galileo was buried ignobly, apart from his family,
without fitting ceremony, without monument, without epitaph. Not until
forty years after did Pierrozzi dare write an inscription to be placed
above his bones; not until a hundred years after did Nelli dare transfer
his remains to a suitable position in Santa Croce, and erect a monument
above them. Even then the old conscientious hostility burst forth: the
Inquisition was besought to prevent such honours to "a man condemned for
notorious errors"; and that tribunal refused to allow any epitaph to be
placed above him which had not been submitted to its censorship. Nor has
that old conscientious consistency in hatred yet fully relented: hardly
a generation since has not seen some ecclesiastic, like Marini or De
Bonald or Rallaye or De Gabriac, suppressing evidence, or torturing
expressions, or inventing theories to blacken the memory of Galileo
and save the reputation of the Church. Nay, more: there are school
histories, widely used, which, in the supposed interest of the Church,
misrepresent in the grossest manner all these transactions in which
Galileo was concerned. Sancta simplicitas! The Church has no worse
enemies than those who devise and teach these perversions. They
are simply rooting out, in the long run, from the minds of the more
thoughtful scholars, respect for the great organization which such
writings are supposed to serve.(67)
(67) For the persecutions of Galileo's memory after his death, see
Gebler and Wohwill, but especially Th. Martin, p. 243 and chaps. ix
and x. For documentary proofs, see L'Epinois. For a collection of the
slanderous theories invented against Galileo, see Martin, final chapters
and appendix. Both these authors are devoted to the Church, but unlike
Monsignor Marini, are too upright to resort to the pious fraud of
suppressing documents or interpolating pretended facts.
The Protestant Church was hardly less energetic against this new
astronomy than the mother Church. The sacred science of the first
Lutheran Reformers was transmitted as a precious legacy, and in the next
century was made much of by Calovius. His great learning and determined
orthodoxy gave him the Lutheran leadership. Utterly refusing to look
at ascertained facts, he cited the turning back of the shadow upon King
Hezekiah's dial and the standing still of the sun for Joshua, denied
the movement of the earth, and denounced the whole new view as clearly
opposed to Scripture. To this day his arguments are repeated by sundry
orthodox leaders of American Lutheranism.
As to the other branches of the Reformed Church, we have already seen
how Calvinists, Anglicans, and, indeed, Protestant sectarians generally,
opposed the new truth.(68)
(68) For Clovius, see Zoeckler, Geschichte, vol. i, pp. 684 and 763. For
Calvin and Turretin, see Shields, The Final Philosophy, pp. 60, 61.
In England, among the strict churchmen, the great Dr. South denounced
the Royal Society as "irreligious," and among the Puritans the eminent
John Owen declared that Newton's discoveries were "built on fallible
phenomena and advanced by many arbitrary presumptions against evident
testimonies of Scripture." Even Milton seems to have hesitated between
the two systems. At the beginning of the eighth book of Paradise Lost
he makes Adam state the difficulties of the Ptolemaic system, and then
brings forward an angel to make the usual orthodox answers. Later,
Milton seems to lean toward the Copernican theory, for, referring to the
earth, he says:
"Or she from west her silent course advance With inoffensive pace, that
spinning sleeps On her soft axle, while she faces even And bears thee
soft with the smooth air along."
English orthodoxy continued to assert itself. In 1724 John Hutchinson,
professor at Cambridge, published his Moses' Principia, a system of
philosophy in which he sought to build up a complete physical system of
the universe from the Bible. In this he assaulted the Newtonian theory
as "atheistic," and led the way for similar attacks by such Church
teachers as Horne, Duncan Forbes, and Jones of Nayland. But one far
greater than these involved himself in this view. That same limitation
of his reason by the simple statements of Scripture which led John
Wesley to declare that, "unless witchcraft is true, nothing in the Bible
is true," led him, while giving up the Ptolemaic theory and accepting in
a general way the Copernican, to suspect the demonstrations of
Newton. Happily, his inborn nobility of character lifted him above any
bitterness or persecuting spirit, or any imposition of doctrinal tests
which could prevent those who came after him from finding their way to
the truth.
But in the midst of this vast expanse of theologic error signs of right
reason began to appear, both in England and America. Noteworthy is it
that Cotton Mather, bitter as was his orthodoxy regarding witchcraft,
accepted, in 1721, the modern astronomy fully, with all its
consequences.
In the following year came an even more striking evidence that the new
scientific ideas were making their way in England. In 1722 Thomas Burnet
published the sixth edition of his Sacred Theory of the Earth. In this
he argues, as usual, to establish the scriptural doctrine of the
earth's stability; but in his preface he sounds a remarkable warning.
He mentions the great mistake into which St. Augustine led the Church
regarding the doctrine of the antipodes, and says, "If within a
few years or in the next generation it should prove as certain and
demonstrable that the earth is moved, as it is now that there are
antipodes, those that have been zealous against it, and engaged the
Scripture in the controversy, would have the same reason to repent of
their forwardness that St. Augustine would now, if he were still alive."
Fortunately, too, Protestantism had no such power to oppose the
development of the Copernican ideas as the older Church had enjoyed.
Yet there were some things in its warfare against science even more
indefensible. In 1772 the famous English expedition for scientific
discovery sailed from England under Captain Cook. Greatest by far of all
the scientific authorities chosen to accompany it was Dr. Priestley. Sir
Joseph Banks had especially invited him. But the clergy of Oxford and
Cambridge interfered. Priestley was considered unsound in his views
of the Trinity; it was evidently suspected that this might vitiate his
astronomical observations; he was rejected, and the expedition crippled.
The orthodox view of astronomy lingered on in other branches of the
Protestant Church. In Germany even Leibnitz attacked the Newtonian
theory of gravitation on theological grounds, though he found some
little consolation in thinking that it might be used to support the
Lutheran doctrine of consubstantiation.
In Holland the Calvinistic Church was at first strenuous against the
whole new system, but we possess a comical proof that Calvinism even in
its strongholds was powerless against it; for in 1642 Blaer published at
Amsterdam his book on the use of globes, and, in order to be on the safe
side, devoted one part of his work to the Ptolemaic and the other to the
Copernican scheme, leaving the benevolent reader to take his choice.(69)
(69) For the attitude of Leibnetz, Hutchinson, and the others named
toward the Newtonian theory, see Lecky, History of England in the
Eighteenth Century, chap. ix. For John Wesley, see his Compendium of
Natural Philosophy, being a Survey of the Wisdom of God in the Creation,
London, 1784. See also Leslie Stephen, Eighteenth Century, vol. ii,
p. 413. For Owen, see his Works, vol. xix, p. 310. For Cotton Mather's
view, see The Christian Philosopher, London, 1721, especially pp. 16 and
17. For the case of Priestley, see Weld, History of the Royal Society,
vol. ii, p. 56, for the facts and the admirable letter of Priestley upon
this rejection. For Blaer, see his L'Usage des Globes, Amsterdam, 1642.
Nor have efforts to renew the battle in the Protestant Church been
wanting in these latter days. The attempt in the Church of England,
in 1864, to fetter science, which was brought to ridicule by Herschel,
Bowring, and De Morgan; the assemblage of Lutheran clergy at Berlin, in
1868, to protest against "science falsely so called," are examples
of these. Fortunately, to the latter came Pastor Knak, and his
denunciations of the Copernican theory as absolutely incompatible with a
belief in the Bible, dissolved the whole assemblage in ridicule.
In its recent dealings with modern astronomy the wisdom of the Catholic
Church in the more civilized countries has prevented its yielding to
some astounding errors into which one part of the Protestant Church has
fallen heedlessly.
Though various leaders in the older Church have committed the absurd
error of allowing a text-book and sundry review articles to appear which
grossly misstate the Galileo episode, with the certainty of ultimately
undermining confidence in her teachings among her more thoughtful
young men, she has kept clear of the folly of continuing to tie her
instruction, and the acceptance of our sacred books, to an adoption of
the Ptolemaic theory.
Not so with American Lutheranism. In 1873 was published in St. Louis, at
the publishing house of the Lutheran Synod of Missouri, a work entitled
Astronomische Unterredung, the author being well known as a late
president of a Lutheran Teachers' Seminary.
No attack on the whole modern system of astronomy could be more bitter.
On the first page of the introduction the author, after stating the two
theories, asks, "Which is right?" and says: "It would be very simple to
me which is right, if it were only a question of human import. But the
wise and truthful God has expressed himself on this matter in the Bible.
The entire Holy Scripture settles the question that the earth is the
principal body (Hauptkorper) of the universe, that it stands fixed, and
that sun and moon only serve to light it."
The author then goes on to show from Scripture the folly, not only of
Copernicus and Newton, but of a long line of great astronomers in more
recent times. He declares: "Let no one understand me as inquiring first
where truth is to be found--in the Bible or with the astronomers. No; I
know that beforehand--that my God never lies, never makes a mistake; out
of his mouth comes only truth, when he speaks of the structure of the
universe, of the earth, sun, moon, and stars....
"Because the truth of the Holy Scripture is involved in this, therefore
the above question is of the highest importance to me.... Scientists and
others lean upon the miserable reed (Rohrstab) that God teaches only the
order of salvation, but not the order of the universe."
Very noteworthy is the fact that this late survival of an ancient belief
based upon text-worship is found, not in the teachings of any zealous
priest of the mother Church, but in those of an eminent professor in
that branch of Protestantism which claims special enlightenment.(70)
(70) For the amusing details of the attempt in the English Church to
repress science, and of the way in which it was met, see De Morgan,
Paradoxes, p. 42. For Pastor Knak and his associates, see the Revue des
Deux Mondes, 1868. Of the recent Lutheran works against the Copernican
astronomy, see especially Astronomische Unterredung zwischen einem
Liebhaber der Astronomie und mehreren beruhmten Astronomer der Neuzeit,
by J. C. W. L., St. Louis, 1873.
Nor has the warfare against the dead champions of science been carried
on by the older Church alone.
On the 10th of May, 1859, Alexander von Humboldt was buried. His labours
had been among the glories of the century, and his funeral was one of
the most imposing that Berlin had ever seen. Among those who honoured
themselves by their presence was the prince regent, afterward the
Emperor William I; but of the clergy it was observed that none
were present save the officiating clergyman and a few regarded as
unorthodox.(71)
(71) See Bruhns and Lassell, Life of Humboldt, London, 1873, vol. ii, p.
411.
V. RESULTS OF THE VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
We return now to the sequel of the Galileo case.
Having gained their victory over Galileo, living and dead, having used
it to scare into submission the professors of astronomy throughout
Europe, conscientious churchmen exulted. Loud was their rejoicing that
the "heresy," the "infidelity" the "atheism" involved in believing that
the earth revolves about its axis and moves around the sun had been
crushed by the great tribunal of the Church, acting in strict obedience
to the expressed will of one Pope and the written order of another. As
we have seen, all books teaching this hated belief were put upon the
Index of books forbidden to Christians, and that Index was prefaced by
a bull enforcing this condemnation upon the consciences of the faithful
throughout the world, and signed by the reigning Pope.
The losses to the world during this complete triumph of theology
were even more serious than at first appears: one must especially be
mentioned. There was then in Europe one of the greatest thinkers ever
given to mankind--Rene Descartes. Mistaken though many of his reasonings
were, they bore a rich fruitage of truth. He had already done a vast
work. His theory of vortices--assuming a uniform material regulated by
physical laws--as the beginning of the visible universe, though it was
but a provisional hypothesis, had ended the whole old theory of the
heavens with the vaulted firmament and the direction of the planetary
movements by angels, which even Kepler had allowed. The scientific
warriors had stirred new life in him, and he was working over and
summing up in his mighty mind all the researches of his time. The
result would have made an epoch in history. His aim was to combine all
knowledge and thought into a Treatise on the World, and in view of this
he gave eleven years to the study of anatomy alone. But the fate of
Galileo robbed him of all hope, of all courage; the battle seemed lost;
he gave up his great plan forever.(72)
(72) For Descartes's discouragement, see Humboldt, Cosmos, London,
1851, vol iii, p. 21; also Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, English
translation, vol. i, pp. 248, 249, where the letters of Descartes are
given, showing his despair, and the relinquishment of his best thoughts
and works in order to preserve peace with the Church; also Saisset,
Descartes et ses Precurseurs, pp. 100 et seq.; also Jolly, Histoire du
Mouvement intellectuel au XVI Siecle, vol. i, p. 390.
But ere long it was seen that this triumph of the Church was in reality
a prodigious defeat. From all sides came proofs that Copernicus and
Galileo were right; and although Pope Urban and the inquisition held
Galileo in strict seclusion, forbidding him even to SPEAK regarding the
double motion of the earth; and although this condemnation of "all
books which affirm the motion of the earth" was kept on the Index; and
although the papal bull still bound the Index and the condemnations
in it on the consciences of the faithful; and although colleges and
universities under Church control were compelled to teach the old
doctrine--it was seen by clear-sighted men everywhere that this victory
of the Church was a disaster to the victors.
New champions pressed on. Campanella, full of vagaries as he was, wrote
his Apology for Galileo, though for that and other heresies, religious,
and political, he seven times underwent torture.
And Kepler comes: he leads science on to greater victories. Copernicus,
great as he was, could not disentangle scientific reasoning entirely
from the theological bias: the doctrines of Aristotle and Thomas Aquinas
as to the necessary superiority of the circle had vitiated the minor
features of his system, and left breaches in it through which the enemy
was not slow to enter; but Kepler sees these errors, and by wonderful
genius and vigour he gives to the world the three laws which bear his
name, and this fortress of science is complete. He thinks and speaks
as one inspired. His battle is severe. He is solemnly warned by the
Protestant Consistory of Stuttgart "not to throw Christ's kingdom into
confusion with his silly fancies," and as solemnly ordered to "bring
his theory of the world into harmony with Scripture": he is sometimes
abused, sometimes ridiculed, sometimes imprisoned. Protestants in Styria
and Wurtemberg, Catholics in Austria and Bohemia, press upon him but
Newton, Halley, Bradley, and other great astronomers follow, and to
science remains the victory.(73)
(73) For Campanella, see Amabile, Fra Tommaso Campanella, Naples, 1882,
especially vol. iii; also Libri, vol. iv, pp. 149 et seq. Fromundus,
speaking of Kepler's explanation, says, "Vix teneo ebullientem risum."
This is almost equal to the New York Church Journal, speaking of John
Stuart Mill as "that small sciolist," and of the preface to Dr. Draper's
great work as "chippering." How a journal, generally so fair in its
treatment of such subjects, can condescend to such weapons is one of the
wonders of modern journalism. For the persecution of Kepler, see Heller,
Geschichte der Physik, vol. i, pp. 281 et seq; also Reuschle, Kepler und
die Astronomie, Frankfurt a. M., 1871, pp. 87 et seq. There is a poetic
justice in the fact that these two last-named books come from Wurtemberg
professors. See also The New-Englander for March, 1884, p. 178.
Yet this did not end the war. During the seventeenth century, in France,
after all the splendid proofs added by Kepler, no one dared openly teach
the Copernican theory, and Cassini, the great astronomer, never declared
for it. In 1672 the Jesuit Father Riccioli declared that there
were precisely forty-nine arguments for the Copernican theory and
seventy-seven against it. Even after the beginning of the eighteenth
century--long after the demonstrations of Sir Isaac Newton--Bossuet,
the great Bishop of Meaux, the foremost theologian that France has ever
produced, declared it contrary to Scripture.
Nor did matters seem to improve rapidly during that century. In England,
John Hutchinson, as we have seen, published in 1724 his Moses' Principia
maintaining that the Hebrew Scriptures are a perfect system of natural
philosophy, and are opposed to the Newtonian system of gravitation; and,
as we have also seen, he was followed by a long list of noted men in
the Church. In France, two eminent mathematicians published in 1748 an
edition of Newton's Principia; but, in order to avert ecclesiastical
censure, they felt obliged to prefix to it a statement absolutely false.
Three years later, Boscovich, the great mathematician of the Jesuits,
used these words: "As for me, full of respect for the Holy Scriptures
and the decree of the Holy Inquisition, I regard the earth as immovable;
nevertheless, for simplicity in explanation I will argue as if the
earth moves; for it is proved that of the two hypotheses the appearances
favour this idea."
In Germany, especially in the Protestant part of it, the war was even
more bitter, and it lasted through the first half of the eighteenth
century. Eminent Lutheran doctors of divinity flooded the country with
treatises to prove that the Copernican theory could not be reconciled
with Scripture. In the theological seminaries and in many of the
universities where clerical influence was strong they seemed to sweep
all before them; and yet at the middle of the century we find some
of the clearest-headed of them aware of the fact that their cause was
lost.(74)
(74) For Cassini's position, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France, vol.
xiii, p. 175. For Riccioli, see Daunou, Etudes Historiques, vol. ii,
p. 439. For Boussuet, see Bertrand, p. 41. For Hutchinson, see Lyell,
Principles of Geology, p. 48. For Wesley, see his work, already cited.
As to Boscovich, his declaration, mentioned in the text, was in 1746,
but in 1785 he seemed to feel his position in view of history, and
apologized abjectly; Bertrand, pp. 60, 61. See also Whewell's notice
of Le Sueur and Jacquier's introduction to their edition of Newton's
Principia. For the struggle in Germany, see Zoeckler, Geschichte der
Beziehungenzwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft, vol. ii, pp. 45 et
seq.
In 1757 the most enlightened perhaps in the whole line of the popes,
Benedict XIV, took up the matter, and the Congregation of the Index
secretly allowed the ideas of Copernicus to be tolerated. Yet in 1765
Lalande, the great French astronomer, tried in vain at Rome to induce
the authorities to remove Galileo's works from the Index. Even at a
date far within our own nineteenth century the authorities of many
universities in Catholic Europe, and especially those in Spain, excluded
the Newtonian system. In 1771 the greatest of them all, the University
of Salamanca, being urged to teach physical science, refused, making
answer as follows: "Newton teaches nothing that would make a good
logician or metaphysician; and Gassendi and Descartes do not agree so
well with revealed truth as Aristotle does."
Vengeance upon the dead also has continued far into our own century. On
the 5th of May, 1829, a great multitude assembled at Warsaw to honour
the memory of Copernicus and to unveil Thorwaldsen's statue of him.
Copernicus had lived a pious, Christian life; he had been beloved for
unostentatious Christian charity; with his religious belief no fault had
ever been found; he was a canon of the Church at Frauenberg, and over
his grave had been written the most touching of Christian epitaphs.
Naturally, then, the people expected a religious service; all was
understood to be arranged for it; the procession marched to the church
and waited. The hour passed, and no priest appeared; none could be
induced to appear. Copernicus, gentle, charitable, pious, one of the
noblest gifts of God to religion as well as to science, was evidently
still under the ban. Five years after that, his book was still standing
on the Index of books prohibited to Christians.
The edition of the Index published in 1819 was as inexorable toward the
works of Copernicus and Galileo as its predecessors had been; but in the
year 1820 came a crisis. Canon Settele, Professor of Astronomy at Rome,
had written an elementary book in which the Copernican system was taken
for granted. The Master of the Sacred Palace, Anfossi, as censor of the
press, refused to allow the book to be printed unless Settele revised
his work and treated the Copernican theory as merely a hypothesis. On
this Settele appealed to Pope Pius VII, and the Pope referred the matter
to the Congregation of the Holy Office. At last, on the 16th of August,
1820, it was decided that Settele might teach the Copernican system as
established, and this decision was approved by the Pope. This aroused
considerable discussion, but finally, on the 11th of September, 1822,
the cardinals of the Holy Inquisition graciously agreed that "the
printing and publication of works treating of the motion of the earth
and the stability of the sun, in accordance with the general opinion of
modern astronomers, is permitted at Rome." This decree was ratified by
Pius VII, but it was not until thirteen years later, in 1835, that there
was issued an edition of the Index from which the condemnation of works
defending the double motion of the earth was left out.
This was not a moment too soon, for, as if the previous proofs had not
been sufficient, each of the motions of the earth was now absolutely
demonstrated anew, so as to be recognised by the ordinary observer.
The parallax of fixed stars, shown by Bessel as well as other noted
astronomers in 1838, clinched forever the doctrine of the revolution of
the earth around the sun, and in 1851 the great experiment of Foucault
with the pendulum showed to the human eye the earth in motion around its
own axis. To make the matter complete, this experiment was publicly made
in one of the churches at Rome by the eminent astronomer, Father Secchi,
of the Jesuits, in 1852--just two hundred and twenty years after the
Jesuits had done so much to secure Galileo's condemnation.(75)
(75) For good statements of the final action of the Church in the
matter, see Gebler; also Zoeckler, ii, 352. See also Bertrand,
Fondateurs de l'Astronomie moderne, p. 61; Flammarion, Vie de Copernic,
chap. ix. As to the time when the decree of condemnation was repealed,
there have been various pious attempts to make it earlier than the
reality. Artaud, p. 307, cited in an apologetic article in the Dublin
Review, September, 1865, says that Galileo's famous dialogue was
published in 1714, at Padua, entire, and with the usual approbations.
The same article also declares that in 1818, the ecclesiastical decrees
were repealed by Pius VII in full Consistory. Whewell accepts this;
but Cantu, an authority favourable to the Church, acknowledges that
Copernicus's work remained on the Index as late as 1835 (Cantu, Histoire
universelle, vol. xv, p. 483); and with this Th. Martin, not less
favourable to the Church, but exceedingly careful as to the facts,
agrees; and the most eminent authority of all, Prof. Reusch, of Bonn,
in his Der Index der vorbotenen Bucher, Bonn, 1885, vol. ii, p. 396,
confirms the above statement in the text. For a clear statement of
Bradley's exquisite demonstration of the Copernican theory by reasonings
upon the rapidity of light, etc., and Foucault's exhibition of the
rotation of the earth by the pendulum experiment, see Hoefer, Histoire
de l'Astronomie, pp. 492 et seq. For more recent proofs of the
Copernican theory, by the discoveries of Bunsen, Bischoff, Benzenberg,
and others, see Jevons, Principles of Science.
VI. THE RETREAT OF THE CHURCH AFTER ITS VICTORY OVER GALILEO.
Any history of the victory of astronomical science over dogmatic
theology would be incomplete without some account of the retreat made by
the Church from all its former positions in the Galileo case.
The retreat of the Protestant theologians was not difficult. A little
skilful warping of Scripture, a little skilful use of that time-honoured
phrase, attributed to Cardinal Baronius, that the Bible is given to
teach us, not how the heavens go, but how men go to heaven, and a free
use of explosive rhetoric against the pursuing army of scientists,
sufficed.
But in the older Church it was far less easy. The retreat of the
sacro-scientific army of Church apologists lasted through two centuries.
In spite of all that has been said by these apologists, there no longer
remains the shadow of a doubt that the papal infallibility was committed
fully and irrevocably against the double revolution of the earth. As the
documents of Galileo's trial now published show, Paul V, in 1616, pushed
on with all his might the condemnation of Galileo and of the works of
Copernicus and of all others teaching the motion of the earth around its
own axis and around the sun. So, too, in the condemnation of Galileo in
1633, and in all the proceedings which led up to it and which followed
it, Urban VIII was the central figure. Without his sanction no action
could have been taken.
True, the Pope did not formally sign the decree against the Copernican
theory THEN; but this came later. In 1664 Alexander VII prefixed to
the Index containing the condemnations of the works of Copernicus and
Galileo and "all books which affirm the motion of the earth" a papal
bull signed by himself, binding the contents of the Index upon the
consciences of the faithful. This bull confirmed and approved in express
terms, finally, decisively, and infallibly, the condemnation of "all
books teaching the movement of the earth and the stability of the
sun."(76)
(76) See Rev. William W. Roberts, The Pontifical Decrees against the
Doctrine of the Earth's Movement, London, 1885, p. 94; and for the text
of the papal bull, Speculatores domus Israel, pp. 132, 133, see also St.
George Mivart's article in the Nineteenth Century for July, 1885. For
the authentic publication of the bull, see preface to the Index of 1664,
where the bull appears, signed by the Pope. The Rev. Mr. Roberts and
Mr. St. George Mivart are Roman Catholics and both acknowledge that the
papal sanction was fully given.
The position of the mother Church had been thus made especially
difficult; and the first important move in retreat by the apologists was
the statement that Galileo was condemned, not because he affirmed the
motion of the earth, but because he supported it from Scripture. There
was a slight appearance of truth in this. Undoubtedly, Galileo's letters
to Castelli and the grand duchess, in which he attempted to show that
his astronomical doctrines were not opposed to Scripture, gave a new
stir to religious bigotry. For a considerable time, then, this quibble
served its purpose; even a hundred and fifty years after Galileo's
condemnation it was renewed by the Protestant Mallet du Pan, in his wish
to gain favour from the older Church.
But nothing can be more absurd, in the light of the original documents
recently brought out of the Vatican archives, than to make this
contention now. The letters of Galileo to Castelli and the Grand-Duchess
were not published until after the condemnation; and, although the
Archbishop of Pisa had endeavoured to use them against him, they were
but casually mentioned in 1616, and entirely left out of view in 1633.
What was condemned in 1616 by the Sacred Congregation held in the
presence of Pope Paul V, as "ABSURD, FALSE IN THEOLOGY, AND HERETICAL,
BECAUSE ABSOLUTELY CONTRARY TO HOLY SCRIPTURE," was the proposition that
"THE SUN IS THE CENTRE ABOUT WHICH THE EARTH REVOLVES"; and what was
condemned as "ABSURD, FALSE IN PHILOSOPHY, AND FROM A THEOLOGIC POINT
OF VIEW, AT LEAST, OPPOSED TO THE TRUE FAITH," was the proposition that
"THE EARTH IS NOT THE CENTRE OF THE UNIVERSE AND IMMOVABLE, BUT HAS A
DIURNAL MOTION."
And again, what Galileo was made, by express order of Pope Urban, and
by the action of the Inquisition under threat of torture, to abjure in
1633, was "THE ERROR AND HERESY OF THE MOVEMENT OF THE EARTH."
What the Index condemned under sanction of the bull issued by Alexander
VII in 1664 was, "ALL BOOKS TEACHING THE MOVEMENT OF THE EARTH AND THE
STABILITY OF THE SUN."
What the Index, prefaced by papal bulls, infallibly binding its contents
upon the consciences of the faithful, for nearly two hundred years
steadily condemned was, "ALL BOOKS WHICH AFFIRM THE MOTION OF THE
EARTH."
Not one of these condemnations was directed against Galileo "for
reconciling his ideas with Scripture."(77)
(77) For the original trial documents, copied carefully from the Vatican
manuscripts, see the Roman Catholic authority, L'Epinois, especially
p. 35, where the principal document is given in its original Latin;
see also Gebler, Die Acten des galilei'schen Processes, for still more
complete copies of the same documents. For minute information regarding
these documents and their publication, see Favaro, Miscellanea Galileana
Inedita, forming vol. xxii, part iii, of the Memoirs of the Venetian
Institute for 1887, and especially pp. 891 and following.
Having been dislodged from this point, the Church apologists sought
cover under the statement that Galileo was condemned not for heresy, but
for contumacy and want of respect toward the Pope.
There was a slight chance, also, for this quibble: no doubt Urban VIII,
one of the haughtiest of pontiffs, was induced by Galileo's enemies
to think that he had been treated with some lack of proper etiquette:
first, by Galileo's adhesion to his own doctrines after his condemnation
in 1616; and, next, by his supposed reference in the Dialogue of 1632 to
the arguments which the Pope had used against him.
But it would seem to be a very poor service rendered to the doctrine
of papal infallibility to claim that a decision so immense in its
consequences could be influenced by the personal resentment of the
reigning pontiff.
Again, as to the first point, the very language of the various sentences
shows the folly of this assertion; for these sentences speak always of
"heresy" and never of "contumacy." As to the last point, the display
of the original documents settled that forever. They show Galileo from
first to last as most submissive toward the Pope, and patient under the
papal arguments and exactions. He had, indeed, expressed his anger at
times against his traducers; but to hold this the cause of the judgment
against him is to degrade the whole proceedings, and to convict Paul V,
Urban VIII, Bellarmin, the other theologians, and the Inquisition, of
direct falsehood, since they assigned entirely different reasons
for their conduct. From this position, therefore, the assailants
retreated.(78)
(78) The invention of the "contumacy" quibble seems due to Monsignor
Marini, who appears also to have manipulated the original documents to
prove it. Even Whewell was evidently somewhat misled by him, but Whewell
wrote before L'Epinois had shown all the documents, and under the
supposition that Marini was an honest man.
The next rally was made about the statement that the persecution of
Galileo was the result of a quarrel between Aristotelian professors on
one side and professors favouring the experimental method on the other.
But this position was attacked and carried by a very simple statement.
If the divine guidance of the Church is such that it can be dragged
into a professorial squabble, and made the tool of a faction in bringing
about a most disastrous condemnation of a proved truth, how did the
Church at that time differ from any human organization sunk into
decrepitude, managed nominally by simpletons, but really by schemers? If
that argument be true, the condition of the Church was even worse than
its enemies have declared it; and amid the jeers of an unfeeling world
the apologists sought new shelter.
The next point at which a stand was made was the assertion that
the condemnation of Galileo was "provisory"; but this proved a more
treacherous shelter than the others. The wording of the decree of
condemnation itself is a sufficient answer to this claim. When doctrines
have been solemnly declared, as those of Galileo were solemnly declared
under sanction of the highest authority in the Church, "contrary to the
sacred Scriptures," "opposed to the true faith," and "false and
absurd in theology and philosophy"--to say that such declarations
are "provisory" is to say that the truth held by the Church is not
immutable; from this, then, the apologists retreated.(79)
(79) This argument also seems to have been foisted upon the world by the
wily Monsignor Marini.
Still another contention was made, in some respects more curious
than any other: it was, mainly, that Galileo "was no more a victim
of Catholics than of Protestants; for they more than the Catholic
theologians impelled the Pope to the action taken."(80)
(80) See the Rev. A. M. Kirsch on Professor Huxley and Evolution, in The
American Catholic Quarterly, October, 1877. The article is, as a whole,
remarkably fair-minded, and in the main, just, as to the Protestant
attitude, and as to the causes underlying the whole action against
Galileo.
But if Protestantism could force the papal hand in a matter of this
magnitude, involving vast questions of belief and far-reaching questions
of policy, what becomes of "inerrancy"--of special protection and
guidance of the papal authority in matters of faith?
While this retreat from position to position was going on, there was a
constant discharge of small-arms, in the shape of innuendoes, hints,
and sophistries: every effort was made to blacken Galileo's private
character: the irregularities of his early life were dragged forth, and
stress was even laid upon breaches of etiquette; but this succeeded so
poorly that even as far back as 1850 it was thought necessary to cover
the retreat by some more careful strategy.
This new strategy is instructive. The original documents of the Galileo
trial had been brought during the Napoleonic conquests to Paris; but in
1846 they were returned to Rome by the French Government, on the express
pledge by the papal authorities that they should be published. In 1850,
after many delays on various pretexts, the long-expected publication
appeared. The personage charged with presenting them to the world was
Monsignor Marini. This ecclesiastic was of a kind which has too often
afflicted both the Church and the world at large. Despite the solemn
promise of the papal court, the wily Marini became the instrument of
the Roman authorities in evading the promise. By suppressing a document
here, and interpolating a statement there, he managed to give plausible
standing-ground for nearly every important sophistry ever broached
to save the infallibility of the Church and destroy the reputation of
Galileo. He it was who supported the idea that Galileo was "condemned
not for heresy, but for contumacy."
The first effect of Monsignor Marini's book seemed useful in covering
the retreat of the Church apologists. Aided by him, such vigorous
writers as Ward were able to throw up temporary intrenchments between
the Roman authorities and the indignation of the world.
But some time later came an investigator very different from Monsignor
Marini. This was a Frenchman, M. L'Epinois. Like Marini, L'Epinois was
devoted to the Church; but, unlike Marini, he could not lie. Having
obtained access in 1867 to the Galileo documents at the Vatican,
he published several of the most important, without suppression or
pious-fraudulent manipulation. This made all the intrenchments based
upon Marini's statements untenable. Another retreat had to be made.
And now came the most desperate effort of all. The apologetic army,
reviving an idea which the popes and the Church had spurned for
centuries, declared that the popes AS POPES had never condemned the
doctrines of Copernicus and Galileo; that they had condemned them as men
simply; that therefore the Church had never been committed to them; that
the condemnation was made by the cardinals of the inquisition and index;
and that the Pope had evidently been restrained by interposition of
Providence from signing their condemnation. Nothing could show the
desperation of the retreating party better than jugglery like this. The
fact is, that in the official account of the condemnation by Bellarmin,
in 1616, he declares distinctly that he makes this condemnation "in the
name of His Holiness the Pope."(81)
(81) See the citation from the Vatican manuscript given in Gebler, p.
78.
Again, from Pope Urban downward, among the Church authorities of the
seventeenth century the decision was always acknowledged to be made by
the Pope and the Church. Urban VIII spoke of that of 1616 as made by
Pope Paul V and the Church, and of that of 1633 as made by himself
and the Church. Pope Alexander VII in 1664, in his bull Speculatores,
solemnly sanctioned the condemnation of all books affirming the earth's
movement.(82)
(82) For references by Urban VIII to the condemnation as made by Pope
Paul V see pp. 136, 144, and elsewhere in Martin, who much against
his will is forced to allow this. See also Roberts, Pontifical decrees
against the Earth's Movement, and St. George Mivart's article, as above
quoted; also Reusch, Index der verbotenen Bucher, Bonn, 1885, vol. ii,
pp. 29 et seq.
When Gassendi attempted to raise the point that the decision against
Copernicus and Galileo was not sanctioned by the Church as such, an
eminent theological authority, Father Lecazre, rector of the College of
Dijon, publicly contradicted him, and declared that it "was not certain
cardinals, but the supreme authority of the Church," that had condemned
Galileo; and to this statement the Pope and other Church authorities
gave consent either openly or by silence. When Descartes and others
attempted to raise the same point, they were treated with contempt.
Father Castelli, who had devoted himself to Galileo, and knew to his
cost just what the condemnation meant and who made it, takes it for
granted, in his letter to the papal authorities, that it was made by the
Church. Cardinal Querenghi, in his letters; the ambassador Guicciardini,
in his dispatches; Polacco, in his refutation; the historian Viviani,
in his biography of Galileo--all writing under Church inspection
and approval at the time, took the view that the Pope and the Church
condemned Galileo, and this was never denied at Rome. The Inquisition
itself, backed by the greatest theologian of the time (Bellarmin), took
the same view. Not only does he declare that he makes the condemnation
"in the name of His Holiness the Pope," but we have the Roman Index,
containing the condemnation for nearly two hundred years, prefaced by
a solemn bull of the reigning Pope binding this condemnation on the
consciences of the whole Church, and declaring year after year that "all
books which affirm the motion of the earth" are damnable. To attempt
to face all this, added to the fact that Galileo was required to abjure
"the heresy of the movement of the earth" by written order of the Pope,
was soon seen to be impossible. Against the assertion that the Pope
was not responsible we have all this mass of testimony, and the bull of
Alexander VII in 1664.(83)
(83) For Lecazre's answer to Gassendi, see Martin, pp. 146, 147. For the
attempt to make the crimes of Galileo breach of etiquette, see Dublin
Review, as above. Whewell, vol. i, p. 283. Citation from Marini:
"Galileo was punished for trifling with the authorities, to which
he refused to submit, and was punished for obstinate contumacy, not
heresy." The sufficient answer to all this is that the words of the
inflexible sentence designating the condemned books are "libri omnes
qui affirmant telluris motum." See Bertrand, p. 59. As to the idea
that "Galileo was punished for not his opinion, but for basing it on
Scripture," the answer may be found in the Roman Index of 1704, in which
are noted for condemnation "Libri omnes docentes mobilitatem terrae et
immobilitatem solis." For the way in which, when it was found convenient
in argument, Church apologists insisted that it WAS "the Supreme Chief
of the Church by a pontifical decree, and not certain cardinals," who
condemned Galileo and his doctrine, see Father Lecazre's letter to
Gassendi, in Flammarion, Pluralite des Mondes, p. 427, and Urban
VIII's own declarations as given by Martin. For the way in which,
when necessary, Church apologists asserted the very contrary of this,
declaring that it was "issued in a doctrinal degree of the Congregation
of the Index, and NOT as the Holy Father's teaching," see Dublin Review,
September, 1865.
This contention, then, was at last utterly given up by honest Catholics
themselves. In 1870 a Roman Catholic clergy man in England, the Rev. Mr.
Roberts, evidently thinking that the time had come to tell the truth,
published a book entitled The Pontifical Decrees against the Earth's
Movement, and in this exhibited the incontrovertible evidences that
the papacy had committed itself and its infallibility fully against the
movement of the earth. This Catholic clergyman showed from the original
record that Pope Paul V, in 1616, had presided over the tribunal
condemning the doctrine of the earth's movement, and ordering Galileo
to give up the opinion. He showed that Pope Urban VIII, in 1633, pressed
on, directed, and promulgated the final condemnation, making himself
in all these ways responsible for it. And, finally, he showed that Pope
Alexander VII, in 1664, by his bull--Speculatores domus Israel--attached
to the Index, condemning "all books which affirm the motion of the
earth," had absolutely pledged the papal infallibility against the
earth's movement. He also confessed that under the rules laid down by
the highest authorities in the Church, and especially by Sixtus V and
Pius IX, there was no escape from this conclusion.
Various theologians attempted to evade the force of the argument. Some,
like Dr. Ward and Bouix, took refuge in verbal niceties; some, like Dr.
Jeremiah Murphy, comforted themselves with declamation. The only result
was, that in 1885 came another edition of the Rev. Mr. Roberts's work,
even more cogent than the first; and, besides this, an essay by
that eminent Catholic, St. George Mivart, acknowledging the Rev. Mr.
Roberts's position to be impregnable, and declaring virtually that the
Almighty allowed Pope and Church to fall into complete error regarding
the Copernican theory, in order to teach them that science lies outside
their province, and that the true priesthood of scientific truth rests
with scientific investigators alone.(84)
(84) For the crushing answer by two eminent Roman Catholics to the
sophistries cited--an answer which does infinitely more credit to the
older Church that all the perverted ingenuity used in concealing the
truth or breaking the force of it--see Roberts and St. George Mivart, as
already cited.
In spite, then, of all casuistry and special pleading, this sturdy
honesty ended the controversy among Catholics themselves, so far as
fair-minded men are concerned.
In recalling it at this day there stand out from its later phases
two efforts at compromise especially instructive, as showing the
embarrassment of militant theology in the nineteenth century.
The first of these was made by John Henry Newman in the days when he was
hovering between the Anglican and Roman Churches. In one of his sermons
before the University of Oxford he spoke as follows:
"Scripture says that the sun moves and the earth is stationary, and
science that the earth moves and the sun is comparatively at rest. How
can we determine which of these opposite statements is the very truth
till we know what motion is? If our idea of motion is but an accidental
result of our present senses, neither proposition is true and both are
true: neither true philosophically; both true for certain practical
purposes in the system in which they are respectively found."
In all anti-theological literature there is no utterance more hopelessly
skeptical. And for what were the youth of Oxford led into such
bottomless depths of disbelief as to any real existence of truth or
any real foundation for it? Simply to save an outworn system of
interpretation into which the gifted preacher happened to be born.
The other utterance was suggested by De Bonald and developed in the
Dublin Review, as is understood, by one of Newman's associates. This
argument was nothing less than an attempt to retreat under the charge
of deception against the Almighty himself. It is as follows: "But it may
well be doubted whether the Church did retard the progress of scientific
truth. What retarded it was the circumstance that God has thought fit to
express many texts of Scripture in words which have every appearance of
denying the earth's motion. But it is God who did this, not the Church;
and, moreover, since he saw fit so to act as to retard the progress of
scientific truth, it would be little to her discredit, even if it were
true, that she had followed his example."
This argument, like Mr. Gosse's famous attempt to reconcile geology to
Genesis--by supposing that for some inscrutable purpose God deliberately
deceived the thinking world by giving to the earth all the appearances
of development through long periods of time, while really creating it in
six days, each of an evening and a morning--seems only to have awakened
the amazed pity of thinking men. This, like the argument of Newman, was
a last desperate effort of Anglican and Roman divines to save something
from the wreckage of dogmatic theology.(85)
(85) For the quotation from Newman, see his Sermons on the Theory of
Religious Belief, sermon xiv, cited by Bishop Goodwin in Contemporary
Review for January, 1892. For the attempt to take the blame off the
shoulders of both Pope and cardinals and place it upon the Almighty, see
the article above cited, in the Dublin Review, September 1865, p.
419 and July, 1871, pp. 157 et seq. For a good summary of the various
attempts, and for replies to them in a spirit of judicial fairness, see
Th. Martin, Vie de Galilee, though there is some special pleading to
save the infallibility of the Pope and Church. The bibliography at the
close is very valuable. For details of Mr. Gosse's theory, as developed
in his Omphalos, see the chapter on Geology in this work. As to a still
later attempt, see Wegg-Prosser, Galileo and his Judges, London, 1889,
the main thing in it being an attempt to establish, against the honest
and honourable concessions of Catholics like Roberts and Mivart,
sundry far-fetched and wire-drawn distinctions between dogmatic and
disciplinary bulls--an attempt which will only deepen the distrust of
straightforward reasoners. The author's point of view is stated in
the words, "I have maintained that the Church has a right to lay her
restraining hand on the speculations of natural science" (p. 167).
All these well-meaning defenders of the faith but wrought into the
hearts of great numbers of thinking men the idea that there is a
necessary antagonism between science and religion. Like the landsman who
lashes himself to the anchor of the sinking ship, they simply attached
Christianity by the strongest cords of logic which they could spin to
these mistaken ideas in science, and, could they have had their way, the
advance of knowledge would have ingulfed both together.
On the other hand, what had science done for religion? Simply this:
Copernicus, escaping persecution only by death; Giordano Bruno, burned
alive as a monster of impiety; Galileo, imprisoned and humiliated as
the worst of misbelievers; Kepler, accused of "throwing Christ's kingdom
into confusion with his silly fancies"; Newton, bitterly attacked for
"dethroning Providence," gave to religion stronger foundations and more
ennobling conceptions.
Under the old system, that princely astronomer, Alphonso of Castile,
seeing the inadequacy of the Ptolemaic theory, yet knowing no other,
startled Europe with the blasphemy that, if he had been present at
creation, he could have suggested a better order of the heavenly bodies.
Under the new system, Kepler, filled with a religious spirit, exclaimed,
"I do think the thoughts of God." The difference in religious spirit
between these two men marks the conquest made in this long struggle by
Science for Religion.(86)
(86) As a pendant to this ejaculation of Kepler may be cited the words
of Linnaeus: "Deum ominpotentem a tergo transeuntem vidi et obstupui."
Nothing is more unjust than to cast especial blame for all this
resistance to science upon the Roman Church. The Protestant Church,
though rarely able to be so severe, has been more blameworthy. The
persecution of Galileo and his compeers by the older Church was
mainly at the beginning of the seventeenth century; the persecution
of Robertson Smith, and Winchell, and Woodrow, and Toy, and the young
professors at Beyrout, by various Protestant authorities, was near the
end of the nineteenth century. Those earlier persecutions by Catholicism
were strictly in accordance with principles held at that time by all
religionists, Catholic and Protestant, throughout the world; these later
persecutions by Protestants were in defiance of principles which all
Protestants to-day hold or pretend to hold, and none make louder
claim to hold them than the very sects which persecuted these eminent
Christian men of our day, men whose crime was that they were intelligent
enough to accept the science of their time, and honest enough to
acknowledge it.
Most unjustly, then, would Protestantism taunt Catholicism for excluding
knowledge of astronomical truths from European Catholic universities
in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, while real knowledge
of geological and biological and anthropological truth is denied
or pitifully diluted in so many American Protestant colleges and
universities in the nineteenth century.
Nor has Protestantism the right to point with scorn to the Catholic
Index, and to lay stress on the fact that nearly every really important
book in the last three centuries has been forbidden by it, so long as
young men in so many American Protestant universities and colleges are
nursed with "ecclesiastical pap" rather than with real thought, and
directed to the works of "solemnly constituted impostors," or to sundry
"approved courses of reading," while they are studiously kept aloof from
such leaders in modern thought as Darwin, Spencer, Huxley, Draper, and
Lecky.
It may indeed be justly claimed by Protestantism that some of the former
strongholds of her bigotry have become liberalized; but, on the other
hand, Catholicism can point to the fact that Pope Leo XIII, now
happily reigning, has made a noble change as regards open dealing with
documents. The days of Monsignor Marini, it may be hoped, are gone. The
Vatican Library, with its masses of historical material, has been thrown
open to Protestant and Catholic scholars alike, and this privilege has
been freely used by men representing all shades of religious thought.
As to the older errors, the whole civilized world was at fault,
Protestant as well as Catholic. It was not the fault of religion; it
was the fault of that short-sighted linking of theological dogmas to
scriptural texts which, in utter defiance of the words and works of the
Blessed Founder of Christianity, narrow-minded, loud-voiced men are ever
prone to substitute for religion. Justly is it said by one of the most
eminent among contemporary Anglican divines, that "it is because they
have mistaken the dawn for a conflagration that theologians have so
often been foes of light."(87)
(87) For an exceedingly striking statement, by a Roman Catholic
historian of genius, as to the POPULAR demand for persecution and the
pressure of the lower strata in ecclesiastical organizations for cruel
measures, see Balmes's Le Protestantisme compare au Catholicisme, etc.,
fourth edition, Paris, 1855, vol. ii. Archbishop Spaulding has something
of the same sort in his Miscellanies. L'Epinois, Galilee, p. 22 et seq.,
stretches this as far as possible to save the reputation of the Church
in the Galileo matter. As to the various branches of the Protestant
Church in England and the United States, it is a matter of notoriety
that the smug, well-to-do laymen, whether elders, deacons, or vestrymen,
are, as a rule, far more prone to heresy-hunting than are their better
educated pastors. As to the cases of Messrs. Winchell, Woodrow, Toy,
and all the professors at Beyrout, with details, see the chapter in this
series on The Fall of Man and Anthropology. Among Protestant historians
who have recently been allowed full and free examination of the
treasures in the Vatican Library, and even those involving questions
between Catholicism and Protestantism, are von Sybel, of Berlin, and
Philip Schaff, of New York. It should be added that the latter went with
commendatory letters from eminent prelates in the Catholic Church in
America and Europe. For the closing citation, see Canon Farrar, History
of Interpretation, p. 432.
CHAPTER IV. FROM "SIGNS AND WONDERS" TO LAW IN THE HEAVENS.
I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.
Few things in the evolution of astronomy are more suggestive than the
struggle between the theological and the scientific doctrine regarding
comets--the passage from the conception of them as fire-balls flung by
an angry God for the purpose of scaring a wicked world, to a recognition
of them as natural in origin and obedient to law in movement. Hardly
anything throws a more vivid light upon the danger of wresting texts
of Scripture to preserve ideas which observation and thought have
superseded, and upon the folly of arraying ecclesiastical power against
scientific discovery.(88)
(88) The present study, after its appearance in the Popular Science
Monthly as a "new chapter in the Warfare of Science," was revised
and enlarged to nearly its present form, and read before the American
Historical Association, among whose papers it was published, in 1887,
under the title of A History of the Doctrine of Comets.
Out of the ancient world had come a mass of beliefs regarding comets,
meteors, and eclipses; all these were held to be signs displayed from
heaven for the warning of mankind. Stars and meteors were generally
thought to presage happy events, especially the births of gods, heroes,
and great men. So firmly rooted was this idea that we constantly find
among the ancient nations traditions of lights in the heavens preceding
the birth of persons of note. The sacred books of India show that
the births of Crishna and of Buddha were announced by such heavenly
lights.(89) The sacred books of China tell of similar appearances at
the births of Yu, the founder of the first dynasty, and of the inspired
sage, Lao-tse. According to the Jewish legends, a star appeared at the
birth of Moses, and was seen by the Magi of Egypt, who informed the
king; and when Abraham was born an unusual star appeared in the east.
The Greeks and Romans cherished similar traditions. A heavenly light
accompanied the birth of Aesculapius, and the births of various Caesars
were heralded in like manner.(90)
(89) For Crishna, see Cox, Aryan Mythology, vol. ii, p. 133; the Vishnu
Purana (Wilson's translation), book v, chap. iv. As to lights at
the birth, or rather at the conception, of Buddha, see Bunsen, Angel
Messiah, pp. 22,23; Alabaster, Wheel of the Law (illustrations of
Buddhism), p. 102; Edwin Arnold, Light of Asia; Bp. Bigandet, Life
of Gaudama, the Burmese Buddha, p. 30; Oldenberg, Buddha (English
translation), part i, chap. ii.
(90) For Chinese legends regarding stars at the birth of Yu and
Lao-tse, see Thornton, History of China, vol. i, p. 137; also Pingre,
Cometographie, p. 245. Regarding stars at the birth of Moses and
Abraham, see Calmet, Fragments, part viii; Baring-Gould, Legends of Old
Testament Characters, chap. xxiv; Farrar, Life of Christ, chap. iii. As
to the Magi, see Higgins, Anacalypsis; Hooykaas, Ort, and Kuenen,
Bible for Learners, vol. iii. For Greek and Roman traditions, see Bell,
Pantheon, s. v. Aesculapius and Atreus; Gibbon, Decline and Fall, vol.
i, pp. 151, 590; Farrar, Life of Christ (American edition), p. 52; Cox,
Tales of Ancient Greece, pp. 41, 61, 62; Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. i,
p. 322; also Suetonius, Caes., Julius, p.88, Claud., p. 463; Seneca,
Nat. Quaest, vol. 1, p. 1; Virgil, Ecl., vol. ix, p. 47; as well as
Ovid, Pliny, and others.
The same conception entered into our Christian sacred books. Of all the
legends which grew in such luxuriance and beauty about the cradle of
Jesus of Nazareth, none appeals more directly to the highest poetic
feeling than that given by one of the evangelists, in which a star,
rising in the east, conducted the wise men to the manger where the
Galilean peasant-child--the Hope of Mankind, the Light of the World--was
lying in poverty and helplessness.
Among the Mohammedans we have a curious example of the same tendency
toward a kindly interpretation of stars and meteors, in the belief of
certain Mohammedan teachers that meteoric showers are caused by good
angels hurling missiles to drive evil angels out of the sky.
Eclipses were regarded in a very different light, being supposed
to express the distress of Nature at earthly calamities. The Greeks
believed that darkness overshadowed the earth at the deaths of
Prometheus, Atreus, Hercules, Aesculapius, and Alexander the Great. The
Roman legends held that at the death of Romulus there was darkness for
six hours. In the history of the Caesars occur portents of all three
kinds; for at the death of Julius the earth was shrouded in darkness,
the birth of Augustus was heralded by a star, and the downfall of Nero
by a comet. So, too, in one of the Christian legends clustering about
the crucifixion, darkness overspread the earth from the sixth to the
ninth hour. Neither the silence regarding it of the only evangelist who
claims to have been present, nor the fact that observers like Seneca
and Pliny, who, though they carefully described much less striking
occurrences of the same sort and in more remote regions, failed to
note any such darkness even in Judea, have availed to shake faith in an
account so true to the highest poetic instincts of humanity.
This view of the relations between Nature and man continued among both
Jews and Christians. According to Jewish tradition, darkness overspread
the earth for three days when the books of the Law were profaned by
translation into Greek. Tertullian thought an eclipse an evidence of
God's wrath against unbelievers. Nor has this mode of thinking ceased
in modern times. A similar claim was made at the execution of Charles I;
and Increase Mather thought an eclipse in Massachusetts an evidence
of the grief of Nature at the death of President Chauncey, of Harvard
College. Archbishop Sandys expected eclipses to be the final tokens of
woe at the destruction of the world, and traces of this feeling have
come down to our own time.
The quaint story of the Connecticut statesman who, when his associates
in the General Assembly were alarmed by an eclipse of the sun, and
thought it the beginning of the Day of Judgment, quietly ordered in
candles, that he might in any case be found doing his duty, marks
probably the last noteworthy appearance of the old belief in any
civilized nation.(91)
(91) For Hindu theories, see Alabaster, Wheel of the Law, 11. For Greek
and Roman legends, See Higgins, Anacalypsis, vol. i, pp. 616, 617.; also
Suetonius, Caes., Julius, p. 88, Claud., p. 46; Seneca, Quaest. Nat.,
vol. i, p. 1, vol. vii, p. 17; Pliny, Hist. Nat., vol. ii, p. 25;
Tacitus, Ann., vol. xiv, p. 22; Josephus, Antiq., vol. xiv, p. 12; and
the authorities above cited. For the tradition of the Jews regarding
the darkness of three days, see citation in Renan, Histoire du Peuple
Israel, vol. iv, chap. iv. For Tertullian's belief regarding the
significance of an eclipse, see the Ad Scapulum, chap. iii, in Migne,
Patrolog. Lat., vol. i, p. 701. For the claim regarding Charles I, see
a sermon preached before Charles II, cited by Lecky, England in the
Eighteenth Century, vol. i, p. 65. Mather thought, too, that it might
have something to do with the death of sundry civil functionaries of
the colonies; see his Discourse concerning comets, 1682. For Archbishop
Sandy's belief, see his eighteenth sermon (in Parker Soc. Publications).
The story of Abraham Davenport has been made familiar by the poem of
Whittier.
In these beliefs regarding meteors and eclipses there was little
calculated to do harm by arousing that superstitious terror which is
the worst breeding-bed of cruelty. Far otherwise was it with the belief
regarding comets. During many centuries it gave rise to the direst
superstition and fanaticism. The Chaldeans alone among the ancient
peoples generally regarded comets without fear, and thought them bodies
wandering as harmless as fishes in the sea; the Pythagoreans alone among
philosophers seem to have had a vague idea of them as bodies returning
at fixed periods of time; and in all antiquity, so far as is known, one
man alone, Seneca, had the scientific instinct and prophetic inspiration
to give this idea definite shape, and to declare that the time would
come when comets would be found to move in accordance with natural law.
Here and there a few strong men rose above the prevailing superstition.
The Emperor Vespasian tried to laugh it down, and insisted that a
certain comet in his time could not betoken his death, because it was
hairy, and he bald; but such scoffing produced little permanent effect,
and the prophecy of Seneca was soon forgotten. These and similar
isolated utterances could not stand against the mass of opinion which
upheld the doctrine that comets are "signs and wonders."(92)
(92) For terror caused in Rome by comets, see Pingre, Cometographie, pp.
165, 166. For the Chaldeans, see Wolf, Geschichte der Astronomie, p. 10
et seq., and p. 181 et seq.; also Pingre, chap. ii. For the Pythagorean
notions, see citations from Plutarch in Costard, History of Astronomy,
p. 283. For Seneca's prediction, see Guillemin, World of Comets
(translated by Glaisher), pp. 4, 5; also Watson, On Comets, p. 126. For
this feeling in antiquity generally, see the preliminary chapters of the
two works last cited.
The belief that every comet is a ball of fire flung from the right hand
of an angry God to warn the grovelling dwellers of earth was received
into the early Church, transmitted through the Middle Ages to the
Reformation period, and in its transmission was made all the more
precious by supposed textual proofs from Scripture. The great fathers of
the Church committed themselves unreservedly to it. In the third century
Origen, perhaps the most influential of the earlier fathers of the
universal Church in all questions between science and faith, insisted
that comets indicate catastrophes and the downfall of empires and
worlds. Bede, so justly revered by the English Church, declared in the
eighth century that "comets portend revolutions of kingdoms, pestilence,
war, winds, or heat"; and John of Damascus, his eminent contemporary
in the Eastern Church, took the same view. Rabanus Maurus, the great
teacher of Europe in the ninth century, an authority throughout the
Middle Ages, adopted Bede's opinion fully. St. Thomas Aquinas, the great
light of the universal Church in the thirteenth century, whose works the
Pope now reigning commends as the centre and source of all university
instruction, accepted and handed down the same opinion. The sainted
Albert the Great, the most noted genius of the medieval Church in
natural science, received and developed this theory. These men and
those who followed them founded upon scriptural texts and theological
reasonings a system that for seventeen centuries defied every advance of
thought.(93)
(93) For Origen, se his De Princip., vol. i, p. 7; also Maury, Leg.
pieuses, p. 203, note. For Bede and others, see De Nat., vol. xxiv; Joh.
Dam., De Fid. Or.,vol. ii, p. 7; Maury, La Magie et l'Astronomie, pp.
181, 182. For Albertus Magnus, see his Opera, vol. i, tr. iii, chaps.
x, xi. Among the texts of Scripture on which this belief rested was
especially Joel ii, 30, 31.
The main evils thence arising were three: the paralysis of self-help,
the arousing of fanaticism, and the strengthening of ecclesiastical
and political tyranny. The first two of these evils--the paralysis of
self-help and the arousing of fanaticism--are evident throughout
all these ages. At the appearance of a comet we constantly see all
Christendom, from pope to peasant, instead of striving to avert war
by wise statesmanship, instead of striving to avert pestilence by
observation and reason, instead of striving to avert famine by skilful
economy, whining before fetiches, trying to bribe them to remove these
signs of God's wrath, and planning to wreak this supposed wrath of God
upon misbelievers.
As to the third of these evils--the strengthening of ecclesiastical
and civil despotism--examples appear on every side. It was natural that
hierarchs and monarchs whose births were announced by stars, or whose
deaths were announced by comets, should regard themselves as far above
the common herd, and should be so regarded by mankind; passive obedience
was thus strengthened, and the most monstrous assumptions of authority
were considered simply as manifestations of the Divine will. Shakespeare
makes Calphurnia say to Caesar:
"When beggars die, there are no comets seen; The heavens themselves
blaze forth the death of princes."
Galeazzo, the tyrant of Milan, expressing satisfaction on his deathbed
that his approaching end was of such importance as to be heralded by a
comet, is but a type of many thus encouraged to prey upon mankind;
and Charles V, one of the most powerful monarchs the world has known,
abdicating under fear of the comet of 1556, taking refuge in the
monastery of San Yuste, and giving up the best of his vast realms to
such a scribbling bigot as Philip II, furnishes an example even more
striking.(94)
(94) For Caesar, see Shakespeare, Julius Caesar, act ii, sc. 2. For
Galeazzo, see Guillemin, World of Comets, p. 19. For Charles V, see
Prof. Wolf's essay in the Monatschrift des wissenschaftlichen Vereins,
Zurich, 1857, p. 228.
But for the retention of this belief there was a moral cause. Myriads
of good men in the Christian Church down to a recent period saw in the
appearance of comets not merely an exhibition of "signs in the heavens"
foretold in Scripture, but also Divine warnings of vast value to
humanity as incentives to repentance and improvement of life-warnings,
indeed, so precious that they could not be spared without danger to
the moral government of the world. And this belief in the portentous
character of comets as an essential part of the Divine government,
being, as it was thought, in full accord with Scripture, was made for
centuries a source of terror to humanity. To say nothing of examples in
the earlier periods, comets in the tenth century especially increased
the distress of all Europe. In the middle of the eleventh century a
comet was thought to accompany the death of Edward the Confessor and to
presage the Norman conquest; the traveller in France to-day may see this
belief as it was then wrought into the Bayeux tapestry.(95)
(95) For evidences of this widespread terror, see chronicles of
Raoul Glaber, Guillaume de Nangis, William of Malmesbury, Florence
of Worcester, Ordericus Vitalis, et al., passim, and the Anglo-Saxon
Chronicle (in the Rolls Series). For very thrilling pictures of this
horror in England, see Freeman, Norman Conquest, vol. iii, pp. 640-644,
and William Rufus, vol. ii, p. 118. For the Bayeau tapestry, see Bruce,
Bayeux Tapestry Elucidated, plate vii and p. 86; also Guillemin, World
of Comets, p. 24. There is a large photographic copy, in the South
Kensington Museum at London, of the original, wrought, as is generally
believed, by the wife of William the Conqueror and her ladies, and is
still preserved in the town museum at Bayeux.
Nearly every decade of years throughout the Middle Ages saw Europe
plunged into alarm by appearances of this sort, but the culmination
seems to have been reached in 1456. At that time the Turks, after a long
effort, had made good their footing in Europe. A large statesmanship
or generalship might have kept them out; but, while different religious
factions were disputing over petty shades of dogma, they had advanced,
had taken Constantinople, and were evidently securing their foothold.
Now came the full bloom of this superstition. A comet appeared. The
Pope of that period, Calixtus III, though a man of more than ordinary
ability, was saturated with the ideas of his time. Alarmed at this
monster, if we are to believe the contemporary historian, this
infallible head of the Church solemnly "decreed several days of prayer
for the averting of the wrath of God, that whatever calamity impended
might be turned from the Christians and against the Turks." And, that
all might join daily in this petition, there was then established that
midday Angelus which has ever since called good Catholics to prayer
against the powers of evil. Then, too, was incorporated into a litany
the plea, "From the Turk and the comet, good Lord, deliver us."
Never was papal intercession less effective; for the Turk has held
Constantinople from that day to this, while the obstinate comet, being
that now known under the name of Halley, has returned imperturbably at
short periods ever since.(96)
(96) The usual statement is, that Calixtus excommunicated the comet by
a bull, and this is accepted by Arago, Grant, Hoefer, Guillemin, Watson,
and many historians of astronomy. Hence the parallel is made on a noted
occasion by President Lincoln. No such bull, however, is to be found in
the published Bulleria, and that establishing the Angelus (as given by
Raynaldus in the Annales Eccl.) contains no mention of the comet. But
the authority of Platina (in his Vitae Pontificum, Venice, 1479, sub
Calistus III) who was not only in Rome at the time, but when he wrote
his history, archivist of the Vatican, is final as to the Pope's
attitude. Platina's authority was never questioned until modern science
changed the ideas of the world. The recent attempt of Pastor (in his
Geschichte der Papste) to pooh-pooh down the whole matter is too evident
an evasion to carry weight with those who know how even the most careful
histories have to be modified to suit the views of the censorship at
Rome.
But the superstition went still further. It became more and more
incorporated into what was considered "scriptural science" and "sound
learning." The encyclopedic summaries, in which the science of the
Middle Ages and the Reformation period took form, furnish abundant
proofs of this.
Yet scientific observation was slowly undermining this structure. The
inspired prophecy of Seneca had not been forgotten. Even as far back as
the ninth century, in the midst of the sacred learning so abundant
at the court of Charlemagne and his successors, we find a scholar
protesting against the accepted doctrine. In the thirteenth century we
have a mild question by Albert the Great as to the supposed influence of
comets upon individuals; but the prevailing theological current was too
strong, and he finally yielded to it in this as in so many other things.
So, too, in the sixteenth century, we have Copernicus refusing to accept
the usual theory, Paracelsus writing to Zwingli against it, and Julius
Caesar Scaliger denouncing it as "ridiculous folly."(97)
(97) As to encyclopedic summaries, see Vincent of Beauvais, Speculum
Naturale, and the various editions of Reisch's Margarita Philosophica.
For Charlemagne's time, see Champion, La Fin du Monde, p. 156; Leopardi,
Errori Popolari, p. 165. As to Albert the Great's question, see Heller,
Geschichte der Physik, vol. i, p. 188. As to scepticism in the sixteenth
century, see Champion, La Fin du Monde, pp. 155, 156; and for Scaliger,
Dudith's book, cited below.
At first this scepticism only aroused the horror of theologians and
increased the vigour of ecclesiastics; both asserted the theological
theory of comets all the more strenuously as based on scriptural truth.
During the sixteenth century France felt the influence of one of her
greatest men on the side of this superstition. Jean Bodin, so far before
his time in political theories, was only thoroughly abreast of it in
religious theories: the same reverence for the mere letter of Scripture
which made him so fatally powerful in supporting the witchcraft
delusion, led him to support this theological theory of comets--but
with a difference: he thought them the souls of men, wandering in space,
bringing famine, pestilence, and war.
Not less strong was the same superstition in England. Based upon
mediaeval theology, it outlived the revival of learning. From a
multitude of examples a few may be selected as typical. Early in the
sixteenth century Polydore Virgil, an ecclesiastic of the unreformed
Church, alludes, in his English History, to the presage of the death of
the Emperor Constantine by a comet as to a simple matter of fact; and
in his work on prodigies he pushes this superstition to its most extreme
point, exhibiting comets as preceding almost every form of calamity.
In 1532, just at the transition period from the old Church to the new,
Cranmer, paving the way to his archbishopric, writes from Germany to
Henry VIII, and says of the comet then visible: "What strange things
these tokens do signify to come hereafter, God knoweth; for they do not
lightly appear but against some great matter."
Twenty years later Bishop Latimer, in an Advent sermon, speaks of
eclipses, rings about the sun, and the like, as signs of the approaching
end of the world.(98)
(98) For Bodin, see Theatr., lib. ii, cited by Pingre, vol. i, p. 45;
also a vague citation in Baudrillart, Bodin et son Temps, p. 360.
For Polydore Virgil, see English History, p. 97 (in Camden Society
Publications). For Cranmer, see Remains, vol. ii, p. 535 (in Parker
Society Publications). For Latimer, see Sermons, second Sunday in
Advent, 1552.
In 1580, under Queen Elizabeth, there was set forth an "order of
prayer to avert God's wrath from us, threatened by the late terrible
earthquake, to be used in all parish churches." In connection with this
there was also commended to the faithful "a godly admonition for the
time present"; and among the things referred to as evidence of God's
wrath are comets, eclipses, and falls of snow.
This view held sway in the Church of England during Elizabeth's whole
reign and far into the Stuart period: Strype, the ecclesiastical
annalist, gives ample evidence of this, and among the more curious
examples is the surmise that the comet of 1572 was a token of Divine
wrath provoked by the St. Bartholomew massacre.
As to the Stuart period, Archbishop Spottiswoode seems to have been
active in carrying the superstition from the sixteenth century to the
seventeenth, and Archbishop Bramhall cites Scripture in support of
it. Rather curiously, while the diary of Archbishop Laud shows so much
superstition regarding dreams as portents, it shows little or none
regarding comets; but Bishop Jeremy Taylor, strong as he was, evidently
favoured the usual view. John Howe, the eminent Nonconformist divine
in the latter part of the century, seems to have regarded the comet
superstition as almost a fundamental article of belief; he laments the
total neglect of comets and portents generally, declaring that this
neglect betokens want of reverence for the Ruler of the world; he
expresses contempt for scientific inquiry regarding comets, insists that
they may be natural bodies and yet supernatural portents, and ends by
saying, "I conceive it very safe to suppose that some very considerable
thing, either in the way of judgment or mercy, may ensue, according as
the cry of persevering wickedness or of penitential prayer is more or
less loud at that time."(99)
(99) For Liturgical Services of the Reign of Queen Elizabeth, see Parker
Society Publications, pp. 569, 570. For Strype, see his Ecclesiastical
Memorials, vol. iii, part i, p. 472; also see his Annals of the
reformation, vol. ii, part ii, p. 151; and his Life of Sir Thomas Smith,
pp. 161, 162. For Spottiswoode, see History of the Church of Scotland
(Edinburgh reprint, 1851), vol. i, pp. 185, 186. For Bramhall, see his
Works, Oxford, 1844, vol. iv, pp. 60, 307, etc. For Jeremy Taylor, see
his Sermons on the Life of Christ. For John Howe, see his Works, London,
1862, vol. iv, pp. 140, 141.
The Reformed Church of Scotland supported the superstition just as
strongly. John Knox saw in comets tokens of the wrath of Heaven; other
authorities considered them "a warning to the king to extirpate the
Papists"; and as late as 1680, after Halley had won his victory, comets
were announced on high authority in the Scottish Church to be "prodigies
of great judgment on these lands for our sins, for never was the Lord
more provoked by a people."
While such was the view of the clergy during the sixteenth and
seventeenth centuries, the laity generally accepted it as a matter of
course, Among the great leaders in literature there was at least general
acquiescence in it. Both Shakespeare and Milton recognise it, whether
they fully accept it or not. Shakespeare makes the Duke of Bedford,
lamenting at the bier of Henry V, say:
"Comets, importing change of time and states, Brandish your crystal
tresses in the sky; And with them scourge the bad revolting stars, That
have consented unto Henry's death."
Milton, speaking of Satan preparing for combat, says:
"On the other side, Incensed with indignation, Satan stood. Unterrified,
and like a comet burned, That fires the length of Ophiuchus huge In the
arctic sky, and from its horrid hair Shakes pestilence and war."
We do indeed find that in some minds the discoveries of Tycho Brahe
and Kepler begin to take effect, for, in 1621, Burton in his Anatomy of
Melancholy alludes to them as changing public opinion somewhat regarding
comets; and, just before the middle of the century, Sir Thomas Browne
expresses a doubt whether comets produce such terrible effects, "since
it is found that many of them are above the moon."(100) Yet even as late
as the last years of the seventeenth century we have English authors
of much power battling for this supposed scriptural view and among the
natural and typical results we find, in 1682, Ralph Thoresby, a Fellow
of the Royal Society, terrified at the comet of that year, and writing
in his diary the following passage: "Lord, fit us for whatever changes
it may portend; for, though I am not ignorant that such meteors proceed
from natural causes, yet are they frequently also the presages of
imminent calamities." Interesting is it to note here that this was
Halley's comet, and that Halley was at this very moment making those
scientific studies upon it which were to free the civilized world
forever from such terrors as distressed Thoresby.
(100) For John Knox, see his Histoire of the Reformation of Religion
within the Realm of Scotland (Edinburgh, 1732), lib. iv; also Chambers,
Domestic Annals of Scotland, vol. ii, pp 410-412. For Burton, see his
Anatomy of Melancholy, part ii, sect 2. For Browne, see the Vulgar and
Common Errors, book vi, chap. xiv.
The belief in comets as warnings against sin was especially one of those
held "always, everywhere, and by all," and by Eastern Christians as well
as by Western. One of the most striking scenes in the history of the
Eastern Church is that which took place at the condemnation of Nikon,
the great Patriarch of Moscow. Turning toward his judges, he pointed to
a comet then blazing in the sky, and said, "God's besom shall sweep you
all away!"
Of all countries in western Europe, it was in Germany and German
Switzerland that this superstition took strongest hold. That same depth
of religious feeling which produced in those countries the most terrible
growth of witchcraft persecution, brought superstition to its highest
development regarding comets. No country suffered more from it in the
Middle Ages. At the Reformation Luther declared strongly in favour of
it. In one of his Advent sermons he said, "The heathen write that the
comet may arise from natural causes, but God creates not one that does
not foretoken a sure calamity." Again he said, "Whatever moves in the
heaven in an unusual way is certainly a sign of God's wrath."
And sometimes, yielding to another phase of his belief, he declared them
works of the devil, and declaimed against them as "harlot stars."(101)
(101) For Thoresby, see his Diary, (London, 1830). Halley's great
service is described further on in this chapter. For Nikon's speech, see
Dean Stanley's History of the Eastern Church, p. 485. For very striking
examples of this mediaeval terror in Germany, see Von Raumer, Geschichte
der Hohenstaufen, vol. vi, p. 538. For the Reformation period, see Wolf,
Gesch. d. Astronomie; also Praetorius, Ueber d. Cometstern (Erfurt,
1589), in which the above sentences of Luther are printed on the title
page as epigraphs. For "Huren-Sternen," see the sermon of Celichius,
described later.
Melanchthon, too, in various letters refers to comets as heralds of
Heaven's wrath, classing them, with evil conjunctions of the planets and
abortive births, among the "signs" referred to in Scripture. Zwingli,
boldest of the greater Reformers in shaking off traditional beliefs,
could not shake off this, and insisted that the comet of 1531 betokened
calamity. Arietus, a leading Protestant theologian, declared, "The
heavens are given us not merely for our pleasure, but also as a warning
of the wrath of God for the correction of our lives." Lavater insisted
that comets are signs of death or calamity, and cited proofs from
Scripture.
Catholic and Protestant strove together for the glory of this doctrine.
It was maintained with especial vigour by Fromundus, the eminent
professor and Doctor of Theology at the Catholic University of Louvain,
who so strongly opposed the Copernican system; at the beginning of the
seventeenth century, even so gifted an astronomer as Kepler yielded
somewhat to the belief; and near the end of that century Voigt declared
that the comet of 1618 clearly presaged the downfall of the Turkish
Empire, and he stigmatized as "atheists and Epicureans" all who did not
believe comets to be God's warnings.(102)
(102) For Melanchthon, see Wolf, ubi supra. For Zwingli, see Wolf, p.
235. For Arietus, see Madler, Geschichte der Himmelskunde, vol. ii. For
Kepler's superstition, see Wolf, p. 281. For Voight, see Himmels-Manaten
Reichstage, Hamburg, 1676. For both Fromundus and Voigt, see also
Madler, vol. ii, p. 399, and Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, vol. i, p.28.
II. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS TO CRUSH THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
Out of this belief was developed a great series of efforts to maintain
the theological view of comets, and to put down forever the scientific
view. These efforts may be divided into two classes: those directed
toward learned men and scholars, through the universities, and those
directed toward the people at large, through the pulpits. As to the
first of these, that learned men and scholars might be kept in the paths
of "sacred science" and "sound learning," especial pains was taken to
keep all knowledge of the scientific view of comets as far as possible
from students in the universities. Even to the end of the seventeenth
century the oath generally required of professors of astronomy over a
large part of Europe prevented their teaching that comets are heavenly
bodies obedient to law. Efforts just as earnest were made to fasten into
students' minds the theological theory. Two or three examples out of
many may serve as types. First of these may be named the teaching of
Jacob Heerbrand, professor at the University of Tubingen, who in 1577
illustrated the moral value of comets by comparing the Almighty sending
a comet, to the judge laying the executioner's sword on the table
between himself and the criminal in a court of justice; and, again, to
the father or schoolmaster displaying the rod before naughty children.
A little later we have another churchman of great importance in that
region, Schickhart, head pastor and superintendent at Goppingen,
preaching and publishing a comet sermon, in which he denounces those who
stare at such warnings of God without heeding them, and compares them
to "calves gaping at a new barn door." Still later, at the end of the
seventeenth century, we find Conrad Dieterich, director of studies at
the University of Marburg, denouncing all scientific investigation of
comets as impious, and insisting that they are only to be regarded as
"signs and wonders."(103)
(103) For the effect of the anti-Pythagorean oath, see Prowe,
Copernicus; also Madler and Wolf. For Heerbrand, see his Von dem
erschrockenlichen Wunderzeichen, Tubingen, 1577. For Schickart, see
his Predigt vom Wunderzeichen, Stuttgart, 1621. For Deiterich, see his
sermon, described more fully below.
The results of this ecclesiastical pressure upon science in the
universities were painfully shown during generation after generation, as
regards both professors and students; and examples may be given typical
of its effects upon each of these two classes.
The first of these is the case of Michael Maestlin. He was by birth a
Swabian Protestant, was educated at Tubingen as a pupil of Apian, and,
after a period of travel, was settled as deacon in the little parish
of Backnang, when the comet of 1577 gave him an occasion to apply his
astronomical studies. His minute and accurate observation of it is to
this day one of the wonders of science. It seems almost impossible that
so much could be accomplished by the naked eye. His observations agreed
with those of Tycho Brahe, and won for Maestlin the professorship of
astronomy in the University of Heidelberg. No man had so clearly proved
the supralunar position of a comet, or shown so conclusively that
its motion was not erratic, but regular. The young astronomer, though
Apian's pupil, was an avowed Copernican and the destined master and
friend of Kepler. Yet, in the treatise embodying his observations, he
felt it necessary to save his reputation for orthodoxy by calling
the comet a "new and horrible prodigy," and by giving a chapter of
"conjectures on the signification of the present comet," in which he
proves from history that this variety of comet betokens peace, but
peace purchased by a bloody victory. That he really believed in this
theological theory seems impossible; the very fact that his observations
had settled the supralunar character and regular motion of comets proves
this. It was a humiliation only to be compared to that of Osiander
when he wrote his grovelling preface to the great book of Copernicus.
Maestlin had his reward: when, a few years, later his old teacher,
Apian, was driven from his chair at Tubingen for refusing to sign the
Lutheran Concord-Book, Maestlin was elected to his place.
Not less striking was the effect of this theological pressure upon the
minds of students. Noteworthy as an example of this is the book of the
Leipsic lawyer, Buttner. From no less than eighty-six biblical texts
he proves the Almighty's purpose of using the heavenly bodies for the
instruction of men as to future events, and then proceeds to frame
exhaustive tables, from which, the time and place of the comet's first
appearance being known, its signification can be deduced. This manual
he gave forth as a triumph of religious science, under the name of the
Comet Hour-Book.(104)
(104) For Maestlin, see his Observatio et Demonstration Cometae,
Tubingen, 1578. For Buttner, see his Cometen Stundbuchlein, Leipsic,
1605.
The same devotion to the portent theory is found in the universities
of Protestant Holland. Striking is it to see in the sixteenth century,
after Tycho Brahe's discovery, the Dutch theologian, Gerard Vossius,
Professor of Theology and Eloquence at Leyden, lending his great weight
to the superstition. "The history of all times," he says, "shows comets
to be the messengers of misfortune. It does not follow that they are
endowed with intelligence, but that there is a deity who makes use of
them to call the human race to repentance." Though familiar with the
works of Tycho Brahe, he finds it "hard to believe" that all comets are
ethereal, and adduces several historical examples of sublunary ones.
Nor was this attempt to hold back university teaching to the old view of
comets confined to Protestants. The Roman Church was, if possible,
more strenuous in the same effort. A few examples will serve as types,
representing the orthodox teaching at the great centres of Catholic
theology.
One of these is seen in Spain. The eminent jurist Torreblanca was
recognised as a controlling authority in all the universities of Spain,
and from these he swayed in the seventeenth century the thought of
Catholic Europe, especially as to witchcraft and the occult powers
in Nature. He lays down the old cometary superstition as one of the
foundations of orthodox teaching: Begging the question, after the
fashion of his time, he argues that comets can not be stars, because new
stars always betoken good, while comets betoken evil.
The same teaching was given in the Catholic universities of the
Netherlands. Fromundus, at Louvain, the enemy of Galileo, steadily
continued his crusade against all cometary heresy.(105)
(105) For Vossius, see the De Idololatria (in his Opera, vol. v, pp.
283-285). For Torreblanc, see his De Magia, Seville, 1618, and often
reprinted. For Fromundus, see his Meteorologica.
But a still more striking case is seen in Italy. The reverend Father
Augustin de Angelis, rector of the Clementine College at Rome, as late
as 1673, after the new cometary theory had been placed beyond reasonable
doubt, and even while Newton was working out its final demonstration,
published a third edition of his Lectures on Meteorology. It was
dedicated to the Cardinal of Hesse, and bore the express sanction of
the Master of the Sacred Palace at Rome and of the head of the religious
order to which De Angelis belonged. This work deserves careful analysis,
not only as representing the highest and most approved university
teaching of the time at the centre of Roman Catholic Christendom, but
still more because it represents that attempt to make a compromise
between theology and science, or rather the attempt to confiscate
science to the uses of theology, which we so constantly find whenever
the triumph of science in any field has become inevitable.
As to the scientific element in this compromise, De Angelis holds, in
his general introduction regarding meteorology, that the main material
cause of comets is "exhalation," and says, "If this exhalation is thick
and sticky, it blazes into a comet." And again he returns to the
same view, saying that "one form of exhalation is dense, hence easily
inflammable and long retentive of fire, from which sort are especially
generated comets." But it is in his third lecture that he takes up
comets specially, and his discussion of them is extended through the
fourth, fifth, and sixth lectures. Having given in detail the opinions
of various theologians and philosophers, he declares his own in the form
of two conclusions. The first of these is that "comets are not heavenly
bodies, but originate in the earth's atmosphere below the moon; for
everything heavenly is eternal and incorruptible, but comets have a
beginning and ending--ergo, comets can not be heavenly bodies." This,
we may observe, is levelled at the observations and reasonings of Tycho
Brahe and Kepler, and is a very good illustration of the scholastic
and mediaeval method--the method which blots out an ascertained fact by
means of a metaphysical formula. His second conclusion is that "comets
are of elemental and sublunary nature; for they are an exhalation
hot and dry, fatty and well condensed, inflammable and kindled in
the uppermost regions of the air." He then goes on to answer sundry
objections to this mixture of metaphysics and science, and among other
things declares that "the fatty, sticky material of a comet may be
kindled from sparks falling from fiery heavenly bodies or from a
thunderbolt"; and, again, that the thick, fatty, sticky quality of the
comet holds its tail in shape, and that, so far are comets from having
their paths beyond the moon's orbit, as Tycho Brahe and Kepler thought,
he himself in 1618 saw "a bearded comet so near the summit of Vesuvius
that it almost seemed to touch it." As to sorts and qualities of
comets, he accepts Aristotle's view, and divides them into bearded and
tailed.(106) He goes on into long disquisitions upon their colours,
forms, and motions. Under this latter head he again plunges deep into
a sea of metaphysical considerations, and does not reappear until he
brings up his compromise in the opinion that their movement is as yet
uncertain and not understood, but that, if we must account definitely
for it, we must say that it is effected by angels especially assigned to
this service by Divine Providence. But, while proposing this compromise
between science and theology as to the origin and movement of comets,
he will hear to none as regards their mission as "signs and wonders" and
presages of evil. He draws up a careful table of these evils, arranging
them in the following order: Drought, wind, earthquake, tempest, famine,
pestilence, war, and, to clinch the matter, declares that the comet
observed by him in 1618 brought not only war, famine, pestilence, and
earthquake, but also a general volcanic eruption, "which would have
destroyed Naples, had not the blood of the invincible martyr Januarius
withstood it."
(106) Barbata et caudata.
It will be observed, even from this sketch, that, while the learned
Father Augustin thus comes infallibly to the mediaeval conclusion, he
does so very largely by scientific and essentially modern processes,
giving unwonted prominence to observation, and at times twisting
scientific observation into the strand with his metaphysics. The
observations and methods of his science are sometimes shrewd, sometimes
comical. Good examples of the latter sort are such as his observing that
the comet stood very near the summit of Vesuvius, and his reasoning
that its tail was kept in place by its stickiness. But observations and
reasonings of this sort are always the first homage paid by theology to
science as the end of their struggle approaches.(107)
(107) See De Angelis, Lectiones Meteorologicae, Rome, 1669.
Equally striking is an example seen a little later in another part of
Europe; and it is the more noteworthy because Halley and Newton had
already fully established the modern scientific theory. Just at the
close of the seventeenth century the Jesuit Reinzer, professor at Linz,
put forth his Meteorologia Philosophico-Politica, in which all natural
phenomena received both a physical and a moral interpretation. It was
profusely and elaborately illustrated, and on account of its instructive
contents was in 1712 translated into German for the unlearned reader.
The comet receives, of course, great attention. "It appears," says
Reinzer, "only then in the heavens when the latter punish the earth, and
through it (the comet) not only predict but bring to pass all sorts of
calamity.... And, to that end, its tail serves for a rod, its hair for
weapons and arrows, its light for a threat, and its heat for a sign of
anger and vengeance." Its warnings are threefold: (1) "Comets, generated
in the air, betoken NATURALLY drought, wind, earthquake, famine, and
pestilence." (2) "Comets can indirectly, in view of their material,
betoken wars, tumults, and the death of princes; for, being hot and
dry, they bring the moistnesses (Feuchtigkeiten) in the human body to
an extraordinary heat and dryness, increasing the gall; and, since the
emotions depend on the temperament and condition of the body, men are
through this change driven to violent deeds, quarrels, disputes, and
finally to arms: especially is this the result with princes, who
are more delicate and also more arrogant than other men, and whose
moistnesses are more liable to inflammation of this sort, inasmuch as
they live in luxury and seldom restrain themselves from those things
which in such a dry state of the heavens are especially injurious." (3)
"All comets, whatever prophetic significance they may have naturally
in and of themselves, are yet principally, according to the Divine
pleasure, heralds of the death of great princes, of war, and of other
such great calamities; and this is known and proved, first of all, from
the words of Christ himself: 'Nation shall rise against nation, and
kingdom against kingdom; and great earthquakes shall be in divers
places, and famines, and pestilences; and fearful sights and great signs
shall there be from heaven.'"(108)
(108) See Reinzer, Meteorologica Philosophico-Politica (edition of
Augsburg, 1712), pp. 101-103.
While such pains was taken to keep the more highly educated classes
in the "paths of scriptural science and sound learning;" at the
universities, equal efforts were made to preserve the cometary orthodoxy
of the people at large by means of the pulpits. Out of the mass of
sermons for this purpose which were widely circulated I will select just
two as typical, and they are worthy of careful study as showing some
special dangers of applying theological methods to scientific facts.
In the second half of the sixteenth century the recognised capital of
orthodox Lutheranism was Magdeburg, and in the region tributary to this
metropolis no Church official held a more prominent station than the
"Superintendent," or Lutheran bishop, of the neighbouring Altmark. It
was this dignitary, Andreas Celichius by name, who at Magdeburg, in
1578, gave to the press his Theological Reminder of the New Comet.
After deprecating as blasphemous the attempt of Aristotle to explain the
phenomenon otherwise than as a supernatural warning from God to sinful
man, he assures his hearers that "whoever would know the comet's real
source and nature must not merely gape and stare at the scientific
theory that it is an earthy, greasy, tough, and sticky vapour and mist,
rising into the upper air and set ablaze by the celestial heat." Far
more important for them is it to know what this vapour is. It is really,
in the opinion of Celichius, nothing more or less than "the thick smoke
of human sins, rising every day, every hour, every moment, full of
stench and horror, before the face of God, and becoming gradually so
thick as to form a comet, with curled and plaited tresses, which at last
is kindled by the hot and fiery anger of the Supreme Heavenly Judge."
He adds that it is probably only through the prayers and tears of
Christ that this blazing monument of human depravity becomes visible to
mortals. In support of this theory, he urges the "coming up before God"
of the wickedness of Sodom and Gomorrah and of Nineveh, and especially
the words of the prophet regarding Babylon, "Her stench and rottenness
is come up before me." That the anger of God can produce the
conflagration without any intervention of Nature is proved from the
Psalms, "He sendeth out his word and melteth them." From the position
of the comet, its course, and the direction of its tail he augurs
especially the near approach of the judgment day, though it may also
betoken, as usual, famine, pestilence, and war. "Yet even in these
days," he mourns, "there are people reckless and giddy enough to pay
no heed to such celestial warnings, and these even cite in their own
defence the injunction of Jeremiah not to fear signs in the heavens."
This idea he explodes, and shows that good and orthodox Christians,
while not superstitious like the heathen, know well "that God is not
bound to his creation and the ordinary course of Nature, but must often,
especially in these last dregs of the world, resort to irregular means
to display his anger at human guilt."(109)
(109) For Celichius, or Celich, see his own treatise, as above.
The other typical case occurred in the following century and in another
part of Germany. Conrad Dieterich was, during the first half of the
seventeenth century, a Lutheran ecclesiastic of the highest authority.
His ability as a theologian had made him Archdeacon of Marburg,
Professor of Philosophy and Director of Studies at the University of
Giessen, and "Superintendent," or Lutheran bishop, in southwestern
Germany. In the year 1620, on the second Sunday in Advent, in the great
Cathedral of Ulm, he developed the orthodox doctrine of comets in a
sermon, taking up the questions: 1. What are comets? 2. What do they
indicate? 3. What have we to do with their significance? This sermon
marks an epoch. Delivered in that stronghold of German Protestantism
and by a prelate of the highest standing, it was immediately printed,
prefaced by three laudatory poems from different men of note, and sent
forth to drive back the scientific, or, as it was called, the "godless,"
view of comets. The preface shows that Dieterich was sincerely alarmed
by the tendency to regard comets as natural appearances. His text was
taken from the twenty-fifth verse of the twenty-first chapter of St.
Luke: "And there shall be signs in the sun, and in the moon, and in the
stars; and upon the earth distress of nations, with perplexity; the sea
and the waves roaring." As to what comets are, he cites a multitude of
philosophers, and, finding that they differ among themselves, he uses a
form of argument not uncommon from that day to this, declaring that this
difference of opinion proves that there is no solution of the problem
save in revelation, and insisting that comets are "signs especially sent
by the Almighty to warn the earth." An additional proof of this he
finds in the forms of comets. One, he says, took the form of a trumpet;
another, of a spear; another of a goat; another, of a torch; another, of
a sword; another, of an arrow; another, of a sabre; still another, of a
bare arm. From these forms of comets he infers that we may divine their
purpose. As to their creation, he quotes John of Damascus and other
early Church authorities in behalf of the idea that each comet is a
star newly created at the Divine command, out of nothing, and that it
indicates the wrath of God. As to their purpose, having quoted largely
from the Bible and from Luther, he winds up by insisting that, as God
can make nothing in vain, comets must have some distinct object; then,
from Isaiah and Joel among the prophets, from Matthew, Mark, and
Luke among the evangelists, from Origen and John Chrysostom among the
fathers, from Luther and Melanchthon among the Reformers, he draws
various texts more or less conclusive to prove that comets indicate evil
and only evil; and he cites Luther's Advent sermon to the effect that,
though comets may arise in the course of Nature, they are still signs
of evil to mankind. In answer to the theory of sundry naturalists that
comets are made up of "a certain fiery, warm, sulphurous, saltpetery,
sticky fog," he declaims: "Our sins, our sins: they are the fiery heated
vapours, the thick, sticky, sulphurous clouds which rise from the
earth toward heaven before God." Throughout the sermon Dieterich pours
contempt over all men who simply investigate comets as natural objects,
calls special attention to a comet then in the heavens resembling a long
broom or bundle of rods, and declares that he and his hearers can only
consider it rightly "when we see standing before us our Lord God in
heaven as an angry father with a rod for his children." In answer to the
question what comets signify, he commits himself entirely to the idea
that they indicate the wrath of God, and therefore calamities of every
sort. Page after page is filled with the records of evils following
comets. Beginning with the creation of the world, he insists that
the first comet brought on the deluge of Noah, and cites a mass of
authorities, ranging from Moses and Isaiah to Albert the Great and
Melanchthon, in support of the view that comets precede earthquakes,
famines, wars, pestilences, and every form of evil. He makes some parade
of astronomical knowledge as to the greatness of the sun and moon, but
relapses soon into his old line of argument. Imploring his audience not
to be led away from the well-established belief of Christendom and the
principles of their fathers, he comes back to his old assertion, insists
that "our sins are the inflammable material of which comets are made,"
and winds up with a most earnest appeal to the Almighty to spare his
people.(110)
(110) For Deiterich, see Ulmische Cometen-Predigt, von dem Cometen, so
nechst abgewischen 1618 Jahrs im Wintermonat erstenmahls in Schwaben
sehen lassen,... gehalten zu Ulm... durch Conrad Dieterich, Ulm, 1620.
For a life of the author, see article Dieterich in the Allgemeine
Deutsche Biographie. See also Wolf.
Similar efforts from the pulpit were provoked by the great comet of
1680. Typical among these was the effort in Switzerland of Pastor
Heinrich Erni, who, from the Cathedral of Zurich, sent a circular letter
to the clergy of that region showing the connection of the eleventh and
twelfth verses of the first chapter of Jeremiah with the comet, giving
notice that at his suggestion the authorities had proclaimed a solemn
fast, and exhorting the clergy to preach earnestly on the subject of
this warning.
Nor were the interpreters of the comet's message content with simple
prose. At the appearance of the comet of 1618, Grasser and Gross,
pastors and doctors of theology at Basle, put forth a collection
of doggerel rhymes to fasten the orthodox theory into the minds of
school-children and peasants. One of these may be translated:
"I am a Rod in God's right hand threatening the German and foreign land."
Others for a similar purpose taught:
"Eight things there be a Comet brings, When it on high doth horrid
range: Wind, Famine, Plague, and Death to Kings, War, Earthquakes,
Floods, and Direful Change."
Great ingenuity was shown in meeting the advance of science, in the
universities and schools, with new texts of Scripture; and Stephen
Spleiss, Rector of the Gymnasium at Schaffhausen, got great credit by
teaching that in the vision of Jeremiah the "almond rod" was a tailed
comet, and the "seething pot" a bearded one.(111)
(111) For Erni, see Wolf, Gesch. d. Astronomie, p. 239. For Grassner and
Gross, see their Christenliches Bedenken... von dem erschrockenlichen
Cometen, etc., Zurich, 1664. For Spleiss, see Beilauftiger Bericht von
dem jetzigen Cometsternen, etc., schaffhausen, 1664.
It can be easily understood that such authoritative utterances as that
of Dieterich must have produced a great effect throughout Protestant
Christendom; and in due time we see their working in New England. That
same tendency to provincialism, which, save at rare intervals, has been
the bane of Massachusetts thought from that day to this, appeared; and
in 1664 we find Samuel Danforth arguing from the Bible that "comets
are portentous signals of great and notable changes," and arguing from
history that they "have been many times heralds of wrath to a secure and
impenitent world." He cites especially the comet of 1652, which appeared
just before Mr. Cotton's sickness and disappeared after his death.
Morton also, in his Memorial recording the death of John Putnam, alludes
to the comet of 1662 as "a very signal testimony that God had then
removed a bright star and a shining light out of the heaven of his
Church here into celestial glory above." Again he speaks of another
comet, insisting that "it was no fiery meteor caused by exhalation, but
it was sent immediately by God to awaken the secure world," and goes
on to show how in that year "it pleased God to smite the fruits of the
earth--namely, the wheat in special--with blasting and mildew, whereby
much of it was spoiled and became profitable for nothing, and much of
it worth little, being light and empty. This was looked upon by the
judicious and conscientious of the land as a speaking providence against
the unthankfulness of many,... as also against voluptuousness and abuse
of the good creatures of God by licentiousness in drinking and fashions
in apparel, for the obtaining whereof a great part of the principal
grain was oftentimes unnecessarily expended."
But in 1680 a stronger than either of these seized upon the doctrine
and wielded it with power. Increase Mather, so open always to ideas
from Europe, and always so powerful for good or evil in the cloonies,
preached his sermon on "Heaven's Alarm to the World,... wherein is shown
that fearful sights and signs in the heavens are the presages of great
calamities at hand." The texts were taken from the book of Revelation:
"And the third angel sounded, and there fell a great star from heaven,
burning, as it were a lamp," and "Behold, the third woe cometh quickly."
In this, as in various other sermons, he supports the theological
cometary theory fully. He insists that "we are fallen into the dregs
of time," and that the day of judgment is evidently approaching. He
explains away the words of Jeremiah--"Be not dismayed at signs in the
heavens"--and shows that comets have been forerunners of nearly every
form of evil. Having done full justice to evils thus presaged in
scriptural times, he begins a similar display in modern history by
citing blazing stars which foretold the invasions of Goths, Huns,
Saracens, and Turks, and warns gainsayers by citing the example of
Vespasian, who, after ridiculing a comet, soon died. The general shape
and appearance of comets, he thinks, betoken their purpose, and he cites
Tertullian to prove them "God's sharp razors on mankind, whereby he doth
poll, and his scythe whereby he doth shear down multitudes of sinful
creatures." At last, rising to a fearful height, he declares: "For the
Lord hath fired his beacon in the heavens among the stars of God there;
the fearful sight is not yet out of sight. The warning piece of heaven
is going off. Now, then, if the Lord discharge his murdering pieces from
on high, and men be found in their sins unfit for death, their blood
shall be upon them." And again, in an agony of supplication, he cries
out: "Do we see the sword blazing over us? Let it put us upon crying
to God, that the judgment be diverted and not return upon us again so
speedily.... Doth God threaten our very heavens? O pray unto him, that he
would not take away stars and send comets to succeed them."(112)
(112) For Danforth, see his Astronomical Descritption of the Late Comet
or Blazing Star, Together with a Brief Theological Application Thereof,
1664. For Morton, see his Memorial, pp. 251, 252,; also 309, 310. Texts
cited by Mather were Rev., viii, 10, and xi, 14.
Two years later, in August, 1682, he followed this with another sermon
on "The Latter Sign," "wherein is showed that the voice of God in
signal providences, especially when repeated and iterated, ought to be
hearkened unto." Here, too, of course, the comet comes in for a large
share of attention. But his tone is less sure: even in the midst of all
his arguments appears an evident misgiving. The thoughts of Newton in
science and Bayle in philosophy were evidently tending to accomplish
the prophecy of Seneca. Mather's alarm at this is clear. His natural
tendency is to uphold the idea that a comet is simply a fire-ball flung
from the hand of an avenging God at a guilty world, but he evidently
feels obliged to yield something to the scientific spirit; hence, in the
Discourse concerning Comets, published in 1683, he declares: "There are
those who think that, inasmuch as comets may be supposed to proceed from
natural causes, there is no speaking voice of Heaven in them beyond what
is to be said of all other works of God. But certain it is that many
things which may happen according to the course of Nature are portentous
signs of Divine anger and prognostics of great evils hastening upon the
world." He then notices the eclipse of August, 1672, and adds: "That
year the college was eclipsed by the death of the learned president
there, worthy Mr. Chauncey and two colonies--namely, Massachusetts and
Plymouth--by the death of two governors, who died within a twelvemonth
after.... Shall, then, such mighty works of God as comets are be
insignificant things?"(113)
(113) Increase Mather's Heaven's Alarm to the World was first printed
at Boston in 1681, but was reprinted in 1682, and was appended, with the
sermon on The Latter Sign, to the Discourse on Comets (Boston, 1683).
III. THE INVASION OF SCEPTICISM.
Vigorous as Mather's argument is, we see scepticism regarding "signs"
continuing to invade the public mind; and, in spite of his threatenings,
about twenty years after we find a remarkable evidence of this progress
in the fact that this scepticism has seized upon no less a personage
than that colossus of orthodoxy, his thrice illustrious son, Cotton
Mather himself; and him we find, in 1726, despite the arguments of his
father, declaring in his Manuductio: "Perhaps there may be some need for
me to caution you against being dismayed at the signs of the heavens,
or having any superstitious fancies upon eclipses and the like.... I am
willing that you be apprehensive of nothing portentous in blazing stars.
For my part, I know not whether all our worlds, and even the sun itself,
may not fare the better for them."(114)
(114) For Cotton Mather, see the Manuductio, pp. 54, 55.
Curiously enough, for this scientific scepticism in Cotton Mather there
was a cause identical with that which had developed superstition in the
mind of his father. The same provincial tendency to receive implicitly
any new European fashion in thinking or speech wrought upon both,
plunging one into superstition and drawing the other out of it.
European thought, which New England followed, had at last broken away in
great measure from the theological view of comets as signs and wonders.
The germ of this emancipating influence was mainly in the great
utterance of Seneca; and we find in nearly every century some evidence
that this germ was still alive. This life became more and more evident
after the Reformation period, even though theologians in every Church
did their best to destroy it. The first series of attacks on the old
theological doctrine were mainly founded in philosophic reasoning. As
early as the first half of the sixteenth century we hear Julius Caesar
Scaliger protesting against the cometary superstition as "ridiculous
folly."(115) Of more real importance was the treatise of Blaise de
Vigenere, published at Paris in 1578. In this little book various
statements regarding comets as signs of wrath or causes of evils are
given, and then followed by a very gentle and quiet discussion, usually
tending to develop that healthful scepticism which is the parent of
investigation. A fair example of his mode of treating the subject is
seen in his dealing with a bit of "sacred science." This was simply
that "comets menace princes and kings with death because they live more
delicately than other people; and, therefore, the air thickened and
corrupted by a comet would be naturally more injurious to them than to
common folk who live on coarser food." To this De Vigenere answers that
there are very many persons who live on food as delicate as that enjoyed
by princes and kings, and yet receive no harm from comets. He then goes
on to show that many of the greatest monarchs in history have met death
without any comet to herald it.
(115) For Scaliger, see p. 20 of Dudith's book, cited below.
In the same year thoughtful scepticism of a similar sort found an
advocate in another part of Europe. Thomas Erastus, the learned and
devout professor of medicine at Heidelberg, put forth a letter dealing
in the plainest terms with the superstition. He argued especially that
there could be no natural connection between the comet and pestilence,
since the burning of an exhalation must tend to purify rather than to
infect the air. In the following year the eloquent Hungarian divine
Dudith published a letter in which the theological theory was handled
even more shrewdly, for he argued that, if comets were caused by the
sins of mortals, they would never be absent from the sky. But these
utterances were for the time brushed aside by the theological leaders of
thought as shallow or impious.
In the seventeenth century able arguments against the superstition, on
general grounds, began to be multiplied. In Holland, Balthasar Bekker
opposed this, as he opposed the witchcraft delusion, on general
philosophic grounds; and Lubienitzky wrote in a compromising spirit to
prove that comets were as often followed by good as by evil events. In
France, Pierre Petit, formerly geographer of Louis XIII, and an intimate
friend of Descartes, addressed to the young Louis XIV a vehement protest
against the superstition, basing his arguments not on astronomy, but on
common sense. A very effective part of the little treatise was devoted
to answering the authority of the fathers of the early Church. To do
this, he simply reminded his readers that St. Augustine and St. John
Damascenus had also opposed the doctrine of the antipodes. The book
did good service in France, and was translated in Germany a few years
later.(116)
(116) For Blaise de Vigenere, see his Traite des Cometes, Paris, 1578.
For Dudith, see his De Cometarum Dignificatione, Basle, 1579, to which
the letter of Erastus is appended. Bekker's views may be found in
his Onderzoek van de Betekening der Cometen, Leeuwarden, 1683. For
Lubienitsky's, see his Theatrum Cometicum, Amsterdam, 1667, in part
ii: Historia Cometarum, preface "to the reader." For Petit, see his
Dissertation sur la Nature des Cometes, Paris, 1665 (German translation,
Dresden and Zittau, 1681).
All these were denounced as infidels and heretics, yet none the less did
they set men at thinking, and prepare the way for a far greater genius;
for toward the end of the same century the philosophic attack was taken
up by Pierre Bayle, and in the whole series of philosophic champions he
is chief. While professor at the University of Sedan he had observed the
alarm caused by the comet of 1680, and he now brought all his reasoning
powers to bear upon it. Thoughts deep and witty he poured out in volume
after volume. Catholics and Protestants were alike scandalized. Catholic
France spurned him, and Jurieu, the great Reformed divine, called his
cometary views "atheism," and tried hard to have Protestant Holland
condemn him. Though Bayle did not touch immediately the mass of mankind,
he wrought with power upon men who gave themselves the trouble of
thinking. It was indeed unfortunate for the Church that theologians,
instead of taking the initiative in this matter, left it to Bayle; for,
in tearing down the pretended scriptural doctrine of comets, he tore
down much else: of all men in his time, no one so thoroughly prepared
the way for Voltaire.
Bayle's whole argument is rooted in the prophecy of Seneca. He declares:
"Comets are bodies subject to the ordinary law of Nature, and not
prodigies amenable to no law." He shows historically that there is no
reason to regard comets as portents of earthly evils. As to the fact
that such evils occur after the passage of comets across the sky, he
compares the person believing that comets cause these evils to a woman
looking out of a window into a Paris street and believing that the
carriages pass because she looks out. As to the accomplishment of some
predictions, he cites the shrewd saying of Henry IV, to the effect that
"the public will remember one prediction that comes true better than all
the rest that have proved false." Finally, he sums up by saying: "The
more we study man, the more does it appear that pride is his ruling
passion, and that he affects grandeur even in his misery. Mean and
perishable creature that he is, he has been able to persuade men that he
can not die without disturbing the whole course of Nature and obliging
the heavens to put themselves to fresh expense. In order to light his
funeral pomp. Foolish and ridiculous vanity! If we had a just idea of
the universe, we should soon comprehend that the death or birth of a
prince is too insignificant a matter to stir the heavens."(117)
(117) Regarding Bayle, see Madler, Himmelskunde, vol. i, p. 327.
For special points of interest in Bayle's arguments, see his Pensees
Diverses sur les Cometes, Amsterdam, 1749, pp. 79, 102, 134, 206. For
the response to Jurieu, see the continuation des Pensees, Rotterdam,
1705; also Champion, p. 164, Lecky, ubi supra, and Guillemin, pp. 29,
30.
This great philosophic champion of right reason was followed by a
literary champion hardly less famous; for Fontenelle now gave to the
French theatre his play of The Comet, and a point of capital importance
in France was made by rendering the army of ignorance ridiculous.(118)
(118) See Fontenelle, cited by Champion, p. 167.
Such was the line of philosophic and literary attack, as developed from
Scaliger to Fontenelle. But beneath and in the midst of all of it, from
first to last, giving firmness, strength, and new sources of vitality to
it, was the steady development of scientific effort; and to the
series of great men who patiently wrought and thought out the truth by
scientific methods through all these centuries belong the honours of the
victory.
For generations men in various parts of the world had been making
careful observations on these strange bodies. As far back as the time
when Luther and Melanchthon and Zwingli were plunged into alarm by
various comets from 1531 to 1539, Peter Apian kept his head sufficiently
cool to make scientific notes of their paths through the heavens. A
little later, when the great comet of 1556 scared popes, emperors, and
reformers alike, such men as Fabricius at Vienna and Heller at Nuremberg
quietly observed its path. In vain did men like Dieterich and Heerbrand
and Celich from various parts of Germany denounce such observations and
investigations as impious; they were steadily continued, and in 1577
came the first which led to the distinct foundation of the modern
doctrine. In that year appeared a comet which again plunged Europe into
alarm. In every European country this alarm was strong, but in Germany
strongest of all. The churches were filled with terror-stricken
multitudes. Celich preaching at Magdeburg was echoed by Heerbrand
preaching at Tubingen, and both these from thousands of other pulpits,
Catholic and Protestant, throughout Europe. In the midst of all this
din and outcry a few men quietly but steadily observed the monster; and
Tycho Brahe announced, as the result, that its path lay farther from
the earth than the orbit of the moon. Another great astronomical genius,
Kepler, confirmed this. This distinct beginning of the new doctrine was
bitterly opposed by theologians; they denounced it as one of the evil
results of that scientific meddling with the designs of Providence
against which they had so long declaimed in pulpits and professors'
chairs; they even brought forward some astronomers ambitious or
wrong-headed enough to testify that Tycho and Kepler were in error.(119)
(119) See Madler, Himmelskunde, vol. i, pp. 181, 197; also Wolf, Gesch.
d. Astronomie, and Janssen, Gesch. d. deutschen Volkes, vol. v, p. 350.
Heerbrand's sermon, cited above, is a good specimen of the theologic
attitude. See Pingre, vol. ii, p. 81.
Nothing could be more natural than such opposition; for this simple
announcement by Tycho Brahe began a new era. It shook the very
foundation of cometary superstition. The Aristotelian view, developed by
the theologians, was that what lies within the moon's orbit appertains
to the earth and is essentially transitory and evil, while what lies
beyond it belongs to the heavens and is permanent, regular, and pure.
Tycho Brahe and Kepler, therefore, having by means of scientific
observation and thought taken comets out of the category of meteors and
appearances in the neighbourhood of the earth, and placed them among the
heavenly bodies, dealt a blow at the very foundations of the theological
argument, and gave a great impulse to the idea that comets are
themselves heavenly bodies moving regularly and in obedience to law.
IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.--THE FINAL VICTORY OF SCIENCE.
Attempts were now made to compromise. It was declared that, while
some comets were doubtless supralunar, some must be sublunar. But this
admission was no less fatal on another account. During many centuries
the theory favoured by the Church had been, as we have seen, that the
earth was surrounded by hollow spheres, concentric and transparent,
forming a number of glassy strata incasing one another "like the
different coatings of an onion," and that each of these in its movement
about the earth carries one or more of the heavenly bodies. Some
maintained that these spheres were crystal; but Lactantius, and with him
various fathers of the Church, spoke of the heavenly vault as made of
ice. Now, the admission that comets could move beyond the moon was fatal
to this theory, for it sent them crashing through these spheres of
ice or crystal, and therefore through the whole sacred fabric of the
Ptolemaic theory.(120)
(120) For these features in cometary theory, see Pingre, vol. i, p. 89;
also Humboldt, Cosmos (English translation, London, 1868), vol. iii, p.
169.
Here we may pause for a moment to note one of the chief differences
between scientific and theological reasoning considered in themselves.
Kepler's main reasoning as to the existence of a law for cometary
movement was right; but his secondary reasoning, that comets move nearly
in straight lines, was wrong. His right reasoning was developed by
Gassendi in France, by Borelli in Italy, by Hevel and Doerfel in
Germany, by Eysat and Bernouilli in Switzerland, by Percy and--most
important of all, as regards mathematical demonstration--by Newton
in England. The general theory, which was true, they accepted and
developed; the secondary theory, which was found untrue, they rejected;
and, as a result, both of what they thus accepted and of what they
rejected, was evolved the basis of the whole modern cometary theory.
Very different was this from the theological method. As a rule, when
there arises a thinker as great in theology as Kepler in science, the
whole mass of his conclusions ripens into a dogma. His disciples labour
not to test it, but to establish it; and while, in the Catholic Church,
it becomes a dogma to be believed or disbelieved under the penalty of
damnation, it becomes in the Protestant Church the basis for one more
sect.
Various astronomers laboured to develop the truth discovered by Tycho
and strengthened by Kepler. Cassini seemed likely to win for Italy the
glory of completing the great structure; but he was sadly fettered by
Church influences, and was obliged to leave most of the work to others.
Early among these was Hevel. He gave reasons for believing that comets
move in parabolic curves toward the sun. Then came a man who developed
this truth further--Samuel Doerfel; and it is a pleasure to note that
he was a clergyman. The comet of 1680, which set Erni in Switzerland,
Mather in New England, and so many others in all parts of the world
at declaiming, set Doerfel at thinking. Undismayed by the authority of
Origen and St. John Chrysostom, the arguments of Luther, Melanchthon,
and Zwingli, the outcries of Celich, Heerbrand, and Dieterich, he
pondered over the problem in his little Saxon parsonage, until in
1681 he set forth his proofs that comets are heavenly bodies moving in
parabolas of which the sun is the focus. Bernouilli arrived at the same
conclusion; and, finally, this great series of men and works was closed
by the greatest of all, when Newton, in 1686, having taken the data
furnished by the comet of 1680, demonstrated that comets are guided in
their movements by the same principle that controls the planets in their
orbits. Thus was completed the evolution of this new truth in science.
Yet we are not to suppose that these two great series of philosophical
and scientific victories cleared the field of all opponents. Declamation
and pretended demonstration of the old theologic view were still heard;
but the day of complete victory dawned when Halley, after most thorough
observation and calculation, recognised the comet of 1682 as one which
had already appeared at stated periods, and foretold its return in about
seventy-five years; and the battle was fully won when Clairaut, seconded
by Lalande and Mme. Lepaute, predicted distinctly the time when
the comet would arrive at its perihelion, and this prediction was
verified.(121) Then it was that a Roman heathen philosopher was proved
more infallible and more directly under Divine inspiration than a Roman
Christian pontiff; for the very comet which the traveller finds to-day
depicted on the Bayeux tapestry as portending destruction to Harold and
the Saxons at the Norman invasion of England, and which was regarded by
Pope Calixtus as portending evil to Christendom, was found six centuries
later to be, as Seneca had prophesied, a heavenly body obeying the great
laws of the universe, and coming at regular periods. Thenceforth the
whole ponderous enginery of this superstition, with its proof-texts
regarding "signs in the heavens," its theological reasoning to show
the moral necessity of cometary warnings, and its ecclesiastical
fulminations against the "atheism, godlessness, and infidelity" of
scientific investigation, was seen by all thinking men to be as weak
against the scientific method as Indian arrows against needle guns.
Copernicus, Galileo, Cassini, Doerfel, Newton, Halley, and Clairaut had
gained the victory.(122)
(121) See Pingre, vol. i, p. 53; Grant, History of Physical Astronomy,
p. 305, etc., etc. For a curious partial anticipation by Hooke, in 1664,
of the great truth announced by Halley in 1682, see Pepy's Diary for
March 1, 1664. For excellent summaries of the whole work of Halley and
Clairaut and their forerunners and associates, see Pingre, Madler, Wolf,
Arago, et al.
(122) In accordance with Halley's prophecy, the comet of 1682 has
returned in 1759 and 1835. See Madler, Guillemin, Watson, Grant,
Delambre, Proctor, article Astronomy in Encycl. Brit., and especially
for details, Wolf, pp. 407-412 and 701-722. For clear statement
regarding Doerfel, see Wolf, p. 411.
It is instructive to note, even after the main battle was lost, a
renewal of the attempt, always seen under like circumstances, to effect
a compromise, to establish a "safe science" on grounds pseudo-scientific
and pseudo-theologic. Luther, with his strong common sense, had
foreshadowed this; Kepler had expressed a willingness to accept it.
It was insisted that comets might be heavenly bodies moving in regular
orbits, and even obedient to law, and yet be sent as "signs in the
heavens." Many good men clung longingly to this phase of the old belief,
and in 1770 Semler, professor at Halle, tried to satisfy both sides. He
insisted that, while from a scientific point of view comets could not
exercise any physical influence upon the world, yet from a religious
point of view they could exercise a moral influence as reminders of the
Just Judge of the Universe.
So hard was it for good men to give up the doctrine of "signs in the
heavens," seemingly based upon Scripture and exercising such a healthful
moral tendency! As is always the case after such a defeat, these
votaries of "sacred science" exerted the greatest ingenuity in devising
statements and arguments to avert the new doctrine. Within our own
century the great Catholic champion, Joseph de Maistre, echoed these in
declaring his belief that comets are special warnings of evil. So, too,
in Protestant England, in 1818, the Gentleman's Magazine stated that
under the malign influence of a recent comet "flies became blind and
died early in the season," and "the wife of a London shoemaker had four
children at a birth." And even as late as 1829 Mr. Forster, an English
physician, published a work to prove that comets produce hot summers,
cold winters, epidemics, earthquakes, clouds of midges and locusts, and
nearly every calamity conceivable. He bore especially upon the fact that
the comet of 1665 was coincident with the plague in London, apparently
forgetting that the other great cities of England and the Continent were
not thus visited; and, in a climax, announces the fact that the comet of
1663 "made all the cats in Westphalia sick."
There still lingered one little cloud-patch of superstition, arising
mainly from the supposed fact that comets had really been followed by
a marked rise in temperature. Even this poor basis for the belief
that they might, after all, affect earthly affairs was swept away, and
science won here another victory; for Arago, by thermometric records
carefully kept at Paris from 1735 to 1781, proved that comets had
produced no effect upon temperature. Among multitudes of similar
examples he showed that, in some years when several comets appeared, the
temperature was lower than in other years when few or none appeared. In
1737 there were two comets, and the weather was cool; in 1785 there was
no comet, and the weather was hot; through the whole fifty years it was
shown that comets were sometimes followed by hot weather, sometimes
by cool, and that no rule was deducible. The victory of science was
complete at every point.(123)
(123) For Forster, see his Illustrations of the Atmospherical Origin of
Epidemic Diseases, Chelmsford, 1829, cited by Arago; also in Quarterly
Review for April, 1835. For the writings of several on both sides, and
especially those who sought to save, as far as possible, the sacred
theory of comets, see Madler, vol. ii, p. 384 et seq., and Wolf, p. 186.
But in this history there was one little exhibition so curious as to be
worthy of notice, though its permanent effect upon thought was small.
Whiston and Burnet, so devoted to what they considered sacred science,
had determined that in some way comets must be instruments of Divine
wrath. One of them maintained that the deluge was caused by the tail of
a comet striking the earth; the other put forth the theory that comets
are places of punishment for the damned--in fact, "flying hells." The
theories of Whiston and Burnet found wide acceptance also in Germany,
mainly through the all-powerful mediation of Gottsched, so long, from
his professor's chair at Leipsic, the dictator of orthodox thought,
who not only wrote a brief tractate of his own upon the subject, but
furnished a voluminous historical introduction to the more elaborate
treatise of Heyn. In this book, which appeared at Leipsic in 1742, the
agency of comets in the creation, the flood, and the final destruction
of the world is fully proved. Both these theories were, however, soon
discredited.
Perhaps the more interesting of them can best be met by another, which,
if not fully established, appears much better based--namely, that in
1868 the earth passed directly through the tail of a comet, with
no deluge, no sound of any wailings of the damned, with but slight
appearances here and there, only to be detected by the keen sight of the
meteorological or astronomical observer.
In our own country superstitious ideas regarding comets continued to
have some little currency; but their life was short. The tendency shown
by Cotton Mather, at the beginning of the eighteenth century, toward
acknowledging the victory of science, was completed by the utterances
of Winthrop, professor at Harvard, who in 1759 published two lectures
on comets, in which he simply and clearly revealed the truth, never
scoffing, but reasoning quietly and reverently. In one passage he says:
"To be thrown into a panic whenever a comet appears, on account of the
ill effects which some few of them might possibly produce, if they were
not under proper direction, betrays a weakness unbecoming a reasonable
being."
A happy influence in this respect was exercised on both continents by
John Wesley. Tenaciously as he had held to the supposed scriptural view
in so many other matters of science, in this he allowed his reason
to prevail, accepted the demonstrations of Halley, and gloried in
them.(124)
(124) For Heyn, see his Versuch einer Betrachtung uber die cometun, die
Sundfluth und das Vorspeil des jungsten Gerichts, Leipsic, 1742. A Latin
version, of the same year, bears the title, Specimen Cometologiae Sacre.
For the theory that the earth encountered the tail of a comet, see
Guillemin and Watson. For survival of the old idea in America, see a
Sermon of Israel Loring, of Sudbury, published in 1722. For Prof.
J. Winthrop, see his Comets. For Wesley, see his Natural Philosophy,
London, 1784, vol. iii, p. 303.
The victory was indeed complete. Happily, none of the fears expressed by
Conrad Dieterich and Increase Mather were realized. No catastrophe has
ensued either to religion or to morals. In the realm of religion the
Psalms of David remain no less beautiful, the great utterances of the
Hebrew prophets no less powerful; the Sermon on the Mount, "the first
commandment, and the second, which is like unto it," the definition
of "pure religion and undefiled" by St. James, appeal no less to
the deepest things in the human heart. In the realm of morals, too,
serviceable as the idea of firebrands thrown by the right hand of
an avenging God to scare a naughty world might seem, any competent
historian must find that the destruction of the old theological cometary
theory was followed by moral improvement rather than by deterioration.
We have but to compare the general moral tone of society to-day,
wretchedly imperfect as it is, with that existing in the time when this
superstition had its strongest hold. We have only to compare the court
of Henry VIII with the court of Victoria, the reign of the later Valois
and earlier Bourbon princes with the present French Republic, the period
of the Medici and Sforzas and Borgias with the period of Leo XIII and
Humbert, the monstrous wickedness of the Thirty Years' War with the
ennobling patriotism of the Franco-Prussian struggle, and the despotism
of the miserable German princelings of the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries with the reign of the Emperor William. The gain is not simply
that mankind has arrived at a clearer conception of law in the universe;
not merely that thinking men see more clearly that we are part of a
system not requiring constant patching and arbitrary interference; but
perhaps best of all is the fact that science has cleared away one more
series of those dogmas which tend to debase rather than to develop man's
whole moral and religious nature. In this emancipation from terror and
fanaticism, as in so many other results of scientific thinking, we have
a proof of the inspiration of those great words, "THE TRUTH SHALL MAKE
YOU FREE."
CHAPTER V. FROM GENESIS TO GEOLOGY.
I. GROWTH OF THEOLOGICAL EXPLANATIONS.
Among the philosophers of Greece we find, even at an early period, germs
of geological truth, and, what is of vast importance, an atmosphere
in which such germs could grow. These germs were transmitted to Roman
thought; an atmosphere of tolerance continued; there was nothing which
forbade unfettered reasoning regarding either the earth's strata or
the remains of former life found in them, and under the Roman Empire a
period of fruitful observation seemed sure to begin.
But, as Christianity took control of the world, there came a great
change. The earliest attitude of the Church toward geology and its
kindred sciences was indifferent, and even contemptuous. According to
the prevailing belief, the earth was a "fallen world," and was soon
to be destroyed. Why, then, should it be studied? Why, indeed, give a
thought to it? The scorn which Lactantius and St. Augustine had cast
upon the study of astronomy was extended largely to other sciences.
(125)
(125) For a compact and admirable statement as to the dawn of geological
conceptions in Greece and Rome, see Mr. Lester Ward's essay on
paleobotany in the Fifth Annual Report of the United States Geological
Survey, for 1883-'84. As to the reasons why Greek philosophers did
comparatively so little for geology, see D'Archiac, Geologie, p. 18. For
the contempt felt by Lactantius and St. Augustine toward astronomical
science, see foregoing chapters on Astronomy and Geography.
But the germs of scientific knowledge and thought developed in the
ancient world could be entirely smothered neither by eloquence nor by
logic; some little scientific observation must be allowed, though all
close reasoning upon it was fettered by theology. Thus it was that St.
Jerome insisted that the broken and twisted crust of the earth exhibits
the wrath of God against sin, and Tertullian asserted that fossils
resulted from the flood of Noah.
To keep all such observation and reasoning within orthodox limits, St.
Augustine, about the beginning of the fifth century, began an effort to
develop from these germs a growth in science which should be sacred and
safe. With this intent he prepared his great commentary on the work of
creation, as depicted in Genesis, besides dwelling upon the subject in
other writings. Once engaged in this work, he gave himself to it more
earnestly than any other of the earlier fathers ever did; but his vast
powers of research and thought were not directed to actual observation
or reasoning upon observation. The keynote of his whole method is seen
in his famous phrase, "Nothing is to be accepted save on the authority
of Scripture, since greater is that authority than all the powers of
the human mind." All his thought was given to studying the letter of
the sacred text, and to making it explain natural phenomena by methods
purely theological.(126)
(126) For citations and authorities on these points, see the chapter on
Meteorology.
Among the many questions he then raised and discussed may be mentioned
such as these: "What caused the creation of the stars on the fourth
day?" "Were beasts of prey and venomous animals created before, or
after, the fall of Adam? If before, how can their creation be reconciled
with God's goodness; if afterward, how can their creation be reconciled
to the letter of God's Word?" "Why were only beasts and birds brought
before Adam to be named, and not fishes and marine animals?" "Why did
the Creator not say, 'Be fruitful and multiply,' to plants as well as to
animals?"(127)
(127) See Augustine, De Genesi, ii, 13, 15, et seq.; ix, 12 et seq. For
the reference to St. Jerome, see Shields, Final Philosophy, p. 119; also
Leyell, Introduction to Geology, vol. i, chap. ii.
Sundry answers to these and similar questions formed the main
contributions of the greatest of the Latin fathers to the scientific
knowledge of the world, after a most thorough study of the biblical text
and a most profound application of theological reasoning. The results
of these contributions were most important. In this, as in so many
other fields, Augustine gave direction to the main current of thought in
western Europe, Catholic and Protestant, for nearly thirteen centuries.
In the ages that succeeded, the vast majority of prominent scholars
followed him implicitly. Even so strong a man as Pope Gregory the Great
yielded to his influence, and such leaders of thought as St. Isidore,
in the seventh century, and the Venerable Bede, in the eighth, planting
themselves upon Augustine's premises, only ventured timidly to extend
their conclusions upon lines he had laid down.
In his great work on Etymologies, Isidore took up Augustine's attempt to
bring the creation into satisfactory relations with the book of Genesis,
and, as to fossil remains, he, like Tertullian, thought that they
resulted from the Flood of Noah. In the following century Bede developed
the same orthodox traditions.(128)
(128) For Isidore, see the Etymologiae, xi, 4, xiii, 22. For Bede, see
the Hexaemeron, i, ii, in Migne, tome xci.
The best guess, in a geological sense, among the followers of St.
Augustine was made by an Irish monkish scholar, who, in order to
diminish the difficulty arising from the distribution of animals,
especially in view of the fact that the same animals are found in
Ireland as in England, held that various lands now separated were once
connected. But, alas! the exigencies of theology forced him to place
their separation later than the Flood. Happily for him, such facts were
not yet known as that the kangaroo is found only on an island in
the South Pacific, and must therefore, according to his theory, have
migrated thither with all his progeny, and along a causeway so
curiously constructed that none of the beasts of prey, who were his
fellow-voyagers in the ark, could follow him.
These general lines of thought upon geology and its kindred science of
zoology were followed by St. Thomas Aquinas and by the whole body
of medieval theologians, so far as they gave any attention to such
subjects.
The next development of geology, mainly under Church guidance, was by
means of the scholastic theology. Phrase-making was substituted for
investigation. Without the Church and within it wonderful contributions
were thus made. In the eleventh century Avicenna accounted for the
fossils by suggesting a "stone-making force";(129) in the thirteenth,
Albert the Great attributed them to a "formative quality;"(130) in the
following centuries some philosophers ventured the idea that they grew
from seed; and the Aristotelian doctrine of spontaneous generation was
constantly used to prove that these stony fossils possessed powers of
reproduction like plants and animals.(131)
(129) Vis lapidifica.
(130) Virtus formativa.
(131) See authorities given in Mr. Ward's assay, as above.
Still, at various times and places, germs implanted by Greek and Roman
thought were warmed into life. The Arabian schools seem to have been
less fettered by the letter of the Koran than the contemporary Christian
scholars by the letter of the Bible; and to Avicenna belongs the credit
of first announcing substantially the modern geological theory of
changes in the earth's surface.(132)
(132) For Avicenna, see Lyell and D'Archiac.
The direct influence of the Reformation was at first unfavourable to
scientific progress, for nothing could be more at variance with any
scientific theory of the development of the universe than the ideas of
the Protestant leaders. That strict adherence to the text of Scripture
which made Luther and Melanchthon denounce the idea that the planets
revolve about the sun, was naturally extended to every other scientific
statement at variance with the sacred text. There is much reason to
believe that the fetters upon scientific thought were closer under the
strict interpretation of Scripture by the early Protestants than they
had been under the older Church. The dominant spirit among the Reformers
is shown by the declaration of Peter Martyr to the effect that, if
a wrong opinion should obtain regarding the creation as described in
Genesis, "all the promises of Christ fall into nothing, and all the life
of our religion would be lost."(133)
(133) See his Commentary on Genesis, cited by Zoeckler, Geschichte der
Beziehungen zwischen Theologie und Naturwissenschaft, vol. i, p. 690.
In the times immediately succeeding the Reformation matters went from
bad to worse. Under Luther and Melanchthon there was some little freedom
of speculation, but under their successors there was none; to question
any interpretation of Luther came to be thought almost as wicked as
to question the literal interpretation of the Scriptures themselves.
Examples of this are seen in the struggles between those who held that
birds were created entirely from water and those who held that they were
created out of water and mud. In the city of Lubeck, the ancient centre
of the Hanseatic League, close at the beginning of the seventeenth
century, Pfeiffer, "General Superintendent" or bishop in those parts,
published his Pansophia Mosaica, calculated, as he believed, to beat
back science forever. In a long series of declamations he insisted that
in the strict text of Genesis alone is safety, that it contains all
wisdom and knowledge, human and divine. This being the case, who could
care to waste time on the study of material things and give thought to
the structure of the world? Above all, who, after such a proclamation
by such a ruler in the Lutheran Israel, would dare to talk of the "days"
mentioned in Genesis as "periods of time"; or of the "firmament" as not
meaning a solid vault over the universe; or of the "waters above the
heavens" as not contained in a vast cistern supported by the heavenly
vault; or of the "windows of heaven" as a figure of speech?(134)
(134) For Pfeiffer, see Zoeckler, vol. i, pp. 688, 689.
In England the same spirit was shown even as late as the time of
Sir Matthew Hale. We find in his book on the Origination of Mankind,
published in 1685, the strictest devotion to a theory of creation based
upon the mere letter of Scripture, and a complete inability to draw
knowledge regarding the earth's origin and structure from any other
source.
While the Lutheran, Calvinistic, and Anglican Reformers clung to literal
interpretations of the sacred books, and turned their faces away from
scientific investigation, it was among their contemporaries at the
revival of learning that there began to arise fruitful thought in this
field. Then it was, about the beginning of the sixteenth century, that
Leonardo da Vinci, as great a genius in science as in art, broached
the true idea as to the origin of fossil remains; and his compatriot,
Fracastoro, developed this on the modern lines of thought. Others in
other parts of Europe took up the idea, and, while mixing with it many
crudities, drew from it more and more truth. Toward the end of the
sixteenth century Bernard Palissy, in France, took hold of it with the
same genius which he showed in artistic creation; but, remarkable as
were his assertions of scientific realities, they could gain little
hearing. Theologians, philosophers, and even some scientific men of
value, under the sway of scholastic phrases, continued to insist upon
such explanations as that fossils were the product of "fatty matter set
into a fermentation by heat"; or of a "lapidific juice";(135) or of
a "seminal air";(136) or of a "tumultuous movement of terrestrial
exhalations"; and there was a prevailing belief that fossil remains, in
general, might be brought under the head of "sports of Nature," a pious
turn being given to this phrase by the suggestion that these "sports"
indicated some inscrutable purpose of the Almighty.
(135) Succus lapidificus.
(136) Aura seminalis.
This remained a leading orthodox mode of explanation in the Church,
Catholic and Protestant, for centuries.
II. EFFORTS TO SUPPRESS THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
But the scientific method could not be entirely hidden; and, near the
beginning of the seventeenth century, De Clave, Bitaud, and De Villon
revived it in France. Straightway the theological faculty of Paris
protested against the scientific doctrine as unscriptural, destroyed the
offending treatises, banished their authors from Paris, and forbade them
to live in towns or enter places of public resort.(137)
(137) See Morley, Life of Palissy the Potter, vol. ii, p. 315 et seq.
The champions of science, though depressed for a time, quietly laboured
on, especially in Italy. Half a century later, Steno, a Dane, and
Scilla, an Italian, went still further in the right direction; and,
though they and their disciples took great pains to throw a tub to the
whale, in the shape of sundry vague concessions to the Genesis legends,
they developed geological truth more and more.
In France, the old theological spirit remained exceedingly powerful.
About the middle of the eighteenth century Buffon made another attempt
to state simple geological truths; but the theological faculty of the
Sorbonne dragged him at once from his high position, forced him to
recant ignominiously, and to print his recantation. It runs as follows:
"I declare that I had no intention to contradict the text of Scripture;
that I believe most firmly all therein related about the creation, both
as to order of time and matter of fact. I abandon everything in my book
respecting the formation of the earth, and generally all which may be
contrary to the narrative of Moses." This humiliating document reminds
us painfully of that forced upon Galileo a hundred years before.
It has been well observed by one of the greatest of modern authorities
that the doctrine which Buffon thus "abandoned" is as firmly established
as that of the earth's rotation upon its axis.(138) Yet one hundred
and fifty years were required to secure for it even a fair hearing; the
prevailing doctrine of the Church continued to be that "all things were
made at the beginning of the world," and that to say that stones
and fossils were made before or since "the beginning" is contrary
to Scripture. Again we find theological substitutes for scientific
explanation ripening into phrases more and more hollow--making fossils
"sports of Nature," or "mineral concretions," or "creations of plastic
force," or "models" made by the Creator before he had fully decided upon
the best manner of creating various beings.
(138) See citation and remark in Lyell's Principles of Geology, chap.
iii, p. 57; also Huxley, Essays on Controverted Questions, p. 62.
Of this period, when theological substitutes for science were carrying
all before them, there still exists a monument commemorating at the
same time a farce and a tragedy. This is the work of Johann Beringer,
professor in the University of Wurzburg and private physician to
the Prince-Bishop--the treatise bearing the title Lithographiae
Wirceburgensis Specimen Primum, "illustrated with the marvellous
likenesses of two hundred figured or rather insectiform stones."
Beringer, for the greater glory of God, had previously committed
himself so completely to the theory that fossils are simply "stones of
a peculiar sort, hidden by the Author of Nature for his own
pleasure,"(139) that some of his students determined to give his faith
in that pious doctrine a thorough trial. They therefore prepared a
collection of sham fossils in baked clay, imitating not only plants,
reptiles, and fishes of every sort that their knowledge or imagination
could suggest, but even Hebrew and Syriac inscriptions, one of them
the name of the Almighty; and these they buried in a place where the
professor was wont to search for specimens. The joy of Beringer on
unearthing these proofs of the immediate agency of the finger of God in
creating fossils knew no bounds. At great cost he prepared this book,
whose twenty-two elaborate plates of facsimiles were forever to settle
the question in favour of theology and against science, and prefixed to
the work an allegorical title page, wherein not only the glory of his
own sovereign, but that of heaven itself, was pictured as based upon a
pyramid of these miraculous fossils. So robust was his faith that not
even a premature exposure of the fraud could dissuade him from the
publication of his book. Dismissing in one contemptuous chapter this
exposure as a slander by his rivals, he appealed to the learned world.
But the shout of laughter that welcomed the work soon convinced even its
author. In vain did he try to suppress it; and, according to tradition,
having wasted his fortune in vain attempts to buy up all the copies of
it, and being taunted by the rivals whom he had thought to overwhelm, he
died of chagrin. Even death did not end his misfortunes. The copies
of the first edition having been sold by a graceless descendant to a
Leipsic bookseller, a second edition was brought out under a new title,
and this, too, is now much sought as a precious memorial of human
credulity.(140)
(139) See Beringer's Lithographiae, etc., p. 91.
(140) See Carus, Geschichte der Zoologie, Munich, 1872, p. 467, note,
and Reusch, Bibel und Natur, p. 197. A list of authorities upon this
episode, with the text of one of the epigrams circulated at poor
Beringer's expense, is given by Dr. Reuss in the Serapeum for 1852, p.
203. The book itself (the original impression) is in the White Library
at Cornell University. For Beringer himself, see especially the
encyclopedia of Ersch and Gruber, and the Allgemeine deutsche
Biographie.
But even this discomfiture did not end the idea which had caused
it, for, although some latitude was allowed among the various
theologico-scientific explanations, it was still held meritorious
to believe that all fossils were placed in the strata on one of the
creative days by the hand of the Almighty, and that this was done for
some mysterious purpose, probably for the trial of human faith.
Strange as it may at first seem, the theological war against a
scientific method in geology was waged more fiercely in Protestant
countries than in Catholic. The older Church had learned by her costly
mistakes, especially in the cases of Copernicus and Galileo, what
dangers to her claim of infallibility lay in meddling with a growing
science. In Italy, therefore, comparatively little opposition was made,
while England furnished the most bitter opponents to geology so long as
the controversy could be maintained, and the most active negotiators in
patching up a truce on the basis of a sham science afterward. The Church
of England did, indeed, produce some noble men, like Bishop Clayton
and John Mitchell, who stood firmly by the scientific method; but these
appear generally to have been overwhelmed by a chorus of churchmen and
dissenters, whose mixtures of theology and science, sometimes tragic in
their results and sometimes comic, are among the most instructive things
in modern history.(141)
(141) For a comparison between the conduct of Italian and English
ecclesiastics as regards geology, see Lyell, Principles of Geology,
tenth English edition, vol. i, p. 33. For a philosophical statement of
reasons why the struggle was more bitter and the attempt at deceptive
compromises more absurd in England than elsewhere, see Maury,
L'Ancienne Academie des Sciences, second edition, p. 152. For very
frank confessions of the reasons why the Catholic Church has become
more careful in her dealings with science, see Roberts, The Pontifical
Decrees against the Earth's Movement, London, 1885, especially pp. 94
and 132, 133, and St. George Mivart's article in the Nineteenth Century
for July 1885. The first of these gentlemen, it must not be forgotten,
is a Roman Catholic clergyman and the second an eminent layman of the
same Church, and both admit that it was the Pope, speaking ex cathedra,
who erred in the Galileo case; but their explanation is that God allowed
the Pope and Church to fall into this grievous error, which has cost so
dear, in order to show once and for all that the Church has no right to
decide questions in Science.
We have already noted that there are generally three periods or phases
in a theological attack upon any science. The first of these is marked
by the general use of scriptural texts and statements against the new
scientific doctrine; the third by attempts at compromise by means of
far-fetched reconciliations of textual statements with ascertained fact;
but the second or intermediate period between these two is frequently
marked by the pitting against science of some great doctrine in
theology. We saw this in astronomy, when Bellarmin and his followers
insisted that the scientific doctrine of the earth revolving about the
sun is contrary to the theological doctrine of the incarnation. So now
against geology it was urged that the scientific doctrine that fossils
represent animals which died before Adam contradicts the theological
doctrine of Adam's fall and the statement that "death entered the world
by sin."
In this second stage of the theological struggle with geology, England
was especially fruitful in champions of orthodoxy, first among whom may
be named Thomas Burnet. In the last quarter of the seventeenth century,
just at the time when Newton's great discovery was given to the
world, Burnet issued his Sacred Theory of the Earth. His position was
commanding; he was a royal chaplain and a cabinet officer. Planting
himself upon the famous text in the second epistle of Peter,(142) he
declares that the flood had destroyed the old and created a new world.
The Newtonian theory he refuses to accept. In his theory of the deluge
he lays less stress upon the "opening of the windows of heaven" than
upon the "breaking up of the fountains of the great deep." On this
latter point he comes forth with great strength. His theory is that
the earth is hollow, and filled with fluid like an egg. Mixing together
sundry texts from Genesis and from the second epistle of Peter, the
theological doctrine of the "Fall," an astronomical theory regarding the
ecliptic, and various notions adapted from Descartes, he insisted that,
before sin brought on the Deluge, the earth was of perfect mathematical
form, smooth and beautiful, "like an egg," with neither seas nor islands
nor valleys nor rocks, "with not a wrinkle, scar, or fracture," and that
all creation was equally perfect.
(142) See II Peter iii, 6.
In the second book of his great work Burnet went still further. As in
his first book he had mixed his texts of Genesis and St. Peter with
Descartes, he now mixed the account of the Garden of Eden in Genesis
with heathen legends of the golden age, and concluded that before the
flood there was over the whole earth perpetual spring, disturbed by no
rain more severe than the falling of the dew.
In addition to his other grounds for denying the earlier existence of
the sea, he assigned the reason that, if there had been a sea before
the Deluge, sinners would have learned to build ships, and so, when the
Deluge set in, could have saved themselves.
The work was written with much power, and attracted universal attention.
It was translated into various languages, and called forth a multitude
of supporters and opponents in all parts of Europe. Strong men rose
against it, especially in England, and among them a few dignitaries of
the Church; but the Church generally hailed the work with joy. Addison
praised it in a Latin ode, and for nearly a century it exercised a
strong influence upon European feeling, and aided to plant more deeply
than ever the theological opinion that the earth as now existing
is merely a ruin; whereas, before sin brought on the Flood, it was
beautiful in its "egg-shaped form," and free from every imperfection.
A few years later came another writer of the highest standing--William
Whiston, professor at Cambridge, who in 1696 published his New Theory
of the Earth. Unlike Burnet, he endeavoured to avail himself of the
Newtonian idea, and brought in, to aid the geological catastrophe caused
by human sin, a comet, which broke open "the fountains of the great
deep."
But, far more important than either of these champions, there arose in
the eighteenth century, to aid in the subjection of science to theology,
three men of extraordinary power--John Wesley, Adam Clarke, and Richard
Watson. All three were men of striking intellectual gifts, lofty
character, and noble purpose, and the first-named one of the greatest
men in English history; yet we find them in geology hopelessly fettered
by the mere letter of Scripture, and by a temporary phase in theology.
As in regard to witchcraft and the doctrine of comets, so in regard to
geology, this theological view drew Wesley into enormous error.(143)
The great doctrine which Wesley, Watson, Clarke, and their compeers,
following St. Augustine, Bede, Peter Lombard, and a long line of the
greatest minds in the universal Church, thought it especially necessary
to uphold against geologists was, that death entered the world by
sin--by the first transgression of Adam and Eve. The extent to which the
supposed necessity of upholding this doctrine carried Wesley seems now
almost beyond belief. Basing his theology on the declaration that the
Almighty after creation found the earth and all created things "very
good," he declares, in his sermon on the Cause and Cure of Earthquakes,
that no one who believes the Scriptures can deny that "sin is the moral
cause of earthquakes, whatever their natural cause may be." Again,
he declares that earthquakes are the "effect of that curse which was
brought upon the earth by the original transgression." Bringing into
connection with Genesis the declaration of St. Paul that "the whole
creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now," he finds
additional scriptural proof that the earthquakes were the result of
Adam's fall. He declares, in his sermon on God's Approbation of His
Works, that "before the sin of Adam there were no agitations within
the bowels of the earth, no violent convulsions, no concussions of the
earth, no earthquakes, but all was unmoved as the pillars of heaven.
There were then no such things as eruptions of fires; no volcanoes or
burning mountains." Of course, a science which showed that earthquakes
had been in operation for ages before the appearance of man on the
planet, and which showed, also, that those very earthquakes which he
considered as curses resultant upon the Fall were really blessings,
producing the fissures in which we find today those mineral veins so
essential to modern civilization, was entirely beyond his comprehension.
He insists that earthquakes are "God's strange works of judgment, the
proper effect and punishment of sin."
(143) For his statement that "the giving up of witchcraft is in effect
the giving up of the Bible," see Welsey's Journal, 1766-'68.
So, too, as to death and pain. In his sermon on the Fall of Man he
took the ground that death and pain entered the world by Adam's
transgression, insisting that the carnage now going on among animals is
the result of Adam's sin. Speaking of the birds, beasts, and insects, he
says that, before sin entered the world by Adam's fall, "none of these
attempted to devour or in any way hurt one another"; that "the spider
was then as harmless as the fly and did not then lie in wait for blood."
Here, again, Wesley arrayed his early followers against geology, which
reveals, in the fossil remains of carnivorous animals, pain and death
countless ages before the appearance of man. The half-digested fragments
of weaker animals within the fossilized bodies of the stronger have
destroyed all Wesley's arguments in behalf of his great theory.(144)
(144) See Wesley's sermon on God's Approbation of His Works, parts xi
and xii.
Dr. Adam Clarke held similar views. He insisted that thorns and thistles
were given as a curse to human labour, on account of Adam's sin, and
appeared upon the earth for the first time after Adam's fall. So, too,
Richard Watson, the most prolific writer of the great evangelical reform
period, and the author of the Institutes, the standard theological
treatise on the evangelical side, says, in a chapter treating of the
Fall, and especially of the serpent which tempted Eve: "We have no
reason at all to believe that the animal had a serpentine form in any
mode or degree until his transformation. That he was then degraded to
a reptile, to go upon his belly, imports, on the contrary, an entire
alteration and loss of the original form." All that admirable adjustment
of the serpent to its environment which delights naturalists was to the
Wesleyan divine simply an evil result of the sin of Adam and Eve. Yet
here again geology was obliged to confront theology in revealing the
PYTHON in the Eocene, ages before man appeared.(145)
(145) See Westminster Review, October, 1870, article on John Wesley's
Cosmogony, with citations from Wesley's Sermons, Watson's Institutes of
Theology, Adam Clarke's Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, etc.
The immediate results of such teaching by such men was to throw many who
would otherwise have resorted to observation and investigation back upon
scholastic methods. Again reappears the old system of solving the riddle
by phrases. In 1733, Dr. Theodore Arnold urged the theory of "models,"
and insisted that fossils result from "infinitesimal particles brought
together in the creation to form the outline of all the creatures
and objects upon and within the earth"; and Arnold's work gained wide
acceptance.(146)
(146) See citation in Mr. Ward's article, as above, p. 390.
Such was the influence of this succession of great men that toward the
close of the last century the English opponents of geology on biblical
grounds seemed likely to sweep all before them. Cramping our whole
inheritance of sacred literature within the rules of a historical
compend, they showed the terrible dangers arising from the revelations
of geology, which make the earth older than the six thousand years
required by Archbishop Usher's interpretation of the Old Testament.
Nor was this feeling confined to ecclesiastics. Williams, a thoughtful
layman, declared that such researches led to infidelity and atheism, and
are "nothing less than to depose the Almighty Creator of the universe
from his office." The poet Cowper, one of the mildest of men, was also
roused by these dangers, and in his most elaborate poem wrote:
"Some drill and bore
The solid earth, and from the strata there Extract a register, by
which we learn That He who made it, and revealed its date To Moses, was
mistaken in its age!"
John Howard summoned England to oppose "those scientific systems which
are calculated to tear up in the public mind every remaining attachment
to Christianity."
With this special attack upon geological science by means of the dogma
of Adam's fall, the more general attack by the literal interpretation
of the text was continued. The legendary husks and rinds of our sacred
books were insisted upon as equally precious and nutritious with the
great moral and religious truths which they envelop. Especially precious
were the six days--each "the evening and the morning"--and the exact
statements as to the time when each part of creation came into being. To
save these, the struggle became more and more desperate.
Difficult as it is to realize it now, within the memory of many now
living the battle was still raging most fiercely in England, and both
kinds of artillery usually brought against a new science were in full
play, and filling the civilized world with their roar.
About half a century since, the Rev. J. Mellor Brown, the Rev. Henry
Cole, and others were hurling at all geologists alike, and especially at
such Christian scholars as Dr. Buckland and Dean Conybeare and Pye Smith
and Prof. Sedgwick, the epithets of "infidel," "impugner of the sacred
record," and "assailant of the volume of God."(147)
(147) For these citations, see Lyell, Principles of Geology,
introduction.
The favourite weapon of the orthodox party was the charge that the
geologists were "attacking the truth of God." They declared geology
"not a subject of lawful inquiry," denouncing it as "a dark art," as
"dangerous and disreputable," as "a forbidden province," as
"infernal artillery," and as "an awful evasion of the testimony of
revelation."(148)
(148) See Pye Smith, D. D., Geology and Scripture, pp. 156, 157, 168,
169.
This attempt to scare men from the science having failed, various other
means were taken. To say nothing about England, it is humiliating to
human nature to remember the annoyances, and even trials, to which the
pettiest and narrowest of men subjected such Christian scholars in our
own country as Benjamin Silliman and Edward Hitchcock and Louis Agassiz.
But it is a duty and a pleasure to state here that one great Christian
scholar did honour to religion and to himself by quietly accepting
the claims of science and making the best of them, despite all these
clamours. This man was Nicholas Wiseman, better known afterward as
Cardinal Wiseman. The conduct of this pillar of the Roman Catholic
Church contrasts admirably with that of timid Protestants, who were
filling England with shrieks and denunciations.(149)
(149) Wiseman, Twelve Lectures on the Connection between Science and
Revealed Religion, first American edition, New York, 1837. As to the
comparative severity of the struggle regarding astronomy, geology, etc.,
in the Catholic and Protestant countries, see Lecky's England in the
Eighteenth Century, chap. ix, p. 525.
And here let it be noted that one of the most interesting skirmishes
in this war occurred in New England. Prof. Stuart, of Andover, justly
honoured as a Hebrew scholar, declared that to speak of six periods of
time for the creation was flying in the face of Scripture; that Genesis
expressly speaks of six days, each made up of "the evening and the
morning," and not six periods of time.
To him replied a professor in Yale College, James Kingsley. In an
article admirable for keen wit and kindly temper, he showed that Genesis
speaks just as clearly of a solid firmament as of six ordinary days,
and that, if Prof. Stuart had surmounted one difficulty and accepted
the Copernican theory, he might as well get over another and accept the
revelations of geology. The encounter was quick and decisive, and the
victory was with science and the broader scholarship of Yale.(150)
(150) See Silliman's Journal, vol. xxx, p. 114.
Perhaps the most singular attempt against geology was made by a fine
survival of the eighteenth century Don--Dean Cockburn, of York--to SCOLD
its champions off the field. Having no adequate knowledge of the new
science, he opened a battery of abuse, giving it to the world at large
from the pulpit and through the press, and even through private letters.
From his pulpit in York Minster he denounced Mary Somerville by name for
those studies in physical geography which have made her name honoured
throughout the world.
But the special object of his antipathy was the British Association for
the Advancement of Science. He issued a pamphlet against it which
went through five editions in two years, sent solemn warnings to its
president, and in various ways made life a burden to Sedgwick, Buckland,
and other eminent investigators who ventured to state geological facts
as they found them.
These weapons were soon seen to be ineffective; they were like Chinese
gongs and dragon lanterns against rifled cannon; the work of science
went steadily on.(151)
(151) Prof. Goldwin Smith informs me that the papers of Sir Robert Peel,
yet unpublished, contain very curious specimens of the epistles of Dean
Cockburn. See also Personal Recollections of Mary Somerville, Boston,
1874, pp. 139 and 375. Compare with any statement of his religious views
that Dean Cockburn was able to make, the following from Mrs. Somerville:
"Nothing has afforded me so convincing a proof of the Deity as these
purely mental conceptions of numerical and mathematical science which
have been, by slow degrees, vouchsafed to man--and are still granted
in these latter times by the differential calculus, now superseded by
the higher algebra--all of which must have existed in that sublimely
omniscient mind from eternity." See also The Life and Letters of Adam
Sedgwick, Cambridge, 1890, vol. ii, pp. 76 and following.
III. THE FIRST GREAT EFFORT AT COMPROMISE, BASED ON THE FLOOD OF NOAH.
Long before the end of the struggle already described, even at a very
early period, the futility of the usual scholastic weapons had been
seen by the more keen-sighted champions of orthodoxy; and, as the
difficulties of the ordinary attack upon science became more and more
evident, many of these champions endeavoured to patch up a truce. So
began the third stage in the war--the period of attempts at compromise.
The position which the compromise party took was that the fossils were
produced by the Deluge of Noah.
This position was strong, for it was apparently based upon Scripture.
Moreover, it had high ecclesiastical sanction, some of the fathers
having held that fossil remains, even on the highest mountains,
represented animals destroyed at the Deluge. Tertullian was especially
firm on this point, and St. Augustine thought that a fossil tooth
discovered in North Africa must have belonged to one of the giants
mentioned in Scripture.(152)
(152) For Tertullian, see his De Pallio, c. ii (Migne, Patr. Lat.,
vol. ii, p. 1033). For Augustine's view, see Cuvier, Recherches sur les
Ossements fossiles, fourth edition, vol. ii, p. 143.
In the sixteenth century especially, weight began to be attached to
this idea by those who felt the worthlessness of various scholastic
explanations. Strong men in both the Catholic and the Protestant camps
accepted it; but the man who did most to give it an impulse into modern
theology was Martin Luther. He easily saw that scholastic phrase-making
could not meet the difficulties raised by fossils, and he naturally
urged the doctrine of their origin at Noah's Flood.(153)
(153) For Luther's opinion, see his Commentary on Genesis.
With such support, it soon became the dominant theory in Christendom:
nothing seemed able to stand against it; but before the end of the same
sixteenth century it met some serious obstacles. Bernard Palissy, one of
the most keen-sighted of scientific thinkers in France, as well as one
of the most devoted of Christians, showed that it was utterly untenable.
Conscientious investigators in other parts of Europe, and especially
in Italy, showed the same thing; all in vain.(154) In vain did good men
protest against the injury sure to be brought upon religion by tying it
to a scientific theory sure to be exploded; the doctrine that fossils
are the remains of animals drowned at the Flood continued to be upheld
by the great majority of theological leaders for nearly three centuries
as "sound doctrine," and as a blessed means of reconciling science
with Scripture. To sustain this scriptural view, efforts energetic and
persistent were put forth both by Catholics and Protestants.
(154) For a very full statement of the honourable record of Italy in
this respect, and for the enlightened views of some Italian churchmen,
see Stoppani, Il Dogma a le Scienze Positive, Milan, 1886, pp. 203 et
seq.
In France, the learned Benedictine, Calmet, in his great works on the
Bible, accepted it as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century,
believing the mastodon's bones exhibited by Mazurier to be those of King
Teutobocus, and holding them valuable testimony to the existence of the
giants mentioned in Scripture and of the early inhabitants of the earth
overwhelmed by the Flood.(155)
(155) For the steady adherence to this sacred theory, see Audiat, Vie de
Palissy, p. 412, and Cantu, Histoire Universelle, vol. xv, p. 492. For
Calmet, see his Dissertation sur les Geants, cited in Berger de Xivery,
Traditions Teratologiques, p. 191.
But the greatest champion appeared in England. We have already seen how,
near the close of the seventeenth century, Thomas Burnet prepared the
way in his Sacred Theory of the Earth by rejecting the discoveries of
Newton, and showing how sin led to the breaking up of the "foundations
of the great deep," and we have also seen how Whiston, in his New Theory
of the Earth, while yielding a little and accepting the discoveries of
Newton, brought in a comet to aid in producing the Deluge; but far more
important than these in permanent influence was John Woodward, professor
at Gresham College, a leader in scientific thought at the University
of Cambridge, and, as a patient collector of fossils and an earnest
investigator of their meaning, deserving of the highest respect. In 1695
he published his Natural History of the Earth, and rendered one great
service to science, for he yielded another point, and thus destroyed the
foundations for the old theory of fossils. He showed that they were not
"sports of Nature," or "models inserted by the Creator in the strata for
some inscrutable purpose," but that they were really remains of living
beings, as Xenophanes had asserted two thousand years before him. So
far, he rendered a great service both to science and religion; but, this
done, the text of the Old Testament narrative and the famous passage in
St. Peter's Epistle were too strong for him, and he, too, insisted that
the fossils were produced by the Deluge. Aided by his great authority,
the assault on the true scientific position was vigorous: Mazurier
exhibited certain fossil remains of a mammoth discovered in France as
bones of the giants mentioned in Scripture; Father Torrubia did the
same thing in Spain; Increase Mather sent to England similar remains
discovered in America, with a like statement.
For the edification of the faithful, such "bones of the giants mentioned
in Scripture" were hung up in public places. Jurieu saw some of
them thus suspended in one of the churches of Valence; and Henrion,
apparently under the stimulus thus given, drew up tables showing the
size of our antediluvian ancestors, giving the height of Adam as 123
feet 9 inches and that of Eve as 118 feet 9 inches and 9 lines.(156)
(156) See Cuvier, Recherches sur les Ossements fossiles, fourth edition,
vol. ii, p. 56; also Geoffrey St.-Hilaire, cited by Berger de Xivery,
Traditions Teratologiques, p. 190.
But the most brilliant service rendered to the theological theory came
from another quarter for, in 1726, Scheuchzer, having discovered a large
fossil lizard, exhibited it to the world as the "human witness of the
Deluge":(157) this great discovery was hailed everywhere with joy,
for it seemed to prove not only that human beings were drowned at the
Deluge, but that "there were giants in those days." Cheered by the
applause thus gained, he determined to make the theological position
impregnable. Mixing together various texts of Scripture with notions
derived from the philosophy of Descartes and the speculations of
Whiston, he developed the theory that "the fountains of the great deep"
were broken up by the direct physical action of the hand of God, which,
being literally applied to the axis of the earth, suddenly stopped the
earth's rotation, broke up "the fountains of the great deep," spilled
the water therein contained, and produced the Deluge. But his service
to sacred science did not end here, for he prepared an edition of the
Bible, in which magnificent engravings in great number illustrated his
view and enforced it upon all readers. Of these engravings no less than
thirty-four were devoted to the Deluge alone.(158)
(157) Homo diluvii testis.
(158) See Zoeckler, vol. ii, p. 172; also Scheuchzer, Physica Sacra,
Augustae Vindel et Ulmae, 1732. For the ancient belief regarding
giants, see Leopoldi, Saggio. For accounts of the views of Mazaurier and
Scheuchzer, see Cuvier; also Buchner, Man in Past, Present, and Future,
English translation, pp. 235, 236. For Increase Mather's views, see
Philosophical Transactions, vol. xxiv, p. 85. As to similar fossils
sent from New York to the Royal Society as remains of giants, see Weld,
History of the Royal Society, vol. i, p. 421. For Father Torrubia and
his Gigantologia Espanola, see D'Archiac, Introduction a l'Etude de
la Paleontologie Stratigraphique, Paris, 1864, p. 201. For admirable
summaries, see Lyell, Principles of Geology, London, 1867; D'Archiac,
Geologie et Paleontologie, Paris, 1866; Pictet, Traite de Paleontologie,
Paris, 1853; Vezian, Prodrome de la Geologie, Paris, 1863; Haeckel,
History of Creation, English translation, New York, 1876, chap. iii;
and for recent progress, Prof. O. S. Marsh's Address on the History and
Methods of Paleontology.
In the midst all this came an episode very comical but very instructive;
for it shows that the attempt to shape the deductions of science to meet
the exigencies of dogma may mislead heterodoxy as absurdly as orthodoxy.
About the year 1760 news of the discovery of marine fossils in various
elevated districts of Europe reached Voltaire. He, too, had a theologic
system to support, though his system was opposed to that of the sacred
books of the Hebrews; and, fearing that these new discoveries might be
used to support the Mosaic accounts of the Deluge, all his wisdom and
wit were compacted into arguments to prove that the fossil fishes were
remains of fishes intended for food, but spoiled and thrown away
by travellers; that the fossil shells were accidentally dropped by
crusaders and pilgrims returning from the Holy Land; and that the fossil
bones found between Paris and Etampes were parts of a skeleton belonging
to the cabinet of some ancient philosopher. Through chapter after
chapter, Voltaire, obeying the supposed necessities of his theology,
fought desperately the growing results of the geologic investigations of
his time.(159)
(159) See Voltaire, Dissertation sur les Changements arrives dans notre
Globe; also Voltaire, Les Singularities de la Nature, chap. xii; also
Jevons, Principles of Science, vol. ii, p. 328.
But far more prejudicial to Christianity was the continued effort on the
other side to show that the fossils were caused by the Deluge of Noah.
No supposition was too violent to support this theory, which was
considered vital to the Bible. By taking the mere husks and rinds of
biblical truth for truth itself, by taking sacred poetry as prose,
and by giving a literal interpretation of it, the followers of Burnet,
Whiston, and Woodward built up systems which bear to real geology much
the same relation that the Christian Topography of Cosmas bears to real
geography. In vain were exhibited the absolute geological, zoological,
astronomical proofs that no universal deluge, or deluge covering any
large part of the earth, had taken place within the last six thousand or
sixty thousand years; in vain did so enlightened a churchman as Bishop
Clayton declare that the Deluge could not have extended beyond that
district where Noah lived before the Flood; in vain did others, like
Bishop Croft and Bishop Stillingfleet, and the nonconformist Matthew
Poole, show that the Deluge might not have been and probably was not
universal; in vain was it shown that, even if there had been a universal
deluge, the fossils were not produced by it: the only answers were the
citation of the text, "And all the high mountains which were under the
whole heaven were covered," and, to clinch the matter, Worthington and
men like him insisted that any argument to show that fossils were not
remains of animals drowned at the Deluge of Noah was "infidelity." In
England, France, and Germany, belief that the fossils were produced
by the Deluge of Noah was widely insisted upon as part of that faith
essential to salvation.(160)
(160) For a candid summary of the proofs from geology, astronomy,
and zoology, that the Noachian Deluge was not universally or widely
extended, see McClintock and Strong, Cyclopedia of Biblical Theology
and Ecclesiastical Literature, article Deluge. For general history, see
Lyell, D'Archiac, and Vezian. For special cases showing the bitterness
of the conflict, see the Rev. Mr. Davis's Life of Rev. Dr. Pye Smith,
passim. For a late account, see Prof. Huxley on The Lights of the Church
and the Light of Science, in the Nineteenth Century for July, 1890.
But the steady work of science went on: not all the force of the
Church--not even the splendid engravings in Scheuchzer's Bible--could
stop it, and the foundations of this theological theory began to crumble
away. The process was, indeed, slow; it required a hundred and twenty
years for the searchers of God's truth, as revealed in Nature--such men
as Hooke, Linnaeus, Whitehurst, Daubenton, Cuvier, and William Smith--to
push their works under this fabric of error, and, by statements which
could not be resisted, to undermine it. As we arrive at the beginning of
the nineteenth century, science is becoming irresistible in this field.
Blumenbach, Von Buch, and Schlotheim led the way, but most important on
the Continent was the work of Cuvier. In the early years of the present
century his researches among fossils began to throw new light into the
whole subject of geology. He was, indeed, very conservative, and even
more wary and diplomatic; seeming, like Voltaire, to feel that "among
wolves one must howl a little." It was a time of reaction. Napoleon
had made peace with the Church, and to disturb that peace was akin to
treason. By large but vague concessions Cuvier kept the theologians
satisfied, while he undermined their strongest fortress. The danger was
instinctively felt by some of the champions of the Church, and typical
among these was Chateaubriand, who in his best-known work, once so
great, now so little--the Genius of Christianity--grappled with the
questions of creation by insisting upon a sort of general deception "in
the beginning," under which everything was created by a sudden fiat,
but with appearances of pre-existence. His words are as follows: "It
was part of the perfection and harmony of the nature which was displayed
before men's eyes that the deserted nests of last year's birds should be
seen on the trees, and that the seashore should be covered with shells
which had been the abode of fish, and yet the world was quite new, and
nests and shells had never been inhabited."(161) But the real victory
was with Brongniart, who, about 1820, gave forth his work on fossil
plants, and thus built a barrier against which the enemies of science
raged in vain.(162)
(161) Genie du Christianisme, chap.v, pp. 1-14, cited by Reusch, vol. i,
p. 250.
(162) For admirable sketches of Brongniart and other paleobotanists, see
Ward, as above.
Still the struggle was not ended, and, a few years later, a forlorn hope
was led in England by Granville Penn.
His fundamental thesis was that "our globe has undergone only two
revolutions, the Creation and the Deluge, and both by the immediate fiat
of the Almighty"; he insisted that the Creation took place in exactly
six days of ordinary time, each made up of "the evening and the
morning"; and he ended with a piece of that peculiar presumption so
familiar to the world, by calling on Cuvier and all other geologists to
"ask for the old paths and walk therein until they shall simplify their
system and reduce their numerous revolutions to the two events or epochs
only--the six days of Creation and the Deluge."(163) The geologists
showed no disposition to yield to this peremptory summons; on the
contrary, the President of the British Geological Society, and even so
eminent a churchman and geologist as Dean Buckland, soon acknowledged
that facts obliged them to give up the theory that the fossils of the
coal measures were deposited at the Deluge of Noah, and to deny that the
Deluge was universal.
(163) See the Works of Granville Penn, vol. ii, p. 273.
The defection of Buckland was especially felt by the orthodox party. His
ability, honesty, and loyalty to his profession, as well as his position
as Canon of Christ Church and Professor of Geology at Oxford, gave him
great authority, which he exerted to the utmost in soothing his brother
ecclesiastics. In his inaugural lecture he had laboured to show that
geology confirmed the accounts of Creation and the Flood as given
in Genesis, and in 1823, after his cave explorations had revealed
overwhelming evidences of the vast antiquity of the earth, he had still
clung to the Flood theory in his Reliquiae Diluvianae.
This had not, indeed, fully satisfied the anti-scientific party, but as
a rule their attacks upon him took the form not so much of abuse as of
humorous disparagement. An epigram by Shuttleworth, afterward Bishop
of Chichester, in imitation of Pope's famous lines upon Newton, ran as
follows:
"Some doubts were once expressed about the Flood: Buckland arose, and
all was clear as mud."
On his leaving Oxford for a journey to southern Europe, Dean Gaisford
was heard to exclaim: "Well, Buckland is gone to Italy; so, thank God,
we shall have no more of this geology!"
Still there was some comfort as long as Buckland held to the Deluge
theory; but, on his surrender, the combat deepened: instead of epigrams
and caricatures came bitter attacks, and from the pulpit and press came
showers of missiles. The worst of these were hurled at Lyell. As we have
seen, he had published in 1830 his Principles of Geology. Nothing
could have been more cautious. It simply gave an account of the main
discoveries up to that time, drawing the necessary inferences with plain
yet convincing logic, and it remains to this day one of those works
in which the Anglo-Saxon race may most justly take pride,--one of the
land-marks in the advance of human thought.
But its tendency was inevitably at variance with the Chaldean and other
ancient myths and legends regarding the Creation and Deluge which
the Hebrews had received from the older civilizations among their
neighbours, and had incorporated into the sacred books which they
transmitted to the modern world; it was therefore extensively "refuted."
Theologians and men of science influenced by them insisted that his
minimizing of geological changes, and his laying stress on the gradual
action of natural causes still in force, endangered the sacred record of
Creation and left no place for miraculous intervention; and when it
was found that he had entirely cast aside their cherished idea that the
great geological changes of the earth's surface and the multitude of
fossil remains were due to the Deluge of Noah, and had shown that a far
longer time was demanded for Creation than any which could possibly
be deduced from the Old Testament genealogies and chronicles, orthodox
indignation burst forth violently; eminent dignitaries of the Church
attacked him without mercy and for a time he was under social ostracism.
As this availed little, an effort was made on the scientific side to
crush him beneath the weighty authority of Cuvier; but the futility of
this effort was evident when it was found that thinking men would no
longer listen to Cuvier and persisted in listening to Lyell. The great
orthodox text-book, Cuvier's Theory of the Earth, became at once so
discredited in the estimation of men of science that no new edition
of it was called for, while Lyell's work speedily ran through twelve
editions and remained a firm basis of modern thought.(164)
(164) For Buckland and the various forms of attack upon him, see Gordon,
Life of Buckland, especially pp. 10, 26, 136. For the attack on Lyell
and his book, see Huxley, The Lights of the Church and the Light of
Science.
As typical of his more moderate opponents we may take Fairholme, who in
1837 published his Mosaic Deluge, and argued that no early convulsions
of the earth, such as those supposed by geologists, could have taken
place, because there could have been no deluge "before moral guilt could
possibly have been incurred"--that is to say, before the creation of
mankind. In touching terms he bewailed the defection of the President of
the Geological Society and Dean Buckland--protesting against geologists
who "persist in closing their eyes upon the solemn declarations of the
Almighty"
Still the geologists continued to seek truth: the germs planted
especially by William Smith, "the Father of English Geology" were
developed by a noble succession of investigators, and the victory was
sure. Meanwhile those theologians who felt that denunciation of
science as "godless" could accomplish little, laboured upon schemes for
reconciling geology with Genesis. Some of these show amazing ingenuity,
but an eminent religious authority, going over them with great
thoroughness, has well characterized them as "daring and fanciful." Such
attempts have been variously classified, but the fact regarding them
all is that each mixes up more or less of science with more or less of
Scripture, and produces a result more or less absurd. Though a few men
here and there have continued these exercises, the capitulation of the
party which set the literal account of the Deluge of Noah against the
facts revealed by geology was at last clearly made.(165)
(165) For Fairholme, see his Mosaic Deluge, London, 1837, p. 358. For a
very just characterization of various schemes of "reconciliation," see
Shields, The Final Philosophy, p. 340.
One of the first evidences of the completeness of this surrender has
been so well related by the eminent physiologist, Dr. W. B. Carpenter,
that it may best be given in his own words: "You are familiar with a
book of considerable value, Dr. W. Smith's Dictionary of the Bible. I
happened to know the influences under which that dictionary was
framed. The idea of the publisher and of the editor was to give as much
scholarship and such results of modern criticism as should be compatible
with a very judicious conservatism. There was to be no objection
to geology, but the universality of the Deluge was to be strictly
maintained. The editor committed the article Deluge to a man of very
considerable ability, but when the article came to him he found that
it was so excessively heretical that he could not venture to put it in.
There was not time for a second article under that head, and if you look
in that dictionary you will find under the word Deluge a reference to
Flood. Before Flood came, a second article had been commissioned from a
source that was believed safely conservative; but when the article came
in it was found to be worse than the first. A third article was then
commissioned, and care was taken to secure its 'safety.' If you look
for the word Flood in the dictionary, you will find a reference to Noah.
Under that name you will find an article written by a distinguished
professor of Cambridge, of which I remember that Bishop Colenso said
to me at the time, 'In a very guarded way the writer concedes the whole
thing.' You will see by this under what trammels scientific thought has
laboured in this department of inquiry."(166)
(166) See Official Report of the National Conference of Unitarian and
other Christian Churches held at Saratoga, 1882, p. 97.
A similar surrender was seen when from a new edition of Horne's
Introduction to the Scriptures, the standard textbook of orthodoxy, its
accustomed use of fossils to prove the universality of the Deluge was
quietly dropped.(167)
(167) This was about 1856; see Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 329.
A like capitulation in the United States was foreshadowed in 1841, when
an eminent Professor of Biblical Literature and interpretation in the
most important theological seminary of the Protestant Episcopal Church,
Dr. Samuel Turner, showed his Christian faith and courage by virtually
accepting the new view; and the old contention was utterly cast away
by the thinking men of another great religious body when, at a later
period, two divines among the most eminent for piety and learning in
the Methodist Episcopal Church inserted in the Biblical Cyclopaedia,
published under their supervision, a candid summary of the proofs
from geology, astronomy, and zoology that the Deluge of Noah was not
universal, or even widely extended, and this without protest from any
man of note in any branch of the American Church.(168)
(168) For Dr. Turner, see his Companion to the Book of Genesis, London
and New York, 1841, pp. 216-219. For McClintock and Strong, see their
Cyclopaedia of Biblical Knowledge, etc., article Deluge. For similar
surrenders of the Deluge in various other religious encyclopedias and
commentaries, see Huxley, Essays on controverted questions, chap. xiii.
The time when the struggle was relinquished by enlightened theologians
of the Roman Catholic Church may be fixed at about 1862, when Reusch,
Professor of Theology at Bonn, in his work on The Bible and Nature,
cast off the old diluvial theory and all its supporters, accepting the
conclusions of science.(169)
(169) See Reusch, Bibel und Natur, chap. xxi.
But, though the sacred theory with the Deluge of Noah as a universal
solvent for geological difficulties was evidently dying, there still
remained in various quarters a touching fidelity to it. In Roman
Catholic countries the old theory was widely though quietly cherished,
and taught from the religious press, the pulpit, and the theological
professor's chair. Pope Pius IX was doubtless in sympathy with this
feeling when, about 1850, he forbade the scientific congress of Italy to
meet at Bologna.(170)
(170) See Whiteside, Italy in the Nineteenth Century, vol. iii, chap.
xiv.
In 1856 Father Debreyne congratulated the theologians of France on their
admirable attitude: "Instinctively," he says, "they still insist upon
deriving the fossils from Noah's Flood."(171) In 1875 the Abbe Choyer
published at Paris and Angers a text-book widely approved by Church
authorities, in which he took similar ground; and in 1877 the Jesuit
father Bosizio published at Mayence a treatise on Geology and the
Deluge, endeavouring to hold the world to the old solution of the
problem, allowing, indeed, that the "days" of Creation were long
periods, but making atonement for this concession by sneers at
Darwin.(172)
(171) See Zoeckler, vol. ii, p. 472.
(172) See Zoeckler, vol. ii, p. 478, and Bosizio, Geologie und die
Sundfluth, Mayence, 1877, preface, p. xiv.
In the Russo-Greek Church, in 1869, Archbishop Macarius, of Lithuania,
urged the necessity of believing that Creation in six days of ordinary
time and the Deluge of Noah are the only causes of all that geology
seeks to explain; and, as late as 1876, another eminent theologian of
the same Church went even farther, and refused to allow the faithful to
believe that any change had taken place since "the beginning" mentioned
in Genesis, when the strata of the earth were laid, tilted, and twisted,
and the fossils scattered among them by the hand of the Almighty during
six ordinary days.(173)
(173) See Zoeckler, vol. ii, p. 472, 571, and elsewhere; also citations
in Reusch and Shields.
In the Lutheran branch of the Protestant Church we also find echoes
of the old belief. Keil, eminent in scriptural interpretation at the
University of Dorpat, gave forth in 1860 a treatise insisting that
geology is rendered futile and its explanations vain by two great facts:
the Curse which drove Adam and Eve out of Eden, and the Flood that
destroyed all living things save Noah, his family, and the animals in
the ark. In 1867, Phillippi, and in 1869, Dieterich, both theologians
of eminence, took virtually the same ground in Germany, the latter
attempting to beat back the scientific hosts with a phrase apparently
pithy, but really hollow--the declaration that "modern geology observes
what is, but has no right to judge concerning the beginning of things."
As late as 1876, Zugler took a similar view, and a multitude of lesser
lights, through pulpit and press, brought these antiscientific doctrines
to bear upon the people at large--the only effect being to arouse grave
doubts regarding Christianity among thoughtful men, and especially among
young men, who naturally distrusted a cause using such weapons.
For just at this time the traditional view of the Deluge received its
death-blow, and in a manner entirely unexpected. By the investigations
of George Smith among the Assyrian tablets of the British Museum, in
1872, and by his discoveries just afterward in Assyria, it was put
beyond a reasonable doubt that a great mass of accounts in Genesis
are simply adaptations of earlier and especially of Chaldean myths and
legends. While this proved to be the fact as regards the accounts of
Creation and the fall of man, it was seen to be most strikingly so as
regards the Deluge. The eleventh of the twelve tablets, on which the
most important of these inscriptions was found, was almost wholly
preserved, and it revealed in this legend, dating from a time far
earlier than that of Moses, such features peculiar to the childhood of
the world as the building of the great ship or ark to escape the flood,
the careful caulking of its seams, the saving of a man beloved of
Heaven, his selecting and taking with him into the vessel animals of all
sorts in couples, the impressive final closing of the door, the sending
forth different birds as the flood abated, the offering of sacrifices
when the flood had subsided, the joy of the Divine Being who had caused
the flood as the odour of the sacrifice reached his nostrils; while
throughout all was shown that partiality for the Chaldean sacred number
seven which appears so constantly in the Genesis legends and throughout
the Hebrew sacred books.
Other devoted scholars followed in the paths thus opened--Sayce in
England, Lenormant in France, Schrader in Germany--with the result that
the Hebrew account of the Deluge, to which for ages theologians had
obliged all geological research to conform, was quietly relegated,
even by most eminent Christian scholars, to the realm of myth and
legend.(174)
(174) For George Smith, see his Chaldean Account of Genesis, New York,
1876, especially pp. 36, 263, 286; also his special work on the subject.
See also Lenormant, Les Origins de l'Histoire, Paris, 1880, chap. viii.
For Schrader, see his The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament,
Whitehouse's translation, London, 1885, vol. i, pp. 47-49 and 58-60, and
elsewhere.
Sundry feeble attempts to break the force of this discovery, and an
evidently widespread fear to have it known, have certainly impaired not
a little the legitimate influence of the Christian clergy.
And yet this adoption of Chaldean myths into the Hebrew Scriptures
furnishes one of the strongest arguments for the value of our Bible as
a record of the upward growth of man; for, while the Chaldean legend
primarily ascribes the Deluge to the mere arbitrary caprice of one among
many gods (Bel), the Hebrew development of the legend ascribes it to
the justice, the righteousness, of the Supreme God; thus showing the
evolution of a higher and nobler sentiment which demanded a moral cause
adequate to justify such a catastrophe.
Unfortunately, thus far, save in a few of the broader and nobler minds
among the clergy, the policy of ignoring such new revelations has
prevailed, and the results of this policy, both in Roman Catholic and in
Protestant countries, are not far to seek. What the condition of thought
is among the middle classes of France and Italy needs not to be stated
here. In Germany, as a typical fact, it may be mentioned that there was
in the year 1881 church accommodation in the city of Berlin for but two
per cent of the population, and that even this accommodation was more
than was needed. This fact is not due to the want of a deep religious
spirit among the North Germans: no one who has lived among them can
doubt the existence of such a spirit; but it is due mainly to the fact
that, while the simple results of scientific investigation have filtered
down among the people at large, the dominant party in the Lutheran
Church has steadily refused to recognise this fact, and has persisted in
imposing on Scripture the fetters of literal and dogmatic interpretation
which Germany has largely outgrown. A similar danger threatens every
other country in which the clergy pursue a similar policy. No thinking
man, whatever may be his religious views, can fail to regret this. A
thoughtful, reverent, enlightened clergy is a great blessing to any
country, and anything which undermines their legitimate work of leading
men out of the worship of material things to the consideration of that
which is highest is a vast misfortune.(175)
(175) For the foregoing statements regarding Germany the writer relies
on his personal observation as a student at the University of Berlin in
1856, as a traveller at various periods afterward, and as Minister of
the United States in 1879, 1880, and 1881.
IV. FINAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.--THE VICTORY OF SCIENCE COMPLETE.
Before concluding, it may be instructive to note a few especially
desperate attempts at truces or compromises, such as always appear when
the victory of any science has become absolutely sure. Typical among
the earliest of these may be mentioned the effort of Carl von Raumer in
1819. With much pretension to scientific knowledge, but with aspirations
bounded by the limits of Prussian orthodoxy, he made a laboured attempt
to produce a statement which, by its vagueness, haziness, and "depth,"
should obscure the real questions at issue. This statement appeared in
the shape of an argument, used by Bertrand and others in the previous
century, to prove that fossil remains of plants in the coal measures
had never existed as living plants, but had been simply a "result of the
development of imperfect plant embryos"; and the same misty theory was
suggested to explain the existence of fossil animals without supposing
the epochs and changes required by geological science.
In 1837 Wagner sought to uphold this explanation; but it was so clearly
a mere hollow phrase, unable to bear the weight of the facts to be
accounted for, that it was soon given up.
Similar attempts were made throughout Europe, the most noteworthy
appearing in England. In 1853 was issued an anonymous work having as its
title A Brief and Complete Refutation of the Anti-Scriptural Theory of
Geologists: the author having revived an old idea, and put a spark
of life into it--this idea being that "all the organisms found in the
depths of the earth were made on the first of the six creative days, as
models for the plants and animals to be created on the third, fifth, and
sixth days."(176)
(176) See Zoeckler, vol. ii, p. 475.
But while these attempts to preserve the old theory as to fossil remains
of lower animals were thus pressed, there appeared upon the geological
field a new scientific column far more terrible to the old doctrines
than any which had been seen previously.
For, just at the close of the first quarter of the nineteenth century,
geologists began to examine the caves and beds of drift in various
parts of the world; and within a few years from that time a series
of discoveries began in France, in Belgium, in England, in Brazil, in
Sicily, in India, in Egypt, and in America, which established the
fact that a period of time much greater than any which had before been
thought of had elapsed since the first human occupation of the earth.
The chronologies of Archbishop Usher, Petavius, Bossuet, and the other
great authorities on which theology had securely leaned, were found
worthless. It was clearly seen that, no matter how well based upon the
Old Testament genealogies and lives of the patriarchs, all these systems
must go for nothing. The most conservative geologists were gradually
obliged to admit that man had been upon the earth not merely six
thousand, or sixty thousand, or one hundred and sixty thousand years.
And when, in 1863, Sir Charles Lyell, in his book on The Antiquity of
Man, retracted solemnly his earlier view--yielding with a reluctance
almost pathetic, but with a thoroughness absolutely convincing--the last
stronghold of orthodoxy in this field fell.(177)
(177) See Prof. Marsh's address as President of the Society for the
Advancement of Science, in 1879; and for a development of the matter,
see the chapters on The Antiquity of Man and Egyptology and the Fall of
Man and Anthropology, in this work.
The supporters of a theory based upon the letter of Scripture, who
had so long taken the offensive, were now obliged to fight upon the
defensive and at fearful odds. Various lines of defence were taken;
but perhaps the most pathetic effort was that made in the year 1857,
in England, by Gosse. As a naturalist he had rendered great services to
zoological science, but he now concentrated his energies upon one last
effort to save the literal interpretation of Genesis and the theological
structure built upon it. In his work entitled Omphalos he developed the
theory previously urged by Granville Penn, and asserted a new principle
called "prochronism." In accordance with this, all things were created
by the Almighty hand literally within the six days, each made up of "the
evening and the morning," and each great branch of creation was brought
into existence in an instant. Accepting a declaration of Dr. Ure, that
"neither reason nor revelation will justify us in extending the origin
of the material system beyond six thousand years from our own days,"
Gosse held that all the evidences of convulsive changes and long epochs
in strata, rocks, minerals, and fossils are simply "APPEARANCES"--only
that and nothing more. Among these mere "appearances," all created
simultaneously, were the glacial furrows and scratches on rocks, the
marks of retreat on rocky masses, as at Niagara, the tilted and twisted
strata, the piles of lava from extinct volcanoes, the fossils of every
sort in every part of the earth, the foot-tracks of birds and reptiles,
the half-digested remains of weaker animals found in the fossilized
bodies of the stronger, the marks of hyenas' teeth on fossilized bones
found in various caves, and even the skeleton of the Siberian mammoth
at St. Petersburg with lumps of flesh bearing the marks of wolves'
teeth--all these, with all gaps and imperfections, he urged mankind
to believe came into being in an instant. The preface of the work
is especially touching, and it ends with the prayer that science and
Scripture may be reconciled by his theory, and "that the God of truth
will deign so to use it, and if he do, to him be all the glory."(177) At
the close of the whole book Gosse declared: "The field is left clear and
undisputed for the one witness on the opposite side, whose testimony is
as follows: 'In six days Jehovah made heaven and earth, the sea, and all
that in them is.'" This quotation he placed in capital letters, as the
final refutation of all that the science of geology had built.
(177) See Gosse, Omphalos, London, 1857, p. 5, and passim; and for a
passage giving the keynote of the whole, with a most farcical note on
coprolites, see pp. 353, 354.
In other parts of Europe desperate attempts were made even later to
save the letter of our sacred books by the revival of a theory in some
respects more striking. To shape this theory to recent needs, vague
reminiscences of a text in Job regarding fire beneath the earth, and
vague conceptions of speculations made by Humboldt and Laplace, were
mingled with Jewish tradition. Out of the mixture thus obtained Schubert
developed the idea that the Satanic "principalities and powers" formerly
inhabiting our universe plunged it into the chaos from which it was
newly created by a process accurately described in Genesis. Rougemont
made the earth one of the "morning stars" of Job, reduced to chaos by
Lucifer and his followers, and thence developed in accordance with the
nebular hypothesis. Kurtz evolved from this theory an opinion that the
geological disturbances were caused by the opposition of the devil to
the rescue of our universe from chaos by the Almighty. Delitzsch put a
similar idea into a more scholastic jargon; but most desperate of all
were the statements of Dr. Anton Westermeyer, of Munich, in The Old
Testament vindicated from Modern Infidel Objections. The following
passage will serve to show his ideas: "By the fructifying brooding of
the Divine Spirit on the waters of the deep, creative forces began to
stir; the devils who inhabited the primeval darkness and considered it
their own abode saw that they were to be driven from their possessions,
or at least that their place of habitation was to be contracted, and
they therefore tried to frustrate God's plan of creation and exert all
that remained to them of might and power to hinder or at least to mar
the new creation." So came into being "the horrible and destructive
monsters, these caricatures and distortions of creation," of which
we have fossil remains. Dr. Westermeyer goes on to insist that "whole
generations called into existence by God succumbed to the corruption of
the devil, and for that reason had to be destroyed"; and that "in the
work of the six days God caused the devil to feel his power in all
earnest, and made Satan's enterprise appear miserable and vain."(178)
(178) See Shields's Final Philosophy, pp. 340 et seq., and Reusch's
Nature and the Bible (English translation, 1886), vol. i, pp. 318-320.
Such was the last important assault upon the strongholds of geological
science in Germany; and, in view of this and others of the same kind, it
is little to be wondered at that when, in 1870, Johann Silberschlag made
an attempt to again base geology upon the Deluge of Noah, he found such
difficulties that, in a touching passage, he expressed a desire to get
back to the theory that fossils were "sports of Nature."(179)
(179) See Reusch, vol. i, p. 264.
But the most noted among efforts to keep geology well within the
letter of Scripture is of still more recent date. In the year 1885 Mr.
Gladstone found time, amid all his labours and cares as the greatest
parliamentary leader in England, to take the field in the struggle for
the letter of Genesis against geology.
On the face of it his effort seemed Quixotic, for he confessed at
the outset that in science he was "utterly destitute of that kind of
knowledge which carries authority," and his argument soon showed that
this confession was entirely true.
But he had some other qualities of which much might be expected: great
skill in phrase-making, great shrewdness in adapting the meanings of
single words to conflicting necessities in discussion, wonderful power
in erecting showy structures of argument upon the smallest basis
of fact, and a facility almost preternatural in "explaining away"
troublesome realities. So striking was his power in this last respect,
that a humorous London chronicler once advised a bigamist, as his only
hope, to induce Mr. Gladstone to explain away one of his wives.
At the basis of this theologico-geological structure Mr. Gladstone
placed what he found in the text of Genesis: "A grand fourfold division"
of animated Nature "set forth in an orderly succession of times." And he
arranged this order and succession of creation as follows: "First,
the water population; secondly, the air population; thirdly, the land
population of animals; fourthly, the land population consummated in
man."
His next step was to slide in upon this basis the apparently harmless
proposition that this division and sequence "is understood to have been
so affirmed in our time by natural science that it may be taken as a
demonstrated conclusion and established fact."
Finally, upon these foundations he proceeded to build an argument out
of the coincidences thus secured between the record in the Hebrew sacred
books and the truths revealed by science as regards this order and
sequence, and he easily arrived at the desired conclusion with which he
crowned the whole structure, namely, as regards the writer of Genesis,
that "his knowledge was divine."(180)
(180) See Mr. Gladstone's Dawn of Creation and Worship, a reply to Dr.
Reville, in the Nineteenth Century for November, 1885.
Such was the skeleton of the structure; it was abundantly decorated with
the rhetoric in which Mr. Gladstone is so skilful an artificer, and
it towered above "the average man" as a structure beautiful and
invincible--like some Chinese fortress in the nineteenth century, faced
with porcelain and defended with crossbows.
Its strength was soon seen to be unreal. In an essay admirable in its
temper, overwhelming in its facts, and absolutely convincing in its
argument, Prof. Huxley, late President of the Royal Society, and
doubtless the most eminent contemporary authority on the scientific
questions concerned, took up the matter.
Mr. Gladstone's first proposition, that the sacred writings give us a
great "fourfold division" created "in an orderly succession of times,"
Prof. Huxley did not presume to gainsay.
As to Mr. Gladstone's second proposition, that "this great fourfold
division... created in an orderly succession of times... has been so
affirmed in our own time by natural science that it may be taken as a
demonstrated conclusion and established fact," Prof. Huxley showed
that, as a matter of fact, no such "fourfold division" and "orderly
succession" exist; that, so far from establishing Mr. Gladstone's
assumption that the population of water, air, and land followed each
other in the order given, "all the evidence we possess goes to prove
that they did not"; that the distribution of fossils through the various
strata proves that some land animals originated before sea animals;
that there has been a mixing of sea, land, and air "population" utterly
destructive to the "great fourfold division" and to the creation "in an
orderly succession of times"; that, so far is the view presented in the
sacred text, as stated by Mr. Gladstone, from having been "so
affirmed in our own time by natural science, that it may be taken as
a demonstrated conclusion and established fact" that Mr. Gladstone's
assertion is "directly contradictory to facts known to every one who is
acquainted with the elements of natural science"; that Mr. Gladstone's
only geological authority, Cuvier, had died more than fifty years
before, when geological science was in its infancy (and he might have
added, when it was necessary to make every possible concession to
the Church); and, finally, he challenged Mr. Gladstone to produce any
contemporary authority in geological science who would support his
so-called scriptural view. And when, in a rejoinder, Mr. Gladstone
attempted to support his view on the authority of Prof. Dana, Prof.
Huxley had no difficulty in showing from Prof. Dana's works that Mr.
Gladstone's inference was utterly unfounded. But, while the fabric
reared by Mr. Gladstone had been thus undermined by Huxley on the
scientific side, another opponent began an attack from the biblical
side. The Rev. Canon Driver, professor at Mr. Gladstone's own
University of Oxford, took up the question in the light of scriptural
interpretation. In regard to the comparative table drawn up by Sir J. W.
Dawson, showing the supposed correspondence between the scriptural and
the geological order of creation, Canon Driver said: "The two series
are evidently at variance. The geological record contains no evidence
of clearly defined periods corresponding to the 'days' of Genesis. In
Genesis, vegetation is complete two days before animal life appears.
Geology shows that they appear simultaneously--even if animal life
does not appear first. In Genesis, birds appear together with aquatic
creatures, and precede all land animals; according to the evidence of
geology, birds are unknown till a period much later than that at which
aquatic creatures (including fishes and amphibia) abound, and they are
preceded by numerous species of land animals--in particular, by insects
and other 'creeping things.'" Of the Mosaic account of the existence
of vegetation before the creation of the sun, Canon Driver said, "No
reconciliation of this representation with the data of science has yet
been found"; and again: "From all that has been said, however reluctant
we may be to make the admission, only one conclusion seems possible.
Read without prejudice or bias, the narrative of Genesis i, creates an
impression at variance with the facts revealed by science." The
eminent professor ends by saying that the efforts at reconciliation are
"different modes of obliterating the characteristic features of Genesis,
and of reading into it a view which it does not express."
Thus fell Mr. Gladstone's fabric of coincidences between the "great
fourfold division" in Genesis and the facts ascertained by geology.
Prof. Huxley had shattered the scientific parts of the structure, Prof.
Driver had removed its biblical foundations, and the last great fortress
of the opponents of unfettered scientific investigation was in ruins.
In opposition to all such attempts we may put a noble utterance by
a clergyman who has probably done more to save what is essential in
Christianity among English-speaking people than any other ecclesiastic
of his time. The late Dean of Westminster, Dr. Arthur Stanley, was
widely known and beloved on both continents. In his memorial sermon
after the funeral of Sir Charles Lyell he said: "It is now clear to
diligent students of the Bible that the first and second chapters of
Genesis contain two narratives of the creation side by side, differing
from each other in almost every particular of time and place and order.
It is well known that, when the science of geology first arose, it was
involved in endless schemes of attempted reconciliation with the
letter of Scripture. There were, there are perhaps still, two modes of
reconciliation of Scripture and science, which have been each in their
day attempted, AND EACH HAS TOTALLY AND DESERVEDLY FAILED. One is the
endeavour to wrest the words of the Bible from their natural meaning and
FORCE IT TO SPEAK THE LANGUAGE OF SCIENCE." And again, speaking of the
earliest known example, which was the interpolation of the word "not"
in Leviticus xi, 6, he continues: "This is the earliest instance of THE
FALSIFICATION OF SCRIPTURE TO MEET THE DEMANDS OF SCIENCE; and it has
been followed in later times by the various efforts which have been
made to twist the earlier chapters of the book of Genesis into APPARENT
agreement with the last results of geology--representing days not to be
days, morning and evening not to be morning and evening, the Deluge not
to be the Deluge, and the ark not to be the ark."
After a statement like this we may fitly ask, Which is the more likely
to strengthen Christianity for its work in the twentieth century which
we are now about to enter--a large, manly, honest, fearless utterance
like this of Arthur Stanley, or hair-splitting sophistries, bearing
in their every line the germs of failure, like those attempted by Mr.
Gladstone?
The world is finding that the scientific revelation of creation is ever
more and more in accordance with worthy conceptions of that great Power
working in and through the universe. More and more it is seen that
inspiration has never ceased, and that its prophets and priests are not
those who work to fit the letter of its older literature to the needs
of dogmas and sects, but those, above all others, who patiently,
fearlessly, and reverently devote themselves to the search for truth as
truth, in the faith that there is a Power in the universe wise enough
to make truth-seeking safe and good enough to make truth-telling
useful.(181)
(181) For the Huxley-Gladstone controversy, see The Nineteenth Century
for 1885-'86. For Canon Driver, see his article, The Cosmogony of
Genesis, in The Expositor for January, 1886.
CHAPTER VI. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN EGYPTOLOGY, AND ASSYRIOLOGY.
I. THE SACRED CHRONOLOGY.
In the great ranges of investigation which bear most directly upon the
origin of man, there are two in which Science within the last few years
has gained final victories. The significance of these in changing, and
ultimately in reversing, one of the greatest currents of theological
thought, can hardly be overestimated; not even the tide set in motion by
Cusa, Copernicus, and Galileo was more powerful to bring in a new epoch
of belief.
The first of these conquests relates to the antiquity of man on the
earth.
The fathers of the early Christian Church, receiving all parts of our
sacred books as equally inspired, laid little, if any, less stress
on the myths, legends, genealogies, and tribal, family, and personal
traditions contained in the Old and the New Testaments, than upon the
most powerful appeals, the most instructive apologues, and the most
lofty poems of prophets, psalmists, and apostles. As to the age of our
planet and the life of man upon it, they found in the Bible a carefully
recorded series of periods, extending from Adam to the building of the
Temple at Jerusalem, the length of each period being explicitly given.
Thus they had a biblical chronology--full, consecutive, and
definite--extending from the first man created to an event of known
date well within ascertained profane history; as a result, the early
Christian commentators arrived at conclusions varying somewhat, but in
the main agreeing. Some, like Origen, Eusebius, Lactantius, Clement
of Alexandria, and the great fathers generally of the first three
centuries, dwelling especially upon the Septuagint version of the
Scriptures, thought that man's creation took place about six thousand
years before the Christian era. Strong confirmation of this view was
found in a simple piece of purely theological reasoning: for, just as
the seven candlesticks of the Apocalypse were long held to prove the
existence of seven heavenly bodies revolving about the earth, so it was
felt that the six days of creation prefigured six thousand years during
which the earth in its first form was to endure; and that, as the first
Adam came on the sixth day, Christ, the second Adam, had come at the
sixth millennial period. Theophilus, Bishop of Antioch, in the second
century clinched this argument with the text, "One day is with the Lord
as a thousand years."
On the other hand, Eusebius and St. Jerome, dwelling more especially
upon the Hebrew text, which we are brought up to revere, thought
that man's origin took place at a somewhat shorter period before the
Christian era; and St. Jerome's overwhelming authority made this the
dominant view throughout western Europe during fifteen centuries.
The simplicity of these great fathers as regards chronology is
especially reflected from the tables of Eusebius. In these, Moses,
Joshua, and Bacchus,--Deborah, Orpheus, and the Amazons,--Abimelech,
the Sphinx, and Oedipus, appear together as personages equally real, and
their positions in chronology equally ascertained.
At times great bitterness was aroused between those holding the longer
and those holding the shorter chronology, but after all the difference
between them, as we now see, was trivial; and it may be broadly stated
that in the early Church, "always, everywhere, and by all," it was held
as certain, upon the absolute warrant of Scripture, that man was created
from four to six thousand years before the Christian era.
To doubt this, and even much less than this, was to risk damnation.
St. Augustine insisted that belief in the antipodes and in the longer
duration of the earth than six thousand years were deadly heresies,
equally hostile to Scripture. Philastrius, the friend of St. Ambrose and
St. Augustine, whose fearful catalogue of heresies served as a guide
to intolerance throughout the Middle Ages, condemned with the same holy
horror those who expressed doubt as to the orthodox number of years
since the beginning of the world, and those who doubted an earthquake to
be the literal voice of an angry God, or who questioned the plurality of
the heavens, or who gainsaid the statement that God brings out the stars
from his treasures and hangs them up in the solid firmament above the
earth every night.
About the beginning of the seventh century Isidore of Seville, the great
theologian of his time, took up the subject. He accepted the dominant
view not only of Hebrew but of all other chronologies, without anything
like real criticism. The childlike faith of his system may be imagined
from his summaries which follow. He tells us:
"Joseph lived one hundred and five years. Greece began to cultivate
grain."
"The Jews were in slavery in Egypt one hundred and forty-four years.
Atlas discovered astrology."
"Joshua ruled for twenty-seven years. Ericthonius yoked horses
together."
"Othniel, forty years. Cadmus introduced letters into Greece."
"Deborah, forty years. Apollo discovered the art of medicine and
invented the cithara."
"Gideon, forty years. Mercury invented the lyre and gave it to Orpheus."
Reasoning in this general way, Isidore kept well under the longer date;
and, the great theological authority of southern Europe having thus
spoken, the question was virtually at rest throughout Christendom for
nearly a hundred years.
Early in the eighth century the Venerable Bede took up the problem.
Dwelling especially upon the received Hebrew text of the Old Testament,
he soon entangled himself in very serious difficulties; but, in spite of
the great fathers of the first three centuries, he reduced the antiquity
of man on the earth by nearly a thousand years, and, in spite of
mutterings against him as coming dangerously near a limit which made the
theological argument from the six days of creation to the six ages of
the world look doubtful, his authority had great weight, and did much to
fix western Europe in its allegiance to the general system laid down by
Eusebius and Jerome.
In the twelfth century this belief was re-enforced by a tide of thought
from a very different quarter. Rabbi Moses Maimonides and other Jewish
scholars, by careful study of the Hebrew text, arrived at conclusions
diminishing the antiquity of man still further, and thus gave
strength throughout the Middle Ages to the shorter chronology: it was
incorporated into the sacred science of Christianity; and Vincent of
Beauvais, in his great Speculum Historiale, forming part of that still
more enormous work intended to sum up all the knowledge possessed by the
ages of faith, placed the creation of man at about four thousand years
before our era.(182)
(182) For a table summing up the periods, from Adam to the building of
the Temple, explicitly given in the Scriptures, see the admirable paper
on The Pope and the Bible, in The Contemporary Review for April, 1893.
For the date of man's creation as given by leading chronologists in
various branches of the Church, see L'Art de Verifier les Dates,
Paris, 1819, vol. i, pp. 27 et seq. In this edition there are sundry
typographical errors; compare with Wallace, True Age of the World,
London, 1844. As to preference for the longer computation by the fathers
of the Church, see Clinton, Fasti Hellenici, vol. ii, p. 291. For the
sacred significance of the six days of creation in ascertaining
the antiquity of man, see especially Eichen, Geschichte der
mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung; also Wallace, True Age of the World,
pp. 2,3. For the views of St. Augustine, see Topinard, Anthropologie,
citing the De Civ. Dei., lib. xvi, c. viii, c. x. For the views of
Philastrius, see the De Hoeresibus, c. 102, 112, et passim, in Migne,
tome xii. For Eusebius's simple credulity, see the tables in Palmer's
Egyptian Chronicles, vol. ii, pp. 828, 829. For Bede, see Usher's
Chronologia Sacra, cited in Wallace, True Age of the World, p. 35. For
Isidore of Seville, see the Etymologia, lib. v, c. 39; also lib. iii, in
Migne, tome lxxxii.
At the Reformation this view was not disturbed. The same manner of
accepting the sacred text which led Luther, Melanchthon, and the great
Protestant leaders generally, to oppose the Copernican theory, fixed
them firmly in this biblical chronology; the keynote was sounded for
them by Luther when he said, "We know, on the authority of Moses,
that longer ago than six thousand years the world did not exist."
Melanchthon, more exact, fixed the creation of man at 3963 B.C.
But the great Christian scholars continued the old endeavour to make the
time of man's origin more precise: there seems to have been a sort
of fascination in the subject which developed a long array of
chronologists, all weighing the minutest indications in our sacred
books, until the Protestant divine De Vignolles, who had given forty
years to the study of biblical chronology, declared in 1738 that he had
gathered no less than two hundred computations based upon Scripture, and
no two alike.
As to the Roman Church, about 1580 there was published, by authority of
Pope Gregory XIII, the Roman Martyrology, and this, both as originally
published and as revised in 1640 under Pope Urban VIII, declared that
the creation of man took place 5199 years before Christ.
But of all who gave themselves up to these chronological studies, the
man who exerted the most powerful influence upon the dominant nations of
Christendom was Archbishop Usher. In 1650 he published his Annals of the
Ancient and New Testaments, and it at once became the greatest authority
for all English-speaking peoples. Usher was a man of deep and wide
theological learning, powerful in controversy; and his careful
conclusion, after years of the most profound study of the Hebrew
Scriptures, was that man was created 4004 years before the Christian
era. His verdict was widely received as final; his dates were inserted
in the margins of the authorized version of the English Bible, and
were soon practically regarded as equally inspired with the sacred text
itself: to question them seriously was to risk preferment in the Church
and reputation in the world at large.
The same adhesion to the Hebrew Scriptures which had influenced Usher
brought leading men of the older Church to the same view: men who would
have burned each other at the stake for their differences on other
points, agreed on this: Melanchthon and Tostatus, Lightfoot and Jansen,
Salmeron and Scaliger, Petavius and Kepler, inquisitors and reformers,
Jesuits and Jansenists, priests and rabbis, stood together in the belief
that the creation of man was proved by Scripture to have taken place
between 3900 and 4004 years before Christ.
In spite of the severe pressure of this line of authorities, extending
from St. Jerome and Eusebius to Usher and Petavius, in favour of this
scriptural chronology, even devoted Christian scholars had sometimes
felt obliged to revolt. The first great source of difficulty was
increased knowledge regarding the Egyptian monuments. As far back as
the last years of the sixteenth century Joseph Scaliger had done what
he could to lay the foundations of a more scientific treatment of
chronology, insisting especially that the historical indications in
Persia, in Babylon, and above all in Egypt, should be brought to bear
on the question. More than that, he had the boldness to urge that the
chronological indications of the Hebrew Scriptures should be fully and
critically discussed in the light of Egyptian and other records, without
any undue bias from theological considerations. His idea may well be
called inspired; yet it had little effect as regards a true view of the
antiquity of man, even upon himself, for the theological bias prevailed
above all his reasonings, even in his own mind. Well does a brilliant
modern writer declare that, "among the multitude of strong men in modern
times abdicating their reason at the command of their prejudices, Joseph
Scaliger is perhaps the most striking example." Early in the following
century Sir Walter Raleigh, in his History of the World (1603-1616),
pointed out the danger of adhering to the old system. He, too, foresaw
one of the results of modern investigation, stating it in these words,
which have the ring of prophetic inspiration: "For in Abraham's time
all the then known parts of the world were developed.... Egypt had many
magnificent cities,... and these not built with sticks, but of hewn
stone,... which magnificence needed a parent of more antiquity than
these other men have supposed." In view of these considerations Raleigh
followed the chronology of the Septuagint version, which enabled him to
give to the human race a few more years than were usually allowed.
About the middle of the seventeenth century Isaac Vossius, one of the
most eminent scholars of Christendom, attempted to bring the prevailing
belief into closer accordance with ascertained facts, but, save by a
chosen few, his efforts were rejected. In some parts of Europe a man
holding new views on chronology was by no means safe from bodily harm.
As an example of the extreme pressure exerted by the old theological
system at times upon honest scholars, we may take the case of La
Peyrere, who about the middle of the seventeenth century put forth his
book on the Pre-Adamites--an attempt to reconcile sundry well-known
difficulties in Scripture by claiming that man existed on earth before
the time of Adam. He was taken in hand at once; great theologians rushed
forward to attack him from all parts of Europe; within fifty years
thirty-six different refutations of his arguments had appeared;
the Parliament of Paris burned the book, and the Grand Vicar of the
archdiocese of Mechlin threw him into prison and kept him there until
he was forced, not only to retract his statements, but to abjure his
Protestantism.
In England, opposition to the growing truth was hardly less earnest.
Especially strong was Pearson, afterward Master of Trinity and Bishop
of Chester. In his treatise on the Creed, published in 1659, which has
remained a theologic classic, he condemned those who held the earth to
be more than fifty-six hundred years old, insisted that the first man
was created just six days later, declared that the Egyptian records were
forged, and called all Christians to turn from them to "the infallible
annals of the Spirit of God."
But, in spite of warnings like these, we see the new idea cropping out
in various parts of Europe. In 1672, Sir John Marsham published a work
in which he showed himself bold and honest. After describing the heathen
sources of Oriental history, he turns to the Christian writers,
and, having used the history of Egypt to show that the great Church
authorities were not exact, he ends one important argument with the
following words: "Thus the most interesting antiquities of Egypt have
been involved in the deepest obscurity by the very interpreters of
her chronology, who have jumbled everything up (qui omnia susque deque
permiscuerunt), so as to make them match with their own reckonings
of Hebrew chronology. Truly a very bad example, and quite unworthy of
religious writers."
This sturdy protest of Sir John against the dominant system and against
the "jumbling" by which Eusebius had endeavoured to cut down ancient
chronology within safe and sound orthodox limits, had little effect.
Though eminent chronologists of the eighteenth century, like Jackson,
Hales, and Drummond, gave forth multitudes of ponderous volumes pleading
for a period somewhat longer than that generally allowed, and
insisting that the received Hebrew text was grossly vitiated as
regards chronology, even this poor favour was refused them; the mass of
believers found it more comfortable to hold fast the faith committed to
them by Usher, and it remained settled that man was created about four
thousand years before our era.
To those who wished even greater precision, Dr. John Lightfoot,
Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge, the great rabbinical
scholar of his time, gave his famous demonstration from our sacred books
that "heaven and earth, centre and circumference, were created together,
in the same instant, and clouds full of water," and that "this work took
place and man was created by the Trinity on the twenty-third of October,
4004 B.C., at nine o'clock in the morning."
This tide of theological reasoning rolled on through the eighteenth
century, swollen by the biblical researches of leading commentators,
Catholic and Protestant, until it came in much majesty and force into
our own nineteenth century. At the very beginning of the century it
gained new strength from various great men in the Church, among whom may
be especially named Dr. Adam Clarke, who declared that, "to preclude the
possibility of a mistake, the unerring Spirit of God directed Moses in
the selection of his facts and the ascertaining of his dates."
All opposition to the received view seemed broken down, and as late as
1835--indeed, as late as 1850--came an announcement in the work of one
of the most eminent Egyptologists, Sir J. G. Wilkinson, to the
effect that he had modified the results he had obtained from Egyptian
monuments, in order that his chronology might not interfere with the
received date of the Deluge of Noah.(183)
(183) For Lightfoot, see his Prolegomena relating to the age of the
world at the birth of Christ; see also in the edition of his works,
London, 1822, vol. 4, pp. 64, 112. For Scaliger, see in the De
Emendatione Temporum, 1583; also Mark Pattison, Essays, Oxford, 1889,
vol. i, pp. 162 et seq. For Raleigh's misgivings, see his History of the
World, London, 1614, p. 227, book ii of part i, section 7 of chapter
i; also Clinton's Fasti Hellenici, vol. ii, p. 293. For Usher, see
his Annales Vet. et Nov. Test., London, 1650. For Pearson, see his
Exposition of the Creed, sixth edition, London, 1692, pp. 59 et seq.
For Marsham, see his Chronicus Canon Aegypticus, Ebraicus, Graecus,
et Disquisitiones, London, 1672. For La Peyrere, see especially
Quatrefarges, in Revue de Deux Mondes for 1861; also other chapters in
this work. For Jackson, Hales, and others, see Wallace's True Age of
the World. For Wilkinson, see various editions of his work on Egypt. For
Vignolles, see Leblois, vol. iii, p. 617. As to the declaration in favor
of the recent origin of man, sanctioned by Popes Gregory XIII and Urban
VIII, see Strachius, cited in Wallace, p. 97. For the general agreement
of Church authorities, as stated, see L'Art de Verifier les Dates, as
above. As to difficulties of scriptural chronology, see Ewald, History
of Israel, English translation, London, 1883, pp. 204 et seq.
II. THE NEW CHRONOLOGY.
But all investigators were not so docile as Wilkinson, and there soon
came a new train of scientific thought which rapidly undermined all this
theological chronology. Not to speak of other noted men, we have early
in the present century Young, Champollion, and Rosellini, beginning a
new epoch in the study of the Egyptian monuments. Nothing could be more
cautious than their procedure, but the evidence was soon overwhelming in
favour of a vastly longer existence of man in the Nile Valley than
could be made to agree with even the longest duration then allowed by
theologians. For, in spite of all the suppleness of men like Wilkinson,
it became evident that, whatever system of scriptural chronology was
adopted, Egypt was the seat of a flourishing civilization at a period
before the "Flood of Noah," and that no such flood had ever interrupted
it. This was bad, but worse remained behind: it was soon clear that
the civilization of Egypt began earlier than the time assigned for
the creation of man, even according to the most liberal of the sacred
chronologists.
As time went on, this became more and more evident. The long duration
assigned to human civilization in the fragments of Manetho, the Egyptian
scribe at Thebes in the third century B.C., was discovered to be more
accordant with truth than the chronologies of the great theologians;
and, as the present century has gone on, scientific results have
been reached absolutely fatal to the chronological view based by the
universal Church upon Scripture for nearly two thousand years.
As is well known, the first of the Egyptian kings of whom mention is
made upon the monuments of the Nile Valley is Mena, or Menes. Manetho
had given a statement, according to which Mena must have lived nearly
six thousand years before the Christian era. This was looked upon for a
long time as utterly inadmissible, as it was so clearly at variance
with the chronology of our own sacred books; but, as time went on, large
fragments of the original work of Manetho were more carefully studied
and distinguished from corrupt transcriptions, the lists of kings at
Karnak, Sacquarah, and the two temples at Abydos were brought to light,
and the lists of court architects were discovered. Among all these
monuments the scholar who visits Egypt is most impressed by the
sculptured tablets giving the lists of kings. Each shows the monarch of
the period doing homage to the long line of his ancestors. Each of these
sculptured monarchs has near him a tablet bearing his name. That great
care was always taken to keep these imposing records correct is certain;
the loyalty of subjects, the devotion of priests, and the family pride
of kings were all combined in this; and how effective this care was,
is seen in the fact that kings now known to be usurpers are carefully
omitted. The lists of court architects, extending over the period from
Seti to Darius, throw a flood of light over the other records.
Comparing, then, all these sources, and applying an average from the
lengths of the long series of well-known reigns to the reigns preceding,
the most careful and cautious scholars have satisfied themselves that
the original fragments of Manetho represent the work of a man honest and
well informed, and, after making all allowances for discrepancies and
the overlapping of reigns, it has become clear that the period known as
the reign of Mena must be fixed at more than three thousand years
B.C. In this the great Egyptologists of our time concur. Mariette,
the eminent French authority, puts the date at 5004 B.C.; Brugsch, the
leading German authority, puts it at about 4500 B.C.; and Meyer, the
latest and most cautious of the historians of antiquity, declares 3180
B.C. the latest possible date that can be assigned it. With these
dates the foremost English authorities, Sayce and Flinders Petrie,
substantially agree. This view is also confirmed on astronomical grounds
by Mr. Lockyer, the Astronomer Royal. We have it, then, as the result of
a century of work by the most acute and trained Egyptologists, and with
the inscriptions upon the temples and papyri before them, both of which
are now read with as much facility as many medieval manuscripts, that
the reign of Mena must be placed more than five thousand years ago.
But the significance of this conclusion can not be fully understood
until we bring into connection with it some other facts revealed by the
Egyptian monuments.
The first of these is that which struck Sir Walter Raleigh, that,
even in the time of the first dynasties in the Nile Valley, a high
civilization had already been developed. Take, first, man himself:
we find sculptured upon the early monuments types of the various
races--Egyptians, Israelites, negroes, and Libyans--as clearly
distinguishable in these paintings and sculptures of from four to six
thousand years ago as the same types are at the present day. No one
can look at these sculptures upon the Egyptian monuments, or even the
drawings of them, as given by Lepsius or Prisse d' Avennes, without
being convinced that they indicate, even at that remote period, a
difference of races so marked that long previous ages must have been
required to produce it.
The social condition of Egypt revealed in these early monuments of art
forces us to the same conclusion. Those earliest monuments show that a
very complex society had even then been developed. We not only have a
separation between the priestly and military orders, but agriculturists,
manufacturers, and traders, with a whole series of subdivisions in
each of these classes. The early tombs show us sculptured and painted
representations of a daily life which even then had been developed into
a vast wealth and variety of grades, forms, and usages.
Take, next, the political and military condition. One fact out of many
reveals a policy which must have been the result of long experience.
Just as now, at the end of the nineteenth century, the British
Government, having found that they can not rely upon the native
Egyptians for the protection of the country, are drilling the negroes
from the interior of Africa as soldiers, so the celebrated inscription
of Prince Una, as far back as the sixth dynasty, speaks of the Maksi or
negroes levied and drilled by tens of thousands for the Egyptian army.
Take, next, engineering. Here we find very early operations in the way
of canals, dikes, and great public edifices, so bold in conception and
thorough in execution as to fill our greatest engineers of these days
with astonishment. The quarrying, conveyance, cutting, jointing, and
polishing of the enormous blocks in the interior of the Great Pyramid
alone are the marvel of the foremost stone-workers of our century.
As regards architecture, we find not only the pyramids, which date from
the very earliest period of Egyptian history, and which are to this hour
the wonder of the world for size, for boldness, for exactness, and for
skilful contrivance, but also the temples, with long ranges of
colossal columns wrought in polished granite, with wonderful beauty of
ornamentation, with architraves and roofs vast in size and exquisite in
adjustment, which by their proportions tax the imagination, and lead the
beholder to ask whether all this can be real.
As to sculpture, we have not only the great Sphinx of Gizeh, so
marvellous in its boldness and dignity, dating from the very first
period of Egyptian history, but we have ranges of sphinxes, heroic
statues, and bas-reliefs, showing that even in the early ages this
branch of art had reached an amazing development.
As regards the perfection of these, Lubke, the most eminent German
authority on plastic art, referring to the early works in the tombs
about Memphis, declares that, "as monuments of the period of the fourth
dynasty, they are an evidence of the high perfection to which the
sculpture of the Egyptians had attained." Brugsch declares that "every
artistic production of those early days, whether picture, writing, or
sculpture, bears the stamp of the highest perfection in art." Maspero,
the most eminent French authority in this field, while expressing his
belief that the Sphinx was sculptured even before the time of Mena,
declares that "the art which conceived and carved this prodigious statue
was a finished art--an art which had attained self-mastery and was sure
of its effects"; while, among the more eminent English authorities,
Sayce tells us that "art is at its best in the age of the
pyramid-builders," and Sir James Fergusson declares, "We are startled to
find Egyptian art nearly as perfect in the oldest periods as in any of
the later."
The evidence as to the high development of Egyptian sculpture in the
earlier dynasties becomes every day more overwhelming. What exquisite
genius the early Egyptian sculptors showed in their lesser statues is
known to all who have seen those most precious specimens in the museum
at Cairo, which were wrought before the conventional type was adopted in
obedience to religious considerations.
In decorative and especially in ceramic art, as early as the fourth
and fifth dynasties, we have vases, cups, and other vessels showing
exquisite beauty of outline and a general sense of form almost if not
quite equal to Etruscan and Grecian work of the best periods.
Take, next, astronomy. Going back to the very earliest period of
Egyptian civilization, we find that the four sides of the Great Pyramid
are adjusted to the cardinal points with the utmost precision. "The day
of the equinox can be taken by observing the sun set across the face of
the pyramid, and the neighbouring Arabs adjust their astronomical dates
by its shadow." Yet this is but one out of many facts which prove that
the Egyptians, at the earliest period of which their monuments exist,
had arrived at knowledge and skill only acquired by long ages of
observation and thought. Mr. Lockyer, Astronomer Royal of Great Britain,
has recently convinced himself, after careful examination of various
ruined temples at Thebes and elsewhere, that they were placed with
reference to observations of stars. To state his conclusion in his own
words: "There seems a very high probability that three thousand, and
possibly four thousand, years before Christ the Egyptians had among them
men with some knowledge of astronomy, and that six thousand years ago
the course of the sun through the year was practically very well known,
and methods had been invented by means of which in time it might
be better known; and that, not very long after that, they not only
considered questions relating to the sun, but began to take up other
questions relating to the position and movement of the stars."
The same view of the antiquity of man in the Nile valley is confirmed by
philologists. To use the words of Max Duncker: "The oldest monuments
of Egypt--and they are the oldest monuments in the world--exhibit the
Egyptian in possession of the art of writing." It is found also, by the
inscriptions of the early dynasties, that the Egyptian language had even
at that early time been developed in all essential particulars to the
highest point it ever attained. What long periods it must have required
for such a development every scholar in philology can imagine.
As regards medical science, we have the Berlin papyrus, which, although
of a later period, refers with careful specification to a medical
literature of the first dynasty.
As regards archaeology, the earliest known inscriptions point to still
earlier events and buildings, indicating a long sequence in previous
history.
As to all that pertains to the history of civilization, no man of fair
and open mind can go into the museums of Cairo or the Louvre or the
British Museum and look at the monuments of those earlier dynasties
without seeing in them the results of a development in art, science,
laws, customs, and language, which must have required a vast period
before the time of Mena. And this conclusion is forced upon us all the
more invincibly when we consider the slow growth of ideas in the earlier
stages of civilization as compared with the later--a slowness of growth
which has kept the natives of many parts of the world in that earliest
civilization to this hour. To this we must add the fact that Egyptian
civilization was especially immobile: its development into castes is but
one among many evidences that it was the very opposite of a civilization
developed rapidly.
As to the length of the period before the time of Mena, there is, of
course, nothing exact. Manetho gives lists of great personages before
that first dynasty, and these extend over twenty-four thousand years.
Bunsen, one of the most learned of Christian scholars, declares that
not less than ten thousand years were necessary for the development of
civilization up to the point where we find it in Mena's time. No one can
claim precision for either of these statements, but they are valuable
as showing the impression of vast antiquity made upon the most competent
judges by the careful study of those remains: no unbiased judge can
doubt that an immensely long period of years must have been required for
the development of civilization up to the state in which we there find
it.
The investigations in the bed of the Nile confirm these views. That some
unwarranted conclusions have at times been announced is true; but the
fact remains that again and again rude pottery and other evidences of
early stages of civilization have been found in borings at places so
distant from each other, and at depths so great, that for such a range
of concurring facts, considered in connection with the rate of earthy
deposit by the Nile, there is no adequate explanation save the existence
of man in that valley thousands on thousands of years before the longest
time admitted by our sacred chronologists.
Nor have these investigations been of a careless character. Between
the years 1851 and 1854, Mr. Horner, an extremely cautious English
geologist, sank ninety-six shafts in four rows at intervals of eight
English miles, at right angles to the Nile, in the neighbourhood of
Memphis. In these pottery was brought up from various depths, and
beneath the statue of Rameses II at Memphis from a depth of thirty-nine
feet. At the rate of the Nile deposit a careful estimate has declared
this to indicate a period of over eleven thousand years. So eminent a
German authority, in geography as Peschel characterizes objections to
such deductions as groundless. However this may be, the general results
of these investigations, taken in connection with the other results of
research, are convincing.
And, finally, as if to make assurance doubly sure, a series of
archaeologists of the highest standing, French, German, English, and
American, have within the past twenty years discovered relics of a
savage period, of vastly earlier date than the time of Mena, prevailing
throughout Egypt. These relics have been discovered in various parts of
the country, from Cairo to Luxor, in great numbers. They are the same
sort of prehistoric implements which prove to us the early existence of
man in so many other parts of the world at a geological period so remote
that the figures given by our sacred chronologists are but trivial. The
last and most convincing of these discoveries, that of flint implements
in the drift, far down below the tombs of early kings at Thebes, and
upon high terraces far above the present bed of the Nile, will be
referred to later.
But it is not in Egypt alone that proofs are found of the utter
inadequacy of the entire chronological system derived from our sacred
books. These results of research in Egypt are strikingly confirmed by
research in Assyria and Babylonia. Prof. Sayce exhibits various proofs
of this. To use his own words regarding one of these proofs: "On the
shelves of the British Museum you may see huge sun-dried bricks, on
which are stamped the names and titles of kings who erected or repaired
the temples where they have been found.... They must... have reigned
before the time when, according to the margins of our Bibles, the Flood
of Noah was covering the earth and reducing such bricks as these to
their primeval slime."
This conclusion was soon placed beyond a doubt. The lists of king's and
collateral inscriptions recovered from the temples of the great valley
between the Tigris and Euphrates, and the records of astronomical
observations in that region, showed that there, too, a powerful
civilization had grown up at a period far earlier than could be made
consistent with our sacred chronology. The science of Assyriology was
thus combined with Egyptology to furnish one more convincing proof that,
precious as are the moral and religious truths in our sacred books
and the historical indications which they give us, these truths
and indications are necessarily inclosed in a setting of myth and
legend.(184)
(184) As to Manetho, see, for a very full account of his relations to
other chronologists, Palmer, Egyptian Chronicles, vol. i, chap. ii.
For a more recent and readable account, see Brugsch, Egypt under the
Pharaohs, English edition, London, 1879, chap. iv. For lists of kings at
Abydos and elsewhere, also the lists of architects, see Brugsch, Palmer,
Mariette, and others; also illustrations in Lepsius. For proofs that the
dynasties given were consecutive and not contemporeaneous, as was
once so fondly argued by those who tried to save Archbishop Usher's
chronology, see Mariette; also Sayce's Herodotus, appendix, p. 316.
For the various race types given on early monuments, see the coloured
engravings in Lepsius, Denkmaler; also Prisse d'Avennes, and the
frontpiece in the English edition of Brugsch; see also statement
regarding the same subject in Tylor, Anthropology, chap. i. For
the fulness of development of Egyptian civilization in the earliest
dynasties, see Rawlinson's Egypt, London, 1881, chap. xiii; also Brugsch
and other works cited. For the perfection of Egyptian engineering,
I rely not merely upon my own observation, but on what is far more
important, the testimony of my friend the Hon. J. G. Batterson, probably
the largest and most experienced worker in granite in the United States,
who acknowledges, from personal observation, that the early Egyptian
work is, in boldness and perfection, far beyond anything known since,
and a source of perpetual wonder to him. As to the perfection of
Egyptian architecture, see very striking statements in Fergusson,
History of Architecture, book i, chap. i. As to the pyramids, showing a
very high grade of culture already reached under the earliest dynasties,
see Lubke, Gesch. der Arch., book i. For Sayce's views, see his
Herodotus, appendix, p. 348. As to sculpture, see for representations
photographs published by the Boulak Museum, and such works as the
Description de l'Egypte, Lepsius's Denkmaler, and Prisse d'Avennes; see
also a most small work, easy of access, Maspero, Archeology, translated
by Miss A. B. Edwards, New York and London, 1887, chaps. i and ii. See
especially in Prisse, vol. ii, the statue of Chafre the Scribe, and the
group of "Tea" and his wife. As to the artistic value of the Sphinx,
see Maspero, as above, pp. 202, 203. See also similar ideas in Lubke's
History of Sculpture, vol. i, p. 24. As to astronomical knowledge
evidenced by the Great Pyramid, see Tylor, as above, p. 21; also
Lockyer, On Some Points in the Early History of Astronomy, in Nature
for 1891, and especially in the issues of June 4th and July 2d; also his
Dawn of Astronomy, passim. For a recent and conservative statement as to
the date of Mena, see Flinders Petrie, History of Egypt, London, 1894,
chap. ii. For delineations of vases, etc., showing Grecian proportion
and beauty of form under the fourth and fifth dynasties, see Prisse,
vol. ii, Art Industriel. As to the philological question, and the
development of language in Egypt, with the hieroglyphic sytem of
writing, see Rawlinson's Egypt, London, 1881, chap. xii; also Lenormanr;
also Max Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums, Abbott's translation, 1877.
As to the medical papyrus of Berlin, see Brugsch, vol. i, p. 58, but
especially the Papyrus Ebers. As to the corruption of later copies of
Manetho and fidelity of originals as attested by the monuments, see
Brugsch, chap. iv. On the accuracy of the present Egyptian chronology as
regards long periods, see ibid, vol. i, p. 32. As to the pottery found
deep in the Nile and the value of Horner's discovery, see Peschel, Races
of Man, New York, 1876, pp. 42-44. For succinct statement, see also
Laing, Problems of the Future, p. 94. For confirmatory proofs from
Assyriology, see Sayce, Lectures on the Religion of the Babylonians
(Hibbert Lectures for 1887), London, 1887, introductory chapter, and
especially pp. 21-25. See also Laing, Human Origins, chap. ii, for an
excellent summary. For an account of flint implements recently found
in gravel terraces fifteen hundred feet above the present level of the
Nile, and showing evidences of an age vastly greater even than those dug
out of the gravel at Thebes, see article by Flinders Petrie in London
Times of April 18th, 1895.
CHAPTER VII. THE ANTIQUITY OF MAN AND PREHISTORIC ARCHAEOLOGY
I. THE THUNDER-STONES.
While the view of chronology based upon the literal acceptance of
Scripture texts was thus shaken by researches in Egypt, another line
of observation and thought was slowly developed, even more fatal to the
theological view.
From a very early period there had been dug from the earth, in various
parts of the world, strangely shaped masses of stone, some rudely
chipped, some polished: in ancient times the larger of these were very
often considered as thunderbolts, the smaller as arrows, and all of
them as weapons which had been hurled by the gods and other supernatural
personages. Hence a sort of sacredness attached to them. In Chaldea,
they were built into the wall of temples; in Egypt, they were strung
about the necks of the dead. In India, fine specimens are to this day
seen upon altars, receiving prayers and sacrifices.
Naturally these beliefs were brought into the Christian mythology and
adapted to it. During the Middle Ages many of these well-wrought stones
were venerated as weapons, which during the "war in heaven" had been
used in driving forth Satan and his hosts; hence in the eleventh century
an Emperor of the East sent to the Emperor of the West a "heaven axe";
and in the twelfth century a Bishop of Rennes asserted the value of
thunder-stones as a divinely-appointed means of securing success in
battle, safety on the sea, security against thunder, and immunity from
unpleasant dreams. Even as late as the seventeenth century a French
ambassador brought a stone hatchet, which still exists in the museum at
Nancy, as a present to the Prince-Bishop of Verdun, and claimed for it
health-giving virtues.
In the last years of the sixteenth century Michael Mercati tried to
prove that the "thunder-stones" were weapons or implements of early
races of men; but from some cause his book was not published until the
following century, when other thinkers had begun to take up the same
idea, and then it had to contend with a theory far more accordant with
theologic modes of reasoning in science. This was the theory of the
learned Tollius, who in 1649 told the world that these chipped or
smoothed stones were "generated in the sky by a fulgurous exhalation
conglobed in a cloud by the circumposed humour."
But about the beginning of the eighteenth century a fact of great
importance was quietly established. In the year 1715 a large pointed
weapon of black flint was found in contact with the bones of an
elephant, in a gravel bed near Gray's Inn Lane, in London. The world in
general paid no heed to this: if the attention of theologians was called
to it, they dismissed it summarily with a reference to the Deluge of
Noah; but the specimen was labelled, the circumstances regarding it were
recorded, and both specimen and record carefully preserved.
In 1723 Jussieu addressed the French Academy on The Origin and Uses of
Thunder-stones. He showed that recent travellers from various parts of
the world had brought a number of weapons and other implements of stone
to France, and that they were essentially similar to what in Europe had
been known as "thunder-stones." A year later this fact was clinched into
the scientific mind of France by the Jesuit Lafitau, who published
a work showing the similarity between the customs of aborigines then
existing in other lands and those of the early inhabitants of Europe. So
began, in these works of Jussieu and Lafitau, the science of Comparative
Ethnography.
But it was at their own risk and peril that thinkers drew from these
discoveries any conclusions as to the antiquity of man. Montesquieu,
having ventured to hint, in an early edition of his Persian Letters,
that the world might be much older than had been generally supposed,
was soon made to feel danger both to his book and to himself, so that in
succeeding editions he suppressed the passage.
In 1730 Mahudel presented a paper to the French Academy of Inscriptions
on the so-called "thunder-stones," and also presented a series of plates
which showed that these were stone implements, which must have been used
at an early period in human history.
In 1778 Buffon, in his Epoques de la Nature, intimated his belief that
"thunder-stones" were made by early races of men; but he did not press
this view, and the reason for his reserve was obvious enough: he had
already one quarrel with the theologians on his hands, which had cost
him dear--public retraction and humiliation. His declaration, therefore,
attracted little notice.
In the year 1800 another fact came into the minds of thinking men in
England. In that year John Frere presented to the London Society of
Antiquaries sundry flint implements found in the clay beds near
Hoxne: that they were of human make was certain, and, in view of the
undisturbed depths in which they were found, the theory was suggested
that the men who made them must have lived at a very ancient geological
epoch; yet even this discovery and theory passed like a troublesome
dream, and soon seemed to be forgotten.
About twenty years later Dr. Buckland published a discussion of the
subject, in the light of various discoveries in the drift and in caves.
It received wide attention, but theology was soothed by his temporary
concession that these striking relics of human handiwork, associated
with the remains of various extinct animals, were proofs of the Deluge
of Noah.
In 1823 Boue, of the Vienna Academy of Sciences, showed to Cuvier sundry
human bones found deep in the alluvial deposits of the upper Rhine,
and suggested that they were of an early geological period; this Cuvier
virtually, if not explicitly, denied. Great as he was in his own field,
he was not a great geologist; he, in fact, led geology astray for many
years. Moreover, he lived in a time of reaction; it was the period of
the restored Bourbons, of the Voltairean King Louis XVIII, governing
to please orthodoxy. Boue's discovery was, therefore, at first opposed,
then enveloped in studied silence.
Cuvier evidently thought, as Voltaire had felt under similar
circumstances, that "among wolves one must howl a little"; and his
leading disciple, Elie de Beaumont, who succeeded, him in the sway over
geological science in France, was even more opposed to the new view
than his great master had been. Boue's discoveries were, therefore,
apparently laid to rest forever.(185)
(185) For the general history of early views regarding stone implements,
see the first chapters in Cartailhac, La France Prehistorique; also
Jolie, L'Homme avant les Metaux; also Lyell, Lubbock, and Evans. For
lightning-stones in China and elsewhere, see citation from a Chinese
encyclopedia of 1662, in Tylor, Early History of Mankind, p. 209. On the
universality of this belief, on the surviving use of stone implements
even into civilized times, and on their manufacture to-day, see ibid.,
chapter viii. For the treatment of Boue's discovery, see especially
Morillet, Le Prehistorique, Paris, 1885, p. 11. For the suppression of
the passage in Montesquieu's Persian Letters, see Letter 113, cited in
Schlosser's History of the Eighteenth Century (English translation),
vol. i, p. 135.
In 1825 Kent's Cavern, near Torquay, was explored by the Rev. Mr.
McEnery, a Roman Catholic clergyman, who seems to have been completely
overawed by orthodox opinion in England and elsewhere; for, though
he found human bones and implements mingled with remains of extinct
animals, he kept his notes in manuscript, and they were only brought to
light more than thirty years later by Mr. Vivian.
The coming of Charles X, the last of the French Bourbons, to the throne,
made the orthodox pressure even greater. It was the culmination of
the reactionary period--the time in France when a clerical committee,
sitting at the Tuileries, took such measures as were necessary to hold
in check all science that was not perfectly "safe"; the time in Austria
when Kaiser Franz made his famous declaration to sundry professors, that
what he wanted of them was simply to train obedient subjects, and that
those who did not make this their purpose would be dismissed; the time
in Germany when Nicholas of Russia and the princelings and ministers
under his control, from the King of Prussia downward, put forth all
their might in behalf of "scriptural science"; the time in Italy when
a scientific investigator, arriving at any conclusion distrusted by
the Church, was sure of losing his place and in danger of losing his
liberty; the time in England when what little science was taught was
held in due submission to Archdeacon Paley; the time in the United
States when the first thing essential in science was, that it be
adjusted to the ideas of revival exhorters.
Yet men devoted to scientific truth laboured on; and in 1828 Tournal, of
Narbonne, discovered in the cavern of Bize specimens of human industry,
with a fragment of a human skeleton, among bones of extinct animals. In
the following year Christol published accounts of his excavations in the
caverns of Gard; he had found in position, and under conditions which
forbade the idea of after-disturbance, human remains mixed with bones of
the extinct hyena of the early Quaternary period. Little general notice
was taken of this, for the reactionary orthodox atmosphere involved such
discoveries in darkness.
But in the French Revolution of 1830 the old politico-theological system
collapsed: Charles X and his advisers fled for their lives; the other
continental monarchs got glimpses of new light; the priesthood in charge
of education were put on their good behaviour for a time, and a better
era began.
Under the constitutional monarchy of the house of Orleans in France and
Belgium less attention was therefore paid by Government to the saving
of souls; and we have in rapid succession new discoveries of remains
of human industry, and even of human skeletons so mingled with bones of
extinct animals as to give additional proofs that the origin of man was
at a period vastly earlier than any which theologians had dreamed of.
A few years later the reactionary clerical influence against science in
this field rallied again. Schmerling in 1833 had explored a multitude
of caverns in Belgium, especially at Engis and Engihoul, and had found
human skulls and bones closely associated with bones of extinct animals,
such as the cave bear, hyena, elephant, and rhinoceros, while mingled
with these were evidences of human workmanship in the shape of chipped
flint implements; discoveries of a similar sort had been made by
De Serres in France and by Lund in Brazil; but, at least as far as
continental Europe was concerned, these discoveries were received with
much coolness both by Catholic leaders of opinion in France and Belgium
and by Protestant leaders in England and Holland. Schmerling himself
appears to have been overawed, and gave forth a sort of apologetic
theory, half scientific, half theologic, vainly hoping to satisfy the
clerical side.
Nor was it much better in England. Sir Charles Lyell, so devoted a
servant of prehistoric research thirty years later, was still holding
out against it on the scientific side; and, as to the theological
side, it was the period when that great churchman, Dean Cockburn, was
insulting geologists from the pulpit of York Minster, and the Rev.
Mellor Brown denouncing geology as "a black art," "a forbidden province"
and when, in America, Prof. Moses Stuart and others like him were
belittling the work of Benjamin Silliman and Edward Hitchcock.
In 1840 Godwin Austin presented to the Royal Geological Society
an account of his discoveries in Kent's Cavern, near Torquay, and
especially of human bones and implements mingled with bones of the
elephant, rhinoceros, cave bear, hyena, and other extinct animals;
yet this memoir, like that of McEnery fifteen years before, found an
atmosphere so unfavourable that it was not published.
II. THE FLINT WEAPONS AND IMPLEMENTS.
At the middle of the nineteenth century came the beginning of a new
epoch in science--an epoch when all these earlier discoveries were to
be interpreted by means of investigations in a different field: for,
in 1847, a man previously unknown to the world at large, Boucher de
Perthes, published at Paris the first volume of his work on Celtic and
Antediluvian Antiquities, and in this he showed engravings of typical
flint implements and weapons, of which he had discovered thousands upon
thousands in the high drift beds near Abbeville, in northern France.
The significance of this discovery was great indeed--far greater than
Boucher himself at first supposed. The very title of his book showed
that he at first regarded these implements and weapons as having
belonged to men overwhelmed at the Deluge of Noah; but it was soon
seen that they were something very different from proofs of the literal
exactness of Genesis: for they were found in terraces at great heights
above the river Somme, and, under any possible theory having regard to
fact, must have been deposited there at a time when the river system
of northern France was vastly different from anything known within
the historic period. The whole discovery indicated a series of great
geological changes since the time when these implements were made,
requiring cycles of time compared to which the space allowed by the
orthodox chronologists was as nothing.
His work was the result of over ten years of research and thought.
Year after year a force of men under his direction had dug into these
high-terraced gravel deposits of the river Somme, and in his book he
now gave, in the first full form, the results of his labour. So far as
France was concerned, he was met at first by what he calls "a conspiracy
of silence," and then by a contemptuous opposition among orthodox
scientists, at the head of whom stood Elie de Beaumont.
This heavy, sluggish opposition seemed immovable: nothing that Boucher
could do or say appeared to lighten the pressure of the orthodox
theological opinion behind it; not even his belief that these fossils
were remains of men drowned at the Deluge of Noah, and that they were
proofs of the literal exactness of Genesis seemed to help the matter.
His opponents felt instinctively that such discoveries boded danger to
the accepted view, and they were right: Boucher himself soon saw the
folly of trying to account for them by the orthodox theory.
And it must be confessed that not a little force was added to the
opposition by certain characteristics of Boucher de Perthes himself.
Gifted, far-sighted, and vigorous as he was, he was his own worst enemy.
Carried away by his own discoveries, he jumped to the most astounding
conclusions. The engravings in the later volume of his great work,
showing what he thought to be human features and inscriptions upon
some of the flint implements, are worthy of a comic almanac; and at
the National Museum of Archaeology at St. Germain, beneath the shelves
bearing the remains which he discovered, which mark the beginning of a
new epoch in science, are drawers containing specimens hardly worthy of
a penny museum, but from which he drew the most unwarranted inferences
as to the language, religion, and usages of prehistoric man.
Boucher triumphed none the less. Among his bitter opponents at first was
Dr. Rigollot, who in 1855, searching earnestly for materials to refute
the innovator, dug into the deposits of St. Acheul--and was converted:
for he found implements similar to those of Abbeville, making still more
certain the existence of man during the Drift period. So, too, Gaudry a
year later made similar discoveries.
But most important was the evidence of the truth which now came from
other parts of France and from other countries. The French leaders in
geological science had been held back not only by awe of Cuvier but by
recollections of Scheuchzer. Ridicule has always been a serious weapon
in France, and the ridicule which finally overtook the supporters of
the attempt of Scheuchzer, Mazurier, and others, to square geology with
Genesis, was still remembered. From the great body of French geologists,
therefore, Boucher secured at first no aid. His support came from the
other side of the Channel. The most eminent English geologists, such as
Falconer, Prestwich, and Lyell, visited the beds at Abbeville and St.
Acheul, convinced themselves that the discoveries of Boucher, Rigollot,
and their colleagues were real, and then quietly but firmly told England
the truth.
And now there appeared a most effective ally in France. The
arguments used against Boucher de Perthes and some of the other early
investigators of bone caves had been that the implements found might
have been washed about and turned over by great floods, and therefore
that they might be of a recent period; but in 1861 Edward Lartet
published an account of his own excavations at the Grotto of Aurignac,
and the proof that man had existed in the time of the Quaternary animals
was complete. This grotto had been carefully sealed in prehistoric times
by a stone at its entrance; no interference from disturbing currents of
water had been possible; and Lartet found, in place, bones of eight out
of nine of the main species of animals which characterize the Quaternary
period in Europe; and upon them marks of cutting implements, and in the
midst of them coals and ashes.
Close upon these came the excavations at Eyzies by Lartet and his
English colleague, Christy. In both these men there was a carefulness in
making researches and a sobriety in stating results which converted many
of those who had been repelled by the enthusiasm of Boucher de Perthes.
The two colleagues found in the stony deposits made by the water
dropping from the roof of the cave at Eyzies the bones of numerous
animals extinct or departed to arctic regions--one of these a vertebra
of a reindeer with a flint lance-head still fast in it, and with these
were found evidences of fire.
Discoveries like these were thoroughly convincing; yet there still
remained here and there gainsayers in the supposed interest of
Scripture, and these, in spite of the convincing array of facts,
insisted that in some way, by some combination of circumstances, these
bones of extinct animals of vastly remote periods might have been
brought into connection with all these human bones and implements of
human make in all these different places, refusing to admit that
these ancient relics of men and animals were of the same period. Such
gainsayers virtually adopted the reasoning of quaint old Persons, who,
having maintained that God created the world "about five thousand sixe
hundred and odde yeares agoe," added, "And if they aske what God was
doing before this short number of yeares, we answere with St. Augustine
replying to such curious questioners, that He was framing Hell for
them." But a new class of discoveries came to silence this opposition.
At La Madeleine in France, at the Kessler cave in Switzerland, and
at various other places, were found rude but striking carvings and
engravings on bone and stone representing sundry specimens of those
long-vanished species; and these specimens, or casts of them, were soon
to be seen in all the principal museums. They showed the hairy mammoth,
the cave bear, and various other animals of the Quaternary period,
carved rudely but vigorously by contemporary men; and, to complete the
significance of these discoveries, travellers returning from the
icy regions of North America brought similar carvings of animals now
existing in those regions, made by the Eskimos during their long arctic
winters to-day.(186)
(186) For the explorations in Belgium, see Dupont, Le Temps
Prehistorique en Belgique. For the discoveries by McEnery and Godwin
Austin, see Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, London, 1869, chap. x; also
Cartailhac, Joly, and others above cited. For Boucher de Perthes, see
his Antiquites Celtiques et Antediluviennes, Paris, 1847-'64, vol. iii,
pp. 526 et seq. For sundry extravagances of Boucher de Perthes, see
Reinach, Description raisonne du Musee de St.-Germain-en-Laye, Paris,
1889, vol. i, pp. 16 et seq. For the mixture of sound and absurd results
in Boucher's work, see Cartailhac as above, p. 19. Boucher had published
in 1838 a work entitled De la Creation, but it seems to have dropped
dead from the press. For the attempts of Scheuchzer to reconcile geology
and Genesis by means of the Homo diluvii testis, and similar "diluvian
fossils," see the chapter on Geology in this series. The original
specimens of these prehistoric engravings upon bone and stone may best
be seen at the Archaeological Museum of St.-Germain and the British
Museum. For engravings of some of the most recent, see especially
Dawkin's Early Man in Britain, chap. vii, and the Description du Musee
de St.-Germain. As to the Kessler etchings and their antiquity, see
D. G. Brinton, in Science, August 12, 1892. For comparison of this
prehistoric work with that produced to-day by the Eskimos and others,
see Lubbock, Prehistoric Times, chapters x and xiv. For very striking
exhibitions of this same artistic gift in a higher field to-day by
descendants of the barbarian tribes of northern America, see the very
remarkable illustrations in Rink, Danish Greenland, London, 1877,
especially those in chap. xiv.
As a result of these discoveries and others like them, showing that man
was not only contemporary with long-extinct animals of past geological
epochs, but that he had already developed into a stage of culture above
pure savagery, the tide of thought began to turn. Especially was this
seen in 1863, when Lyell published the first edition of his Geological
Evidence of the Antiquity of Man; and the fact that he had so long
opposed the new ideas gave force to the clear and conclusive argument
which led him to renounce his early scientific beliefs.
Research among the evidences of man's existence in the early Quaternary,
and possibly in the Tertiary period, was now pressed forward along the
whole line. In 1864 Gabriel Mortillet founded his review devoted to
this subject; and in 1865 the first of a series of scientific congresses
devoted to such researches was held in Italy. These investigations
went on vigorously in all parts of France and spread rapidly to other
countries. The explorations which Dupont began in 1864, in the caves
of Belgium, gave to the museum at Brussels eighty thousand flint
implements, forty thousand bones of animals of the Quaternary period,
and a number of human skulls and bones found mingled with these remains.
From Germany, Italy, Spain, America, India, and Egypt similar results
were reported.
Especially noteworthy were the further explorations of the caves and
drift throughout the British Islands. The discovery by Colonel Wood, In
1861, of flint tools in the same strata with bones of the earlier forms
of the rhinoceros, was but typical of many. A thorough examination of
the caverns of Brixham and Torquay, by Pengelly and others, made it
still more evident that man had existed in the early Quaternary period.
The existence of a period before the Glacial epoch or between different
glacial epochs in England, when the Englishman was a savage, using rude
stone tools, was then fully ascertained, and, what was more significant,
there were clearly shown a gradation and evolution even in the history
of that period. It was found that this ancient Stone epoch showed
progress and development. In the upper layers of the caves, with remains
of the reindeer, who, although he has migrated from these regions, still
exists in more northern climates, were found stone implements revealing
some little advance in civilization; next below these, sealed up in
the stalagmite, came, as a rule, another layer, in which the remains
of reindeer were rare and those of the mammoth more frequent, the
implements found in this stratum being less skilfully made than those
in the upper and more recent layers; and, finally, in the lowest levels,
near the floors of these ancient caverns, with remains of the cave
bear and others of the most ancient extinct animals, were found stone
implements evidently of a yet ruder and earlier stage of human progress.
No fairly unprejudiced man can visit the cave and museum at Torquay
without being convinced that there were a gradation and an evolution in
these beginnings of human civilization. The evidence is complete;
the masses of breccia taken from the cave, with the various soils,
implements, and bones carefully kept in place, put this progress beyond
a doubt.
All this indicated a great antiquity for the human race, but in it lay
the germs of still another great truth, even more important and more
serious in its consequences to the older theologic view, which will be
discussed in the following chapter.
But new evidences came in, showing a yet greater antiquity of man.
Remains of animals were found in connection with human remains, which
showed not only that man was living in times more remote than the
earlier of the new investigators had dared dream, but that some of
these early periods of his existence must have been of immense length,
embracing climatic changes betokening different geological periods; for
with remains of fire and human implements and human bones were found not
only bones of the hairy mammoth and cave bear, woolly rhinoceros, and
reindeer, which could only have been deposited there in a time of arctic
cold, but bones of the hyena, hippopotamus, sabre-toothed tiger, and
the like, which could only have been deposited when there was in these
regions a torrid climate. The conjunction of these remains clearly
showed that man had lived in England early enough and long enough to
pass through times when there was arctic cold and times when there was
torrid heat; times when great glaciers stretched far down into England
and indeed into the continent, and times when England had a land
connection with the European continent, and the European continent with
Africa, allowing tropical animals to migrate freely from Africa to the
middle regions of England.
The question of the origin of man at a period vastly earlier than the
sacred chronologists permitted was thus absolutely settled, but among
the questions regarding the existence of man at a period yet more
remote, the Drift period, there was one which for a time seemed to give
the champions of science some difficulty. The orthodox leaders in the
time of Boucher de Perthes, and for a considerable time afterward, had
a weapon of which they made vigorous use: the statement that no human
bones had yet been discovered in the drift. The supporters of science
naturally answered that few if any other bones as small as those of man
had been found, and that this fact was an additional proof of the great
length of the period since man had lived with the extinct animals; for,
since specimens of human workmanship proved man's existence as fully as
remains of his bones could do, the absence or even rarity of human and
other small bones simply indicated the long periods of time required for
dissolving them away.
Yet Boucher, inspired by the genius he had already shown, and filled
with the spirit of prophecy, declared that human bones would yet be
found in the midst of the flint implements, and in 1863 he claimed that
this prophecy had been fulfilled by the discovery at Moulin Quignon of
a portion of a human jaw deep in the early Quaternary deposits. But his
triumph was short-lived: the opposition ridiculed his discovery; they
showed that he had offered a premium to his workmen for the discovery
of human remains, and they naturally drew the inference that some
tricky labourer had deceived him. The result of this was that the men
of science felt obliged to acknowledge that the Moulin Quignon discovery
was not proven.
But ere long human bones were found in the deposits of the early
Quaternary period, or indeed of an earlier period, in various other
parts of the world, and the question regarding the Moulin Quignon relic
was of little importance.
We have seen that researches regarding the existence of prehistoric
man in England and on the Continent were at first mainly made in the
caverns; but the existence of man in the earliest Quaternary period
was confirmed on both sides of the English Channel, in a way even
more striking, by the close examination of the drift and early gravel
deposits. The results arrived at by Boucher de Perthes were amply
confirmed in England. Rude stone implements were found in terraces a
hundred feet and more above the levels at which various rivers of Great
Britain now flow, and under circumstances which show that, at the time
when they were deposited, the rivers of Great Britain in many cases were
entirely different from those of the present period, and formed parts
of the river system of the European continent. Researches in the high
terraces above the Thames and the Ouse, as well as at other points in
Great Britain, placed beyond a doubt the fact that man existed on the
British Islands at a time when they were connected by solid land
with the Continent, and made it clear that, within the period of the
existence of man in northern Europe, a large portion of the British
Islands had been sunk to depths between fifteen hundred and twenty-five
hundred feet beneath the Northern Ocean,--had risen again from the
water,--had formed part of the continent of Europe, and had been in
unbroken connection with Africa, so that elephants, bears, tigers,
lions, the rhinoceros and hippopotamus, of species now mainly extinct,
had left their bones in the same deposits with human implements as far
north as Yorkshire. Moreover, connected with this fact came in the new
conviction, forced upon geologists by the more careful examination of
the earth and its changes, that such elevations and depressions of Great
Britain and other parts of the world were not necessarily the results
of sudden cataclysms, but generally of slow processes extending through
vast cycles of years--processes such as are now known to be going on in
various parts of the world. Thus it was that the six or seven thousand
years allowed by the most liberal theologians of former times were seen
more and more clearly to be but a mere nothing in the long succession of
ages since the appearance of man.
Confirmation of these results was received from various other parts of
the world. In Africa came the discovery of flint implements deep in the
hard gravel of the Nile Valley at Luxor and on the high hills behind
Esneh. In America the discoveries at Trenton, N.J., and at various
places in Delaware, Ohio, Minnesota, and elsewhere, along the southern
edge of the drift of the Glacial epochs, clinched the new scientific
truth yet more firmly; and the statement made by an eminent American
authority is, that "man was on this continent when the climate and ice
of Greenland extended to the mouth of New York harbour." The discoveries
of prehistoric remains on the Pacific coast, and especially in British
Columbia, finished completely the last chance at a reasonable contention
by the adherents of the older view. As to these investigations on the
Pacific slope of the United States, the discoveries of Whitney and
others in California had been so made and announced that the judgment of
scientific men regarding them was suspended until the visit of perhaps
the greatest living authority in his department, Alfred Russel Wallace,
in 1887. He confirmed the view of Prof. Whitney and others with the
statement that "both the actual remains and works of man found deep
under the lava-flows of Pliocene age show that he existed in the
New World at least as early as in the Old." To this may be added the
discoveries in British Columbia, which prove that, since man existed in
these regions, "valleys have been filled up by drift from the waste of
mountains to a depth in some cases of fifteen hundred feet; this covered
by a succession of tuffs, ashes, and lava-streams from volcanoes long
since extinct, and finally cut down by the present rivers through beds
of solid basalt, and through this accumulation of lavas and gravels."
The immense antiquity of the human remains in the gravels of the Pacific
coast is summed up by a most eminent English authority and declared
to be proved, "first, by the present river systems being of subsequent
date, sometimes cutting through them and their superincumbent lava-cap
to a depth of two thousand feet; secondly, by the great denudation that
has taken place since they were deposited, for they sometimes lie on the
summits of mountains six thousand feet high; thirdly, by the fact that
the Sierra Nevada has been partly elevated since their formation."(187)
(187) For the general subject of investigations in British prehistoric
remains, see especially Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain and his Place
in the Tertiary Period, London, 1880. For Boucher de Perthes's account
of his discovery of the human jaw at Moulin Quignon, see his Antiquites
Celtiques et Antediluviennes, vol. iii, p. 542 et seq., Appendix. For an
excellent account of special investigations in the high terraces above
the Thames, see J. Allen Brown, F. G. S., Palaeolithic Man in Northwest
Middlesex, London, 1887. For discoveries in America, and the citations
regarding them, see Wright, the Ice Age in North America, New York,
1889, chap. xxi. Very remarkable examples of these specimens from
the drift at Trenton may be seen in Prof. Abbott's collections at the
University of Pennsylvania. For an admirable statement, see Prof. Henry
W. Haynes, in Wright, as above. For proofs of the vast antiquity of man
upon the Pacific coast, cited in the text, see Skertchley, F. G. S., in
the Journal of the Anthropological Institute for 1887, p. 336; see also
Wallace, Darwinism, London, 1890, chap. xv; and for a striking summary
of the evidence that man lived before the last submergence of Britain,
see Brown, Palaeolithic Man in Northwest Middlesex, as above cited.
For proofs that man existed in a period when the streams were flowing
hundreds of feet above their present level, see ibid., p. 33. As to the
evidence of the action of the sea and of glacial action in the Welsh
bone caves after the remains of extinct animals and weapons of human
workmanship had been deposited, see ibid., p. 198. For a good statement
of the slowness of the submergance and emergence of Great Britain, with
an illustration from the rising of the shore of Finland, see ibid.,
pp. 47, 48. As to the flint implements of Palaeolithic man in the high
terraced gravels throughout the Thames Valley, associated with bones of
the mammoth, woolly rhinoceros, etc., see Brown, p. 31. For still
more conclusive proofs that man inhabited North Wales before the last
submergence of the greater part of the British Islands to a depth of
twelve hundred to fourteen hundred feet, see ibid., pp. 199, 200. For
maps showing the connection of the British river system with that of the
Continent, see Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Britain, London, 1880, pp.
18, 41, 73; also Lyell, Antiquity of Man, chap. xiv. As to the long
continuance of the early Stone period, see James Geikie, The Great Ice
Age, New York, 1888, p. 402. As to the impossibility of the animals of
the arctic and torrid regions living together or visiting the same place
at different times in the same year, see Geikie, as above, pp. 421
et seq.; and for a conclusive argument that the animals of the period
assigned lived in England not since, but before, the Glacial period,
or in the intergalcial period, see ibid., p. 459. For a very candid
statement by perhaps the foremost leader of the theological rear-guard,
admitting the insuperable difficulties presented by the Old Testament
chronology as regards the Creation and the Deluge, see the Duke of
Argyll's Primeval Man, pp. 90-100, and especially pp. 93, 124. For a
succinct statement on the general subject, see Laing, Problems of the
Future, London, 1889, chapters v and vi. For discoveries of prehistoric
implements in India, see notes by Bruce Foote, F. G. S., in the British
Journal of the Anthropological Institute for 1886 and 1887. For
similar discoveries in South Africa, see Gooch, in Journal of the
Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and Ireland, vol. xi, pp. 124
et seq. For proofs of the existance of Palaeolithic man in Egypt, see
Mook, Haynes, Pitt-Rivers, Flinders-Petrie, and others, cited at length
in the next chapter. For the corroborative and concurrent testimony
of ethnology, philology, and history to the vast antiquity of man, see
Tylor, Anthropology, chap. i.
As an important supplement to these discoveries of ancient implements
came sundry comparisons made by eminent physiologists between human
skulls and bones found in different places and under circumstances
showing vast antiquity.
Human bones had been found under such circumstances as early as 1835
at Cannstadt near Stuttgart, and in 1856 in the Neanderthal near
Dusseldorf; but in more recent searches they had been discovered in a
multitude of places, especially in Germany, France, Belgium, England,
the Caucasus, Africa, and North and South America. Comparison of these
bones showed that even in that remote Quaternary period there were great
differences of race, and here again came in an argument for the yet
earlier existence of man on the earth; for long previous periods must
have been required to develop such racial differences. Considerations
of this kind gave a new impulse to the belief that man's existence might
even date back into the Tertiary period. The evidence for this earlier
origin of man was ably summed up, not only by its brilliant advocate,
Mortillet, but by a former opponent, one of the most conservative of
modern anthropologists, Quatrefages; and the conclusion arrived at
by both was, that man did really exist in the Tertiary period. The
acceptance of this conclusion was also seen in the more recent work
of Alfred Russel Wallace, who, though very cautious and conservative,
placed the origin of man not only in the Tertiary period, but in an
earlier stage of it than most had dared assign--even in the Miocene.
The first thing raising a strong presumption, if not giving proof, that
man existed in the Tertiary, was the fact that from all explored
parts of the world came in more and more evidence that in the earlier
Quaternary man existed in different, strongly marked races and in great
numbers. From all regions which geologists had explored, even from
those the most distant and different from each other, came this same
evidence--from northern Europe to southern Africa; from France to China;
from New Jersey to British Columbia; from British Columbia to Peru. The
development of man in such numbers and in so many different regions,
with such differences of race and at so early a period, must have
required a long previous time.
This argument was strengthened by discoveries of bones bearing marks
apparently made by cutting instruments, in the Tertiary formations of
France and Italy, and by the discoveries of what were claimed to be
flint implements by the Abbe Bourgeois in France, and of implements and
human bones by Prof. Capellini in Italy.
On the other hand, some of the more cautious men of science are still
content to say that the existence of man in the Tertiary period is not
yet proven. As to his existence throughout the Quaternary epoch, no new
proofs are needed; even so determined a supporter of the theological
side as the Duke of Argyll has been forced to yield to the evidence.
Of attempts to make an exact chronological statement throwing light on
the length of the various prehistoric periods, the most notable have
been those by M. Morlot, on the accumulated strata of the Lake of
Geneva; by Gillieron, on the silt of Lake Neufchatel; by Horner, in the
delta deposits of Egypt; and by Riddle, in the delta of the Mississippi.
But while these have failed to give anything like an exact result,
all these investigations together point to the central truth, so amply
established, of the vast antiquity of man, and the utter inadequacy of
the chronology given in our sacred books. The period of man's past life
upon our planet, which has been fixed by the universal Church, "always,
everywhere, and by all," is thus perfectly proved to be insignificant
compared with those vast geological epochs during which man is now known
to have existed.(188)
(188) As to the evidence of man in the Tertiary period, see works
already cited, especially Quatrefages, Cartailhac, and Mortillet. For an
admirable summary, see Laing, Human Origins, chap. viii. See also, for
a summing up of the evidence in favour of man in the Tertiary period,
Quatrefages, History Generale des Races Humaines, in the Bibliotheque
Ethnologique, Paris, 1887, chap. iv. As to the earlier view, see Vogt,
Lectures on Man, London, 1864, lecture xi. For a thorough and convincing
refutation of Sir J. W. Dawson's attempt to make the old and new Stone
periods coincide, see H. W. Haynes, in chap. vi of the History of
America, edited by Justin Winsor. For development of various important
points in the relation of anthropology to the human occupancy of our
planet, see Topinard, Anthropology, London, 1890, chap. ix.
CHAPTER VIII. THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ANTHROPOLOGY
In the previous chapters we have seen how science, especially within
the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries, has thoroughly changed the
intelligent thought of the world in regard to the antiquity of man upon
our planet; and how the fabric built upon the chronological indications
in our sacred books--first, by the early fathers of the Church,
afterward by the medieval doctors, and finally by the reformers and
modern orthodox chronologists--has virtually disappeared before an
entirely different view forced upon us, especially by Egyptian and
Assyrian studies, as well as by geology and archeology.
In this chapter I purpose to present some outlines of the work of
Anthropology, especially as assisted by Ethnology, in showing what the
evolution of human civilization has been.
Here, too, the change from the old theological view based upon the
letter of our sacred books to the modern scientific view based upon
evidence absolutely irrefragable is complete. Here, too, we are at the
beginning of a vast change in the basis and modes of thought upon man--a
change even more striking than that accomplished by Copernicus and
Galileo, when they substituted for a universe in which sun and planets
revolved about the earth a universe in which the earth is but the merest
grain or atom revolving with other worlds, larger and smaller, about the
sun; and all these forming but one among innumerable systems.
Ever since the beginning of man's effective thinking upon the great
problems around him, two antagonistic views have existed regarding the
life of the human race upon earth. The first of these is the belief that
man was created "in the beginning" a perfect being, endowed with the
highest moral and intellectual powers, but that there came a "fall,"
and, as its result, the entrance into the world of evil, toil, sorrow,
and death.
Nothing could be more natural than such an explanation of the existence
of evil, in times when men saw everywhere miracle and nowhere law. It
is, under such circumstances, by far the most easy of explanations, for
it is in accordance with the appearances of things: men adopted it just
as naturally as they adopted the theory that the Almighty hangs up the
stars as lights in the solid firmament above the earth, or hides the sun
behind a mountain at night, or wheels the planets around the earth, or
flings comets as "signs and wonders" to scare a wicked world, or allows
evil spirits to control thunder, lightning, and storm, and to cause
diseases of body and mind, or opens the "windows of heaven" to let down
"the waters that be above the heavens," and thus to give rain upon the
earth.
A belief, then, in a primeval period of innocence and perfection--moral,
intellectual, and physical--from which men for some fault fell, is
perfectly in accordance with what we should expect.
Among the earliest known records of our race we find this view taking
shape in the Chaldean legends of war between the gods, and of a fall of
man; both of which seemed necessary to explain the existence of evil.
In Greek mythology perhaps the best-known statement was made by Hesiod:
to him it was revealed, regarding the men of the most ancient times,
that they were at first "a golden race," that "as gods they were wont
to live, with a life void of care, without labour and trouble; nor was
wretched old age at all impending; but ever did they delight themselves
out of the reach of all ills, and they died as if overcome by sleep;
all blessings were theirs: of its own will the fruitful field would bear
them fruit, much and ample, and they gladly used to reap the labours
of their hands in quietness along with many good things, being rich in
flocks and true to the blessed gods." But there came a "fall," caused
by human curiosity. Pandora, the first woman created, received a vase
which, by divine command, was to remain closed; but she was tempted to
open it, and troubles, sorrow, and disease escaped into the world, hope
alone remaining.
So, too, in Roman mythological poetry the well-known picture by Ovid
is but one among the many exhibitions of this same belief in a primeval
golden age--a Saturnian cycle; one of the constantly recurring attempts,
so universal and so natural in the early history of man, to account for
the existence of evil, care, and toil on earth by explanatory myths and
legends.
This view, growing out of the myths, legends, and theologies of earlier
peoples, we also find embodied in the sacred tradition of the Jews,
and especially in one of the documents which form the impressive poem
beginning the books attributed to Moses. As to the Christian Church, no
word of its Blessed Founder indicates that it was committed by him to
this theory, or that he even thought it worthy of his attention. How,
like so many other dogmas never dreamed of by Jesus of Nazareth and
those who knew him best, it was developed, it does not lie within the
province of this chapter to point out; nor is it worth our while to
dwell upon its evolution in the early Church, in the Middle Ages, at the
Reformation, and in various branches of the Protestant Church: suffice
it that, though among English-speaking nations by far the most important
influence in its favour has come from Milton's inspiration rather than
from that of older sacred books, no doctrine has been more universally
accepted, "always, everywhere, and by all," from the earliest fathers of
the Church down to the present hour.
On the other hand appeared at an early period the opposite view--that
mankind, instead of having fallen from a high intellectual, moral, and
religious condition, has slowly risen from low and brutal beginnings.
In Greece, among the philosophers contemporary with Socrates, we find
Critias depicting a rise of man, from a time when he was beastlike
and lawless, through a period when laws were developed, to a time
when morality received enforcement from religion; but among all the
statements of this theory the most noteworthy is that given by Lucretius
in his great poem on The Nature of Things. Despite its errors, it
remains among the most remarkable examples of prophetic insight in
the history of our race. The inspiration of Lucretius gave him
almost miraculous glimpses of truth; his view of the development
of civilization from the rudest beginnings to the height of its
achievements is a wonderful growth, rooted in observation and thought,
branching forth into a multitude of striking facts and fancies; and
among these is the statement regarding the sequence of inventions:
"Man's earliest arms were fingers, teeth, and nails, And stones and
fragments from the branching woods; Then copper next; and last, as
latest traced, The tyrant, iron."
Thus did the poet prophesy one of the most fruitful achievements of
modern science: the discovery of that series of epochs which has been so
carefully studied in our century.
Very striking, also, is the statement of Horace, though his idea is
evidently derived from Lucretius. He dwells upon man's first condition
on earth as low and bestial, and pictures him lurking in caves,
progressing from the use of his fists and nails, first to clubs, then
to arms which he had learned to forge, and, finally, to the invention of
the names of things, to literature, and to laws.(189)
(189) For the passage in Hesiod, as given, see the Works and Days, lines
109-120, in Banks's translation. As to Horace, see the Satires, i, 3,
99. As to the relation of the poetic account of the Fall in Genesis to
Chaldean myths, see Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, pp. 13, 17. For
a very instructive separation of the Jehovistic and Elohistic parts
of Genesis, with the account of the "Fall" as given in the former, see
Lenormant, La Genese, Paris, 1883, pp. 166-168; also Bacon, Genesis of
Genesis. Of the lines of Lucretius--
"Arma antiqua, manus, ungues, dentesque fuerunt, Et lapides, et item
sylvarum fragmina rami, Posterius ferri vis est, aerisque reperta, Sed
prior aeris erat, quam ferri cognitus usus"---
the translation is that of Good. For a more exact prose translation, see
Munro's Lucretius, fourth edition, which is much more careful, at least
in the proof-reading, than the first edition. As regards Lucretius's
propheitc insight into some of the greatest conclusions of modern
science, see Munro's translation and notes, fourth edition, book v,
notes ii, p. 335. On the relation of several passages in Horace to the
ideas of Lucretius, see Munro as above. For the passage from Luther, see
the Table Talk, Hazlitt's translation, p. 242.
During the mediaeval ages of faith this view was almost entirely
obscured, and at the Reformation it seemed likely to remain so. Typical
of the simplicity of belief in "the Fall" cherished among the Reformers
is Luther's declaration regarding Adam and Eve. He tells us, "they
entered into the garden about noon, and having a desire to eat, she took
the apple; then came the fall--according to our account at about
two o'clock." But in the revival of learning the old eclipsed truth
reappeared, and in the first part of the seventeenth century we find
that, among the crimes for which Vanini was sentenced at Toulouse to
have his tongue torn out and to be burned alive, was his belief that
there is a gradation extending upward from the lowest to the highest
form of created beings.
Yet, in the same century, the writings of Bodin, Bacon, Descartes, and
Pascal were evidently undermining the old idea of "the Fall." Bodin
especially, brilliant as were his services to orthodoxy, argued lucidly
against the doctrine of general human deterioration.
Early in the eighteenth century Vico presented the philosophy of history
as an upward movement of man out of animalism and barbarism. This idea
took firm hold upon human thought, and in the following centuries such
men as Lessing and Turgot gave new force to it.
The investigations of the last forty years have shown that Lucretius and
Horace were inspired prophets: what they saw by the exercise of reason
illumined by poetic genius, has been now thoroughly based upon facts
carefully ascertained and arranged--until Thomsen and Nilsson, the
northern archaeologists, have brought these prophecies to evident
fulfilment, by presenting a scientific classification dividing the age
of prehistoric man in various parts of the world between an old stone
period, a new stone period, a period of beaten copper, a period of
bronze, and a period of iron, and arraying vast masses of facts from all
parts of the world, fitting thoroughly into each other, strengthening
each other, and showing beyond a doubt that, instead of a FALL, there
has been a RISE of man, from the earliest indications in the Quaternary,
or even, possibly, in the Tertiary period.(190)
(190) For Vanini, see Topinard, Elements of Anthropologie, p. 52. For a
brief and careful summary of the agency of Eccard in Germany, Goguet
in France, Hoare in England, and others in various parts of Europe, as
regards this development of the scientific view during the eighteenth
century, see Mortillet, Le Prehistorique, Paris, 1885, chap. i. For the
agency of Bodin, Bacon, Descartes, and Pascal, see Flint, Philosophy
of History, introduction, pp. 28 et seq. For a shorter summary,
see Lubbock, Prehistoric Man. For the statements by the northern
archaeologists, see Nilsson, Worsaae, and the other main works cited in
this article. For a generous statement regarding the great services of
the Danish archaeologists in this field, see Quatrefages, introduction
to Cartailhac, Les Ages Prehistoriques de l'Espagne et du Portugal.
The first blow at the fully developed doctrine of "the Fall" came, as
we have seen, from geology. According to that doctrine, as held quite
generally from its beginnings among the fathers and doctors of
the primitive Church down to its culmination in the minds of great
Protestants like John Wesley, the statement in our sacred books
that "death entered the world by sin" was taken as a historic fact,
necessitating the conclusion that, before the serpent persuaded Eve to
eat of the forbidden fruit, death on our planet was unknown. Naturally,
when geology revealed, in the strata of a period long before the coming
of man on earth, a vast multitude of carnivorous tribes fitted
to destroy their fellow-creatures on land and sea, and within the
fossilized skeletons of many of these the partially digested remains of
animals, this doctrine was too heavy to be carried, and it was quietly
dropped.
But about the middle of the nineteenth century the doctrine of the
rise of man as opposed to the doctrine of his "fall" received a great
accession of strength from a source most unexpected. As we saw in the
last chapter, the facts proving the great antiquity of man foreshadowed
a new and even more remarkable idea regarding him. We saw, it is true,
that the opponents of Boucher de Perthes, while they could not deny his
discovery of human implements in the drift, were successful in securing
a verdict of "Not proven" as regarded his discovery of human bones; but
their triumph was short-lived. Many previous discoveries, little thought
of up to that time, began to be studied, and others were added which
resulted not merely in confirming the truth regarding the antiquity of
man, but in establishing another doctrine which the opponents of science
regarded with vastly greater dislike--the doctrine that man has not
fallen from an original high estate in which he was created about six
thousand years ago, but that, from a period vastly earlier than any
warranted by the sacred chronologists, he has been, in spite of lapses
and deteriorations, rising.
A brief review of this new growth of truth may be useful. As early as
1835 Prof. Jaeger had brought out from a quantity of Quaternary remains
dug up long before at Cannstadt, near Stuttgart, a portion of a human
skull, apparently of very low type. A battle raged about it for a time,
but this finally subsided, owing to uncertainties arising from the
circumstances of the discovery.
In 1856, in the Neanderthal, near Dusseldorf, among Quaternary remains
gathered on the floor of a grotto, another skull was found bearing
the same evidence of a low human type. As in the case of the Cannstadt
skull, this again was fiercely debated, and finally the questions
regarding it were allowed to remain in suspense. But new discoveries
were made: at Eguisheim, at Brux, at Spy, and elsewhere, human skulls
were found of a similarly low type; and, while each of the earlier
discoveries was open to debate, and either, had no other been
discovered, might have been considered an abnormal specimen, the
combination of all these showed conclusively that not only had a race of
men existed at that remote period, but that it was of a type as low as
the lowest, perhaps below the lowest, now known.
Research was now redoubled, and, as a result, human skulls and complete
skeletons of various types began to be discovered in the ancient
deposits of many other parts of the world, and especially in France,
Belgium, Germany, the Caucasus, Africa, and North and South America.
But soon began to emerge from all these discoveries a fact of enormous
importance. The skulls and bones found at Cro Magnon, Solutre, Furfooz,
Grenelle, and elsewhere, were compared, and it was thus made certain
that various races had already appeared and lived in various grades of
civilization, even in those exceedingly remote epochs; that even then
there were various strata of humanity ranging from races of a very low
to those of a very high type; and that upon any theory--certainly upon
the theory of the origin of mankind from a single pair--two things were
evident: first, that long, slow processes during vast periods of time
must have been required for the differentiation of these races, and for
the evolution of man up to the point where the better specimens show
him, certainly in the early Quaternary and perhaps in the Tertiary
period; and, secondly, that there had been from the first appearance of
man, of which we have any traces, an UPWARD tendency.(191)
(191) For Wesley's statement of the amazing consequences of the entrance
of death into the world by sin, see citations in his sermon on The Fall
of Man in the chapter on Geology. For Boucher de Perthes, see his Life
by Ledieu, especially chapters v and xix; also letters in the appendix;
also Les Antiquities Celtiques et Antediluviennes, as cited in previous
chapters of this work. For an account of the Neanderthal man and other
remains mentioned, see Quatrefages, Human Species, chap. xxvi; also
Mortillet, Le Prehistorique, Paris, 1885, pp. 232 et seq.; also other
writers cited in this chapter. For the other discoveries mentioned, see
the same sources. For an engraving of the skull and the restored human
face of the Neanderthal man, see Reinach, Antiquities Nationales, etc.,
vol. i, p. 138. For the vast regions over which that early race spread,
see Quatrefages as above, p. 307. See also the same author, Histoire
Generale des Races Humaines, in the Bibliotheque Ethnologique, Paris,
1887, p. 4. In the vast mass of literature bearing on this subject, see
Quatrefages, Dupont, Reinach, Joly, Mortillet, Tylor, and Lubbock, in
works cited through these chapters.
This second conclusion, the upward tendency of man from low beginnings,
was made more and more clear by bringing into relations with these
remains of human bodies and of extinct animals the remains of human
handiwork. As stated in the last chapter, the river drift and bone
caves in Great Britain, France, and other parts of the world, revealed a
progression, even in the various divisions of the earliest Stone period;
for, beginning at the very lowest strata of these remains, on the floors
of the caverns, associated mainly with the bones of extinct animals,
such as the cave bear, the hairy elephant, and the like, were the rudest
implements then, in strata above these, sealed in the stalagmite of the
cavern floors, lying with the bones of animals extinct but more recent,
stone implements were found, still rude, but, as a rule, of an improved
type; and, finally, in a still higher stratum, associated with bones
of animals like the reindeer and bison, which, though not extinct, have
departed to other climates, were rude stone implements, on the whole
of a still better workmanship. Such was the foreshadowing, even at that
early rude Stone period, of the proofs that the tendency of man has
been from his earliest epoch and in all parts of the world, as a rule,
upward.
But this rule was to be much further exemplified. About 1850, while the
French and English geologists were working more especially among the
relics of the drift and cave periods, noted archaeologists of the
North--Forchammer, Steenstrup, and Worsaae--were devoting themselves to
the investigation of certain remains upon the Danish Peninsula. These
remains were of two kinds: first, there were vast shell-heaps or
accumulations of shells and other refuse cast aside by rude tribes
which at some unknown age in the past lived on the shores of the Baltic,
principally on shellfish. That these shell-heaps were very ancient
was evident: the shells of oysters and the like found in them were far
larger than any now found on those coasts; their size, so far from being
like that of the corresponding varieties which now exist in the brackish
waters of the Baltic, was in every case like that of those varieties
which only thrive in the waters of the open salt sea. Here was a clear
indication that at the time when man formed these shell-heaps those
coasts were in far more direct communication with the salt sea than at
present, and that sufficient time must have elapsed since that period to
have wrought enormous changes in sea and land throughout those regions.
Scattered through these heaps were found indications of a grade of
civilization when man still used implements of stone, but implements and
weapons which, though still rude, showed a progress from those of the
drift and early cave period, some of them being of polished stone.
With these were other evidences that civilization had progressed.
With implements rude enough to have survived from early periods, other
implements never known in the drift and bone caves began to appear,
and, though there were few if any bones of other domestic animals, the
remains of dogs were found; everything showed that there had been a
progress in civilization between the former Stone epoch and this.
The second series of discoveries in Scandinavia was made in the
peat-beds: these were generally formed in hollows or bowls varying in
depth from ten to thirty feet, and a section of them, like a section of
the deposits in the bone caverns, showed a gradual evolution of human
culture. The lower strata in these great bowls were found to be made up
chiefly of mosses and various plants matted together with the trunks
of fallen trees, sometimes of very large diameter; and the botanical
examination of the lowest layer of these trees and plants in the various
bowls revealed a most important fact: for this layer, the first in point
of time, was always of the Scotch fir--which now grows nowhere in the
Danish islands, and can not be made to grow anywhere in them--and of
plants which are now extinct in these regions, but have retreated within
the arctic circle. Coming up from the bottom of these great bowls there
was found above the first layer a second, in which were matted together
masses of oak trees of different varieties; these, too, were relics of
a bygone epoch, since the oak has almost entirely disappeared from
Denmark. Above these came a third stratum made up of fallen beech trees;
and the beech is now, and has been since the beginning of recorded
history, the most common tree of the Danish Peninsula.
Now came a second fact of the utmost importance as connected with the
first. Scattered, as a rule, through the lower of these deposits, that
of the extinct fir trees and plants, were found implements and weapons
of smooth stone; in the layer of oak trees were found implements of
bronze; and among the layer of beeches were found implements and weapons
of iron.
The general result of these investigations in these two sources, the
shell mounds and the peat deposits, was the same: the first civilization
evidenced in them was marked by the use of stone implements more or less
smooth, showing a progress from the earlier rude Stone period made known
by the bone caves; then came a later progress to a higher civilization,
marked by the use of bronze implements; and, finally, a still higher
development when iron began to be used.
The labours of the Danish archaeologists have resulted in the formation
of a great museum at Copenhagen, and on the specimens they have
found, coupled with those of the drift and bone caves, is based the
classification between the main periods or divisions in the evolution of
the human race above referred to.
It was not merely in Scandinavian lands that these results were reached;
substantially the same discoveries were made in Ireland and France, in
Sardinia and Portugal, in Japan and in Brazil, in Cuba and in the United
States; in fact, as a rule, in nearly every part of the world which was
thoroughly examined.(192)
(192) For the general subject, see Mortillet, Le Prehistorique, p. 498,
et passim. For examples of the rude stone implements, improving as we go
from earlier to later layers in the bone caves, see Boyd Hawkins, Early
Man in Britain, chap. vii, p. 186; also Quatrefages, Human Species, New
York, 1879, pp. 305 et seq. An interesting gleam of light is thrown on
the subject in De Baye, Grottes Prehistoriques de la Marne, pp. 31 et
seq.; also Evans, as cited in the previous chapter. For the more recent
investigations in the Danish shell-heaps, see Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in
Britain, pp. 303, 304. For these evidences of advanced civilization in
the shell-heaps, see Mortillet, p. 498. He, like Nilsson, says that only
the bones of the dog were found; but compare Dawkins, p. 305. For the
very full list of these discoveries, with their bearing on each other,
see Mortillet, p. 499. As to those in Scandanavian countries, see
Nilsson, The Primitive Inhabitants of Scandanavia, third edition, with
Introduction by Lubbock, London, 1868; also the Pre-History of the
North, by Worsaae, English translation, London, 1886. For shell-mounds
and their contents in the Spanish Peninsula, see Cartailhac's greater
work already cited. For summary of such discoveries throughout the
world, see Mortillet, Le Prehistorique, pp. 497 et seq.
But from another quarter came a yet more striking indication of this
same evolution. As far back as the year 1829 there were discovered,
in the Lake of Zurich, piles and other antiquities indicating a former
existence of human dwellings, standing in the water at some distance
from the shore; but the usual mixture of thoughtlessness and dread of
new ideas seems to have prevailed, and nothing was done until about
1853, when new discoveries of the same kind were followed up vigorously,
and Rutimeyer, Keller, Troyon, and others showed not only in the Lake
of Zurich, but in many other lakes in Switzerland, remains of former
habitations, and, in the midst of these, great numbers of relics,
exhibiting the grade of civilization which those lake-dwellers had
attained.
Here, too, were accumulated proofs of the upward tendency of the human
race. Implements of polished stone, bone, leather, pottery of various
grades, woven cloth, bones of several kinds of domestic animals, various
sorts of grain, bread which had been preserved by charring, and a
multitude of evidences of progress never found among the earlier, ruder
relics of civilization, showed yet more strongly that man had arrived
here at a still higher stage than his predecessor of the drift, cave,
and shell-heap periods, and had gone on from better to better.
Very striking evidences of this upward tendency were found in each class
of implements. As by comparing the chipped flint implements of the lower
and earlier strata in the cave period with those of the later and upper
strata we saw progress, so, in each of the periods of polished stone,
bronze, and iron, we see, by similar comparisons, a steady progress from
rude to perfected implements; and especially is this true in the
remains of the various lake-dwellings, for among these can be traced out
constant increase in the variety of animals domesticated, and gradual
improvements in means of subsistence and in ways of living.
Incidentally, too, a fact, at first sight of small account, but on
reflection exceedingly important, was revealed. The earlier bronze
implements were frequently found to imitate in various minor respects
implements of stone; in other words, forms were at first given to bronze
implements natural in working stone, but not natural in working bronze.
This showed the DIRECTION of the development--that it was upward from
stone to bronze, not downward from bronze to stone; that it was progress
rather than decline.
These investigations were supplemented by similar researches elsewhere.
In many other parts of the world it was found that lake-dwellers had
existed in different grades of civilization, but all within a certain
range, intermediate between the cave-dwellers and the historic period.
To explain this epoch of the lake-dwellers, history came in with the
account given by Herodotus of the lake-dwellings on Lake Prasias,
which gave protection from the armies of Persia. Still more important,
Comparative Ethnography showed that to-day, in various parts of the
world, especially in New Guinea and West Africa, races of men are living
in lake-dwellings built upon piles, and with a range of implements and
weapons strikingly like many of those discovered in these ancient lake
deposits of Switzerland.
In Great Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Ireland, Scotland, and other
countries, remains of a different sort were also found, throwing light
on this progress. The cromlechs, cranogs, mounds, and the like,
though some of them indicate the work of weaker tribes pressed upon by
stronger, show, as a rule, the same upward tendency.
At a very early period in the history of these discoveries, various
attempts were made--nominally in the interest of religion, but really in
the interest of sundry creeds and catechisms framed when men knew little
or nothing of natural laws--to break the force of such evidences of the
progress and development of the human race from lower to higher. Out
of all the earlier efforts two may be taken as fairly typical, for
they exhibit the opposition to science as developed under two different
schools of theology, each working in its own way. The first of these
shows great ingenuity and learning, and is presented by Mr. Southall in
his book, published in 1875, entitled The Recent Origin of the World.
In this he grapples first of all with the difficulties presented by the
early date of Egyptian civilization, and the keynote of his argument is
the statement made by an eminent Egyptologist, at a period before modern
archaeological discoveries were well understood, that "Egypt laughs the
idea of a rude Stone age, a polished Stone age, a Bronze age, an Iron
age, to scorn."
Mr. Southall's method was substantially that of the late excellent Mr.
Gosse in geology. Mr. Gosse, as the readers of this work may remember,
felt obliged, in the supposed interest of Genesis, to urge that safety
to men's souls might be found in believing that, six thousand years ago,
the Almighty, for some inscrutable purpose, suddenly set Niagara pouring
very near the spot where it is pouring now; laid the various strata,
and sprinkled the fossils through them like plums through a pudding;
scratched the glacial grooves upon the rocks, and did a vast multitude
of things, subtle and cunning, little and great, in all parts of the
world, required to delude geologists of modern times into the conviction
that all these things were the result of a steady progress through long
epochs. On a similar plan, Mr. Southall proposed, at the very beginning
of his book, as a final solution of the problem, the declaration that
Egypt, with its high civilization in the time of Mena, with its races,
classes, institutions, arrangements, language, monuments--all indicating
an evolution through a vast previous history--was a sudden creation
which came fully made from the hands of the Creator. To use his own
words, "The Egyptians had no Stone age, and were born civilized."
There is an old story that once on a time a certain jovial King of
France, making a progress through his kingdom, was received at the gates
of a provincial town by the mayor's deputy, who began his speech on this
wise: "May it please your Majesty, there are just thirteen reasons why
His Honour the Mayor can not be present to welcome you this morning. The
first of these reasons is that he is dead." On this the king graciously
declared that this first reason was sufficient, and that he would not
trouble the mayor's deputy for the twelve others.
So with Mr. Southall's argument: one simple result of scientific
research out of many is all that it is needful to state, and this is,
that in these later years we have a new and convincing evidence of
the existence of prehistoric man in Egypt in his earliest, rudest
beginnings; the very same evidence which we find in all other parts of
the world which have been carefully examined. This evidence consists
of stone implements and weapons which have been found in Egypt in
such forms, at such points, and in such positions that when studied in
connection with those found in all other parts of the world, from New
Jersey to California, from France to India, and from England to the
Andaman Islands, they force upon us the conviction that civilization
in Egypt, as in all other parts of the world, was developed by the same
slow process of evolution from the rudest beginnings.
It is true that men learned in Egyptology had discouraged the idea of
an earlier Stone age in Egypt, and that among these were Lepsius and
Brugsch; but these men were not trained in prehistoric archaeology;
their devotion to the study of the monuments of Egyptian civilization
had evidently drawn them away from sympathy, and indeed from
acquaintance, with the work of men like Boucher de Perthes, Lartet,
Nilsson, Troyon, and Dawkins. But a new era was beginning. In 1867
Worsaae called attention to the prehistoric implements found on
the borders of Egypt; two years later Arcelin discussed such stone
implements found beneath the soil of Sakkara and Gizeh, the very
focus of the earliest Egyptian civilization; in the same year Hamy and
Lenormant found such implements washed out from the depths higher up the
Nile at Thebes, near the tombs of the kings; and in the following year
they exhibited more flint implements found at various other places.
Coupled with these discoveries was the fact that Horner and Linant found
a copper knife at twenty-four feet, and pottery at sixty feet, below the
surface. In 1872 Dr. Reil, director of the baths at Helouan, near Cairo,
discovered implements of chipped flint; and in 1877. Dr. Jukes Brown
made similar discoveries in that region. In 1878 Oscar Fraas, summing up
the question, showed that the stone implements were mainly such as are
found in the prehistoric deposits of other countries, and that, Zittel
having found them in the Libyan Desert, far from the oases, there was
reason to suppose that these implements were used before the region
became a desert and before Egypt was civilized. Two years later
Dr. Mook, of Wurzburg, published a work giving the results of his
investigations, with careful drawings of the rude stone implements
discovered by him in the upper Nile Valley, and it was evident that,
while some of these implements differed slightly from those before
known, the great mass of them were of the character so common in the
prehistoric deposits of other parts of the world.
A yet more important contribution to this mass of facts was made by
Prof. Henry Haynes, of Boston, who in the winter of 1877 and 1878 began
a very thorough investigation of the subject, and discovered, a few
miles east of Cairo, many flint implements. The significance of Haynes's
discoveries was twofold: First, there were, among these, stone axes like
those found in the French drift beds of St. Acheul, showing that the men
who made or taught men how to make these in Egypt were passing through
the same phase of savagery as that of Quaternary France; secondly, he
found a workshop for making these implements, proving that these flint
implements were not brought into Egypt by invaders, but were made to
meet the necessities of the country. From this first field Prof. Haynes
went to Helouan, north of Cairo, and there found, as Dr. Reil had done,
various worked flints, some of them like those discovered by M. Riviere
in the caves of southern France; thence he went up the Nile to Luxor,
the site of ancient Thebes, began a thorough search in the Tertiary
limestone hills, and found multitudes of chipped stone implements, some
of them, indeed, of original forms, but most of forms common in other
parts of the world under similar circumstances, some of the chipped
stone axes corresponding closely to those found in the drift beds of
northern France.
All this seemed to show conclusively that, long ages before the earliest
period of Egyptian civilization of which the monuments of the first
dynasties give us any trace, mankind in the Nile Valley was going
through the same slow progress from the period when, standing just above
the brutes, he defended himself with implements of rudely chipped stone.
But in 1881 came discoveries which settled the question entirely.
In that year General Pitt-Rivers, a Fellow of the Royal Society and
President of the Anthropological Institute, and J. F. Campbell, Fellow
of the Royal Geographical Society of England, found implements not only
in alluvial deposits, associated with the bones of the zebra, hyena, and
other animals which have since retreated farther south, but, at Djebel
Assas, near Thebes, they found implements of chipped flint in the hard,
stratified gravel, from six and a half to ten feet below the surface;
relics evidently, as Mr. Campbell says, "beyond calculation older than
the oldest Egyptian temples and tombs." They certainly proved that
Egyptian civilization had not issued in its completeness, and all at
once, from the hand of the Creator in the time of Mena. Nor was this
all. Investigators of the highest character and ability--men like Hull
and Flinders Petrie--revealed geological changes in Egypt requiring
enormous periods of time, and traces of man's handiwork dating from
a period when the waters in the Nile Valley extended hundreds of feet
above the present level. Thus was ended the contention of Mr. Southall.
Still another attack upon the new scientific conclusions came from
France, when in 1883 the Abbe Hamard, Priest of the Oratory, published
his Age of Stone and Primitive Man. He had been especially vexed at the
arrangement of prehistoric implements by periods at the Paris Exposition
of 1878; he bitterly complains of this as having an anti-Christian
tendency, and rails at science as "the idol of the day." He attacks
Mortillet, one of the leaders in French archaeology, with a great
display of contempt; speaks of the "venom" in books on prehistoric man
generally; complains that the Church is too mild and gentle with such
monstrous doctrines; bewails the concessions made to science by some
eminent preachers; and foretells his own martyrdom at the hands of men
of science.
Efforts like this accomplished little, and a more legitimate attempt was
made to resist the conclusions of archaeology by showing that knives of
stone were used in obedience to a sacred ritual in Egypt for embalming,
and in Judea for circumcision, and that these flint knives might have
had this later origin. But the argument against the conclusions drawn
from this view was triple: First, as we have seen, not only stone
knives, but axes and other implements of stone similar to those of a
prehistoric period in western Europe were discovered; secondly,
these implements were discovered in the hard gravel drift of a period
evidently far earlier than that of Mena; and, thirdly, the use of stone
implements in Egyptian and Jewish sacred functions within the historic
period, so far from weakening the force of the arguments for the long
and slow development of Egyptian civilization from the men who used rude
flint implements to the men who built and adorned the great temples
of the early dynasties, is really an argument in favour of that long
evolution. A study of comparative ethnology has made it clear that the
sacred stone knives and implements of the Egyptian and Jewish priestly
ritual were natural survivals of that previous period. For sacrificial
or ritual purposes, the knife of stone was considered more sacred than
the knife of bronze or iron, simply because it was ancient; just as
to-day, in India, Brahman priests kindle the sacred fire not with
matches or flint and steel, but by a process found in the earliest,
lowest stages of human culture--by violently boring a pointed stick into
another piece of wood until a spark comes; and just as to-day, in Europe
and America, the architecture of the Middle Ages survives as a special
religious form in the erection of our most recent churches, and to such
an extent that thousands on thousands of us feel that we can not worship
fitly unless in the midst of windows, decorations, vessels, implements,
vestments, and ornaments, no longer used for other purposes, but which
have survived in sundry branches of the Christian Church, and derived a
special sanctity from the fact that they are of ancient origin.
Taking, then, the whole mass of testimony together, even though a
plausible or very strong argument against single evidences may be made
here and there, the force of its combined mass remains, and leaves both
the vast antiquity of man and the evolution of civilization from its
lowest to its highest forms, as proved by the prehistoric remains of
Egypt and so many other countries in all parts of the world, beyond
a reasonable doubt. Most important of all, the recent discoveries in
Assyria have thrown a new light upon the evolution of the dogma of "the
fall of man." Reverent scholars like George Smith, Sayce, Delitzsch,
Jensen, Schrader, and their compeers have found in the Ninevite records
the undoubted source of that form of the fall legend which was adopted
by the Hebrews and by them transmitted to Christianity.(193)
(193) For Mr. Southall's views, see his Recent Origin of Man, p. 20
and elsewhere. For Mr. Gosse'e views, see his Omphalos as cited in the
chapter on Geology in this work. For a summary of the work of Arcelin,
Hamy, Lenormant, Richard, Lubbock, Mook, and Haynes, see Mortillet, Le
Prehistorique, passim. As to Zittel's discovery, see Oscar Fraas's Aus
dem Orient, Stuttgart, 1878. As to the striking similarities of the stone
implements found in Egypt with those found in the drift and bone
caves, see Mook's monograph, Wurzburg, 1880, cited in the next chapter,
especially Plates IX, XI, XII. For even more striking reproductions
of photographs showing this remarkable similarity between Egyptian
and European chipped stone remains, see H. W. Haynes, Palaeolithic
Implements in Upper Egypt, Boston, 1881. See also Evans, Ancient Stone
Implements, chap. i, pp. 8, 9, 44, 102, 316, 329. As to stone implements
used by priests of Jehovah, priests of Baal, priests of Moloch, priests
of Odin, and Egyptian priests, as religious survivals, see Cartailhac,
as above, 6 and 7; also Lartet, in De Luynes, Expedition to the Dead
Sea; also Nilsson, Primitive Inhabitants of Scandanavia, pp. 96, 97;
also Sayce, Herodotus, p. 171, note. For the discoveries by Pitt-Rivers,
see the Journal of the Anthropological Institute of Great Britain and
Ireland for 1882, vol. xi, pp. 382 et seq.; and for Campbell's decision
regarding them, see ibid., pp. 396, 397. For facts summed up in the
words, "It is most probable that Egypt at a remote period passed like
many other countries through its stone period," see Hilton Price, F. S.
A., F. G. S., paper in the Journal of the Archaeological Institute of
Great Britain and Ireland for 1884, p. 56. Specimens of Palaeolithic
implements from Egypt--knives, arrowheads, spearheads, flakes, and
the like, both of peculiar and ordinary forms--may be seen in various
museums, but especially in that of Prof. Haynes, of Boston. Some
interesting light is also thrown into the subject by the specimens
obtained by General Wilson and deposited in the Smithsonian Institution
at Washington. For Abbe Hamard's attack, see his L'Age de la Pierre et
L'Homme Primitif, Paris, 1883--especially his preface. For the stone
weapon found in the high drift behind Esneh, see Flinders Petrie,
History of Egypt, chap. i. Of these discoveries by Pitt-Rivers and
others, Maspero appears to know nothing.
CHAPTER IX. THE "FALL OF MAN" AND ETHNOLOGY.
We have seen that, closely connected with the main lines of
investigation in archaeology and anthropology, there were other
researches throwing much light on the entire subject. In a previous
chapter we saw especially that Lafitau and Jussieu were among the first
to collect and compare facts bearing on the natural history of man,
gathered by travellers in various parts of the earth, thus laying
foundations for the science of comparative ethnology. It was soon seen
that ethnology had most important bearings upon the question of the
material, intellectual, moral, and religious evolution of the human
race; in every civilized nation, therefore, appeared scholars who began
to study the characteristics of various groups of men as ascertained
from travellers, and to compare the results thus gained with each other
and with those obtained by archaeology.
Thus, more and more clear became the evidences that the tendency of the
race has been upward from low beginnings. It was found that groups
of men still existed possessing characteristics of those in the early
periods of development to whom the drift and caves and shell-heaps
and pile-dwellings bear witness; groups of men using many of the same
implements and weapons, building their houses in the same way, seeking
their food by the same means, enjoying the same amusements, and going
through the same general stages of culture; some being in a condition
corresponding to the earlier, some to the later, of those early periods.
From all sides thus came evidence that we have still upon the
earth examples of all the main stages in the development of human
civilization; that from the period when man appears little above the
brutes, and with little if any religion in any accepted sense of the
word, these examples can be arranged in an ascending series leading
to the highest planes which humanity has reached; that philosophic
observers may among these examples study existing beliefs, usages, and
institutions back through earlier and earlier forms, until, as a rule,
the whole evolution can be easily divined if not fully seen. Moreover,
the basis of the whole structure became more and more clear: the fact
that "the lines of intelligence have always been what they are, and have
always operated as they do now; that man has progressed from the simple
to the complex, from the particular to the general."
As this evidence from ethnology became more and more strong, its
significance to theology aroused attention, and naturally most
determined efforts were made to break its force. On the Continent the
two great champions of the Church in this field were De Maistre and De
Bonald; but the two attempts which may be especially recalled as the
most influential among English-speaking peoples were those of Whately,
Archbishop of Dublin, and the Duke of Argyll.
First in the combat against these new deductions of science was Whately.
He was a strong man, whose breadth of thought and liberality in practice
deserve all honour; but these very qualities drew upon him the distrust
of his orthodox brethren; and, while his writings were powerful in
the first half of the present century to break down many bulwarks of
unreason, he seems to have been constantly in fear of losing touch with
the Church, and therefore to have promptly attacked some scientific
reasonings, which, had he been a layman, not holding a brief for
the Church, he would probably have studied with more care and less
prejudice. He was not slow to see the deeper significance of archaeology
and ethnology in their relations to the theological conception of "the
Fall," and he set the battle in array against them.
His contention was, to use his own words, that "no community ever did
or ever can emerge unassisted by external helps from a state of utter
barbarism into anything that can be called civilization"; and that, in
short, all imperfectly civilized, barbarous, and savage races are but
fallen descendants of races more fully civilized. This view was urged
with his usual ingenuity and vigour, but the facts proved too strong
for him: they made it clear, first, that many races were without simple
possessions, instruments, and arts which never, probably, could have
been lost if once acquired--as, for example, pottery, the bow for
shooting, various domesticated animals, spinning, the simplest
principles of agriculture, household economy, and the like; and,
secondly, it was shown as a simple matter of fact that various savage
and barbarous tribes HAD raised themselves by a development of means
which no one from outside could have taught them; as in the cultivation
and improvement of various indigenous plants, such as the potato and
Indian corn among the Indians of North America; in the domestication of
various animals peculiar to their own regions, such as the llama among
the Indians of south America; in the making of sundry fabrics out of
materials and by processes not found among other nations, such as
the bark cloth of the Polynesians; and in the development of weapons
peculiar to sundry localities, but known in no others, such as the
boomerang in Australia.
Most effective in bringing out the truth were such works as those of Sir
John Lubbock and Tylor; and so conclusive were they that the arguments
of Whately were given up as untenable by the other of the two great
champions above referred to, and an attempt was made by him to form the
diminishing number of thinking men supporting the old theological view
on a new line of defence.
This second champion, the Duke of Argyll, was a man of wide knowledge
and strong powers in debate, whose high moral sense was amply shown in
his adhesion to the side of the American Union in the struggle against
disunion and slavery, despite the overwhelming majority against him in
the high aristocracy to which he belonged. As an honest man and close
thinker, the duke was obliged to give up completely the theological view
of the antiquity of man. The whole biblical chronology as held by the
universal Church, "always, everywhere, and by all," he sacrificed, and
gave all his powers in this field to support the theory of "the Fall."
Noblesse oblige: the duke and his ancestors had been for centuries the
chief pillars of the Church of Scotland, and it was too much to expect
that he could break away from a tenet which forms really its "chief
cornerstone."
Acknowledging the insufficiency of Archbishop Whately's argument, the
duke took the ground that the lower, barbarous, savage, brutal
races were the remains of civilized races which, in the struggle for
existence, had been pushed and driven off to remote and inclement parts
of the earth, where the conditions necessary to a continuance in their
early civilization were absent; that, therefore, the descendants of
primeval, civilized men degenerated and sank in the scale of culture. To
use his own words, the weaker races were "driven by the stronger to the
woods and rocks," so that they became "mere outcasts of the human race."
In answer to this, while it was conceded, first, that there have been
examples of weaker tribes sinking in the scale of culture after escaping
from the stronger into regions unfavourable to civilization, and,
secondly, that many powerful nations have declined and decayed, it was
shown that the men in the most remote and unfavourable regions have not
always been the lowest in the scale; that men have been frequently found
"among the woods and rocks" in a higher state of civilization than on
the fertile plains, such examples being cited as Mexico, Peru, and even
Scotland; and that, while there were many examples of special and local
decline, overwhelming masses of facts point to progress as a rule.
The improbability, not to say impossibility, of many of the conclusions
arrived at by the duke appeared more and more strongly as more became
known of the lower tribes of mankind. It was necessary on his theory
to suppose many things which our knowledge of the human race absolutely
forbids us to believe: for example, it was necessary to suppose that
the Australians or New Zealanders, having once possessed so simple and
convenient an art as that of the potter, had lost every trace of it; and
that the same tribes, having once had so simple a means of saving labour
as the spindle or small stick weighted at one end for spinning, had
given it up and gone back to twisting threads with the hand. In fact,
it was necessary to suppose that one of the main occupations of man from
"the beginning" had been the forgetting of simple methods, processes,
and implements which all experience in the actual world teaches us are
never entirely forgotten by peoples who have once acquired them.
Some leading arguments of the duke were overthrown by simple statements
of fact. Thus, his instance of the Eskimo as pushed to the verge
of habitable America, and therefore living in the lowest depths of
savagery, which, even if it were true, by no means proved a general
rule, was deprived of its force by the simple fact that the Eskimos are
by no means the lowest race on the American continent, and that various
tribes far more centrally and advantageously placed, as, for instance,
those in Brazil, are really inferior to them in the scale of culture.
Again, his statement that "in Africa there appear to be no traces of any
time when the natives were not acquainted with the use of iron," is met
by the fact that from the Nile Valley to the Cape of Good Hope we find,
wherever examination has been made, the same early stone implements
which in all other parts of the world precede the use of iron, some of
which would not have been made had their makers possessed iron. The
duke also tried to show that there were no distinctive epochs of stone,
bronze, and iron, by adducing the fact that some stone implements are
found even in some high civilizations. This is indeed a fact. We find
some few European peasants to-day using stone mallet-heads; but
this proves simply that the old stone mallet-heads have survived as
implements cheap and effective.
The argument from Comparative Ethnology in support of the view that the
tendency of mankind is upward has received strength from many sources.
Comparative Philology shows that in the less civilized, barbarous, and
savage races childish forms of speech prevail--frequent reduplications
and the like, of which we have survivals in the later and even in the
most highly developed languages. In various languages, too, we find
relics of ancient modes of thought in the simplest words and expressions
used for arithmetical calculations. Words and phrases for this purpose
are frequently found to be derived from the words for hands, feet,
fingers, and toes, just as clearly as in our own language some of
our simplest measures of length are shown by their names to have been
measures of parts of the human body, as the cubit, the foot, and the
like, and therefore to date from a time when exactness was not required.
To add another out of many examples, it is found to-day that various
rude nations go through the simplest arithmetical processes by means
of pebbles. Into our own language, through the Latin, has come a word
showing that our distant progenitors reckoned in this way: the word
CALCULATE gives us an absolute proof of this. According to the theory
of the Duke of Argyll, men ages ago used pebbles (CALCULI) in performing
the simplest arithmetical calculations because we to-day "CALCULATE." No
reduction to absurdity could be more thorough. The simple fact must be
that we "calculate" because our remote ancestors used pebbles in their
arithmetic.
Comparative Literature and Folklore also show among peoples of a low
culture to-day childish modes of viewing nature, and childish ways of
expressing the relations of man to nature, such as clearly survive from
a remote ancestry; noteworthy among these are the beliefs in witches and
fairies, and multitudes of popular and poetic expressions in the most
civilized nations.
So, too, Comparative Ethnography, the basis of Ethnology, shows in
contemporary barbarians and savages a childish love of playthings and
games, of which we have many survivals.
All these facts, which were at first unobserved or observed as matters
of no significance, have been brought into connection with a fact in
biology acknowledged alike by all important schools; by Agassiz on one
hand and by Darwin on the other--namely, as stated by Agassiz, that "the
young states of each species and group resemble older forms of the same
group," or, as stated by Darwin, that "in two or more groups of animals,
however much they may at first differ from each other in structure and
habits, if they pass through closely similar embryonic stages, we may
feel almost assured that they have descended from the same parent form,
and are therefore closely related."(194)
(194) For the stone forms given to early bronze axes, etc., see
Nilsson, Primitive Inhabitants of Scandanavia, London, 1868, Lubbock's
Introduction, p. 31; and for plates, see Lubbock's Prehistoric Man,
chap. ii; also Cartailhac, Les Ages Prehistoriques de l'Espagne et du
Portugal, p. 227. Also Keller, Lake Dwellings; also Troyon, Habitations
Lacustres; also Boyd Dawkins, Early Man in Great Britain, p. 191; also
Lubbock, p. 6; also Lyell, Antiquity of Man,chap. ii. For the cranogs,
etc., in the north of Europe, see Munro, Ancient Scottish Lake
Dwellings, Edinburgh, 1882. For mounds and greater stone constructions
in the extreme south of Europe, see Cartailhac's work on Spain and
Portugal above cited, part iii, chap. iii. For the source of Mr.
Southall's contention, see Brugsch, Egypt of the Pharoahs. For the two
sides of the question whether in the lower grades of savagery there is
really any recognition of a superior power, or anything which can
be called, in any accepted sense, religion, compare Quatrefages with
Lubbock, in works already cited. For a striking but rather ad captandum
effort to show that there is a moral and religious sense in the very
lowest of Australian tribes, see one of the discourses of Archbishop
Vaughn on Science and Religion, Baltimore, 1879. For one out of
multitiudes of striking and instructive resemblances in ancient
stone implements and those now in use among sundry savage tribes,
see comparison between old Scandanavian arrowheads and those recently
brought from Tierra del Fuego, in Nilsson, as above, especially in Plate
V. For a brief and admirable statement of the arguments on both sides,
see Sir J. Lubbock's Dundee paper, given in the appendix to the American
edition of his Origin of Civilization, etc. For the general argument
referred to between Whately and the Duke of Argyll on one side, and
Lubbock on the other, see Lubbock's Dundee paper as above cited; Tylor,
Early History of Mankind, especially p. 193; and the Duke of Argyll,
Primeval Man, part iv. For difficulties of savages in arithmetic, see
Lubbock, as above, pp. 459 et seq. For a very temperate and judicial
view of the whole question, see Tylor as above, chaps. vii and xiii. For
a brief summary of the scientific position regarding the stagnation
and deterioration of races, resulting in the statement that such
deterioration "in no way contradicts the theory that civilization itself
is developed from low to high stages," see Tylor, Anthropology, chap. i.
For striking examples of the testimony of language to upward progress,
see Tylor, chap. xii.
CHAPTER X. THE "FALL OF MAN" AND HISTORY.
The history of art, especially as shown by architecture, in the noblest
monuments of the most enlightened nations of antiquity; gives abundant
proofs of the upward tendency of man from the rudest and simplest
beginnings. Many columns of early Egyptian temples or tombs are but
bundles of Nile reeds slightly conventionalized in stone; the temples of
Greece, including not only the earliest forms, but the Parthenon
itself, while in parts showing an evolution out of Egyptian and Assyrian
architecture, exhibit frequent reminiscences and even imitations of
earlier constructions in wood; the medieval cathedrals, while evolved
out of Roman and Byzantine structures, constantly show unmistakable
survivals of prehistoric construction. (195)
(195) As to evolution in architecture, and especially of Greek forms
and ornaments out of Egyptian and Assyrian, with survivals in stone
architecture of forms obtained in Egypt when reeds were used, and in
Greece when wood construction prevailed, see Fergusson's Handbook of
Architecture, vol. i, pp. 100, 228, 233, and elsewhere; also Otfried
Muller, Ancient Art and its Remains, English translation, London,
1852, pp. 219, passim. For a very brief but thorough statement, see A.
Magnard's paper in the Proceedings of the American Oriental Society,
October, 1889, entitled Reminiscences of Egypt in Doric Architecture.
On the general subject, see Hommel, Babylonien, ch. i, and Meyer,
Alterthum, i, S 199.
So, too, general history has come in, illustrating the unknown from
the known: the development of man in the prehistoric period from his
development within historic times. Nothing is more evident from history
than the fact that weaker bodies of men driven out by stronger do not
necessarily relapse into barbarism, but frequently rise, even under the
most unfavourable circumstances, to a civilization equal or superior
to that from which they have been banished. Out of very many examples
showing this law of upward development, a few may be taken as typical.
The Slavs, who sank so low under the pressure of stronger races that
they gave the modern world a new word to express the most hopeless
servitude, have developed powerful civilizations peculiar to themselves;
the barbarian tribes who ages ago took refuge amid the sand-banks and
morasses of Holland, have developed one of the world's leading centres
of civilization; the wretched peasants who about the fifth century took
refuge from invading hordes among the lagoons and mud banks of Venetia,
developed a power in art, arms, and politics which is among the wonders
of human history; the Puritans, driven from the civilization of Great
Britain to the unfavourable climate, soil, and circumstances of early
New England,--the Huguenots, driven from France, a country admirably
fitted for the highest growth of civilization, to various countries
far less fitted for such growth,--the Irish peasantry, driven in vast
numbers from their own island to other parts of the world on the whole
less fitted to them--all are proofs that, as a rule, bodies of men once
enlightened, when driven to unfavourable climates and brought under the
most depressing circumstances, not only retain what enlightenment they
have, but go on increasing it. Besides these, we have such cases as
those of criminals banished to various penal colonies, from whose
descendants has been developed a better morality; and of pirates, like
those of the Bounty, whose descendants, in a remote Pacific island,
became sober, steady citizens. Thousands of examples show the prevalence
of this same rule--that men in masses do not forget the main gains of
their civilization, and that, in spite of deteriorations, their tendency
is upward.
Another class of historic facts also testifies in the most striking
manner to this same upward tendency: the decline and destruction
of various civilizations brilliant but hopelessly vitiated. These
catastrophes are seen more and more to be but steps in, this
development. The crumbling away of the great ancient civilizations based
upon despotism, whether the despotism of monarch, priest, or mob--the
decline and fall of Roman civilization, for example, which, in his most
remarkable generalization, Guizot has shown to have been necessary
to the development of the richer civilization of modern Europe; the
terrible struggle and loss of the Crusades, which once appeared to be a
mere catastrophe, but are now seen to have brought in, with the downfall
of feudalism, the beginnings of the centralizing, civilizing monarchical
period; the French Revolution, once thought a mere outburst of diabolic
passion, but now seen to be an unduly delayed transition from the
monarchical to the constitutional epoch: all show that even widespread
deterioration and decline--often, indeed, the greatest political and
moral catastrophes--so far from leading to a fall of mankind, tend in
the long run to raise humanity to higher planes.
Thus, then, Anthropology and its handmaids, Ethnology, Philology,
and History, have wrought out, beyond a doubt, proofs of the upward
evolution of humanity since the appearance of man upon our planet.
Nor have these researches been confined to progress in man's material
condition. Far more important evidences have been found of upward
evolution in his family, social, moral, intellectual, and religious
relations. The light thrown on this subject by such men as Lubbock,
Tylor, Herbert Spencer, Buckle, Draper, Max Muller, and a multitude of
others, despite mistakes, haltings, stumblings, and occasional following
of delusive paths, is among the greatest glories of the century now
ending. From all these investigators in their various fields, holding
no brief for any system sacred or secular, but seeking truth as truth,
comes the same general testimony of the evolution of higher out of
lower. The process has been indeed slow and painful, but this does not
prove that it may not become more rapid and less fruitful in sorrow as
humanity goes on.(196)
(196) As to the good effects of migration, see Waitz, Introduction to
Anthropology, London, 1863, p. 345.
While, then, it is not denied that many instances of retrogression can
be found, the consenting voice of unbiased investigators in all lands
has declared more and more that the beginnings of our race must have
been low and brutal, and that the tendency has been upward. To combat
this conclusion by examples of decline and deterioration here and
there has become impossible: as well try to prove that, because in the
Mississippi there are eddies in which the currents flow northward, there
is no main stream flowing southward; or that, because trees decay and
fall, there is no law of upward growth from germ to trunk, branches,
foliage, and fruit.
A very striking evidence that the theological theory had become
untenable was seen when its main supporter in the scientific field,
Von Martius, in the full ripeness of his powers, publicly declared his
conversion to the scientific view.
Yet, while the tendency of enlightened human thought in recent times is
unmistakable, the struggle against the older view is not yet ended. The
bitterness of the Abbe Hamard in France has been carried to similar
and even greater extremes among sundry Protestant bodies in Europe and
America. The simple truth of history mates it a necessity, unpleasant
though it be, to chronicle two typical examples in the United States.
In the year 1875 a leader in American industrial enterprise endowed at
the capital of a Southern State a university which bore his name. It was
given into the hands of one of the religious sects most powerful in that
region, and a bishop of that sect became its president. To its chair
of Geology was called Alexander Winchell, a scholar who had already
won eminence as a teacher and writer in that field, a professor greatly
beloved and respected in the two universities with which he had been
connected, and a member of the sect which the institution of learning
above referred to represented.
But his relations to this Southern institution were destined to be
brief. That his lectures at the Vanderbilt University were learned,
attractive, and stimulating, even his enemies were forced to admit; but
he was soon found to believe that there had been men earlier than the
period as signed to Adam, and even that all the human race are not
descended from Adam. His desire was to reconcile science and Scripture,
and he was now treated by a Methodist Episcopal Bishop in Tennessee just
as, two centuries before, La Peyrere had been treated, for a similar
effort, by a Roman Catholic vicar-general in Belgium. The publication of
a series of articles on the subject, contributed by the professor to a
Northern religious newspaper at its own request, brought matters to a
climax; for, the articles having fallen under the notice of a leading
Southwestern organ of the denomination controlling the Vanderbilt
University, the result was a most bitter denunciation of Prof. Winchell
and of his views. Shortly afterward the professor was told by Bishop
McTyeire that "our people are of the opinion that such views are
contrary to the plan of redemption," and was requested by the bishop to
quietly resign his chair. To this the professor made the fitting reply:
"If the board of trustees have the manliness to dismiss me for cause,
and declare the cause, I prefer that they should do it. No power on
earth could persuade me to resign."
"We do not propose," said the bishop, with quite gratuitous
suggestiveness, "to treat you as the Inquisition treated Galileo."
"But what you propose is the same thing," rejoined Dr. Winchell. "It
is ecclesiastical proscription for an opinion which must be settled by
scientific evidence."
Twenty-four hours later Dr. Winchell was informed that his chair had
been abolished, and its duties, with its salary, added to those of a
colleague; the public were given to understand that the reasons
were purely economic; the banished scholar was heaped with official
compliments, evidently in hope that he would keep silence.
Such was not Dr. Winchell's view. In a frank letter to the leading
journal of the university town he stated the whole matter. The
intolerance-hating press of the country, religious and secular, did not
hold its peace. In vain the authorities of the university waited for
the storm to blow over. It was evident, at last, that a defence must
be made, and a local organ of the sect, which under the editorship of
a fellow-professor had always treated Dr. Winchell's views with the
luminous inaccuracy which usually characterizes a professor's ideas of a
rival's teachings, assumed the task. In the articles which followed,
the usual scientific hypotheses as to the creation were declared to be
"absurd," "vague and unintelligible," "preposterous and gratuitous."
This new champion stated that "the objections drawn from the
fossiliferous strata and the like are met by reference to the analogy of
Adam and Eve, who presented the phenomena of adults when they were but a
day old, and by the Flood of Noah and other cataclysms, which, with the
constant change of Nature, are sufficient to account for the phenomena
in question"!
Under inspiration of this sort the Tennessee Conference of the religious
body in control of the university had already, in October, 1878, given
utterance to its opinion of unsanctified science as follows: "This is
an age in which scientific atheism, having divested itself of the
habiliments that most adorn and dignify humanity, walks abroad in
shameless denudation. The arrogant and impertinent claims of this
'science, falsely so called,' have been so boisterous and persistent,
that the unthinking mass have been sadly deluded; but our university
alone has had the courage to lay its young but vigorous hand upon the
mane of untamed Speculation and say, 'We will have no more of this.'" It
is a consolation to know how the result, thus devoutly sought, has been
achieved; for in the "ode" sung at the laying of the corner-stone of a
new theological building of the same university, in May, 1880, we read:
"Science and Revelation here In perfect harmony appear, Guiding young
feet along the road Through grace and Nature up to God."
It is also pleasing to know that, while an institution calling itself
a university thus violated the fundamental principles on which any
institution worthy of the name must be based, another institution which
has the glory of being the first in the entire North to begin
something like a university organization--the State University of
Michigan--recalled Dr. Winchell at once to his former professorship, and
honoured itself by maintaining him in that position, where, unhampered,
he was thereafter able to utter his views in the midst of the largest
body of students on the American Continent.
Disgraceful as this history was to the men who drove out Dr. Winchell,
they but succeeded, as various similar bodies of men making similar
efforts have done, in advancing their supposed victim to higher position
and more commanding influence.(197)
(197) For Dr. Winchell's original statements, see Adamites and
Pre-Adamites, Syracuse, N. Y., 1878. For the first important
denunciation of his views, see the St. Louis Christian Advocate, May 22,
1878. For the conversation with Bishop McTyeire, see Dr. Winchell's
own account in the Nashville American of July 19, 1878. For the further
course of the attack in the denominational organ of Dr. Winchell's
oppressors, see the Nashville Christian Advocate, April 26, 1879. For
the oratorical declaration of the Tennessee Conference upon the
matter, see the Nashville American, October 15, 1878; and for the "ode"
regarding the "harmony of science and revelation" as supported at the
university, see the same journal for May 2, 1880
A few years after this suppression of earnest Christian thought at an
institution of learning in the western part of our Southern States,
there appeared a similar attempt in sundry seaboard States of the South.
As far back as the year 1857 the Presbyterian Synod of Mississippi
passed the following resolution:
"WHEREAS, We live in an age in which the most insidious attacks are made
on revealed religion through the natural sciences, and as it behooves
the Church at all times to have men capable of defending the faith once
delivered to the saints;
"RESOLVED, That this presbytery recommend the endowment of a
professorship of Natural Science as connected with revealed religion in
one or more of our theological seminaries."
Pursuant to this resolution such a chair was established in the
theological seminary at Columbia, S.C., and James Woodrow was appointed
professor. Dr. Woodrow seems to have been admirably fitted for the
position--a devoted Christian man, accepting the Presbyterian standards
of faith in which he had been brought up, and at the same time giving
every effort to acquaint himself with the methods and conclusions of
science. To great natural endowments he added constant labours to arrive
at the truth in this field. Visiting Europe, he made the acquaintance
of many of the foremost scientific investigators, became a student
in university lecture rooms and laboratories, an interested hearer in
scientific conventions, and a correspondent of leading men of science
at home and abroad. As a result, he came to the conclusion that the
hypothesis of evolution is the only one which explains various leading
facts in natural science. This he taught, and he also taught that such a
view is not incompatible with a true view of the sacred Scriptures.
In 1882 and 1883 the board of directors of the theological seminary,
in fear that "scepticism in the world is using alleged discoveries in
science to impugn the Word of God," requested Prof. Woodrow to state his
views in regard to evolution. The professor complied with this request
in a very powerful address, which was published and widely circulated,
to such effect that the board of directors shortly afterward passed
resolutions declaring the theory of evolution as defined by Prof.
Woodrow not inconsistent with perfect soundness in the faith.
In the year 1884 alarm regarding Dr. Woodrow's teachings began to show
itself in larger proportions, and a minority report was introduced into
the Synod of South Carolina declaring that "the synod is called upon
to decide not upon the question whether the said views of Dr. Woodrow
contradict the Bible in its highest and absolute sense, but upon the
question whether they contradict the interpretation of the Bible by the
Presbyterian Church in the United States."
Perhaps a more self-condemnatory statement was never presented, for
it clearly recognized, as a basis for intolerance, at least a possible
difference between "the interpretation of the Bible by the Presbyterian
Church" and the teachings of "the Bible in its highest and absolute
sense."
This hostile movement became so strong that, in spite of the favourable
action of the directors of the seminary, and against the efforts of
a broad-minded minority in the representative bodies having ultimate
charge of the institution, the delegates from the various synods raised
a storm of orthodoxy and drove Dr. Woodrow from his post. Happily, he
was at the same time professor in the University of South Carolina in
the same city of Columbia, and from his chair in that institution
he continued to teach natural science with the approval of the great
majority of thinking men in that region; hence, the only effect of the
attempt to crush him was, that his position was made higher, respect for
him deeper, and his reputation wider.
In spite of attempts by the more orthodox to prevent students of the
theological seminary from attending his lectures at the university, they
persisted in hearing him; indeed, the reputation of heresy seemed to
enhance his influence.
It should be borne in mind that the professor thus treated had been one
of the most respected and beloved university instructors in the South
during more than a quarter of a century, and that he was turned out
of his position with no opportunity for careful defence, and, indeed,
without even the formality of a trial. Well did an eminent but
thoughtful divine of the Southern Presbyterian Church declare that "the
method of procedure to destroy evolution by the majority in the Church
is vicious and suicidal," and that "logical dynamite has been used to
put out a supposed fire in the upper stories of our house, and all the
family in the house at that." Wisely, too, did he refer to the majority
as "sowing in the fields of the Church the thorns of its errors, and
cumbering its path with the debris and ruin of its own folly."
To these recent cases may be added the expulsion of Prof. Toy from
teaching under ecclesiastical control at Louisville, and his election to
a far more influential chair at Harvard University; the driving out from
the American College at Beyrout of the young professors who accepted
evolution as probable, and the rise of one of them, Mr. Nimr, to a far
more commanding position than that which he left--the control of three
leading journals at Cairo; the driving out of Robertson Smith from his
position at Edinburgh, and his reception into the far more important and
influential professorship at the English University of Cambridge; and
multitudes of similar cases. From the days when Henry Dunster, the first
President of Harvard College, was driven from his presidency, as Cotton
Mather said, for "falling into the briers of Antipedobaptism" until
now, the same spirit is shown in all such attempts. In each we have
generally, on one side, a body of older theologians, who since their
youth have learned nothing and forgotten nothing, sundry professors
who do not wish to rewrite their lectures, and a mass of unthinking
ecclesiastical persons of little or no importance save in making up a
retrograde majority in an ecclesiastical tribunal; on the other side
we have as generally the thinking, open-minded, devoted men who have
listened to the revelation of their own time as well as of times past,
and who are evidently thinking the future thought of the world.
Here we have survivals of that same oppression of thought by theology
which has cost the modern world so dear; the system which forced great
numbers of professors, under penalty of deprivation, to teach that the
sun and planets revolve about the earth; that comets are fire-balls
flung by an angry God at a wicked world; that insanity is diabolic
possession; that anatomical investigation of the human frame is sin
against the Holy Ghost; that chemistry leads to sorcery; that taking
interest for money is forbidden by Scripture; that geology must conform
to ancient Hebrew poetry. From the same source came in Austria the rule
of the "Immaculate Oath," under which university professors, long before
the dogma of the Immaculate Conception was defined by the Church,
were obliged to swear to their belief in that dogma before they
were permitted to teach even arithmetic or geometry; in England, the
denunciation of inoculation against smallpox; in Scotland, the protests
against using chloroform in childbirth as "vitiating the primal curse
against woman"; in France, the use in clerical schools of a historical
text-book from which Napoleon was left out; and, in America, the use
of Catholic manuals in which the Inquisition is declared to have been a
purely civil tribunal, or Protestant manuals in which the Puritans are
shown to have been all that we could now wish they had been.
So, too, among multitudes of similar efforts abroad, we have during
centuries the fettering of professors at English and Scotch universities
by test oaths, subscriptions to articles, and catechisms without number.
In our own country we have had in a vast multitude of denominational
colleges, as the first qualification for a professorship, not ability in
the subject to be taught, but fidelity to the particular shibboleth of
the denomination controlling the college or university.
Happily, in these days such attempts generally defeat themselves. The
supposed victim is generally made a man of mark by persecution, and
advanced to a higher and wider sphere of usefulness. In withstanding
the march of scientific truth, any Conference, Synod, Board of
Commissioners, Board of Trustees, or Faculty, is but as a nest of
field-mice in the path of a steam plough.
The harm done to religion in these attempts is far greater than that
done to science; for thereby suspicions are widely spread, especially
among open-minded young men, that the accepted Christian system demands
a concealment of truth, with the persecution of honest investigators,
and therefore must be false. Well was it said in substance by President
McCosh, of Princeton, that no more sure way of making unbelievers in
Christianity among young men could be devised than preaching to them
that the doctrines arrived at by the great scientific thinkers of this
period are opposed to religion.
Yet it is but justice here to say that more and more there is evolving
out of this past history of oppression a better spirit, which is making
itself manifest with power in the leading religious bodies of the world.
In the Church of Rome we have to-day such utterances as those of St.
George Mivart, declaring that the Church must not attempt to interfere
with science; that the Almighty in the Galileo case gave her a distinct
warning that the priesthood of science must remain with the men of
science. In the Anglican Church and its American daughter we have the
acts and utterances of such men as Archbishop Tait, Bishop Temple,
Dean Stanley, Dean Farrar, and many others, proving that the deepest
religious thought is more and more tending to peace rather than warfare
with science; and in the other churches, especially in America, while
there is yet much to be desired, the welcome extended in many of them to
Alexander Winchell, and the freedom given to views like his, augur well
for a better state of things in the future.
From the science of Anthropology, when rightly viewed as a whole, has
come the greatest aid to those who work to advance religion rather than
to promote any particular system of theology; for Anthropology and its
subsidiary sciences show more and more that man, since coming upon the
earth, has risen, from the period when he had little, if any, idea of
a great power above him, through successive stages of fetichism,
shamanism, and idolatry, toward better forms of belief, making him more
and more accessible to nobler forms of religion. The same sciences
show, too, within the historic period, the same tendency, and especially
within the events covered by our sacred books, a progress from
fetichism, of which so many evidences crop out in the early Jewish
worship as shown in the Old Testament Scriptures, through polytheism,
when Jehovah was but "a god above all gods," through the period when he
was "a jealous God," capricious and cruel, until he is revealed in such
inspired utterances as those of the nobler Psalms, the great passages
in Isaiah, the sublime preaching of Micah, and, above all, through the
ideal given to the world by Jesus of Nazareth.
Well indeed has an eminent divine of the Church of England in our own
time called on Christians to rejoice over this evolution, "between the
God of Samuel, who ordered infants to be slaughtered, and the God of the
Psalmist, whose tender mercies are over all his works; between the
God of the Patriarchs, who was always repenting, and the God of the
Apostles, who is the same yesterday, to-day, and forever, with whom
there is no variableness nor shadow of turning, between the God of the
Old Testament, who walked in the garden in the cool of the day, and the
God of the New Testament, whom no man hath seen nor can see; between the
God of Leviticus, who was so particular about the sacrificial furniture
and utensils, and the God of the Acts, who dwelleth not in temples made
with hands; between the God who hardened Pharaoh's heart, and the God
who will have all men to be saved; between the God of Exodus, who is
merciful only to those who love him, and the God of Christ--the heavenly
Father--who is kind unto the unthankful and the evil."
However overwhelming, then, the facts may be which Anthropology,
History, and their kindred sciences may, in the interest of simple
truth, establish against the theological doctrine of "the Fall"; however
completely they may fossilize various dogmas, catechisms, creeds,
confessions, "plans of salvation" and "schemes of redemption," which
have been evolved from the great minds of the theological period:
science, so far from making inroads on religion, or even upon our
Christian development of it, will strengthen all that is essential in
it, giving new and nobler paths to man's highest aspirations. For the
one great, legitimate, scientific conclusion of anthropology is, that,
more and more, a better civilization of the world, despite all its
survivals of savagery and barbarism, is developing men and women on whom
the declarations of the nobler Psalms, of Isaiah, of Micah, the Sermon
on the Mount, the first great commandment, and the second, which is
like unto it, St. Paul's praise of charity and St. James's definition
of "pure religion and undefiled," can take stronger hold for the more
effective and more rapid uplifting of our race.(198)
(198) For the resolution of the Presbyterian Synod of Mississippi in
1857, see Prof. Woodrow's speech before the Synod of South Carolina,
October 27 and 28, 1884, p. 6. As to the action of the Board of
Directors of the Theological Seminary of Columbia, see ibid. As to the
minority report in the Synod of South Carolina, see ibid., p. 24. For
the pithy sentences regarding the conduct of the majority in the synods
toward Dr. Woodrow, see the Rev. Mr. Flynn's article in the Southern
Presbyterian Review for April, 1885, p. 272, and elsewhere. For the
restrictions regarding the teaching of the Copernican theory and the
true doctrine of comets in German universities, see various histories of
astronomy, especially Madler. For the immaculate oath (Immaculaten-Eid)
as enforced upon the Austrian professors, see Luftkandl, Die
Josephinischen Ideen. For the effort of the Church in France, after the
restoration of the Bourbons, to teach a history of that country from
which the name of Napoleon should be left out, see Father Loriquet's
famous Histoire de France a l'Usage de la Jeunesse, Lyon, 1820, vol.
ii, see especially table of contents at the end. The book bears on its
title-page the well known initials of the Jesuit motto, A. M. D. G. (Ad
Majorem Dei Gloriam). For examples in England and Scotland, see various
English histories, and especially Buckle's chapters on Scotland. For a
longer collection of examples showing the suppression of anything like
unfettered thought upon scientific subjects in American universities,
see Inaugural Address at the Opening of Cornell University, by the
author of these chapters. For the citation regarding the evolution of
better and nobler ideas of God, see Church and Creed: Sermons preached
in the Chapel of the Foundling Hospital, London, by A. W. Momerie,
M. A., LL. D., Professor of Logic and Metaphysics in King's College,
London, 1890. For a very vigorous utterance on the other side, see a
recent charge of the Bishop of Gloucester.
CHAPTER XI. FROM "THE PRINCE OF THE POWER OF THE AIR" TO METEOROLOGY
I. GROWTH OF A THEOLOGICAL THEORY.
The popular beliefs of classic antiquity regarding storms, thunder,
and lightning, took shape in myths representing Vulcan as forging
thunderbolts, Jupiter as flinging them at his enemies, Aeolus intrusting
the winds in a bag to Aeneas, and the like. An attempt at their further
theological development is seen in the Pythagorean statement that
lightnings are intended to terrify the damned in Tartarus.
But at a very early period we see the beginning of a scientific view. In
Greece, the Ionic philosophers held that such phenomena are obedient to
law. Plato, Aristotle, and many lesser lights, attempted to account
for them on natural grounds; and their explanations, though crude, were
based upon observation and thought. In Rome, Lucretius, Seneca, Pliny,
and others, inadequate as their statements were, implanted at least the
germs of a science. But, as the Christian Church rose to power,
this evolution was checked; the new leaders of thought found, in the
Scriptures recognized by them as sacred, the basis for a new view, or
rather for a modification of the old view.
This ending of a scientific evolution based upon observation and
reason, and this beginning of a sacred science based upon the letter of
Scripture and on theology, are seen in the utterances of various fathers
in the early Church. As to the general features of this new development,
Tertullian held that sundry passages of Scripture prove lightning
identical with hell-fire; and this idea was transmitted from generation
to generation of later churchmen, who found an especial support
of Tertullian's view in the sulphurous smell experienced during
thunderstorms. St. Hilary thought the firmament very much lower than the
heavens, and that it was created not only for the support of the upper
waters, but also for the tempering of our atmosphere.(199) St. Ambrose
held that thunder is caused by the winds breaking through the solid
firmament, and cited from the prophet Amos the sublime passage regarding
"Him that establisheth the thunders."(200) He shows, indeed, some
conception of the true source of rain; but his whole reasoning is
limited by various scriptural texts. He lays great stress upon the
firmament as a solid outer shell of the universe: the heavens he holds
to be not far outside this outer shell, and argues regarding their
character from St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians and from the one
hundred and forty-eighth Psalm. As to "the waters which are above the
firmament," he takes up the objection of those who hold that, this
outside of the universe being spherical, the waters must slide off it,
especially if the firmament revolves; and he points out that it is by
no means certain that the OUTSIDE of the firmament IS spherical, and
insists that, if it does revolve, the water is just what is needed to
lubricate and cool its axis.
(199) For Tertullian, see the Apol. contra gentes, c. 47; also Augustin
de Angelis, Lectiones Meteorologicae, p. 64. For Hilary, see In Psalm
CXXXV. (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. ix, p. 773).
(200) "Firmans tonitrua" (Amos iv, 13); the phrase does not appear in
our version.
St. Jerome held that God at the Creation, having spread out the
firmament between heaven and earth, and having separated the upper
waters from the lower, caused the upper waters to be frozen into ice,
in order to keep all in place. A proof of this view Jerome found in
the words of Ezekiel regarding "the crystal stretched above the
cherubim."(201)
(201) For Ambrose, see the Hexaemeron, lib. ii, cap. 3,4; lib. iii, cap.
5 (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xiv, pp. 148-150, 153, 165). The passage
as to lubrication of the heavenly axis is as follows: "Deinde cum ispi
dicant volvi orbem coeli stellis ardentibus refulgentem, nonne divina
providentia necessario prospexit, ut intra orbem coeli, et supra orbem
redundaret aqua, quae illa ferventis axis incendia temperaret?" For
Jerome, see his Epistola, lxix, cap. 6 (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xxii,
p.659).
The germinal principle in accordance with which all these theories were
evolved was most clearly proclaimed to the world by St. Augustine in his
famous utterance: "Nothing is to be accepted save on the authority of
Scripture, since greater is that authority than all the powers of the
human mind."(202) No treatise was safe thereafter which did not breathe
the spirit and conform to the letter of this maxim. Unfortunately, what
was generally understood by the "authority of Scripture" was the tyranny
of sacred books imperfectly transcribed, viewed through distorting
superstitions, and frequently interpreted by party spirit.
(202) "Major est quippe Scripturae hujas auctoritas, quam omnis humani
ingenii capacitas."--Augustine, De Genesi ad Lit., lib. ii, cap. 5
(Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xxxiv, pp. 266, 267). Or, as he is cited by
Vincent of Beauvais (Spec. Nat., lib. iv, 98): "Non est aliquid temere
diffiniendum, sed quantum Scriptura dicit accipiendum, cujus major est
auctoritas quam omnis humani ingenii capacitas."
Following this precept of St. Augustine there were developed, in every
field, theological views of science which have never led to a single
truth--which, without exception, have forced mankind away from the
truth, and have caused Christendom to stumble for centuries into abysses
of error and sorrow. In meteorology, as in every other science with
which he dealt, Augustine based everything upon the letter of the sacred
text; and it is characteristic of the result that this man, so great
when untrammelled, thought it his duty to guard especially the whole
theory of the "waters above the heavens."
In the sixth century this theological reasoning was still further
developed, as we have seen, by Cosmas Indicopleustes. Finding a sanction
for the old Egyptian theory of the universe in the ninth chapter of
Hebrews, he insisted that the earth is a flat parallelogram, and that
from its outer edges rise immense walls supporting the firmament; then,
throwing together the reference to the firmament in Genesis and the
outburst of poetry in the Psalms regarding the "waters that be above
the heavens," he insisted that over the terrestrial universe are
solid arches bearing a vault supporting a vast cistern "containing
the waters"; finally, taking from Genesis the expression regarding
the "windows of heaven," he insisted that these windows are opened and
closed by the angels whenever the Almighty wishes to send rain upon the
earth or to withhold it.
This was accepted by the universal Church as a vast contribution to
thought; for several centuries it was the orthodox doctrine, and various
leaders in theology devoted themselves to developing and supplementing
it.
About the beginning of the seventh century, Isidore, Bishop of Seville,
was the ablest prelate in Christendom, and was showing those great
qualities which led to his enrolment among the saints of the Church. His
theological view of science marks an epoch. As to the "waters above the
firmament," Isidore contends that they must be lower than, the uppermost
heaven, though higher than the lower heaven, because in the one hundred
and forty-eighth Psalm they are mentioned AFTER the heavenly bodies
and the "heaven of heavens," but BEFORE the terrestrial elements. As to
their purpose, he hesitates between those who held that they were stored
up there by the prescience of God for the destruction of the world at
the Flood, as the words of Scripture that "the windows of heaven were
opened" seemed to indicate, and those who held that they were kept there
to moderate the heat of the heavenly bodies. As to the firmament, he is
in doubt whether it envelops the earth "like an eggshell," or is merely
spread over it "like a curtain"; for he holds that the passage in the
one hundred and fourth Psalm may be used to support either view.
Having laid these scriptural foundations, Isidore shows considerable
power of thought; indeed, at times, when he discusses the rainbow, rain,
hail, snow, and frost, his theories are rational, and give evidence
that, if he could have broken away from his adhesion to the letter of
Scripture, he might have given a strong impulse to the evolution of a
true science.(203)
(203) For Cosmas, see his Topographia Christiana (in Montfaucon,
Collectio nova patrum, vol. ii), and the more complete account of his
theory given in the chapter on Geography in this work. For Isidore, see
the Etymologiae, lib. xiii, cap. 7-9, De ordine creaturarum, cap. 3, 4,
and De natura rerum, cap. 29, 30. (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. lxxxii, pp.
476, 477, vol. lxxxiii, pp. 920-922, 1001-1003).
About a century later appeared, at the other extremity of Europe, the
second in the trio of theological men of science in the early Middle
Ages--Bede the Venerable. The nucleus of his theory also is to be found
in the accepted view of the "firmament" and of the "waters above the
heavens," derived from Genesis. The firmament he holds to be spherical,
and of a nature subtile and fiery; the upper heavens, he says, which
contain the angels, God has tempered with ice, lest they inflame the
lower elements. As to the waters placed above the firmament, lower than
the spiritual heavens, but higher than all corporeal creatures, he says,
"Some declare that they were stored there for the Deluge, but others,
more correctly, that they are intended to temper the fire of the stars."
He goes on with long discussions as to various elements and forces in
Nature, and dwells at length upon the air, of which he says that the
upper, serene air is over the heavens; while the lower, which is coarse,
with humid exhalations, is sent off from the earth, and that in this are
lightning, hail, snow, ice, and tempests, finding proof of this in the
one hundred and forty-eighth Psalm, where these are commanded to "praise
the Lord from the earth."(204)
(204) See Bede, De natura rerum (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xc).
So great was Bede's authority, that nearly all the anonymous
speculations of the next following centuries upon these subjects were
eventually ascribed to him. In one of these spurious treatises an
attempt is made to get new light upon the sources of the waters above
the heavens, the main reliance being the sheet containing the animals
let down from heaven, in the vision of St. Peter. Another of these
treatises is still more curious, for it endeavours to account for
earthquakes and tides by means of the leviathan mentioned in Scripture.
This characteristic passage runs as follows: "Some say that the earth
contains the animal leviathan, and that he holds his tail after a
fashion of his own, so that it is sometimes scorched by the sun,
whereupon he strives to get hold of the sun, and so the earth is shaken
by the motion of his indignation; he drinks in also, at times, such huge
masses of the waves that when he belches them forth all the seas feel
their effect." And this theological theory of the tides, as caused by
the alternate suction and belching of leviathan, went far and wide.(205)
(205) See the treatise De mundi constitutione, in Bede's Opera (Migne,
Patr. Lat., vol. xc, p. 884).
In the writings thus covered with the name of Bede there is much showing
a scientific spirit, which might have come to something of permanent
value had it not been hampered by the supposed necessity of conforming
to the letter of Scripture. It is as startling as it is refreshing to
hear one of these medieval theorists burst out as follows against those
who are content to explain everything by the power of God: "What is more
pitiable than to say that a thing IS, because God is able to do it, and
not to show any reason why it is so, nor any purpose for which it is so;
just as if God did everything that he is able to do! You talk like one
who says that God is able to make a calf out of a log. But DID he ever
do it? Either, then, show a reason why a thing is so, or a purpose
wherefore it is so, or else cease to declare it so."(206)
(206) For this remonstrance, see the Elementa philosophiae, in Bede's
Opera (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol xc, p. 1139). This treatise, which has
also been printed, under the title of De philosophia mundi, among the
works of Honorius of Autun, is believed by modern scholars (Haureau,
Werner, Poole) to be the production of William of Conches.
The most permanent contribution of Bede to scientific thought in this
field was his revival of the view that the firmament is made of ice; and
he supported this from the words in the twenty-sixth chapter of Job,
"He bindeth up the waters in his thick cloud, and the cloud is not rent
under them."
About the beginning of the ninth century appeared the third in that
triumvirate of churchmen who were the oracles of sacred science
throughout the early Middle Ages--Rabanus Maurus, Abbot of Fulda and
Archbishop of Mayence. Starting, like all his predecessors, from the
first chapter of Genesis, borrowing here and there from the ancient
philosophers, and excluding everything that could conflict with the
letter of Scripture, he follows, in his work upon the universe, his
two predecessors, Isidore and Bede, developing especially St. Jerome's
theory, drawn from Ezekiel, that the firmament is strong enough to hold
up the "waters above the heavens," because it is made of ice.
For centuries the authority of these three great teachers was
unquestioned, and in countless manuals and catechisms their doctrine was
translated and diluted for the common mind. But about the second quarter
of the twelfth century a priest, Honorius of Autun, produced several
treatises which show that thought on this subject had made some little
progress. He explained the rain rationally, and mainly in the modern
manner; with the thunder he is less successful, but insists that the
thunderbolt "is not stone, as some assert." His thinking is vigorous
and independent. Had theorists such as he been many, a new science could
have been rapidly evolved, but the theological current was too strong.
(207)
(207) For Rabanus Maurus, see the Comment. in Genesim and De Universo
(Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. cvii, cxi). For a charmingly naive example of
the primers referred to, see the little Anglo-Saxon manual of astronomy,
sometimes attributed to Aelfric; it is in the vernacular, but is
translated in Wright's Popular Treatises on Science during the Middle
Ages. Bede is, of course, its chief source. For Honorius, see De
imagine mundi and Hexaemeron (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. clxxii). The De
philosophia mundi, the most rational of all, is, however, believed by
modern scholars to be unjustly ascribed to him. See note above.
The strength of this current which overwhelmed the thought of Honorius
is seen again in the work of the Dominican monk, John of San Geminiano,
who in the thirteenth century gave forth his Summa de Exemplis for the
use of preachers in his order. Of its thousand pages, over two hundred
are devoted to illustrations drawn from the heavens and the elements.
A characteristic specimen is his explanation of the Psalmist's phrase,
"The arrows of the thunder." These, he tells us, are forged out of a dry
vapour rising from the earth and kindled by the heat of the upper air,
which then, coming into contact with a cloud just turning into rain,
"is conglutinated like flour into dough," but, being too hot to be
extinguished, its particles become merely sharpened at the lower end,
and so blazing arrows, cleaving and burning everything they touch.(208)
(208) See Joannes a S. Geminiano, Summa, c. 75.
But far more important, in the thirteenth century, was the fact that the
most eminent scientific authority of that age, Albert the Great, Bishop
of Ratisbon, attempted to reconcile the speculations of Aristotle
with theological views derived from the fathers. In one very important
respect he improved upon the meteorological views of his great master.
The thunderbolt, he says, is no mere fire, but the product of black
clouds containing much mud, which, when it is baked by the intense heat,
forms a fiery black or red stone that falls from the sky, tearing
beams and crushing walls in its course: such he has seen with his own
eyes.(209)
(209) See Albertus Magnus, II Sent., Op., vol. xv, p. 137, a. (cited
by Heller, Gesch. d. Physik, vol. i, p. 184) and his Liber Methaurorum,
III, iv, 18 (of which I have used the edition of Venice, 1488).
The monkish encyclopedists of the later Middle Ages added little to
these theories. As we glance over the pages of Vincent of Beauvais,
the monk Bartholomew, and William of Conches, we note only a growing
deference to the authority of Aristotle as supplementing that of Isidore
and Bede and explaining sacred Scripture. Aristotle is treated like
a Church father, but extreme care is taken not to go beyond the great
maxim of St. Augustine; then, little by little, Bede and Isidore
fall into the background, Aristotle fills the whole horizon, and his
utterances are second in sacredness only to the text of Holy Writ.
A curious illustration of the difficulties these medieval scholars had
to meet in reconciling the scientific theories of Aristotle with the
letter of the Bible is seen in the case of the rainbow. It is to the
honour of Aristotle that his conclusions regarding the rainbow, though
slightly erroneous, were based upon careful observation and evolved by
reasoning alone; but his Christian commentators, while anxious to follow
him, had to bear in mind the scriptural statement that God had created
the rainbow as a sign to Noah that there should never again be a
Flood on the earth. Even so bold a thinker as Cardinal d'Ailly, whose
speculations as to the geography of the earth did so much afterward in
stimulating Columbus, faltered before this statement, acknowledging that
God alone could explain it; but suggested that possibly never before the
Deluge had a cloud been suffered to take such a position toward the sun
as to cause a rainbow.
The learned cardinal was also constrained to believe that certain stars
and constellations have something to do in causing the rain, since these
would best explain Noah's foreknowledge of the Deluge. In connection
with this scriptural doctrine of winds came a scriptural doctrine of
earthquakes: they were believed to be caused by winds issuing from the
earth, and this view was based upon the passage in the one hundred and
thirty-fifth Psalm, "He bringeth the wind out of his treasuries."(210)
(210) For D'Ailly, see his Concordia astronomicae veritatis cum
theologia (Paris, 1483--in the Imago mundi--and Venice, 1490); also
Eck's commentary on Aristotle's Meteorologica (Ausburg, 1519), lib. ii,
nota 2; also Reisch, Margarita philosophica, lib. ix, c. 18.
Such were the main typical attempts during nearly fourteen centuries to
build up under theological guidance and within scriptural limitations a
sacred science of meteorology. But these theories were mainly evolved
in the effort to establish a basis and general theory of phenomena: it
still remained to account for special manifestations, and here came a
twofold development of theological thought.
On one hand, these phenomena were attributed to the Almighty, and, on
the other, to Satan. As to the first of these theories, we constantly
find the Divine wrath mentioned by the earlier fathers as the cause of
lightning, hailstorms, hurricanes, and the like.
In the early days of Christianity we see a curious struggle between
pagan and Christian belief upon this point. Near the close of the second
century the Emperor Marcus Aurelius, in his effort to save the empire,
fought a hotly contested battle with the Quadi, in what is now Hungary.
While the issue of this great battle was yet doubtful there came
suddenly a blinding storm beating into the faces of the Quadi, and this
gave the Roman troops the advantage, enabling Marcus Aurelius to win a
decisive victory. Votaries of each of the great religions claimed that
this storm was caused by the object of their own adoration. The pagans
insisted that Jupiter had sent the storm in obedience to their prayers,
and on the Antonine Column at Rome we may still see the figure of
Olympian Jove casting his thunderbolts and pouring a storm of rain from
the open heavens against the Quadi. On the other hand, the Christians
insisted that the storm had been sent by Jehovah in obedience to THEIR
prayers; and Tertullian, Eusebius, St. Gregory of Nyssa, and St. Jerome
were among those who insisted upon this meteorological miracle; the
first two, indeed, in the fervour of their arguments for its reality,
allowing themselves to be carried considerably beyond exact historical
truth.(211)
(211) For the authorities, pagan and Christian, see the note of
Merivale, in his History of the Romans under the Empire, chap. lxviii.
He refers for still fuller citations to Fynes Clinton's Fasti Rom., p.
24.
As time went on, the fathers developed this view more and more from
various texts in the Jewish and Christian sacred books, substituting for
Jupiter flinging his thunderbolts the Almighty wrapped in thunder and
sending forth his lightnings. Through the Middle Ages this was fostered
until it came to be accepted as a mere truism, entering into all
medieval thinking, and was still further developed by an attempt to
specify the particular sins which were thus punished. Thus even the
rational Florentine historian Villani ascribed floods and fires to the
"too great pride of the city of Florence and the ingratitude of the
citizens toward God," which, "of course," says a recent historian,
"meant their insufficient attention to the ceremonies of religion."(212)
(212) See Trollope, History of Florence, vol. i, p. 64.
In the thirteenth century the Cistercian monk, Caesarius of Heisterbach,
popularized the doctrine in central Europe. His rich collection of
anecdotes for the illustration of religious truths was the favourite
recreative reading in the convents for three centuries, and exercised
great influence over the thought of the later Middle Ages. In this work
he relates several instances of the Divine use of lightning, both
for rescue and for punishment. Thus he tells us how the steward
(cellerarius) of his own monastery was saved from the clutch of a robber
by a clap of thunder which, in answer to his prayer, burst suddenly
from the sky and frightened the bandit from his purpose: how, in a
Saxon theatre, twenty men were struck down, while a priest escaped,
not because he was not a greater sinner than the rest, but because the
thunderbolt had respect for his profession! It is Cesarius, too, who
tells us the story of the priest of Treves, struck by lightning in his
own church, whither he had gone to ring the bell against the storm, and
whose sins were revealed by the course of the lightning, for it tore his
clothes from him and consumed certain parts of his body, showing that
the sins for which he was punished were vanity and unchastity.(213)
(213) See Caesarius Heisterbacensis, Dialogus miraculorum, lib. x, c.
28-30.
This mode of explaining the Divine interference more minutely is
developed century after century, and we find both Catholics and
Protestants assigning as causes of unpleasant meteorological phenomena
whatever appears to them wicked or even unorthodox. Among the English
Reformers, Tyndale quotes in this kind of argument the thirteenth
chapter of I. Samuel, showing that, when God gave Israel a king, it
thundered and rained. Archbishop Whitgift, Bishop Bale, and Bishop
Pilkington insisted on the same view. In Protestant Germany, about the
same period, Plieninger took a dislike to the new Gregorian calendar and
published a volume of Brief Reflections, in which he insisted that
the elements had given utterance to God's anger against it, calling
attention to the fact that violent storms raged over almost all Germany
during the very ten days which the Pope had taken out for the correction
of the year, and that great floods began with the first days of the
corrected year.(214)
(214) For Tyndale, see his Doctrinal Treatises, p. 194, and for
Whitgift, see his Works, vol. ii, pp. 477-483; Bale, Works, pp.
244, 245; and Pilkington, Works, pp. 177, 536 (all in Parker Society
Publications). Bishop Bale cites especially Job xxxviii, Ecclesiasticus
xiii, and Revelation viii, as supporting the theory. For Plieninger's
words, see Janssen, Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, vol. v, p. 350.
Early in the seventeenth century, Majoli, Bishop of Voltoraria, in
southern Italy, produced his huge work Dies Canicularii, or Dog Days,
which remained a favourite encyclopedia in Catholic lands for over a
hundred years. Treating of thunder and lightning, he compares them
to bombs against the wicked, and says that the thunderbolt is "an
exhalation condensed and cooked into stone," and that "it is not to be
doubted that, of all instruments of God's vengeance, the thunderbolt is
the chief"; that by means of it Sennacherib and his army were consumed;
that Luther was struck by lightning in his youth as a caution against
departing from the Catholic faith; that blasphemy and Sabbath-breaking
are the sins to which this punishment is especially assigned, and
he cites the case of Dathan and Abiram. Fifty years later the Jesuit
Stengel developed this line of thought still further in four thick
quarto volumes on the judgments of God, adding an elaborate schedule for
the use of preachers in the sermons of an entire year. Three chapters
were devoted to thunder, lightning, and storms. That the author teaches
the agency in these of diabolical powers goes without saying; but this
can only act, he declares, by Divine permission, and the thunderbolt is
always the finger of God, which rarely strikes a man save for his sins,
and the nature of the special sin thus punished may be inferred from the
bodily organs smitten. A few years later, in Protestant Swabia, Pastor
Georg Nuber issued a volume of "weather-sermons," in which he discusses
nearly every sort of elemental disturbances--storms, floods, droughts,
lightning, and hail. These, he says, come direct from God for human
sins, yet no doubt with discrimination, for there are five sins which
God especially punishes with lightning and hail--namely, impenitence,
incredulity, neglect of the repair of churches, fraud in the payment
of tithes to the clergy, and oppression of subordinates, each of which
points he supports with a mass of scriptural texts.(215)
(215) For Majoli, see Dies Can., I, i; for Stengel, see the De judiciis
divinis, vol. ii, pp. 15-61, and especially the example of the impurus
et saltator sacerdos, fulmine castratus, pp. 26, 27. For Nuber, see his
Conciones meteoricae, Ulm, 1661.
This doctrine having become especially precious both to Catholics and to
Protestants, there were issued handbooks of prayers against bad weather:
among these was the Spiritual Thunder and Storm Booklet, produced in
1731 by a Protestant scholar, Stoltzlin, whose three or four hundred
pages of prayer and song, "sighs for use when it lightens fearfully,"
and "cries of anguish when the hailstorm is drawing on," show a
wonderful adaptability to all possible meteorological emergencies. The
preface of this volume is contributed by Prof. Dilherr, pastor of the
great church of St. Sebald at Nuremberg, who, in discussing the Divine
purposes of storms, adds to the three usually assigned--namely, God's
wish to manifest his power, to display his anger, and to drive sinners
to repentance--a fourth, which, he says, is that God may show us "with
what sort of a stormbell he will one day ring in the last judgment."
About the end of the first quarter of the eighteenth century we find,
in Switzerland, even the eminent and rational Professor of Mathematics,
Scheuchzer, publishing his Physica Sacra, with the Bible as a basis, and
forced to admit that the elements, in the most literal sense, utter the
voice of God. The same pressure was felt in New England. Typical are
the sermons of Increase Mather on The Voice of God in Stormy Winds. He
especially lays stress on the voice of God speaking to Job out of the
whirlwind, and upon the text, "Stormy wind fulfilling his word." He
declares, "When there are great tempests, the angels oftentimes have a
hand therein,... yea, and sometimes evil angels." He gives several cases
of blasphemers struck by lightning, and says, "Nothing can be more
dangerous for mortals than to contemn dreadful providences, and, in
particular, dreadful tempests."
His distinguished son, Cotton Mather, disentangled himself somewhat from
the old view, as he had done in the interpretation of comets. In his
Christian Philosopher, his Thoughts for the Day of Rain, and his Sermon
preached at the Time of the Late Storm (in 1723), he is evidently
tending toward the modern view. Yet, from time to time, the older view
has reasserted itself, and in France, as recently as the year 1870, we
find the Bishop of Verdun ascribing the drought afflicting his diocese
to the sin of Sabbath-breaking.(216)
(216) For Stoltzlin, see his Geistliches Donner- und Wetter-Buchlein
(Zurich, 1731). For Increase Mather, see his The Voice of God, etc.
(Boston, 1704). This rare volume is in the rich collection of the
American Antiquarian Society at Worcester. For Cotton Mather's view, see
the chapter From Signs and Wonders to Law, in this work. For the Bishop
of Verdun, see the Semaine relig. de Lorraine, 1879, p. 445 (cited by
"Paul Parfait," in his Dossier des Pelerinages, pp. 141-143).
This theory, which attributed injurious meteorological phenomena mainly
to the purposes of God, was a natural development, and comparatively
harmless; but at a very early period there was evolved another theory,
which, having been ripened into a doctrine, cost the earth dear indeed.
Never, perhaps, in the modern world has there been a dogma more prolific
of physical, mental, and moral agony throughout whole nations and during
whole centuries. This theory, its development by theology, its fearful
results to mankind, and its destruction by scientific observation and
thought, will next be considered.
II. DIABOLIC AGENCY IN STORMS.
While the fathers and schoolmen were labouring to deduce a science of
meteorology from our sacred books, there oozed up in European society a
mass of traditions and observances which had been lurking since the days
of paganism; and, although here and there appeared a churchman to oppose
them, the theologians and ecclesiastics ere long began to adopt them and
to clothe them with the authority of religion.
Both among the pagans of the Roman Empire and among the barbarians of
the North the Christian missionaries had found it easier to prove the
new God supreme than to prove the old gods powerless. Faith in the
miracles of the new religion seemed to increase rather than to diminish
faith in the miracles of the old; and the Church at last began admitting
the latter as facts, but ascribing them to the devil. Jupiter and Odin
sank into the category of ministers of Satan, and transferred to
that master all their former powers. A renewed study of Scripture by
theologians elicited overwhelming proofs of the truth of this doctrine.
Stress was especially laid on the declaration of Scripture, "The gods of
the heathen are devils."(217) Supported by this and other texts, it soon
became a dogma. So strong was the hold it took, under the influence
of the Church, that not until late in the seventeenth century did its
substantial truth begin to be questioned.
(217) For so the Vulgate and all the early versions rendered Ps. xcvi,
5.
With no field of action had the sway of the ancient deities been more
identified than with that of atmospheric phenomena. The Roman heard
Jupiter, and the Teuton heard Thor, in the thunder. Could it be doubted
that these powerful beings would now take occasion, unless hindered by
the command of the Almighty, to vent their spite against those who had
deserted their altars? Might not the Almighty himself be willing to
employ the malice of these powers of the air against those who had
offended him?
It was, indeed, no great step, for those whose simple faith accepted
rain or sunshine as an answer to their prayers, to suspect that the
untimely storms or droughts, which baffled their most earnest petitions,
were the work of the archenemy, "the prince of the power of the air."
The great fathers of the Church had easily found warrant for this
doctrine in Scripture. St. Jerome declared the air to be full of devils,
basing this belief upon various statements in the prophecies of Isaiah
and in the Epistle to the Ephesians. St. Augustine held the same view as
beyond controversy.(218)
(218) For St. Jerome, see his Com. in Ep. ad Ephesios (lib. iii, cap.6):
commenting on the text, "Our battle is not with flesh and blood," he
explains this as meaning the devils in the air, and adds, "Nam et in
alio loco de daemonibus quod in aere isto vagentur, Apostolus ait:
In quibus ambulastis aliquando juxta Saeculum mundi istius, secundum
principem potestatis aeris spiritus, qui nunc operatur in filos
diffidentiae (Eph, ii,2). Haec autem omnium doctorum opinio est, quod
aer iste qui coelum et terram medius dividens, inane appellatur, plenus
sit contrariis fortitudinibus." See also his Com. in Isaiam, lib. xiii,
cap. 50 (Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xxiv, p. 477). For Augustine, see the
De Civitate Dei, passim.
During the Middle Ages this doctrine of the diabolical origin of storms
went on gathering strength. Bede had full faith in it, and narrates
various anecdotes in support of it. St. Thomas Aquinas gave it his
sanction, saying in his all authoritative Summa, "Rains and winds, and
whatsoever occurs by local impulse alone, can be caused by demons."
"It is," he says, "a dogma of faith that the demons can produce wind,
storms, and rain of fire from heaven."
Albert the Great taught the same doctrine, and showed how a
certain salve thrown into a spring produced whirlwinds. The great
Franciscan--the "seraphic doctor"--St. Bonaventura, whose services to
theology earned him one of the highest places in the Church, and to whom
Dante gave special honour in paradise, set upon this belief his high
authority. The lives of the saints, and the chronicles of the Middle
Ages, were filled with it. Poetry and painting accepted the idea and
developed it. Dante wedded it to verse, and at Venice this thought
may still be seen embodied in one of the grand pictures of Bordone: a
shipload of demons is seen approaching Venice in a storm, threatening
destruction to the city, but St. Mark, St. George, and St. Nicholas
attack the vessel, and disperse the hellish crew.(219)
(219) For Bede, see the Hist. Eccles., vol. i, p. 17; Vita Cuthberti,
c. 17 (Migne, tome xliv). For Thomas Aquinas, see the Summa, pars I, qu.
lxxx, art. 2. The second citation I owe to Rydberg, Magic of the Middle
Ages, p. 73, where the whole interesting passage is given at length. For
Albertus Magnus, see the De Potentia Daemonum (cited by Maury, Legendes
Pieuses). For Bonaventura, see the Comp. Theol. Veritat., ii, 26. For
Dante, see Purgatorio, c. 5. On Bordone's picture, see Maury, Legendes
Pieuses, p. 18, note.
The popes again and again sanctioned this doctrine, and it was
amalgamated with various local superstitions, pious imaginations, and
interesting arguments, to strike the fancy of the people at large. A
strong argument in favour of a diabolical origin of the thunderbolt
was afforded by the eccentricities of its operation. These attracted
especial attention in the Middle Ages, and the popular love of marvel
generalized isolated phenomena into rules. Thus it was said that the
lightning strikes the sword in the sheath, gold in the purse, the
foot in the shoe, leaving sheath and purse and shoe unharmed; that it
consumes a human being internally without injuring the skin; that it
destroys nets in the water, but not on the land; that it kills one
man, and leaves untouched another standing beside him; that it can tear
through a house and enter the earth without moving a stone from its
place; that it injures the heart of a tree, but not the bark; that wine
is poisoned by it, while poisons struck by it lose their venom; that a
man's hair may be consumed by it and the man be unhurt.(220)
(220) See, for lists of such admiranda, any of the early writers--e. g.,
Vincent of Beauvais, Reisch's Margarita, or Eck's Aristotle.
These peculiar phenomena, made much of by the allegorizing sermonizers
of the day, were used in moral lessons from every pulpit. Thus the
Carmelite, Matthias Farinator, of Vienna, who at the Pope's own instance
compiled early in the fifteenth century that curious handbook of
illustrative examples for preachers, the Lumen Animae, finds a spiritual
analogue for each of these anomalies.(221)
(221) See the Lumen animae, Eichstadt, 1479.
This doctrine grew, robust and noxious, until, in the fifteenth,
sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries, we find its bloom in a multitude
of treatises by the most learned of the Catholic and Protestant divines,
and its fruitage in the torture chambers and on the scaffolds throughout
Christendom. At the Reformation period, and for nearly two hundred years
afterward, Catholics and Protestants vied with each other in promoting
this growth. John Eck, the great opponent of Luther, gave to the
world an annotated edition of Aristotle's Physics, which was long
authoritative in the German universities; and, though the text is free
from this doctrine, the woodcut illustrating the earth's atmosphere
shows most vividly, among the clouds of mid-air, the devils who there
reign supreme.(222)
(222) See Eck, Aristotelis Meteorologica, Augsburg, 1519.
Luther, in the other religious camp, supported the superstition even
more zealously, asserting at times his belief that the winds themselves
are only good or evil spirits, and declaring that a stone thrown into a
certain pond in his native region would cause a dreadful storm because
of the devils, kept prisoners there.(223)
(223) For Luther, see the Table Talk; also Michelet, Life of Luther
(translated by Hazlitt, p. 321).
Just at the close of the same century, Catholics and Protestants
welcomed alike the great work of Delrio. In this, the power of devils
over the elements is proved first from the Holy Scriptures, since, he
declares, "they show that Satan brought fire down from heaven to consume
the servants and flocks of Job, and that he stirred up a violent
wind, which overwhelmed in ruin the sons and daughters of Job at their
feasting." Next, Delrio insists on the agreement of all the orthodox
fathers, that it was the devil himself who did this, and attention is
called to the fact that the hail with which the Egyptians were punished
is expressly declared in Holy Scripture to have been brought by the
evil angels. Citing from the Apocalypse, he points to the four angels
standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the winds and
preventing their doing great damage to mortals; and he dwells especially
upon the fact that the devil is called by the apostle a "prince of the
power of the air." He then goes on to cite the great fathers of the
Church--Clement, Jerome, Augustine, and Thomas Aquinas.(224)
(224) For Delrio, see his Disquisitiones Magicae, first printed at Liege
in 1599-1600, but reprinted again and again throughout the seventeenth
century. His interpretation of Psalm lxxviii, 47-49, was apparently
shared by the translators of our own authorized edition. For citations
by him, see Revelation vii, 1,; Ephesians ii, 2. Even according to
modern commentators (e.g., Alford), the word here translated "power"
denotes not MIGHT, but GOVERNMENT, COURT, HIERARCHY; and in this sense
it was always used by the ecclesiastical writers, whose conception
is best rendered by our plural--"powers." See Delrio, Disquisitiones
Magicae, lib. ii, c. 11.
This doctrine was spread not only in ponderous treatises, but in light
literature and by popular illustrations. In the Compendium Maleficarum
of the Italian monk Guacci, perhaps the most amusing book in the whole
literature of witchcraft, we may see the witch, in propria persona,
riding the diabolic goat through the clouds while the storm rages around
and beneath her; and we may read a rich collection of anecdotes, largely
contemporary, which establish the required doctrine beyond question.
The first and most natural means taken against this work of Satan in the
air was prayer; and various petitions are to be found scattered through
the Christian liturgies--some very beautiful and touching. This means of
escape has been relied upon, with greater or less faith, from those days
to these. Various medieval saints and reformers, and devoted men in
all centuries, from St. Giles to John Wesley, have used it with results
claimed to be miraculous. Whatever theory any thinking man may hold
in the matter, he will certainly not venture a reproachful word: such
prayers have been in all ages a natural outcome of the mind of man in
trouble.(225)
(225) For Guacci, see his Compendium Maleficarum (Milan, 1608). For the
cases of St. Giles, John Wesley, and others stilling the tempests, see
Brewer, Dictionary of Miracles, s. v. Prayer.
But against the "power of the air" were used other means of a very
different character and tendency, and foremost among these was exorcism.
In an exorcism widely used and ascribed to Pope Gregory XIII, the
formula is given: "I, a priest of Christ,... do command ye, most foul
spirits, who do stir up these clouds,... that ye depart from them, and
disperse yourselves into wild and untilled places, that ye may be no
longer able to harm men or animals or fruits or herbs, or whatsoever
is designed for human use." But this is mild, indeed, compared to some
later exorcisms, as when the ritual runs: "All the people shall rise,
and the priest, turning toward the clouds, shall pronounce these
words: 'I exorcise ye, accursed demons, who have dared to use, for the
accomplishment of your iniquity, those powers of Nature by which God in
divers ways worketh good to mortals; who stir up winds, gather vapours,
form clouds, and condense them into hail.... I exorcise ye,... that
ye relinquish the work ye have begun, dissolve the hail, scatter the
clouds, disperse the vapours, and restrain the winds.'" The rubric goes
on to order that then there shall be a great fire kindled in an open
place, and that over it the sign of the cross shall be made, and the one
hundred and fourteenth Psalm chanted, while malodorous substances, among
them sulphur and asafoetida, shall be cast into the flames. The purpose
seems to have been literally to "smoke out" Satan.(226)
(226) See Polidorus Valerius, Practica exorcistarum; also the Thesaurus
exorcismorum (Cologne, 1626), pp. 158-162.
Manuals of exorcisms became important--some bulky quartos, others
handbooks. Noteworthy among the latter is one by the Italian priest
Locatelli, entitled Exorcisms most Powerful and Efficacious for the
Dispelling of Aerial Tempests, whether raised by Demons at their own
Instance or at the Beck of some Servant of the Devil.(227)
(227) That is, Exorcismi, etc. A "corrected" second edition was printed
at Laybach, 1680, in 24mo, to which is appended another manual of Preces
et conjurationes contra aereas tempestates, omnibus sacerdotibus utiles
et necessaria, printed at the monastery of Kempten (in Bavaria) in 1667.
The latter bears as epigraph the passage from the gospels describing
Christ's stilling of the winds.
The Jesuit Gretser, in his famous book on Benedictions and Maledictions,
devotes a chapter to this subject, dismissing summarily the scepticism
that questions the power of devils over the elements, and adducing the
story of Job as conclusive.(228)
(228) See Gretser, De benedictionibus et maledictionibus, lib. ii, c.
48.
Nor was this theory of exorcism by any means confined to the elder
Church. Luther vehemently upheld it, and prescribed especially the first
chapter of St. John's gospel as of unfailing efficacy against thunder
and lightning, declaring that he had often found the mere sign of the
cross, with the text, "The word was made flesh," sufficient to put
storms to flight.(229)
(229) So, at least, says Gretser (in his De ben. et aml., as above).
From the beginning of the Middle Ages until long after the Reformation
the chronicles give ample illustration of the successful use of such
exorcisms. So strong was the belief in them that it forced itself into
minds comparatively rational, and found utterance in treatises of much
importance.
But, since exorcisms were found at times ineffectual, other means were
sought, and especially fetiches of various sorts. One of the earliest of
these appeared when Pope Alexander I, according to tradition, ordained
that holy water should be kept in churches and bedchambers to drive
away devils.(230) Another safeguard was found in relics, and of similar
efficacy were the so-called "conception billets" sold by the Carmelite
monks. They contained a formula upon consecrated paper, at which the
devil might well turn pale. Buried in the corner of a field, one of
these was thought to give protection against bad weather and destructive
insects.(231)
(230) "Instituit ut aqua quam sanctum appellamus sale admixta
interpositus sacris orationibus et in templis et in cubiculis ad
fugandos daemones retineretur." Platina, Vitae Pontif. But the story is
from the False Decretals.
(231) See Rydberg, The Magic of the Middle Ages, translated by Edgren,
pp. 63-66.
But highest in repute during centuries was the Agnus Dei--a piece of wax
blessed by the Pope's own hand, and stamped with the well-known device
representing the "Lamb of God." Its powers were so marvellous that Pope
Urban V thought three of these cakes a fitting gift from himself to the
Greek Emperor. In the Latin doggerel recounting their virtues, their
meteorological efficacy stands first, for especial stress is laid on
their power of dispelling the thunder. The stress thus laid by Pope
Urban, as the infallible guide of Christendom, on the efficacy of this
fetich, gave it great value throughout Europe, and the doggerel verses
reciting its virtues sank deep into the popular mind. It was
considered a most potent means of dispelling hail, pestilence, storms,
conflagrations, and enchantments; and this feeling was deepened by the
rules and rites for its consecration. So solemn was the matter, that the
manufacture and sale of this particular fetich was, by a papal bull of
1471, reserved for the Pope himself, and he only performed the required
ceremony in the first and seventh years of his pontificate. Standing
unmitred, he prayed: "O God,... we humbly beseech thee that thou wilt
bless these waxen forms, figured with the image of an innocent lamb,...
that, at the touch and sight of them, the faithful may break forth into
praises, and that the crash of hailstorms, the blast of hurricanes, the
violence of tempests, the fury of winds, and the malice of thunderbolts
may be tempered, and evil spirits flee and tremble before the standard
of thy holy cross, which is graven upon them."(232)
(232) These pious charms are still in use in the Church, and may be
found described in any ecclesiastical cyclopaedia. The doggerel verses
run as follows:
"Tonitrua magna terret, Inimicos nostras domat Et peccata nostra delet;
Praegnantem cum partu salvat, Ab incendio praeservat, Dona dignis multa
confert, A subersione servat, Utque malis mala defert. A morte cita
liberat, Portio, quamvis parva sit, Et Cacodaemones fugat, Ut magna
tamen proficit."
See these verses cited in full faith, so late as 1743, in Father Vincent
of Berg's Enchiridium, pp. 23, 24, where is an ample statement of the
virtues of the Agnus Dei, and istructions for its use. A full account
of the rites used in consecrating this fetich, with the prayers and
benedictions which gave colour to this theory of the powers of the Agnus
Dei, may be found in the ritual of the Church. I have used the edition
entitled Sacrarum ceremoniarum sive rituum Sanctae Romanae Ecclesiae
libri tres, Rome, 1560, in folio. The form of the papal prayer is as
follows: "Deus... te supplicater deprecamur, ut... has cereas formas,
innocentissimi agni imagine figuritas, benedicere... digneris, ut per
ejus tactum et visum fideles invitentur as laudes, fragor grandinum,
procella turbinum, impetus tempestatum, ventorum rabies, infesta
tonitrua temperentur, fugiant atque tremiscant maligni spiritus ante
Sanctae Crucis vexillum, quod in illis exculptum est...."(Sacr. Cer.
Rom. Eccl., as above). If any are curious as to the extent to which this
consecrated wax was a specific for all spiritual and most temporal ills
during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, let them consult the
Jesuit Litterae annuae, passim.
Another favourite means with the clergy of the older Church for bringing
to naught the "power of the air," was found in great processions bearing
statues, relics, and holy emblems through the streets. Yet even these
were not always immediately effective. One at Liege, in the thirteenth
century, thrice proved unsuccessful in bringing rain, when at last
it was found that the image of the Virgin had been forgotten! A new
procession was at once formed, the Salve Regina sung, and the rain came
down in such torrents as to drive the devotees to shelter.(233)
(233) John of Winterthur describes many such processions in Switzerland
in the thirteenth century, and all the monkish chronicles speak of them.
See also Rydberg, Magic of the Middle Ages, p. 74.
In Catholic lands this custom remains to this day, and very important
features in these processions are the statues and the reliquaries of
patron saints. Some of these excel in bringing sunshine, others in
bringing rain. The Cathedral of Chartres is so fortunate as to possess
sundry relics of St. Taurin, especially potent against dry weather,
and some of St. Piat, very nearly as infallible against wet weather. In
certain regions a single saint gives protection alternately against wet
and dry weather--as, for example, St. Godeberte at Noyon. Against storms
St. Barbara is very generally considered the most powerful protectress;
but, in the French diocese of Limoges, Notre Dame de Crocq has proved a
most powerful rival, for when, a few years since, all the neighbouring
parishes were ravaged by storms, not a hailstone fell in the canton
which she protected. In the diocese of Tarbes, St. Exupere is especially
invoked against hail, peasants flocking from all the surrounding country
to his shrine.(234)
(234) As to protection by special saints as stated, see the Guide du
touriste et du pelerin a Chartes, 1867 (cited by "Paul Parfait," in his
Dossier des Pelerinages); also pp. 139-145 of the Dossier.
But the means of baffling the powers of the air which came to be most
widely used was the ringing of consecrated church bells.
This usage had begun in the time of Charlemagne, and there is extant a
prohibition of his against the custom of baptizing bells and of hanging
certain tags(235) on their tongues as a protection against hailstorms;
but even Charlemagne was powerless against this current of medieval
superstition. Theological reasons were soon poured into it, and in the
year 968 Pope John XIII gave it the highest ecclesiastical sanction by
himself baptizing the great bell of his cathedral church, the Lateran,
and christening it with his own name.(236)
(235) Perticae. See Montanus, Hist. Nachricht van den Glocken (Chenmitz,
1726), p. 121; and Meyer, Der Aberglaube des Mittelalters, p. 186.
(236) For statements regarding Pope John and bell superstitions, see
Higgins's Anacalypsis, vol. ii, p. 70. See also Platina, Vitae Pontif.,
s. v. John XIII, and Baronius, Annales Ecclesiastici, sub anno 968.
The conjecture of Baronius that the bell was named after St. John the
Baptist, is even more startling than the accepted tradition of the
Pope's sponsorship.
This idea was rapidly developed, and we soon find it supported in
ponderous treatises, spread widely in sermons, and popularized in
multitudes of inscriptions cast upon the bells themselves. This branch
of theological literature may still be studied in multitudes of church
towers throughout Europe. A bell at Basel bears the inscription, "Ad
fugandos demones." Another, in Lugano, declares "The sound of this bell
vanquishes tempests, repels demons, and summons men." Another, at
the Cathedral of Erfurt, declares that it can "ward off lightning and
malignant demons." A peal in the Jesuit church at the university town
of Pont-a-Mousson bore the words, "They praise God, put to flight the
clouds, affright the demons, and call the people." This is dated 1634.
Another bell in that part of France declares, "It is I who dissipate the
thunders"(Ego sum qui dissipo tonitrua).(237)
(237) For these illustrations, with others equally striking, see Meyer,
Der Aberglaube des Mittelalters, pp. 185, 186. For the later examples,
see Germain, Anciennes cloches lorraines (Nancy, 1885), pp. 23, 27.
Another, in one of the forest cantons of Switzerland, bears a doggerel
couplet, which may be thus translated:
"On the devil my spite I'll vent, And, God helping, bad weather
prevent."(238)
(238) "An dem Tufel will cih mich rachen, Mit der hilf gotz alle bosen
wetter erbrechen." (See Meyer, as above.)
Very common were inscriptions embodying this doctrine in sonorous Latin.
Naturally, then, there grew up a ritual for the consecration of bells.
Knollys, in his quaint translation of the old chronicler Sleidan,
gives us the usage in the simple English of the middle of the sixteenth
century:
"In lyke sorte (as churches) are the belles used. And first, forsouth,
they must hange so, as the Byshop may goe round about them. Whiche
after he hath sayde certen Psalmes, he consecrateth water and salte, and
mingleth them together, wherwith he washeth the belle diligently both
within and without, after wypeth it drie, and with holy oyle draweth in
it the signe of the crosse, and prayeth God, that whan they shall rynge
or sounde that bell, all the disceiptes of the devyll may vanyshe away,
hayle, thondryng, lightening, wyndes, and tempestes, and all untemperate
weathers may be aswaged. Whan he hath wipte out the crosse of oyle wyth
a linen cloth, he maketh seven other crosses in the same, and within
one only. After saying certen Psalmes, he taketh a payre of sensours and
senseth the bel within, and prayeth God to sende it good lucke. In many
places they make a great dyner, and kepe a feast as it were at a solemne
wedding."(239)
(239) Sleiden's Commentaries, English translation, as above, fol. 334
(lib. xxi, sub anno 1549).
These bell baptisms became matters of great importance. Popes, kings,
and prelates were proud to stand as sponsors. Four of the bells at
the Cathedral of Versailles having been destroyed during the French
Revolution, four new ones were baptized, on the 6th of January, 1824,
the Voltairean King, Louis XVIII, and the pious Duchess d'Angouleme
standing as sponsors.
In some of these ceremonies zeal appears to have outrun knowledge, and
one of Luther's stories, at the expense of the older Church, was that
certain authorities thus christened a bell "Hosanna," supposing that to
be the name of a woman.
To add to the efficacy of such baptisms, water was sometimes brought
from the river Jordan.(240)
(240) See Montanus, as above, who cites Beck, Lutherthum vor Luthero,
p. 294, for the statement that many bells were carried to the Jordan by
pilgrims for this purpose.
The prayers used at bell baptisms fully recognise this doctrine. The
ritual of Paris embraces the petition that, "whensoever this bell
shall sound, it shall drive away the malign influences of the assailing
spirits, the horror of their apparitions, the rush of whirlwinds, the
stroke of lightning, the harm of thunder, the disasters of storms, and
all the spirits of the tempest." Another prayer begs that "the sound of
this bell may put to flight the fiery darts of the enemy of men"; and
others vary the form but not the substance of this petition. The great
Jesuit theologian, Bellarmin, did indeed try to deny the reality of this
baptism; but this can only be regarded as a piece of casuistry suited
to Protestant hardness of heart, or as strategy in the warfare against
heretics.(241)
(241) For prayers at bell baptisms, see Arago, Oeuvres, Paris, 1854,
vol. iv, p. 322.
Forms of baptism were laid down in various manuals sanctioned directly
by papal authority, and sacramental efficacy was everywhere taken for
granted.(242) The development of this idea in the older Church was too
strong to be resisted;(243) but, as a rule, the Protestant theologians
of the Reformation, while admitting that storms were caused by Satan
and his legions, opposed the baptism of bells, and denied the theory of
their influence in dispersing storms. Luther, while never doubting that
troublesome meteorological phenomena were caused by devils, regarded
with contempt the idea that the demons were so childish as to be scared
by the clang of bells; his theory made them altogether too powerful to
be affected by means so trivial. The great English Reformers, while also
accepting very generally the theory of diabolic interference in storms,
reproved strongly the baptizing of bells, as the perversion of a
sacrament and involving blasphemy. Bishop Hooper declared reliance upon
bells to drive away tempests, futile. Bishop Pilkington, while arguing
that tempests are direct instruments of God's wrath, is very severe
against using "unlawful means," and among these he names "the hallowed
bell"; and these opinions were very generally shared by the leading
English clergy.(244)
(242) As has often been pointed out, the ceremony was in all its
details--even to the sponsors, the wrapping a garment about the
baptised, the baptismal fee, the feast--precisely the same as when a
child was baptised. Magius, who is no sceptic, relates from his own
experience an instant of this sort, where a certain bishop stood sponsor
for two bells, giving them both his own name--William. (See his De
Tintinnabulis, vol. xiv.)
(243) And no wonder, when the oracle of the Church, Thomas Aquinas,
expressly pronounced church bells, "provided they have been duly
consecrated and baptised," the foremost means of "frustrating the
atmospheric mischiefs of the devil," and likened steeples in which
bells are ringing to a hen brooding her chickens, "for the tones of the
consecrated metal repel the demons and avert storm and lightning"; when
pre-Reformation preachers of such universal currency as Johannes Herolt
declared, "Bells, as all agree, are baptised with the result that they
are secure from the power of Satan, terrify the demons, compel the
powers"; when Geiler of Kaiserberg especially commended bell-ringing
as a means of beating off the devil in storms; and when a canonist
like Durandus explained the purpose of the rite to be, that "the demons
hearing the trumpets of the Eternal King, to wit, the bells, may flee
in terror, and may cease from the stirring up of tempests." See Herolt,
Sermones Discipuli, vol. xvii, and Durandus, De ritibus ecclesiae, vol.
ii, p. 12. I owe the first of these citations to Rydberg, and the others
to Montanus. For Geiler, see Dacheux, Geiler de Kaiserberg, pp. 280,
281.
(244) The baptism of bells was indeed, one of the express complaints
of the German Protestant princes at the Reformation. See their Gravam.
Cent. German. Grav., p. 51. For Hooper, see his Early Writings, p. 197
(in Parker Society Publications). For Pilkington, see his Works, p.
177 (in same). Among others sharing these opinions were Tyndale, Bishop
Ridley, Archbishop Sandys, Becon, Calfhill, and Rogers. It is to be
noted that all of these speak of the rite as "baptism."
Toward the end of the sixteenth century the Elector of Saxony strictly
forbade the ringing of bells against storms, urging penance and prayer
instead; but the custom was not so easily driven out of the Protestant
Church, and in some quarters was developed a Protestant theory of a
rationalistic sort, ascribing the good effects of bell-ringing in storms
to the calling together of the devout for prayer or to the suggestion
of prayers during storms at night. As late as the end of the seventeenth
century we find the bells of Protestant churches in northern Germany
rung for the dispelling of tempests. In Catholic Austria this
bell-ringing seems to have become a nuisance in the last century, for
the Emperor Joseph II found it necessary to issue an edict against
it; but this doctrine had gained too large headway to be arrested by
argument or edict, and the bells may be heard ringing during storms to
this day in various remote districts in Europe.(245) For this was no
mere superficial view. It was really part of a deep theological current
steadily developed through the Middle Ages, the fundamental idea of the
whole being the direct influence of the bells upon the "Power of the
Air"; and it is perhaps worth our while to go back a little and glance
over the coming of this current into the modern world. Having grown
steadily through the Middle Ages, it appeared in full strength at
the Reformation period; and in the sixteenth century Olaus Magnus,
Archbishop of Upsala and Primate of Sweden, in his great work on the
northern nations, declares it a well-established fact that cities and
harvests may be saved from lightning by the ringing of bells and the
burning of consecrated incense, accompanied by prayers; and he cautions
his readers that the workings of the thunderbolt are rather to be
marvelled at than inquired into. Even as late as 1673 the Franciscan
professor Lealus, in Italy, in a schoolbook which was received with
great applause in his region, taught unhesitatingly the agency of
demons in storms, and the power of bells over them, as well as the
portentousness of comets and the movement of the heavens by angels.
He dwells especially, too, upon the perfect protection afforded by the
waxen Agnus Dei. How strong this current was, and how difficult even for
philosophical minds to oppose, is shown by the fact that both Descartes
and Francis Bacon speak of it with respect, admitting the fact, and
suggesting very mildly that the bells may accomplish this purpose by the
concussion of the air.(246)
(245) For Elector of Saxony, see Peuchen, Disp. circa tempestates,
Jena, 1697. For the Protestant theory of bells, see, e. g., the Ciciones
Selectae of Superintendent Conrad Dieterich (cited by Peuchen, Disp.
circa tempestates). For Protestant ringing of bells to dispel tempests,
see Schwimmer, Physicalische Luftfragen, 1692 (cited by Peuchen, as
above). He pictures the whole population of a Thuringinian district
flocking to the churches on the approach of a storm.
(246) For Olaus Magnus, see the De gentibus septentrionalibus (Rome,
1555), lib. i, c. 12, 13. For Descartes, see his De meteor., cent.
2, 127. In his Historia Ventorum he again alludes to the belief, and
without comment.
But no such moderate doctrine sufficed, and the renowned Bishop
Binsfeld, of Treves, in his noted treatise on the credibility of the
confessions of witches, gave an entire chapter to the effect of bells in
calming atmospheric disturbances. Basing his general doctrine upon the
first chapter of Job and the second chapter of Ephesians, he insisted
on the reality of diabolic agency in storms; and then, by theological
reasoning, corroborated by the statements extorted in the torture
chamber, he showed the efficacy of bells in putting the hellish legions
to flight.(247) This continued, therefore, an accepted tenet,
developed in every nation, and coming to its climax near the end of the
seventeenth century. At that period--the period of Isaac Newton--Father
Augustine de Angelis, rector of the Clementine College at Rome,
published under the highest Church authority his lectures upon
meteorology. Coming from the centre of Catholic Christendom, at so late
a period, they are very important as indicating what had been developed
under the influence of theology during nearly seventeen hundred years.
This learned head of a great college at the heart of Christendom taught
that "the surest remedy against thunder is that which our Holy Mother
the Church practises, namely, the ringing of bells when a thunderbolt
impends: thence follows a twofold effect, physical and moral--a
physical, because the sound variously disturbs and agitates the air, and
by agitation disperses the hot exhalations and dispels the thunder; but
the moral effect is the more certain, because by the sound the faithful
are stirred to pour forth their prayers, by which they win from God the
turning away of the thunderbolt." Here we see in this branch of thought,
as in so many others, at the close of the seventeenth century, the dawn
of rationalism. Father De Angelis now keeps demoniacal influence in
the background. Little, indeed, is said of the efficiency of bells in
putting to flight the legions of Satan: the wise professor is evidently
preparing for that inevitable compromise which we see in the history of
every science when it is clear that it can no longer be suppressed by
ecclesiastical fulminations.(248)
(247) See Binsfeld, De Confessionbus Malef., pp. 308-314, edition of
1623.
(248) For De Angelis, see his Lectiones Meteorol., p. 75.
III. THE AGENCY OF WITCHES.
But, while this comparatively harmless doctrine of thwarting the powers
of the air by fetiches and bell-ringing was developed, there were
evolved another theory, and a series of practices sanctioned by the
Church, which must forever be considered as among the most fearful
calamities in human history. Indeed, few errors have ever cost so much
shedding of innocent blood over such wide territory and during so many
generations. Out of the old doctrine--pagan and Christian--of evil
agency in atmospheric phenomena was evolved the belief that certain men,
women, and children may secure infernal aid to produce whirlwinds, hail,
frosts, floods, and the like.
As early as the ninth century one great churchman, Agobard, Archbishop
of Lyons, struck a heavy blow at this superstition. His work, Against
the Absurd Opinion of the Vulgar touching Hail and Thunder, shows him
to have been one of the most devoted apostles of right reason whom human
history has known. By argument and ridicule, and at times by a
lofty eloquence, he attempted to breast this tide. One passage is of
historical significance. He declares: "The wretched world lies now under
the tyranny of foolishness; things are believed by Christians of
such absurdity as no one ever could aforetime induce the heathen to
believe."(249)
(249) For a very interesting statement of Agobard's position and
work, with citations from his Liber contra insulsam vulgi opinionem
de grandine et tonitruis, see Poole, Illustrations of the History of
Mediaeval Thought, pp. 40 et seq. The works of Agobard are in vol. civ
of Migne's Patrol. Lat.
All in vain; the tide of superstition continued to roll on; great
theologians developed it and ecclesiastics favoured it; until as we near
the end of the medieval period the infallible voice of Rome is heard
accepting it, and clinching this belief into the mind of Christianity.
For, in 1437, Pope Eugene IV, by virtue of the teaching power conferred
on him by the Almighty, and under the divine guarantee against any
possible error in the exercise of it, issued a bull exhorting the
inquisitors of heresy and witchcraft to use greater diligence against
the human agents of the Prince of Darkness, and especially against those
who have the power to produce bad weather. In 1445 Pope Eugene returned
again to the charge, and again issued instructions and commands
infallibly committing the Church to the doctrine. But a greater than
Eugene followed, and stamped the idea yet more deeply into the mind of
the Church. On the 7th of December, 1484, Pope Innocent VIII sent forth
his bull Summis Desiderantes. Of all documents ever issued from Rome,
imperial or papal, this has doubtless, first and last, cost the greatest
shedding of innocent blood. Yet no document was ever more clearly
dictated by conscience. Inspired by the scriptural command, "Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live," Pope Innocent exhorted the clergy of
Germany to leave no means untried to detect sorcerers, and especially
those who by evil weather destroy vineyards, gardens, meadows,
and growing crops. These precepts were based upon various texts of
Scripture, especially upon the famous statement in the book of Job; and,
to carry them out, witch-finding inquisitors were authorized by the Pope
to scour Europe, especially Germany, and a manual was prepared for their
use--the Witch-Hammer, Malleus Maleficarum. In this manual, which was
revered for centuries, both in Catholic and Protestant countries, as
almost divinely inspired, the doctrine of Satanic agency in atmospheric
phenomena was further developed, and various means of detecting and
punishing it were dwelt upon.(250)
(250) For the bull of Pope Eugene, see Raynaldus, Annales Eccl., pp.
1437, 1445. The Latin text of the bull Summis Desiderantes may now be
found in the Malleus Maleficarum, in Binsfeld's De Confessionibus cited
below, or in Roskoff's Geschichte des Teufles (Leipsic, 1869), vol.
i, pp. 222-225. There is, so far as I know, no good analysis, in any
English book, of the contents of the Witch-Hammer; but such may be
found in Roskoff's Geschichte des Teufels, or in Soldan's Geschichte der
Hexenprozesse. Its first dated edition is that of 1489; but Prof. Burr
has shown that it was printed as early as 1486. It was, happily, never
translated into any modern tongue.
With the application of torture to thousands of women, in accordance
with the precepts laid down in the Malleus, it was not difficult to
extract masses of proof for this sacred theory of meteorology. The poor
creatures, writhing on the rack, held in horror by those who had been
nearest and dearest to them, anxious only for death to relieve their
sufferings, confessed to anything and everything that would satisfy the
inquisitors and judges. All that was needed was that the inquisitors
should ask leading questions(251) and suggest satisfactory answers: the
prisoners, to shorten the torture, were sure sooner or later to give the
answer required, even though they knew that this would send them to the
stake or scaffold. Under the doctrine of "excepted cases," there was no
limit to torture for persons accused of heresy or witchcraft; even the
safeguards which the old pagan world had imposed upon torture were thus
thrown down, and the prisoner MUST confess.
(251) For still extant lists of such questions, see the Zeitschrift
fur deutsche Culturgeschichte for 1858, pp. 522-528, or Diefenbach,
Der Hexenwahn in Deutschland, pp. 15-17. Father Vincent of Berg (in his
Enchiridium) gives a similar list for use by priests in the confession
of the accused. Manuscript lists of this sort which have actually done
service in the courts of Baden and Bavaria may be seen in the library of
Cornell University.
The theological literature of the Middle Ages was thus enriched with
numberless statements regarding modes of Satanic influence on the
weather. Pathetic, indeed, are the records; and none more so than the
confessions of these poor creatures, chiefly women and children,
during hundreds of years, as to their manner of raising hailstorms and
tempests. Such confessions, by tens of thousands, are still to be found
in the judicial records of Germany, and indeed of all Europe. Typical
among these is one on which great stress was laid during ages, and for
which the world was first indebted to one of these poor women. Crazed by
the agony of torture, she declared that, returning with a demon through
the air from the witches' sabbath, she was dropped upon the earth in the
confusion which resulted among the hellish legions when they heard
the bells sounding the Ave Maria. It is sad to note that, after a
contribution so valuable to sacred science, the poor woman was condemned
to the flames. This revelation speedily ripened the belief that,
whatever might be going on at the witches' sabbath--no matter how
triumphant Satan might be--at the moment of sounding the consecrated
bells the Satanic power was paralyzed. This theory once started, proofs
came in to support it, during a hundred years, from the torture chambers
in all parts of Europe.
Throughout the later Middle Ages the Dominicans had been the main agents
in extorting and promulgating these revelations, but in the centuries
following the Reformation the Jesuits devoted themselves with even
more keenness and vigour to the same task. Some curious questions
incidentally arose. It was mooted among the orthodox authorities whether
the damage done by storms should or should not be assessed upon the
property of convicted witches. The theologians inclined decidedly to the
affirmative; the jurists, on the whole, to the negative.(252)
(252) For proofs of the vigour of the Jesuits in this persecution, see
not only the histories of witchcraft, but also the Annuae litterae of
the Jesuits themselves, passim.
In spite of these tortures, lightning and tempests continued, and great
men arose in the Church throughout Europe in every generation to point
out new cruelties for the discovery of "weather-makers," and new methods
for bringing their machinations to naught.
But here and there, as early as the sixteenth century, we begin to see
thinkers endeavouring to modify or oppose these methods. At that time
Paracelsus called attention to the reverberation of cannon as explaining
the rolling of thunder, but he was confronted by one of his greatest
contemporaries. Jean Bodin, as superstitious in natural as he was
rational in political science, made sport of the scientific theory,
and declared thunder to be "a flaming exhalation set in motion by evil
spirits, and hurled downward with a great crash and a horrible smell
of sulphur." In support of this view, he dwelt upon the confessions
of tortured witches, upon the acknowledged agency of demons in the
Will-o'-the-wisp, and specially upon the passage in the one hundred and
fourth Psalm, "Who maketh his angels spirits, his ministers a flaming
fire."
To resist such powerful arguments by such powerful men was dangerous
indeed. In 1513, Pomponatius, professor at Padua, published a volume
of Doubts as to the Fourth Book of Aristotle's Meteorologica, and also
dared to question this power of devils; but he soon found it advisable
to explain that, while as a PHILOSOPHER he might doubt, yet as
a CHRISTIAN he of course believed everything taught by Mother
Church--devils and all--and so escaped the fate of several others
who dared to question the agency of witches in atmospheric and other
disturbances.
A few years later Agrippa of Nettesheim made a somewhat similar effort
to breast this theological tide in northern Europe. He had won a great
reputation in various fields, but especially in natural science,
as science was then understood. Seeing the folly and cruelty of the
prevailing theory, he attempted to modify it, and in 1518, as Syndic of
Metz, endeavoured to save a poor woman on trial for witchcraft. But the
chief inquisitor, backed by the sacred Scriptures, the papal bulls, the
theological faculties, and the monks, was too strong for him; he was not
only forced to give up his office, but for this and other offences of a
similar sort was imprisoned, driven from city to city and from country
to country, and after his death his clerical enemies, especially the
Dominicans, pursued his memory with calumny, and placed over his grave
probably the most malignant epitaph ever written.
As to argument, these efforts were met especially by Jean Bodin in his
famous book, the Demonomanie des Sorciers, published in 1580. It was a
work of great power by a man justly considered the leading thinker in
France, and perhaps in Europe. All the learning of the time, divine
and human, he marshalled in support of the prevailing theory. With
inexorable logic he showed that both the veracity of sacred Scripture
and the infallibility of a long line of popes and councils of the Church
were pledged to it, and in an eloquent passage this great publicist
warned rulers and judges against any mercy to witches--citing the
example of King Ahab condemned by the prophet to die for having pardoned
a man worthy of death, and pointing significantly to King Charles IX of
France, who, having pardoned a sorcerer, died soon afterward.(253)
(253) To the argument cited above, Bodin adds: "Id certissimam daemonis
praesentiam significat; nam ubicunque daemones cum hominibus nefaria
societatis fide copulantur, foedissimum semper relinquunt sulphuris
odorem, quod sortilegi saepissime experiuntur et confitentur." See
Bodin's Universae Naturae Theatrum, Frankfort, 1597, pp. 208-211. The
first edition of the book by Pomponatius, which was the earliest of his
writings, is excessively rare, but it was reprinted at Venice just a
half-century later. It is in his De incantationibus, however, that he
speaks especially of devils. As to Pomponatius, see, besides these,
Creighton's History of the Papacy during the Reformation, and an
excellent essay in Franck's Moralistes et Philosophes. For Agrippa,
see his biography by Prof. Henry Morley, London, 1856. For Bodin, see
a statement of his general line of argument in Lecky, Rationalism in
Europe, vol. i, chap. 1.
In the last years of the sixteenth century the persecutions for
witchcraft and magic were therefore especially cruel; and in the western
districts of Germany the main instrument in them was Binsfeld, Suffragan
Bishop of Treves.
At that time Cornelius Loos was a professor at the university of
that city. He was a devoted churchman, and one of the most brilliant
opponents of Protestantism, but he finally saw through the prevailing
belief regarding occult powers, and in an evil hour for himself embodied
his idea in a book entitled True and False Magic. The book, though
earnest, was temperate, but this helped him and his cause not at all.
The texts of Scripture clearly sanctioning belief in sorcery and magic
stood against him, and these had been confirmed by the infallible
teachings of the Church and the popes from time immemorial; the book was
stopped in the press, the manuscript confiscated, and Loos thrown into a
dungeon.
The inquisitors having wrought their will upon him, in the spring of
1593 he was brought out of prison, forced to recant on his knees
before the assembled dignitaries of the Church, and thenceforward kept
constantly under surveillance and at times in prison. Even this was
considered too light a punishment, and his arch-enemy, the Jesuit
Delrio, declared that, but for his death by the plague, he would have
been finally sent to the stake.(254)
(254) What remains of the manuscript of Loos, which until recently was
supposed to be lost, was found, hidden away on the shelves of the old
Jesuit library at Treves, by Mr. George Lincoln Burr, now a professor
at Cornell University; and Prof. Burr's copy of the manuscript is now in
the library of that institution. For a full account of the discovery
and its significance, see the New York Nation for November 11, 1886. The
facts regarding the after-life of Loos were discovered by Prof. Burr in
manuscript records at Brussels.
That this threat was not unmeaning had been seen a few years earlier in
a case even more noted, and in the same city. During the last decades of
the sixteenth century, Dietrich Flade, an eminent jurist, was rector of
the University of Treves, and chief judge of the Electoral Court, and
in the latter capacity he had to pass judgment upon persons tried on
the capital charge of magic and witchcraft. For a time he yielded to the
long line of authorities, ecclesiastical and judicial, supporting the
reality of this crime; but he at last seems to have realized that it
was unreal, and that the confessions in his torture chamber, of
compacts with Satan, riding on broomsticks to the witch-sabbath, raising
tempests, producing diseases, and the like, were either the results of
madness or of willingness to confess anything and everything, and even
to die, in order to shorten the fearful tortures to which the accused
were in all cases subjected until a satisfactory confession was
obtained.
On this conviction of the unreality of many at least of the charges
Flade seems to have acted, and he at once received his reward. He was
arrested by the authority of the archbishop and charged with having sold
himself to Satan--the fact of his hesitation in the persecution being
perhaps what suggested his guilt. He was now, in his turn, brought into
the torture chamber over which he had once presided, was racked until
he confessed everything which his torturers suggested, and finally, in
1589, was strangled and burnt.
Of that trial a record exists in the library of Cornell University
in the shape of the original minutes of the case, and among them the
depositions of Flade when under torture, taken down from his own lips
in the torture chamber. In these depositions this revered and venerable
scholar and jurist acknowledged the truth of every absurd charge brought
against him--anything, everything, which would end the fearful torture:
compared with that, death was nothing.(255)
(255) For the case of Flade, see the careful study by Prof. Burr,
The Fate of Dietrich Flade, in the Papers of the American Historical
Association, 1891.
Nor was even a priest secure who ventured to reveal the unreality of
magic. When Friedrich Spee, the Jesuit poet of western Germany, found,
in taking the confessions of those about to be executed for magic, that
without exception, just when about to enter eternity and utterly beyond
hope of pardon, they all retracted their confessions made under torture,
his sympathies as a man rose above his loyalty to his order, and he
published his Cautio Criminalis as a warning, stating with entire
moderation the facts he had observed and the necessity of care. But he
did not dare publish it under his own name, nor did he even dare publish
it in a Catholic town; he gave it to the world anonymously, and,
in order to prevent any tracing of the work to him through the
confessional, he secretly caused it to be published in the Protestant
town of Rinteln.
Nor was this all. Nothing shows so thoroughly the hold that this belief
in magic had obtained as the conduct of Spee's powerful friend and
contemporary, John Philip von Schonborn, later the Elector and Prince
Archbishop of Mayence.
As a youth, Schonborn had loved and admired Spee, and had especially
noted his persistent melancholy and his hair whitened even in his
young manhood. On Schonborn's pressing him for the cause, Spee at last
confessed that his sadness, whitened hair, and premature old age were
due to his recollections of the scores of men and women and children
whom he had been obliged to see tortured and sent to the scaffold
and stake for magic and witchcraft, when he as their father confessor
positively knew them to be innocent. The result was that, when
Schonborn became Elector and Archbishop of Mayence, he stopped the witch
persecutions in that province, and prevented them as long as he lived.
But here was shown the strength of theological and ecclesiastical
traditions and precedents. Even a man so strong by family connections,
and enjoying such great temporal and spiritual power as Schonborn, dared
not openly give his reasons for this change of policy. So far as is
known, he never uttered a word publicly against the reality of magic,
and under his successor in the electorate witch trials were resumed.
The great upholders of the orthodox view retained full possession of the
field. The victorious Bishop Binsfeld, of Treves, wrote a book to prove
that everything confessed by the witches under torture, especially the
raising of storms and the general controlling of the weather, was worthy
of belief; and this book became throughout Europe a standard authority,
both among Catholics and Protestants. Even more inflexible was Remigius,
criminal judge in Lorraine. On the title-page of his manual he boasts
that within fifteen years he had sent nine hundred persons to death for
this imaginary crime.(256)
(256) For Spee and Schonborn, see Soldan and other German authorities.
There are copies of the first editions of the Cautio Criminalis in
the library of Cornell University. Binsfeld's book bore the title of
Tractatus de confessionibus maleficorum et sagarum. First published
at Treves in 1589, it appeared subsequently four times in the original
Latin, as well as in two distinct German translations, and in a French
one. Remigius's manual was entitled Daemonolatreia, and was first
printed at Lyons in 1595.
Protestantism fell into the superstition as fully as Catholicism. In the
same century John Wier, a disciple of Agrippa, tried to frame a pious
theory which, while satisfying orthodoxy, should do something to check
the frightful cruelties around him. In his book De Praestigiis Daemonum,
published in 1563, he proclaimed his belief in witchcraft, but suggested
that the compacts with Satan, journeys through the air on broomsticks,
bearing children to Satan, raising storms and producing diseases--to
which so many women and children confessed under torture--were delusions
suggested and propagated by Satan himself, and that the persons charged
with witchcraft were therefore to be considered "as possessed"--that is,
rather as sinned against than sinning.(257)
(257) For Wier, or Weyer, see, besides his own works, the excellent
biography by Prof. Binz, of Bonn.
But neither Catholics nor Protestants would listen for a moment to any
such suggestion. Wier was bitterly denounced and persecuted. Nor did
Bekker, a Protestant divine in Holland, fare any better in the following
century. For his World Bewitched, in which he ventured not only to
question the devil's power over the weather, but to deny his bodily
existence altogether, he was solemnly tried by the synod of his Church
and expelled from his pulpit, while his views were condemned as heresy,
and overwhelmed with a flood of refutations whose mere catalogue would
fill pages; and these cases were typical of many.
The Reformation had, indeed, at first deepened the superstition; the new
Church being anxious to show itself equally orthodox and zealous with
the old. During the century following the first great movement, the
eminent Lutheran jurist and theologian Benedict Carpzov, whose boast was
that he had read the Bible fifty-three times, especially distinguished
himself by his skill in demonstrating the reality of witchcraft, and by
his cruelty in detecting and punishing it. The torture chambers were
set at work more vigorously than ever, and a long line of theological
jurists followed to maintain the system and to extend it.
To argue against it, or even doubt it, was exceedingly dangerous. Even
as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century, when Christian
Thomasius, the greatest and bravest German between Luther and Lessing,
began the efforts which put an end to it in Protestant Germany, he did
not dare at first, bold as he was, to attack it in his own name,
but presented his views as the university thesis of an irresponsible
student.(258)
(258) For Thomasius, see his various bigraphies by Luden and others;
also the treatises on witchcraft by Soldan and others. Manuscript notes
of his lectures, and copies of his earliest books on witchcraft as well
as on other forms of folly, are to be found in the library of Cornell
University.
The same stubborn resistance to the gradual encroachment of the
scientific spirit upon the orthodox doctrine of witchcraft was seen in
Great Britain. Typical as to the attitude both of Scotch and English
Protestants were the theory and practice of King James I, himself the
author of a book on Demonology, and nothing if not a theologian. As to
theory, his treatise on Demonology supported the worst features of the
superstition; as to practice, he ordered the learned and acute work of
Reginald Scot, The Discoverie of Witchcraft, one of the best treatises
ever written on the subject, to be burned by the hangman, and he applied
his own knowledge to investigating the causes of the tempests which
beset his bride on her voyage from Denmark. Skilful use of unlimited
torture soon brought these causes to light. A Dr. Fian, while his legs
were crushed in the "boots" and wedges were driven under his finger
nails, confessed that several hundred witches had gone to sea in a sieve
from the port of Leith, and had raised storms and tempests to drive back
the princess.
With the coming in of the Puritans the persecution was even more
largely, systematically, and cruelly developed. The great witch-finder,
Matthew Hopkins, having gone through the county of Suffolk and tested
multitudes of poor old women by piercing them with pins and needles,
declared that county to be infested with witches. Thereupon Parliament
issued a commission, and sent two eminent Presbyterian divines to
accompany it, with the result that in that county alone sixty persons
were hanged for witchcraft in a single year. In Scotland matters were
even worse. The auto da fe of Spain was celebrated in Scotland under
another name, and with Presbyterian ministers instead of Roman Catholic
priests as the main attendants. At Leith, in 1664, nine women were
burned together. Condemnations and punishments of women in batches were
not uncommon. Torture was used far more freely than in England, both in
detecting witches and in punishing them. The natural argument developed
in hundreds of pulpits was this: If the Allwise God punishes his
creatures with tortures infinite in cruelty and duration, why should not
his ministers, as far as they can, imitate him?
The strongest minds in both branches of the Protestant Church in Great
Britain devoted themselves to maintaining the superstition. The newer
scientific modes of thought, and especially the new ideas regarding the
heavens, revealed first by Copernicus and Galileo and later by Newton,
Huygens, and Halley, were gradually dissipating the whole domain of the
Prince of the Power of the Air; but from first to last a long line of
eminent divines, Anglican and Calvinistic, strove to resist the new
thought. On the Anglican side, in the seventeenth century, Meric
Casaubon, Doctor of Divinity and a high dignitary of Canterbury,--Henry
More, in many respects the most eminent scholar in the
Church,--Cudworth, by far the most eminent philosopher, and Dr. Joseph
Glanvil, the most cogent of all writers in favour of witchcraft,
supported the orthodox superstition in treatises of great power; and Sir
Matthew Hale, the greatest jurist of the period, condemning two women
to be burned for witchcraft, declared that he based his judgment on the
direct testimony of Holy Scripture. On the Calvinistic side were the
great names of Richard Baxter, who applauded some of the worst cruelties
in England, and of Increase and Cotton Mather, who stimulated the worst
in America; and these marshalled in behalf of this cruel superstition
a long line of eminent divines, the most earnest of all, perhaps, being
John Wesley.
Nor was the Lutheran Church in Sweden and the other Scandinavian
countries behind its sister churches, either in persecuting witchcraft
or in repressing doubts regarding the doctrine which supported it.
But in spite of all these great authorities in every land, in spite of
such summary punishments as those of Flade, Loos, and Bekker, and in
spite of the virtual exclusion from church preferment of all who doubted
the old doctrine, the new scientific view of the heavens was developed
more and more; the physical sciences were more and more cultivated; the
new scientific atmosphere in general more and more prevailed; and at the
end of the seventeenth century this vast growth of superstition began to
wither and droop. Montaigne, Bayle, and Voltaire in France, Thomasius in
Germany, Calef in New England, and Beccaria in Italy, did much also to
create an intellectual and moral atmosphere fatal to it.
And here it should be stated, to the honour of the Church of England,
that several of her divines showed great courage in opposing the
dominant doctrine. Such men as Harsnet, Archbishop of York, and Morton,
Bishop of Lichfield, who threw all their influence against witch-finding
cruelties even early in the seventeenth century, deserve lasting
gratitude. But especially should honour be paid to the younger men in
the Church, who wrote at length against the whole system: such men as
Wagstaffe and Webster and Hutchinson, who in the humbler ranks of the
clergy stood manfully for truth, with the certainty that by so doing
they were making their own promotion impossible.
By the beginning of the eighteenth century the doctrine was evidently
dying out. Where torture had been abolished, or even made milder,
"weather-makers" no longer confessed, and the fundamental proofs in
which the system was rooted were evidently slipping away. Even the great
theologian Fromundus, at the University of Louvain, the oracle of his
age, who had demonstrated the futility of the Copernican theory, had
foreseen this and made the inevitable attempt at compromise, declaring
that devils, though OFTEN, are not ALWAYS or even for the most part
the causes of thunder. The learned Jesuit Caspar Schott, whose Physica
Curiosa was one of the most popular books of the seventeenth century,
also ventured to make the same mild statement. But even such concessions
by such great champions of orthodoxy did not prevent frantic efforts in
various quarters to bring the world back under the old dogma: as late as
1743 there was published in Catholic Germany a manual by Father Vincent
of Berg, in which the superstition was taught to its fullest extent,
with the declaration that it was issued for the use of priests under
the express sanction of the theological professors of the University
of Cologne; and twenty-five years later, in 1768, we find in Protestant
England John Wesley standing firmly for witchcraft, and uttering his
famous declaration, "The giving up of witchcraft is in effect the giving
up of the Bible." The latest notable demonstration in Scotland was made
as late as 1773, when "the divines of the Associated Presbytery" passed
a resolution declaring their belief in witchcraft, and deploring the
general scepticism regarding it.(259)
(259) For Carpzov and his successors, see authorities already given.
The best account of James's share in the extortion of confessions may
be found in the collection of Curious Tracts published at Edinburgh in
1820. See also King James's own Demonologie, and Pitcairn's Criminal
Trials of Scotland, vol. i, part ii, pp. 213-223. For Casaubon, see his
Credulity and Incredulity in Things Natural, pp. 66, 67. For Glanvil,
More, Casaubon, Baxter, Wesley, and others named, see Lecky, as above.
As to Increase Mather, in his sermons, already cited, on The Voice
of God in Stormy Winds, Boston, 1704, he says: "when there are great
tempests, the Angels oftentimes have a Hand therein.. .. Yea, and
sometimes, by Divine Permission, Evil Angels have a Hand in such Storms
and Tempests as are very hurtful to Men on the Earth." Yet "for the most
part, such Storms are sent by the Providence of God as a Sign of His
Displeasure for the Sins of Men," and sometimes "as Prognosticks and
terrible Warnings of Great Judgements not far off." From the height
of his erudition Mather thus rebukes the timid voice of scientific
scepticism: "There are some who would be esteemed the Wits of the World,
that ridicule those as Superstitious and Weak Persons, which look upon
Dreadful Tempests as Prodromous of other Judgements. Nevertheless,
the most Learned and Judicious Writers, not only of the Gentiles, but
amongst Christians, have Embraced such a Persuasion; their Sentiments
therein being Confirmed by the Experience of many Ages." For another
curious turn given to this theory, with reference to sanitary science,
see Deodat Lawson's famous sermon at Salem, in 1692, on Christ's
Fidelity a Shield against Satan's Malignity, p. 21 of the second
edition. For Cotton Mather, see his biography by Barrett Wendell, pp.
91, 92; also the chapter on Diabolism and Hysteria in this work. For
Fromundus, see his Meteorologica (London, 1656), lib. iii, c. 9, and
lib. ii, c. 3. For Schott, see his Physica Curiosa (edition of Wurzburg,
1667), p. 1249. For Father Vincent of Berg, see his Enchiridium
quadripartitum (Cologne, 1743). Besides benedictions and exorcisms for
all emergencies, it contains full directions for the manufacture of
Agnes Dei, and of another sacred panacea called "Heiligthum," not less
effective against evil powers,--gives formulae to be worn for protection
against the devil,--suggests a list of signs by which diabolical
possession may be recognised, and prescribes the question to be asked by
priests in the examination of witches. For Wesley, see his Journal for
1768. The whole citation is given in Lecky.
IV. FRANKLIN'S LIGHTNING-ROD.
But in the midst of these efforts by Catholics like Father Vincent
and by Protestants like John Wesley to save the old sacred theory, it
received its death-blow. In 1752 Franklin made his experiments with the
kite on the banks of the Schuylkill; and, at the moment when he drew
the electric spark from the cloud, the whole tremendous fabric of
theological meteorology reared by the fathers, the popes, the
medieval doctors, and the long line of great theologians, Catholic and
Protestant, collapsed; the "Prince of the Power of the Air" tumbled from
his seat; the great doctrine which had so long afflicted the earth was
prostrated forever.
The experiment of Franklin was repeated in various parts of Europe, but,
at first, the Church seemed careful to take no notice of it. The old
church formulas against the Prince of the Power of the Air were still
used, but the theological theory, especially in the Protestant Church,
began to grow milder. Four years after Franklin's discovery Pastor
Karl Koken, member of the Consistory and official preacher to the City
Council of Hildesheim, was moved by a great hailstorm to preach and
publish a sermon on The Revelation of God in Weather. Of "the Prince of
the Power of the Air" he says nothing; the theory of diabolical agency
he throws overboard altogether; his whole attempt is to save the older
and more harmless theory, that the storm is the voice of God. He insists
that, since Christ told Nicodemus that men "know not whence the wind
cometh," it can not be of mere natural origin, but is sent directly
by God himself, as David intimates in the Psalm, "out of His secret
places." As to the hailstorm, he lays great stress upon the plague of
hail sent by the Almighty upon Egypt, and clinches all by insisting
that God showed at Mount Sinai his purpose to startle the body before
impressing the conscience.
While the theory of diabolical agency in storms was thus drooping and
dying, very shrewd efforts were made at compromise. The first of these
attempts we have already noted, in the effort to explain the efficacy of
bells in storms by their simple use in stirring the faithful to prayer,
and in the concession made by sundry theologians, and even by the great
Lord Bacon himself, that church bells might, under the sanction of
Providence, disperse storms by agitating the air. This gained ground
somewhat, though it was resisted by one eminent Church authority, who
answered shrewdly that, in that case, cannon would be even more pious
instruments. Still another argument used in trying to save this part of
the theological theory was that the bells were consecrated instruments
for this purpose, "like the horns at whose blowing the walls of Jericho
fell."(260)
(260) For Koken, see his Offenbarung Gottes in Wetter, Hildesheim,
c1756; and for the answer to Bacon, see Gretser's De Benedictionibus,
lib. ii, cap. 46.
But these compromises were of little avail. In 1766 Father Sterzinger
attacked the very groundwork of the whole diabolic theory. He was, of
course, bitterly assailed, insulted, and hated; but the Church thought
it best not to condemn him. More and more the "Prince of the Power
of the Air" retreated before the lightning-rod of Franklin. The older
Church, while clinging to the old theory, was finally obliged to confess
the supremacy of Franklin's theory practically; for his lightning-rod
did what exorcisms, and holy water, and processions, and the Agnus
Dei, and the ringing of church bells, and the rack, and the burning of
witches, had failed to do. This was clearly seen, even by the poorest
peasants in eastern France, when they observed that the grand spire of
Strasburg Cathedral, which neither the sacredness of the place, nor the
bells within it, nor the holy water and relics beneath it, could protect
from frequent injuries by lightning, was once and for all protected by
Franklin's rod. Then came into the minds of multitudes the answer to the
question which had so long exercised the leading theologians of Europe
and America, namely, "Why should the Almighty strike his own consecrated
temples, or suffer Satan to strike them?"
Yet even this practical solution of the question was not received
without opposition.
In America the earthquake of 1755 was widely ascribed, especially in
Massachusetts, to Franklin's rod. The Rev. Thomas Prince, pastor of the
Old South Church, published a sermon on the subject, and in the appendix
expressed the opinion that the frequency of earthquakes may be due to
the erection of "iron points invented by the sagacious Mr. Franklin." He
goes on to argue that "in Boston are more erected than anywhere else in
New England, and Boston seems to be more dreadfully shaken. Oh! there is
no getting out of the mighty hand of God."
Three years later, John Adams, speaking of a conversation with
Arbuthnot, a Boston physician, says: "He began to prate upon the
presumption of philosophy in erecting iron rods to draw the lightning
from the clouds. He railed and foamed against the points and the
presumption that erected them. He talked of presuming upon God, as
Peter attempted to walk upon the water, and of attempting to control the
artillery of heaven."
As late as 1770 religious scruples regarding lightning-rods were still
felt, the theory being that, as thunder and lightning were tokens of
the Divine displeasure, it was impiety to prevent their doing their full
work. Fortunately, Prof. John Winthrop, of Harvard, showed himself wise
in this, as in so many other things: in a lecture on earthquakes he
opposed the dominant theology; and as to arguments against Franklin's
rods, he declared, "It is as much our duty to secure ourselves against
the effects of lightning as against those of rain, snow, and wind by the
means God has put into our hands."
Still, for some years theological sentiment had to be regarded
carefully. In Philadelphia, a popular lecturer on science for some time
after Franklin's discovery thought it best in advertising his lectures
to explain that "the erection of lightning-rods is not chargeable
with presumption nor inconsistent with any of the principles either of
natural or revealed religion."(261)
(261) Regarding opposition to Franklin's rods in America, see Prince's
sermon, especially p. 23; also Quincy, History of Harvard University,
vol. ii, p. 219; also Works of John Adams, vol. ii, pp. 51, 52; also
Parton's Life of Franklin, vol. i, p. 294.
In England, the first lightning conductor upon a church was not put
up until 1762, ten years after Franklin's discovery. The spire of St.
Bride's Church in London was greatly injured by lightning in 1750, and
in 1764 a storm so wrecked its masonry that it had to be mainly
rebuilt; yet for years after this the authorities refused to attach a
lightning-rod. The Protestant Cathedral of St. Paul's, in London, was
not protected until sixteen years after Franklin's discovery, and the
tower of the great Protestant church at Hamburg not until a year
later still. As late as 1783 it was declared in Germany, on excellent
authority, that within a space of thirty-three years nearly four hundred
towers had been damaged and one hundred and twenty bell-ringers killed.
In Roman Catholic countries a similar prejudice was shown, and its
cost at times was heavy. In Austria, the church of Rosenberg, in the
mountains of Carinthia, was struck so frequently and with such loss of
life that the peasants feared at last to attend service. Three times
was the spire rebuilt, and it was not until 1778--twenty-six years
after Franklin's discovery--that the authorities permitted a rod to be
attached. Then all trouble ceased.
A typical case in Italy was that of the tower of St. Mark's, at Venice.
In spite of the angel at its summit and the bells consecrated to ward
off the powers of the air, and the relics in the cathedral hard by, and
the processions in the adjacent square, the tower was frequently injured
and even ruined by lightning. In 1388 it was badly shattered; in 1417,
and again in 1489, the wooden spire surmounting it was utterly consumed;
it was again greatly injured in 1548, 1565, 1653, and in 1745 was struck
so powerfully that the whole tower, which had been rebuilt of stone and
brick, was shattered in thirty-seven places. Although the invention of
Franklin had been introduced into Italy by the physicist Beccaria, the
tower of St. Mark's still went unprotected, and was again badly struck
in 1761 and 1762; and not until 1766--fourteen years after Franklin's
discovery--was a lightning-rod placed upon it; and it has never been
struck since.(262)
(262) For reluctance in England to protect churches with Franklin's
rods, see Priestley, History of Electricity, London, 1775, vol. i, pp.
407, 465 et seq.
So, too, though the beautiful tower of the Cathedral of Siena, protected
by all possible theological means, had been struck again and again, much
opposition was shown to placing upon it what was generally known as
"the heretical rod," but the tower was at last protected by Franklin's
invention, and in 1777, though a very heavy bolt passed down the rod,
the church received not the slightest injury. This served to reconcile
theology and science, so far as that city was concerned; but the case
which did most to convert the Italian theologians to the scientific view
was that of the church of San Nazaro, at Brescia. The Republic of Venice
had stored in the vaults of this church over two hundred thousand pounds
of powder. In 1767, seventeen years after Franklin's discovery, no rod
having been placed upon it, it was struck by lightning, the powder in
the vaults was exploded, one sixth of the entire city destroyed, and
over three thousand lives were lost.(263)
(263) See article on Lightning in the Edinburgh Review for October,
1844.
Such examples as these, in all parts of Europe, had their effect. The
formulas for conjuring off storms, for consecrating bells to ward off
lightning and tempests, and for putting to flight the powers of the air,
were still allowed to stand in the liturgies; but the lightning-rod,
the barometer, and the thermometer, carried the day. A vigorous line of
investigators succeeding Franklin completed his victory, The traveller
in remote districts of Europe still hears the church bells ringing
during tempests; the Polish or Italian peasant is still persuaded to
pay fees for sounding bells to keep off hailstorms; but the universal
tendency favours more and more the use of the lightning-rod, and of the
insurance offices where men can be relieved of the ruinous results of
meteorological disturbances in accordance with the scientific laws
of average, based upon the ascertained recurrence of storms. So, too,
though many a poor seaman trusts to his charm that has been bathed in
holy water, or that has touched some relic, the tendency among mariners
is to value more and more those warnings which are sent far and wide
each day over the earth and under the sea by the electric wires in
accordance with laws ascertained by observation.
Yet, even in our own time, attempts to revive the old theological
doctrine of meteorology have not been wanting. Two of these, one in a
Roman Catholic and another in a Protestant country, will serve as types
of many, to show how completely scientific truth has saturated and
permeated minds supposed to be entirely surrendered to the theological
view.
The Island of St. Honorat, just off the southern coast of France,
is deservedly one of the places most venerated in Christendom. The
monastery of Lerins, founded there in the fourth century, became a
mother of similar institutions in western Europe, and a centre of
religious teaching for the Christian world. In its atmosphere, legends
and myths grew in beauty and luxuriance. Here, as the chroniclers tell
us, at the touch of St. Honorat, burst forth a stream of living water,
which a recent historian of the monastery declares a greater miracle
than that of Moses; here he destroyed, with a touch of his staff, the
reptiles which infested the island, and then forced the sea to wash away
their foul remains. Here, to please his sister, Sainte-Marguerite, a
cherry tree burst into full bloom every month; here he threw his cloak
upon the waters and it became a raft, which bore him safely to visit the
neighbouring island; here St. Patrick received from St. Just the staff
with which he imitated St. Honorat by driving all reptiles from Ireland.
Pillaged by Saracens and pirates, the island was made all the more
precious by the blood of Christian martyrs. Popes and kings made
pilgrimages to it; saints, confessors, and bishops went forth from it
into all Europe; in one of its cells St. Vincent of Lerins wrote that
famous definition of pure religion which, for nearly fifteen hundred
years, has virtually superseded that of St. James. Naturally the
monastery became most illustrious, and its seat "the Mediterranean Isle
of Saints."
But toward the close of the last century, its inmates having become
slothful and corrupt, it was dismantled, all save a small portion torn
down, and the island became the property first of impiety, embodied in a
French actress, and finally of heresy, embodied in an English clergyman.
Bought back for the Church by the Bishop of Frejus in 1859, there
was little revival of life for twelve years. Then came the reaction,
religious and political, after the humiliation of France and the Vatican
by Germany; and of this reaction the monastery of St. Honorat was made
one of the most striking outward and visible signs. Pius IX interested
himself directly in it, called into it a body of Cistercian monks,
and it became the chief seat of their order in France. To restore its
sacredness the strict system of La Trappe was established--labour,
silence, meditation on death. The word thus given from Rome was seconded
in France by cardinals, archbishops, and all churchmen especially
anxious for promotion in this world or salvation in the next. Worn-out
dukes and duchesses of the Faubourg Saint-Germain united in this
enterprise of pious reaction with the frivolous youngsters, the petits
creves, who haunt the purlieus of Notre Dame de Lorette. The great
church of the monastery was handsomely rebuilt and a multitude of
altars erected; and beautiful frescoes and stained windows came from
the leaders of the reaction. The whole effect was, perhaps, somewhat
theatrical and thin, but it showed none the less earnestness in making
the old "Isle of Saints" a protest against the hated modern world.
As if to bid defiance still further to modern liberalism, great store of
relics was sent in; among these, pieces of the true cross, of the
white and purple robes, of the crown of thorns, sponge, lance, and
winding-sheet of Christ,--the hair, robe, veil, and girdle of the
Blessed Virgin; relics of St. John the Baptist, St. Joseph, St. Mary
Magdalene, St. Paul, St. Barnabas, the four evangelists, and a multitude
of other saints: so many that the bare mention of these treasures
requires twenty-four distinct heads in the official catalogue recently
published at the monastery. Besides all this--what was considered even
more powerful in warding off harm from the revived monastery--the bones
of Christian martyrs were brought from the Roman catacombs and laid
beneath the altars.(264)
(264) See the Guide des Visiteurs a Lerins, published at the Monastery
in 1880, p. 204; also the Histoire de Lerins, mentioned below.
All was thus conformed to the medieval view; nothing was to be left
which could remind one of the nineteenth century; the "ages of faith"
were to be restored in their simplicity. Pope Leo XIII commended to the
brethren the writings of St. Thomas Aquinas as their one great object of
study, and works published at the monastery dwelt upon the miracles of
St. Honorat as the most precious refutation of modern science.
High in the cupola, above the altars and relics, were placed the bells.
Sent by pious donors, they were solemnly baptized and consecrated
in 1871, four bishops officiating, a multitude of the faithful being
present from all parts of Europe, and the sponsors of the great tenor
bell being the Bourbon claimant to the ducal throne of Parma and his
duchess. The good bishop who baptized the bells consecrated them with
a formula announcing their efficacy in driving away the "Prince of the
Power of the Air" and the lightning and tempests he provokes.
And then, above all, at the summit of the central spire, high above
relics, altars, and bells, was placed--A LIGHTNING-ROD!(265)
(265) See Guide, as above, p. 84. Les Isles de Lerins, by the Abbe
Alliez (Paris, 1860), and the Histoire de Lerins, by the same author,
are the authorities for the general history of the abbey, and are
especially strong in presenting the miracles of St. Honorat, etc. The
Cartulaire of the monastery, recently published, is also valuable. But
these do not cover the recent revival, for an account of which recourse
must be had to the very interesting and naive Guide already cited.
The account of the monastery, published under the direction of the
present worthy abbot, more than hints at the saving, by its bells, of
a ship which was wrecked a few years since on that coast; and yet, to
protect the bells and church and monks and relics from the very foe
whom, in the medieval faith, all these were thought most powerful
to drive away, recourse was had to the scientific discovery of that
"arch-infidel," Benjamin Franklin!
Perhaps the most striking recent example in Protestant lands of this
change from the old to the new occurred not long since in one of the
great Pacific dependencies of the British crown. At a time of severe
drought an appeal was made to the bishop, Dr. Moorhouse, to order public
prayers for rain. The bishop refused, advising the petitioners for the
future to take better care of their water supply, virtually telling
them, "Heaven helps those who help themselves." But most noteworthy in
this matter was it that the English Government, not long after, scanning
the horizon to find some man to take up the good work laid down by the
lamented Bishop Fraser, of Manchester, chose Dr. Moorhouse; and his
utterance upon meteorology, which a few generations since would have
been regarded by the whole Church as blasphemy, was universally alluded
to as an example of strong good sense, proving him especially fit for
one of the most important bishoprics in England.
Throughout Christendom, the prevalence of the conviction that
meteorology is obedient to laws is more and more evident. In cities
especially, where men are accustomed each day to see posted in public
places charts which show the storms moving over various parts of the
country, and to read in the morning papers scientific prophecies as to
the weather, the old view can hardly be very influential.
Significant of this was the feeling of the American people during the
fearful droughts a few years since in the States west of the Missouri.
No days were appointed for fasting and prayer to bring rain; there was
no attribution of the calamity to the wrath of God or the malice of
Satan; but much was said regarding the folly of our people in allowing
the upper regions of their vast rivers to be denuded of forests, thus
subjecting the States below to alternations of drought and deluge.
Partly as a result of this, a beginning has been made of teaching forest
culture in many schools, tree-planting societies have been formed, and
"Arbor Day" is recognised in several of the States. A true and noble
theology can hardly fail to recognise, in the love of Nature and care
for our fellow-men thus promoted, something far better, both from a
religious and a moral point of view, than any efforts to win the Divine
favour by flattery, or to avert Satanic malice by fetichism.
CHAPTER XII. FROM MAGIC TO CHEMISTRY AND PHYSICS.
I.
In all the earliest developments of human thought we find a strong
tendency to ascribe mysterious powers over Nature to men and women
especially gifted or skilled. Survivals of this view are found to
this day among savages and barbarians left behind in the evolution
of civilization, and especially is this the case among the tribes of
Australia, Africa, and the Pacific coast of America. Even in the most
enlightened nations still appear popular beliefs, observances, or
sayings, drawn from this earlier phase of thought.
Between the prehistoric savage developing this theory, and therefore
endeavouring to deal with the powers of Nature by magic, and the modern
man who has outgrown it, appears a long line of nations struggling
upward through it. As the hieroglyphs, cuneiform inscriptions, and
various other records of antiquity are read, the development of this
belief can be studied in Egypt, India, Babylonia, Assyria, Persia, and
Phoenicia. From these civilizations it came into the early thought of
Greece and Rome, but especially into the Jewish and Christian sacred
books. Both in the Old Testament and in the New we find magic,
witchcraft, and soothsaying constantly referred to as realities.(266)
(266) For magic in prehistoric times and survivals of it since, with
abundant citation of authorities, see Tylor, Primitive Culture, chap.
iv; also The Early History of Mankind, by the same author, third
edition, pp. 115 et seq., also p. 380.; also Andrew Lang, Myth, Ritual,
and Religion, vol. i, chap iv. For magic in Egypt, see Lenormant,
Chaldean Magic, chaps. vi-viii; also Maspero, Histoire Ancienne des
Peuples de l'Orient; also Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of Civilization,
p. 282, and for the threat of magicians to wreck heaven, see ibid, p.
17, note, and especially the citations from Chabas, Le Papyrus Magique
Harris, in chap. vii; also Maury, La Magie et l'Astrologie dans
l'Antiquite et au Moyen Age. For magic in Chaldea, see Lenormant as
above; also Maspero and Sayce, pp. 780 et seq. For examples of magical
powers in India, see Max Muller's Sacred Books of the East, vol. xvi,
pp. 121 et seq. For a legendary view of magic in Media, see the Zend
Avesta, part i, p. 14, translated by Darmsteter; and for a more highly
developed view, see the Zend Avesta, part iii, p. 239, translated by
Mill. For magic in Greece and Rome, and especially in the Neoplatonic
school, as well as in the Middle Ages, see especially Maury, La Magie
et l'Astrologie, chaps. iii-v. For various sorts of magic recognised and
condemned in our sacred books, see Deuteronomy xviii, 10, 11; and for
the burning of magical books at Ephesus under the influence of St.
Paul, see Acts xix, 14. See also Ewald, History of Israel, Martineau's
translation, fourth edition, vol. iii, pp. 45-51. For a very elaborate
summing up of the passages in our sacred books recognizing magic as a
fact, see De Haen, De Magia, Leipsic, 1775, chaps. i, ii, and iii, of
the first part. For the general subject of magic, see Ennemoser, History
of Magic, translated by Howitt, which, however, constantly mixes sorcery
with magic proper.
The first distinct impulse toward a higher view of research into
natural laws was given by the philosophers of Greece. It is true that
philosophical opposition to physical research was at times strong, and
that even a great thinker like Socrates considered certain physical
investigations as an impious intrusion into the work of the gods. It
is also true that Plato and Aristotle, while bringing their thoughts
to bear upon the world with great beauty and force, did much to draw
mankind away from those methods which in modern times have produced the
best results.
Plato developed a world in which the physical sciences had little if any
real reason for existing; Aristotle, a world in which the same sciences
were developed largely indeed by observation of what is, but still more
by speculation on what ought to be. From the former of these two great
men came into Christian theology many germs of medieval magic, and from
the latter sundry modes of reasoning which aided in the evolution of
these; yet the impulse to human thought given by these great masters
was of inestimable value to our race, and one legacy from them was
especially precious--the idea that a science of Nature is possible, and
that the highest occupation of man is the discovery of its laws. Still
another gift from them was greatest of all, for they gave scientific
freedom. They laid no interdict upon new paths; they interposed no
barriers to the extension of knowledge; they threatened no doom in this
life or in the next against investigators on new lines; they left the
world free to seek any new methods and to follow any new paths which
thinking men could find.
This legacy of belief in science, of respect for scientific pursuits,
and of freedom in scientific research, was especially received by the
school of Alexandria, and above all by Archimedes, who began, just
before the Christian era, to open new paths through the great field of
the inductive sciences by observation, comparison, and experiment.(267)
(267) As to the beginnings of physical science in Greece, and of
the theological opposition to physical science, also Socrates's view
regarding certain branches as interdicted to human study, see Grote's
History of Greece, vol. i, pp. 495 and 504, 505; also Jowett's
introduction to his translation of the Timaeus, and Whewell's History
of the Inductive Sciences. For examples showing the incompatibility of
Plato's methods in physical science with that pursued in modern times,
see Zeller, Plato and the Older Academy, English translation by Alleyne
and Goodwin, pp. 375 et. seq. The supposed opposition to freedom of
opinion in the Laws of Plato, toward the end of his life, can hardly
make against the whole spirit of Greek thought.
The establishment of Christianity, beginning a new evolution of
theology, arrested the normal development of the physical sciences for
over fifteen hundred years. The cause of this arrest was twofold: First,
there was created an atmosphere in which the germs of physical science
could hardly grow--an atmosphere in which all seeking in Nature for
truth as truth was regarded as futile. The general belief derived from
the New Testament Scriptures was, that the end of the world was at
hand; that the last judgment was approaching; that all existing physical
nature was soon to be destroyed: hence, the greatest thinkers in the
Church generally poured contempt upon all investigators into a science
of Nature, and insisted that everything except the saving of souls was
folly.
This belief appears frequently through the entire period of the Middle
Ages; but during the first thousand years it is clearly dominant. From
Lactantius and Eusebius, in the third century, pouring contempt, as
we have seen, over studies in astronomy, to Peter Damian, the noted
chancellor of Pope Gregory VII, in the eleventh century, declaring all
worldly sciences to be "absurdities" and "fooleries," it becomes a very
important element in the atmosphere of thought.(268)
(268) For the view of Peter Damian and others through the Middle Ages
as to the futility of scientific investigation, see citations in Eicken,
Geschichte und System der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, chap. vi.
Then, too, there was established a standard to which all science which
did struggle up through this atmosphere must be made to conform--a
standard which favoured magic rather than science, for it was a standard
of rigid dogmatism obtained from literal readings in the Jewish and
Christian Scriptures. The most careful inductions from ascertained facts
were regarded as wretchedly fallible when compared with any view of
nature whatever given or even hinted at in any poem, chronicle, code,
apologue, myth, legend, allegory, letter, or discourse of any sort which
had happened to be preserved in the literature which had come to be held
as sacred.
For twelve centuries, then, the physical sciences were thus discouraged
or perverted by the dominant orthodoxy. Whoever studied nature studied
it either openly to find illustrations of the sacred text, useful in the
"saving of souls," or secretly to gain the aid of occult powers, useful
in securing personal advantage. Great men like Bede, Isidore of Seville,
and Rabanus Maurus, accepted the scriptural standard of science and used
it as a means of Christian edification. The views of Bede and Isidore on
kindred subjects have been shown in former chapters; and typical of the
view taken by Rabanus is the fact that in his great work on the Universe
there are only two chapters which seem directly or indirectly to
recognise even the beginnings of a real philosophy of nature. A
multitude of less-known men found warrant in Scripture for magic applied
to less worthy purposes.(269)
(269) As typical examples, see utterances of Eusibius and Lactantius
regarding astronomers given in the chapter on Astronomy. For a summary
of Rabanus Maurus's doctrine of physics, see Heller, Geschichte der
Physik, vol. i, pp. 172 et seq. For Bede and Isidore, see the earlier
chapters of this work. For an excellent statement regarding the
application of scriptural standards to scientific research in the
Middle Ages, see Kretschemr, Die physische Erdkunde im christlichen
Mittelalter, pp. 5 et seq. For the distinctions in magic recognised in
the mediaeval Church, see the long catalogue of various sorts given in
the Abbe Migne's Encyclopedie Theologique, third series, article Magic.
But after the thousand years had passed to which various thinkers in the
Church, upon supposed scriptural warrant, had lengthened out the term of
the earth's existence, "the end of all things" seemed further off than
ever; and in the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, owing to causes which
need not be dwelt upon here, came a great revival of thought, so that
the forces of theology and of science seemed arrayed for a contest. On
one side came a revival of religious fervour, and to this day the works
of the cathedral builders mark its depth and strength; on the other side
came a new spirit of inquiry incarnate in a line of powerful thinkers.
First among these was Albert of Bollstadt, better known as Albert the
Great, the most renowned scholar of his time. Fettered though he was by
the methods sanctioned in the Church, dark as was all about him, he
had conceived better methods and aims; his eye pierced the mists of
scholasticism. he saw the light, and sought to draw the world toward it.
He stands among the great pioneers of physical and natural science; he
aided in giving foundations to botany and chemistry; he rose above his
time, and struck a heavy blow at those who opposed the possibility of
human life on opposite sides of the earth; he noted the influence of
mountains, seas, and forests upon races and products, so that Humboldt
justly finds in his works the germs of physical geography as a
comprehensive science.
But the old system of deducing scientific truth from scriptural
texts was renewed in the development of scholastic theology, and
ecclesiastical power, acting through thousands of subtle channels, was
made to aid this development. The old idea of the futility of physical
science and of the vast superiority of theology was revived. Though
Albert's main effort was to Christianize science, he was dealt with
by the authorities of the Dominican order, subjected to suspicion and
indignity, and only escaped persecution for sorcery by yielding to the
ecclesiastical spirit of the time, and working finally in theological
channels by, scholastic methods.
It was a vast loss to the earth; and certainly, of all organizations
that have reason to lament the pressure of ecclesiasticism which turned
Albert the Great from natural philosophy to theology, foremost of all in
regret should be the Christian Church, and especially the Roman branch
of it. Had there been evolved in the Church during the thirteenth
century a faith strong enough to accept the truths in natural science
which Albert and his compeers could have given, and to have encouraged
their growth, this faith and this encouragement would to this day have
formed the greatest argument for proving the Church directly under
Divine guidance; they would have been among the brightest jewels in
her crown. The loss to the Church by this want of faith and courage has
proved in the long run even greater than the loss to science.(270)
(270) For a very careful discussion of Albert's strength in
investigation and weakness in yielding to scholastic authority, see
Kopp, Ansichten uber die Aufgabe der Chemie von Geber bis Stahl,
Braunschweig, 1875, pp. 64 et seq. For a very extended and enthusiastic
biographical sketch, see Pouchet. For comparison of his work with that
of Thomas Aquinas, see Milman, History of Latin Christianity, vol. vi,
p. 461. "Il etat aussi tres-habile dans les arts mecaniques, ce que le
fit soupconner d'etre sorcier" (Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine, vol.
ii, p. 389). For Albert's biography treated strictly in accordance
with ecclesiastical methods, see Albert the Great, by Joachim Sighart,
translated by the Rev. T. A. Dickson, of the Order of Preachers,
published under the sanction of the Dominican censor and of the Cardinal
Archbishop of Westminster, London, 1876. How an Englishman like Cardinal
Manning could tolerate among Englishmen such glossing over of historical
truth is one of the wonders of contemporary history. For choice
specimens, see chapters ii, and iv. For one of the best and most recent
summaries, see Heller, Geschichte der Physik, Stuttgart, 1882, vol. i,
pp. 179 et seq.
The next great man of that age whom the theological and ecclesiastical
forces of the time turned from the right path was Vincent of Beauvais.
During the first half of the twelfth century he devoted himself to the
study of Nature in several of her most interesting fields. To astronomy,
botany, and zoology he gave special attention, but in a larger way
he made a general study of the universe, and in a series of treatises
undertook to reveal the whole field of science. But his work simply
became a vast commentary on the account of creation given in the book of
Genesis. Beginning with the work of the Trinity at the creation, he
goes on to detail the work of angels in all their fields, and makes
excursions into every part of creation, visible and invisible, but
always with the most complete subordination of his thought to the
literal statements of Scripture. Could he have taken the path of
experimental research, the world would have been enriched with most
precious discoveries; but the force which had given wrong direction to
Albert of Bollstadt, backed as it was by the whole ecclesiastical power
of his time, was too strong, and in all the life labour of Vincent
nothing appears of any permanent value. He reared a structure which
the adaptation of facts to literal interpretations of Scripture and the
application of theological subtleties to nature combine to make one of
the most striking monuments of human error.(271)
(271) For Vincent de Beauvais, see Etudes sur Vincent de Beauvais, par
l'Abbe Bourgeat, chaps. xii, xiii, and xiv; also Pouchet, Histoire des
Sciences Naturelles au Moyen Age, Paris, 1853, pp. 470 et seq; also
other histories cited hereafter.
But the theological spirit of the thirteenth century gained its greatest
victory in the work of St. Thomas Aquinas. In him was the theological
spirit of his age incarnate. Although he yielded somewhat at one period
to love of natural science, it was he who finally made that great treaty
or compromise which for ages subjected science entirely to theology. He
it was who reared the most enduring barrier against those who in that
age and in succeeding ages laboured to open for science the path by its
own methods toward its own ends.
He had been the pupil of Albert the Great, and had gained much from him.
Through the earlier systems of philosophy, as they were then known, and
through the earlier theologic thought, he had gone with great labour
and vigour; and all his mighty powers, thus disciplined and cultured, he
brought to bear in making a truce which was to give theology permanent
supremacy over science.
The experimental method had already been practically initiated: Albert
of Bollstadt and Roger Bacon had begun their work in accordance with its
methods; but St. Thomas gave all his thoughts to bringing science again
under the sway of theological methods and ecclesiastical control. In his
commentary on Aristotle's treatise upon Heaven and Earth he gave to the
world a striking example of what his method could produce, illustrating
all the evils which arise in combining theological reasoning and literal
interpretation of Scripture with scientific facts; and this work remains
to this day a monument of scientific genius perverted by theology.(272)
(272) For citations showing this subordination of science to theology,
see Eicken, chap. vi.
The ecclesiastical power of the time hailed him as a deliverer, it was
claimed that miracles were vouchsafed, proving that the blessing of
Heaven rested upon his labours, and among the legends embodying this
claim is that given by the Bollandists and immortalized by a renowned
painter. The great philosopher and saint is represented in the habit
of his order, with book and pen in hand, kneeling before the image
of Christ crucified, and as he kneels the image thus addresses him:
"Thomas, thou hast written well concerning me; what price wilt thou
receive for thy labour?" The myth-making faculty of the people at large
was also brought into play. According to a widespread and circumstantial
legend, Albert, by magical means, created an android--an artificial man,
living, speaking, and answering all questions with such subtlety that
St. Thomas, unable to answer its reasoning, broke it to pieces with his
staff.
Historians of the Roman Church like Rohrbacher, and historians of
science like Pouchet, have found it convenient to propitiate the Church
by dilating upon the glories of St. Thomas Aquinas in thus making
an alliance between religious and scientific thought, and laying the
foundations for a "sanctified science"; but the unprejudiced historian
can not indulge in this enthusiastic view: the results both for the
Church and for science have been most unfortunate. It was a wretched
delay in the evolution of fruitful thought, for the first result of this
great man's great compromise was to close for ages that path in science
which above all others leads to discoveries of value--the experimental
method--and to reopen that old path of mixed theology and science which,
as Hallam declares, "after three or four hundred years had not untied
a single knot or added one unequivocal truth to the domain of
philosophy"--the path which, as all modern history proves, has ever
since led only to delusion and evil.(273)
(273) For the work of Aquinas, see his Liber de Caelo et Mundo, section
xx; also Life and Labours of St. Thomas of Aquin, by Archbishop Vaughn,
pp. 459 et seq. For his labours in natural science, see Hoefer, Histoire
de la Chimie, Paris, 1843, vol. i, p. 381. For theological views of
science in the Middle Ages, and rejoicing thereat, see Pouchet, Hist.
des Sci. Nat. au Moyen Age, ubi supra. Pouchet says: " En general au
milieu du moyen age les sciences sont essentiellement chretiennes,
leur but est tout-a-fait religieux, et elles sembent beaucoup moins
s'inquieter de l'avancement intellectuel de l'homme que de son salut
eternel." Pouchet calls this "conciliation" into a "harmonieux ensemble"
"la plus glorieuse des conquetes intellectuelles du moyen age." Pouchet
belongs to Rouen, and the shadow of the Rouen Cathedral seems thrown
over all his history. See, also, l'Abbe Rohrbacher, Hist. de l'Eglise
Catholique, Paris, 1858, vol. xviii, pp. 421 et seq. The abbe dilates
upon the fact that "the Church organizes the agreement of all the
sciences by the labours of St. Thomas of Aquin and his contemporaries."
For the complete subordination of science to theology by St. Thomas, see
Eicken, chap. vi. For the theological character of science in the
Middle Ages, recognised by a Protestant philosophic historian, see the
well-known passage in Guizot, History of Civilization in Europe; and
by a noted Protestant ecclesiatic, see Bishop Hampden's Life of Thomas
Aquinas, chaps. xxxvi, xxxvii; see also Hallam, Middle Ages, chap. ix.
For dealings of Pope John XXII, of the Kings of France and England, and
of the Republic of Venice, see Figuier, L'Alchimie et la Alchimistes,
pp. 140, 141, where, in a note, the text of the bull Spondet paritur is
given. For popular legends regarding Albert and St. Thomas, see Eliphas
Levi, Hist. de la Magie, liv. iv, chap. iv.
The theological path thus opened by these strong men became the main
path for science during ages, and it led the world ever further
and further from any fruitful fact or useful method. Roger Bacon's
investigations already begun were discredited: worthless mixtures of
scriptural legends with imperfectly authenticated physical facts took
their place. Thus it was that for twelve hundred years the minds in
control of Europe regarded all real science as FUTILE, and diverted the
great current of earnest thought into theology.
The next stage in this evolution was the development of an idea which
acted with great force throughout the Middle Ages--the idea that science
is DANGEROUS. This belief was also of very ancient origin. From the time
when the Egyptian magicians made their tremendous threat that unless
their demands were granted they would reach out to the four corners of
the earth, pull down the pillars of heaven, wreck the abodes of the gods
above and crush those of men below, fear of these representatives of
science is evident in the ancient world.
But differences in the character of magic were recognised, some sorts
being considered useful and some baleful. Of the former was magic used
in curing diseases, in determining times auspicious for enterprises, and
even in contributing to amusement; of the latter was magic used to bring
disease and death on men and animals or tempests upon the growing crops.
Hence gradually arose a general distinction between white magic, which
dealt openly with the more beneficent means of nature, and black magic,
which dealt secretly with occult, malignant powers.
Down to the Christian era the fear of magic rarely led to any
persecution very systematic or very cruel. While in Greece and Rome laws
were at times enacted against magicians, they were only occasionally
enforced with rigour, and finally, toward the end of the pagan empire,
the feeling against them seemed dying out altogether. As to its more
kindly phases, men like Marcus Aurelius and Julian did not hesitate to
consult those who claimed to foretell the future. As to black magic, it
seemed hardly worth while to enact severe laws, when charms, amulets,
and even gestures could thwart its worst machinations.
Moreover, under the old empire a real science was coming in, and thought
was progressing. Both the theory and practice of magic were more and
more held up to ridicule. Even as early a writer as Ennius ridiculed
the idea that magicians, who were generally poor and hungry themselves,
could bestow wealth on others; Pliny, in his Natural Philosophy, showed
at great length their absurdities and cheatery; others followed in the
same line of thought, and the whole theory, except among the very lowest
classes, seemed dying out.
But with the development of Christian theology came a change. The idea
of the active interference of Satan in magic, which had come into the
Hebrew mind with especial force from Persia during the captivity of
Israel, had passed from the Hebrew Scriptures into Christianity, and
had been made still stronger by various statements in the New Testament.
Theologians laid stress especially upon the famous utterances of the
Psalmist that "all the gods of the heathen are devils," and of St.
Paul that "the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice
to devils"; and it was widely held that these devils were naturally
indignant at their dethronement and anxious to wreak vengeance upon
Christianity. Magicians were held to be active agents of these dethroned
gods, and this persuasion was strengthened by sundry old practitioners
in the art of magic--impostors who pretended to supernatural powers, and
who made use of old rites and phrases inherited from paganism.
Hence it was that as soon as Christianity came into power it more than
renewed the old severities against the forbidden art, and one of the
first acts of the Emperor Constantine after his conversion was to enact
a most severe law against magic and magicians, under which the main
offender might be burned alive. But here, too, it should be noted that
a distinction between the two sorts of magic was recognised, for
Constantine shortly afterward found it necessary to issue a proclamation
stating that his intention was only to prohibit deadly and malignant
magic; that he had no intention of prohibiting magic used to cure
diseases and to protect the crops from hail and tempests. But as new
emperors came to the throne who had not in them that old leaven of
paganism which to the last influenced Constantine, and as theology
obtained a firmer hold, severity against magic increased. Toleration of
it, even in its milder forms, was more and more denied. Black magic and
white were classed together.
This severity went on increasing and threatened the simplest efforts in
physics and chemistry; even the science of mathematics was looked upon
with dread. By the twelfth and thirteenth centuries, the older theology
having arrived at the climax of its development in Europe, terror of
magic and witchcraft took complete possession of the popular mind. In
sculpture, painting, and literature it appeared in forms ever more and
more striking. The lives of saints were filled with it. The cathedral
sculpture embodied it in every part. The storied windows made it all
the more impressive. The missal painters wrought it not only into prayer
books, but, despite the fact that hardly a trace of the belief appears
in the Psalms, they illustrated it in the great illuminated psalters
from which the noblest part of the service was sung before the high
altar. The service books showed every form of agonizing petition for
delivery from this dire influence, and every form of exorcism for
thwarting it.
All the great theologians of the Church entered into this belief and
aided to develop it. The fathers of the early Church were full and
explicit, and the medieval doctors became more and more minute in
describing the operations of the black art and in denouncing them.
It was argued that, as the devil afflicted Job, so he and his minions
continue to cause diseases; that, as Satan is the Prince of the power
of the air, he and his minions cause tempests; that the cases of
Nebuchadnezzar and Lot's wife prove that sorcerers can transform human
beings into animals or even lifeless matter; that, as the devils of
Gadara were cast into swine, all animals could be afflicted in the same
manner; and that, as Christ himself had been transported through the air
by the power of Satan, so any human being might be thus transported to
"an exceeding high mountain."
Thus the horror of magic and witchcraft increased on every hand, and in
1317 Pope John XXII issued his bull Spondent pariter, levelled at the
alchemists, but really dealing a terrible blow at the beginnings of
chemical science. That many alchemists were knavish is no doubt true,
but no infallibility in separating the evil from the good was shown by
the papacy in this matter. In this and in sundry other bulls and
briefs we find Pope John, by virtue of his infallibility as the world's
instructor in all that pertains to faith and morals, condemning real
science and pseudo-science alike. In two of these documents, supposed
to be inspired by wisdom from on high, he complains that both he and
his flock are in danger of their lives by the arts of the sorcerers;
he declares that such sorcerers can send devils into mirrors and finger
rings, and kill men and women by a magic word; that they had tried to
kill him by piercing a waxen image of him with needles in the name
of the devil. He therefore called on all rulers, secular and
ecclesiastical, to hunt down the miscreants who thus afflicted the
faithful, and he especially increased the powers of inquisitors in
various parts of Europe for this purpose.
The impulse thus given to childish fear and hatred against the
investigation of nature was felt for centuries; more and more chemistry
came to be known as one of the "seven devilish arts."
Thus began a long series of demonstrations against magic from the centre
of Christendom. In 1437, and again in 1445, Pope Eugene IV issued
bulls exhorting inquisitors to be more diligent in searching out and
delivering over to punishment magicians and witches who produced bad
weather, the result being that persecution received a fearful impulse.
But the worst came forty years later still, when, in 1484, there came
the yet more terrible bull of Pope Innocent VIII, known as Summis
Desiderantes, which let inquisitors loose upon Germany, with Sprenger
at their head, armed with the Witch-Hammer, the fearful manual Malleus
Maleficarum, to torture and destroy men and women by tens of thousands
for sorcery and magic. Similar bulls were issued in 1504 by Julius II,
and in 1523 by Adrian VI.
The system of repression thus begun lasted for hundreds of years. The
Reformation did little to change it, and in Germany, where Catholics and
Protestants vied with each other in proving their orthodoxy, it was at
its worst. On German soil more than one hundred thousand victims
are believed to have been sacrificed to it between the middle of the
fifteenth and the middle of the sixteenth centuries.
Thus it was that from St. Augustine to St. Thomas Aquinas, from Aquinas
to Luther, and from Luther to Wesley, theologians of both branches of
the Church, with hardly an exception, enforced the belief in magic and
witchcraft, and, as far as they had power, carried out the injunction,
"Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
How this was ended by the progress of scientific modes of thought I
shall endeavour to show elsewhere: here we are only concerned with the
effect of this widespread terrorism on the germs and early growth of the
physical sciences.
Of course, the atmosphere created by this persecution of magicians was
deadly to any open beginnings of experimental science. The conscience of
the time, acting in obedience to the highest authorities of the Church,
and, as was supposed, in defence of religion, now brought out a missile
which it hurled against scientific investigators with deadly effect. The
mediaeval battlefields of thought were strewn with various forms of it.
This missile was the charge of unlawful compact with Satan, and it was
most effective. We find it used against every great investigator of
nature in those times and for ages after. The list of great men in
those centuries charged with magic, as given by Naude, is astounding; it
includes every man of real mark, and in the midst of them stands one of
the most thoughtful popes, Sylvester II (Gerbert), and the foremost of
mediaeval thinkers on natural science, Albert the Great. It came to be
the accepted idea that, as soon as a man conceived a wish to study the
works of God, his first step must be a league with the devil.
It was entirely natural, then, that in 1163 Pope Alexander III, in
connection with the Council of Tours, forbade the study of physics to
all ecclesiastics, which, of course, in that age meant prohibition of
all such scientific studies to the only persons likely to make them.
What the Pope then expressly forbade was, in the words of the papal
bull, "the study of physics or the laws of the world," and it was
added that any person violating this rule "shall be avoided by all and
excommunicated."(274)
(274) For the charge of magic against scholars and others, see Naude,
Apologie pour les Grands Hommes soupconnes de Magie, passim; also Maury,
Hist. de la Magie, troisieme edition, pp. 214, 215; also Cuvier, Hist.
des Sciences Naturelles, vol. i, p. 396. For the prohibition by the
Council of Tours and Alexander III, see the Acta Conciliorum (ed.
Harduin), tom. vi, pars ii, p. 1598, Canon viii.
The first great thinker who, in spite of some stumbling into theologic
pitfalls, persevered in a truly scientific path, was Roger Bacon. His
life and works seem until recently to have been generally misunderstood:
he was formerly ranked as a superstitious alchemist who happened upon
some inventions, but more recent investigation has shown him to be one
of the great masters in the evolution of human thought. The advance of
sound historical judgment seems likely to bring the fame of the two who
bear the name of Bacon nearly to equality. Bacon of the chancellorship
and of the Novum Organum may not wane, but Bacon of the prison cell and
the Opus Majus steadily approaches him in brightness.
More than three centuries before Francis Bacon advocated the
experimental method, Roger Bacon practised it, and the results as now
revealed are wonderful. He wrought with power in many sciences, and his
knowledge was sound and exact. By him, more than by any other man of
the Middle Ages, was the world brought into the more fruitful paths
of scientific thought--the paths which have led to the most precious
inventions; and among these are clocks, lenses, and burning specula,
which were given by him to the world, directly or indirectly. In his
writings are found formulae for extracting phosphorus, manganese, and
bismuth. It is even claimed, with much appearance of justice, that
he investigated the power of steam, and he seems to have very nearly
reached some of the principal doctrines of modern chemistry. But it
should be borne in mind that his METHOD of investigation was even
greater than its RESULTS. In an age when theological subtilizing
was alone thought to give the title of scholar, he insisted on REAL
reasoning and the aid of natural science by mathematics; in an age when
experimenting was sure to cost a man his reputation, and was likely
to cost him his life, he insisted on experimenting, and braved all
its risks. Few greater men have lived. As we follow Bacon's process of
reasoning regarding the refraction of light, we see that he was divinely
inspired.
On this man came the brunt of the battle. The most conscientious men
of his time thought it their duty to fight him, and they fought him
steadily and bitterly. His sin was not disbelief in Christianity, not
want of fidelity to the Church, not even dissent from the main lines of
orthodoxy; on the contrary, he showed in all his writings a desire
to strengthen Christianity, to build up the Church, and to develop
orthodoxy. He was attacked and condemned mainly because he did not
believe that philosophy had become complete, and that nothing more was
to be learned; he was condemned, as his opponents expressly declared,
"on account of certain suspicious novelties"--"propter quasdam novitates
suspectas."
Upon his return to Oxford, about 1250, the forces of unreason beset him
on all sides. Greatest of all his enemies was Bonaventura. This enemy
was the theologic idol of the period: the learned world knew him as the
"seraphic Doctor"; Dante gave him an honoured place in the great poem
of the Middle Ages; the Church finally enrolled him among the saints. By
force of great ability in theology he had become, in the middle of the
thirteenth century, general of the Franciscan order: thus, as Bacon's
master, his hands were laid heavily on the new teaching, so that in 1257
the troublesome monk was forbidden to lecture; all men were solemnly
warned not to listen to his teaching, and he was ordered to Paris, to
be kept under surveillance by the monastic authorities. Herein was
exhibited another of the myriad examples showing the care exercised over
scientific teaching by the Church. The reasons for thus dealing with
Bacon were evident: First, he had dared attempt scientific explanations
of natural phenomena, which under the mystic theology of the Middle
Ages had been referred simply to supernatural causes. Typical was his
explanation of the causes and character of the rainbow. It was clear,
cogent, a great step in the right direction as regards physical science:
but there, in the book of Genesis, stood the legend regarding the origin
of the rainbow, supposed to have been dictated immediately by the Holy
Spirit; and, according to that, the "bow in the cloud" was not the
result of natural laws, but a "sign" arbitrarily placed in the heavens
for the simple purpose of assuring mankind that there was not to be
another universal deluge.
But this was not the worst: another theological idea was arrayed against
him--the idea of Satanic intervention in science; hence he was attacked
with that goodly missile which with the epithets "infidel" and "atheist"
has decided the fate of so many battles--the charge of magic and compact
with Satan.
He defended himself with a most unfortunate weapon--a weapon which
exploded in his hands and injured him more than the enemy; for he argued
against the idea of compacts with Satan, and showed that much which is
ascribed to demons results from natural means. This added fuel to the
flame. To limit the power of Satan was deemed hardly less impious than
to limit the power of God.
The most powerful protectors availed him little. His friend Guy of
Foulques, having in 1265 been made Pope under the name of Clement IV,
shielded him for a time; but the fury of the enemy was too strong, and
when he made ready to perform a few experiments before a small audience,
we are told that all Oxford was in an uproar. It was believed that
Satan was about to be let loose. Everywhere priests, monks, fellows,
and students rushed about, their garments streaming in the wind, and
everywhere rose the cry, "Down with the magician!" and this cry, "Down
with the magician!" resounded from cell to cell and from hall to hall.
Another weapon was also used upon the battlefields of science in that
time with much effect. The Arabs had made many noble discoveries in
science, and Averroes had, in the opinion of many, divided the honours
with St. Thomas Aquinas; these facts gave the new missile--it was the
epithet "Mohammedan"; this, too, was flung with effect at Bacon.
The attack now began to take its final shape. The two great religious
orders, Franciscan and Dominican, then in all the vigour of their
youth, vied with each other in fighting the new thought in chemistry
and physics. St. Dominic solemnly condemned research by experiment and
observation; the general of the Franciscan order took similar ground.
In 1243 the Dominicans interdicted every member of their order from the
study of medicine and natural philosophy, and in 1287 this interdiction
was extended to the study of chemistry.
In 1278 the authorities of the Franciscan order assembled at Paris,
solemnly condemned Bacon's teaching, and the general of the Franciscans,
Jerome of Ascoli, afterward Pope, threw him into prison, where he
remained for fourteen years, Though Pope Clement IV had protected him,
Popes Nicholas III and IV, by virtue of their infallibility, decided
that he was too dangerous to be at large, and he was only released at
the age of eighty--but a year or two before death placed him beyond the
reach of his enemies. How deeply the struggle had racked his mind may be
gathered from that last affecting declaration of his, "Would that I had
not given myself so much trouble for the love of science!"
The attempt has been made by sundry champions of the Church to show that
some of Bacon's utterances against ecclesiastical and other corruptions
in his time were the main cause of the severity which the Church
authorities exercised against him. This helps the Church but little,
even if it be well based; but it is not well based. That some of his
utterances of this sort made him enemies is doubtless true, but the
charges on which St. Bonaventura silenced him, and Jerome of Ascoli
imprisoned him, and successive popes kept him in prison for fourteen
years, were "dangerous novelties" and suspected sorcery.
Sad is it to think of what this great man might have given to the world
had ecclesiasticism allowed the gift. He held the key of treasures
which would have freed mankind from ages of error and misery. With his
discoveries as a basis, with his method as a guide, what might not the
world have gained! Nor was the wrong done to that age alone; it was done
to this age also. The nineteenth century was robbed at the same
time with the thirteenth. But for that interference with science the
nineteenth century would be enjoying discoveries which will not be
reached before the twentieth century, and even later. Thousands of
precious lives shall be lost, tens of thousands shall suffer discomfort,
privation, sickness, poverty, ignorance, for lack of discoveries and
methods which, but for this mistaken dealing with Roger Bacon and his
compeers, would now be blessing the earth.
In two recent years sixty thousand children died in England and in Wales
of scarlet fever; probably quite as many died in the United States. Had
not Bacon been hindered, we should have had in our hands, by this time,
the means to save two thirds of these victims; and the same is true
of typhoid, typhus, cholera, and that great class of diseases of
whose physical causes science is just beginning to get an inkling. Put
together all the efforts of all the atheists who have ever lived, and
they have not done so much harm to Christianity and the world as has
been done by the narrow-minded, conscientious men who persecuted Roger
Bacon, and closed the path which he gave his life to open.
But despite the persecution of Bacon and the defection of those who
ought to have followed him, champions of the experimental method rose
from time to time during the succeeding centuries. We know little of
them personally; our main knowledge of their efforts is derived from the
endeavours of their persecutors.
Under such guidance the secular rulers were naturally vigorous. In
France Charles V forbade, in 1380, the possession of furnaces and
apparatus necessary for chemical processes; under this law the chemist
John Barrillon was thrown into prison, and it was only by the greatest
effort that his life was saved. In England Henry IV, in 1404, issued a
similar decree. In Italy the Republic of Venice, in 1418, followed these
examples. The judicial torture and murder of Antonio de Dominis were not
simply for heresy his investigations in the phenomena of light were
an additional crime. In Spain everything like scientific research was
crushed out among Christians. Some earnest efforts were afterward made
by Jews and Moors, but these were finally ended by persecution; and to
this hour the Spanish race, in some respects the most gifted in Europe,
which began its career with everything in its favour and with every form
of noble achievement, remains in intellectual development behind every
other in Christendom.
To question the theological view of physical science was, even long
after the close of the Middle Ages, exceedingly perilous. We have seen
how one of Roger Bacon's unpardonable offences was his argument against
the efficacy of magic, and how, centuries afterward, Cornelius Agrippa,
Weyer, Flade, Loos, Bekker, and a multitude of other investigators and
thinkers, suffered confiscation of property, loss of position, and even
torture and death, for similar views.(275)
(275) For an account of Bacon's treatise, De Nullitate Magiae, see
Hoefer. For the uproar caused by Bacon's teaching at Oxford, see Kopp,
Geschichte der Chemie, Braunschweig, 1869, vol. i, p. 63; and for a
somewhat reactionary discussion of Bacon's relation to the progress
of chemistry, see a recent work by the same author, Ansichten uber die
Aufgabe der Chemie, Braunschweig, 1874, pp. 85 et seq.; also, for an
excellent summary, see Hoefer, Hist. de la Chimie, vol. i, pp. 368 et
seq. For probably the most thorough study of Bacon's general works
in science, and for his views of the universe, see Prof. Werner, Die
Kosmologie und allgemeine Naturlehre des Roger Baco, Wein, 1879. For
summaries of his work in other fields, see Whewell, vol. i, pp. 367,
368; Draper, p. 438; Saisset, Descartes et ses Precurseurs, deuxieme
edition, pp. 397 et seq.; Nourrisson, Progres de la Pensee humaine, pp.
271, 272; Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine, Paris, 1865, vol. ii, p.
397; Cuvier, Histoire des Sciences Naturelles, vol. i, p. 417. As to
Bacon's orthodoxy, see Saisset, pp. 53, 55. For special examination of
causes of Bacon's condemnation, see Waddington, cited by Saisset, p.
14. For a brief but admirable statement of Roger Bacon's realtion to
the world in his time, and of what he might have done had he not been
thwarted by theology, see Dollinger, Studies in European History,
English translation, London, 1890, pp. 178, 179. For a good example of
the danger of denying the full power of Satan, even in much more recent
times and in a Protestant country, see account of treatment in Bekker's
Monde Enchante by the theologians of Holland, in Nisard, Histoire des
Livres Populaires, vol. i, pp. 172, 173. Kopp, in his Ansichten, pushes
criticism even to some scepticism as to Roger Bacon being the DISCOVERER
of many of the things generally attributed to him; but, after all
deductions are carefully made, enough remains to make Bacon the greatest
benefactor to humanity during the Middle Ages. For Roger Bacon's
deep devotion to religion and the Church, see citation and remarks in
Schneider, Roger Bacon, Augsburg, 1873, p. 112; also, citation from
the Opus Majus, in Eicken, chap. vi. On Bacon as a "Mohammedan," see
Saisset, p. 17. For the interdiction of studies in physical science by
the Dominicans and Franciscans, see Henri Martin, Histoire de France,
vol. iv, p. 283. For suppression of chemical teaching by the Parliament
of Paris, see ibid., vol. xii, pp. 14, 15. For proofs that the world is
steadily working toward great discoveries as to the cause and prevention
of zymotic diseases and their propogation, see Beale's Disease Germs,
Baldwin Latham's Sanitary Engineering, Michel Levy's Traite a Hygiene
Publique et Privee. For a summary of the bull Spondent pariter, and for
an example of injury done by it, see Schneider, Geschichte der
Alchemie, p. 160; and for a studiously moderate statement, Milman, Latin
Christianity, book xii, chap. vi. For character and general efforts of
John XXII, see Lea, Inquisition, vol. iii, p. 436, also pp. 452 et seq.
For the character of the two papal briefs, see Rydberg, p. 177. For
the bull Summis Desiderantes, see previous chapters of this work. For
Antonio de Dominis, see Montucla, Hist. des Mathematiques, vol. i, p.
705; Humboldt, Cosmos; Libri, vol. iv, pp. 145 et seq. For Weyer, Flade,
Bekker, Loos, and others, see the chapters of this work on Meteorology,
Demoniacal Possession and Insanity, and Diabolism and Hysteria.
The theological atmosphere, which in consequence settled down about the
great universities and colleges, seemed likely to stifle all scientific
effort in every part of Europe, and it is one of the great wonders in
human history that in spite of this deadly atmosphere a considerable
body of thinking men, under such protection as they could secure, still
persisted in devoting themselves to the physical sciences.
In Italy, in the latter half of the sixteenth century, came a striking
example of the difficulties which science still encountered even after
the Renaissance had undermined the old beliefs. At that time John
Baptist Porta was conducting his investigations, and, despite a
considerable mixture of pseudo-science, they were fruitful. His was not
"black magic," claiming the aid of Satan, but "white magic," bringing
into service the laws of nature--the precursor of applied science. His
book on meteorology was the first in which sound ideas were broached
on this subject; his researches in optics gave the world the camera
obscura, and possibly the telescope; in chemistry he seems to have been
the first to show how to reduce the metallic oxides, and thus to have
laid the foundation of several important industries. He did much to
change natural philosophy from a black art to a vigorous open science.
He encountered the old ecclesiastical policy. The society founded by him
for physical research, "I Secreti," was broken up, and he was summoned
to Rome by Pope Paul III and forbidden to continue his investigations.
So, too, in France. In 1624, some young chemists at Paris having taught
the experimental method and cut loose from Aristotle, the faculty of
theology beset the Parliament of Paris, and the Parliament prohibited
these new chemical researches under the severest penalties.
The same war continued in Italy. Even after the belief in magic had been
seriously weakened, the old theological fear and dislike of physical
science continued. In 1657 occurred the first sitting of the Accademia
del Cimento at Florence, under the presidency of Prince Leopold de'
Medici This academy promised great things for science; it was open
to all talent; its only fundamental law was "the repudiation of
any favourite system or sect of philosophy, and the obligation to
investigate Nature by the pure light of experiment"; it entered into
scientific investigations with energy. Borelli in mathematics, Redi in
natural history, and many others, enlarged the boundaries of knowledge.
Heat, light, magnetism, electricity, projectiles, digestion, and the
incompressibility of water were studied by the right method and with
results that enriched the world.
The academy was a fortress of science, and siege was soon laid to
it. The votaries of scholastic learning denounced it as irreligious,
quarrels were fomented, Leopold was bribed with a cardinal's hat and
drawn away to Rome, and, after ten years of beleaguering, the fortress
fell: Borelli was left a beggar; Oliva killed himself in despair.
So, too, the noted Academy of the Lincei at times incurred the ill
will of the papacy by the very fact that it included thoughtful
investigators. It was "patronized" by Pope Urban VIII in such manner as
to paralyze it, and it was afterward vexed by Pope Gregory XVI. Even in
our own time sessions of scientific associations were discouraged and
thwarted by as kindly a pontiff as Pius IX.(276)
(276) For Porta, see the English translation of his main summary,
Natural Magick, London, 1658. The first chapters are especially
interesting, as showing what the word "magic" had come to mean in the
mind of a man in whom mediaeval and modern ideas were curiously mixed;
see also Hoefer, Histoire de la Chimie, vol. ii, pp. 102-106; also
Kopp; also Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine, vol. iii, p. 239; also
Musset-Pathay. For the Accademia del Cimento, see Napier, Florentine
History, vol. v, p. 485; Tiraboschi, Storia della Litteratura; Henri
Martin, Histoire de France; Jevons, Principles of Science, vol. ii,
pp. 36-40. For value attached to Borelli's investigations by Newton and
Huygens, see Brewster's Life of Sir Isaac Newton, London, 1875, pp. 128,
129. Libri, in his first Essai sur Galilee, p. 37, says that Oliva was
summoned to Rome and so tortured by the Inquisition that, to escape
further cruelty, he ended his life by throwing himself from a window.
For interference by Pope Gregory XVI with the Academy of the Lincei, and
with public instruction generally, see Carutti, Storia della Accademia
dei Lincei, p. 126. Pius IX, with all his geniality, seems to have
allowed his hostility to voluntary associations to carry him very far
at times. For his answer to an application made through Lord Odo Russell
regarding a society for the prevention of cruelty to animals and his
answer that "such an association could not be sanctioned by the Holy
See, being founded on a theological error, to wit, that Christians owed
any duties to animals," see Frances Power Cobbe, Hopes of the Human
Race, p. 207.
A hostility similar in kind, though less in degree, was shown in
Protestant countries.
Even after Thomasius in Germany and Voltaire in France and Beccaria
in Italy had given final blows to the belief in magic and witchcraft
throughout Christendom, the traditional orthodox distrust of the
physical sciences continued for a long time.
In England a marked dislike was shown among various leading
ecclesiastics and theologians towards the Royal Society, and later
toward the Association for the Advancement of Science; and this dislike,
as will hereafter be seen, sometimes took shape in serious opposition.
As a rule, both in Protestant and Catholic countries instruction
in chemistry and physics was for a long time discouraged by Church
authorities; and, when its suppression was no longer possible, great
pains were taken to subordinate it to instruction supposed to be more
fully in accordance with the older methods of theological reasoning.
I have now presented in outline the more direct and open struggle of the
physical sciences with theology, mainly as an exterior foe. We will next
consider their warfare with the same foe in its more subtle form, mainly
as a vitiating and sterilizing principle in science itself.
We have seen thus far, first, how such men as Eusebius, Lactantius, and
their compeers, opposed scientific investigation as futile; next, how
such men as Albert the Great, St. Thomas Aquinas, and the multitude who
followed them, turned the main current of medieval thought from science
to theology; and, finally, how a long line of Church authorities from
Popes John XXII and Innocent VIII, and the heads of the great religious
orders, down to various theologians and ecclesiastics, Catholic and
Protestant, of a very recent period, endeavoured first to crush and
afterward to discourage scientific research as dangerous.
Yet, injurious as all this was to the evolution of science, there was
developed something in many respects more destructive; and this was
the influence of mystic theology, penetrating, permeating, vitiating,
sterilizing nearly every branch of science for hundreds of years. Among
the forms taken by this development in the earlier Middle Ages we find a
mixture of physical science with a pseudo-science obtained from texts
of Scripture. In compounding this mixture, Jews and Christians vied
with each other. In this process the sacred books were used as a fetich;
every word, every letter, being considered to have a divine and hidden
meaning. By combining various scriptural letters in various abstruse
ways, new words of prodigious significance in magic were obtained, and
among them the great word embracing the seventy-two mystical names of
God--the mighty word "Schemhamphoras." Why should men seek knowledge
by observation and experiment in the book of Nature, when the book of
Revelation, interpreted by the Kabbalah, opened such treasures to the
ingenious believer?
So, too, we have ancient mystical theories of number which the
theological spirit had made Christian, usurping an enormous place in
medieval science. The sacred power of the number three was seen in the
Trinity; in the three main divisions of the universe--the empyrean, the
heavens, and the earth; in the three angelic hierarchies; in the three
choirs of seraphim, cherubim, and thrones; in the three of dominions,
virtues, and powers; in the three of principalities, archangels,
and angels; in the three orders in the Church--bishops, priests, and
deacons; in the three classes--the baptized, the communicants, and the
monks; in the three degrees of attainment--light, purity, and knowledge;
in the three theological virtues--faith, hope, and charity--and in much
else. All this was brought into a theologico-scientific relation,
then and afterward, with the three dimensions of space; with the three
divisions of time--past, present, and future; with the three realms of
the visible world--sky, earth, and sea; with the three constituents
of man--body, soul, and spirit; with the threefold enemies of
man--the world, the flesh, and the devil; with the three kingdoms in
nature--mineral, vegetable, and animal; with "the three colours"--red,
yellow, and blue; with "the three eyes of the honey-bee"--and with a
multitude of other analogues equally precious. The sacred power of the
number seven was seen in the seven golden candlesticks and the seven
churches in the Apocalypse; in the seven cardinal virtues and the seven
deadly sins; in the seven liberal arts and the seven devilish arts, and,
above all, in the seven sacraments. And as this proved in astrology that
there could be only seven planets, so it proved in alchemy that there
must be exactly seven metals. The twelve apostles were connected with
the twelve signs in the zodiac, and with much in physical science.
The seventy-two disciples, the seventy-two interpreters of the Old
Testament, the seventy-two mystical names of God, were connected with
the alleged fact in anatomy that there were seventy-two joints in the
human frame.
Then, also, there were revived such theologic and metaphysical
substitutes for scientific thought as the declaration that the perfect
line is a circle, and hence that the planets must move in absolute
circles--a statement which led astronomy astray even when the
great truths of the Copernican theory were well in sight; also, the
declaration that nature abhors a vacuum--a statement which led physics
astray until Torricelli made his experiments; also, the declaration that
we see the lightning before we hear the thunder because "sight is nobler
than hearing."
In chemistry we have the same theologic tendency to magic, and, as a
result, a muddle of science and theology, which from one point of view
seems blasphemous and from another idiotic, but which none the less
sterilized physical investigation for ages. That debased Platonism which
had been such an important factor in the evolution of Christian theology
from the earliest days of the Church continued its work. As everything
in inorganic nature was supposed to have spiritual significance, the
doctrines of the Trinity and Incarnation were turned into an argument
in behalf of the philosopher's stone; arguments for the scheme of
redemption and for transubstantiation suggested others of similar
construction to prove the transmutation of metals; the doctrine of the
resurrection of the human body was by similar mystic jugglery connected
with the processes of distillation and sublimation. Even after the
Middle Ages were past, strong men seemed unable to break away from such
reasoning as this--among them such leaders as Basil Valentine in the
fifteenth century, Agricola in the sixteenth, and Van Helmont in the
seventeenth.
The greatest theologians contributed to the welter of unreason from
which this pseudo-science was developed. One question largely discussed
was, whether at the Redemption it was necessary for God to take the
human form. Thomas Aquinas answered that it was necessary, but William
Occam and Duns Scotus answered that it was not; that God might have
taken the form of a stone, or of a log, or of a beast. The possibilities
opened to wild substitutes for science by this sort of reasoning were
infinite. Men have often asked how it was that the Arabians
accomplished so much in scientific discovery as compared with Christian
investigators; but the answer is easy: the Arabians were comparatively
free from these theologic allurements which in Christian Europe
flickered in the air on all sides, luring men into paths which led
no-whither.
Strong investigators, like Arnold of Villanova, Raymond Lully, Basil
Valentine, Paracelsus, and their compeers, were thus drawn far out
of the only paths which led to fruitful truths. In a work generally
ascribed to the first of these, the student is told that in mixing his
chemicals he must repeat the psalm Exsurge Domine, and that on certain
chemical vessels must be placed the last words of Jesus on the cross.
Vincent of Beauvais insisted that, as the Bible declares that Noah, when
five hundred years old, had children born to him, he must have possessed
alchemical means of preserving life; and much later Dickinson insisted
that the patriarchs generally must have owed their long lives to such
means. It was loudly declared that the reality of the philosopher's
stone was proved by the words of St. John in the Revelation. "To him
that overcometh I will give a white stone." The reasonableness of
seeking to develop gold out of the baser metals was for many generations
based upon the doctrine of the resurrection of the physical body, which,
though explicitly denied by St. Paul, had become a part of the creed
of the Church. Martin Luther was especially drawn to believe in the
alchemistic doctrine of transmutation by this analogy. The Bible was
everywhere used, both among Protestants and Catholics, in support of
these mystic adulterations of science, and one writer, as late as 1751,
based his alchemistic arguments on more than a hundred passages of
Scripture. As an example of this sort of reasoning, we have a proof that
the elect will preserve the philosopher's stone until the last judgment,
drawn from a passage in St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, "We have
this treasure in earthen vessels."
The greatest thinkers devoted themselves to adding new ingredients to
this strange mixture of scientific and theologic thought. The Catholic
philosophy of Thomas Aquinas, the Protestant mysticism of Jacob Boehme,
and the alchemistic reveries of Basil Valentine were all cast into this
seething mass.
And when alchemy in its old form had been discredited, we find
scriptural arguments no less perverse, and even comical, used on the
other side. As an example of this, just before the great discoveries by
Stahl, we find the valuable scientific efforts of Becher opposed with
the following syllogism: "King Solomon, according to the Scriptures,
possessed the united wisdom of heaven and earth; but King Solomon knew
nothing about alchemy (or chemistry in the form it then took), and sent
his vessels to Ophir to seek gold, and levied taxes upon his subjects;
ergo alchemy (or chemistry) has no reality or truth." And we find that
Becher is absolutely turned away from his labours, and obliged to devote
himself to proving that Solomon used more money than he possibly could
have obtained from Ophir or his subjects, and therefore that he must
have possessed a knowledge of chemical methods and the philosopher's
stone as the result of them.(277)
(277) For an extract from Agrippa's Occulta Philosophia, giving examples
of the way in which mystical names were obtained from the Bible, see
Rydberg, Magic of the Middle Ages, pp. 143 et seq. For the germs of many
mystic beliefs regarding number and the like, which were incorporated
into mediaeval theology, see Zeller, Plato and the Older Academy,
English translation, pp. 254 and 572, and elsewhere. As to the
connection of spiritual things with inorganic nature in relation to
chemistry, see Eicken, p. 634. On the injury to science wrought by
Platonism acting through mediaeval theology, see Hoefer, Histoire de la
Chimie, vol. i, p. 90. As to the influence of mysticism upon strong men
in science, see Hoefer; also Kopp, Geschichte der Alchemie, vol. i, p.
211. For a very curious Catholic treatise on sacred numbers, see the
Abbe Auber, Symbolisme Religieux, Paris, 1870; also Detzel, Christliche
Ikonographie, pp. 44 et seq.; and for an equally important Protestant
work, see Samuell, Seven the Sacred number, London 1887. It is
interesting to note that the latter writer, having been forced to give
up the seven planets, consoles himself with the statement that "the
earth is the seventh planet, counting from Neptune and calling the
asteroids one" (see p. 426). For the electrum magicum, the seven
metals composing it, and its wonderful qualities, see extracts from
Paracelsus's writings in Hartmann's Life of Paracelsus, London, 1887,
pp. 168 et seq. As to the more rapid transition of light than sound, the
following expresses the scholastic method well: "What is the cause why
we see sooner the lightning than we heare the thunder clappe? That is
because our sight is both nobler and sooner perceptive of its object
than our eare; as being the more active part, and priore to our hearing:
besides, the visible species are more subtile and less corporeal than
the audible species."--Person's Varieties, Meteors, p. 82. For Basil
Valentine's view, see Hoefer, vol. i, pp. 453-465; Schmieder, Geschichte
der Alchemie, pp. 197-209; Allgemeine deutsche Biographies, article
Basilius. For the discussions referred to on possibilities of God
assuming forms of stone, or log, or beast, see Lippert, Christenthum,
Volksglaube, und Volksbrauch, pp. 372, 373, where citations are given,
etc. For the syllogism regarding Solomon, see Figuier, L'Alchimie et les
Alchimistes, pp. 106, 107. For careful appreciation of Becher's position
in the history of chemistry, see Kopp, Ansichten uber die Aufgabe der
Chemie, etc., von Geber bis Stahl, Braunschweig, 1875, pp. 201 et seq.
For the text proving the existence of the philosopher's stone from the
book of Revelation, see Figuier, p. 22.
Of the general reasoning enforced by theology regarding physical
science, every age has shown examples; yet out of them all I will select
but two, and these are given because they show how this mixture
of theological with scientific ideas took hold upon the strongest
supporters of better reasoning even after the power of medieval theology
seemed broken.
The first of these examples is Melanchthon. He was the scholar of the
Reformation, and justly won the title "Preceptor of Germany." His mind
was singularly open, his sympathies broad, and his usual freedom from
bigotry drew down upon him that wrath of Protestant heresy-hunters
which embittered the last years of his life and tortured him upon his
deathbed. During his career at the University of Wittenberg he gave a
course of lectures on physics, and in these he dwelt upon scriptural
texts as affording scientific proofs, accepted the interference of the
devil in physical phenomena as in other things, and applied the medieval
method throughout his whole work.(278)
(278) For Melanchthon's ideas on physics, see his Initia Doctrinae
Physicae, Wittenberg, 1557, especially pp. 243 and 274; also in vol.
xiii of Bretschneider's edition of the collected works, and especially
pp. 339-343.
Yet far more remarkable was the example, a century later, of the man who
more than any other led the world out of the path opened by Aquinas,
and into that through which modern thought has advanced to its greatest
conquests. Strange as it may at first seem, Francis Bacon, whose
keenness of sight revealed the delusions of the old path and the
promises of the new, and whose boldness did so much to turn the world
from the old path into the new, presents in his own writings one of the
most striking examples of the evil he did so much to destroy.
The Novum Organon, considering the time when it came from his pen, is
doubtless one of the greatest exhibitions of genius in the history of
human thought. It showed the modern world the way out of the scholastic
method and reverence for dogma into the experimental method and
reverence for fact. In it occur many passages which show that the
great philosopher was fully alive to the danger both to religion and to
science arising from their mixture. He declares that the "corruption of
philosophy from superstition and theology introduced the greatest amount
of evil both into whole systems of philosophy and into their parts." He
denounces those who "have endeavoured to found a natural philosophy on
the books of Genesis and Job and other sacred Scriptures, so 'seeking
the dead among the living.'" He speaks of the result as "an unwholesome
mixture of things human and divine; not merely fantastic philosophy, but
heretical religion."
He refers to the opposition of the fathers to the doctrine of the
rotundity of the earth, and says that, "thanks to some of them, you may
find the approach to any kind of philosophy, however improved, entirely
closed up." He charges that some of these divines are "afraid lest
perhaps a deeper inquiry into nature should, penetrate beyond the
allowed limits of sobriety"; and finally speaks of theologians as
sometimes craftily conjecturing that, if science be little understood,
"each single thing can be referred more easily to the hand and rod of
God," and says, "THIS IS NOTHING MORE OR LESS THAN WISHING TO PLEASE GOD
BY A LIE."
No man who has reflected much upon the annals of his race can, without a
feeling of awe, come into the presence of such clearness of insight and
boldness of utterance, and the first thought of the reader is that, of
all men, Francis Bacon is the most free from the unfortunate bias he
condemns; that he, certainly, can not be deluded into the old path.
But as we go on through his main work we are surprised to find that the
strong arm of Aquinas has been stretched over the intervening ages, and
has laid hold upon this master-thinker of the seventeenth century; for
only a few chapters beyond those containing the citations already made
we find Bacon alluding to the recent voyage of Columbus, and speaking of
the prophecy of Daniel regarding the latter days, that "many shall
run to and fro, and knowledge be increased," as clearly signifying
"that... the circumnavigation of the world and the increase of science
should happen in the same age."(279)
(279) See the Novum Organon, translated by the Rev. G. W. Kitchin,
Oxford, 1855, chaps. lxv and lxxxix.
In his great work on the Advancement of Learning the firm grasp which
the methods he condemned held upon him is shown yet more clearly. In the
first book of it he asserts that "that excellent book of Job, if it
be revolved with diligence, will be found pregnant and swelling with
natural philosophy," and he endeavours to show that in it the "roundness
of the earth," the "fixing of the stars, ever standing at equal
distances," the "depression of the southern pole," the "matter of
generation," and "matter of minerals" are "with great elegancy noted."
But, curiously enough, he uses to support some of these truths the very
texts which the fathers of the Church used to destroy them, and those
for which he finds Scripture warrant most clearly are such as science
has since disproved. So, too, he says that Solomon was enabled in his
Proverbs, "by donation of God, to compile a natural history of all
verdure."(280)
(280) See Bacon, Advancement of Learning, edited by W. Aldis Wright,
London, 1873, pp. 47, 48. Certainly no more striking examples of the
strength of the evil which he had all along been denouncing could be
exhibited that these in his own writings. Nothing better illustrates the
sway of the mediaeval theology, or better explains his blindness to the
discoveries of Copernicus and to the experiments of Gilbert. For a
very contemptuous statement of Lord Bacon's claim to his position as
a philosopher, see Lange, Geschichte des Materialismus, Leipsic, 1872,
vol i, p. 219. For a more just statement, see Brewster, Life of Sir
Isaac Newton, London, 1874, vol. ii, p. 298.
Such was the struggle of the physical sciences in general. Let us now
look briefly at one special example out of many, which reveals, as well
as any, one of the main theories which prompted theological interference
with them.
It will doubtless seem amazing to many that for ages the weight of
theological thought in Christendom was thrown against the idea of the
suffocating properties of certain gases, and especially of carbonic
acid. Although in antiquity we see men forming a right theory of gases
in mines, we find that, early in the history of the Church, St. Clement
of Alexandria put forth the theory that these gases are manifestations
of diabolic action, and that, throughout Christendom, suffocation in
caverns, wells, and cellars was attributed to the direct action of evil
spirits. Evidences of this view abound through the medieval period, and
during the Reformation period a great authority, Agricola, one of the
most earnest and truthful of investigators, still adhered to the
belief that these gases in mines were manifestations of devils, and he
specified two classes--one of malignant imps, who blow out the miners'
lamps, and the other of friendly imps, who simply tease the workmen in
various ways. He went so far as to say that one of these spirits in the
Saxon mine of Annaberg destroyed twelve workmen at once by the power of
his breath.
At the end of the sixteenth century we find a writer on mineralogy
complaining that the mines in France and Germany had been in large part
abandoned on account of the "evil spirits of metals which had taken
possession of them."
Even as late as the seventeenth century, Van Helmont, after he
had broken away from alchemy and opened one of the great paths to
chemistry--even after he had announced to the world the existence of
various gases and the mode of their generation--was not strong enough to
free himself from theologic bias; he still inclined to believe that the
gases he had discovered, were in some sense living spirits, beneficent
or diabolical.
But at various. periods glimpses of the truth had been gained. The
ancient view had not been entirely forgotten; and as far back as the
first part of the thirteenth century Albert the Great suggested a
natural cause in the possibility of exhalations from minerals causing a
"corruption of the air"; but he, as we have seen, was driven or
dragged off into, theological studies, and the world relapsed into the
theological view.
Toward the end of the fifteenth century there had come a great genius
laden with important truths in chemistry, but for whom the world was
not ready--Basil Valentine. His discoveries anticipated much that has
brought fame and fortune to chemists since, yet so fearful of danger was
he that his work was carefully concealed. Not until after his death was
his treatise on alchemy found, and even then it was for a long time not
known where and when he lived. The papal bull, Spondent pariter, and the
various prohibitions it bred, forcing other alchemists to conceal their
laboratories, led him to let himself be known during his life at Erfurt
simply as an apothecary, and to wait until after his death to make a
revelation of truth which during his lifetime might have cost him dear.
Among the legacies of this greatest of the alchemists was the doctrine
that the air which asphyxiates workers in mines is similar to that which
is produced by fermentation of malt, and a recommendation that, in
order to drive away the evil and to prevent serious accidents, fires
be lighted and jets of steam used to ventilate the mines--stress being
especially laid upon the idea that the danger in the mines is produced
by "exhalations of metals."
Thanks to men like Valentine, this idea of the interference of Satan
and his minions with the mining industry was gradually weakened, and the
working of the deserted mines was resumed; yet even at a comparatively
recent period we find it still lingering, and among leading divines in
the very heart of Protestant Germany. In 1715 a cellar-digger having
been stifled at Jena, the medical faculty of the university decided
that the cause was not the direct action of the devil, but a deadly gas.
Thereupon Prof. Loescher, of the University of Wittenberg, entered a
solemn protest, declaring that the decision of the medical faculty was
"only a proof of the lamentable license which has so taken possession of
us, and which, if we are not earnestly on our guard, will finally turn
away from us the blessing of God."(281) But denunciations of this kind
could not hold back the little army of science; in spite of adverse
influences, the evolution of physics and chemistry went on. More and
more there rose men bold enough to break away from theological methods
and strong enough to resist ecclesiastical bribes and threats. As
alchemy in its first form, seeking for the philosopher's stone and the
transmutation of metals, had given way to alchemy in its second form,
seeking for the elixir of life and remedies more or less magical for
disease, so now the latter yielded to the search for truth as truth.
More and more the "solemnly constituted impostors" were resisted
in every field. A great line of physicists and chemists began to
appear.(282)
(281) For Loescher's protest, see Julian Schmidt, Geschichte des
geistigen Lebens, etc., vol. i, p. 319.
(282) For the general view of noxious gases as imps of Satan, see
Hoefer, Histoire de la Chimie, vol. i, p. 350; vol. ii, p. 48. For the
work of Black, Priestley, Bergmann, and others, see main authorities
already cited, and especially the admirable paper of Dr. R. G. Eccles on
The Evolution of Chemistry, New York, D. Appleton & Co., 1891. For the
treatment of Priesley, see Spence's Essays, London, 1892; also Rutt,
Life and Correspondence of Priestley, vol. ii, pp. 115 et seq.
II.
Just at the middle of the seventeenth century, and at the very centre
of opposition to physical science, Robert Boyle began the new epoch
in chemistry. Strongly influenced by the writings of Bacon and the
discoveries of Galileo, he devoted himself to scientific research,
establishing at Oxford a laboratory and putting into it a chemist from
Strasburg. For this he was at once bitterly attacked. In spite of his
high position, his blameless life, his liberal gifts to charity and
learning, the Oxford pulpit was especially severe against him, declaring
that his researches were destroying religion and his experiments
undermining the university. Public orators denounced him, the wits
ridiculed him, and his associates in the peerage were indignant that
he should condescend to pursuits so unworthy. But Boyle pressed on. His
discoveries opened new paths in various directions and gave an impulse
to a succession of vigorous investigators. Thus began the long series of
discoveries culminating those of Black, Bergmann, Cavendish, Priestley,
and Lavoisier, who ushered in the chemical science of the nineteenth
century.
Yet not even then without a sore struggle against unreason. And it
must here be noticed that this unreason was not all theological. The
unreasoning heterodox when intrusted with irresponsible power can be as
short-sighted and cruel as the unreasoning orthodox. Lavoisier, one of
the best of our race, not only a great chemist but a true man, was
sent to the scaffold by the Parisian mob, led by bigoted "liberals" and
atheists, with the sneer that the republic had no need of savants. As
to Priestley, who had devoted his life to science and to every good
work among his fellow-men, the Birmingham mob, favoured by the Anglican
clergymen who harangued them as "fellow-churchmen," wrecked his house,
destroyed his library, philosophical instruments, and papers containing
the results of long years of scientific research, drove him into exile,
and would have murdered him if they could have laid their hands upon
him. Nor was it entirely his devotion to rational liberty, nor even
his disbelief in the doctrine of the Trinity, which brought on this
catastrophe. That there was a deep distrust of his scientific pursuits,
was evident when the leaders of the mob took pains to use his electrical
apparatus to set fire to his papers.
Still, though theological modes of thought continued to sterilize much
effort in chemistry, the old influence was more and more thrown off,
and truth sought more and more for truth's sake. "Black magic" with
its Satanic machinery vanished, only reappearing occasionally
among marvel-mongers and belated theologians. "White magic" became
legerdemain.
In the early years of the nineteenth century, physical research,
though it went on with ever-increasing vigour, felt in various ways the
reaction which followed the French Revolution. It was not merely under
the Bourbons and Hapsburgs that resistance was offered; even in
England the old spirit lingered long. As late as 1832, when the British
Association for the Advancement of Science first visited Oxford, no
less amiable a man than John Keble--at that time a power in the
university--condemned indignantly the conferring of honorary degrees
upon the leading men thus brought together. In a letter of that date to
Dr. Pusey he complained bitterly, to use his own words, that "the Oxford
doctors have truckled sadly to the spirit of the times in receiving the
hotchpotch of philosophers as they did." It is interesting to know that
among the men thus contemptuously characterized were Brewster, Faraday,
and Dalton.
Nor was this a mere isolated exhibition of feeling; it lasted many
years, and was especially shown on both sides of the Atlantic in all
higher institutions of learning where theology was dominant. Down to a
period within the memory of men still in active life, students in the
sciences, not only at Oxford and Cambridge but at Harvard and Yale, were
considered a doubtful if not a distinctly inferior class, intellectually
and socially--to be relegated to different instructors and buildings,
and to receive their degrees on a different occasion and with different
ceremonies from those appointed for students in literature. To the
State University of Michigan, among the greater American institutions of
learning which have never possessed or been possessed by a theological
seminary, belongs the honour of first breaking down this wall of
separation.
But from the middle years of the century chemical science progressed
with ever-accelerating force, and the work of Bunsen, Kirchhoff,
Dalton, and Faraday has, in the last years of the century, led up to
the establishment of Mendeleef's law, by which chemistry has become
predictive, as astronomy had become predictive by the calculations of
Newton, and biology by the discoveries of Darwin.
While one succession of strong men were thus developing chemistry out
of one form of magic, another succession were developing physics out of
another form.
First in this latter succession may be mentioned that line of thinkers
who divined and reasoned out great physical laws--a line extending
from Galileo and Kepler and Newton to Ohm and Faraday and Joule and
Helmholtz. These, by revealing more and more clearly the reign of law,
steadily undermined the older theological view of arbitrary influence
in nature. Next should be mentioned the line of profound observers, from
Galileo and Torricelli to Kelvin. These have as thoroughly undermined
the old theologic substitution of phrases for facts. When Galileo
dropped the differing weights from the Leaning Tower of Pisa, he began
the end of Aristotelian authority in physics. When Torricelli balanced a
column of mercury against a column of water and each of these against
a column of air, he ended the theologic phrase that "nature abhors a
vacuum." When Newton approximately determined the velocity of sound, he
ended the theologic argument that we see the flash before we hear the
roar because "sight is nobler than hearing." When Franklin showed that
lightning is caused by electricity, and Ohm and Faraday proved that
electricity obeys ascertained laws, they ended the theological idea of a
divinity seated above the clouds and casting thunderbolts.
Resulting from the labour of both these branches of physical science,
we have the establishment of the great laws of the indestructibility
of matter, the correlation of forces, and chemical affinity. Thereby is
ended, with various other sacred traditions, the theological theory of
a visible universe created out of nothing, so firmly imbedded in
the theological thought of the Middle Ages and in the Westminster
Catechism.(283)
(283) For a reappearance of the fundamental doctrines of black magic
among theologians, see Rev. Dr. Jewett, Professor of Pastoral Theology
in the Prot. Episc. Gen. Theolog. Seminary of New York, Diabolology: The
Person and the Kingdom of Satan, New York, 1889. For their appearance
among theosophists, see Eliphas Levi, Histoire de la Magie, especially
the final chapters. For opposition to Boyle and chemistry studies at
Oxford in the latter half of the seventeenth century, see the address
of Prof. Dixon, F. R. S., before the British Association, 1894. For the
recent progress of chemistry, and opposition to its earlier development
at Oxford, see Lord Salisbury's address as President of the British
Association, in 1894. For the Protestant survival of the mediaeval
assertion that the universe was created out of nothing, see the
Westminster Catechism, question 15.
In our own time some attempt has been made to renew this war against
the physical sciences. Joseph de Maistre, uttering his hatred of them,
declaring that mankind has paid too dearly for them, asserting that they
must be subjected to theology, likening them to fire--good when confined
and dangerous when scattered about--has been one of the main leaders
among those who can not relinquish the idea that our body of sacred
literature should be kept a controlling text-book of science. The only
effect of such teachings has been to weaken the legitimate hold of
religion upon men.
In Catholic countries exertion has of late years been mainly confined to
excluding science or diluting it in university teachings. Early in the
present century a great effort was made by Ferdinand VII of Spain.
He simply dismissed the scientific professors from the University of
Salamanca, and until a recent period there has been general exclusion
from Spanish universities of professors holding to the Newtonian
physics. So, too, the contemporary Emperor of Austria attempted
indirectly something of the same sort; and at a still later period
Popes Gregory XVI and Pius IX discouraged, if they did not forbid, the
meetings of scientific associations in Italy. In France, war between
theology and science, which had long been smouldering, came in the years
1867 and 1868 to an outbreak. Toward the end of the last century, after
the Church had held possession of advanced instruction for more than
a thousand years, and had, so far as it was able, kept experimental
science in servitude--after it had humiliated Buffon in natural science,
thrown its weight against Newton in the physical sciences, and wrecked
Turgot's noble plans for a system of public instruction--the French
nation decreed the establishment of the most thorough and complete
system of higher instruction in science ever known. It was kept under
lay control and became one of the glories of France; but, emboldened by
the restoration of the Bourbons in 1815, the Church began to undermine
this hated system, and in 1868 had made such progress that all was ready
for the final assault.
Foremost among the leaders of the besieging party was the Bishop of
Orleans, Dupanloup, a man of many winning characteristics and of great
oratorical power. In various ways, and especially in an open letter, he
had fought the "materialism" of science at Paris, and especially were
his attacks levelled at Profs. Vulpian and See and the Minister of
Public instruction, Duruy, a man of great merit, whose only crime was
devotion to the improvement of education and to the promotion of the
highest research in science.(284)
(284) For the exertions of the restored Bourbons to crush the
universities of Spain, see Hubbard, Hist. Contemporaine de l'Espagne,
Paris, 1878, chaps. i and ii. For Dupanloup, Lettre a un Cardinal, see
the Revue de Therapeutique of 1868, p. 221.
The main attack was made rather upon biological science than upon
physics and chemistry, yet it was clear that all were involved together.
The first onslaught was made in the French Senate, and the storming
party in that body was led by a venerable and conscientious prelate,
Cardinal de Bonnechose, Archbishop of Rouen. It was charged by him and
his party that the tendencies of the higher scientific teaching at Paris
were fatal to religion and morality. Heavy missiles were hurled--such
phrases as "sapping the foundations," "breaking down the bulwarks,"
and the like; and, withal, a new missile was used with much effect--the
epithet "materialist."
The results can be easily guessed: crowds came to the lecture-rooms of
the attacked professors, and the lecture-room of Prof. See, the chief
offender, was crowded to suffocation.
A siege was begun in due form. A young physician was sent by the
cardinal's party into the heterodox camp as a spy. Having heard one
lecture of Prof. See, he returned with information that seemed to
promise easy victory to the besieging party: he brought a terrible
statement--one that seemed enough to overwhelm See, Vulpian, Duruy, and
the whole hated system of public instruction in France--the statement
that See had denied the existence of the human soul.
Cardinal Bonnechose seized the tremendous weapon at once. Rising in his
place in the Senate, he launched a most eloquent invective against the
Minister of State who could protect such a fortress of impiety as the
College of Medicine; and, as a climax, he asserted, on the evidence
of his spy fresh from Prof. See's lecture-room, that the professor had
declared, in his lecture of the day before, that so long as he had the
honour to hold his professorship he would combat the false idea of the
existence of the soul. The weapon seemed resistless and the wound fatal,
but M. Duruy rose and asked to be heard.
His statement was simply that he held in his hand documentary proofs
that Prof. See never made such a declaration. He held the notes used by
Prof. See in his lecture. Prof. See, it appeared, belonged to a school
in medical science which combated certain ideas regarding medicine as an
ART. The inflamed imagination of the cardinal's heresy-hunting emissary
had, as the lecture-notes proved, led him to mistake the word "art" for
"ame," and to exhibit Prof. See as treating a theological when he was
discussing a purely scientific question. Of the existence of the soul
the professor had said nothing.
The forces of the enemy were immediately turned; they retreated in
confusion, amid the laughter of all France; and a quiet, dignified
statement as to the rights of scientific instructors by Wurtz, dean of
the faculty, completed their discomfiture. Thus a well-meant attempt
to check science simply ended in bringing ridicule on religion, and
in thrusting still deeper into the minds of thousands of men that most
mistaken of all mistaken ideas: the conviction that religion and science
are enemies.(285)
(285) For a general account of the Vulpian and See matter, see Revue des
Deux Mondes, 31 mai, 1868, "Chronique de la Quinzaine," pp. 763-765. As
to the result on popular thought, may be noted the following comment on
the affair by the Revue, which is as free as possible from anything
like rabid anti-ecclesiastical ideas: "Elle a ete vraiment curieuse,
instructive, assez triste et meme un peu amusante." For Wurtz's
statement, see Revue de Therapeutique for 1868, p. 303.
But justice forbids raising an outcry against Roman Catholicism for
this. In 1864 a number of excellent men in England drew up a declaration
to be signed by students in the natural sciences, expressing "sincere
regret that researches into scientific truth are perverted by some in
our time into occasion for casting doubt upon the truth and authenticity
of the Holy Scriptures." Nine tenths of the leading scientific men of
England refused to sign it; nor was this all: Sir John Herschel, Sir
John Bowring, and Sir W. R. Hamilton administered, through the press,
castigations which roused general indignation against the proposers of
the circular, and Prof. De Morgan, by a parody, covered memorial and
memorialists with ridicule. It was the old mistake, and the old result
followed in the minds of multitudes of thoughtful young men.(286)
(286) De Morgan, Paradoxes, pp. 421-428; also Daubeny's Essays.
And in yet another Protestant country this same mistake was made. In
1868 several excellent churchmen in Prussia thought it their duty to
meet for the denunciation of "science falsely so called." Two results
followed: upon the great majority of these really self-sacrificing
men--whose first utterances showed complete ignorance of the theories
they attacked--there came quiet and widespread contempt; upon Pastor
Knak, who stood forth and proclaimed views of the universe which he
thought scriptural, but which most schoolboys knew to be childish,
came a burst of good-natured derision from every quarter of the German
nation.(287)
(287) See the Berlin newspapers for the summer of 1868, especially
Kladderdatsch.
But in all the greater modern nations warfare of this kind, after the
first quarter of the nineteenth century, became more and more futile.
While conscientious Roman bishops, and no less conscientious Protestant
clergymen in Europe and America continued to insist that advanced
education, not only in literature but in science, should be kept under
careful control in their own sectarian universities and colleges,
wretchedly one-sided in organization and inadequate in equipment; while
Catholic clerical authorities in Spain were rejecting all professors
holding the Newtonian theory, and in Austria and Italy all holding
unsafe views regarding the Immaculate Conception, and while Protestant
clerical authorities in Great Britain and America were keeping out
of professorships men holding unsatisfactory views regarding the
Incarnation, or Infant Baptism, or the Apostolic Succession, or
Ordination by Elders, or the Perseverance of the Saints; and while both
Catholic and Protestant ecclesiastics were openly or secretly weeding
out of university faculties all who showed willingness to consider
fairly the ideas of Darwin, a movement was quietly in progress destined
to take instruction, and especially instruction in the physical
and natural sciences, out of its old subordination to theology and
ecclesiasticism.(288)
(288) Whatever may be thought of the system of philosophy advocated by
President McCosh at Princeton, every thinking man must honor him for the
large way in which he, at least, broke away from the traditions of that
centre of thought; prevented, so far as he was able, persecution of
scholars for holding to the Darwinian view; and paved the way for the
highest researches in physical science in that university. For a most
eloquent statement of the opposition of modern physical science to
mediaeval theological views, as shown in the case of Sir Isaac Newton,
see Dr. Thomas Chalmers, cited in Gore, Art of Scientific Discovery,
London, 1878, p. 247.
The most striking beginnings of this movement had been seen when, in the
darkest period of the French Revolution, there was founded at Paris the
great Conservatory of Arts and Trades, and when, in the early years
of the nineteenth century, scientific and technical education spread
quietly upon the Continent. By the middle of the century France and
Germany were dotted with well-equipped technical and scientific schools,
each having chemical and physical laboratories.
The English-speaking lands lagged behind. In England, Oxford and
Cambridge showed few if any signs of this movement, and in the United
States, down to 1850, evidences of it were few and feeble. Very
significant is it that, at that period, while Yale College had in
its faculty Silliman and Olmsted--the professor of chemistry and the
professor of physics most widely known in the United States--it had no
physical or chemical laboratory in the modern sense, and confined its
instruction in these subjects to examinations upon a text-book and the
presentation of a few lectures. At the State University of Michigan,
which had even then taken a foremost place in the higher education west
of the Great Lakes, there was very meagre instruction in chemistry and
virtually none in physics. This being the state of things in the middle
of the century in institutions remarkably free from clerical control,
it can be imagined what was the position of scientific instruction in
smaller colleges and universities where theological considerations were
entirely dominant.
But in 1851, with the International Exhibition at London, began in Great
Britain and America a movement in favour of scientific education; men
of wealth and public spirit began making contributions to them, and thus
came the growth of a new system of instruction in which Chemistry and
Physics took just rank.
By far the most marked feature in this movement was seen in America,
when, in 1857, Justin S. Morrill, a young member of Congress from
Vermont, presented the project of a law endowing from the public lands
a broad national system of colleges in which scientific and technical
studies should be placed on an equality with studies in classical
literature, one such college to be established in every State of the
Union. The bill, though opposed mainly by representatives from the
Southern States, where doctrinaire politics and orthodox theology were
in strong alliance with negro slavery, was passed by both Houses of
Congress, but vetoed by President Buchanan, in whom the doctrinaire and
orthodox spirit was incarnate. But Morrill persisted and again presented
his bill, which was again carried in spite of the opposition of the
Southern members, and again vetoed in 1859 by President Buchanan. Then
came the civil war; but Morrill and his associates did not despair of
the republic. In the midst of all the measures for putting vast armies
into the field and for saving the Union from foreign interference as
well as from domestic anarchy, they again passed the bill, and in 1862,
in the darkest hour of the struggle for national existence, it became a
law by the signature of President Lincoln.
And here it should not be unrecorded, that, while the vast majority of
the supporters of the measure were laymen, most efficient service was
rendered by a clergyman, the Rev. Dr. Amos Brown, born in New Hampshire,
but at that time an instructor in a little village of New York. His
ideas were embodied in the bill, and his efforts did much for its
passage.
Thus was established, in every State of the American Union, at least one
institution in which scientific and technical studies were given equal
rank with classical, and promoted by laboratories for research in
physical and natural science. Of these institutions there are now nearly
fifty: all have proved valuable, and some of them, by the addition of
splendid gifts from individuals and from the States in which they are
situated, have been developed into great universities.
Nor was this all. Many of the older universities and colleges thus
received a powerful stimulus in the new direction. The great physical
and chemical laboratories founded by gifts from public-spirited
individuals, as at Harvard, Yale, and Chicago, or by enlightened State
legislators, as in Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota, California, Kansas,
and Nebraska, have also become centres from which radiate influences
favouring the unfettered search for truth as truth.
This system has been long enough in operation to enable us to note in
some degree its effects on religion, and these are certainly such as
to relieve those who have feared that religion was necessarily bound up
with the older instruction controlled by theology. While in Europe, by a
natural reaction, the colleges under strict ecclesiastical control have
sent forth the most powerful foes the Christian Church has ever known,
of whom Voltaire and Diderot and Volney and Sainte-Beuve and Renan are
types, no such effects have been noted in these newer institutions.
While the theological way of looking at the universe has steadily
yielded, there has been no sign of any tendency toward irreligion. On
the contrary, it is the testimony of those best acquainted with the
American colleges and universities during the last forty-five years that
there has been in them a great gain, not only as regards morals, but as
regards religion in its highest and best sense. The reason is not far
to seek. Under the old American system the whole body of students at
a university were confined to a single course, for which the majority
cared little and very many cared nothing, and, as a result, widespread
idleness and dissipation were inevitable. Under the new system,
presenting various courses, and especially courses in various sciences,
appealing to different tastes and aims, the great majority of students
are interested, and consequently indolence and dissipation have steadily
diminished. Moreover, in the majority of American institutions of
learning down to the middle of the century, the main reliance for the
religious culture of students was in the perfunctory presentation of
sectarian theology, and the occasional stirring up of what were called
"revivals," which, after a period of unhealthy stimulus, inevitably left
the main body of students in a state of religious and moral reaction
and collapse. This method is now discredited, and in the more important
American universities it has become impossible. Religious truth, to
secure the attention of the modern race of students in the better
American institutions, is presented, not by "sensation preachers," but
by thoughtful, sober-minded scholars. Less and less avail sectarian
arguments; more and more impressive becomes the presentation of
fundamental religious truths. The result is, that while young men care
less and less for the great mass of petty, cut-and-dried sectarian
formulas, they approach the deeper questions of religion with increasing
reverence.
While striking differences exist between the European universities and
those of the United States, this at least may be said, that on both
sides of the Atlantic the great majority of the leading institutions
of learning are under the sway of enlightened public opinion as voiced
mainly by laymen, and that, this being the case, the physical and
natural sciences are henceforth likely to be developed normally,
and without fear of being sterilized by theology or oppressed by
ecclesiasticism.
CHAPTER XIII. FROM MIRACLES TO MEDICINE.
I. THE EARLY AND SACRED THEORIES OF DISEASE.
Nothing in the evolution of human thought appears more inevitable than
the idea of supernatural intervention in producing and curing disease.
The causes of disease are so intricate that they are reached only after
ages of scientific labour. In those periods when man sees everywhere
miracle and nowhere law,--when he attributes all things which he can not
understand to a will like his own,--he naturally ascribes his diseases
either to the wrath of a good being or to the malice of an evil being.
This idea underlies the connection of the priestly class with the
healing art: a connection of which we have survivals among rude tribes
in all parts of the world, and which is seen in nearly every ancient
civilization--especially in the powers over disease claimed in Egypt by
the priests of Osiris and Isis, in Assyria by the priests of Gibil, in
Greece by the priests of Aesculapius, and in Judea by the priests and
prophets of Jahveh.
In Egypt there is evidence, reaching back to a very early period, that
the sick were often regarded as afflicted or possessed by demons; the
same belief comes constantly before us in the great religions of India
and China; and, as regards Chaldea, the Assyrian tablets recovered in
recent years, while revealing the source of so many myths and legends
transmitted to the modern world through the book of Genesis, show
especially this idea of the healing of diseases by the casting out of
devils. A similar theory was elaborated in Persia. Naturally, then, the
Old Testament, so precious in showing the evolution of religious and
moral truth among men, attributes such diseases as the leprosy of Miriam
and Uzziah, the boils of Job, the dysentery of Jehoram, the withered
hand of Jeroboam, the fatal illness of Asa, and many other ills, to the
wrath of God or the malice of Satan; while, in the New Testament, such
examples as the woman "bound by Satan," the rebuke of the fever, the
casting out of the devil which was dumb, the healing of the person whom
"the devil ofttimes casteth into the fire"--of which case one of
the greatest modern physicians remarks that never was there a truer
description of epilepsy--and various other episodes, show this same
inevitable mode of thought as a refracting medium through which the
teachings and doings of the Great Physician were revealed to future
generations.
In Greece, though this idea of an occult evil agency in producing bodily
ills appeared at an early period, there also came the first beginnings,
so far as we know, of a really scientific theory of medicine. Five
hundred years before Christ, in the bloom period of thought--the
period of Aeschylus, Phidias, Pericles, Socrates, and Plato--appeared
Hippocrates, one of the greatest names in history. Quietly but
thoroughly he broke away from the old tradition, developed scientific
thought, and laid the foundations of medical science upon experience,
observation, and reason so deeply and broadly that his teaching remains
to this hour among the most precious possessions of our race.
His thought was passed on to the School of Alexandria, and there medical
science was developed yet further, especially by such men as Herophilus
and Erasistratus. Under their lead studies in human anatomy began by
dissection; the old prejudice which had weighed so long upon science,
preventing that method of anatomical investigation without which there
can be no real results, was cast aside apparently forever.(289)
(289) For extended statements regarding medicine in Egypt, Judea, and
Eastern nations generally, see Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine, and
Haeser; and for more succinct accounts, Baas, Geschichte der Medicin,
pp. 15-29; also Isensee; also Fredault, Histoire de la Medecine, chap.
i. For the effort in Egyptian medicine to deal with demons and witches,
see Heinrich Brugsch, Die Aegyptologie, Leipsic, 1891, p. 77; and for
references to the Papyrus Ebers, etc., pp. 155, 407, and following. For
fear of dissection and prejudices against it in Egypt, like those in
mediaeval Europe, see Maspero and Sayce, Dawn of Civilization, p. 216.
For the derivation of priestly medicine in Egypt, see Baas, pp. 16, 22.
For the fame of Egyptian medicine at Rome, see Sharpe, History of Egypt,
vol. ii, pp. 151, 184. For Assyria, see especially George Smith in
Delitzsch's German translation, p. 34, and F. Delitzsch's appendix, p.
27. On the cheapness and commonness of miracles of healing in antiquity,
see Sharpe, quoting St. Jerome, vol. ii, pp. 276, 277. As to the
influence of Chaldean ideas of magic and disease, see Lecky, History of
European Morals, vol. i, p. 404 and note. But, on the other hand, see
reference in Homer to diseases caused by a "demon." For the evolution of
medicine before and after Hippocrates, see Sprengel. For a good summing
up of the work of Hippocrates, see Baas, p. 201. For the necessary
passage of medicine in its early stages under priestly control, see
Cabanis, The Revolution of Medical Science, London, 1806, chap. ii. On
Jewish ideas regarding demons, and their relation to sickness, see Toy,
Judaism and Christianity, Boston, 1891, pp. 168 et seq. For avoidance
of dissections of human subjects even by Galen and his disciples, see
Maurice Albert, Les Medecins Grecs a Rome, Paris, 1894, chap. xi. For
Herophilus, Erasistratus, and the School of Alexandria, see Sprengel,
vol. i, pp. 433, 434 et seq.
But with the coming in of Christianity a great new chain of events
was set in motion which modified this development most profoundly. The
influence of Christianity on the healing art was twofold: there was
first a blessed impulse--the thought, aspiration, example, ideals, and
spirit of Jesus of Nazareth. This spirit, then poured into the world,
flowed down through the ages, promoting self-sacrifice for the sick
and wretched. Through all those succeeding centuries, even through the
rudest, hospitals and infirmaries sprang up along this blessed stream.
Of these were the Eastern establishments for the cure of the sick at
the earliest Christian periods, the Infirmary of Monte Cassino and the
Hotel-Dieu at Lyons in the sixth century, the Hotel-Dieu at Paris in the
seventh, and the myriad refuges for the sick and suffering which sprang
up in every part of Europe during the following centuries. Vitalized by
this stream, all medieval growths of mercy bloomed luxuriantly. To
say nothing of those at an earlier period, we have in the time of the
Crusades great charitable organizations like the Order of St. John of
Jerusalem, and thenceforward every means of bringing the spirit of Jesus
to help afflicted humanity. So, too, through all those ages we have
a succession of men and women devoting themselves to works of mercy,
culminating during modern times in saints like Vincent de Paul, Francke,
Howard, Elizabeth Fry, Florence Nightingale, and Muhlenberg.
But while this vast influence, poured forth from the heart of the
Founder of Christianity, streamed through century after century,
inspiring every development of mercy, there came from those who
organized the Church which bears his name, and from those who afterward
developed and directed it, another stream of influence--a theology drawn
partly from prehistoric conceptions of unseen powers, partly from ideas
developed in the earliest historic nations, but especially from the
letter of the Hebrew and Christian sacred books.
The theology deveLoped out of our sacred literature in relation to the
cure of disease was mainly twofold: first, there was a new and strong
evolution of the old idea that physical disease is produced by the
wrath of God or the malice of Satan, or by a combination of both, which
theology was especially called in to explain; secondly, there were
evolved theories of miraculous methods of cure, based upon modes of
appeasing the Divine anger, or of thwarting Satanic malice.
Along both these streams of influence, one arising in the life of Jesus,
and the other in the reasonings of theologians, legends of miracles grew
luxuriantly. It would be utterly unphilosophical to attribute these as
a whole to conscious fraud. Whatever part priestcraft may have taken
afterward in sundry discreditable developments of them, the mass of
miraculous legends, Century after century, grew up mainly in good
faith, and as naturally as elms along water-courses or flowers upon the
prairie.
II. GROWTH OF LEGENDS OF HEALING.
--THE LIFE OF XAVIER AS A TYPICAL EXAMPLE.
Legends of miracles have thus grown about the lives of all great
benefactors of humanity in early ages, and about saints and devotees.
Throughout human history the lives of such personages, almost without
exception, have been accompanied or followed by a literature in
which legends of miraculous powers form a very important part--a part
constantly increasing until a different mode of looking at nature and
of weighing testimony causes miracles to disappear. While modern thought
holds the testimony to the vast mass of such legends in all ages as
worthless, it is very widely acknowledged that great and gifted beings
who endow the earth with higher religious ideas, gaining the deepest
hold upon the hearts and minds of multitudes, may at times exercise such
influence upon those about them that the sick in mind or body are helped
or healed.
We have within the modern period very many examples which enable us to
study the evolution of legendary miracles. Out of these I will select
but one, which is chosen because it is the life of one of the most
noble and devoted men in the history of humanity, one whose biography
is before the world with its most minute details--in his own letters,
in the letters of his associates, in contemporary histories, and in a
multitude of biographies: this man is St. Francis Xavier. From these
sources I draw the facts now to be given, but none of them are of
Protestant origin; every source from which I shall draw is Catholic and
Roman, and published under the sanction of the Church.
Born a Spanish noble, Xavier at an early age cast aside all ordinary
aims, devoted himself to study, was rapidly advanced to a professorship
at Paris, and in this position was rapidly winning a commanding
influence, when he came under the sway of another Spaniard even greater,
though less brilliantly endowed, than himself--Ignatius Loyola, founder
of the Society of Jesus. The result was that the young professor
sacrificed the brilliant career on which he had entered at the French
capital, went to the far East as a simple missionary, and there devoted
his remaining years to redeeming the lowest and most wretched of our
race.
Among the various tribes, first in lower India and afterward in Japan,
he wrought untiringly--toiling through village after village, collecting
the natives by the sound of a hand-bell, trying to teach them the
simplest Christian formulas; and thus he brought myriads of them to a
nominal Confession of the Christian faith. After twelve years of such
efforts, seeking new conquests for religion, he sacrificed his life on
the desert island of San Chan.
During his career as a missionary he wrote great numbers of letters,
which were preserved and have since been published; and these, with the
letters of his contemporaries, exhibit clearly all the features of his
life. His own writings are very minute, and enable us to follow him
fully. No account of a miracle wrought by him appears either in his own
letters or in any contemporary document.(290) At the outside, but two
or three things occurred in his whole life, as exhibited so fully by
himself and his contemporaries, for which the most earnest devotee could
claim anything like Divine interposition; and these are such as may be
read in the letters of very many fervent missionaries, Protestant as
well as Catholic. For example, in the beginning of his career, during a
journey in Europe with an ambassador, one of the servants in fording a
stream got into deep water and was in danger of drowning. Xavier tells
us that the ambassador prayed very earnestly, and that the man finally
struggled out of the stream. But within sixty years after his death, at
his canonization, and by various biographers, this had been magnified
into a miracle, and appears in the various histories dressed out in
glowing colours. Xavier tells us that the ambassador prayed for the
safety of the young man; but his biographers tell us that it was Xavier
who prayed, and finally, by the later writers, Xavier is represented as
lifting horse and rider out of the stream by a clearly supernatural act.
(290) This statement was denied with much explosive emphasis by a writer
in the Catholic World for September and October, 1891, but he brought
no FACT to support this denial. I may perhaps be allowed to remind the
reverend writer that since the days of Pascal, whose eminence in the
Church he will hardly dispute, the bare assertion even of a Jesuit
father against established facts needs some support other than mere
scurrility.
Still another claim to miracle is based upon his arriving at Lisbon
and finding his great colleague, Simon Rodriguez, ill of fever. Xavier
informs us in a very simple way that Rodriguez was so overjoyed to see
him that the fever did not return. This is entirely similar to the cure
which Martin Luther wrought upon Melanchthon. Melanchthon had broken
down and was supposed to be dying, when his joy at the long-delayed
visit of Luther brought him to his feet again, after which he lived for
many years.
Again, it is related that Xavier, finding a poor native woman very
ill, baptized her, saying over her the prayers of the Church, and she
recovered.
Two or three occurrences like these form the whole basis for the
miraculous account, so far as Xavier's own writings are concerned.
Of miracles in the ordinary sense of the word there is in these letters
of his no mention. Though he writes of his doings with especial detail,
taking evident pains to note everything which he thought a sign of
Divine encouragement, he says nothing of his performing miracles,
and evidently knows nothing of them. This is clearly not due to his
unwillingness to make known any token of Divine favour. As we have seen,
he is very prompt to report anything which may be considered an answer
to prayer or an evidence of the power of religious means to improve the
bodily or spiritual health of those to whom he was sent.
Nor do the letters of his associates show knowledge of any miracles
wrought by him. His brother missionaries, who were in constant and loyal
fellowship with him, make no allusions to them in their communications
with each other or with their brethren in Europe.
Of this fact we have many striking evidences. Various collections of
letters from the Jesuit missionaries in India and the East generally,
during the years of Xavier's activity, were published, and in not one of
these letters written during Xavier's lifetime appears any account of
a miracle wrought by him. As typical of these collections we may take
perhaps the most noted of all, that which was published about twenty
years after Xavier's death by a Jesuit father, Emanuel Acosta.
The letters given in it were written by Xavier and his associates not
only from Goa, which was the focus of all missionary effort and the
centre of all knowledge regarding their work in the East, but from
all other important points in the great field. The first of them were
written during the saint's lifetime, but, though filled with every sort
of detail regarding missionary life and work, they say nothing regarding
any miracles by Xavier.
The same is true of various other similar collections published during
the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In not one of them does any
mention of a miracle by Xavier appear in a letter from India or the East
contemporary with him.
This silence regarding his miracles was clearly not due to any "evil
heart of unbelief." On the contrary, these good missionary fathers were
prompt to record the slightest occurrence which they thought evidence of
the Divine favour: it is indeed touching to see how eagerly they grasp
at the most trivial things which could be thus construed.
Their ample faith was fully shown. One of them, in Acosta's collection,
sends a report that an illuminated cross had been recently seen in the
heavens; another, that devils had been cast out of the natives by the
use of holy water; another, that various cases of disease had been
helped and even healed by baptism; and sundry others sent reports that
the blind and dumb had been restored, and that even lepers had been
cleansed by the proper use of the rites of the Church; but to Xavier no
miracles are imputed by his associates during his life or during several
years after his death.
On the contrary, we find his own statements as to his personal
limitations, and the difficulties arising from them, fully confirmed
by his brother workers. It is interesting, for example, in view of the
claim afterward made that the saint was divinely endowed for his mission
with the "gift of tongues," to note in these letters confirmation of
Xavier's own statement utterly disproving the existence of any such
Divine gift, and detailing the difficulties which he encountered from
his want of knowing various languages, and the hard labour which he
underwent in learning the elements of the Japanese tongue.
Until about ten years after Xavier's death, then, as Emanuel Acosta's
publication shows, the letters of the missionaries continued without any
indication of miracles performed by the saint. Though, as we shall see
presently, abundant legends had already begun to grow elsewhere, not
one word regarding these miracles came as yet from the country which,
according to later accounts accepted and sanctioned by the Church, was
at this very period filled with miracles; not the slightest indication
of them from the men who were supposed to be in the very thick of these
miraculous manifestations.
But this negative evidence is by no means all. There is also positive
evidence--direct testimony from the Jesuit order itself--that Xavier
wrought no miracles.
For not only did neither Xavier nor his co-workers know anything of the
mighty works afterward attributed to him, but the highest contemporary
authority on the whole subject, a man in the closest correspondence with
those who knew most about the saint, a member of the Society of Jesus
in the highest standing and one of its accepted historians, not only
expressly tells us that Xavier wrought no miracles, but gives the
reasons why he wrought none.
This man was Joseph Acosta, a provincial of the Jesuit order, its
visitor in Aragon, superior at Valladolid, and finally rector of the
University of Salamanca. In 1571, nineteen years after Xavier's
death, Acosta devoted himself to writing a work mainly concerning the
conversion of the Indies, and in this he refers especially and with the
greatest reverence to Xavier, holding him up as an ideal and his work as
an example.
But on the same page with this tribute to the great missionary Acosta
goes on to discuss the reasons why progress in the world's conversion is
not so rapid as in the early apostolic times, and says that an especial
cause why apostolic preaching could no longer produce apostolic results
"lies in the missionaries themselves, because there is now no power of
working miracles." He then asks, "Why should our age be so completely
destitute of them?" This question he answers at great length, and one of
his main contentions is that in early apostolic times illiterate men had
to convert the learned of the world, whereas in modern times the case
is reversed, learned men being sent to convert the illiterate; and hence
that "in the early times miracles were necessary, but in our time they
are not."
This statement and argument refer, as we have seen, directly to Xavier
by name, and to the period covered by his activity and that of the other
great missionaries of his time. That the Jesuit order and the Church at
large thought this work of Acosta trustworthy is proved by the fact
that it was published at Salamanca a few years after it was written,
and republished afterward with ecclesiastical sanction in France.(291)
Nothing shows better than the sequel how completely the evolution of
miraculous accounts depends upon the intellectual atmosphere of any land
and time, and how independent it is of fact.
(291)The work of Joseph Acosta is in the Cornell University Library,
its title being as follows: De Natura Novi Orbis libri duo et De
Promulgatione Evangelii apud Barbaros, sive De Procuranda Indorum
Salute, libri sex, autore Jesepho Acosta, presbytero Societis Jesu. I.
H. S. Salmanticas, apud Guillelmum Foquel, MDLXXXIX. For the passages
cited directly contradicting the working of miracles by Xavier and his
associates, see lib. ii, cap. ix, of which the title runs, Cur
Miracula in Conversione gentium non fiant nunc, ut olim, a Christi
praedicatoribus, especially pp. 242-245; also lib. ii, cap. viii, pp.
237 et seq. For a passage which shows that Xavier was not then at all
credited with "the miraculous gift of tongues," see lib. i, cap. vii,
p. 173. Since writing the above, my attention has been called to the
alleged miraculous preservation of Xavier's body claimed in sundry
letters contemporary with its disinterment at San Chan and reinterment
at Goa. There is no reason why this preservation in itself need be
doubted, and no reason why it should be counted miraculous. Such
exceptional preservation of bodies has been common enough in all ages,
and, alas for the claims of the Church, quite as common of pagans or
Protestants as of good Catholics. One of the most famous cases is
that of the fair Roman maiden, Julia, daughter of Claudius, over whose
exhumation at Rome, in 1485, such ado was made by the sceptical scholars
of the Renaissance. Contemporary observers tell us enthusiastically that
she was very beautiful, perfectly preserved, "the bloom of youth still
upom her cheeks," and exhaling a "sweet odour"; but this enthusiasm was
so little to the taste of Pope Innocent VIII that he had her reburied
secretly by night. Only the other day, in June of the year 1895, there
was unearthed at Stade, in Hanover, the "perfectly preserved" body of
a soldier of the eighth century. So, too, I might mention the bodies
preserved at the church of St. Thomas at Strasburg, beneath the
Cathedral of Bremen, and elsewhere during hundreds of years past; also
the cases of "adiposeration" in various American cemeteries, which never
grow less wonderful by repetition from mouth to mouth and in the public
prints. But, while such preservation is not incredible or even strange,
there is much reason why precisely in the case of a saint like St.
Francis Xavier the evidence for it should be received with especial
caution. What the touching fidelity of disciples may lead them to
believe and proclaim regarding an adored leader in a time when faith
is thought more meritorious than careful statement, and miracle more
probable than the natural course of things, is seen, for example,
in similar pious accounts regarding the bodies of many other saints,
especially that of St. Carlo Borromeo, so justly venerated by the Church
for his beautiful and charitable life. And yet any one looking at the
relics of various saints, especially those of St. Carlo, preserved with
such tender care in the crypt of Milan Cathedral, will see that they
have shared the common fate, being either mummified or reduced to
skeletons; and this is true in all cases, as far as my observation has
extended. What even a great theologian can be induced to believe
and testify in a somewhat similar matter, is seen in St. Augustine's
declaration that the flesh of the peacock, which in antiquity and in the
early Church was considered a bird somewhat supernaturally endowed, is
incorruptible. The saint declares that he tested it and found it so (see
the De Civitate dei, xxi, c. 4, under the passage beginning Quis enim
Deus). With this we may compare the testimony of the pious author of
Sir John Mandeville's Travels, that iron floats upon the Dead Sea while
feathers sink in it, and that he would not have believed this had he not
seen it. So, too, testimony to the "sweet odour" diffused by the exhumed
remains of the saint seem to indicate feeling rather than fact--those
highly wrought feelings of disciples standing by--the same feeling which
led those who visited St. Simon Stylites on his heap of ordure, and
other hermits unwashed and living in filth, to dwell upon the delicious
"odour of sanctity" pervading the air. In point, perhaps, is Louis
Veuillot's idealization of the "parfum de Rome," in face of the fact, to
which the present writer and thousands of others can testify, that
under Papal rule Rome was materially one of the most filthy cities in
Christendom. For the case of Julia, see the contemporary letter printed
by Janitschek, Gesellschaft der Renaissance in Italien, p. 120, note
167; also Infessura, Diarium Rom. Urbis, in Muratori, tom. iii, pt. 2,
col. 1192, 1193, and elsewhere; also Symonds, Renaissance in Italy: Age
of Despots, p. 22. For the case at Stade, see press dispatch from Berlin
in newspapers of June 24, 25, 1895. The copy of Emanuel Acosta I have
mainly used is that in the Royal Library at Munich, De Japonicus rebus
epistolarum libri iii, item recogniti; et in Latinum ex Hispanico
sermone conversi, Dilingae, MDLXXI. I have since obtained and used the
work now in the library of Cornell University, being the letters and
commentary published by Emanuel Acosta and attached to Maffei's book on
the History of the Indies, published at Antwerp in 1685. For the first
beginnings of miracles wrought by Xavier, as given in the letters of
the missionaries, see that of Almeida, lib. ii, p. 183. Of other
collections, or selections from collections, of letters which fail to
give any indication of miracles wrought by Xavier during his life,
see Wytfliet and Magin, Histoire Universelle des Indes Occidentales et
Orientales, et de la Conversion des Indiens, Douay, 1611. Though several
letters of Xavier and his fellow-missionaries are given, dated at the
very period of his alleged miracles, not a trace of miracles appears in
these. Also Epistolae Japonicae de multorum in variis Insulis Gentilium
ad Christi fidem Conversione, Lovanii, 1570. These letters were written
by Xavier and his companions from the East Indies and Japan, and cover
the years from 1549 to 1564. Though these refer frequently to Xavier,
there is no mention of a miracle wrought by him in any of them written
during his lifetime.
For, shortly after Xavier's heroic and beautiful death in 1552, stories
of miracles wrought by him began to appear. At first they were few and
feeble; and two years later Melchior Nunez, Provincial of the Jesuits
in the Portuguese dominions, with all the means at his command, and a
correspondence extending throughout Eastern Asia, had been able to hear
of but three. These were entirely from hearsay. First, John Deyro said
he knew that Xavier had the gift of prophecy; but, unfortunately,
Xavier himself had reprimanded and cast off Deyro for untruthfulness and
cheatery. Secondly, it was reported vaguely that at Cape Comorin many
persons affirmed that Xavier had raised a man from the dead. Thirdly,
Father Pablo de Santa Fe had heard that in Japan Xavier had restored
sight to a blind man. This seems a feeble beginning, but little by
little the stories grew, and in 1555 De Quadros, Provincial of the
Jesuits in Ethiopia, had heard of nine miracles, and asserted that
Xavier had healed the sick and cast out devils. The next year, being
four years after Xavier's death, King John III of Portugal, a very
devout man, directed his viceroy Barreto to draw up and transmit to him
an authentic account of Xavier's miracles, urging him especially to do
the work "with zeal and speedily." We can well imagine what treasures of
grace an obsequious viceroy, only too anxious to please a devout king,
could bring together by means of the hearsay of ignorant, compliant
natives through all the little towns of Portuguese India.
But the letters of the missionaries who had been co-workers or immediate
successors of Xavier in his Eastern field were still silent as regards
any miracles by him, and they remained silent for nearly ten years. In
the collection of letters published by Emanuel Acosta and others no hint
at any miracles by him is given, until at last, in 1562, fully ten years
after Xavier's death, the first faint beginnings of these legends appear
in them.
At that time the Jesuit Almeida, writing at great length to the
brethren, stated that he had found a pious woman who believed that a
book left behind by Xavier had healed sick folk when it was laid upon
them, and that he had met an old man who preserved a whip left by the
saint which, when properly applied to the sick, had been found good both
for their bodies and their souls. From these and other small beginnings
grew, always luxuriant and sometimes beautiful, the vast mass of legends
which we shall see hereafter.
This growth was affectionately garnered by the more zealous and less
critical brethren in Europe until it had become enormous; but it appears
to have been thought of little value by those best able to judge.
For when, in 1562, Julius Gabriel Eugubinus delivered a solemn oration
on the condition and glory of the Church, before the papal legates and
other fathers assembled at the Council of Trent, while he alluded to
a multitude of things showing the Divine favour, there was not the
remotest allusion to the vast multitude of miracles which, according to
the legends, had been so profusely lavished on the faithful during many
years, and which, if they had actually occurred, formed an argument of
prodigious value in behalf of the special claims of the Church.
The same complete absence of knowledge of any such favours vouchsafed
to the Church, or at least of any belief in them, appears in that great
Council of Trent among the fathers themselves. Certainly there, if
anywhere, one might on the Roman theory expect Divine illumination in a
matter of this kind. The presence of the Holy Spirit in the midst of it
was especially claimed, and yet its members, with all their spiritual
as well as material advantages for knowing what had been going on in the
Church during the previous thirty years, and with Xavier's own friend
and colleague, Laynez, present to inform them, show not the slightest
sign of any suspicion of Xavier's miracles. We have the letters of
Julius Gabriel to the foremost of these fathers assembled at Trent, from
1557 onward for a considerable time, and we have also a multitude of
letters written from the Council by bishops, cardinals, and even by the
Pope himself, discussing all sorts of Church affairs, and in not one
of these is there evidence of the remotest suspicion that any of these
reports, which they must have heard, regarding Xavier's miracles, were
worthy of mention.
Here, too, comes additional supplementary testimony of much
significance. With these orations and letters, Eugubinus gives a Latin
translation of a letter, "on religious affairs in the Indies," written
by a Jesuit father twenty years after Xavier's death. Though the letter
came from a field very distant from that in which Xavier laboured, it
was sure, among the general tokens of Divine favour to the Church and
to the order, on which it dwelt, to have alluded to miracles wrought by
Xavier had there been the slightest ground for believing in them; but no
such allusion appears.(292)
(292) For the work referred to, see Julii Gabrielii Eugubini orationum
et epistolarum, etc., libri duo (et) Epitola de rebus Indicis a quodam
Societatis Jesu presbytero, etc., Venetiis, 1569. The Epistola begins at
fol. 44.
So, too, when in 1588, thirty-six years after Xavier's death, the Jesuit
father Maffei, who had been especially conversant with Xavier's career
in the East, published his History of India, though he gave a biography
of Xavier which shows fervent admiration for his subject, he dwelt very
lightly on the alleged miracles. But the evolution of miraculous legends
still went on. Six years later, in 1594, Father Tursellinus published
his Life of Xavier, and in this appears to have made the first large
use of the information collected by the Portuguese viceroy and the
more zealous brethren. This work shows a vast increase in the number
of miracles over those given by all sources together up to that time.
Xavier is represented as not only curing the sick, but casting out
devils, stilling the tempest, raising the dead, and performing miracles
of every sort.
In 1622 came the canonization proceedings at Rome. Among the speeches
made in the presence of Pope Gregory XV, supporting the claims of Xavier
to saintship, the most important was by Cardinal Monte. In this the
orator selects out ten great miracles from those performed by Xavier
during his lifetime and describes them minutely. He insists that on a
certain occasion Xavier, by the sign of the cross, made sea-water fresh,
so that his fellow-passengers and the crew could drink it; that he
healed the sick and raised the dead in various places; brought back a
lost boat to his ship; was on one occasion lifted from the earth
bodily and transfigured before the bystanders; and that, to punish a
blaspheming town, he caused an earthquake and buried the offenders in
cinders from a volcano: this was afterward still more highly developed,
and the saint was represented in engravings as calling down fire from
heaven and thus destroying the town.
The most curious miracle of all is the eighth on the cardinal's list.
Regarding this he states that, Xavier having during one of his voyages
lost overboard a crucifix, it was restored to him after he had reached
the shore by a crab.
The cardinal also dwelt on miracles performed by Xavier's relics after
his death, the most original being that sundry lamps placed before the
image of the saint and filled with holy water burned as if filled with
oil.
This latter account appears to have deeply impressed the Pope, for in
the Bull of Canonization issued by virtue of his power of teaching
the universal Church infallibly in all matters pertaining to faith and
morals, His Holiness dwells especially upon the miracle of the lamp
filled with holy water and burning before Xavier's image.
Xavier having been made a saint, many other Lives of him appeared, and,
as a rule, each surpassed its predecessor in the multitude of miracles.
In 1622 appeared that compiled and published under the sanction of
Father Vitelleschi, and in it not only are new miracles increased, but
some old ones are greatly improved. One example will suffice to show the
process. In his edition of 1596, Tursellinus had told how, Xavier one
day needing money, and having asked Vellio, one of his friends, to
let him have some, Vellio gave him the key of a safe containing thirty
thousand gold pieces. Xavier took three hundred and returned the key
to Vellio; whereupon Vellio, finding only three hundred pieces gone,
reproached Xavier for not taking more, saying that he had expected to
give him half of all that the strong box contained. Xavier, touched by
this generosity, told Vellio that the time of his death should be made
known to him, that he might have opportunity to repent of his sins and
prepare for eternity. But twenty-six years later the Life of Xavier
published under the sanction of Vitelleschi, giving the story, says that
Vellio on opening the safe found that ALL HIS MONEY remained as he had
left it, and that NONE AT ALL had disappeared; in fact, that there had
been a miraculous restitution. On his blaming Xavier for not taking the
money, Xavier declares to Vellio that not only shall he be apprised of
the moment of his death, but that the box shall always be full of money.
Still later biographers improved the account further, declaring that
Xavier promised Vellio that the strong box should always contain money
sufficient for all his needs. In that warm and uncritical atmosphere
this and other legends grew rapidly, obedient to much the same laws
which govern the evolution of fairy tales.(293)
(293) The writer in the Catholic World, already mentioned, rather
rashly asserts that there is no such Life of Xavier as that I have
above quoted. The reverend Jesuit father has evidently glanced over the
bibliographies of Carayon and De Backer, and, not finding it there
under the name of Vitelleschi, has spared himself further trouble. It
is sufficient to say that the book may be seen by him in the library of
Cornell University. Its full title is as follows: Compendio della Vita
del s. p. Francesco Xaviero dell Campagnia di Giesu, Canonizato con
s. Ignatio Fondatore dell' istessa Religione dalla Santita di N. S.
Gregorio XV. Composto, e dato in luce per ordine del Reverendiss. P
Mutio Vitelleschi Preposito Generale della Comp. di Giesu. In Venetia,
MDCXXII, Appresso Antonio Pinelli. Con Licenza de' Superiori. My critic
hazards a guess that the book may be a later edition of Torsellino
(Tursellinus), but here again he is wrong. It is entirely a different
book, giving in its preface a list of sources comprising eleven
authorities besides Torsellino.
In 1682, one hundred and thirty years after Xavier's death, appeared his
biography by Father Bouhours; and this became a classic. In it the old
miracles of all kinds were enormously multiplied, and many new ones
given. Miracles few and small in Tursellinus became many and great in
Bouhours. In Tursellinus, Xavier during his life saves one person from
drowning, in Bouhours he saves during his life three; in Tursellinus,
Xavier during his life raises four persons from the dead, in Bouhours
fourteen; in Tursellinus there is one miraculous supply of water, in
Bouhours three; in Tursellinus there is no miraculous draught of fishes,
in Bouhours there is one; in Tursellinus, Xavier is transfigured twice,
in Bouhours five times: and so through a long series of miracles which,
in the earlier lives appearing either not at all or in very moderate
form, are greatly increased and enlarged by Tursellinus, and finally
enormously amplified and multiplied by Father Bouhours.
And here it must be borne in mind that Bouhours, writing ninety years
after Tursellinus, could not have had access to any new sources. Xavier
had been dead one hundred and thirty years, and of course all the
natives upon whom he had wrought his miracles, and their children and
grandchildren, were gone. It can not then be claimed that Bouhours had
the advantage of any new witnesses, nor could he have had anything
new in the way of contemporary writings; for, as we have seen, the
missionaries of Xavier's time wrote nothing regarding his miracles, and
certainly the ignorant natives of India and Japan did not commit any
account of his miracles to writing. Nevertheless, the miracles of
healing given in Bouhours were more numerous and brilliant than ever.
But there was far more than this. Although during the lifetime of Xavier
there is neither in his own writings nor in any contemporary account any
assertion of a resurrection from the dead wrought by him, we find that
shortly after his death stories of such resurrections began to appear.
A simple statement of the growth of these may throw some light on the
evolution of miraculous accounts generally. At first it was affirmed
that some people at Cape Comorin said that he had raised one person;
then it was said that there were two persons; then in various
authors--Emanuel Acosta, in his commentaries written as an afterthought
nearly twenty years after Xavier's death, De Quadros, and others--the
story wavers between one and two cases; finally, in the time of
Tursellinus, four cases had been developed. In 1622, at the canonization
proceedings, three were mentioned; but by the time of Father Bouhours
there were fourteen--all raised from the dead by Xavier himself during
his lifetime--and the name, place, and circumstances are given with much
detail in each case.(294)
(294) The writer in the Catholic World, already referred to, has based
an attack here upon a misconception--I will not call it a deliberate
misrepresentation--of his own by stating that these resurrections
occurred after Xavier's death, and were due to his intercession or the
use of his relics. The statement of the Jesuit father is utterly without
foundation, as a simple reference to Bouhours will show. I take the
liberty of commending to his attention The Life of St. Francis Xavier,
by Father Dominic Bouhours, translated by James Dryden, Dublin, 1838.
For examples of raising the dead by the saint DURING HIS LIFETIME, see
pp. 69, 82, 93, 111, 218, 307, 316, 321--fourteen cases in all.
It seems to have been felt as somewhat strange at first that Xavier
had never alluded to any of these wonderful miracles; but ere long a
subsidiary legend was developed, to the effect that one of the brethren
asked him one day if he had raised the dead, whereat he blushed deeply
and cried out against the idea, saying: "And so I am said to have raised
the dead! What a misleading man I am! Some men brought a youth to me
just as if he were dead, who, when I commanded him to arise in the name
of Christ, straightway arose."
Noteworthy is the evolution of other miracles. Tursellinus, writing in
1594, tells us that on the voyage from Goa to Malacca, Xavier having
left the ship and gone upon an island, was afterward found by the
persons sent in search of him so deeply absorbed in prayer as to be
unmindful of all things about him. But in the next century Father
Bouhours develops the story as follows: "The servants found the man of
God raised from the ground into the air, his eyes fixed upon heaven, and
rays of light about his countenance."
Instructive, also, is a comparison between the successive accounts of
his noted miracle among the Badages at Travancore, in 1544 Xavier in
his letters makes no reference to anything extraordinary; and Emanuel
Acosta, in 1571, declares simply that "Xavier threw himself into the
midst of the Christians, that reverencing him they might spare the
rest." The inevitable evolution of the miraculous goes on; and twenty
years later Tursellinus tells us that, at the onslaught of the Badages,
"they could not endure the majesty of his countenance and the splendour
and rays which issued from his eyes, and out of reverence for him they
spared the others." The process of incubation still goes on during
ninety years more, and then comes Father Bouhours's account. Having
given Xavier's prayer on the battlefield, Bouhours goes on to say that
the saint, crucifix in hand, rushed at the head of the people toward the
plain where the enemy was marching, and "said to them in a threatening
voice, 'I forbid you in the name of the living God to advance farther,
and on His part command you to return in the way you came.' These few
words cast a terror into the minds of those soldiers who were at the
head of the army; they remained confounded and without motion. They who
marched afterward, seeing that the foremost did not advance, asked the
reason of it. The answer was returned from the front ranks that they had
before their eyes an unknown person habited in black, of more than human
stature, of terrible aspect, and darting fire from his eyes.... They were
seized with amazement at the sight, and all of them fled in precipitate
confusion."
Curious, too, is the after-growth of the miracle of the crab restoring
the crucifix. In its first form Xavier lost the crucifix in the sea,
and the earlier biographers dwell on the sorrow which he showed in
consequence; but the later historians declare that the saint threw the
crucifix into the sea in order to still a tempest, and that, after his
safe getting to land, a crab brought it to him on the shore. In this
form we find it among illustrations of books of devotion in the next
century.
But perhaps the best illustration of this evolution of Xavier's miracles
is to be found in the growth of another legend; and it is especially
instructive because it grew luxuriantly despite the fact that it was
utterly contradicted in all parts of Xavier's writings as well as in the
letters of his associates and in the work of the Jesuit father, Joseph
Acosta.
Throughout his letters, from first to last, Xavier constantly dwells
upon his difficulties with the various languages of the different tribes
among whom he went. He tells us how he surmounted these difficulties:
sometimes by learning just enough of a language to translate into it
some of the main Church formulas; sometimes by getting the help of
others to patch together some pious teachings to be learned by rote;
sometimes by employing interpreters; and sometimes by a mixture of
various dialects, and even by signs. On one occasion he tells us that a
very serious difficulty arose, and that his voyage to China was delayed
because, among other things, the interpreter he had engaged had failed
to meet him.
In various Lives which appeared between the time of his death and
his canonization this difficulty is much dwelt upon; but during the
canonization proceedings at Rome, in the speeches then made, and finally
in the papal bull, great stress was laid upon the fact that Xavier
possessed THE GIFT OF TONGUES. It was declared that he spoke to the
various tribes with ease in their own languages. This legend of Xavier's
miraculous gift of tongues was especially mentioned in the papal bull,
and was solemnly given forth by the pontiff as an infallible statement
to be believed by the universal Church. Gregory XV having been prevented
by death from issuing the Bull of Canonization, it was finally issued by
Urban VIII; and there is much food for reflection in the fact that the
same Pope who punished Galileo, and was determined that the Inquisition
should not allow the world to believe that the earth revolves about
the sun, thus solemnly ordered the world, under pain of damnation, to
believe in Xavier's miracles, including his "gift of tongues," and the
return of the crucifix by the pious crab. But the legend was developed
still further: Father Bouhours tells us, "The holy man spoke very well
the language of those barbarians without having learned it, and had no
need of an interpreter when he instructed." And, finally, in our
own time, the Rev. Father Coleridge, speaking of the saint among the
natives, says, "He could speak the language excellently, though he had
never learned it."
In the early biography, Tursellinus writes. "Nothing was a greater
impediment to him than his ignorance of the Japanese tongues; for, ever
and anon, when some uncouth expression offended their fastidious and
delicate ears, the awkward speech of Francis was a cause of laughter."
But Father Bouhours, a century later, writing of Xavier at the same
period, says, "He preached in the afternoon to the Japanese in their
language, but so naturally and with so much ease that he could not be
taken for a foreigner."
And finally, in 1872, Father Coleridge, of the Society of Jesus,
speaking of Xavier at this time, says, "He spoke freely, flowingly,
elegantly, as if he had lived in Japan all his life."
Nor was even this sufficient: to make the legend complete, it was
finally declared that, when Xavier addressed the natives of various
tribes, each heard the sermon in his own language in which he was born.
All this, as we have seen, directly contradicts not only the plain
statements of Xavier himself, and various incidental testimonies in the
letters of his associates, but the explicit declaration of Father Joseph
Acosta. The latter historian dwells especially on the labour which
Xavier was obliged to bestow on the study of the Japanese and other
languages, and says, "Even if he had been endowed with the apostolic
gift of tongues, he could not have spread more widely the glory of
Christ."(295)
(295) For the evolution of the miracles of Xavier, see his Letters, with
Life, published by Leon Pages, Paris, 1855; also Maffei, Historiarum
Indicarum libri xvi, Venice, 1589; also the lives by Tursellinus,
various editions, beginning with that of 1594; Vitelleschi, 1622;
Bouhours, 1683; Massei, second edition, 1682 (Rome), and others;
Bartoli, Baltimore, 1868; Coleridge, 1872. In addition to these, I have
compared, for a more extended discussion of this subject hereafter,
a very great number of editions of these and other biographies of
the saint, with speeches at the canonization, the bull of Gregory XV,
various books of devotion, and a multitude of special writings, some
of them in manuscript, upon the glories of the saint, including a large
mass of material at the Royal Library in Munich and in the British
Museum. I have relied entirely upon Catholic authors, and have
not thought it worth while to consult any Protestant author. The
illustration of the miracle of the crucifix and the crab in its final
form is given in La Devotion de Dix Vendredis a l'Honneur de St.
Francois Xavier, Bruxelles, 1699, Fig. 24: the pious crab is represented
as presenting the crucifix by which a journey of forty leagues he has
brought from the depths of the ocean to Xavier, who walks upon the
shore. The book is in the Cornell University Library. For the letter
of King John to Barreto, see Leon Pages's Lettres de Francois Xavier,
Paris, 1855, vol. ii, p. 465. For the miracle among the Badages, compare
Tursellinus, lib. ii, c. x, p. 16, with Bouhours, Dryden's translation,
pp. 146, 147. For the miracle of the gift of tongues, in its higher
development, see Bouhours, p. 235, and Coleridge, vo. i, pp. 151, 154,
and vol. ii, p. 551
It is hardly necessary to attribute to the orators and biographers
generally a conscious attempt to deceive. The simple fact is, that as
a rule they thought, spoke, and wrote in obedience to the natural
laws which govern the luxuriant growth of myth and legend in the warm
atmosphere of love and devotion which constantly arises about great
religious leaders in times when men have little or no knowledge of
natural law, when there is little care for scientific evidence, and when
he who believes most is thought most meritorious.(296)
(296) Instances can be given of the same evolution of miraculous legend
in our own time. To say nothing of the sacred fountain at La Salette,
which preserves its healing powers in spite of the fact that the miracle
that gave rise to them has twice been pronounced fraudulent by the
French courts, and to pass without notice a multitude of others, not
only in Catholic but in Protestant countries, the present writer may
allude to one which in the year 1893 came under his own observation.
On arriving in St. Petersburg to begin an official residence there,
his attention was arrested by various portraits of a priest of the
Russo-Greek Church; they were displayed in shop windows and held an
honoured place in many private dwellings. These portraits ranged from
lifelike photographs, which showed a plain, shrewd, kindly face, to
those which were idealized until they bore a strong resemblance to the
conventional representations of Jesus of Nazareth. On making inquiries,
the writer found that these portraits represented Father Ivan, of
Cronstadt, a priest noted for his good works, and very widely believed
to be endowed with the power of working miracles.
One day, in one of the most brilliant reception rooms of the northern
capital, the subject of Father Ivan's miracles having been introduced, a
gentleman in very high social position and entirely trustworthy spoke as
follows: "There is something very surprising about these miracles. I am
slow to believe in them, but I know the following to be a fact: The
late Metropolitan Archbishop of St. Petersburg loved quiet, and was
very adverse to anything which could possibly cause scandal. Hearing
of Father Ivan's miracles, he summoned him to his presence and solemnly
commanded him to abstain from all of the things which had given rise to
his reported miracles, and with this injunction, dismissed him. Hardly
had the priest left the room when the archbishop was struck with
blindness and remained in this condition until the priest returned and
removed his blindness by intercessory prayers." When the present writer
asked the person giving this account if he directly knew these facts,
he replied that he was, of course, not present when the miracle was
wrought, but that he had the facts immediately from persons who knew all
the parties concerned and were cognizant directly of the circumstances
of the case.
Some time afterward, the present writer being at an afternoon reception
at one of the greater embassies, the same subject was touched upon, when
an eminent general spoke as follows: "I am not inclined to believe in
miracles, in fact am rather sceptical, but the proofs of those wrought
by Father Ivan are overwhelming." He then went on to say that the late
Metropolitan Archbishop was a man who loved quiet and disliked scandal;
and that on this account he had summoned Father Ivan to his palace and
ordered him to put an end to the conduct which had caused the reports
concerning his miraculous powers, and then, with a wave of the arm,
had dismissed him. The priest left the room, and from that moment the
archbishop's arm was paralyzed, and it remained so until the penitent
prelate summoned the priest again, by whose prayers the arm was restored
to its former usefulness. There was present at the time another person
besides the writer who had heard the previous statement as to the
blindness of the archbishop, and on their both questioning the general
if he were sure that the archbishop's arm was paralyzed, as stated, he
declared that he could not doubt it, as he had it directly from persons
entirely trustworthy, who were cognizant of all the facts.
Some time later, the present writer, having an interview with the most
eminent lay authority in the Greek Church, a functionary whose duties
had brought him into almost daily contact with the late archbishop,
asked him which of these stories was correct. This gentleman answered
immediately: "Neither; I saw the archbishop constantly, and no such
event occurred; he was never paralyzed and never blind."
The same gentleman went on to say that, in his belief, Father Ivan had
shown remarkable powers in healing the sick, and the greatest charity in
relieving the distressed. It was made clearly evident that Father Ivan
is a saintlike man, devoted to the needy and distressed and exercising
an enormous influence over them--an influence so great that crowds
await him whenever he visits the capital. In the atmosphere of Russian
devotion myths and legends grow luxuriantly about him, nor is belief in
him confined to the peasant class. In the autumn of 1894 he was summoned
to the bedside of the Emperor Alexander III. Unfortunately for the peace
of Europe, his intercession at that time proved unavailing.
These examples will serve to illustrate the process which in thousands
of cases has gone on from the earliest days of the Church until a very
recent period. Everywhere miraculous cures became the rule rather than
the exception throughout Christendom.
III. THE MEDIAEVAL MIRACLES OF HEALING CHECK MEDICAL SCIENCE.
So it was that, throughout antiquity, during the early history of the
Church, throughout the Middle Ages, and indeed down to a comparatively
recent period, testimony to miraculous interpositions which would now
be laughed at by a schoolboy was accepted by the leaders of thought. St.
Augustine was certainly one of the strongest minds in the early Church,
and yet we find him mentioning, with much seriousness, a story that
sundry innkeepers of his time put a drug into cheese which metamorphosed
travellers into domestic animals, and asserting that the peacock is so
favoured by the Almighty that its flesh will not decay, and that he has
tested it and knows this to be a fact. With such a disposition regarding
the wildest stories, it is not surprising that the assertion of St.
Gregory of Nazianzen, during the second century, as to the cures wrought
by the martyrs Cosmo and Damian, was echoed from all parts of Europe
until every hamlet had its miracle-working saint or relic.
The literature of these miracles is simply endless. To take our own
ancestors alone, no one can read the Ecclesiastical History of Bede, or
Abbot Samson's Miracles of St. Edmund, or the accounts given by Eadmer
and Osbern of the miracles of St. Dunstan, or the long lists of those
wrought by Thomas a Becket, or by any other in the army of English
saints, without seeing the perfect naturalness of this growth. This
evolution of miracle in all parts of Europe came out of a vast preceding
series of beliefs, extending not merely through the early Church but far
back into paganism. Just as formerly patients were cured in the temples
of Aesculapius, so they were cured in the Middle Ages, and so they are
cured now at the shrines of saints. Just as the ancient miracles were
solemnly attested by votive tablets, giving names, dates, and details,
and these tablets hung before the images of the gods, so the medieval
miracles were attested by similar tablets hung before the images of the
saints; and so they are attested to-day by similar tablets hung before
the images of Our Lady of La Salette or of Lourdes. Just as faith in
such miracles persisted, in spite of the small percentage of cures at
those ancient places of healing, so faith persists to-day, despite the
fact that in at least ninety per cent of the cases at Lourdes prayers
prove unavailing. As a rule, the miracles of the sacred books were
taken as models, and each of those given by the sacred chroniclers was
repeated during the early ages of the Church and through the medieval
period with endless variations of circumstance, but still with curious
fidelity to the original type.
It should be especially kept in mind that, while the vast majority
of these were doubtless due to the myth-making faculty and to that
development of legends which always goes on in ages ignorant of the
relation between physical causes and effects, some of the miracles of
healing had undoubtedly some basis in fact. We in modern times have
seen too many cures performed through influences exercised upon the
imagination, such as those of the Jansenists at the Cemetery of St.
Medard, of the Ultramontanes at La Salette and Lourdes, of the Russian
Father Ivan at St. Petersburg, and of various Protestant sects at Old
Orchard and elsewhere, as well as at sundry camp meetings, to doubt that
some cures, more or less permanent, were wrought by sainted personages
in the early Church and throughout the Middle Ages.(297)
(297) For the story of travellers converted into domestic animals, see
St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, liber xviii, chaps. xvii, xviii, in Migne,
tom. xli, p.574. For Gregory of Nazianen and the similarity of these
Christian cures in general character to those wrought in the temples
of Aesculapius, see Sprengel, vol. ii, pp. 145, 146. For the miracles
wrought at the shrine of St. Edmund, see Samsonis Abbatis Opus de
Miraculis Sancti Aedmundi, in the Master of the Rolls' series, passim,
but especially chaps. xiv and xix for miracles of healing wrought on
those who drank out of the saint's cup. For the mighty works of St.
Dunstan, see the Mirac. Sancti Dunstani, auctore Eadmero and auctore
Osberno, in the Master of the Rolls' series. As to Becket, see the
Materials for the History of Thomas Becket, in the same series, and
especially the lists of miracles--the mere index of them in the first
volume requires thirteen octavo pages. For St. Martin of Tours, see the
Guizot collection of French Chronicles. For miracle and shrine cures
chronicled by Bede, see his Ecclesiastical History, passim, but
especially from page 110 to page 267. For similarity between the ancient
custom of allowing invalids to sleep in the temples of Serapis and the
mediaeval custom of having them sleep in the church of St. Anthony of
Padua and other churches, see Meyer, Aberglaube des Mittelalters, Basel,
1884, chap. iv. For the effect of "the vivid belief in supernatural
action which attaches itself to the tombs of the saints," etc., as "a
psychic agent of great value," see Littre, Medecine et Medecins, p. 131.
For the Jansenist miracles at Paris, see La Verite des Miracles operes
par l'Intercession de M. de Paris, par Montgeron, Utrecht, 1737, and
especially the cases of Mary Anne Couronneau, Philippe Sargent,
and Gautier de Pezenas. For some very thoughtful remarks as to the
worthlessness of the testimony to miracles presented during the
canonization proceedings at Rome, see Maury, Legendes Pieuses, pp. 4-7.
There are undoubtedly serious lesions which yield to profound emotion
and vigorous exertion born of persuasion, confidence, or excitement. The
wonderful power of the mind over the body is known to every observant
student. Mr. Herbert Spencer dwells upon the fact that intense feeling
or passion may bring out great muscular force. Dr. Berdoe reminds us
that "a gouty man who has long hobbled about on his crutch, finds his
legs and power to run with them if pursued by a wild bull"; and that
"the feeblest invalid, under the influence of delirium or other
strong excitement, will astonish her nurse by the sudden accession of
strength."(298)
(298) For the citation in the text, as well as for a brief but
remarkably valuable discussion of the power of the mind over the body
in disease, see Dr. Berdoe's Medical View of the Miracles at Lourdes, in
The Nineteenth Century for October, 1895.
But miraculous cures were not ascribed to persons merely. Another
growth, developed by the early Church mainly from germs in our sacred
books, took shape in miracles wrought by streams, by pools of water, and
especially by relics. Here, too, the old types persisted, and just as
we find holy and healing wells, pools, and streams in all other ancient
religions, so we find in the evolution of our own such examples as
Naaman the Syrian cured of leprosy by bathing in the river Jordan, the
blind man restored to sight by washing in the pool of Siloam, and the
healing of those who touched the bones of Elisha, the shadow of St.
Peter, or the handkerchief of St. Paul.
St. Cyril, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and other great fathers of the
early Church, sanctioned the belief that similar efficacy was to be
found in the relics of the saints of their time; hence, St. Ambrose
declared that "the precepts of medicine are contrary to celestial
science, watching, and prayer," and we find this statement reiterated
from time to time throughout the Middle Ages. From this idea was evolved
that fetichism which we shall see for ages standing in the way of
medical science.
Theology, developed in accordance with this idea, threw about all cures,
even those which resulted from scientific effort, an atmosphere of
supernaturalism. The vividness with which the accounts of miracles in
the sacred books were realized in the early Church continued the idea of
miraculous intervention throughout the Middle Ages. The testimony of
the great fathers of the Church to the continuance of miracles is
overwhelming; but everything shows that they so fully expected miracles
on the slightest occasion as to require nothing which in these days
would be regarded as adequate evidence.
In this atmosphere of theologic thought medical science was at once
checked. The School of Alexandria, under the influence first of Jews and
later of Christians, both permeated with Oriental ideas, and taking into
their theory of medicine demons and miracles, soon enveloped everything
in mysticism. In the Byzantine Empire of the East the same cause
produced the same effect; the evolution of ascertained truth in
medicine, begun by Hippocrates and continued by Herophilus, seemed lost
forever. Medical science, trying to advance, was like a ship becalmed
in the Sargasso Sea: both the atmosphere about it and the medium through
which it must move resisted all progress. Instead of reliance upon
observation, experience, experiment, and thought, attention was turned
toward supernatural agencies.(299)
(299) For the mysticism which gradually enveloped the School of
Alexandria, see Barthelemy Saint-Hilaire, De l'Ecole d'Alexandrie,
Paris, 1845, vol. vi, p. 161. For the effect of the new doctrines on the
Empire of the East, see Sprengel, vol. ii, p. 240. As to the more common
miracles of healing and the acknowledgment of non-Christian miracles of
healing by Christian fathers, see Fort, p. 84.
IV. THE ATTRIBUTION OF DISEASE TO SATANIC INFLUENCE.
--"PASTORAL MEDICINE" CHECKS SCIENTIFIC EFFORT.
Especially prejudicial to a true development of medical science among
the first Christians was their attribution of disease to diabolic
influence. As we have seen, this idea had come from far, and, having
prevailed in Chaldea, Egypt, and Persia, had naturally entered into the
sacred books of the Hebrews. Moreover, St. Paul had distinctly declared
that the gods of the heathen were devils; and everywhere the early
Christians saw in disease the malignant work of these dethroned powers
of evil. The Gnostic and Manichaean struggles had ripened the theologic
idea that, although at times diseases are punishments by the Almighty,
the main agency in them is Satanic. The great fathers and renowned
leaders of the early Church accepted and strengthened this idea. Origen
said: "It is demons which produce famine, unfruitfulness, corruptions
of the air, pestilences; they hover concealed in clouds in the lower
atmosphere, and are attracted by the blood and incense which the heathen
offer to them as gods." St. Augustine said: "All diseases of
Christians are to be ascribed to these demons; chiefly do they torment
fresh-baptized Christians, yea, even the guiltless, newborn infants."
Tertullian insisted that a malevolent angel is in constant attendance
upon every person. Gregory of Nazianzus declared that bodily pains are
provoked by demons, and that medicines are useless, but that they are
often cured by the laying on of consecrated hands. St. Nilus and
St. Gregory of Tours, echoing St. Ambrose, gave examples to show
the sinfulness of resorting to medicine instead of trusting to the
intercession of saints. St. Bernard, in a letter to certain monks,
warned them that to seek relief from disease in medicine was in harmony
neither with their religion nor with the honour and purity of their
order. This view even found its way into the canon law, which declared
the precepts of medicine contrary to Divine knowledge. As a rule, the
leaders of the Church discouraged the theory that diseases are due to
natural causes, and most of them deprecated a resort to surgeons and
physicians rather than to supernatural means.(300)
(300) For Chaldean, Egyptian, and Persian ideas as to the diabolic
origin of disease, see authorities already cited, especially Maspero
and Sayce. For Origen, see the Contra Celsum, lib. viii, chap. xxxi. For
Augustine, see De Divinatione Daemonum, chap. iii (p.585 of Migne, vol.
xl). For Turtullian and Gregory of Nazianzus, see citations in Sprengel
and in Fort, p. 6. For St. Nilus, see his life, in the Bollandise Acta
Sanctorum. For Gregory of Tours, see his Historia Francorum, lib. v,
cap. 6, and his De Mirac. S. Martini, lib. ii, cap. 60. I owe these
citations to Mr. Lea (History of the Inquisition of the Middle Ages,
vol. iii, p. 410, note). For the letter of St. Bernard to the monks of
St. Anastasius, see his Epistola in Migne, tom. 182, pp. 550, 551. For
the canon law, see under De Consecratione, dist. v, c. xxi, "Contraria
sunt divinae cognitioni praecepta medicinae: a jejunio revocant,
lucubrare non sinunt, ab omni intentione meditiationis abducunt." For
the turning of the Greek mythology into a demonology as largely due
to St. Paul, see I Corinthians x, 20: "The things which the Gentiles
sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God."
Out of these and similar considerations was developed the vast system of
"pastoral medicine," so powerful not only through the Middle Ages, but
even in modern times, both among Catholics and Protestants. As to its
results, we must bear in mind that, while there is no need to attribute
the mass of stories regarding miraculous cures to conscious fraud,
there was without doubt, at a later period, no small admixture of belief
biased by self-interest, with much pious invention and suppression of
facts. Enormous revenues flowed into various monasteries and churches
in all parts of Europe from relics noted for their healing powers. Every
cathedral, every great abbey, and nearly every parish church claimed
possession of healing relics. While, undoubtedly, a childlike faith
was at the bottom of this belief, there came out of it unquestionably
a great development of the mercantile spirit. The commercial value
of sundry relics was often very high. In the year 1056 a French
ruler pledged securities to the amount of ten thousand solidi for the
production of the relics of St. Just and St. Pastor, pending a legal
decision regarding the ownership between him and the Archbishop
of Narbonne. The Emperor of Germany on one occasion demanded, as a
sufficient pledge for the establishment of a city market, the arm of St.
George. The body of St. Sebastian brought enormous wealth to the Abbey
of Soissons; Rome, Canterbury, Treves, Marburg, every great city, drew
large revenues from similar sources, and the Venetian Republic ventured
very considerable sums in the purchase of relics.
Naturally, then, corporations, whether lay or ecclesiastical, which drew
large revenue from relics looked with little favour on a science which
tended to discredit their investments.
Nowhere, perhaps, in Europe can the philosophy of this development of
fetichism be better studied to-day than at Cologne. At the cathedral,
preserved in a magnificent shrine since about the twelfth century, are
the skulls of the Three Kings, or Wise Men of the East, who, guided by
the star of Bethlehem, brought gifts to the Saviour. These relics
were an enormous source of wealth to the cathedral chapter during many
centuries. But other ecclesiastical bodies in that city were both
pious and shrewd, and so we find that not far off, at the church of St.
Gereon, a cemetery has been dug up, and the bones distributed over the
walls as the relics of St. Gereon and his Theban band of martyrs! Again,
at the neighbouring church of St. Ursula, we have the later spoils of
another cemetery, covering the interior walls of the church as the bones
of St. Ursula and her eleven thousand virgin martyrs: the fact that many
of them, as anatomists now declare, are the bones of MEN does not appear
in the Middle Ages to have diminished their power of competing with the
relics at the other shrines in healing efficiency.
No error in the choice of these healing means seems to have diminished
their efficacy. When Prof. Buckland, the eminent osteologist and
geologist, discovered that the relics of St. Rosalia at Palermo, which
had for ages cured diseases and warded off epidemics, were the bones
of a goat, this fact caused not the slightest diminution in their
miraculous power.
Other developments of fetich cure were no less discouraging to the
evolution of medical science. Very important among these was the Agnus
Dei, or piece of wax from the Paschal candles, stamped with the figure
of a lamb and consecrated by the Pope. In 1471 Pope Paul II expatiated
to the Church on the efficacy of this fetich in preserving men from
fire, shipwreck, tempest, lightning, and hail, as well as in assisting
women in childbirth; and he reserved to himself and his successors
the manufacture of it. Even as late as 1517 Pope Leo X issued, for a
consideration, tickets bearing a cross and the following inscription:
"This cross measured forty times makes the height of Christ in
his humanity. He who kisses it is preserved for seven days from
falling-sickness, apoplexy, and sudden death."
Naturally, the belief thus sanctioned by successive heads of the Church,
infallible in all teaching regarding faith and morals, created a demand
for amulets and charms of all kinds; and under this influence we find
a reversion to old pagan fetiches. Nothing, on the whole, stood more
constantly in the way of any proper development of medical science than
these fetich cures, whose efficacy was based on theological reasoning
and sanctioned by ecclesiastical policy. It would be expecting too much
from human nature to imagine that pontiffs who derived large revenues
from the sale of the Agnus Dei, or priests who derived both wealth
and honours from cures wrought at shrines under their care, or lay
dignitaries who had invested heavily in relics, should favour the
development of any science which undermined their interests.(301)
(301) See Fort's Medical Economy during the Middle Ages, pp. 211-213;
also the Handbooks of Murray and Baedeker for North Germany, and various
histories of medicine passim; also Collin de Plancy and scores of
others. For the discovery that the relics of St. Rosaria at Palermo are
simply the bones of a goat, see Gordon, Life of Buckland, pp. 94-96.
For an account of the Agnes Dei, see Rydberg, pp. 62, 63; and for
"Conception Billets," pp. 64 and 65. For Leo X's tickets, see Hausser
(professor at Heidelberg), Period of Reformation, English translation,
p. 17.
V. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO ANATOMICAL STUDIES.
Yet a more serious stumbling-block, hindering the beginnings of modern
medicine and surgery, was a theory regarding the unlawfulness of
meddling with the bodies of the dead. This theory, like so many others
which the Church cherished as peculiarly its own, had really been
inherited from the old pagan civilizations. So strong was it in Egypt
that the embalmer was regarded as accursed; traces of it appear in
Greco-Roman life, and hence it came into the early Church, where it was
greatly strengthened by the addition of perhaps the most noble of mystic
ideas--the recognition of the human body as the temple of the Holy
Spirit. Hence Tertullian denounced the anatomist Herophilus as a
butcher, and St. Augustine spoke of anatomists generally in similar
terms.
But this nobler conception was alloyed with a medieval superstition even
more effective, when the formula known as the Apostles' Creed had, in
its teachings regarding the resurrection of the body, supplanted the
doctrine laid down by St. Paul. Thence came a dread of mutilating
the body in such a way that some injury might result to its final
resurrection at the Last Day, and additional reasons for hindering
dissections in the study of anatomy.
To these arguments against dissection was now added another--one which
may well fill us with amazement. It is the remark of the foremost of
recent English philosophical historians, that of all organizations in
human history the Church of Rome has caused the greatest spilling of
innocent blood. No one conversant with history, even though he admit all
possible extenuating circumstances, and honour the older Church for the
great services which can undoubtedly be claimed for her, can deny this
statement. Strange is it, then, to note that one of the main objections
developed in the Middle Ages against anatomical studies was the maxim
that "the Church abhors the shedding of blood."
On this ground, in 1248, the Council of Le Mans forbade surgery
to monks. Many other councils did the same, and at the end of the
thirteenth century came the most serious blow of all; for then it was
that Pope Boniface VIII, without any of that foresight of consequences
which might well have been expected in an infallible teacher, issued
a decretal forbidding a practice which had come into use during the
Crusades, namely, the separation of the flesh from the bones of the dead
whose remains it was desired to carry back to their own country.
The idea lying at the bottom of this interdiction was in all probability
that which had inspired Tertullian to make his bitter utterance against
Herophilus; but, be that as it may, it soon came to be considered as
extending to all dissection, and thereby surgery and medicine were
crippled for more than two centuries; it was the worst blow they ever
received, for it impressed upon the mind of the Church the belief
that all dissection is sacrilege, and led to ecclesiastical mandates
withdrawing from the healing art the most thoughtful and cultivated men
of the Middle Ages and giving up surgery to the lowest class of nomadic
charlatans.
So deeply was this idea rooted in the mind of the universal Church that
for over a thousand years surgery was considered dishonourable: the
greatest monarchs were often unable to secure an ordinary surgical
operation; and it was only in 1406 that a better beginning was made,
when the Emperor Wenzel of Germany ordered that dishonour should no
longer attach to the surgical profession.(302)
(302) As to religious scruples against dissection, and abhorrence of
the Paraschites, or embalmer, see Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of
Civilization, p. 216. For denunciation of surgery by the Church
authorities, see Sprengel, vol. ii, pp. 432-435; also Fort, pp. 452 et
seq.; and for the reasoning which led the Church to forbid surgery to
priests, see especially Fredault, Histoire de la Medecine, p. 200. As
to the decretal of Boniface VIII, the usual statement is that he forbade
all dissections. While it was undoubtedly construed universally to
prohibit dissections for anatomical purposes, its declared intent was as
stated in the text; that it was constantly construed against anatomical
investigations can not for a moment be denied. This construction is
taken for granted in the great Histoire Litteraire de la France, founded
by the Benedictines, certainly a very high authority as to the main
current of opinion in the Church. For the decretal of Boniface VIII, see
the Corpus Juris Canonici. I have also used the edition of Paris, 1618,
where it may be found on pp. 866, 867. See also, in spite of the special
pleading of Giraldi, the Benedictine Hist. Lit. de la France, tome xvi,
p. 98.
VI. NEW BEGINNINGS OF MEDICAL SCIENCE.
In spite of all these opposing forces, the evolution of medical science
continued, though but slowly. In the second century of the Christian
era Galen had made himself a great authority at Rome, and from Rome had
swayed the medical science of the world: his genius triumphed over
the defects of his method; but, though he gave a powerful impulse to
medicine, his dogmatism stood in its way long afterward.
The places where medicine, such as it thus became, could be applied,
were at first mainly the infirmaries of various monasteries, especially
the larger ones of the Benedictine order: these were frequently
developed into hospitals. Many monks devoted themselves to such medical
studies as were permitted, and sundry churchmen and laymen did much to
secure and preserve copies of ancient medical treatises. So, too, in the
cathedral schools established by Charlemagne and others, provision was
generally made for medical teaching; but all this instruction, whether
in convents or schools, was wretchedly poor. It consisted not
in developing by individual thought and experiment the gifts of
Hippocrates, Aristotle, and Galen, but almost entirely in the
parrot-like repetition of their writings.
But, while the inherited ideas of Church leaders were thus unfavourable
to any proper development of medical science, there were two bodies of
men outside the Church who, though largely fettered by superstition,
were far less so than the monks and students of ecclesiastical schools:
these were the Jews and Mohammedans. The first of these especially had
inherited many useful sanitary and hygienic ideas, which had probably
been first evolved by the Egyptians, and from them transmitted to the
modern world mainly through the sacred books attributed to Moses.
The Jewish scholars became especially devoted to medical science. To
them is largely due the building up of the School of Salerno, which we
find flourishing in the tenth century. Judged by our present standards
its work was poor indeed, but compared with other medical instruction
of the time it was vastly superior: it developed hygienic principles
especially, and brought medicine upon a higher plane.
Still more important is the rise of the School of Montpellier; this
was due almost entirely to Jewish physicians, and it developed medical
studies to a yet higher point, doing much to create a medical profession
worthy of the name throughout southern Europe.
As to the Arabians, we find them from the tenth to the fourteenth
century, especially in Spain, giving much thought to medicine, and to
chemistry as subsidiary to it. About the beginning of the ninth century,
when the greater Christian writers were supporting fetich by theology,
Almamon, the Moslem, declared, "They are the elect of God, his best
and most useful servants, whose lives are devoted to the improvement of
their rational faculties." The influence of Avicenna, the translator
of the works of Aristotle, extended throughout all Europe during the
eleventh century. The Arabians were indeed much fettered by tradition
in medical science, but their translations of Hippocrates and Galen
preserved to the world the best thus far developed in medicine, and
still better were their contributions to pharmacy: these remain of value
to the present hour.(303)
(303) For the great services rendered to the development of medicine by
the Jews, see Monteil, Medecine en France, p. 58; also the historians of
medicine generally. For the quotation from Almamon, see Gibbon, vol.
x, p. 42. For the services of both Jews and Arabians, see Bedarride,
Histoire des Juifs, p. 115; also Sismondi, Histoire des Francais, tome
i, p. 191. For the Arabians, especially, see Rosseeuw Saint-Hilaire,
Histoire d'Espagne, Paris, 1844, vol. iii, pp. 191 et seq. For
the tendency of the Mosaic books to insist on hygienic rather than
therapeutical treatment, and its consequences among Jewish physicians,
see Sprengel, but especially Fredault, p.14.
Various Christian laymen also rose above the prevailing theologic
atmosphere far enough to see the importance of promoting scientific
development. First among these we may name the Emperor Charlemagne; he
and his great minister, Alcuin, not only promoted medical studies in the
schools they founded, but also made provision for the establishment of
botanic gardens in which those herbs were especially cultivated which
were supposed to have healing virtues. So, too, in the thirteenth
century, the Emperor Frederick II, though under the ban of the Pope,
brought together in his various journeys, and especially in his
crusading expeditions, many Greek and Arabic manuscripts, and took
special pains to have those which concerned medicine preserved and
studied; he also promoted better ideas of medicine and embodied them in
laws.
Men of science also rose, in the stricter sense of the word, even in
the centuries under the most complete sway of theological thought and
ecclesiastical power; a science, indeed, alloyed with theology, but
still infolding precious germs. Of these were men like Arnold of
Villanova, Bertrand de Gordon, Albert of Bollstadt, Basil Valentine,
Raymond Lully, and, above all, Roger Bacon; all of whom cultivated
sciences subsidiary to medicine, and in spite of charges of sorcery,
with possibilities of imprisonment and death, kept the torch of
knowledge burning, and passed it on to future generations.(304)
(304) For the progress of sciences subsidiary to medicine even in the
darkest ages, see Fort, pp. 374, 375; also Isensee, Geschichte der
Medicin, pp. 225 et seq.; also Monteil, p. 89; Heller, Geschichte der
Physik, vol. i, bk. 3; also Kopp, Geschichte der Chemie. For Frederick
II and his Medicinal-Gesetz, see Baas, p. 221, but especially Von
Raumer, Geschichte der Hohenstaufen, Leipsic, 1872, vol. iii, p. 259.
From the Church itself, even when the theological atmosphere was
most dense, rose here and there men who persisted in something like
scientific effort. As early as the ninth century, Bertharius, a monk of
Monte Cassino, prepared two manuscript volumes of prescriptions selected
from ancient writers; other monks studied them somewhat, and, during
succeeding ages, scholars like Hugo, Abbot of St. Denis,--Notker, monk
of St. Gall,--Hildegard, Abbess of Rupertsberg,--Milo, Archbishop of
Beneventum,--and John of St. Amand, Canon of Tournay, did something for
medicine as they understood it. Unfortunately, they generally understood
its theory as a mixture of deductions from Scripture with dogmas from
Galen, and its practice as a mixture of incantations with fetiches.
Even Pope Honorius III did something for the establishment of medical
schools; but he did so much more to place ecclesiastical and theological
fetters upon teachers and taught, that the value of his gifts may well
be doubted. All germs of a higher evolution of medicine were for ages
well kept under by the theological spirit. As far back as the sixth
century so great a man as Pope Gregory I showed himself hostile to the
development of this science. In the beginning of the twelfth century the
Council of Rheims interdicted the study of law and physic to monks, and
a multitude of other councils enforced this decree. About the middle of
the same century St. Bernard still complained that monks had too much to
do with medicine; and a few years later we have decretals like those of
Pope Alexander III forbidding monks to study or practise it. For
many generations there appear evidences of a desire among the more
broad-minded churchmen to allow the cultivation of medical science among
ecclesiastics: Popes like Clement III and Sylvester II seem to have
favoured this, and we even hear of an Archbishop of Canterbury skilled
in medicine; but in the beginning of the thirteenth century the Fourth
Council of the Lateran forbade surgical operations to be practised by
priests, deacons, and subdeacons; and some years later Honorius III
reiterated this decree and extended it. In 1243 the Dominican order
forbade medical treatises to be brought into their monasteries, and
finally all participation of ecclesiastics in the science and art of
medicine was effectually prevented.(305)
(305) For statements as to these decrees of the highest Church and
monastic authorities against medicine and surgery, see Sprengel, Baas,
Geschichte der Medicin, p. 204, and elsewhere; also Buckle, Posthumous
Works, vol. ii, p. 567. For a long list of Church dignitaries who
practised a semi-theological medicine in the Middle Ages, see Baas,
pp. 204, 205. For Bertharius, Hildegard, and others mentioned, see also
Sprengel and other historians of medicine. For clandestine study and
practice of medicine by sundry ecclesiastics in spite of the prohibition
by the Church, see Von Raumer, Hohenstaufen, vol. vi, p. 438. For some
remarks on this subject by an eminent and learned ecclesiastic,
see Ricker, O. S. B., professor in the University of Vienna,
Pastoral-Psychiatrie, 1894, pp. 12,13.
VII. THEOLOGICAL DISCOURAGEMENT OF MEDICINE.
While various churchmen, building better than they knew, thus did
something to lay foundations for medical study, the Church authorities,
as a rule, did even more to thwart it among the very men who, had they
been allowed liberty, would have cultivated it to the highest advantage.
Then, too, we find cropping out every where the feeling that, since
supernatural means are so abundant, there is something irreligious
in seeking cure by natural means: ever and anon we have appeals to
Scripture, and especially to the case of King Asa, who trusted to
physicians rather than to the priests of Jahveh, and so died. Hence it
was that St. Bernard declared that monks who took medicine were guilty
of conduct unbecoming to religion. Even the School of Salerno was held
in aversion by multitudes of strict churchmen, since it prescribed rules
for diet, thereby indicating a belief that diseases arise from natural
causes and not from the malice of the devil: moreover, in the medical
schools Hippocrates was studied, and he had especially declared that
demoniacal possession is "nowise more divine, nowise more infernal, than
any other disease." Hence it was, doubtless, that the Lateran Council,
about the beginning of the thirteenth century, forbade physicians,
under pain of exclusion from the Church, to undertake medical treatment
without calling in ecclesiastical advice.
This view was long cherished in the Church, and nearly two hundred and
fifty years later Pope Pius V revived it by renewing the command of Pope
Innocent and enforcing it with penalties. Not only did Pope Pius order
that all physicians before administering treatment should call in "a
physician of the soul," on the ground, as he declares, that "bodily
infirmity frequently arises from sin," but he ordered that, if at the
end of three days the patient had not made confession to a priest, the
medical man should cease his treatment, under pain of being deprived of
his right to practise, and of expulsion from the faculty if he were a
professor, and that every physician and professor of medicine should
make oath that he was strictly fulfilling these conditions.
Out of this feeling had grown up another practice, which made the
development of medicine still more difficult--the classing of scientific
men generally with sorcerers and magic-mongers: from this largely rose
the charge of atheism against physicians, which ripened into a proverb,
"Where there are three physicians there are two atheists."(306)
(306) "Ubi sunt tres medici ibi sunt duo athei." For the bull of Pius V,
see the Bullarium Romanum, ed. Gaude, Naples, 1882, tom. vii, pp. 430,
431.
Magic was so common a charge that many physicians seemed to believe
it themselves. In the tenth century Gerbert, afterward known as
Pope Sylvester II, was at once suspected of sorcery when he showed a
disposition to adopt scientific methods; in the eleventh century this
charge nearly cost the life of Constantine Africanus when he broke from
the beaten path of medicine; in the thirteenth, it gave Roger Bacon, one
of the greatest benefactors of mankind, many years of imprisonment, and
nearly brought him to the stake: these cases are typical of very many.
Still another charge against physicians who showed a talent for
investigation was that of Mohammedanism and Averroism; and Petrarch
stigmatized Averroists as "men who deny Genesis and bark at
Christ."(307)
(307) For Averroes, see Renan, Averroes et l'Averroisme, Paris, 1861,
pp. 327-335. For a perfectly just statement of the only circumstances
which can justify a charge of atheism, see Rev. Dr. Deems, in Popular
Science Monthly, February, 1876.
The effect of this widespread ecclesiastical opposition was, that for
many centuries the study of medicine was relegated mainly to the lowest
order of practitioners. There was, indeed, one orthodox line of medical
evolution during the later Middle Ages: St. Thomas Aquinas insisted that
the forces of the body are independent of its physical organization,
and that therefore these forces are to be studied by the scholastic
philosophy and the theological method, instead of by researches into the
structure of the body; as a result of this, mingled with survivals of
various pagan superstitions, we have in anatomy and physiology such
doctrines as the increase and decrease of the brain with the phases
of the moon, the ebb and flow of human vitality with the tides of the
ocean, the use of the lungs to fan the heart, the function of the liver
as the seat of love, and that of the spleen as the centre of wit.
Closely connected with these methods of thought was the doctrine of
signatures. It was reasoned that the Almighty must have set his sign
upon the various means of curing disease which he has provided: hence
it was held that bloodroot, on account of its red juice, is good for the
blood; liverwort, having a leaf like the liver, cures diseases of the
liver; eyebright, being marked with a spot like an eye, cures diseases
of the eyes; celandine, having a yellow juice, cures jaundice; bugloss,
resembling a snake's head, cures snakebite; red flannel, looking like
blood, cures blood-taints, and therefore rheumatism; bear's grease,
being taken from an animal thickly covered with hair, is recommended to
persons fearing baldness.(308)
(308) For a summary of the superstitions which arose under the
theological doctrine of signatures, see Dr. Eccles's admirable little
tract on the Evolution of Medical Science, p. 140; see also Scoffern,
Science and Folk Lore, p. 76.
Still another method evolved by this theological pseudoscience was that
of disgusting the demon with the body which he tormented--hence the
patient was made to swallow or apply to himself various unspeakable
ordures, with such medicines as the livers of toads, the blood of frogs
and rats, fibres of the hangman's rope, and ointment made from the
body of gibbeted criminals. Many of these were survivals of heathen
superstitions, but theologic reasoning wrought into them an orthodox
significance. As an example of this mixture of heathen with Christian
magic, we may cite the following from a medieval medical book as a
salve against "nocturnal goblin visitors": "Take hop plant, wormwood,
bishopwort, lupine, ash-throat, henbane, harewort, viper's bugloss,
heathberry plant, cropleek, garlic, grains of hedgerife, githrife, and
fennel. Put these worts into a vessel, set them under the altar, sing
over them nine masses, boil them in butter and sheep's grease, add much
holy salt, strain through a cloth, throw the worts into running water.
If any ill tempting occur to a man, or an elf or goblin night visitors
come, smear his body with this salve, and put it on his eyes, and cense
him with incense, and sign him frequently with the sign of the cross.
His condition will soon be better."(309)
(309) For a list of unmentionable ordures used in Germany near the end
of the seventeenth century, see Lammert, Volksmedizin und medizinischer
Aberglaube in Bayern, Wurzburg, 1869, p. 34, note. For the English
prescription given, see Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wort-cunning, and
Star-craft of Early England, in the Master of the Rolls' series,
London, 1865, vol. ii, pp. 345 and following. Still another of these
prescriptions given by Cockayne covers three or four octavo pages. For
very full details of this sort of sacred pseudo-science in Germany, with
accounts of survivals of it at the present time, see Wuttke, Prof. der
Theologie in Halle, Der Deutsche Volksaberglaube der Gegenwart, Berlin,
1869, passim. For France, see Rambaud, Histoire de la Civilisation
francaise, pp. 371 et seq.
As to surgery, this same amalgamation of theology with survivals of
pagan beliefs continued to check the evolution of medical science down
to the modern epoch. The nominal hostility of the Church to the shedding
of blood withdrew, as we have seen, from surgical practice the great
body of her educated men; hence surgery remained down to the fifteenth
century a despised profession, its practice continued largely in
the hands of charlatans, and down to a very recent period the
name "barber-surgeon" was a survival of this. In such surgery, the
application of various ordures relieved fractures; the touch of the
hangman cured sprains; the breath of a donkey expelled poison; friction
with a dead man's tooth cured toothache.(310)
(310) On the low estate of surgery during the Middle Ages, see
the histories of medicine already cited, and especially Kotelmann,
Gesundheitspflege im Mittelalter, Hamburg, 1890, pp. 216 et seq.
The enormous development of miracle and fetich cures in the Church
continued during century after century, and here probably lay the main
causes of hostility between the Church on the one hand and the better
sort of physicians on the other; namely, in the fact that the Church
supposed herself in possession of something far better than scientific
methods in medicine. Under the sway of this belief a natural and
laudable veneration for the relics of Christian martyrs was developed
more and more into pure fetichism.
Thus the water in which a single hair of a saint had been dipped was
used as a purgative; water in which St. Remy's ring had been dipped
cured fevers; wine in which the bones of a saint had been dipped cured
lunacy; oil from a lamp burning before the tomb of St. Gall cured
tumours; St. Valentine cured epilepsy; St. Christopher, throat diseases;
St. Eutropius, dropsy; St. Ovid, deafness; St. Gervase, rheumatism; St.
Apollonia, toothache; St. Vitus, St. Anthony, and a multitude of other
saints, the maladies which bear their names. Even as late as 1784 we
find certain authorities in Bavaria ordering that any one bitten by a
mad dog shall at once put up prayers at the shrine of St. Hubert, and
not waste his time in any attempts at medical or surgical cure.(311)
In the twelfth century we find a noted cure attempted by causing the
invalid to drink water in which St. Bernard had washed his hands.
Flowers which had rested on the tomb of a saint, when steeped in water,
were supposed to be especially efficacious in various diseases. The
pulpit everywhere dwelt with unction on the reality of fetich cures, and
among the choice stories collected by Archbishop Jacques de Vitry for
the use of preachers was one which, judging from its frequent recurrence
in monkish literature, must have sunk deep into the popular mind: "Two
lazy beggars, one blind, the other lame, try to avoid the relics of St.
Martin, borne about in procession, so that they may not be healed
and lose their claim to alms. The blind man takes the lame man on his
shoulders to guide him, but they are caught in the crowd and healed
against their will."(312)
(311) See Baas, p. 614; also Biedermann.
(312) For the efficacy of flowers, see the Bollandist Lives of the
Saints, cited in Fort, p. 279; also pp. 457, 458. For the story of those
unwillingly cured, see the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, edited by Prof.
T. F. Crane, of Cornell University, London, 1890, pp. 52, 182.
Very important also throughout the Middle Ages were the medical
virtues attributed to saliva. The use of this remedy had early Oriental
sanction. It is clearly found in Egypt. Pliny devotes a considerable
part of one of his chapters to it; Galen approved it; Vespasian, when he
visited Alexandria, is said to have cured a blind man by applying saliva
to his eves; but the great example impressed most forcibly upon the
medieval mind was the use of it ascribed in the fourth Gospel to Jesus
himself: thence it came not only into Church ceremonial, but largely
into medical practice.(313)
(313) As to the use of saliva in medicine, see Story, Castle of St.
Angelo, and Other Essays, London, 1877, pp. 208 and elsewhere. For
Pliny, Galen, and others, see the same, p. 211; see also the book of
Tobit, chap. xi, 2-13. For the case of Vespasian, see Suetonius, Life of
Vespasian; also Tacitus, Historiae, lib. iv, c. 81. For its use by St.
Francis Xavier, see Coleridge, Life and Letters of St. Francis Xavier,
London, 1872.
As the theological atmosphere thickened, nearly every country had its
long list of saints, each with a special power over some one organ or
disease. The clergy, having great influence over the medical schools,
conscientiously mixed this fetich medicine with the beginnings of
science. In the tenth century, even at the School of Salerno, we find
that the sick were cured not only by medicine, but by the relics of St.
Matthew and others.
Human nature, too, asserted itself, then as now, by making various
pious cures fashionable for a time and then allowing them to become
unfashionable. Just as we see the relics of St. Cosmo and St. Damian in
great vogue during the early Middle Ages, but out of fashion and without
efficacy afterward, so we find in the thirteenth century that the bones
of St. Louis, having come into fashion, wrought multitudes of cures,
while in the fourteenth, having become unfashionable, they ceased to
act, and gave place for a time to the relics of St. Roch of Montpellier
and St. Catherine of Sienna, which in their turn wrought many cures
until they too became out of date and yielded to other saints. Just so
in modern times the healing miracles of La Salette have lost prestige in
some measure, and those of Lourdes have come into fashion.(314)
(314) For one of these lists of saints curing diseaes, see Pettigrew,
On Superstitions connected with Medicine; for another, see Jacob,
Superstitions Populaires, pp. 96-100; also Rydberg, p. 69; also Maury,
Rambaud, and others. For a comparison of fashions in miracles with
fashions in modern healing agents, see Littre, Medecine et Medecins, pp.
118, 136 and elsewhere; also Sprengel, vol. ii, p. 143.
Even such serious matters as fractures, calculi, and difficult
parturition, in which modern science has achieved some of its greatest
triumphs, were then dealt with by relics; and to this hour the ex votos
hanging at such shrines as those of St. Genevieve at Paris, of St.
Antony at Padua, of the Druid image at Chartres, of the Virgin at
Einsiedeln and Lourdes, of the fountain at La Salette, are survivals of
this same conception of disease and its cure.
So, too, with a multitude of sacred pools, streams, and spots of earth.
In Ireland, hardly a parish has not had one such sacred centre; in
England and Scotland there have been many; and as late as 1805 the
eminent Dr. Milner, of the Roman Catholic Church, gave a careful
and earnest account of a miraculous cure wrought at a sacred well in
Flintshire. In all parts of Europe the pious resort to wells and springs
continued long after the close of the Middle Ages, and has not entirely
ceased to-day. It is not at all necessary to suppose intentional
deception in the origin and maintenance of all fetich cures. Although
two different judicial investigations of the modern miracles at La
Salette have shown their origin tainted with fraud, and though the
recent restoration of the Cathedral of Trondhjem has revealed the fact
that the healing powers of the sacred spring which once brought such
great revenues to that shrine were assisted by angelic voices spoken
through a tube in the walls, not unlike the pious machinery discovered
in the Temple of Isis at Pompeii, there is little doubt that the great
majority of fountain and even shrine cures, such as they have been, have
resulted from a natural law, and that belief in them was based on honest
argument from Scripture. For the theological argument which thus stood
in the way of science was simply this: if the Almighty saw fit to raise
the dead man who touched the bones of Elisha, why should he not restore
to life the patient who touches at Cologne the bones of the Wise Men of
the East who followed the star of the Nativity? If Naaman was cured by
dipping himself in the waters of the Jordan, and so many others by
going down into the Pool of Siloam, why should not men still be cured by
bathing in pools which men equally holy with Elisha have consecrated?
If one sick man was restored by touching the garments of St. Paul, why
should not another sick man be restored by touching the seamless coat of
Christ at Treves, or the winding-sheet of Christ at Besancon? And out of
all these inquiries came inevitably that question whose logical answer
was especially injurious to the development of medical science: Why
should men seek to build up scientific medicine and surgery,
when relics, pilgrimages, and sacred observances, according to an
overwhelming mass of concurrent testimony, have cured and are curing
hosts of sick folk in all parts of Europe? (315)
(315) For sacred fountains in modern times, see Pettigrew, as above,
p. 42; also Dalyell, Darker Superstitions of Scotland, pp. 82 and
following; also Montalembert, Les Moines d'Occident, tome iii, p. 323,
note. For those in Ireland, with many curious details, see S. C. Hall,
Ireland, its Scenery and Character, London, 1841, vol. i, p. 282, and
passim. For the case in Flintshire, see Authentic Documents relative to
the Miraculous Cure of Winifred White, of the Town of Wolverhampton, at
Holywell, Flintshire, on the 28th of June, 1805, by John Milner, D. D.,
Vicar Apostolic, etc., London, 1805. For sacred wells in France, see
Chevart, Histoire de Chartres, vol. i, pp. 84-89, and French local
histories generally. For superstitions attaching to springs in Germany,
see Wuttke, Volksaberglaube, Sections 12 and 356. For one of the most
exquisitely wrought works of modern fiction, showing perfectly the
recent evolution of miraculous powers at a fashionable spring in France,
see Gustave Droz, Autour d'une Source. The reference to the old pious
machinery at Trondhjem is based upon personal observation by the present
writer in August, 1893.
Still another development of the theological spirit, mixed with
professional exclusiveness and mob prejudice, wrought untold injury.
Even to those who had become so far emancipated from allegiance to
fetich cures as to consult physicians, it was forbidden to consult those
who, as a rule, were the best. From a very early period of European
history the Jews had taken the lead in medicine; their share in founding
the great schools of Salerno and Montpellier we have already noted, and
in all parts of Europe we find them acknowledged leaders in the healing
art. The Church authorities, enforcing the spirit of the time, were
especially severe against these benefactors: that men who openly
rejected the means of salvation, and whose souls were undeniably lost,
should heal the elect seemed an insult to Providence; preaching friars
denounced them from the pulpit, and the rulers in state and church,
while frequently secretly consulting them, openly proscribed them.
Gregory of Tours tells us of an archdeacon who, having been partially
cured of disease of the eyes by St. Martin, sought further aid from a
Jewish physician, with the result that neither the saint nor the Jew
could help him afterward. Popes Eugene IV, Nicholas V, and Calixtus III
especially forbade Christians to employ them. The Trullanean Council in
the eighth century, the Councils of Beziers and Alby in the thirteenth,
the Councils of Avignon and Salamanca in the fourteenth, the Synod
of Bamberg and the Bishop of Passau in the fifteenth, the Council
of Avignon in the sixteenth, with many others, expressly forbade the
faithful to call Jewish physicians or surgeons; such great preachers as
John Geiler and John Herolt thundered from the pulpit against them
and all who consulted them. As late as the middle of the seventeenth
century, when the City Council of Hall, in Wurtemberg, gave some
privileges to a Jewish physician "on account of his admirable experience
and skill," the clergy of the city joined in a protest, declaring that
"it were better to die with Christ than to be cured by a Jew doctor
aided by the devil." Still, in their extremity, bishops, cardinals,
kings, and even popes, insisted on calling in physicians of the hated
race.(316)
(316) For the general subject of the influence of theological idea upon
medicine, see Fort, History of Medical Economy during the Middle
Ages, New York, 1883, chaps. xiii and xviii; also Colin de Plancy,
Dictionnaire des Reliques, passim; also Rambaud, Histoire de la
Civilisation francaise, Paris, 1885, vol. i, chap. xviii; also Sprengel,
vol. ii, p. 345, and elsewhere; also Baas and others. For proofs that
the School of Salerno was not founded by the monks, Benedictine or
other, but by laymen, who left out a faculty of theology from their
organization, see Haeser, Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin, vol. i,
p. 646; also Baas. For a very strong statement that married professors,
women, and Jews were admitted to professional chairs, see Baas, pp.
208 et seq.; also summary by Dr. Payne, article in the Encyc. Brit.
Sprengel's old theory that the school was founded by Benedictines
seems now entirely given up; see Haeser and Bass on the subject; also
Daremberg, La Medecine, p. 133. For the citation from Gregory of Tours,
see his Hist. Francorum, lib. vi. For the eminence of Jewish physicians
and proscription of them, see Beugnot, Les Juifs d'Occident, Paris,
1824, pp. 76-94; also Bedarride, Les Juifs en France, en Italie, et
en Espagne, chaps. v, viii, x, and xiii; also Renouard, Histoire de
la Medecine, Paris, 1846, tome i, p. 439; also especially Lammert,
Volksmedizin, etc., in Bayern, p. 6, note. For Church decrees against
them, see the Acta Conciliorum, ed. Hardouin, vol. x, pp. 1634, 1700,
1870, 1873, etc. For denunciations of them by Geiler and others, see
Kotelmann, Gesundheitspflege im Mittelalter, pp. 194, 195. For a list of
kings and popes who persisted in having Jewish physicians and for other
curious information of the sort, see Prof. Levi of Vercelli, Cristiani
ed Ebrei nel Medio Evo, pp. 200-207; and for a very valuable summary,
see Lecky, History of Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii, pp. 265-271.
VIII. FETICH CURES UNDER PROTESTANTISM.--THE ROYAL TOUCH.
The Reformation made no sudden change in the sacred theory of medicine.
Luther, as is well known, again and again ascribed his own diseases to
"devils' spells," declaring that "Satan produces all the maladies which
afflict mankind, for he is the prince of death," and that "he poisons
the air"; but that "no malady comes from God." From that day down to
the faith cures of Boston, Old Orchard, and among the sect of "Peculiar
People" in our own time, we see the results among Protestants of seeking
the cause of disease in Satanic influence and its cure in fetichism.
Yet Luther, with his sturdy common sense, broke away from one belief
which has interfered with the evolution of medicine from the dawn of
Christianity until now. When that troublesome declaimer, Carlstadt,
declared that "whoso falls sick shall use no physic, but commit his case
to God, praying that His will be done," Luther asked, "Do you eat when
you are hungry?" and the answer being in the affirmative, he continued,
"Even so you may use physic, which is God's gift just as meat and drink
is, or whatever else we use for the preservation of life." Hence it was,
doubtless, that the Protestant cities of Germany were more ready than
others to admit anatomical investigation by proper dissections.(317)
(317) For Luther's belief and his answer to Carlstadt, see his Table
Talk, especially in Hazlitt's edition, pp. 250-257; also his letters
passim. For recent "faith cures," see Dr. Buckley's articles on Faith
Healing and Kindred Phenomena, in The Century, 1886. For the greater
readiness of Protestant cities to facilitate dissections, see Toth,
Andreas Vesalius, p. 33.
Perhaps the best-known development of a theological view in the
Protestant Church was that mainly evolved in England out of a French
germ of theological thought--a belief in the efficacy of the royal touch
in sundry diseases, especially epilepsy and scrofula, the latter being
consequently known as the king's evil. This mode of cure began, so
far as history throws light upon it, with Edward the Confessor in the
eleventh century, and came down from reign to reign, passing from the
Catholic saint to Protestant debauchees upon the English throne, with
ever-increasing miraculous efficacy.
Testimony to the reality of these cures is overwhelming. As a simple
matter of fact, there are no miracles of healing in the history of the
human race more thoroughly attested than those wrought by the touch
of Henry VIII, Elizabeth, the Stuarts, and especially of that chosen
vessel, Charles II. Though Elizabeth could not bring herself fully to
believe in the reality of these cures, Dr. Tooker, the Queen's chaplain,
afterward Dean of Lichfield, testifies fully of his own knowledge to the
cures wrought by her, as also does William Clowes, the Queen's surgeon.
Fuller, in his Church History, gives an account of a Roman Catholic
who was thus cured by the Queen's touch and converted to Protestantism.
Similar testimony exists as to cures wrought by James I. Charles I also
enjoyed the same power, in spite of the public declaration against its
reality by Parliament. In one case the King saw a patient in the crowd,
too far off to be touched, and simply said, "God bless thee and grant
thee thy desire"; whereupon, it is asserted, the blotches and humours
disappeared from the patient's body and appeared in the bottle of
medicine which he held in his hand; at least so says Dr. John Nicholas,
Warden of Winchester College, who declares this of his own knowledge to
be every word of it true.
But the most incontrovertible evidence of this miraculous gift is found
in the case of Charles II, the most thoroughly cynical debauchee who
ever sat on the English throne before the advent of George IV. He
touched nearly one hundred thousand persons, and the outlay for gold
medals issued to the afflicted on these occasions rose in some years
as high as ten thousand pounds. John Brown, surgeon in ordinary to his
Majesty and to St. Thomas's Hospital, and author of many learned works
on surgery and anatomy, published accounts of sixty cures due to the
touch of this monarch; and Sergeant-Surgeon Wiseman devotes an entire
book to proving the reality of these cures, saying, "I myself have been
frequent witness to many hundreds of cures performed by his Majesty's
touch alone without any assistance of chirurgery, and these many of
them had tyred out the endeavours of able chirurgeons before they came
thither." Yet it is especially instructive to note that, while in no
other reign were so many people touched for scrofula, and in none were
so many cures vouched for, in no other reign did so many people die of
that disease: the bills of mortality show this clearly, and the reason
doubtless is the general substitution of supernatural for scientific
means of cure. This is but one out of many examples showing the havoc
which a scientific test always makes among miracles if men allow it to
be applied.
To James II the same power continued; and if it be said, in the words
of Lord Bacon, that "imagination is next of kin to miracle--a working
faith," something else seems required to account for the testimony
of Dr. Heylin to cures wrought by the royal touch upon babes in their
mothers' arms. Myth-making and marvel-mongering were evidently at work
here as in so many other places, and so great was the fame of these
cures that we find, in the year before James was dethroned, a pauper at
Portsmouth, New Hampshire, petitioning the General Assembly to enable
him to make the voyage to England in order that he may be healed by the
royal touch.
The change in the royal succession does not seem to have interfered with
the miracle; for, though William III evidently regarded the whole
thing as a superstition, and on one occasion is said to have touched
a patient, saying to him, "God give you better health and more sense,"
Whiston assures us that this person was healed, notwithstanding
William's incredulity.
As to Queen Anne, Dr. Daniel Turner, in his Art of Surgery, relates
that several cases of scrofula which had been unsuccessfully treated
by himself and Dr. Charles Bernard, sergeant-surgeon to her Majesty,
yielded afterward to the efficacy of the Queen's touch. Naturally does
Collier, in his Ecclesiastical History, say regarding these cases that
to dispute them "is to come to the extreme of scepticism, to deny our
senses and be incredulous even to ridiculousness." Testimony to the
reality of these cures is indeed overwhelming, and a multitude of most
sober scholars, divines, and doctors of medicine declared the evidence
absolutely convincing. That the Church of England accepted the doctrine
of the royal touch is witnessed by the special service provided in the
Prayer-Book of that period for occasions when the King exercised this
gift. The ceremony was conducted with great solemnity and pomp: during
the reading of the service and the laying on of the King's hands, the
attendant bishop or priest recited the words, "They shall lay their
hands on the sick, and they shall recover"; afterward came special
prayers, the Epistle and Gospel, with the blessing, and finally his
Majesty washed his royal hands in golden vessels which high noblemen
held for him.
In France, too, the royal touch continued, with similar testimony to
its efficacy. On a certain Easter Sunday, that pious king, Louis XIV,
touched about sixteen hundred persons at Versailles.
This curative power was, then, acknowledged far and wide, by Catholics
and Protestants alike, upon the Continent, in Great Britain, and in
America; and it descended not only in spite of the transition of the
English kings from Catholicism to Protestantism, but in spite of
the transition from the legitimate sovereignty of the Stuarts to the
illegitimate succession of the House of Orange. And yet, within a
few years after the whole world held this belief, it was dead; it had
shrivelled away in the growing scientific light at the dawn of the
eighteenth century.(318)
(318) For the royal touch, see Becket, Free and Impartial Inquiry into
the Antiquity and Efficacy of Touching for the King's Evil, 1772, cited
in Pettigrew, p. 128, and elsewhere; also Scoffern, Science and Folk
Lore, London, 1870, pp. 413 and following; also Adams, The Healing
Art, London, 1887, vol. i, pp. 53-60; and especially Lecky, History of
European Morals, vol. i, chapter on The Conversion of Rome; also his
History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i, chap. i. For
curious details regarding the mode of conducting the ceremony, see
Evelyn's Diary; also Lecky, as above. For the royal touch in France, and
for a claim to its possession in feudal times by certain noble families,
see Rambaud, Hist. de la Civ. francaise, p. 375.
IX. THE SCIENTIFIC STRUGGLE FOR ANATOMY.
We may now take up the evolution of medical science out of the medieval
view and its modern survivals. All through the Middle Ages, as we have
seen, some few laymen and ecclesiastics here and there, braving the
edicts of the Church and popular superstition, persisted in
medical study and practice: this was especially seen at the greater
universities, which had become somewhat emancipated from ecclesiastical
control. In the thirteenth century the University of Paris gave a strong
impulse to the teaching of medicine, and in that and the following
century we begin to find the first intelligible reports of medical cases
since the coming in of Christianity.
In the thirteenth century also the arch-enemy of the papacy, the Emperor
Frederick II, showed his free-thinking tendencies by granting, from
time to time, permissions to dissect the human subject. In the centuries
following, sundry other monarchs timidly followed his example: thus John
of Aragon, in 1391, gave to the University of Lerida the privilege of
dissecting one dead criminal every three years.(319)
(319) For the promotion of medical science and practice, especially in
the thirteenth century, by the universities, see Baas, pp. 222-224.
During the fifteenth century and the earlier years of the sixteenth the
revival of learning, the invention of printing, and the great voyages
of discovery gave a new impulse to thought, and in this medical science
shared: the old theological way of thinking was greatly questioned,
and gave place in many quarters to a different way of looking at the
universe.
In the sixteenth century Paracelsus appears--a great genius, doing much
to develop medicine beyond the reach of sacred and scholastic tradition,
though still fettered by many superstitions. More and more, in spite of
theological dogmas, came a renewal of anatomical studies by dissection
of the human subject. The practice of the old Alexandrian School was
thus resumed. Mundinus, Professor of Medicine at Bologna early in the
fourteenth century, dared use the human subject occasionally in his
lectures; but finally came a far greater champion of scientific truth,
Andreas Vesalius, founder of the modern science of anatomy. The battle
waged by this man is one of the glories of our race.
From the outset Vesalius proved himself a master. In the search for real
knowledge he risked the most terrible dangers, and especially the charge
of sacrilege, founded upon the teachings of the Church for ages. As
we have seen, even such men in the early Church as Tertullian and St.
Augustine held anatomy in abhorrence, and the decretal of Pope Boniface
VIII was universally construed as forbidding all dissection, and as
threatening excommunication against those practising it. Through
this sacred conventionalism Vesalius broke without fear; despite
ecclesiastical censure, great opposition in his own profession, and
popular fury, he studied his science by the only method that could
give useful results. No peril daunted him. To secure material for his
investigations, he haunted gibbets and charnel-houses, braving the fires
of the Inquisition and the virus of the plague. First of all men
he began to place the science of human anatomy on its solid modern
foundations--on careful examination and observation of the human
body: this was his first great sin, and it was soon aggravated by one
considered even greater.
Perhaps the most unfortunate thing that has ever been done for
Christianity is the tying it to forms of science which are doomed and
gradually sinking. Just as, in the time of Roger Bacon, excellent men
devoted all their energies to binding Christianity to Aristotle; just
as, in the time of Reuchlin and Erasmus, they insisted on binding
Christianity to Thomas Aquinas; so, in the time of Vesalius, such men
made every effort to link Christianity to Galen. The cry has been the
same in all ages; it is the same which we hear in this age for curbing
scientific studies: the cry for what is called "sound learning." Whether
standing for Aristotle against Bacon, or for Aquinas against Erasmus, or
for Galen against Vesalius, the cry is always for "sound learning": the
idea always has been that the older studies are "SAFE."
At twenty-eight years of age Vesalius gave to the world his great
work on human anatomy. With it ended the old and began the new; its
researches, by their thoroughness, were a triumph of science; its
illustrations, by their fidelity, were a triumph of art.
To shield himself, as far as possible, in the battle which he foresaw
must come, Vesalius dedicated the work to the Emperor Charles V, and in
his preface he argues for his method, and against the parrot repetitions
of the mediaeval text-books; he also condemns the wretched anatomical
preparations and specimens made by physicians who utterly refused to
advance beyond the ancient master. The parrot-like repeaters of Galen
gave battle at once. After the manner of their time their first missiles
were epithets; and, the vast arsenal of these having been exhausted,
they began to use sharper weapons--weapons theologic.
In this case there were especial reasons why the theological authorities
felt called upon to intervene. First, there was the old idea prevailing
in the Church that the dissection of the human body is forbidden to
Christians: this was used with great force against Vesalius, but he at
first gained a temporary victory; for, a conference of divines having
been asked to decide whether dissection of the human body is sacrilege,
gave a decision in the negative.
The reason was simple: the great Emperor Charles V had made Vesalius his
physician and could not spare him; but, on the accession of Philip II
to the throne of Spain and the Netherlands, the whole scene changed.
Vesalius now complained that in Spain he could not obtain even a human
skull for his anatomical investigations: the medical and theological
reactionists had their way, and to all appearance they have, as a rule,
had it in Spain ever since. As late as the last years of the eighteenth
century an observant English traveller found that there were no
dissections before medical classes in the Spanish universities, and that
the doctrine of the circulation of the blood was still denied, more than
a century and a half after Sarpi and Harvey had proved it.
Another theological idea barred the path of Vesalius. Throughout
the Middle Ages it was believed that there exists in man a bone
imponderable, incorruptible, incombustible--the necessary nucleus of
the resurrection body. Belief in a resurrection of the physical body,
despite St. Paul's Epistle to the Corinthians, had been incorporated
into the formula evolved during the early Christian centuries and known
as the Apostles' Creed, and was held throughout Christendom, "always,
everywhere, and by all." This hypothetical bone was therefore held
in great veneration, and many anatomists sought to discover it; but
Vesalius, revealing so much else, did not find it. He contented himself
with saying that he left the question regarding the existence of such a
bone to the theologians. He could not lie; he did not wish to fight the
Inquisition; and thus he fell under suspicion.
The strength of this theological point may be judged from the fact that
no less eminent a surgeon than Riolan consulted the executioner to find
out whether, when he burned a criminal, all the parts were consumed;
and only then was the answer received which fatally undermined this
superstition. Yet, in 1689 we find it still lingering in France,
stimulating opposition in the Church to dissection. Even as late as the
eighteenth century, Bernouilli having shown that the living human body
constantly undergoes a series of changes, so that all its particles are
renewed in a given number of years, so much ill feeling was drawn upon
him, from theologians, who saw in this statement danger to the doctrine
of the resurrection of the body, that for the sake of peace he struck
out his argument on this subject from his collected works.(320)
(320) For permissions to dissect the human subject, given here and there
during the Middle Ages, see Roth's Andreas Vesalius, Berlin, 1892, pp.
3, 13 et seq. For religious antipathies as a factor in the persecution
of Vesalius, see the biographies by Boerhaave and Albinos, 1725;
Burggraeve's Etudes, 1841; also Haeser, Kingsley, and the latest
and most thorough of all, Roth, as above. Even Goethals, despite the
timidity natural to a city librarian in a town like Brussels, in which
clerical power is strong and relentless, feels obliged to confess that
there was a certain admixture of religious hatred in the treatment
of Vesalius. See his Notice Biographique sur Andre Vesale. For the
resurrection bones, see Roth, as above, pp. 154, 155, and notes. For
Vesalius, see especially Portal, Hist. de l'Anatomie et de la Chirurgie,
Paris, 1770, tome i, p. 407. For neglect of dissection and opposition
to Harvey's discovery in Spain, see Townsend's Travels, edition of 1792,
cited in Buckle, History of Civilization in England, vol. ii, pp. 74,
75. Also Henry Morley, in his Clement Marot, and Other Essays. For
Bernouilli and his trouble with the theologians, see Wolf, Biographien
zur Culturgeschichte der Schweiz, vol. ii, p. 95. How different
Mundinus's practice of dissection was from that of Vesalius may be seen
by Cuvier's careful statement that the entire number of dissections by
the former was three; the usual statement is that there were but two.
See Cuvier, Hist. des Sci. Nat., tome ii, p. 7; also Sprengel, Fredault,
Hallam, and Littre. Also Whewell, Hist. of the Inductive Sciences, vol.
iii, p. 328; also, for a very full statement regarding the agency of
Mundinus in the progress of Anatomy, see Portal, vol. i, pp. 209-216.
Still other encroachments upon the theological view were made by the new
school of anatomists, and especially by Vesalius. During the Middle Ages
there had been developed various theological doctrines regarding the
human body; these were based upon arguments showing what the body OUGHT
TO BE, and naturally, when anatomical science showed what it IS, these
doctrines fell. An example of such popular theological reasoning is seen
in a widespread belief of the twelfth century, that, during the year in
which the cross of Christ was captured by Saladin, children, instead of
having thirty or thirty-two teeth as before, had twenty or twenty-two.
So, too, in Vesalius's time another doctrine of this sort was dominant:
it had long been held that Eve, having been made by the Almighty from a
rib taken out of Adam's side, there must be one rib fewer on one side
of every man than on the other. This creation of Eve was a favourite
subject with sculptors and painters, from Giotto, who carved it upon
his beautiful Campanile at Florence, to the illuminators of missals, and
even to those who illustrated Bibles and religious books in the first
years after the invention of printing; but Vesalius and the anatomists
who followed him put an end among thoughtful men to this belief in the
missing rib, and in doing this dealt a blow at much else in the sacred
theory. Naturally, all these considerations brought the forces of
ecclesiasticism against the innovators in anatomy.(321)
(321) As to the supposed change in the number of teeth, see the Gesta
Philippi Augusti Francorum Regis,... descripta a magistro Rigardo, 1219,
edited by Father Francois Duchesne, in Histories Francorum Scriptores,
tom. v, Paris, 1649, p. 24. For representations of Adam created by the
Almighty out of a pile of dust, and of Eve created from a rib of Adam,
see the earlier illustrations in the Nuremberg Chronicle. As to the
relation of anatomy to theology as regards to Adam's rib, see Roth, pp.
154, 155.
A new weapon was now forged: Vesalius was charged with dissecting a
living man, and, either from direct persecution, as the great majority
of authors assert, or from indirect influences, as the recent apologists
for Philip II admit, he became a wanderer: on a pilgrimage to the Holy
Land, apparently undertaken to atone for his sin, he was shipwrecked,
and in the prime of his life and strength he was lost to the world.
And yet not lost. In this century a great painter has again given him to
us. By the magic of Hamann's pencil Vesalius again stands on earth,
and we look once more into his cell. Its windows and doors, bolted and
barred within, betoken the storm of bigotry which rages without; the
crucifix, toward which he turns his eyes, symbolizes the spirit in which
he labours; the corpse of the plague-stricken beneath his hand ceases
to be repulsive; his very soul seems to send forth rays from the canvas,
which strengthen us for the good fight in this age.(322)
(322) The original painting of Vesalius at work in his cell, by Hamann,
is now at Cornell University.
His death was hastened, if not caused, by men who conscientiously
supposed that he was injuring religion: his poor, blind foes aided in
destroying one of religion's greatest apostles. What was his influence
on religion? He substituted, for the repetition of worn-out theories,
a conscientious and reverent search into the works of the great Power
giving life to the universe; he substituted, for representations of the
human structure pitiful and unreal, representations revealing truths
most helpful to the whole human race.
The death of this champion seems to have virtually ended the contest.
Licenses to dissect soon began to be given by sundry popes to
universities, and were renewed at intervals of from three to four years,
until the Reformation set in motion trains of thought which did much to
release science from this yoke.(323)
(323) For a curious example of weapons drawn from Galen and used against
Vesalius, see Lewes, Life of Goethe, p. 343, note. For proofs that I
have not overestimated Vesalius, see Portal, ubi supra. Portal speaks of
him as "le genie le plus droit qu'eut l'Europe"; and again, "Vesale me
parait un des plus grands hommes qui ait existe." For the charge
that anatomists dissected living men--against men of science before
Vesalius's time--see Littre's chapter on Anatomy. For the increased
liberty given anatomy by the Reformation, see Roth's Vesalius, p. 33.
X. THEOLOGICAL OPPOSITION TO INOCULATION, VACCINATION, AND THE USE OF
ANAESTHETICS.
I hasten now to one of the most singular struggles of medical science
during modern times. Early in the last century Boyer presented
inoculation as a preventive of smallpox in France, and thoughtful
physicians in England, inspired by Lady Montagu and Maitland, followed
his example. Ultra-conservatives in medicine took fright at once on both
sides of the Channel, and theology was soon finding profound reasons
against the new practice. The French theologians of the Sorbonne
solemnly condemned it; the English theologians were most loudly
represented by the Rev. Edward Massey, who in 1772 preached and
published a sermon entitled The Dangerous and Sinful Practice of
Inoculation. In this he declared that Job's distemper was probably
confluent smallpox; that he had been inoculated doubtless by the devil;
that diseases are sent by Providence for the punishment of sin; and that
the proposed attempt to prevent them is "a diabolical operation."
Not less vigorous was the sermon of the Rev. Mr. Delafaye, entitled
Inoculation an Indefensible Practice. This struggle went on for thirty
years. It is a pleasure to note some churchmen--and among them Madox,
Bishop of Worcester--giving battle on the side of right reason; but as
late as 1753 we have a noted rector at Canterbury denouncing inoculation
from his pulpit in the primatial city, and many of his brethren
following his example.
The same opposition was vigorous in Protestant Scotland. A large body of
ministers joined in denouncing the new practice as "flying in the face
of Providence," and "endeavouring to baffle a Divine judgment."
On our own side of the ocean, also, this question had to be fought out.
About the year 1721 Dr. Zabdiel Boylston, a physician in Boston, made an
experiment in inoculation, one of his first subjects being his own son.
He at once encountered bitter hostility, so that the selectmen of the
city forbade him to repeat the experiment. Foremost among his opponents
was Dr. Douglas, a Scotch physician, supported by the medical profession
and the newspapers. The violence of the opposing party knew no bounds;
they insisted that inoculation was "poisoning," and they urged the
authorities to try Dr. Boylston for murder. Having thus settled his case
for this world, they proceeded to settle it for the next, insisting that
"for a man to infect a family in the morning with smallpox and to
pray to God in the evening against the disease is blasphemy"; that the
smallpox is "a judgment of God on the sins of the people," and that
"to avert it is but to provoke him more"; that inoculation is "an
encroachment on the prerogatives of Jehovah, whose right it is to wound
and smite." Among the mass of scriptural texts most remote from any
possible bearing on the subject one was employed which was equally
cogent against any use of healing means in any disease--the words of
Hosea: "He hath torn, and he will heal us; he hath smitten, and he will
bind us up."
So bitter was this opposition that Dr. Boylston's life was in danger; it
was considered unsafe for him to be out of his house in the evening; a
lighted grenade was even thrown into the house of Cotton Mather, who had
favoured the new practice, and had sheltered another clergyman who had
submitted himself to it.
To the honour of the Puritan clergy of New England, it should be said
that many of them were Boylston's strongest supporters. Increase and
Cotton Mather had been among the first to move in favour of inoculation,
the latter having called Boylston's attention to it; and at the very
crisis of affairs six of the leading clergymen of Boston threw their
influence on Boylston's side and shared the obloquy brought upon him.
Although the gainsayers were not slow to fling into the faces of the
Mathers their action regarding witchcraft, urging that their credulity
in that matter argued credulity in this, they persevered, and among the
many services rendered by the clergymen of New England to their country
this ought certainly to be remembered; for these men had to withstand,
shoulder to shoulder with Boylston and Benjamin Franklin, the
same weapons which were hurled at the supporters of inoculation in
Europe--charges of "unfaithfulness to the revealed law of God."
The facts were soon very strong against the gainsayers: within a year
or two after the first experiment nearly three hundred persons had been
inoculated by Boylston in Boston and neighbouring towns, and out of
these only six had died; whereas, during the same period, out of nearly
six thousand persons who had taken smallpox naturally, and had received
only the usual medical treatment, nearly one thousand had died. Yet even
here the gainsayers did not despair, and, when obliged to confess the
success of inoculation, they simply fell back upon a new argument,
and answered: "It was good that Satan should be dispossessed of his
habitation which he had taken up in men in our Lord's day, but it was
not lawful that the children of the Pharisees should cast him out by the
help of Beelzebub. We must always have an eye to the matter of what we
do as well as the result, if we intend to keep a good conscience toward
God." But the facts were too strong; the new practice made its way in
the New World as in the Old, though bitter opposition continued, and in
no small degree on vague scriptural grounds, for more than twenty years
longer.(324)
(324) For the general subject, see Sprengel, Histoire de la Medecine,
vol. vi, pp. 39-80. For the opposition of the Paris faculty of Theology
to inoculation, see the Journal de Barbier, vol. vi, p. 294; also the
Correspondance de Grimm et Diderot, vol. iii, pp. 259 et seq. For bitter
denunciations of inoculation by the English clergy, and for the noble
stand against them by Madox, see Baron, Life of Jenner, vol. i, pp. 231,
232, and vol. ii, pp. 39, 40. For the strenuous opposition of the same
clergy, see Weld, History of the Royal Society, vol. i, p. 464, note;
also, for its comical side, see Nichol's Literary Illustrations, vol.
v, p. 800. For the same matter in Scotland, see Lecky's History of the
Eighteenth Century, vol. ii, p. 83. For New England, see Green, History
of Medicine in Massachusetts, Boston, 1881, pp. 58 et seq; also chapter
x of the Memorial History of Boston, by the same author and O. W.
Holmes. For a letter of Dr. Franklin's, see Massachusetts Historical
Collections, second series, vol. vii, p. 17. Several most curious
publications issued during the heat of the inoculation controversy have
been kindly placed in my hands by the librarians of Harvard College and
of the Massachusetts Historical Society, among them A Reply to Increase
Mather, by John Williams, Boston, printed by J. Franklin, 1721, from
which the above scriptural arguments are cited. For the terrible
virulence of the smallpox in New England up to the introduction of the
inoculation, see McMaster, History of the People of the United States,
first edition, vol. i, p. 30.
The steady evolution of scientific medicine brings us next to Jenner's
discovery of vaccination. Here, too, sundry vague survivals of
theological ideas caused many of the clergy to side with retrograde
physicians. Perhaps the most virulent of Jenner's enemies was one of his
professional brethren, Dr. Moseley, who placed on the title-page of his
book, Lues Bovilla, the motto, referring to Jenner and his followers,
"Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do": this book of
Dr. Moseley was especially indorsed by the Bishop of Dromore. In 1798
an Anti-vaccination Society was formed by physicians and clergymen,
who called on the people of Boston to suppress vaccination, as "bidding
defiance to Heaven itself, even to the will of God," and declared that
"the law of God prohibits the practice." As late as 1803 the Rev. Dr.
Ramsden thundered against vaccination in a sermon before the University
of Cambridge, mingling texts of Scripture with calumnies against
Jenner; but Plumptre and the Rev. Rowland Hill in England, Waterhouse in
America, Thouret in France, Sacco in Italy, and a host of other good
men and true, pressed forward, and at last science, humanity, and right
reason gained the victory. Most striking results quickly followed.
The diminution in the number of deaths from the terrible scourge was
amazing. In Berlin, during the eight years following 1783, over four
thousand children died of the smallpox; while during the eight years
following 1814, after vaccination had been largely adopted, out of a
larger number of deaths there were but five hundred and thirty-five
from this disease. In Wurtemberg, during the twenty-four years following
1772, one in thirteen of all the children died of smallpox, while
during the eleven years after 1822 there died of it only one in sixteen
hundred. In Copenhagen, during twelve years before the introduction of
vaccination, fifty-five hundred persons died of smallpox, and during the
sixteen years after its introduction only one hundred and fifty-eight
persons died of it throughout all Denmark. In Vienna, where the average
yearly mortality from this disease had been over eight hundred, it was
steadily and rapidly reduced, until in 1803 it had fallen to less than
thirty; and in London, formerly so afflicted by this scourge, out of
all her inhabitants there died of it in 1890 but one. As to the world
at large, the result is summed up by one of the most honoured English
physicians of our time, in the declaration that "Jenner has saved, is
now saving, and will continue to save in all coming ages, more lives in
one generation than were destroyed in all the wars of Napoleon."
It will have been noticed by those who have read this history thus far
that the record of the Church generally was far more honourable in this
struggle than in many which preceded it: the reason is not difficult to
find; the decline of theology enured to the advantage of religion, and
religion gave powerful aid to science.
Yet there have remained some survivals both in Protestantism and in
Catholicism which may be regarded with curiosity. A small body of
perversely ingenious minds in the medical profession in England have
found a few ardent allies among the less intellectual clergy. The Rev.
Mr. Rothery and the Rev. Mr. Allen, of the Primitive Methodists, have
for sundry vague theological reasons especially distinguished themselves
by opposition to compulsory vaccination; but it is only just to say
that the great body of the English clergy have for a long time taken the
better view.
Far more painful has been the recent history of the other great branch
of the Christian Church--a history developed where it might have been
least expected: the recent annals of the world hardly present a more
striking antithesis between Religion and Theology.
On the religious side few things in the history of the Roman Church have
been more beautiful than the conduct of its clergy in Canada during
the great outbreak of ship-fever among immigrants at Montreal about the
middle of the present century. Day and night the Catholic priesthood of
that city ministered fearlessly to those victims of sanitary ignorance;
fear of suffering and death could not drive these ministers from their
work; they laid down their lives cheerfully while carrying comfort to
the poorest and most ignorant of our kind: such was the record of their
religion. But in 1885 a record was made by their theology. In that year
the smallpox broke out with great virulence in Montreal. The Protestant
population escaped almost entirely by vaccination; but multitudes of
their Catholic fellow-citizens, under some vague survival of the old
orthodox ideas, refused vaccination; and suffered fearfully. When at
last the plague became so serious that travel and trade fell off greatly
and quarantine began to be established in neighbouring cities, an effort
was made to enforce compulsory vaccination. The result was, that large
numbers of the Catholic working population resisted and even threatened
bloodshed. The clergy at first tolerated and even encouraged this
conduct: the Abbe Filiatrault, priest of St. James's Church, declared in
a sermon that, "if we are afflicted with smallpox, it is because we had
a carnival last winter, feasting the flesh, which has offended the Lord;
it is to punish our pride that God has sent us smallpox." The clerical
press went further: the Etendard exhorted the faithful to take up arms
rather than submit to vaccination, and at least one of the secular
papers was forced to pander to the same sentiment. The Board of Health
struggled against this superstition, and addressed a circular to the
Catholic clergy, imploring them to recommend vaccination; but, though
two or three complied with this request, the great majority were either
silent or openly hostile. The Oblate Fathers, whose church was situated
in the very heart of the infected district, continued to denounce
vaccination; the faithful were exhorted to rely on devotional exercises
of various sorts; under the sanction of the hierarchy a great procession
was ordered with a solemn appeal to the Virgin, and the use of the
rosary was carefully specified.
Meantime, the disease, which had nearly died out among the Protestants,
raged with ever-increasing virulence among the Catholics; and, the truth
becoming more and more clear, even to the most devout, proper measures
were at last enforced and the plague was stayed, though not until there
had been a fearful waste of life among these simple-hearted believers,
and germs of scepticism planted in the hearts of their children which
will bear fruit for generations to come.(325)
(325) For the opposition of concientious men to vaccination in England,
see Baron, Life of Jenner, as above; also vol. ii, p. 43; also Dun's
Life of Simpson, London, 1873, pp. 248, 249; also Works of Sir J. Y.
Simpson, vol. ii. For a multitude of statistics ahowing the diminution
of smallpox after the introduction of vaccination, see Russell, p.
380. For the striking record in London for 1890, see an article in the
Edinburgh review for January, 1891. The general statement referred to
was made in a speech some years since by Sir Spencer Wells. For recent
scattered cases of feeble opposition to vaccination by Protestant
ministers, see William White, The Great Delusion, London, 1885, passim.
For opposition of the Roman Catholic clergy and peasantry in Canada
to vaccination during the smallpox plague of 1885, see the English,
Canadian, and American newspapers, but especially the very temperate and
accurate correspondence in the New York Evening Post during September
and October of that year.
Another class of cases in which the theologic spirit has allied itself
with the retrograde party in medical science is found in the history of
certain remedial agents; and first may be named cocaine. As early as the
middle of the sixteenth century the value of coca had been discovered
in South America; the natives of Peru prized it highly, and two eminent
Jesuits, Joseph Acosta and Antonio Julian, were converted to this view.
But the conservative spirit in the Church was too strong; in 1567 the
Second Council of Lima, consisting of bishops from all parts of South
America, condemned it, and two years later came a royal decree declaring
that "the notions entertained by the natives regarding it are an
illusion of the devil."
As a pendant to this singular mistake on the part of the older Church
came another committed by many Protestants. In the early years of the
seventeenth century the Jesuit missionaries in South America learned
from the natives the value of the so-called Peruvian bark in the
treatment of ague; and in 1638, the Countess of Cinchon, Regent of Peru,
having derived great benefit from the new remedy, it was introduced into
Europe. Although its alkaloid, quinine, is perhaps the nearest approach
to a medical specific, and has diminished the death rate in certain
regions to an amazing extent, its introduction was bitterly opposed
by many conservative members of the medical profession, and in this
opposition large numbers of ultra-Protestants joined, out of hostility
to the Roman Church. In the heat of sectarian feeling the new remedy
was stigmatized as "an invention of the devil"; and so strong was this
opposition that it was not introduced into England until 1653, and even
then its use was long held back, owing mainly to anti-Catholic feeling.
What the theological method on the ultra-Protestant side could do to
help the world at this very time is seen in the fact that, while this
struggle was going on, Hoffmann was attempting to give a scientific
theory of the action of the devil in causing Job's boils. This effort
at a quasi-scientific explanation which should satisfy the theological
spirit, comical as it at first seems, is really worthy of serious
notice, because it must be considered as the beginning of that
inevitable effort at compromise which we see in the history of every
science when it begins to appear triumphant.(326)
(326) For the opposition of the South American Church authorities to
the introduction of coca, etc., see Martindale, Coca, Cocaine, and its
Salts, London, 1886, p. 7. As to theological and sectarian resistance to
quinine, see Russell, pp. 194, 253; also Eccles; also Meryon, History of
Medicine, London, 1861, vol. i, p. 74, note. For the great decrease in
deaths by fever after the use of Peruvian bark began, see statistical
tables given in Russell, p. 252; and for Hoffmann's attempt at
compromise, ibid., p. 294.
But I pass to a typical conflict in our days, and in a Protestant
country. In 1847, James Young Simpson, a Scotch physician, who afterward
rose to the highest eminence in his profession, having advocated the use
of anaesthetics in obstetrical cases, was immediately met by a storm
of opposition. This hostility flowed from an ancient and time-honoured
belief in Scotland. As far back as the year 1591, Eufame Macalyane, a
lady of rank, being charged with seeking the aid of Agnes Sampson for
the relief of pain at the time of the birth of her two sons, was burned
alive on the Castle Hill of Edinburgh; and this old theological view
persisted even to the middle of the nineteenth century. From pulpit
after pulpit Simpson's use of chloroform was denounced as impious
and contrary to Holy Writ; texts were cited abundantly, the ordinary
declaration being that to use chloroform was "to avoid one part of
the primeval curse on woman." Simpson wrote pamphlet after pamphlet to
defend the blessing which he brought into use; but he seemed about to be
overcome, when he seized a new weapon, probably the most absurd by
which a great cause was ever won: "My opponents forget," he said, "the
twenty-first verse of the second chapter of Genesis; it is the record of
the first surgical operation ever performed, and that text proves that
the Maker of the universe, before he took the rib from Adam's side for
the creation of Eve, caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam." This was
a stunning blow, but it did not entirely kill the opposition; they had
strength left to maintain that the "deep sleep of Adam took place before
the introduction of pain into the world--in a state of innocence."
But now a new champion intervened--Thomas Chalmers: with a few pungent
arguments from his pulpit he scattered the enemy forever, and the
greatest battle of science against suffering was won. This victory was
won not less for religion. Wisely did those who raised the monument
at Boston to one of the discoverers of anaesthetics inscribe upon its
pedestal the words from our sacred text, "This also cometh forth from
the Lord of hosts, which is wonderful in counsel, and excellent in
working."(327)
(327) For the case of Eufame Macalyane, se Dalyell, Darker Superstitions
of Scotland, pp. 130, 133. For the contest of Simpson with Scotch
ecclesiatical authorities, see Duns, Life of Sir J. Y. Simpson, London,
1873, pp. 215-222, and 256-260.
XI. FINAL BREAKING AWAY OF THE THEOLOGICAL THEORY IN MEDICINE.
While this development of history was going on, the central idea on
which the whole theologic view rested--the idea of diseases as resulting
from the wrath of God or malice of Satan--was steadily weakened;
and, out of the many things which show this, one may be selected as
indicating the drift of thought among theologians themselves.
Toward the end of the eighteenth century the most eminent divines of
the American branch of the Anglican Church framed their Book of Common
Prayer. Abounding as it does in evidences of their wisdom and piety, few
things are more noteworthy than a change made in the exhortation to the
faithful to present themselves at the communion. While, in the old form
laid down in the English Prayer Book, the minister was required to warn
his flock not "to kindle God's wrath" or "provoke him to plague us with
divers diseases and sundry kinds of death," from the American form all
this and more of similar import in various services was left out.
Since that day progress in medical science has been rapid indeed, and at
no period more so than during the last half of the nineteenth century.
The theological view of disease has steadily faded, and the theological
hold upon medical education has been almost entirely relaxed. In three
great fields, especially, discoveries have been made which have done
much to disperse the atmosphere of miracle. First, there has come
knowledge regarding the relation between imagination and medicine,
which, though still defective, is of great importance. This relation has
been noted during the whole history of the science. When the soldiers
of the Prince of Orange, at the siege of Breda in 1625, were dying of
scurvy by scores, he sent to the physicians "two or three small vials
filled with a decoction of camomile, wormwood, and camphor, gave out
that it was a very rare and precious medicine--a medicine of such virtue
that two or three drops sufficed to impregnate a gallon of water,
and that it had been obtained from the East with great difficulty and
danger." This statement, made with much solemnity, deeply impressed the
soldiers; they took the medicine eagerly, and great numbers recovered
rapidly. Again, two centuries later, young Humphry Davy, being employed
to apply the bulb of the thermometer to the tongues of certain patients
at Bristol after they had inhaled various gases as remedies for
disease, and finding that the patients supposed this application of the
thermometer-bulb was the cure, finally wrought cures by this application
alone, without any use of the gases whatever. Innumerable cases of this
sort have thrown a flood of light upon such cures as those wrought by
Prince Hohenlohe, by the "metallic tractors," and by a multitude of
other agencies temporarily in vogue, but, above all, upon the miraculous
cures which in past ages have been so frequent and of which a few
survive.
The second department is that of hypnotism. Within the last half-century
many scattered indications have been collected and supplemented by
thoughtful, patient investigators of genius, and especially by Braid in
England and Charcot in France. Here, too, great inroads have been made
upon the province hitherto sacred to miracle, and in 1888 the cathedral
preacher, Steigenberger, of Augsburg, sounded an alarm. He declared his
fears "lest accredited Church miracles lose their hold upon the public,"
denounced hypnotism as a doctrine of demons, and ended with the singular
argument that, inasmuch as hypnotism is avowedly incapable of explaining
all the wonders of history, it is idle to consider it at all. But
investigations in hypnotism still go on, and may do much in the
twentieth century to carry the world yet further from the realm of the
miraculous.
In a third field science has won a striking series of victories.
Bacteriology, beginning in the researches of Leeuwenhoek in the
seventeenth century, continued by O. F. Muller in the eighteenth, and
developed or applied with wonderful skill by Ehrenberg, Cohn, Lister,
Pasteur, Koch, Billings, Bering, and their compeers in the nineteenth,
has explained the origin and proposed the prevention or cure of various
diseases widely prevailing, which until recently have been generally
held to be "inscrutable providences." Finally, the closer study of
psychology, especially in its relations to folklore, has revealed
processes involved in the development of myths and legends: the
phenomena of "expectant attention," the tendency to marvel-mongering,
and the feeling of "joy in believing."
In summing up the history of this long struggle between science and
theology, two main facts are to be noted: First, that in proportion as
the world approached the "ages of faith" it receded from ascertained
truth, and in proportion as the world has receded from the "ages
of faith" it has approached ascertained truth; secondly, that, in
proportion as the grasp of theology Upon education tightened, medicine
declined, and in proportion as that grasp has relaxed, medicine has been
developed.
The world is hardly beyond the beginning of medical discoveries, yet
they have already taken from theology what was formerly its strongest
province--sweeping away from this vast field of human effort that belief
in miracles which for more than twenty centuries has been the main
stumbling-block in the path of medicine; and in doing this they have
cleared higher paths not only for science, but for religion.(328)
(328) For the rescue of medical education from the control of theology,
especially in France, see Rambaud, La Civilisation Contemporaine en
France, pp. 682, 683. For miraculous cures wrought by imagination,
see Tuke, Influence of Mind on Body, vol. ii. For opposition to the
scientific study of hypnotism, see Hypnotismus und Wunder: ein Vortrag,
mit Weiterungen, von Max Steigenberger, Domprediger, Augsburg, 1888,
reviewed in Science, Feb. 15, 1889, p. 127. For a recent statement
regarding the development of studies in hypnotism, see Liegeois, De
la Suggestion et du Somnambulisme dans leurs rapports avec la
Jurisprudence, Paris, 1889, chap. ii. As to joy in believing and
exaggerating marvels, see in the London Graphic for January 2, 1892,
an account of Hindu jugglers by "Professor" Hofmann, himself an expert
conjurer. He shows that the Hindu performances have been grossly and
persistently exaggerated in the accounts of travellers; that they are
easily seen through, and greatly inferior to the jugglers' tricks seen
every day in European capitals. The eminent Prof. De Gubernatis, who
also had witnessed the Hindu performances, assured the present writer
that the current accounts of them were monstrously exaggerated. As
to the miraculous in general, the famous Essay of Hume holds a most
important place in the older literature of the subject; but, for perhaps
the most remarkable of all discussions of it, see Conyers Middleton, D.
D., A Free Inquiry into the Miraculous Powers which are supposed to have
subsisted in the Christian Church, London, 1749. For probably the most
judicially fair discussion, see Lecky, History of European Morals, vol.
i, chap. iii; also his Rationalism in Europe, vol. i, chaps. i and ii;
and for perhaps the boldest and most suggestive of recent statements,
see Max Muller, Physical Religion, being the Gifford Lectures before the
University of Glasgow for 1890, London, 1891, lecture xiv. See also, for
very cogent statements and arguments, Matthew Arnold's Literature
and Dogma, especially chap. v, and, for a recent utterance of great
clearness and force, Prof. Osler's Address before the Johns Hopkins
University, given in Science for March 27, 1891.
CHAPTER XIV. FROM FETICH TO HYGIENE.
I. THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW OF EPIDEMICS AND SANITATION.
A very striking feature in recorded history has been the recurrence
of great pestilences. Various indications in ancient times show their
frequency, while the famous description of the plague of Athens given
by Thucydides, and the discussion of it by Lucretius, exemplify their
severity. In the Middle Ages they raged from time to time throughout
Europe: such plagues as the Black Death and the sweating sickness swept
off vast multitudes, the best authorities estimating that of the former,
at the middle of the fourteenth century, more than half the population
of England died, and that twenty-five millions of people perished in
various parts of Europe. In 1552 sixty-seven thousand patients died of
the plague at Paris alone, and in 1580 more than twenty thousand. The
great plague in England and other parts of Europe in the seventeenth
century was also fearful, and that which swept the south of Europe in
the early part of the eighteenth century, as well as the invasions by
the cholera at various times during the nineteenth, while less
terrible than those of former years, have left a deep impress upon the
imaginations of men.
From the earliest records we find such pestilences attributed to the
wrath or malice of unseen powers. This had been the prevailing view even
in the most cultured ages before the establishment of Christianity: in
Greece and Rome especially, plagues of various sorts were attributed
to the wrath of the gods; in Judea, the scriptural records of various
plagues sent upon the earth by the Divine fiat as a punishment for sin
show the continuance of this mode of thought. Among many examples and
intimations of this in our sacred literature, we have the epidemic which
carried off fourteen thousand seven hundred of the children of Israel,
and which was only stayed by the prayers and offerings of Aaron, the
high priest; the destruction of seventy thousand men in the pestilence
by which King David was punished for the numbering of Israel, and
which was only stopped when the wrath of Jahveh was averted by
burnt-offerings; the plague threatened by the prophet Zechariah, and
that delineated in the Apocalypse. From these sources this current of
ideas was poured into the early Christian Church, and hence it has been
that during nearly twenty centuries since the rise of Christianity,
and down to a period within living memory, at the appearance of
any pestilence the Church authorities, instead of devising sanitary
measures, have very generally preached the necessity of immediate
atonement for offences against the Almighty.
This view of the early Church was enriched greatly by a new development
of theological thought regarding the powers of Satan and evil angels,
the declaration of St. Paul that the gods of antiquity were devils being
cited as its sufficient warrant.(329)
(329) For plague during the Peloponnesian war, see Thucydides, vol. ii,
pp.47-55, and vol. iii, p. 87. For a general statement regarding this
and other plagues in ancient times, see Lucretius, vol. vi, pp. 1090 et
seq.; and for a translation, see vol. i, p. 179, in Munro's edition
of 1886. For early views of sanitary science in Greece and Rome, see
Forster's Inquiry, in The Pamphleteer, vol. xxiv, p. 404. For the
Greek view of the interference of the gods in disease, especially in
pestilence, see Grote's History of Greece, vol. i, pp. 251, 485,
and vol. vi, p. 213; see also Herodotus, lib. iii, c. xxxviii, and
elsewhere. For the Hebrew view of the same interference by the Almighty,
see especially Numbers xi, 4-34; also xvi, 49; I Samuel xxiv; also Psalm
cvi, 29; also the well-known texts in Zechariah and Revelation. For St.
Paul's declaration that the gods of the heathen are devils, see I Cor.
x, 20. As to the earlier origin of the plague in Egypt, see Haeser,
'Lehrbuch der Geschichte der Medicin und der epidemischen Krankheiten,
Jena, 1875-'82, vol. iii, pp. 15 et seq.
Moreover, comets, falling stars, and earthquakes were thought, upon
scriptural authority, to be "signs and wonders"--evidences of the
Divine wrath, heralds of fearful visitations; and this belief, acting
powerfully upon the minds of millions, did much to create a panic-terror
sure to increase epidemic disease wherever it broke forth.
The main cause of this immense sacrifice of life is now known to have
been the want of hygienic precaution, both in the Eastern centres, where
various plagues were developed, and in the European towns through which
they spread. And here certain theological reasonings came in to resist
the evolution of a proper sanitary theory. Out of the Orient had been
poured into the thinking of western Europe the theological idea that the
abasement of man adds to the glory of God; that indignity to the body
may secure salvation to the soul; hence, that cleanliness betokens pride
and filthiness humility. Living in filth was regarded by great numbers
of holy men, who set an example to the Church and to society, as an
evidence of sanctity. St. Jerome and the Breviary of the Roman Church
dwell with unction on the fact that St. Hilarion lived his whole life
long in utter physical uncleanliness; St. Athanasius glorifies St.
Anthony because he had never washed his feet; St. Abraham's most
striking evidence of holiness was that for fifty years he washed neither
his hands nor his feet; St. Sylvia never washed any part of her body
save her fingers; St. Euphraxia belonged to a convent in which the nuns
religiously abstained from bathing. St. Mary of Egypt was eminent for
filthiness; St. Simnon Stylites was in this respect unspeakable--the
least that can be said is, that he lived in ordure and stench
intolerable to his visitors. The Lives of the Saints dwell with
complacency on the statement that, when sundry Eastern monks showed a
disposition to wash themselves, the Almighty manifested his displeasure
by drying up a neighbouring stream until the bath which it had supplied
was destroyed.
The religious world was far indeed from the inspired utterance
attributed to John Wesley, that "cleanliness is near akin to godliness."
For century after century the idea prevailed that filthiness was akin to
holiness; and, while we may well believe that the devotion of the clergy
to the sick was one cause why, during the greater plagues, they lost so
large a proportion of their numbers, we can not escape the conclusion
that their want of cleanliness had much to do with it. In France, during
the fourteenth century, Guy de Chauliac, the great physician of
his time, noted particularly that certain Carmelite monks suffered
especially from pestilence, and that they were especially filthy. During
the Black Death no less than nine hundred Carthusian monks fell victims
in one group of buildings.
Naturally, such an example set by the venerated leaders of thought
exercised great influence throughout society, and all the more because
it justified the carelessness and sloth to which ordinary humanity is
prone. In the principal towns of Europe, as well as in the country at
large, down to a recent period, the most ordinary sanitary precautions
were neglected, and pestilences continued to be attributed to the
wrath of God or the malice of Satan. As to the wrath of God, a new and
powerful impulse was given to this belief in the Church toward the
end of the sixth century by St. Gregory the Great. In 590, when he was
elected Pope, the city of Rome was suffering from a dreadful pestilence:
the people were dying by thousands; out of one procession imploring the
mercy of Heaven no less than eighty persons died within an hour:
what the heathen in an earlier epoch had attributed to Apollo was now
attributed to Jehovah, and chroniclers tell us that fiery darts were
seen flung from heaven into the devoted city. But finally, in the midst
of all this horror, Gregory, at the head of a penitential procession,
saw hovering over the mausoleum of Hadrian the figure of the archangel
Michael, who was just sheathing a flaming sword, while three angels
were heard chanting the Regina Coeli. The legend continues that the Pope
immediately broke forth into hallelujahs for this sign that the plague
was stayed, and, as it shortly afterward became less severe, a chapel
was built at the summit of the mausoleum and dedicated to St. Michael;
still later, above the whole was erected the colossal statue of the
archangel sheathing his sword, which still stands to perpetuate the
legend. Thus the greatest of Rome's ancient funeral monuments was made
to bear testimony to this medieval belief; the mausoleum of Hadrian
became the castle of St. Angelo. A legend like this, claiming to
date from the greatest of the early popes, and vouched for by such an
imposing monument, had undoubtedly a marked effect upon the dominant
theology throughout Europe, which was constantly developing a great body
of thought regarding the agencies by which the Divine wrath might be
averted.
First among these agencies, naturally, were evidences of devotion,
especially gifts of land, money, or privileges to churches, monasteries,
and shrines--the seats of fetiches which it was supposed had wrought
cures or might work them. The whole evolution of modern history, not
only ecclesiastical but civil, has been largely affected by the wealth
transferred to the clergy at such periods. It was noted that in the
fourteenth century, after the great plague, the Black Death, had passed,
an immensely increased proportion of the landed and personal property of
every European country was in the hands of the Church. Well did a great
ecclesiastic remark that "pestilences are the harvests of the ministers
of God."(330)
(330) For triumphant mention of St. Hilarion's filth, see the Roman
Breviary for October 21st; and for details, see S. Hieronymus, Vita S.
Hilarionis Eremitae, in Migne, Patrologia, vol. xxiii. For Athanasius's
reference to St. Anthony's filth, see works of St. Athanasius in the
Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers, second series, vol. iv, p. 209. For the
filthiness of the other saints named, see citations from the Lives of
the Saints, in Lecky's History of European Morals, vol. ii, pp. 117,
118. For Guy de Chauliac's observation on the filthiness of Carmelite
monks and their great losses by pestilence, see Meryon, History of
Medicine, vol. i, p. 257. For the mortality among the Carthusian monks
in time of plague, see Mrs. Lecky's very interesting Visit to the Grand
Chartreuse, in The Nineteenth Century for March, 1891. For the plague
at Rome in 590, the legend regarding the fiery darts, mentioned by Pope
Gregory himself, and that of the castle of St. Angelo, see Gregorovius,
Geschichte der Stadt Rom im Mittelalter, vol. ii, pp. 26-35; also Story,
Castle of St. Angelo, etc., chap. ii. For the remark that "pestilences
are the harvest of the ministers of God," see reference to Charlevoix,
in Southey, History of Brazil, vol. ii, p. 254, cited in Buckle, vol. i,
p. 130, note.
Other modes of propitiating the higher powers were penitential
processions, the parading of images of the Virgin or of saints through
plague-stricken towns, and fetiches innumerable. Very noted in the
thirteenth and fourteenth centuries were the processions of the
flagellants, trooping through various parts of Europe, scourging their
naked bodies, shrieking the penitential psalms, and often running from
wild excesses of devotion to the maddest orgies.
Sometimes, too, plagues were attributed to the wrath of lesser heavenly
powers. Just as, in former times, the fury of "far-darting Apollo" was
felt when his name was not respectfully treated by mortals, so, in 1680,
the Church authorities at Rome discovered that the plague then raging
resulted from the anger of St. Sebastian because no monument had been
erected to him. Such a monument was therefore placed in the Church of
St. Peter ad Vincula, and the plague ceased.
So much for the endeavour to avert the wrath of the heavenly powers.
On the other hand, theological reasoning no less subtle was used in
thwarting the malice of Satan. This idea, too, came from far. In the
sacred books of India and Persia, as well as in our own, we find the
same theory of disease, leading to similar means of cure. Perhaps
the most astounding among Christian survivals of this theory and its
resultant practices was seen during the plague at Rome in 1522. In that
year, at that centre of divine illumination, certain people, having
reasoned upon the matter, came to the conclusion that this great scourge
was the result of Satanic malice; and, in view of St. Paul's declaration
that the ancient gods were devils, and of the theory that the ancient
gods of Rome were the devils who had the most reason to punish that city
for their dethronement, and that the great amphitheatre was the chosen
haunt of these demon gods, an ox decorated with garlands, after the
ancient heathen manner, was taken in procession to the Colosseum and
solemnly sacrificed. Even this proved vain, and the Church authorities
then ordered expiatory processions and ceremonies to propitiate the
Almighty, the Virgin, and the saints, who had been offended by this
temporary effort to bribe their enemies.
But this sort of theological reasoning developed an idea far more
disastrous, and this was that Satan, in causing pestilences, used as his
emissaries especially Jews and witches. The proof of this belief in
the case of the Jews was seen in the fact that they escaped with a
less percentage of disease than did the Christians in the great plague
periods. This was doubtless due in some measure to their remarkable
sanitary system, which had probably originated thousands of years
before in Egypt, and had been handed down through Jewish lawgivers and
statesmen. Certainly they observed more careful sanitary rules and
more constant abstinence from dangerous foods than was usual among
Christians; but the public at large could not understand so simple a
cause, and jumped to the conclusion that their immunity resulted
from protection by Satan, and that this protection was repaid and the
pestilence caused by their wholesale poisoning of Christians. As a
result of this mode of thought, attempts were made in all parts of
Europe to propitiate the Almighty, to thwart Satan, and to stop the
plague by torturing and murdering the Jews. Throughout Europe during
great pestilences we hear of extensive burnings of this devoted people.
In Bavaria, at the time of the Black Death, it is computed that twelve
thousand Jews thus perished; in the small town of Erfurt the number is
said to have been three thousand; in Strasburg, the Rue Brulee remains
as a monument to the two thousand Jews burned there for poisoning the
wells and causing the plague of 1348; at the royal castle of Chinon,
near Tours, an immense trench was dug, filled with blazing wood, and
in a single day one hundred and sixty Jews were burned. Everywhere in
continental Europe this mad persecution went on; but it is a pleasure
to say that one great churchman, Pope Clement VI, stood against this
popular unreason, and, so far as he could bring his influence to bear on
the maddened populace, exercised it in favour of mercy to these supposed
enemies of the Almighty.(331)
(331) For an early conception in India of the Divinity acting through
medicine, see The Bhagavadgita, translated by Telang, p. 82, in Max
Muller's Sacred Books of the East. For the necessity of religious
means of securing knowledge of medicine, see the Anugita, translated by
Telang, in Max Muller's Sacred Books of the East, p. 388. For ancient
Persian ideas of sickness as sent by the spirit of evil and to be cured
by spells, but not excluding medicine and surgery, and for sickness
generally as caused by the evil principle in demons, see the
Zend-Avesta, Darmesteter's translation, introduction, passim, but
especially p. xciii. For diseases wrought by witchcraft, see the same,
pp. 230, 293. On the preferences of spells in healing over medicine and
surgery, see Zend-Avesta, vol. i, pp. 85, 86. For healing by magic in
ancient Greece, see, e. g., the cure of Ulysses in the Odyssey, "They
stopped the black blood by a spell" (Odyssey, xxix, 457). For medicine
in Egypt as partly priestly and partly in the hands of physicians, see
Rawlinson's Herodotus, vol. ii, p. 136, note. For ideas of curing of
disease by expulsion of demons still surviving among various tribes
and nations of Asia, see J. G. Frazer, The Golden Bough: a Study of
Comparative Religion, London, 1890, pp. 184-192. For the Flagellants and
their processions at the time of the Black Death, see Lea, History
of the Inquisition, New York, 1888, vol. ii, pp. 381 et seq. For the
persecution of the Jews in time of pestilence, see ibid., p. 379 and
following, with authorities in the notes. For the expulsion of the Jews
from Padua, see the Acta Sanctorum, September, tom. viii, p. 893.
Yet, as late as 1527, the people of Pavia, being threatened with plague,
appealed to St. Bernardino of Feltro, who during his life had been a
fierce enemy of the Jews, and they passed a decree promising that if
the saint would avert the pestilence they would expel the Jews from the
city. The saint apparently accepted the bargain, and in due time the
Jews were expelled.
As to witches, the reasons for believing them the cause of pestilence
also came from far. This belief, too, had been poured mainly from
Oriental sources into our sacred books and thence into the early Church,
and was strengthened by a whole line of Church authorities, fathers,
doctors, and saints; but, above all, by the great bull, Summis
Desiderantes, issued by Pope Innocent VIII, in 1484. This utterance from
the seat of St. Peter infallibly committed the Church to the idea that
witches are a great cause of disease, storms, and various ills which
afflict humanity; and the Scripture on which the action recommended
against witches in this papal bull, as well as in so many sermons and
treatises for centuries afterward, was based, was the famous text, "Thou
shalt not suffer a witch to live." This idea persisted long, and the
evolution of it is among the most fearful things in human history.(332)
(332) On the plagues generally, see Hecker, Epidemics of the Middle
Ages, passim; but especially Haeser, as above, III. Band, pp. 1-202;
also Sprengel, Baas, Isensee, et al. For brief statement showing
the enormous loss of life in these plagues, see Littre, Medecine et
Medecins, Paris, 1875, pp. 3 et seq. For a summary of the effects of
the Black Plague throughout England, see Green's Short History of the
English People, chap. v. For the mortality in the Paris hospitals,
see Desmazes, Supplices, Prisons et Graces en France, Paris 1866. For
striking descriptions of plague-stricken cities, see the well-known
passages in Thucydides, Boccaccio, De Foe, and, above all, Manzoni's
Promessi Sposi. For examples of averting the plagues by processions, see
Leopold Delisle, Etudes sur la Condition de la Classe Agricole, etc., en
Normandie au Moyen Age, p. 630; also Fort, chap. xxiii. For the anger of
St. Sebastian as a cause of the plague at Rome, and its cessation when
a monument had been erected to him, see Paulus Diaconus, cited in
Gregorovius, vol. ii. p. 165. For the sacrifice of an ox in the
Colosseum to the ancient gods as a means of averting the plague of 1522,
at Rome, see Gregorovius, vol. viii, p. 390. As to massacres of the
Jews in order to avert the wrath of God in pestilence, see L'Ecole et la
Science, Paris, 1887, p. 178; also Hecker, and especially Hoeniger, Gang
und Verbreitung des Schwarzen Todes in Deutschalnd, Berlin, 1889. For
a long list of towns in which burnings of Jews took place for this
imaginary cause, see pp. 7-11. As to absolute want of sanitary
precautions, see Hecker, p. 292. As to condemnation by strong
religionists of medical means in the plague, see Fort, p. 130. For a
detailed account of the action of Popes Eugene IV, Innocent VIII, and
other popes, against witchcraft, ascribing to it storms and diseases,
and for the bull Summis Desiderantes, see the chapters on Meteorology
and Magic in this series. The text of the bull is given in the Malleus
Maleficarum, in Binsfield, and in Roskoff, Geschichte des Teufels,
Leipzig, 1869, vol. i, pp. 222-225, and a good summary and analysis of
it in Soldan, Geschichte der Hexenprocesse. For a concise and admirable
statement of the contents and effects of the bull, see Lea, History of
the Inquisition, vol. iii, pp. 40 et seq.; and for the best statement
known to me of the general subject, Prof. George L. Burr's paper on
The Literature of Witchcraft, read before the American Historical
Association at Washington, 1890.
In Germany its development was especially terrible. From the middle of
the sixteenth century to the middle of the seventeenth, Catholic
and Protestant theologians and ecclesiastics vied with each other in
detecting witches guilty of producing sickness or bad weather; women
were sent to torture and death by thousands, and with them, from time to
time, men and children. On the Catholic side sufficient warrant for
this work was found in the bull of Pope Innocent VIII, and the bishops'
palaces of south Germany became shambles,--the lordly prelates of
Salzburg, Wurzburg, and Bamberg taking the lead in this butchery.
In north Germany Protestantism was just as conscientiously cruel. It
based its theory and practice toward witches directly upon the Bible,
and above all on the great text which has cost the lives of so many
myriads of innocent men, women, and children, "Thou shalt not suffer a
witch to live." Naturally the Protestant authorities strove to show that
Protestantism was no less orthodox in this respect than Catholicism; and
such theological jurists as Carpzov, Damhouder, and Calov did their work
thoroughly. An eminent authority on this subject estimates the number of
victims thus sacrificed during that century in Germany alone at over a
hundred thousand.
Among the methods of this witch activity especially credited in central
and southern Europe was the anointing of city walls and pavements with
a diabolical unguent causing pestilence. In 1530 Michael Caddo was
executed with fearful tortures for thus besmearing the pavements of
Geneva. But far more dreadful was the torturing to death of a large body
of people at Milan, in the following century, for producing the plague
by anointing the walls; and a little later similar punishments for the
same crime were administered in Toulouse and other cities. The case in
Milan may be briefly summarized as showing the ideas on sanitary science
of all classes, from highest to lowest, in the seventeenth century. That
city was then under the control of Spain; and, its authorities having
received notice from the Spanish Government that certain persons
suspected of witchcraft had recently left Madrid, and had perhaps gone
to Milan to anoint the walls, this communication was dwelt upon in the
pulpits as another evidence of that Satanic malice which the Church
alone had the means of resisting, and the people were thus excited and
put upon the alert. One morning, in the year 1630, an old woman, looking
out of her window, saw a man walking along the street and wiping his
fingers upon the walls; she immediately called the attention of another
old woman, and they agreed that this man must be one of the diabolical
anointers. It was perfectly evident to a person under ordinary
conditions that this unfortunate man was simply trying to remove from
his fingers the ink gathered while writing from the ink-horn which he
carried in his girdle; but this explanation was too simple to satisfy
those who first observed him or those who afterward tried him: a mob was
raised and he was thrown into prison. Being tortured, he at first did
not know what to confess; but, on inquiring from the jailer and others,
he learned what the charge was, and, on being again subjected to torture
utterly beyond endurance, he confessed everything which was suggested
to him; and, on being tortured again and again to give the names of his
accomplices, he accused, at hazard, the first people in the city whom
he thought of. These, being arrested and tortured beyond endurance,
confessed and implicated a still greater number, until members of the
foremost families were included in the charge. Again and again all these
unfortunates were tortured beyond endurance. Under paganism, the rule
regarding torture had been that it should not be carried beyond human
endurance; and we therefore find Cicero ridiculing it as a means of
detecting crime, because a stalwart criminal of strong nerves might
resist it and go free, while a physically delicate man, though innocent,
would be forced to confess. Hence it was that under paganism a limit
was imposed to the torture which could be administered; but, when
Christianity had become predominant throughout Europe, torture was
developed with a cruelty never before known. There had been evolved a
doctrine of "excepted cases"--these "excepted cases" being especially
heresy and witchcraft; for by a very simple and logical process of
theological reasoning it was held that Satan would give supernatural
strength to his special devotees--that is, to heretics and witches--and
therefore that, in dealing with them, there should be no limit to the
torture. The result was in this particular case, as in tens of thousands
besides, that the accused confessed everything which could be suggested
to them, and often in the delirium of their agony confessed far more
than all that the zeal of the prosecutors could suggest. Finally, a
great number of worthy people were sentenced to the most cruel death
which could be invented. The records of their trials and deaths are
frightful. The treatise which in recent years has first brought to
light in connected form an authentic account of the proceedings in this
affair, and which gives at the end engravings of the accused subjected
to horrible tortures on their way to the stake and at the place of
execution itself, is one of the most fearful monuments of theological
reasoning and human folly.
To cap the climax, after a poor apothecary had been tortured into a
confession that he had made the magic ointment, and when he had been put
to death with the most exquisite refinements of torture, his family were
obliged to take another name, and were driven out from the city; his
house was torn down, and on its site was erected "The Column of Infamy,"
which remained on this spot until, toward the end of the eighteenth
century, a party of young radicals, probably influenced by the reading
of Beccaria, sallied forth one night and leveled this pious monument to
the ground.
Herein was seen the culmination and decline of the bull Summis
Desiderantes. It had been issued by him whom a majority of the Christian
world believes to be infallible in his teachings to the Church as
regards faith and morals; yet here was a deliberate utterance in a
matter of faith and morals which even children now know to be utterly
untrue. Though Beccaria's book on Crimes and Punishments, with its
declarations against torture, was placed by the Church authorities upon
the Index, and though the faithful throughout the Christian world were
forbidden to read it, even this could not prevent the victory of truth
over this infallible utterance of Innocent VIII.(333)
(333) As to the fearful effects of the papal bull Summis Desiderantes in
south Germany, as to the Protestant severities in north Germany, as to
the immense number of women and children put to death for witchcraft
in Germany generally for spreading storms and pestilence, and as to the
monstrous doctrine of "excepted cases," see the standard authorities on
witchcraft, especially Wachter, Beitrage zur Geschichte des Strafrechts,
Soldan, Horst, Hauber, and Langin; also Burr, as above. In another
series of chapters on The Warfare of Humanity with Theology, I hope to
go more fully into the subject. For the magic spreading of the plague at
Milan, see Manzoni, I Promessi Sposi and La Colonna Infame; and for
the origin of the charges, with all the details of the trail, see the
Precesso Originale degli Untori, Milan, 1839, passim, but especially
the large folding plate at the end, exhibiting the tortures. For the
after-history of the Column of Infamy, and for the placing of Beccaria's
book on the Index, see Cantu, Vita di Beccaria. For the magic spreading
of the plague in general, see Littre, pp. 492 and following.
As the seventeenth century went on, ingenuity in all parts of Europe
seemed devoted to new developments of fetichism. A very curious monument
of this evolution in Italy exists in the Royal Gallery of Paintings at
Naples, where may be seen several pictures representing the measures
taken to save the city from the plague during the seventeenth century,
but especially from the plague of 1656. One enormous canvas gives a
curious example of the theological doctrine of intercession between man
and his Maker, spun out to its logical length. In the background is the
plague-stricken city: in the foreground the people are praying to the
city authorities to avert the plague; the city authorities are praying
to the Carthusian monks; the monks are praying to St. Martin, St. Bruno,
and St. Januarius; these three saints in their turn are praying to the
Virgin; the Virgin prays to Christ; and Christ prays to the Almighty.
Still another picture represents the people, led by the priests,
executing with horrible tortures the Jews, heretics, and witches who
were supposed to cause the pestilence of 1656, while in the heavens
the Virgin and St. Januarius are interceding with Christ to sheathe his
sword and stop the plague.
In such an atmosphere of thought it is no wonder that the death
statistics were appalling. We hear of districts in which not more than
one in ten escaped, and some were entirely depopulated.
Such appeals to fetich against pestilence have continued in Naples down
to our own time, the great saving power being the liquefaction of the
blood of St. Januarius. In 1856 the present writer saw this miracle
performed in the gorgeous chapel of the saint forming part of the
Cathedral of Naples. The chapel was filled with devout worshippers of
every class, from the officials in court dress, representing the Bourbon
king, down to the lowest lazzaroni. The reliquary of silver-gilt, shaped
like a large human head, and supposed to contain the skull of the saint,
was first placed upon the altar; next, two vials containing a dark
substance said to be his blood, having been taken from the wall, were
also placed upon the altar near the head. As the priests said masses,
they turned the vials from time to time, and the liquefaction being
somewhat delayed, the great crowd of people burst out into more and more
impassioned expostulation and petitions to the saint. Just in front
of the altar were the lazzaroni who claimed to be descendants of the
saint's family, and these were especially importunate: at such times
they beg, they scold, they even threaten; they have been known to abuse
the saint roundly, and to tell him that, if he did not care to show his
favour to the city by liquefying his blood, St. Cosmo and St. Damian
were just as good saints as he, and would no doubt be very glad to have
the city devote itself to them. At last, on the occasion above referred
to, the priest, turning the vials suddenly, announced that the saint had
performed the miracle, and instantly priests, people, choir, and organ
burst forth into a great Te Deum; bells rang, and cannon roared; a
procession was formed, and the shrine containing the saint's relics was
carried through the streets, the people prostrating themselves on both
sides of the way and throwing showers of rose leaves upon the shrine
and upon the path before it. The contents of these precious vials are an
interesting relic indeed, for they represent to us vividly that period
when men who were willing to go to the stake for their religious
opinions thought it not wrong to save the souls of their fellowmen
by pious mendacity and consecrated fraud. To the scientific eye this
miracle is very simple: the vials contain, no doubt, one of those
mixtures fusing at low temperature, which, while kept in its place
within the cold stone walls of the church, remains solid, but upon being
brought out into the hot, crowded chapel, and fondled by the warm hands
of the priests, gradually softens and becomes liquid. It was curious
to note, at the time above mentioned, that even the high functionaries
representing the king looked at the miracle with awe: they evidently
found "joy in believing," and one of them assured the present writer
that the only thing which COULD cause it was the direct exercise of
miraculous power.
It may be reassuring to persons contemplating a visit to that beautiful
capital in these days, that, while this miracle still goes on, it is
no longer the only thing relied upon to preserve the public health. An
unbelieving generation, especially taught by the recent horrors of the
cholera, has thought it wise to supplement the power of St. Januarius by
the "Risanamento," begun mainly in 1885 and still going on. The drainage
of the city has thus been greatly improved, the old wells closed, and
pure water introduced from the mountains. Moreover, at the last outburst
of cholera a few years since, a noble deed was done which by its moral
effect exercised a widespread healing power. Upon hearing of this
terrific outbreak of pestilence, King Humbert, though under the ban of
the Church, broke from all the entreaties of his friends and family,
went directly into the plague-stricken city, and there, in the streets,
public places, and hospitals, encouraged the living, comforted the sick
and dying, and took means to prevent a further spread of the pestilence.
To the credit of the Church it should also be said that the Cardinal
Archbishop San Felice joined him in this.
Miracle for miracle, the effect of this visit of the king seems to have
surpassed anything that St. Januarius could do, for it gave confidence
and courage which very soon showed their effects in diminishing the
number of deaths. It would certainly appear that in this matter the king
was more directly under Divine inspiration and guidance than was the
Pope; for the fact that King Humbert went to Naples at the risk of his
life, while Leo XIII remained in safety at the Vatican, impressed
the Italian people in favour of the new regime and against the old as
nothing else could have done.
In other parts of Italy the same progress is seen under the new Italian
government. Venice, Genoa, Leghorn, and especially Rome, which under the
sway of the popes was scandalously filthy, are now among the cleanest
cities in Europe. What the relics of St. Januarius, St. Anthony, and
a multitude of local fetiches throughout Italy were for ages utterly
unable to do, has been accomplished by the development of the simplest
sanitary principles.
Spain shows much the same characteristics of a country where theological
considerations have been all-controlling for centuries. Down to the
interference of Napoleon with that kingdom, all sanitary efforts
were looked upon as absurd if not impious. The most sober accounts of
travellers in the Spanish Peninsula until a recent period are sometimes
irresistibly comic in their pictures of peoples insisting on maintaining
arrangements more filthy than any which would be permitted in an
American backwoods camp, while taking enormous pains to stop pestilence
by bell-ringings, processions, and new dresses bestowed upon the local
Madonnas; yet here, too, a healthful scepticism has begun to work for
good. The outbreaks of cholera in recent years have done some little to
bring in better sanitary measures.(334)
(334) As to the recourse to fetichism in Italy in time of plague, and
the pictures showing the intercession of Januarius and other saints, I
have relied on my own notes made at various visits to Naples. For the
general subject, see Peter, Etudes Napolitaines, especially chapters
v and vi. For detailed accounts of the liquefaction of St. Januarius's
blood by eye-witnesses, one an eminent Catholic of the seventeenth
century, and the other a distinguished Protestant of our own time,
see Murray's Handbook for South Italy and Naples, description of the
Cathedral of San Gennaro. For an interesting series of articles on the
subject, see The Catholic World for September, October, and November,
1871. For the incredible filthiness of the great cities of Spain, and
the resistance of the people, down to a recent period, to the most
ordinary regulations prompted by decency, see Bascome, History of
the Epidemic Pestilences, especially pp. 119, 120. See also the
Autobiography of D'Ewes, London, 1845, vol. ii, p. 446; also, for
various citations, the second volume of Buckle, History of Civilization
in England.
II. GRADUAL DECAY OF THEOLOGICAL VIEWS REGARDING SANITATION.
We have seen how powerful in various nations especially obedient to
theology were the forces working in opposition to the evolution of
hygiene, and we shall find this same opposition, less effective, it is
true, but still acting with great power, in countries which had become
somewhat emancipated from theological control. In England, during the
medieval period, persecutions of Jews were occasionally resorted to, and
here and there we hear of persecutions of witches; but, as torture was
rarely used in England, there were, from those charged with producing
plague, few of those torture-born confessions which in other countries
gave rise to widespread cruelties. Down to the sixteenth and seventeenth
centuries the filthiness in the ordinary mode of life in England was
such as we can now hardly conceive: fermenting organic material was
allowed to accumulate and become a part of the earthen floors of rural
dwellings; and this undoubtedly developed the germs of many diseases. In
his noted letter to the physician of Cardinal Wolsey, Erasmus describes
the filth thus incorporated into the floors of English houses, and, what
is of far more importance, he shows an inkling of the true cause of the
wasting diseases of the period. He says, "If I entered into a chamber
which had been uninhabited for months, I was immediately seized with a
fever." He ascribed the fearful plague of the sweating sickness to this
cause. So, too, the noted Dr. Caius advised sanitary precautions against
the plague, and in after-generations, Mead, Pringle, and others urged
them; but the prevailing thought was too strong, and little was done.
Even the floor of the presence chamber of Queen Elizabeth in Greenwich
Palace was "covered with hay, after the English fashion," as one of the
chroniclers tells us.
In the seventeenth century, aid in these great scourges was mainly
sought in special church services. The foremost English churchmen during
that century being greatly given to study of the early fathers of the
Church; the theological theory of disease, so dear to the fathers, still
held sway, and this was the case when the various visitations reached
their climax in the great plague of London in 1665, which swept off more
than a hundred thousand people from that city. The attempts at meeting
it by sanitary measures were few and poor; the medical system of
the time was still largely tinctured by superstitions resulting from
medieval modes of thought; hence that plague was generally attributed to
the Divine wrath caused by "the prophaning of the Sabbath." Texts from
Numbers, the Psalms, Zechariah, and the Apocalypse were dwelt upon in
the pulpits to show that plagues are sent by the Almighty to punish
sin; and perhaps the most ghastly figure among all those fearful scenes
described by De Foe is that of the naked fanatic walking up and down the
streets with a pan of fiery coals upon his head, and, after the manner
of Jonah at Nineveh, proclaiming woe to the city, and its destruction in
forty days.
That sin caused this plague is certain, but it was sanitary sin. Both
before and after this culmination of the disease cases of plague were
constantly occurring in London throughout the seventeenth century; but
about the beginning of the eighteenth century it began to disappear. The
great fire had done a good work by sweeping off many causes and centres
of infection, and there had come wider streets, better pavements, and
improved water supply; so that, with the disappearance of the plague,
other diseases, especially dysenteries, which had formerly raged in the
city, became much less frequent.
But, while these epidemics were thus checked in London, others developed
by sanitary ignorance raged fearfully both there and elsewhere, and of
these perhaps the most fearful was the jail fever. The prisons of that
period were vile beyond belief. Men were confined in dungeons rarely if
ever disinfected after the death of previous occupants, and on corridors
connecting directly with the foulest sewers: there was no proper
disinfection, ventilation, or drainage; hence in most of the large
prisons for criminals or debtors the jail fever was supreme, and from
these centres it frequently spread through the adjacent towns. This was
especially the case during the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. In
the Black Assize at Oxford, in 1577, the chief baron, the sheriff, and
about three hundred men died within forty hours. Lord Bacon declared the
jail fever "the most pernicious infection next to the plague." In 1730,
at the Dorsetshire Assize, the chief baron and many lawyers were killed
by it. The High Sheriff of Somerset also took the disease and died. A
single Scotch regiment, being infected from some prisoners, lost no less
than two hundred. In 1750 the disease was so virulent at Newgate, in the
heart of London, that two judges, the lord mayor, sundry aldermen, and
many others, died of it.
It is worth noting that, while efforts at sanitary dealing with this
state of things were few, the theological spirit developed a new and
special form of prayer for the sufferers and placed it in the Irish
Prayer Book.
These forms of prayer seem to have been the main reliance through the
first half of the eighteenth century. But about 1750 began the work
of John Howard, who visited the prisons of England, made known their
condition to the world, and never rested until they were greatly
improved. Then he applied the same benevolent activity to prisons in
other countries, in the far East, and in southern Europe, and finally
laid down his life, a victim to disease contracted on one of his
missions of mercy; but the hygienic reforms he began were developed
more and more until this fearful blot upon modern civilization was
removed.(335)
(335) For Erasmus, see the letter cited in Bascome, History of Epidemic
Pestilences, London, 1851. For the account of the condition of Queen
Elizabeth's presence chamber, see the same, p. 206; see also the same
for attempts at sanitation by Caius, Mead, Pringle, and others; also
see Baas and various medical authorities. For the plague in London, see
Green's History of the English People, chap. ix, sec. 2; and for a more
detailed account, see Lingard, History of England, enlarged edition of
1849, vol. ix, pp. 107 et seq. For full scientific discussion of this
and other plagues from a medical point of view, see Creighton, History
of Epidemics in Great Britain, vol. ii, chap. i. For the London plague
as a punishment for Sabbath-breaking, see A Divine Tragedie lately
acted, or A collection of sundry memorable examples of God's judgements
upon Sabbath Breakers and other like libertines, etc., by the worthy
divine, Mr. Henry Burton, 1641. The book gives fifty-six accounts of
Sabbath-breakers sorely punished, generally struck dead, in England,
with places, names, and dates. For a general account of the condition of
London in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and the diminution of
the plague by the rebuilding of some parts of the city after the great
fire, see Lecky, History of England in the Eighteenth Century, vol. i,
pp. 592, 593. For the jail fever, see Lecky, vol. i, pp. 500-503.
The same thing was seen in the Protestant colonies of America; but
here, while plagues were steadily attributed to Divine wrath or
Satanic malice, there was one case in which it was claimed that such
a visitation was due to the Divine mercy. The pestilence among the
INDIANS, before the arrival of the Plymouth Colony, was attributed in
a notable work of that period to the Divine purpose of clearing New
England for the heralds of the gospel; on the other hand, the plagues
which destroyed the WHITE population were attributed by the same
authority to devils and witches. In Cotton Mather's Wonder of the
Invisible World, published at Boston in 1693, we have striking examples
of this. The great Puritan divine tells us:
"Plagues are some of those woes, with which the Divil troubles us. It
is said of the Israelites, in 1 Cor. 10. 10. THEY WERE DESTROYED OF THE
DESTROYER. That is, they had the Plague among them. 'Tis the Destroyer,
or the Divil, that scatters Plagues about the World: Pestilential and
Contagious Diseases, 'tis the Divel, who do's oftentimes Invade us with
them. 'Tis no uneasy thing, for the Divel, to impregnate the Air
about us, with such Malignant Salts, as meeting with the Salt of
our Microcosm, shall immediately cast us into that Fermentation and
Putrefaction, which will utterly dissolve All the Vital Tyes within us;
Ev'n as an Aqua Fortis, made with a conjunction of Nitre and Vitriol,
Corrodes what it Siezes upon. And when the Divel has raised those
Arsenical Fumes, which become Venomous. Quivers full of Terrible Arrows,
how easily can he shoot the deleterious Miasms into those Juices or
Bowels of Men's Bodies, which will soon Enflame them with a Mortal Fire!
Hence come such Plagues, as that Beesome of Destruction which within our
memory swept away such a throng of people from one English City in one
Visitation: and hence those Infectious Feavers, which are but so many
Disguised Plagues among us, Causing Epidemical Desolations."
Mather gives several instances of witches causing diseases, and speaks
of "some long Bow'd down under such a Spirit of Infirmity" being
"Marvelously Recovered upon the Death of the Witches," of which he gives
an instance. He also cites a case where a patient "was brought unto
death's door and so remained until the witch was taken and carried
away by the constable, when he began at once to recover and was soon
well."(336)
(336) For the passages from Cotton Mather, see his book as cited, pp.
17, 18, also 134, 145. Johnson declares that "by this meanes Christ...
not only made roome for His people to plant, but also tamed the hard
and cruell hearts of these barbarous Indians, insomuch that a halfe a
handful of His people landing not long after in Plymouth Plantation,
found little resistance." See The History of New England, by Edward
Johnson, London, 1654. Reprinted in the Massachusetts Historical
Society's Collection, second series, vol. i, p. 67.
In France we see, during generation after generation, a similar history
evolved; pestilence after pestilence came, and was met by various
fetiches. Noteworthy is the plague at Marseilles near the beginning of
the last century. The chronicles of its sway are ghastly. They speak
of great heaps of the unburied dead in the public places, "forming
pestilential volcanoes"; of plague-stricken men and women in delirium
wandering naked through the streets; of churches and shrines thronged
with great crowds shrieking for mercy; of other crowds flinging
themselves into the wildest debauchery; of robber bands assassinating
the dying and plundering the dead; of three thousand neglected children
collected in one hospital and then left to die; and of the death-roll
numbering at last fifty thousand out of a population of less than ninety
thousand.
In the midst of these fearful scenes stood a body of men and women
worthy to be held in eternal honour--the physicians from Paris and
Montpellier; the mayor of the city, and one or two of his associates;
but, above all, the Chevalier Roze and Bishop Belzunce. The history of
these men may well make us glory in human nature; but in all this noble
group the figure of Belzunce is the most striking. Nobly and firmly,
when so many others even among the regular and secular ecclesiastics
fled, he stood by his flock: day and night he was at work in the
hospitals, cheering the living, comforting the dying, and doing what was
possible for the decent disposal of the dead. In him were united the
two great antagonistic currents of religion and of theology. As a
theologian he organized processions and expiatory services, which, it
must be confessed, rather increased the disease than diminished it;
moreover, he accepted that wild dream of a hysterical nun--the worship
of the material, physical sacred heart of Jesus--and was one of the
first to consecrate his diocese to it; but, on the other hand, the
religious spirit gave in him one of its most beautiful manifestations in
that or any other century; justly have the people of Marseilles placed
his statue in the midst of their city in an attitude of prayer and
blessing.
In every part of Europe and America, down to a recent period, we find
pestilences resulting from carelessness or superstition still called
"inscrutable providences." As late as the end of the eighteenth century,
when great epidemics made fearful havoc in Austria, the main means
against them seem to have been grovelling before the image of St.
Sebastian and calling in special "witch-doctors"--that is, monks who
cast out devils. To seek the aid of physicians was, in the neighbourhood
of these monastic centres, very generally considered impious, and the
enormous death rate in such neighbourhoods was only diminished in the
present century, when scientific hygiene began to make its way.
The old view of pestilence had also its full course in Calvinistic
Scotland; the only difference being that, while in Roman Catholic
countries relief was sought by fetiches, gifts, processions, exorcisms,
burnings of witches, and other works of expiation, promoted by priests;
in Scotland, after the Reformation, it was sought in fast-days and
executions of witches promoted by Protestant elders. Accounts of the
filthiness of Scotch cities and villages, down to a period well within
this century, seem monstrous. All that in these days is swept into the
sewers was in those allowed to remain around the houses or thrown into
the streets. The old theological theory, that "vain is the help of man,"
checked scientific thought and paralyzed sanitary endeavour. The result
was natural: between the thirteenth and seventeenth centuries thirty
notable epidemics swept the country, and some of them carried off
multitudes; but as a rule these never suggested sanitary improvement;
they were called "visitations," attributed to Divine wrath against human
sin, and the work of the authorities was to announce the particular
sin concerned and to declaim against it. Amazing theories were thus
propounded--theories which led to spasms of severity; and, in some of
these, offences generally punished much less severely were visited with
death. Every pulpit interpreted the ways of God to man in such seasons
so as rather to increase than to diminish the pestilence. The effect of
thus seeking supernatural causes rather than natural may be seen in such
facts as the death by plague of one fourth of the whole population of
the city of Perth in a single year of the fifteenth century, other towns
suffering similarly both then and afterward.
Here and there, physicians more wisely inspired endeavoured to push
sanitary measures, and in 1585 attempts were made to clean the streets
of Edinburgh; but the chroniclers tell us that "the magistrates and
ministers gave no heed." One sort of calamity, indeed, came in as a
mercy--the great fires which swept through the cities, clearing and
cleaning them. Though the town council of Edinburgh declared the noted
fire of 1700 "a fearful rebuke of God," it was observed that, after it
had done its work, disease and death were greatly diminished.(337)
(337) For the plague at Marseilles and its depopulation, see Henri
Martin, Histoire de France, vol. xv, especially document cited in
appendix; also Gibbon, Decline and Fall, chap. xliii; also Rambaud. For
the resort to witch doctors in Austria against pestilence, down to
the end of the eighteenth century, see Biedermann, Deutschland im
Achtzehnten Jahrhundert. For the resort to St. Sebastian, see the
widespread editions of the Vita et Gesta Sancti Sebastiani, contra
pestem patroni, prefaced with commendations from bishops and other high
ecclesiastics. The edition in the Cornell University Library is that of
Augsburg, 1693. For the reign of filth and pestilence in Scotland, see
Charles Rogers, D. D., Social Life in Scotland, Edinburgh, 1884, vol. i,
pp. 305-316; see also Buckle's second volume.
III. THE TRIUMPH OF SANITARY SCIENCE.
But by those standing in the higher places of thought some glimpses of
scientific truth had already been obtained, and attempts at compromise
between theology and science in this field began to be made, not only by
ecclesiastics, but first of all, as far back as the seventeenth century,
by a man of science eminent both for attainments and character--Robert
Boyle. Inspired by the discoveries in other fields, which had swept away
so much of theological thought, he could no longer resist the conviction
that some epidemics are due--in his own words--"to a tragical concourse
of natural causes"; but he argued that some of these may be the result
of Divine interpositions provoked by human sins. As time went on,
great difficulties showed themselves in the way of this
compromise--difficulties theological not less than difficulties
scientific. To a Catholic it was more and more hard to explain the
theological grounds why so many orthodox cities, firm in the faith,
were punished, and so many heretical cities spared; and why, in regions
devoted to the Church, the poorer people, whose faith in theological
fetiches was unquestioning, died in times of pestilence like flies,
while sceptics so frequently escaped. Difficulties of the same sort
beset devoted Protestants; they, too, might well ask why it was that the
devout peasantry in their humble cottages perished, while so much
larger a proportion of the more sceptical upper classes were untouched.
Gradually it dawned both upon Catholic and Protestant countries that, if
any sin be punished by pestilence, it is the sin of filthiness; more and
more it began to be seen by thinking men of both religions that
Wesley's great dictum stated even less than the truth; that not only
was "cleanliness akin to godliness," but that, as a means of keeping
off pestilence, it was far superior to godliness as godliness was then
generally understood.(338)
(338) For Boyle's attempt at compromise, see Discourse on the Air, in
his works, vol. iv, pp. 288, 289, cited by Buckle, vol. i, pp. 128, 129,
note.
The recent history of sanitation in all civilized countries shows
triumphs which might well fill us with wonder, did there not rise within
us a far greater wonder that they were so long delayed. Amazing is it to
see how near the world has come again and again to discovering the key
to the cause and cure of pestilence. It is now a matter of the simplest
elementary knowledge that some of the worst epidemics are conveyed in
water. But this fact seems to have been discovered many times in human
history. In the Peloponnesian war the Athenians asserted that their
enemies had poisoned their cisterns; in the Middle Ages the people
generally declared that the Jews had poisoned their wells; and as late
as the cholera of 1832 the Parisian mob insisted that the water-carriers
who distributed water for drinking purposes from the Seine, polluted as
it was by sewage, had poisoned it, and in some cases murdered them
on this charge: so far did this feeling go that locked covers were
sometimes placed upon the water-buckets. Had not such men as Roger
Bacon and his long line of successors been thwarted by theological
authority,--had not such men as Thomas Aquinas, Vincent of Beauvais, and
Albert the Great been drawn or driven from the paths of science into the
dark, tortuous paths of theology, leading no whither,--the world to-day,
at the end of the nineteenth century, would have arrived at the solution
of great problems and the enjoyment of great results which will only
be reached at the end of the twentieth century, and even in generations
more remote. Diseases like typhoid fever, influenza and pulmonary
consumption, scarlet fever, diphtheria, pneumonia, and la grippe, which
now carry off so many most precious lives, would have long since ceased
to scourge the world.
Still, there is one cause for satisfaction: the law governing the
relation of theology to disease is now well before the world, and it is
seen in the fact that, just in proportion as the world progressed from
the sway of Hippocrates to that of the ages of faith, so it progressed
in the frequency and severity of great pestilences; and that, on the
other hand, just in proportion as the world has receded from that period
when theology was all-pervading and all-controlling, plague after plague
has disappeared, and those remaining have become less and less frequent
and virulent.(339)
(339) For the charge of poisoning water and producing pestilence among
the Greeks, see Grote, History of Greece, vol. vi, p. 213. For a similar
charge against the Jews in the Middle Ages, see various histories
already cited; and for the great popular prejudice against
water-carriers at Paris in recent times, see the larger recent French
histories.
The recent history of hygiene in all countries shows a long series of
victories, and these may well be studied in Great Britain and the United
States. In the former, though there had been many warnings from eminent
physicians, and above all in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries,
from men like Caius, Mead, and Pringle, the result was far short of
what might have been gained; and it was only in the year 1838 that
a systematic sanitary effort was begun in England by the public
authorities. The state of things at that time, though by comparison
with the Middle Ages happy, was, by comparison with what has since been
gained, fearful: the death rate among all classes was high, but among
the poor it was ghastly. Out of seventy-seven thousand paupers in London
during the years 1837 and 1838, fourteen thousand were suffering from
fever, and of these nearly six thousand from typhus. In many other parts
of the British Islands the sanitary condition was no better. A noble
body of men grappled with the problem, and in a few years one of these
rose above his fellows--the late Edwin Chadwick. The opposition to his
work was bitter, and, though many churchmen aided him, the support given
by theologians and ecclesiastics as a whole was very far short of what
it should have been. Too many of them were occupied in that most costly
and most worthless of all processes, "the saving of souls" by the
inculcation of dogma. Yet some of the higher ecclesiastics and many of
the lesser clergy did much, sometimes risking their lives, and one of
them, Sidney Godolphin Osborne, deserves lasting memory for his struggle
to make known the sanitary wants of the peasantry.
Chadwick began to be widely known in 1848 as a member of the Board of
Health, and was driven out for a time for overzeal; but from one point
or another, during forty years, he fought the opposition, developed the
new work, and one of the best exhibits of its results is shown in his
address before the Sanitary Conference at Brighton in 1888. From this
and other perfectly trustworthy sources some idea may be gained of the
triumph of the scientific over the theological method of dealing with
disease, whether epidemic or sporadic.
In the latter half of the seventeenth century the annual mortality of
London is estimated at not less than eighty in a thousand; about the
middle of this century it stood at twenty-four in a thousand; in 1889
it stood at less than eighteen in a thousand; and in many parts the
most recent statistics show that it has been brought down to fourteen
or fifteen in a thousand. A quarter of a century ago the death rate from
disease in the Royal Guards at London was twenty in a thousand; in 1888
it had been reduced to six in a thousand. In the army generally it
had been seventeen in a thousand, but it has been reduced until it now
stands at eight. In the old Indian army it had been sixty-nine in a
thousand, but of late it has been brought down first to twenty, and
finally to fourteen. Mr. Chadwick in his speech proved that much more
might be done, for he called attention to the German army, where the
death rate from disease has been reduced to between five and six in a
thousand. The Public Health Act having been passed in 1875, the death
rate in England among men fell, between 1871 and 1880, more than four in
a thousand, and among women more than six in a thousand. In the decade
between 1851 and 1860 there died of diseases attributable to defective
drainage and impure water over four thousand persons in every million
throughout England: these numbers have declined until in 1888 there died
less than two thousand in every million. The most striking diminution
of the deaths from such causes was found in 1891, in the case of typhoid
fever, that diminution being fifty per cent. As to the scourge
which, next to plagues like the Black Death, was formerly the most
dreaded--smallpox--there died of it in London during the year 1890 just
one person. Drainage in Bristol reduced the death rate by consumption
from 4.4 to 2.3; at Cardiff, from 3.47 to 2.31; and in all England and
Wales, from 2.68 in 1851 to 1.55 in 1888.
What can be accomplished by better sanitation is also seen to-day by a
comparison between the death rate among the children outside and inside
the charity schools. The death rate among those outside in 1881 was
twelve in a thousand; while inside, where the children were under
sanitary regulations maintained by competent authorities, it has been
brought down first to eight, then to four, and finally to less than
three in a thousand.
In view of statistics like these, it becomes clear that Edwin Chadwick
and his compeers among the sanitary authorities have in half a century
done far more to reduce the rate of disease and death than has been done
in fifteen hundred years by all the fetiches which theological reasoning
could devise or ecclesiastical power enforce.
Not less striking has been the history of hygiene in France: thanks
to the decline of theological control over the universities, to the
abolition of monasteries, and to such labours in hygienic research and
improvement as those of Tardieu, Levy, and Bouchardat, a wondrous change
has been wrought in public health. Statistics carefully kept show that
the mean length of human life has been remarkably increased. In the
eighteenth century it was but twenty-three years; from 1825 to 1830
it was thirty-two years and eight months; and since 1864, thirty-seven
years and six months.
IV. THE RELATION OF SANITARY SCIENCE TO RELIGION.
The question may now arise whether this progress in sanitary science has
been purchased at any real sacrifice of religion in its highest sense.
One piece of recent history indicates an answer to this question.
The Second Empire in France had its head in Napoleon III, a noted
Voltairean. At the climax of his power he determined to erect an Academy
of Music which should be the noblest building of its kind. It was
projected on a scale never before known, at least in modern times, and
carried on for years, millions being lavished upon it. At the same
time the emperor determined to rebuild the Hotel-Dieu, the great Paris
hospital; this, too, was projected on a greater scale than anything
of the kind ever before known, and also required millions. But in
the erection of these two buildings the emperor's determination was
distinctly made known, that with the highest provision for aesthetic
enjoyment there should be a similar provision, moving on parallel lines,
for the relief of human suffering. This plan was carried out to the
letter: the Palace of the Opera and the Hotel-Dieu went on with equal
steps, and the former was not allowed to be finished before the latter.
Among all the "most Christian kings" of the house of Bourbon who had
preceded him for five hundred years, history shows no such obedience to
the religious and moral sense of the nation. Catharine de' Medici and
her sons, plunging the nation into the great wars of religion, never
showed any such feeling; Louis XIV, revoking the Edict of Nantes for the
glory of God, and bringing the nation to sorrow during many generations,
never dreamed of making the construction of his palaces and public
buildings wait upon the demands of charity. Louis XV, so subservient
to the Church in all things, never betrayed the slightest consciousness
that, while making enormous expenditures to gratify his own and the
national vanity, he ought to carry on works, pari passu, for charity.
Nor did the French nation, at those periods when it was most largely
under the control of theological considerations, seem to have any
inkling of the idea that nation or monarch should make provision for
relief from human suffering, to justify provision for the sumptuous
enjoyment of art: it was reserved for the second half of the nineteenth
century to develop this feeling so strongly, though quietly, that
Napoleon III, notoriously an unbeliever in all orthodoxy, was obliged to
recognise it and to set this great example.
Nor has the recent history of the United States been less fruitful in
lessons. Yellow fever, which formerly swept not only Southern cities but
even New York and Philadelphia, has now been almost entirely warded off.
Such epidemics as that in Memphis a few years since, and the immunity of
the city from such visitations since its sanitary condition was changed
by Mr. Waring, are a most striking object lesson to the whole country.
Cholera, which again and again swept the country, has ceased to be
feared by the public at large. Typhus fever, once so deadly, is now
rarely heard of. Curious is it to find that some of the diseases which
in the olden time swept off myriads on myriads in every country, now
cause fewer deaths than some diseases thought of little account, and
for the cure of which people therefore rely, to their cost, on quackery
instead of medical science.
This development of sanitary science and hygiene in the United States
has also been coincident with a marked change in the attitude of the
American pulpit as regards the theory of disease. In this country, as
in others, down to a period within living memory, deaths due to want of
sanitary precautions were constantly dwelt upon in funeral sermons as
"results of national sin," or as "inscrutable Providences." That view
has mainly passed away among the clergy of the more enlightened parts of
the country, and we now find them, as a rule, active in spreading useful
ideas as to the prevention of disease. The religious press has been
especially faithful in this respect, carrying to every household more
just ideas of sanitary precautions and hygienic living.
The attitude even of many among the most orthodox rulers in church and
state has been changed by facts like these. Lord Palmerston refusing the
request of the Scotch clergy that a fast day be appointed to ward off
cholera, and advising them to go home and clean their streets,--the
devout Emperor William II forbidding prayer-meetings in a similar
emergency, on the ground that they led to neglect of practical human
means of help,--all this is in striking contrast to the older methods.
Well worthy of note is the ground taken in 1893, at Philadelphia, by
an eminent divine of the Protestant Episcopal Church. The Bishop of
Pennsylvania having issued a special call to prayer in order to ward off
the cholera, this clergyman refused to respond to the call, declaring
that to do so, in the filthy condition of the streets then prevailing in
Philadelphia, would be blasphemous.
In summing up the whole subject, we see that in this field, as in so
many others, the triumph of scientific thought has gradually done much
to evolve in the world not only a theology but also a religious spirit
more and more worthy of the goodness of God and of the destiny of
man.(340)
(340) On the improvement in sanitation in London and elsewhere in the
north of Europe, see the editorial and Report of the Conference on
Sanitation at Brighton, given in the London Times of August 27, 1888.
For the best authorities on the general subject in England, see Sir John
Simon on English Sanitary Institutions, 1890; also his published Health
Reports for 1887, cited in the Edinburgh Review for January, 1891. See
also Parkes's Hygiene, passim. For the great increase in the mean length
of life in France under better hygienic conditions, see Rambaud, La
Civilisation contemporaine en France, p. 682. For the approach to
depopulation at Memphis, under the cesspool system in 1878, see Parkes,
Hygiene, American appendix, p. 397. For the facts brought out in the
investigation of the department of the city of New York by the Committee
of the State Senate, of which the present writer was a member, see New
York Senate Documents for 1865. For decrease of death rate in New York
city under the new Board of Health, beginning in 1866, and especially
among children, see Buck, Hygiene and Popular Health, New York, 1879,
vol. ii, p. 573; and for wise remarks on religious duties during
pestilence, see ibid., vol. ii, p. 579. For a contrast between the old
and new ideas regarding pestilences, see Charles Kingsley in Fraser's
Magazine, vol. lviii, p. 134; also the sermon of Dr. Burns, in 1875,
at the Cathedral of Glasgow before the Social Science Congress. For a
particularly bright and valuable statement of the triumphs of modern
sanitation, see Mrs. Plunkett's article in The Popular Science Monthly
for June, 1891. For the reply of Lord Palmerston to the Scotch clergy,
see the well-known passage in Buckle. For the order of the Emperor
William, see various newspapers for September, 1892, and especially
Public Opinion for September 24th.
CHAPTER XV. FROM "DEMONIACAL POSSESSION" TO INSANITY.
I. THEOLOGICAL IDEAS OF LUNACY AND ITS TREATMENT.
Of all the triumphs won by science for humanity, few have been
farther-reaching in good effects than the modern treatment of the
insane. But this is the result of a struggle long and severe between
two great forces. On one side have stood the survivals of various
superstitions, the metaphysics of various philosophies, the dogmatism of
various theologies, the literal interpretation of various sacred books,
and especially of our own--all compacted into a creed that insanity is
mainly or largely demoniacal possession; on the other side has stood
science, gradually accumulating proofs that insanity is always the
result of physical disease.
I purpose in this chapter to sketch, as briefly as I may, the history of
this warfare, or rather of this evolution of truth out of error.
Nothing is more simple and natural, in the early stages of civilization,
than belief in occult, self-conscious powers of evil. Troubles and
calamities come upon man; his ignorance of physical laws forbids him
to attribute them to physical causes; he therefore attributes them
sometimes to the wrath of a good being, but more frequently to the
malice of an evil being.
Especially is this the case with diseases. The real causes of disease
are so intricate that they are reached only after ages of scientific
labour; hence they, above all, have been attributed to the influence of
evil spirits.(341)
(341) On the general attribution of disease to demoniacal influence, see
Sprenger, History of Medicine, passim (note, for a later attitude, vol.
ii, pp. 150-170, 178); Calmeil, De la Folie, Paris, 1845, vol. i, pp.
104, 105; Esquirol, Des Maladies Mentales, Paris, 1838, vol. i, p. 482;
also Tylor, Primitive Culture. For a very plain and honest statement of
this view in our own sacred books, see Oort, Hooykaas, and Kuenen,
The Bible for Young People, English translation, chap. v, p. 167 and
following; also Farrar's Life of Christ, chap. xvii. For this idea
in Greece and elsewhere, see Maury, La Magie, etc., vol. iii, p. 276,
giving, among other citations, one from book v of the Odyssey. On the
influence of Platonism, see Esquirol and others, as above--the main
passage cited is from the Phaedo. For the devotion of the early fathers
and doctors to this idea, see citations from Eusebius, Lactantius, St.
Jerome, St. Augustine, St. John Chrysostom, St. Gregory Nazianzen,
in Tissot, L'Imagination, p. 369; also Jacob (i.e., Paul Lecroix),
Croyances Populaires, p. 183. For St. Augustine, see also his De
Civitate Dei, lib. xxii, chap. vii, and his Enarration in Psal., cxxxv,
1. For the breaking away of the religious orders in Italy from the
entire supremacy of this idea, see Becavin, L'Ecole de Salerne, Paris,
1888; also Daremberg, Histoire de la Medecine. Even so late as the
Protestant Reformation, Martin Luther maintained (Table Talk, Hazlitt's
translation, London, 1872, pp. 250, 256) that "Satan produces all the
maladies which afflict mankind."
But, if ordinary diseases were likely to be attributed to diabolical
agency, how much more diseases of the brain, and especially the more
obscure of these! These, indeed, seemed to the vast majority of mankind
possible only on the theory of Satanic intervention: any approach to a
true theory of the connection between physical causes and mental results
is one of the highest acquisitions of science.
Here and there, during the whole historic period, keen men had obtained
an inkling of the truth; but to the vast multitude, down to the end of
the seventeenth century, nothing was more clear than that insanity is,
in many if not in most cases, demoniacal possession.
Yet at a very early date, in Greece and Rome, science had asserted
itself, and a beginning had been made which seemed destined to bring
a large fruitage of blessings.(342) In the fifth century before the
Christian era, Hippocrates of Cos asserted the great truth that all
madness is simply disease of the brain, thereby beginning a development
of truth and mercy which lasted nearly a thousand years. In the first
century after Christ, Aretaeus carried these ideas yet further, observed
the phenomena of insanity with great acuteness, and reached yet more
valuable results. Near the beginning of the following century, Soranus
went still further in the same path, giving new results of research, and
strengthening scientific truth. Toward the end of the same century a new
epoch was ushered in by Galen, under whom the same truth was developed
yet further, and the path toward merciful treatment of the insane made
yet more clear. In the third century Celius Aurelianus received this
deposit of precious truth, elaborated it, and brought forth the great
idea which, had theology, citing biblical texts, not banished it, would
have saved fifteen centuries of cruelty--an idea not fully recognised
again till near the beginning of the present century--the idea that
insanity is brain disease, and that the treatment of it must be gentle
and kind. In the sixth century Alexander of Tralles presented still more
fruitful researches, and taught the world how to deal with melancholia;
and, finally, in the seventh century, this great line of scientific men,
working mainly under pagan auspices, was closed by Paul of Aegina, who
under the protection of Caliph Omar made still further observations,
but, above all, laid stress on the cure of madness as a disease, and on
the absolute necessity of mild treatment.
(342) It is significant of this scientific attitude that the Greek word
for superstition means, literally, fear of gods or demons.
Such was this great succession in the apostolate of science: evidently
no other has ever shown itself more directly under Divine grace,
illumination, and guidance. It had given to the world what might have
been one of its greatest blessings.(343)
(343) For authorities regarding this development of scientific truth
and mercy in antiquity, see especially Krafft-Ebing, Lehrbuch des
Psychiatrie, Stuttgart, 1888, p. 40 and the pages following; Trelat,
Recherches Historiques sur la Folie, Paris, 1839; Semelaigne,
L'Alienation mentale dans l'Antiquitie, Paris, 1869; Dagron, Des
Alienes, Paris, 1875; also Calmeil, De la Folie, Sprenger, and
especially Isensee, Geschichte der Medicin, Berlin, 1840.
This evolution of divine truth was interrupted by theology. There set
into the early Church a current of belief which was destined to bring
all these noble acquisitions of science and religion to naught, and,
during centuries, to inflict tortures, physical and mental, upon
hundreds of thousands of innocent men and women--a belief which held
its cruel sway for nearly eighteen centuries; and this belief was that
madness was mainly or largely possession by the devil.
This idea of diabolic agency in mental disease had grown luxuriantly
in all the Oriental sacred literatures. In the series of Assyrian
mythological tablets in which we find those legends of the Creation, the
Fall, the Flood, and other early conceptions from which the Hebrews so
largely drew the accounts wrought into the book of Genesis, have been
discovered the formulas for driving out the evil spirits which cause
disease. In the Persian theology regarding the struggle of the great
powers of good and evil this idea was developed to its highest point.
From these and other ancient sources the Jews naturally received this
addition to their earlier view: the Mocker of the Garden of Eden became
Satan, with legions of evil angels at his command; and the theory of
diabolic causes of mental disease took a firm place in our sacred books.
Such cases in the Old Testament as the evil spirit in Saul, which we
now see to have been simply melancholy--and, in the New Testament,
the various accounts of the casting out of devils, through which is
refracted the beautiful and simple story of that power by which Jesus of
Nazareth soothed perturbed minds by his presence or quelled outbursts
of madness by his words, give examples of this. In Greece, too, an
idea akin to this found lodgment both in the popular belief and in the
philosophy of Plato and Socrates; and though, as we have seen, the great
leaders in medical science had taught with more or less distinctness
that insanity is the result of physical disease, there was a strong
popular tendency to attribute the more troublesome cases of it to
hostile spiritual influence.(344)
(344) For the exorcism against disease found at Ninevah, see G. Smith,
Delitzsch's German translation, p. 34. For a very interesting passage
regarding the representaion of a diabolic personage on a Babylonian
bronze, and for a very frank statement regarding the transmission of
ideas regarding Satanic power to our sacred books, see Sayce, Herodotus,
appendix ii, p. 393. It is, indeed, extremely doubtful whether Plato
himself or his contemporaries knew anything of evil demons, this
conception probably coming into the Greek world, as into the Latin,
with the Oriental influences that began to prevail about the time of the
birth of Christ; but to the early Christians, a demon was a demon, and
Plato's, good or bad, were pagan, and therefore devils. The Greek word
"epilepsy" is itself a survival of the old belief, fossilized in a word,
since its literal meaning refers to the SEIZURE of the patient by evil
spirits.
From all these sources, but especially from our sacred books and the
writings of Plato, this theory that mental disease is caused largely
or mainly by Satanic influence passed on into the early Church. In the
apostolic times no belief seems to have been more firmly settled. The
early fathers and doctors in the following age universally accepted it,
and the apologists generally spoke of the power of casting out devils as
a leading proof of the divine origin of the Christian religion.
This belief took firm hold upon the strongest men. The case of St.
Gregory the Great is typical. He was a pope of exceedingly broad mind
for his time, and no one will think him unjustly reckoned one of the
four Doctors of the Western Church. Yet he solemnly relates that a
nun, having eaten some lettuce without making the sign of the cross,
swallowed a devil, and that, when commanded by a holy man to come forth,
the devil replied: "How am I to blame? I was sitting on the lettuce,
and this woman, not having made the sign of the cross, ate me along with
it."(345)
(345) For a striking statement of the Jewish belief in diabolical
interference, see Josephus, De Bello Judaico, vii, 6, iii; also his
Antiquities, vol. viii, Whiston's translation. On the "devil cast out,"
in Mark ix, 17-29, as undoubtedly a case of epilepsy, see Cherullier,
Essai sur l'Epilepsie; also Maury, art. Demonique in the Encyclopedie
Moderne. In one text, at least, the popular belief is perfectly shown as
confounding madness and possession: "He hath a devil, and is mad," John
x, 20. Among the multitude of texts, those most relied upon were Matthew
viii, 28, and Luke x, 17; and for the use of fetiches in driving out
evil spirits, the account of the cures wrought by touching the garments
of St. Paul in Acts xix, 12. On the general subject, see authorities
already given, and as a typical passage, Tertullian, Ad. Scap., ii.
For the very gross view taken by St. Basil, see Cudworth, Intellectual
System, vol. ii, p. 648; also Archdeacon Farrar's Life of Christ. For
the case related by St. Gregory the Great with comical details, see the
Exempla of Archbishop Jacques de Vitrie, edited by Prof. T. F. Crane,
of Cornell University, p. 59, art. cxxx. For a curious presentation
of Greek views, see Lelut, Le demon Socrate, Paris, 1856; and for
the transmission of these to Christianity, see the same, p. 201 and
following.
As a result of this idea, the Christian Church at an early period in
its existence virtually gave up the noble conquests of Greek and Roman
science in this field, and originated, for persons supposed to be
possessed, a regular discipline, developed out of dogmatic theology.
But during the centuries before theology and ecclesiasticism had become
fully dominant this discipline was, as a rule, gentle and useful.
The afflicted, when not too violent, were generally admitted to the
exercises of public worship, and a kindly system of cure was attempted,
in which prominence was given to holy water, sanctified ointments, the
breath or spittle of the priest, the touching of relics, visits to holy
places, and submission to mild forms of exorcism. There can be no doubt
that many of these things, when judiciously used in that spirit of love
and gentleness and devotion inherited by the earlier disciples from "the
Master," produced good effects in soothing disturbed minds and in aiding
their cure.
Among the thousands of fetiches of various sorts then resorted to may
be named, as typical, the Holy Handkerchief of Besancon. During many
centuries multitudes came from far and near to touch it; for, it was
argued, if touching the garments of St. Paul at Ephesus had cured the
diseased, how much more might be expected of a handkerchief of the Lord
himself!
With ideas of this sort was mingled a vague belief in medical treatment,
and out of this mixture were evolved such prescriptions as the
following:
"If an elf or a goblin come, smear his forehead with this salve, put it
on his eyes, cense him with incense, and sign him frequently with the
sign of the cross."
"For a fiend-sick man: When a devil possesses a man, or controls him
from within with disease, a spew-drink of lupin, bishopswort, henbane,
garlic. Pound these together, add ale and holy water."
And again: "A drink for a fiend-sick man, to be drunk out of a church
bell: Githrife, cynoglossum, yarrow, lupin, flower-de-luce, fennel,
lichen, lovage. Work up to a drink with clear ale, sing seven masses
over it, add garlic and holy water, and let the possessed sing the Beati
Immaculati; then let him drink the dose out of a church bell, and let
the priest sing over him the Domine Sancte Pater Omnipotens."(346)
(346) See Cockayne, Leechdoms, Wort-cunning, and Star-Craft of Early
England in the Rolls Series, vol. ii, p. 177; also pp. 355, 356. For the
great value of priestly saliva, see W. W. Story's essays.
Had this been the worst treatment of lunatics developed in the
theological atmosphere of the Middle Ages, the world would have
been spared some of the most terrible chapters in its history; but,
unfortunately, the idea of the Satanic possession of lunatics led to
attempts to punish the indwelling demon. As this theological theory and
practice became more fully developed, and ecclesiasticism more powerful
to enforce it, all mildness began to disappear; the admonitions
to gentle treatment by the great pagan and Moslem physicians were
forgotten, and the treatment of lunatics tended more and more toward
severity: more and more generally it was felt that cruelty to madmen was
punishment of the devil residing within or acting upon them.
A few strong churchmen and laymen made efforts to resist this tendency.
As far back as the fourth century, Nemesius, Bishop of Emesa,
accepted the truth as developed by pagan physicians, and aided them
in strengthening it. In the seventh century, a Lombard code embodied a
similar effort. In the eighth century, one of Charlemagne's capitularies
seems to have had a like purpose. In the ninth century, that great
churchman and statesman, Agobard, Archbishop of Lyons, superior to his
time in this as in so many other things, tried to make right reason
prevail in this field; and, near the beginning of the tenth century,
Regino, Abbot of Prum, in the diocese of Treves, insisted on treating
possession as disease. But all in vain; the current streaming most
directly from sundry texts in the Christian sacred books, and swollen by
theology, had become overwhelming.(347)
(347) For a very thorough and interesting statement on the general
subject, see Kirchhoff, Beziehungen des Damonen- und Hexenwesens zur
deutschen Irrenpflege in the Allgemeine Zeitschrift fur Psychiatrie,
Berlin, 1888, Bd. xliv, Heft 25. For Roman Catholic authority, see Addis
and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, article Energumens. For a brief and
eloquent summary, see Krefft-Ebing, Lehrbuch der Psychiatrie, as above;
and for a clear view of the transition from pagan mildness in the care
of the insane to severity and cruelty under the Christian Church, see
Maudsley, The Pathology of the Mind, London, 1879, p. 523. See also
Buchmann, Die undfreie und die freie Kirche, Bresleau, 1873, p. 251.
For other citations, see Kirchoff, as above, pp. 334-346. For Bishop
Nemesius, see Trelat, p. 48. For an account of Agobard's general
position in regard to this and allied superstitions, see Reginald Lane
Poole's Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, London, 1884.
The first great tributary poured into this stream, as we approach the
bloom of the Middle Ages, appears to have come from the brain of Michael
Psellus. Mingling scriptural texts, Platonic philosophy, and theological
statements by great doctors of the Church, with wild utterances obtained
from lunatics, he gave forth, about the beginning of the twelfth
century, a treatise on The Work of Demons. Sacred science was vastly
enriched thereby in various ways; but two of his conclusions, the
results of his most profound thought, enforced by theologians and
popularized by preachers, soon took special hold upon the thinking
portion of the people at large. The first of these, which he easily
based upon Scripture and St. Basil, was that, since all demons suffer by
material fire and brimstone, they must have material bodies; the second
was that, since all demons are by nature cold, they gladly seek a genial
warmth by entering the bodies of men and beasts.(348)
(348) See Baas and Werner, cited by Kirchhoff, as above; also Lecky,
Rationalism in Europe, vol. i, p. 68, and note, New York, 1884. As to
Basil's belief in the corporeality of devils, see his Commentary on
Isaiah, cap. i.
Fed by this stream of thought, and developed in the warm atmosphere of
medieval devotion, the idea of demoniacal possession as the main source
of lunacy grew and blossomed and bore fruit in noxious luxuriance.
There had, indeed, come into the Middle Ages an inheritance of
scientific thought. The ideas of Hippocrates, Celius Aurelianus,
Galen, and their followers, were from time to time revived; the Arabian
physicians, the School of Salerno, such writers as Salicetus and Guy de
Chauliac, and even some of the religious orders, did something to keep
scientific doctrines alive; but the tide of theological thought was
too strong; it became dangerous even to seem to name possible limits to
diabolical power. To deny Satan was atheism; and perhaps nothing did so
much to fasten the epithet "atheist" upon the medical profession as the
suspicion that it did not fully acknowledge diabolical interference
in mental disease. Following in the lines of the earlier fathers, St.
Anselm, Abelard, St. Thomas Aquinas, Vincent of Beauvais, all the great
doctors in the medieval Church, some of them in spite of occasional
misgivings, upheld the idea that insanity is largely or mainly
demoniacal possession, basing their belief steadily on the sacred
Scriptures; and this belief was followed up in every quarter by more
and more constant citation of the text "Thou shalt not suffer a witch
to live." No other text of Scripture--save perhaps one--has caused the
shedding of so much innocent blood.
As we look over the history of the Middle Ages, we do, indeed, see
another growth from which one might hope much; for there were two great
streams of influence in the Church, and never were two powers more
unlike each other.
On one side was the spirit of Christianity, as it proceeded from the
heart and mind of its blessed Founder, immensely powerful in aiding the
evolution of religious thought and effort, and especially of provision
for the relief of suffering by religious asylums and tender care.
Nothing better expresses this than the touching words inscribed upon a
great medieval hospital, "Christo in pauperibus suis." But on the other
side was the theological theory--proceeding, as we have seen, from the
survival of ancient superstitions, and sustained by constant reference
to the texts in our sacred books--that many, and probably most, of the
insane were possessed by the devil or in league with him, and that the
cruel treatment of lunatics was simply punishment of the devil and his
minions. By this current of thought was gradually developed one of
the greatest masses of superstitious cruelty that has ever afflicted
humanity. At the same time the stream of Christian endeavour, so far
as the insane were concerned, was almost entirely cut off. In all the
beautiful provision during the Middle Ages for the alleviation of human
suffering, there was for the insane almost no care. Some monasteries,
indeed, gave them refuge. We hear of a charitable work done for them at
the London Bethlehem Hospital in the thirteenth century, at Geneva in
the fifteenth, at Marseilles in the sixteenth, by the Black Penitents in
the south of France, by certain Franciscans in northern France, by the
Alexian Brothers on the Rhine, and by various agencies in other parts of
Europe; but, curiously enough, the only really important effort in the
Christian Church was stimulated by the Mohammedans. Certain monks, who
had much to do with them in redeeming Christian slaves, found in the
fifteenth century what John Howard found in the eighteenth, that the
Arabs and Turks made a large and merciful provision for lunatics, such
as was not seen in Christian lands; and this example led to better
establishments in Spain and Italy.
All honour to this work and to the men who engaged in it; but, as a
rule, these establishments were few and poor, compared with those for
other diseases, and they usually degenerated into "mad-houses," where
devils were cast out mainly by cruelty.(349)
(349) For a very full and learned, if somewhat one-sided, account of the
earlier effects of this stream of charitable thought, see Tollemer, Des
Origines de la Charite Catholique, Paris, 1858. It is instructive to
note that, while this book is very full in regard to the action of the
Church on slavery and on provision for the widows and orphans, the sick,
infirm, captives, and lepers, there is hardly a trace of any care for
the insane. This same want is incidentally shown by a typical example
in Kriegk, Aerzte, Heilanstalten und Geisteskranke im mittelalterlichen
Frankfurt, Frankfurt a. M., 1863, pp. 16, 17; also Kirschhof, pp. 396,
397. On the general subject, see Semelaigne, as above, p. 214; also
Calmeil, vol. i, pp. 116, 117. For the effect of Muslem example in Spain
and Italy, see Krafft-Ebing, as above, p. 45, note.
The first main weapon against the indwelling Satan continued to be the
exorcism; but under the influence of inferences from Scripture farther
and farther fetched, and of theological reasoning more and more subtle,
it became something very different from the gentle procedure of earlier
times, and some description of this great weapon at the time of its
highest development will throw light on the laws which govern the growth
of theological reasoning, as well as upon the main subject in hand.
A fundamental premise in the fully developed exorcism was that,
according to sacred Scripture, a main characteristic of Satan is pride.
Pride led him to rebel; for pride he was cast down; therefore the first
thing to do, in driving him out of a lunatic, was to strike a fatal blow
at his pride,--to disgust him.
This theory was carried out logically, to the letter. The treatises
on the subject simply astound one by their wealth of blasphemous and
obscene epithets which it was allowable for the exorcist to use in
casting out devils. The Treasury of Exorcisms contains hundreds of pages
packed with the vilest epithets which the worst imagination could invent
for the purpose of overwhelming the indwelling Satan.(350)
(350) Thesaurus Exorcismorum atque Conjurationum terribilium,
potentissimorum, efficacissimorum, cum PRACTICA probatissima: quibus
spiritus maligni, Daemones Maleficiaque omnia de Corporibus humanis
obsessis, tanquam Flagellis Fustibusque fugantur, expelluntur,...
Cologne, 1626. Many of the books of the exorcists were put upon the
various indexes of the Church, but this, the richest collection of all,
and including nearly all those condemned, was not prohibited until
1709. Scarcely less startling manuals continued even later in use; and
exorcisms adapted to every emergency may of course still be found in all
the Benedictionals of the Church, even the latest. As an example, see
the Manuale Benedictionum, published by the Bishop of Passau in 1849, or
the Exorcismus in Satanam, etc., issued in 1890 by the present Pope, and
now on sale at the shop of the Propoganda in Rome.
Some of those decent enough to be printed in these degenerate days ran
as follows:
"Thou lustful and stupid one,... thou lean sow, famine-stricken and
most impure,... thou wrinkled beast, thou mangy beast, thou beast of all
beasts the most beastly,... thou mad spirit,... thou bestial and foolish
drunkard,... most greedy wolf,... most abominable whisperer,... thou sooty
spirit from Tartarus!... I cast thee down, O Tartarean boor, into the
infernal kitchen!... Loathsome cobbler,... dingy collier,... filthy
sow (scrofa stercorata),... perfidious boar,... envious crocodile,...
malodorous drudge,... wounded basilisk,... rust-coloured asp,...
swollen toad,... entangled spider,... lousy swine-herd (porcarie
pedicose),... lowest of the low,... cudgelled ass," etc.
But, in addition to this attempt to disgust Satan's pride with
blackguardism, there was another to scare him with tremendous words. For
this purpose, thunderous names, from Hebrew and Greek, were imported,
such as Acharon, Eheye, Schemhamphora, Tetragrammaton, Homoousion,
Athanatos, Ischiros, Aecodes, and the like.(351)
(351) See the Conjuratio on p. 300 of the Thesaurus, and the general
directions given on pp. 251, 251.
Efforts were also made to drive him out with filthy and rank-smelling
drugs; and, among those which can be mentioned in a printed article,
we may name asafoetida, sulphur, squills, etc., which were to be burned
under his nose.
Still further to plague him, pictures of the devil were to be spat upon,
trampled under foot by people of low condition, and sprinkled with foul
compounds.
But these were merely preliminaries to the exorcism proper. In this
the most profound theological thought and sacred science of the period
culminated.
Most of its forms were childish, but some rise to almost Miltonic
grandeur. As an example of the latter, we may take the following:
"By the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ, which God hath given to make
known unto his servants those things which are shortly to be; and hath
signified, sending by his angel,... I exorcise you, ye angels of untold
perversity!
"By the seven golden candlesticks,... and by one like unto the Son of
man, standing in the midst of the candlesticks; by his voice, as the
voice of many waters;... by his words, 'I am living, who was dead; and
behold, I live forever and ever; and I have the keys of death and of
hell,' I say unto you, Depart, O angels that show the way to eternal
perdition!"
Besides these, were long litanies of billingsgate, cursing, and
threatening. One of these "scourging" exorcisms runs partly as follows:
"May Agyos strike thee, as he did Egypt, with frogs!... May all the
devils that are thy foes rush forth upon thee, and drag thee down to
hell!... May... Tetragrammaton... drive thee forth and stone thee, as
Israel did to Achan!... May the Holy One trample on thee and hang thee
up in an infernal fork, as was done to the five kings of the
Amorites!... May God set a nail to your skull, and pound it in with a
hammer, as Jael did unto Sisera!... May... Sother... break thy head and
cut off thy hands, as was done to the cursed Dagon!... May God hang thee
in a hellish yoke, as seven men were hanged by the sons of Saul!" And so
on, through five pages of close-printed Latin curses.(352)
(352) Thesaurus Exorcismorum, pp. 812-817.
Occasionally the demon is reasoned with, as follows: "O obstinate,
accursed, fly!... why do you stop and hold back, when you know that your
strength is lost on Christ? For it is hard for thee to kick against the
pricks; and, verily, the longer it takes you to go, the worse it will
go with you. Begone, then: take flight, thou venomous hisser, thou lying
worm, thou begetter of vipers!"(353)
(353) Ibid., p. 859.
This procedure and its results were recognised as among the glories of
the Church. As typical, we may mention an exorcism directed by a certain
Bishop of Beauvais, which was so effective that five devils gave up
possession of a sufferer and signed their names, each for himself and
his subordinate imps, to an agreement that the possessed should be
molested no more. So, too, the Jesuit fathers at Vienna, in 1583,
gloried in the fact that in such a contest they had cast out twelve
thousand six hundred and fifty-two living devils. The ecclesiastical
annals of the Middle Ages, and, indeed, of a later period, abound in
boasts of such "mighty works."(354)
(354) In my previous chapters, especially that on meteorology, I have
quoted extensively from the original treatises, of which a very large
collection is in my posession; but in this chapter I have mainly availed
myself of the copious translations given by M. H. Dziewicki, in his
excellent article in The Nineteenth Century for October, 1888, entitled
Exorcizo Te. For valuable citations on the origin and spread of
exorcism, see Lecky's European Morals (third English edition), vol. i,
pp. 379-385.
Such was the result of a thousand years of theological reasoning, by
the strongest minds in Europe, upon data partly given in Scripture and
partly inherited from paganism, regarding Satan and his work among men.
Under the guidance of theology, always so severe against "science
falsely so called," the world had come a long way indeed from the
soothing treatment of the possessed by him who bore among the noblest
of his titles that of "The Great Physician." The result was natural: the
treatment of the insane fell more and more into the hands of the jailer,
the torturer, and the executioner.
To go back for a moment to the beginnings of this unfortunate
development. In spite of the earlier and more kindly tendency in
the Church, the Synod of Ancyra, as early as 314 A.D., commanded
the expulsion of possessed persons from the Church; the Visigothic
Christians whipped them; and Charlemagne, in spite of some good
enactments, imprisoned them. Men and women, whose distempered minds
might have been restored to health by gentleness and skill, were driven
into hopeless madness by noxious medicines and brutality. Some few were
saved as mere lunatics--they were surrendered to general carelessness,
and became simply a prey to ridicule and aimless brutality; but vast
numbers were punished as tabernacles of Satan.
One of the least terrible of these punishments, and perhaps the most
common of all, was that of scourging demons out of the body of a
lunatic. This method commended itself even to the judgment of so
thoughtful and kindly a personage as Sir Thomas More, and as late as the
sixteenth century. But if the disease continued, as it naturally would
after such treatment, the authorities frequently felt justified in
driving out the demons by torture.(355)
(355) For prescription of the whipping-post by Sir Thomas More, see D.
H. Tuke's History of Insanity in the British Isles, London, 1882, p. 41.
Interesting monuments of this idea, so fruitful in evil, still exist.
In the great cities of central Europe, "witch towers," where witches
and demoniacs were tortured, and "fool towers," where the more gentle
lunatics were imprisoned, may still be seen.
In the cathedrals we still see this idea fossilized. Devils and imps,
struck into stone, clamber upon towers, prowl under cornices, peer out
from bosses of foliage, perch upon capitals, nestle under benches,
flame in windows. Above the great main entrance, the most common of
all representations still shows Satan and his imps scowling, jeering,
grinning, while taking possession of the souls of men and scourging
them with serpents, or driving them with tridents, or dragging them
with chains into the flaming mouth of hell. Even in the most hidden and
sacred places of the medieval cathedral we still find representations
of Satanic power in which profanity and obscenity run riot. In these
representations the painter and the glass-stainer vied with the
sculptor. Among the early paintings on canvas a well-known example
represents the devil in the shape of a dragon, perched near the head of
a dying man, eager to seize his soul as it issues from his mouth, and
only kept off by the efforts of the attendant priest. Typical are the
colossal portrait of Satan, and the vivid picture of the devils cast
out of the possessed and entering into the swine, as shown in the
cathedral-windows of Strasburg. So, too, in the windows of Chartres
Cathedral we see a saint healing a lunatic: the saint, with a long
devil-scaring formula in Latin issuing from his mouth; and the lunatic,
with a little detestable hobgoblin, horned, hoofed, and tailed, issuing
from HIS mouth. These examples are but typical of myriads in cathedrals
and abbeys and parish churches throughout Europe; and all served to
impress upon the popular mind a horror of everything called diabolic,
and a hatred of those charged with it. These sermons in stones preceded
the printed book; they were a sculptured Bible, which preceded Luther's
pictorial Bible.(356)
(356) I cite these instances out of a vast number which I have
personally noted in visits to various cathedrals. For striking examples
of mediaeval grotesques, see Wright's History of Caricature and the
Grotesque, London, 1875; Langlois's Stalles de la Cathedrale de Rouen,
1838; Adeline's Les Sculptures Grotesques et Symboliques, Rouen,
1878; Viollet le Duc, Dictionnaire de l'Architecture; Gailhabaud, Sur
l'Architecture, etc. For a reproduction of an illuminated manuscript in
which devils fly out of the mouths of the possessed under the influence
of exorcisms, see Cahier and Martin, Nouveaux Melanges d' Archeologie
for 1874, p. 136; and for a demon emerging from a victim's mouth in a
puff of smoke at the command of St. Francis Xavier, see La Devotion de
Dix Vendredis, etc., Plate xxxii.
Satan and his imps were among the principal personages in every popular
drama, and "Hell's Mouth" was a piece of stage scenery constantly
brought into requisition. A miracle-play without a full display of the
diabolic element in it would have stood a fair chance of being pelted
from the stage.(357)
(357) See Wright, History of Caricature and the Grotesque; F. J.
Mone, Schauspiele des Mittelalters, Carlsruhe, 1846; Dr. Karl Hase,
Miracle-Plays and Sacred Dramas, Boston,1880 (translation from the
German). Examples of the miracle-plays may be found in Marriott's
Collection of English Miracle-Plays, 1838; in Hone's Ancient Mysteries;
in T. Sharpe's Dissertaion on the Pageants.. . anciently performed at
Coventry, Coventry, 1828; in the publications of the Shakespearean and
other societies. See especially The Harrowing of Hell, a miracle-play,
edited from the original now in the British Museum, by T. O. Halliwell,
London, 1840. One of the items still preserved is a sum of money paid
for keeping a fire burning in hell's mouth. Says Hase (as above, p. 42):
"In wonderful satyrlike masquerade, in which neither horns, tails,
nor hoofs were ever... wanting, the devil prosecuted on the stage his
business of fetching souls," which left the mouths of the dying "in the
form of small images."
Not only the popular art but the popular legends embodied these ideas.
The chroniclers delighted in them; the Lives of the Saints abounded in
them; sermons enforced them from every pulpit. What wonder, then, that
men and women had vivid dreams of Satanic influence, that dread of it
was like dread of the plague, and that this terror spread the disease
enormously, until we hear of convents, villages, and even large
districts, ravaged by epidemics of diabolical possession!(358)
(358) I shall discuss these epidemics of possession, which form a
somewhat distinct class of phenomena, in the next chapter.
And this terror naturally bred not only active cruelty toward those
supposed to be possessed, but indifference to the sufferings of those
acknowledged to be lunatics. As we have already seen, while ample and
beautiful provision was made for every other form of human suffering,
for this there was comparatively little; and, indeed, even this little
was generally worse than none. Of this indifference and cruelty we
have a striking monument in a single English word--a word originally
significant of gentleness and mercy, but which became significant of
wild riot, brutality, and confusion--Bethlehem Hospital became "Bedlam."
Modern art has also dwelt upon this theme, and perhaps the most
touching of all its exhibitions is the picture by a great French master,
representing a tender woman bound to a column and exposed to the jeers,
insults, and missiles of street ruffians.(359)
(359) The typical picture representing a priest's struggle with the
devil is in the city gallery of Rouen. The modern picture is Robert
Fleury's painting in the Luxembourg Gallery at Paris.
Here and there, even in the worst of times, men arose who attempted to
promote a more humane view, but with little effect. One expositor of St.
Matthew, having ventured to recall the fact that some of the insane were
spoken of in the New Testament as lunatics and to suggest that their
madness might be caused by the moon, was answered that their madness
was not caused by the moon, but by the devil, who avails himself of the
moonlight for his work.(360)
(360) See Geraldus Cambrensis, cited by Tuke, as above, pp. 8, 9.
One result of this idea was a mode of cure which especially aggravated
and spread mental disease: the promotion of great religious processions.
Troops of men and women, crying, howling, imploring saints, and beating
themselves with whips, visited various sacred shrines, images, and
places in the hope of driving off the powers of evil. The only result
was an increase in the numbers of the diseased.
For hundreds of years this idea of diabolic possession was steadily
developed. It was believed that devils entered into animals, and animals
were accordingly exorcised, tried, tortured, convicted, and executed.
The great St. Ambrose tells us that a priest, while saying mass, was
troubled by the croaking of frogs in a neighbouring marsh; that he
exorcised them, and so stopped their noise. St. Bernard, as the monkish
chroniclers tell us, mounting the pulpit to preach in his abbey, was
interrupted by a cloud of flies; straightway the saint uttered the
sacred formula of excommunication, when the flies fell dead upon the
pavement in heaps, and were cast out with shovels! A formula of exorcism
attributed to a saint of the ninth century, which remained in use down
to a recent period, especially declares insects injurious to crops to
be possessed of evil spirits, and names, among the animals to be
excommunicated or exorcised, mice, moles, and serpents. The use of
exorcism against caterpillars and grasshoppers was also common. In the
thirteenth century a Bishop of Lausanne, finding that the eels in Lake
Leman troubled the fishermen, attempted to remove the difficulty by
exorcism, and two centuries later one of his successors excommunicated
all the May-bugs in the diocese. As late as 1731 there appears an entry
on the Municipal Register of Thonon as follows: "RESOLVED, That this
town join with other parishes of this province in obtaining from Rome
an excommunication against the insects, and that it will contribute pro
rata to the expenses of the same."
Did any one venture to deny that animals could be possessed by Satan,
he was at once silenced by reference to the entrance of Satan into the
serpent in the Garden of Eden, and to the casting of devils into swine
by the Founder of Christianity himself.(361)
(361) See Menabrea, Proces au Moyen Age contre les Animaux, Chambery,
1846, pp. 31 and following; also Desmazes, Supplices, Prisons et Grace
en France, pp. 89, 90, and 385-395. For a formula and ceremonies used in
excommunicating insects, see Rydberg, pp. 75 and following.
One part of this superstition most tenaciously held was the belief that
a human being could be transformed into one of the lower animals. This
became a fundamental point. The most dreaded of predatory animals in the
Middle Ages were the wolves. Driven from the hills and forests in the
winter by hunger, they not only devoured the flocks, but sometimes came
into the villages and seized children. From time to time men and women
whose brains were disordered dreamed that they had been changed into
various animals, and especially into wolves. On their confessing this,
and often implicating others, many executions of lunatics resulted;
moreover, countless sane victims, suspected of the same impossible
crime, were forced by torture to confess it, and sent unpitied to the
stake. The belief in such a transformation pervaded all Europe, and
lasted long even in Protestant countries. Probably no article in
the witch creed had more adherents in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and
seventeenth centuries than this. Nearly every parish in Europe had its
resultant horrors.
The reformed Church in all its branches fully accepted the doctrines of
witchcraft and diabolic possession, and developed them still further.
No one urged their fundamental ideas more fully than Luther. He did,
indeed, reject portions of the witchcraft folly; but to the influence of
devils he not only attributed his maladies, but his dreams, and nearly
everything that thwarted or disturbed him. The flies which lighted upon
his book, the rats which kept him awake at night, he believed to be
devils; the resistance of the Archbishop of Mayence to his ideas, he
attributed to Satan literally working in that prelate's heart; to his
disciples he told stories of men who had been killed by rashly resisting
the devil. Insanity, he was quite sure, was caused by Satan, and he
exorcised sufferers. Against some he appears to have advised stronger
remedies; and his horror of idiocy, as resulting from Satanic influence,
was so great, that on one occasion he appears to have advised the
killing of an idiot child, as being the direct offspring of Satan. Yet
Luther was one of the most tender and loving of men; in the whole range
of literature there is hardly anything more touching than his words and
tributes to children. In enforcing his ideas regarding insanity, he laid
stress especially upon the question of St. Paul as to the bewitching of
the Galatians, and, regarding idiocy, on the account in Genesis of the
birth of children whose fathers were "sons of God" and whose mothers
were "daughters of men." One idea of his was especially characteristic.
The descent of Christ into hell was a frequent topic of discussion in
the Reformed Church. Melanchthon, with his love of Greek studies, held
that the purpose of the Saviour in making such a descent was to make
himself known to the great and noble men of antiquity--Plato, Socrates,
and the rest; but Luther insisted that his purpose was to conquer Satan
in a hand-to-hand struggle.
This idea of diabolic influence pervaded his conversation, his
preaching, his writings, and spread thence to the Lutheran Church in
general. Calvin also held to the same theory, and, having more power
with less kindness of heart than Luther, carried it out with yet
greater harshness. Beza was especially severe against those who believed
insanity to be a natural malady, and declared, "Such persons are refuted
both by sacred and profane history."
Under the influence, then, of such infallible teachings, in the older
Church and in the new, this superstition was developed more and more
into cruelty; and as the biblical texts, popularized in the sculptures
and windows and mural decorations of the great medieval cathedrals, had
done much to develop it among the people, so Luther's translation of
the Bible, especially in the numerous editions of it illustrated with
engravings, wrought with enormous power to spread and deepen it. In
every peasant's cottage some one could spell out the story of the devil
bearing Christ through the air and placing him upon the pinnacle of
the Temple--of the woman with seven devils--of the devils cast into
the swine. Every peasant's child could be made to understand the quaint
pictures in the family Bible or the catechism which illustrated vividly
all those texts. In the ideas thus deeply implanted, the men who in
the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries struggled against this mass of
folly and cruelty found the worst barrier to right reason.(362)
(362) For Luther, see, among the vast number of similar passages in his
works, the Table Talk, Hazlitt's translation, pp. 251, 252. As to
the grotesques in mediaeval churches, the writer of this article, in
visiting the town church of Wittenberg, noticed, just opposite the
pulpit where Luther so often preached, a very spirited figure of an
imp peering out upon the congregation. One can but suspect that this
mediaeval survival frequently suggested Luther's favourite topic during
his sermons. For Beza, see his Notes on the New Testament, Matthew iv,
24.
Such was the treatment of demoniacs developed by theology, and such the
practice enforced by ecclesiasticism for more than a thousand years.
How an atmosphere was spread in which this belief began to dissolve
away, how its main foundations were undermined by science, and how there
came in gradually a reign of humanity, will now be related.
II. BEGINNINGS OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM.
We have now seen the culmination of the old procedure regarding
insanity, as it was developed under theology and enforced by
ecclesiasticism; and we have noted how, under the influence of Luther
and Calvin, the Reformation rather deepened than weakened the faith in
the malice and power of a personal devil. Nor was this, in the Reformed
churches any more than in the old, mere matter of theory. As in the
early ages of Christianity, its priests especially appealed, in proof
of the divine mission, to their power over the enemy of mankind in the
bodies of men, so now the clergy of the rival creeds eagerly sought
opportunities to establish the truth of their own and the falsehood of
their opponents' doctrines by the visible casting out of devils. True,
their methods differed somewhat: where the Catholic used holy water and
consecrated wax, the Protestant was content with texts of Scripture
and importunate prayer; but the supplementary physical annoyance of the
indwelling demon did not greatly vary. Sharp was the competition for the
unhappy objects of treatment. Each side, of course, stoutly denied all
efficacy to its adversaries' efforts, urging that any seeming victory
over Satan was due not to the defeat but to the collusion of the fiend.
As, according to the Master himself, "no man can by Beelzebub cast out
devils," the patient was now in greater need of relief than before; and
more than one poor victim had to bear alternately Lutheran, Roman, and
perhaps Calvinistic exorcism.(363)
(363) For instances of this competition, see Freytag, Aus dem Jahrh. d.
Reformation, pp. 359-375. The Jesuit Stengel, in his De judiciis divinis
(Ingolstadt, 1651), devotes a whole chapter to an exorcism, by the great
Canisius, of a spirit that had baffled Protestant conjuration. Among
the most jubilant Catholic satires of the time are those exulting in
Luther's alleged failure as an exorcist.
But far more serious in its consequences was another rivalry to which in
the sixteenth century the clergy of all creeds found themselves subject.
The revival of the science of medicine, under the impulse of the new
study of antiquity, suddenly bade fair to take out of the hands of the
Church the profession of which she had enjoyed so long and so profitable
a monopoly. Only one class of diseases remained unquestionably
hers--those which were still admitted to be due to the direct personal
interference of Satan--and foremost among these was insanity.(364) It
was surely no wonder that an age of religious controversy and excitement
should be exceptionally prolific in ailments of the mind; and, to men
who mutually taught the utter futility of that baptismal exorcism by
which the babes of their misguided neighbours were made to renounce
the devil and his works, it ought not to have seemed strange that his
victims now became more numerous.(365) But so simple an explanation did
not satisfy these physicians of souls; they therefore devised a simpler
one: their patients, they alleged, were bewitched, and their increase
was due to the growing numbers of those human allies of Satan known as
witches.
(364) For the attitude of the Catholic clergy, the best sources are the
confidential Jesuit Litterae Annuae. To this day the numerous treatises
on "pastoral medicine" in use in the older Church devote themselves
mainly to this sort of warfare with the devil.
(365) Baptismal exorcism continued in use among the Lutherans till the
eighteenth century, though the struggle over its abandonment had been
long and sharp. See Krafft, Histories vom Exorcismo, Hamburg, 1750.
Already, before the close of the fifteenth century, Pope Innocent VIII
had issued the startling bull by which he called on the archbishops,
bishops, and other clergy of Germany to join hands with his inquisitors
in rooting out these willing bond-servants of Satan, who were said to
swarm throughout all that country and to revel in the blackest crimes.
Other popes had since reiterated the appeal; and, though none of these
documents touched on the blame of witchcraft for diabolic possession,
the inquisitors charged with their execution pointed it out most clearly
in their fearful handbook, the Witch-Hammer, and prescribed the special
means by which possession thus caused should be met. These teachings
took firm root in religious minds everywhere; and during the great age
of witch-burning that followed the Reformation it may well be doubted
whether any single cause so often gave rise to an outbreak of the
persecution as the alleged bewitchment of some poor mad or foolish or
hysterical creature. The persecution, thus once under way, fed itself;
for, under the terrible doctrine of "excepted cases," by which in the
religious crimes of heresy and witchcraft there was no limit to the use
of torture, the witch was forced to confess to accomplices, who in turn
accused others, and so on to the end of the chapter.(366)
(366) The Jesuit Stengel, professor at Ingolstadt, who (in his great
work, De judiciis divinis) urges, as reasons why a merciful God permits
illness, his wish to glorify himself through the miracles wrought by his
Church, and his desire to test the faith of men by letting them choose
between the holy aid of the Church and the illicit resort to medicine,
declares that there is a difference between simple possession and
that brought by bewitchment, and insists that the latter is the more
difficult to treat.
The horrors of such a persecution, with the consciousness of an
ever-present devil it breathed and the panic terror of him it
inspired, could not but aggravate the insanity it claimed to cure.
Well-authenticated, though rarer than is often believed, were the cases
where crazed women voluntarily accused themselves of this impossible
crime. One of the most eminent authorities on diseases of the mind
declares that among the unfortunate beings who were put to death for
witchcraft he recognises well-marked victims of cerebral disorders;
while an equally eminent authority in Germany tells us that, in a most
careful study of the original records of their trials by torture, he has
often found their answers and recorded conversations exactly like those
familiar to him in our modern lunatic asylums, and names some forms
of insanity which constantly and un mistakably appear among those who
suffered for criminal dealings with the devil.(367) The result of this
widespread terror was naturally, therefore, a steady increase in mental
disorders. A great modern authority tells us that, although modern
civilization tends to increase insanity, the number of lunatics at
present is far less than in the ages of faith and in the Reformation
period. The treatment of the "possessed," as we find it laid down
in standard treatises, sanctioned by orthodox churchmen and jurists,
accounts for this abundantly. One sort of treatment used for those
accused of witchcraft will also serve to show this--the "tortura
insomniae." Of all things in brain-disease, calm and regular sleep is
most certainly beneficial; yet, under this practice, these half-crazed
creatures were prevented, night after night and day after day, from
sleeping or even resting. In this way temporary delusion became chronic
insanity, mild cases became violent, torture and death ensued, and the
"ways of God to man" were justified.(368) But the most contemptible
creatures in all those centuries were the physicians who took sides
with religious orthodoxy. While we have, on the side of truth, Flade
sacrificing his life, Cornelius Agrippa his liberty, Wier and Loos
their hopes of preferment, Bekker his position, and Thomasius his ease,
reputation, and friends, we find, as allies of the other side, a troop
of eminently respectable doctors mixing Scripture, metaphysics, and
pretended observations to support the "safe side" and to deprecate
interference with the existing superstition, which seemed to them "a
very safe belief to be held by the common people."(369)
(367) See D. H. Tuke, Chapters in the History of the Insane in the
British Isles, London, 1822, p. 36; also Kirchhoff, p. 340. The forms
of insanity especially mentioned are "dementia senilis" and epilepsy. A
striking case of voluntary confession of witchcraft by a woman who lived
to recover from the delusion is narrated in great detail by Reginald
Scot, in his Discovery of Witchcraft, London, 1584. It is, alas, only
too likely that the "strangeness" caused by slight and unrecognised
mania led often to the accusation of witchcraft instead of to the
suspicion of possession.
(368) See Kirchhoff, as above.
(369) For the arguments used by creatures of this sort, see Diefenbach,
Der Hexenwahn vor und nach der Glaubensspaltung in Deutschland, pp.
342-346. A long list of their infamous names is given on p. 345.
Against one form of insanity both Catholics and Protestants were
especially cruel. Nothing is more common in all times of religious
excitement than strange personal hallucinations, involving the belief,
by the insane patient, that he is a divine person. In the most striking
representation of insanity that has ever been made, Kaulbach shows,
at the centre of his wonderful group, a patient drawing attention to
himself as the Saviour of the world.
Sometimes, when this form of disease took a milder hysterical character,
the subject of it was treated with reverence, and even elevated to
sainthood: such examples as St. Francis of Assisi and St. Catherine of
Siena in Italy, St. Bridget in Sweden, St. Theresa in Spain, St. Mary
Alacoque in France, and Louise Lateau in Belgium, are typical. But more
frequently such cases shocked public feeling, and were treated with
especial rigour: typical of this is the case of Simon Marin, who in his
insanity believed himself to be the Son of God, and was on that account
burned alive at Paris and his ashes scattered to the winds.(370)
(370) As to the frequency among the insane of this form of belief, see
Calmeil, vol. ii, p. 257; also Maudsley, Pathology of Mind, pp. 201,
202, and 418-424; also Rambaud, Histoire de la Civilisation en France,
vol. ii, p. 110. For the peculiar abberations of the saints above named
and other ecstatics, see Maudsley, as above, pp. 71, 72, and 149, 150.
Maudsley's chapters on this and cognate subjects are certainly among the
most valuable contributions to modern thought. For a discussion of the
most recent case, see Warlomont, Louise Lateau, Paris, 1875.
The profundity of theologians and jurists constantly developed new
theories as to the modes of diabolic entrance into the "possessed."
One such theory was that Satan could be taken into the mouth with one's
food--perhaps in the form of an insect swallowed on a leaf of salad, and
this was sanctioned, as we have seen, by no less infallible an authority
than Gregory the Great, Pope and Saint--Another theory was that Satan
entered the body when the mouth was opened to breathe, and there are
well-authenticated cases of doctors and divines who, when casting out
evil spirits, took especial care lest the imp might jump into their own
mouths from the mouth of the patient. Another theory was that the devil
entered human beings during sleep; and at a comparatively recent period
a King of Spain was wont to sleep between two monks, to keep off the
devil.(371)
(371) As to the devil's entering into the mouth while eating, see
Calmeil, as above, vol. ii, pp. 105, 106. As to the dread of Dr. Borde
lest the evil spirit, when exorcised, might enter his own body, see
Tuke, as above, p. 28. As to the King of Spain, see the noted chapter in
Buckle's History of Civilization in England.
The monasteries were frequent sources of that form of mental disease
which was supposed to be caused by bewitchment. From the earliest period
it is evident that monastic life tended to develop insanity. Such cases
as that of St. Anthony are typical of its effects upon the strongest
minds; but it was especially the convents for women that became the
great breeding-beds of this disease. Among the large numbers of women
and girls thus assembled--many of them forced into monastic seclusion
against their will, for the reason that their families could give them
no dower--subjected to the unsatisfied longings, suspicions, bickerings,
petty jealousies, envies, and hatreds, so inevitable in convent
life--mental disease was not unlikely to be developed at any moment.
Hysterical excitement in nunneries took shapes sometimes comical, but
more generally tragical. Noteworthy is it that the last places where
executions for witchcraft took place were mainly in the neighbourhood of
great nunneries; and the last famous victim, of the myriads executed
in Germany for this imaginary crime, was Sister Anna Renata Singer,
sub-prioress of a nunnery near Wurzburg.(372)
(372) Among the multitude of authorities on this point, see Kirchhoff,
as above, p. 337; and for a most striking picture of this dark side of
convent life, drawn, indeed, by a devoted Roman Catholic, see Manzoni's
Promessi Sposi. On Anna Renata there is a striking essay by the late
Johannes Scherr, in his Hammerschlage und Historien. On the general
subject of hysteria thus developed, see the writings of Carpenter and
Tuke; and as to its natural development in nunneries, see Maudsley,
Responsibility in Mental Disease, p. 9. Especial attention will be paid
to this in the chapter on Diabolism and Hysteria.
The same thing was seen among young women exposed to sundry fanatical
Protestant preachers. Insanity, both temporary and permanent, was thus
frequently developed among the Huguenots of France, and has been thus
produced in America, from the days of the Salem persecution down to the
"camp meetings" of the present time.(373)
(373) This branch of the subject will be discussed more at length in a
future chapter.
At various times, from the days of St. Agobard of Lyons in the ninth
century to Pomponatius in the sixteenth, protests or suggestions, more
or less timid, had been made by thoughtful men against this system.
Medicine had made some advance toward a better view, but the theological
torrent had generally overwhelmed all who supported a scientific
treatment. At last, toward the end of the sixteenth century, two men
made a beginning of a much more serious attack upon this venerable
superstition. The revival of learning, and the impulse to thought
on material matters given during the "age of discovery," undoubtedly
produced an atmosphere which made the work of these men possible. In the
year 1563, in the midst of demonstrations of demoniacal possession by
the most eminent theologians and judges, who sat in their robes and
looked wise, while women, shrieking, praying, and blaspheming, were put
to the torture, a man arose who dared to protest effectively that some
of the persons thus charged might be simply insane; and this man was
John Wier, of Cleves.
His protest does not at this day strike us as particularly bold. In his
books, De Praestigiis Daemonum and De Lamiis, he did his best not to
offend religious or theological susceptibilities; but he felt obliged to
call attention to the mingled fraud and delusion of those who claimed to
be bewitched, and to point out that it was often not their accusers, but
the alleged witches themselves, who were really ailing, and to urge that
these be brought first of all to a physician.
His book was at once attacked by the most eminent theologians. One of
the greatest laymen of his time, Jean Bodin, also wrote with especial
power against it, and by a plentiful use of scriptural texts gained
to all appearance a complete victory: this superstition seemed thus
fastened upon Europe for a thousand years more. But doubt was in the
air, and, about a quarter of a century after the publication of Wier's
book there were published in France the essays of a man by no means
so noble, but of far greater genius--Michel de Montaigne. The general
scepticism which his work promoted among the French people did much to
produce an atmosphere in which the belief in witchcraft and demoniacal
possession must inevitably wither. But this process, though real, was
hidden, and the victory still seemed on the theological side.
The development of the new truth and its struggle against the old error
still went on. In Holland, Balthazar Bekker wrote his book against the
worst forms of the superstition, and attempted to help the scientific
side by a text from the Second Epistle of St. Peter, showing that the
devils had been confined by the Almighty, and therefore could not
be doing on earth the work which was imputed to them. But Bekker's
Protestant brethren drove him from his pulpit, and he narrowly escaped
with his life.
The last struggles of a great superstition are very frequently the
worst. So it proved in this case. In the first half of the seventeenth
century the cruelties arising from the old doctrine were more numerous
and severe than ever before. In Spain, Sweden, Italy, and, above all,
in Germany, we see constant efforts to suppress the evolution of the new
truth.
But in the midst of all this reactionary rage glimpses of right reason
began to appear. It is significant that at this very time, when the old
superstition was apparently everywhere triumphant, the declaration
by Poulet that he and his brother and his cousin had, by smearing
themselves with ointment, changed themselves into wolves and devoured
children, brought no severe punishment upon them. The judges sent him to
a mad-house. More and more, in spite of frantic efforts from the pulpit
to save the superstition, great writers and jurists, especially in
France, began to have glimpses of the truth and courage to uphold it.
Malebranche spoke against the delusion; Seguier led the French courts
to annul several decrees condemning sorcerers; the great chancellor,
D'Aguesseau, declared to the Parliament of Paris that, if they wished to
stop sorcery, they must stop talking about it--that sorcerers are more
to be pitied than blamed.(374)
(374) See Esquirol, Des Maladies mentales, vol. i, pp. 488, 489; vol.
ii, p. 529.
But just at this time, as the eighteenth century was approaching,
the theological current was strengthened by a great ecclesiastic--the
greatest theologian that France has produced, whose influence upon
religion and upon the mind of Louis XIV was enormous--Bossuet, Bishop
of Meaux. There had been reason to expect that Bossuet would at least do
something to mitigate the superstition; for his writings show that, in
much which before his day had been ascribed to diabolic possession,
he saw simple lunacy. Unfortunately, the same adherence to the literal
interpretation of Scripture which led him to oppose every other
scientific truth developed in his time, led him also to attack this:
he delivered and published two great sermons, which, while showing
some progress in the form of his belief, showed none the less that the
fundamental idea of diabolic possession was still to be tenaciously
held. What this idea was may be seen in one typical statement: he
declared that "a single devil could turn the earth round as easily as we
turn a marble."(375)
(375) See the two sermons, Sur les Demons (which are virtually but two
versions of the same sermon), in Bousset's works, edition of 1845,
vol. iii, p. 236 et seq.; also Dziewicki, in The Nineteenth Century, as
above. On Bousset's resistance to other scientific truths, especially
in astronomy, geology, and political economy, see other chapters in this
work.
III. THE FINAL STRUGGLE AND VICTORY OF SCIENCE.--PINEL AND TUKE.
The theological current, thus re-enforced, seemed to become again
irresistible; but it was only so in appearance. In spite of it, French
scepticism continued to develop; signs of quiet change among the mass of
thinking men were appearing more and more; and in 1672 came one of
great significance, for, the Parliament of Rouen having doomed fourteen
sorcerers to be burned, their execution was delayed for two years,
evidently on account of scepticism among officials; and at length the
great minister of Louis XIV, Colbert, issued an edict checking such
trials, and ordering the convicted to be treated for madness.
Victory seemed now to incline to the standard of science, and in 1725 no
less a personage than St. Andre, a court physician, dared to publish a
work virtually showing "demoniacal possession" to be lunacy.
The French philosophy, from the time of its early development in
the eighteenth century under Montesquieu and Voltaire, naturally
strengthened the movement; the results of post-mortem examinations of
the brains of the "possessed" confirmed it; and in 1768 we see it take
form in a declaration by the Parliament of Paris, that possessed persons
were to be considered as simply diseased. Still, the old belief lingered
on, its life flickering up from time to time in those parts of France
most under ecclesiastical control, until in these last years of the
nineteenth century a blow has been given it by the researches of Charcot
and his compeers which will probably soon extinguish it. One evidence
of Satanic intercourse with mankind especially, on which for many
generations theologians had laid peculiar stress, and for which they
had condemned scores of little girls and hundreds of old women to a most
cruel death, was found to be nothing more than one of the many results
of hysteria.(376)
(376) For Colbert's influence, see Dagron, p. 8; also Rambaud, as above,
vol. ii, p. 155. For St. Andre, see Lacroix, as above, pp. 189, 190.
For Charcot's researches into the disease now known as Meteorismus
hystericus, but which was formerly regarded in the ecclesiastical courts
as an evidence of pregnancy through relations with Satan, see Snell,
Hexenprocesse un Geistesstorung, Munchen, 1891, chaps. xii and xiii.
In England the same warfare went on. John Locke had asserted the truth,
but the theological view continued to control public opinion. Most
prominent among those who exercised great power in its behalf was John
Wesley, and the strength and beauty of his character made his influence
in this respect all the more unfortunate. The same servitude to the mere
letter of Scripture which led him to declare that "to give up witchcraft
is to give up the Bible," controlled him in regard to insanity. He
insisted, on the authority of the Old Testament, that bodily diseases
are sometimes caused by devils, and, upon the authority of the New
Testament, that the gods of the heathen are demons; he believed that
dreams, while in some cases caused by bodily conditions and passions,
are shown by Scripture to be also caused by occult powers of evil; he
cites a physician to prove that "most lunatics are really demoniacs." In
his great sermon on Evil Angels, he dwells upon this point especially;
resists the idea that "possession" may be epilepsy, even though ordinary
symptoms of epilepsy be present; protests against "giving up to infidels
such proofs of an invisible world as are to be found in diabolic
possession"; and evidently believes that some who have been made
hysterical by his own preaching are "possessed of Satan." On all this,
and much more to the same effect, he insisted with all the power given
to him by his deep religious nature, his wonderful familiarity with the
Scriptures, his natural acumen, and his eloquence.
But here, too, science continued its work. The old belief was steadily
undermined, an atmosphere favourable to the truth was more and more
developed, and the act of Parliament, in 1735, which banished the crime
of witchcraft from the statute book, was the beginning of the end.
In Germany we see the beginnings of a similar triumph for science. In
Prussia, that sturdy old monarch, Frederick William I, nullified the
efforts of the more zealous clergy and orthodox jurists to keep up the
old doctrine in his dominions; throughout Protestant Germany, where
it had raged most severely, it was, as a rule, cast out of the Church
formulas, catechisms, and hymns, and became more and more a subject for
jocose allusion. From force of habit, and for the sake of consistency,
some of the more conservative theologians continued to repeat the
old arguments, and there were many who insisted upon the belief as
absolutely necessary to ordinary orthodoxy; but it is evident that it
had become a mere conventionality, that men only believed that they
believed it, and now a reform seemed possible in the treatment of the
insane.(377)
(377) For John Locke, see King's Life of Locke, pp. 326, 327. For
Wesley, out of his almost innumerable writings bearing on the subject,
I may select the sermon on Evil Angels, and his Letter to Dr. Middleton;
and in his collected works, there are many striking statements and
arguments, especially in vols. iii, vi, and ix. See also Tyerman's Life
of Wesley, vol. ii, pp. 260 et seq. Luther's great hymn, Ein' feste
Burg, remained, of course, a prominent exception to the rule; but a
popular proverb came to express the general feeling: "Auf Teufel reimt
sich Zweifel." See Langin, as above, pp. 545, 546.
In Austria, the government set Dr. Antonio Haen at making careful
researches into the causes of diabolic possession. He did not think it
best, in view of the power of the Church, to dispute the possibility
or probability of such cases, but simply decided, after thorough
investigation, that out of the many cases which had been brought to him,
not one supported the belief in demoniacal influence. An attempt was
made to follow up this examination, and much was done by men like
Francke and Van Swieten, and especially by the reforming emperor, Joseph
II, to rescue men and women who would otherwise have fallen victims to
the prevalent superstition. Unfortunately, Joseph had arrayed against
himself the whole power of the Church, and most of his good efforts
seemed brought to naught. But what the noblest of the old race of German
emperors could not do suddenly, the German men of science did gradually.
Quietly and thoroughly, by proofs that could not be gainsaid, they
recovered the old scientific fact established in pagan Greece and Rome,
that madness is simply physical disease. But they now established it on
a basis that can never again be shaken; for, in post-mortem examinations
of large numbers of "possessed" persons, they found evidence of
brain-disease. Typical is a case at Hamburg in 1729. An afflicted woman
showed in a high degree all the recognised characteristics of diabolic
possession: exorcisms, preachings, and sanctified remedies of every sort
were tried in vain; milder medical means were then tried, and she so far
recovered that she was allowed to take the communion before she died:
the autopsy, held in the presence of fifteen physicians and a public
notary, showed it to be simply a case of chronic meningitis. The work of
German men of science in this field is noble indeed; a great succession,
from Wier to Virchow, have erected a barrier against which all the
efforts of reactionists beat in vain.(378)
(378) See Kirchhoff, pp. 181-187; also Langin, Religion und
Hexenprozess, as above cited.
In America, the belief in diabolic influence had, in the early colonial
period, full control. The Mathers, so superior to their time in many
things, were children of their time in this: they supported the belief
fully, and the Salem witchcraft horrors were among its results; but the
discussion of that folly by Calef struck it a severe blow, and a better
influence spread rapidly throughout the colonies.
By the middle of the eighteenth century belief in diabolic possession
had practically disappeared from all enlightened countries, and during
the nineteenth century it has lost its hold even in regions where the
medieval spirit continues strongest. Throughout the Middle Ages, as we
have seen, Satan was a leading personage in the miracle-plays, but
in 1810 the Bavarian Government refused to allow the Passion Play at
Ober-Ammergau if Satan was permitted to take any part in it; in spite of
heroic efforts to maintain the old belief, even the childlike faith of
the Tyrolese had arrived at a point which made a representation of Satan
simply a thing to provoke laughter.
Very significant also was the trial which took place at Wemding, in
southern Germany, in 1892. A boy had become hysterical, and the Capuchin
Father Aurelian tried to exorcise him, and charged a peasant's wife,
Frau Herz, with bewitching him, on evidence that would have cost the
woman her life at any time during the seventeenth century. Thereupon the
woman's husband brought suit against Father Aurelian for slander.
The latter urged in his defence that the boy was possessed of an evil
spirit, if anybody ever was; that what had been said and done was in
accordance with the rules and regulations of the Church, as laid down
in decrees, formulas, and rituals sanctioned by popes, councils, and
innumerable bishops during ages. All in vain. The court condemned the
good father to fine and imprisonment. As in a famous English case,
"hell was dismissed, with costs." Even more significant is the fact that
recently a boy declared by two Bavarian priests to be possessed by
the devil, was taken, after all Church exorcisms had failed, to Father
Kneipp's hydropathic establishment and was there speedily cured.(379)
(379) For remarkably interesting articles showing the recent efforts
of sundry priests in Italy and South Germany to revive the belief
in diabolic possession--efforts in which the Bishop of Augsburg took
part--see Prof. E. P. Evans, on Modern Instances of Diabolic Possession,
and on Recent Recrudescence of Superstition in The Popular Science
Monthly for Dec. 1892, and for Oct., Nov., 1895.
Speaking of the part played by Satan at Ober-Ammergau, Hase says:
"Formerly, seated on his infernal throne, surrounded by his hosts with
Sin and Death, he opened the play,... and... retained throughout a
considerable part; but he has been surrendered to the progress of that
enlightenment which even the Bavarian highlands have not been able to
escape" (p. 80).
The especial point to be noted is, that from the miracle-play of the
present day Satan and his works have disappeared. The present writer
was unable to detect, in a representation of the Passion Play at
Ober-Ammergau, in 1881, the slightest reference to diabolic interference
with the course of events as represented from the Old Testament, or from
the New, in a series of tableaux lasting, with a slight intermission,
from nine in the morning to after four in the afternoon. With the most
thorough exhibition of minute events in the life of Christ, and at times
with hundreds of figures on the stage, there was not a person or a word
which recalled that main feature in the mediaeval Church plays. The
present writer also made a full collection of the photographs of
tableaux, of engravings of music, and of works bearing upon these
representations for twenty years before, and in none of these was there
an apparent survival of the old belief.
But, although the old superstition had been discarded, the inevitable
conservatism in theology and medicine caused many old abuses to be
continued for years after the theological basis for them had really
disappeared. There still lingered also a feeling of dislike toward
madmen, engendered by the early feeling of hostility toward them, which
sufficed to prevent for many years any practical reforms.
What that old theory had been, even under the most favourable
circumstances and among the best of men, we have seen in the fact that
Sir Thomas More ordered acknowledged lunatics to be publicly flogged;
and it will be remembered that Shakespeare makes one of his characters
refer to madmen as deserving "a dark house and a whip." What the old
practice was and continued to be we know but too well. Taking Protestant
England as an example--and it was probably the most humane--we have a
chain of testimony. Toward the end of the sixteenth century, Bethlehem
Hospital was reported too loathsome for any man to enter; in the
seventeenth century, John Evelyn found it no better; in the eighteenth,
Hogarth's pictures and contemporary reports show it to be essentially
what it had been in those previous centuries.(380)
(380) On Sir Thomas More and the condition of Bedlam, see Tuke, History
of the Insane in the British Isles, pp. 63-73. One of the passages of
Shakespeare is in As You Like It, Act iii, scene 2. As to the survival
of indifference to the sufferings of the insane so long after the belief
which caused it had generally disappeared, see some excellent remarks in
Maudsley's Responsibility in Mental Disease, London, 1885, pp. 10-12.
The older English practice is thus quaintly described by Richard Carew
(in his Survey of Cornwall, London, 1602, 1769): "In our forefathers'
daies, when devotion as much exceeded knowledge, as knowledge now
commeth short of devotion, there were many bowssening places, for curing
of mad men, and amongst the rest, one at Alternunne in this Hundred,
called S. Nunnespoole, which Saints Altar (it may be)... gave name to
the church... The watter running from S. Nunnes well, fell into a square
and close walled plot, which might bee filled at what depth they listed.
Vpon this wall was the franticke person set to stand, his backe towards
the poole, and from thence with a sudden blow in the brest, tumbled
headlong into the pond; where a strong fellowe, provided for the nonce,
tooke him, and tossed him vp and downe, alongst and athwart the water,
vntill the patient, by forgoing strength, had somewhat forgot his fury.
Then there was hee conveyed to the Church, and certain Masses sung over
him; vpon which handling, if his right wits returned, S. Nunne had
the thanks; but if there appeared any small amendment, he was bowsened
againe, and againe, while there remayned in him any hope of life, for
recovery."
The first humane impulse of any considerable importance in this field
seems to have been aroused in America. In the year 1751 certain members
of the Society of Friends founded a small hospital for the insane, on
better principles, in Pennsylvania. To use the language of its founders,
it was intended "as a good work, acceptable to God." Twenty years later
Virginia established a similar asylum, and gradually others appeared in
other colonies.
But it was in France that mercy was to be put upon a scientific basis,
and was to lead to practical results which were to convert the world to
humanity. In this case, as in so many others, from France was spread
and popularized not only the scepticism which destroyed the theological
theory, but also the devotion which built up the new scientific theory
and endowed the world with a new treasure of civilization.
In 1756 some physicians of the great hospital at Paris known as the
Hotel-Dieu protested that the cruelties prevailing in the treatment of
the insane were aggravating the disease; and some protests followed from
other quarters. Little effect was produced at first; but just before the
French Revolution, Tenon, La Rochefoucauld-Liancourt, and others took
up the subject, and in 1791 a commission was appointed to undertake a
reform.
By great good fortune, the man selected to lead in the movement was one
who had already thrown his heart into it--Jean Baptiste Pinel. In 1792
Pinel was made physician at Bicetre, one of the most extensive lunatic
asylums in France, and to the work there imposed upon him he gave all
his powers. Little was heard of him at first. The most terrible scenes
of the French Revolution were drawing nigh; but he laboured on, modestly
and devotedly--apparently without a thought of the great political storm
raging about him.
His first step was to discard utterly the whole theological doctrine of
"possession," and especially the idea that insanity is the result of any
subtle spiritual influence. He simply put in practice the theory that
lunacy is the result of bodily disease.
It is a curious matter for reflection, that but for this sway of the
destructive philosophy of the eighteenth century, and of the Terrorists
during the French Revolution, Pinel's blessed work would in all
probability have been thwarted, and he himself excommunicated for heresy
and driven from his position. Doubtless the same efforts would have been
put forth against him which the Church, a little earlier, had put forth
against inoculation as a remedy for smallpox; but just at that time
the great churchmen had other things to think of besides crushing this
particular heretic: they were too much occupied in keeping their own
heads from the guillotine to give attention to what was passing in the
head of Pinel. He was allowed to work in peace, and in a short time the
reign of diabolism at Bicetre was ended. What the exorcisms and fetiches
and prayers and processions, and drinking of holy water, and ringing of
bells, had been unable to accomplish during eighteen hundred years, he
achieved in a few months. His method was simple: for the brutality and
cruelty which had prevailed up to that time, he substituted kindness and
gentleness. The possessed were taken out of their dungeons, given sunny
rooms, and allowed the liberty of pleasant ground for exercise; chains
were thrown aside. At the same time, the mental power of each patient
was developed by its fitting exercise, and disease was met with remedies
sanctioned by experiment, observation, and reason. Thus was gained
one of the greatest, though one of the least known, triumphs of modern
science and humanity.
The results obtained by Pinel had an instant effect, not only in France
but throughout Europe: the news spread from hospital to hospital. At his
death, Esquirol took up his work; and, in the place of the old training
of judges, torturers, and executioners by theology to carry out its
ideas in cruelty, there was now trained a school of physicians to
develop science in this field and carry out its decrees in mercy.(381)
(381) For the services of Tenon and his associates, and also for the
work of Pinel, see especially Esquirol, Des Maladies mentales, Paris,
1838, vol. i, p. 35; and for the general subject, and the condition of
the hospitals at this period, see Dagron, as above.
A similar evolution of better science and practice took place in
England. In spite of the coldness, and even hostility, of the greater
men in the Established Church, and notwithstanding the scriptural
demonstrations of Wesley that the majority of the insane were possessed
of devils, the scientific method steadily gathered strength. In 1750
the condition of the insane began to attract especial attention; it was
found that mad-houses were swayed by ideas utterly indefensible, and
that the practices engendered by these ideas were monstrous. As a rule,
the patients were immured in cells, and in many cases were chained to
the walls; in others, flogging and starvation played leading parts, and
in some cases the patients were killed. Naturally enough, John Howard
declared, in 1789, that he found in Constantinople a better insane
asylum than the great St. Luke's Hospital in London. Well might he
do so; for, ever since Caliph Omar had protected and encouraged the
scientific investigation of insanity by Paul of Aegina, the Moslem
treatment of the insane had been far more merciful than the system
prevailing throughout Christendom.(382)
(382) See D. H. Tuke, as above, p. 110; also Trelat, as already cited.
In 1792--the same year in which Pinel began his great work in
France--William Tuke began a similar work in England. There seems
to have been no connection between these two reformers; each wrought
independently of the other, but the results arrived at were the same.
So, too, in the main, were their methods; and in the little house of
William Tuke, at York, began a better era for England.
The name which this little asylum received is a monument both of the old
reign of cruelty and of the new reign of humanity. Every old name for
such an asylum had been made odious and repulsive by ages of misery; in
a happy moment of inspiration Tuke's gentle Quaker wife suggested a new
name; and, in accordance with this suggestion, the place became known as
a "Retreat."
From the great body of influential classes in church and state Tuke
received little aid. The influence of the theological spirit was shown
when, in that same year, Dr. Pangster published his Observations on
Mental Disorders, and, after displaying much ignorance as to the
causes and nature of insanity, summed up by saying piously, "Here our
researches must stop, and we must declare that 'wonderful are the works
of the Lord, and his ways past finding out.'" Such seemed to be the view
of the Church at large: though the new "Retreat" was at one of the
two great ecclesiastical centres of England, we hear of no aid or
encouragement from the Archbishop of York or from his clergy. Nor was
this the worst: the indirect influence of the theological habit of
thought and ecclesiastical prestige was displayed in the Edinburgh
Review. That great organ of opinion, not content with attacking Tuke,
poured contempt upon his work, as well as on that of Pinel. A few of
Tuke's brother and sister Quakers seem to have been his only reliance;
and in a letter regarding his efforts at that time he says, "All men
seem to desert me."(383)
(383) See D. H. Tuke, as above, p. 116-142, and 512; also the Edinburgh
Review for April, 1803.
In this atmosphere of English conservative opposition or indifference
the work could not grow rapidly. As late as 1815, a member of Parliament
stigmatized the insane asylums of England as the shame of the nation;
and even as late as 1827, and in a few cases as late as 1850, there were
revivals of the old absurdity and brutality. Down to a late period,
in the hospitals of St. Luke and Bedlam, long rows of the insane were
chained to the walls of the corridors. But Gardner at Lincoln, Donnelly
at Hanwell, and a new school of practitioners in mental disease, took up
the work of Tuke, and the victory in England was gained in practice as
it had been previously gained in theory.
There need be no controversy regarding the comparative merits of these
two benefactors of our race, Pinel and Tuke. They clearly did their
thinking and their work independently of each other, and thereby each
strengthened the other and benefited mankind. All that remains to be
said is, that while France has paid high honours to Pinel, as to one who
did much to free the world from one of its most cruel superstitions and
to bring in a reign of humanity over a wide empire, England has as yet
made no fitting commemoration of her great benefactor in this field.
York Minster holds many tombs of men, of whom some were blessings
to their fellow-beings, while some were but "solemnly constituted
impostors" and parasites upon the body politic; yet, to this hour, that
great temple has received no consecration by a monument to the man who
did more to alleviate human misery than any other who has ever entered
it.
But the place of these two men in history is secure. They stand with
Grotius, Thomasius, and Beccaria--the men who in modern times have
done most to prevent unmerited sorrow. They were not, indeed, called
to suffer like their great compeers; they were not obliged to see their
writings--among the most blessed gifts of God to man--condemned, as
were those of Grotius and Beccaria by the Catholic Church, and those
of Thomasius by a large section of the Protestant Church; they were
not obliged to flee for their lives, as were Grotius and Thomasius; but
their effort is none the less worthy. The French Revolution, indeed,
saved Pinel, and the decay of English ecclesiasticism gave Tuke his
opportunity; but their triumphs are none the less among the glories of
our race; for they were the first acknowledged victors in a struggle of
science for humanity which had lasted nearly two thousand years.
CHAPTER XVI. FROM DIABOLISM TO HYSTERIA.
I. THE EPIDEMICS OF "POSSESSION."
In the foregoing chapter I have sketched the triumph of science in
destroying the idea that individual lunatics are "possessed by devils,"
in establishing the truth that insanity is physical disease, and in
substituting for superstitious cruelties toward the insane a treatment
mild, kindly, and based upon ascertained facts.
The Satan who had so long troubled individual men and women thus became
extinct; henceforth his fossil remains only were preserved: they
may still be found in the sculptures and storied windows of medieval
churches, in sundry liturgies, and in popular forms of speech.
But another Satan still lived--a Satan who wrought on a larger
scale--who took possession of multitudes. For, after this triumph of
the scientific method, there still remained a class of mental disorders
which could not be treated in asylums, which were not yet fully
explained by science, and which therefore gave arguments of much
apparent strength to the supporters of the old theological view: these
were the epidemics of "diabolic possession" which for so many centuries
afflicted various parts of the world.
When obliged, then, to retreat from their old position in regard to
individual cases of insanity, the more conservative theologians promptly
referred to these epidemics as beyond the domain of science--as clear
evidences of the power of Satan; and, as the basis of this view, they
cited from the Old Testament frequent references to witchcraft,
and, from the New Testament, St. Paul's question as to the possible
bewitching of the Galatians, and the bewitching of the people of Samaria
by Simon the Magician.
Naturally, such leaders had very many adherents in that class, so large
in all times, who find that
"To follow foolish precedents and wink With both our eyes, is easier
than to think."(384)
(384) As to eminent physicians' finding a stumbling-block in hysterical
mania, see Kirchhoff's article, p. 351, cited in previous chapter.
It must be owned that their case seemed strong. Though in all human
history, so far as it is closely known, these phenomena had appeared,
and though every classical scholar could recall the wild orgies of
the priests, priestesses, and devotees of Dionysus and Cybele, and the
epidemic of wild rage which took its name from some of these, the great
fathers and doctors of the Church had left a complete answer to any
scepticism based on these facts; they simply pointed to St. Paul's
declaration that the gods of the heathen were devils: these examples,
then, could be transformed into a powerful argument for diabolic
possession.(385)
(385) As to the Maenads, Corybantes, and the disease "Corybantism,"
see, for accessible and adequate statements, Smith's Dictionary of
Antiquities and Lewis and Short's Lexicon; also reference in Hecker's
Essays upon the Black Death and the Dancing Mania. For more complete
discussion, see Semelaigne, L'Alienation mentale dans l'Antiquite,
Paris, 1869.
But it was more especially the epidemics of diabolism in medieval and
modern times which gave strength to the theological view, and from these
I shall present a chain of typical examples.
As early as the eleventh century we find clear accounts of diabolical
possession taking the form of epidemics of raving, jumping, dancing,
and convulsions, the greater number of the sufferers being women and
children. In a time so rude, accounts of these manifestations would
rarely receive permanent record; but it is very significant that even at
the beginning of the eleventh century we hear of them at the extremes
of Europe--in northern Germany and in southern Italy. At various times
during that century we get additional glimpses of these exhibitions, but
it is not until the beginning of the thirteenth century that we have a
renewal of them on a large scale. In 1237, at Erfurt, a jumping disease
and dancing mania afflicted a hundred children, many of whom died in
consequence; it spread through the whole region, and fifty years later
we hear of it in Holland.
But it was the last quarter of the fourteenth century that saw its
greatest manifestations. There was abundant cause for them. It was a
time of oppression, famine, and pestilence: the crusading spirit, having
run its course, had been succeeded by a wild, mystical fanaticism;
the most frightful plague in human history--the Black Death--was
depopulating whole regions--reducing cities to villages, and filling
Europe with that strange mixture of devotion and dissipation which we
always note during the prevalence of deadly epidemics on a large scale.
It was in this ferment of religious, moral, and social disease that
there broke out in 1374, in the lower Rhine region, the greatest,
perhaps, of all manifestations of "possession"--an epidemic of dancing,
jumping, and wild raving. The cures resorted to seemed on the whole to
intensify the disease: the afflicted continued dancing for hours, until
they fell in utter exhaustion. Some declared that they felt as if bathed
in blood, some saw visions, some prophesied.
Into this mass of "possession" there was also clearly poured a current
of scoundrelism which increased the disorder.
The immediate source of these manifestations seems to have been the wild
revels of St. John's Day. In those revels sundry old heathen ceremonies
had been perpetuated, but under a nominally Christian form: wild
Bacchanalian dances had thus become a semi-religious ceremonial. The
religious and social atmosphere was propitious to the development of
the germs of diabolic influence vitalized in these orgies, and they
were scattered far and wide through large tracts of the Netherlands
and Germany, and especially through the whole region of the Rhine. At
Cologne we hear of five hundred afflicted at once; at Metz of eleven
hundred dancers in the streets; at Strasburg of yet more painful
manifestations; and from these and other cities they spread through the
villages and rural districts.
The great majority of the sufferers were women, but there were many men,
and especially men whose occupations were sedentary. Remedies were tried
upon a large scale-exorcisms first, but especially pilgrimages to the
shrine of St. Vitus. The exorcisms accomplished so little that popular
faith in them grew small, and the main effect of the pilgrimages
seemed to be to increase the disorder by subjecting great crowds to
the diabolic contagion. Yet another curative means was seen in the
flagellant processions--vast crowds of men, women, and children who
wandered through the country, screaming, praying, beating themselves
with whips, imploring the Divine mercy and the intervention of
St. Vitus. Most fearful of all the main attempts at cure were the
persecutions of the Jews. A feeling had evidently spread among
the people at large that the Almighty was filled with wrath at
the toleration of his enemies, and might be propitiated by their
destruction: in the principal cities and villages of Germany, then, the
Jews were plundered, tortured, and murdered by tens of thousands. No
doubt that, in all this, greed was united with fanaticism; but the
argument of fanaticism was simple and cogent; the dart which pierced the
breast of Israel at that time was winged and pointed from its own
sacred books: the biblical argument was the same used in various ages
to promote persecution; and this was, that the wrath of the Almighty
was stirred against those who tolerated his enemies, and that because
of this toleration the same curse had now come upon Europe which the
prophet Samuel had denounced against Saul for showing mercy to the
enemies of Jehovah.
It is but just to say that various popes and kings exerted themselves to
check these cruelties. Although the argument of Samuel to Saul was used
with frightful effect two hundred years later by a most conscientious
pope in spurring on the rulers of France to extirpate the Huguenots, the
papacy in the fourteenth century stood for mercy to the Jews. But
even this intervention was long without effect; the tide of popular
superstition had become too strong to be curbed even by the spiritual
and temporal powers.(386)
(386) See Wellhausen, article Israel, in the Encyclopaedia Britannica,
ninth edition; also the reprint of it in his History of Israel, London,
1885, p. 546. On the general subject of the demoniacal epidemics, see
Isensee, Geschichte der Medicin, vol. i, pp. 260 et seq.; also Hecker's
essay. As to the history of Saul, as a curious landmark in the general
development of the subject, see The Case of Saul, showing that his
Disorder was a Real Spiritual Possession, by Granville Sharp, London,
1807, passim. As to the citation of Saul's case by the reigning Pope to
spur on the French kings against the Huguenots, I hope to give a list of
authorities in a future chapter on The Church and International Law. For
the general subject, with interesting details, see Laurent, Etudes sur
l'Histoire de l'Humanities. See also Maury, La Magie et l'Astrologie
dans l'Antiquite et au Moyen Age.
Against this overwhelming current science for many generations could
do nothing. Throughout the whole of the fifteenth century physicians
appeared to shun the whole matter. Occasionally some more thoughtful
man ventured to ascribe some phase of the disease to natural causes;
but this was an unpopular doctrine, and evidently dangerous to those who
developed it.
Yet, in the beginning of the sixteenth century, cases of "possession" on
a large scale began to be brought within the scope of medical research,
and the man who led in this evolution of medical science was Paracelsus.
He it was who first bade modern Europe think for a moment upon the idea
that these diseases are inflicted neither by saints nor demons, and that
the "dancing possession" is simply a form of disease, of which the cure
may be effected by proper remedies and regimen.
Paracelsus appears to have escaped any serious interference: it took
some time, perhaps, for the theological leaders to understand that he
had "let a new idea loose upon the planet," but they soon understood it,
and their course was simple. For about fifty years the new idea was well
kept under; but in 1563 another physician, John Wier, of Cleves, revived
it at much risk to his position and reputation.(387)
(387) For Paracelsus, see Isensee, vol. i, chap. xi; also Pettigrew,
Superstitions connected with the History and Practice of Medicine and
Surgery, London, 1844, introductory chapter. For Wier, see authorities
given in my previous chapter.
Although the new idea was thus resisted, it must have taken some hold
upon thoughtful men, for we find that in the second half of the same
century the St. Vitus's dance and forms of demoniacal possession akin
to it gradually diminished in frequency and were sometimes treated as
diseases. In the seventeenth century, so far as the north of Europe is
concerned, these displays of "possession" on a great scale had almost
entirely ceased; here and there cases appeared, but there was no longer
the wild rage extending over great districts and afflicting thousands of
people. Yet it was, as we shall see, in this same seventeenth century,
in the last expiring throes of this superstition, that it led to the
worst acts of cruelty.(388)
(388) As to this diminution of widespread epidemic at the end of the
sixteenth century, see citations from Schenck von Grafenberg in Hecker,
as above; also Horst.
While this Satanic influence had been exerted on so great a scale
throughout northern Europe, a display strangely like it, yet strangely
unlike it, had been going on in Italy. There, too, epidemics of dancing
and jumping seized groups and communities; but they were attributed to
a physical cause--the theory being that the bite of a tarantula in
some way provoked a supernatural intervention, of which dancing was the
accompaniment and cure.
In the middle of the sixteenth century Fracastoro made an evident
impression on the leaders of Italian opinion by using medical means in
the cure of the possessed; though it is worthy of note that the medicine
which he applied successfully was such as we now know could not by
any direct effects of its own accomplish any cure: whatever effect it
exerted was wrought upon the imagination of the sufferer. This form of
"possession," then, passed out of the supernatural domain, and
became known as "tarantism." Though it continued much longer than the
corresponding manifestations in northern Europe, by the beginning of
the eighteenth century it had nearly disappeared; and, though special
manifestations of it on a small scale still break out occasionally, its
main survival is the "tarantella," which the traveller sees danced at
Naples as a catchpenny assault upon his purse.(389)
(389) See Hecker's Epidemics of the Middle Ages, pp. 87-104; also
extracts and observations in Carpenter's Mental Physiology, London,
1888, pp. 321-315; also Maudsley, Pathology of Mind, pp. 73 and
following.
But, long before this form of "possession" had begun to disappear, there
had arisen new manifestations, apparently more inexplicable. As the
first great epidemics of dancing and jumping had their main origin in a
religious ceremony, so various new forms had their principal source in
what were supposed to be centres of religious life--in the convents, and
more especially in those for women.
Out of many examples we may take a few as typical.
In the fifteenth century the chroniclers assure us that, an inmate of
a German nunnery having been seized with a passion for biting her
companions, her mania spread until most, if not all, of her fellow-nuns
began to bite each other; and that this passion for biting passed from
convent to convent into other parts of Germany, into Holland, and even
across the Alps into Italy.
So, too, in a French convent, when a nun began to mew like a cat,
others began mewing; the disease spread, and was only checked by severe
measures.(390)
(390) See citation from Zimmermann's Solitude, in Carpenter, pp. 34,
314.
In the sixteenth century the Protestant Reformation gave new force to
witchcraft persecutions in Germany, the new Church endeavouring to show
that in zeal and power she exceeded the old. But in France influential
opinion seemed not so favourable to these forms of diabolical influence,
especially after the publication of Montaigne's Essays, in 1580, had
spread a sceptical atmosphere over many leading minds.
In 1588 occurred in France a case which indicates the growth of this
sceptical tendency even in the higher regions of the french Church,
In that year Martha Brossier, a country girl, was, it was claimed,
possessed of the devil. The young woman was to all appearance under
direct Satanic influence. She roamed about, begging that the demon
might be cast out of her, and her imprecations and blasphemies brought
consternation wherever she went. Myth-making began on a large scale;
stories grew and sped. The Capuchin monks thundered from the pulpit
throughout France regarding these proofs of the power of Satan: the
alarm spread, until at last even jovial, sceptical King Henry IV was
disquieted, and the reigning Pope was asked to take measures to ward off
the evil.
Fortunately, there then sat in the episcopal chair of Angers a prelate
who had apparently imbibed something of Montaigne's scepticism--Miron;
and, when the case was brought before him, he submitted it to the most
time-honoured of sacred tests. He first brought into the girl's presence
two bowls, one containing holy water, the other ordinary spring water,
but allowed her to draw a false inference regarding the contents of
each: the result was that at the presentation of the holy water the
devils were perfectly calm, but when tried with the ordinary water they
threw Martha into convulsions.
The next experiment made by the shrewd bishop was to similar purpose.
He commanded loudly that a book of exorcisms be brought, and under a
previous arrangement, his attendants brought him a copy of Virgil. No
sooner had the bishop begun to read the first line of the Aeneid than
the devils threw Martha into convulsions. On another occasion a Latin
dictionary, which she had reason to believe was a book of exorcisms,
produced a similar effect.
Although the bishop was thereby led to pronounce the whole matter a
mixture of insanity and imposture, the Capuchin monks denounced this
view as godless. They insisted that these tests really proved the
presence of Satan--showing his cunning in covering up the proofs of his
existence. The people at large sided with their preachers, and Martha
was taken to Paris, where various exorcisms were tried, and the Parisian
mob became as devoted to her as they had been twenty years before to
the murderers of the Huguenots, as they became two centuries later to
Robespierre, and as they more recently were to General Boulanger.
But Bishop Miron was not the only sceptic. The Cardinal de Gondi,
Archbishop of Paris, charged the most eminent physicians of the city,
and among them Riolan, to report upon the case. Various examinations
were made, and the verdict was that Martha was simply a hysterical
impostor. Thanks, then, to medical science, and to these two enlightened
ecclesiastics who summoned its aid, what fifty or a hundred years
earlier would have been the centre of a widespread epidemic of
possession was isolated, and hindered from producing a national
calamity.
In the following year this healthful growth of scepticism continued.
Fourteen persons had been condemned to death for sorcery, but public
opinion was strong enough to secure a new examination by a special
commission, which reported that "the prisoners stood more in need of
medicine than of punishment," and they were released.(391)
(391) For the Brossier case, see Clameil, La Folie, tome i, livre 3,
c. 2. For the cases at Tours, see Madden, Phantasmata, vol. i, pp. 309,
310.
But during the seventeenth century, the clergy generally having exerted
themselves heroically to remove this "evil heart of unbelief" so largely
due to Montaigne, a theological reaction was brought on not only in
France but in all parts of the Christian world, and the belief in
diabolic possession, though certainly dying, flickered up hectic, hot,
and malignant through the whole century. In 1611 we have a typical case
at Aix. An epidemic of possession having occurred there, Gauffridi,
a man of note, was burned at the stake as the cause of the trouble.
Michaelis, one of the priestly exorcists, declared that he had driven
out sixty-five hundred devils from one of the possessed. Similar
epidemics occurred in various parts of the world.(392)
(392) See Dagron, chap. ii.
Twenty years later a far more striking case occurred at Loudun, in
western France, where a convent of Ursuline nuns was "afflicted by
demons."
The convent was filled mainly with ladies of noble birth, who, not
having sufficient dower to secure husbands, had, according to the common
method of the time, been made nuns.
It is not difficult to understand that such an imprisonment of a
multitude of women of different ages would produce some woeful effects.
Any reader of Manzoni's Promessi Sposi, with its wonderful portrayal of
the feelings and doings of a noble lady kept in a convent against
her will, may have some idea of the rage and despair which must have
inspired such assemblages in which pride, pauperism, and the attempted
suppression of the instincts of humanity wrought a fearful work.
What this work was may be seen throughout the Middle Ages; but it is
especially in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries that we find it
frequently taking shape in outbursts of diabolic possession.(393)
(393) On monasteries as centres of "possession" and hysterical
epidemics, see Figuier, Le Merveilleux, p. 40 and following; also
Calmeil, Langin, Kirchhoff, Maudsley, and others. On similar results
from excitement at Protestant meetings in Scotland and camp meetings in
England and America, see Hecker's Essay, concluding chapters.
In this case at Loudun, the usual evidences of Satanic influence
appeared. One after another of the inmates fell into convulsions: some
showed physical strength apparently supernatural; some a keenness
of perception quite as surprising; many howled forth blasphemies and
obscenities.
Near the convent dwelt a priest--Urbain Grandier--noted for his
brilliancy as a writer and preacher, but careless in his way of living.
Several of the nuns had evidently conceived a passion for him, and in
their wild rage and despair dwelt upon his name. In the same city, too,
were sundry ecclesiastics and laymen with whom Grandier had fallen
into petty neighbourhood quarrels, and some of these men held the main
control of the convent.
Out of this mixture of "possession" within the convent and malignity
without it came a charge that Grandier had bewitched the young women.
The Bishop of Poictiers took up the matter. A trial was held, and it
was noted that, whenever Grandier appeared, the "possessed" screamed,
shrieked, and showed every sign of diabolic influence. Grandier fought
desperately, and appealed to the Archbishop of Bordeaux, De Sourdis. The
archbishop ordered a more careful examination, and, on separating
the nuns from each other and from certain monks who had been bitterly
hostile to Grandier, such glaring discrepancies were found in their
testimony that the whole accusation was brought to naught.
But the enemies of Satan and of Grandier did not rest. Through their
efforts Cardinal Richelieu, who appears to have had an old grudge
against Grandier, sent a representative, Laubardemont, to make another
investigation. Most frightful scenes were now enacted: the whole convent
resounded more loudly than ever with shrieks, groans, howling, and
cursing, until finally Grandier, though even in the agony of torture he
refused to confess the crimes that his enemies suggested, was hanged and
burned.
From this centre the epidemic spread: multitudes of women and men were
affected by it in various convents; several of the great cities of the
south and west of France came under the same influence; the "possession"
went on for several years longer and then gradually died out, though
scattered cases have occurred from that day to this.(394)
(394) Among the many statements of Grandier's case, one of the best in
English may be found in Trollope's Sketches from French History, London,
1878. See also Bazin, Louis XIII.
A few years later we have an even more striking example among the French
Protestants. The Huguenots, who had taken refuge in the mountains of
the Cevennes to escape persecution, being pressed more and more by
the cruelties of Louis XIV, began to show signs of a high degree of
religious exaltation. Assembled as they were for worship in wild and
desert places, an epidemic broke out among them, ascribed by them to
the Almighty, but by their opponents to Satan. Men, women, and children
preached and prophesied. Large assemblies were seized with trembling.
Some underwent the most terrible tortures without showing any signs of
suffering. Marshal de Villiers, who was sent against them, declared that
he saw a town in which all the women and girls, without exception,
were possessed of the devil, and ran leaping and screaming through the
streets. Cases like this, inexplicable to the science of the time, gave
renewed strength to the theological view.(395)
(395) See Bersot, Mesmer et la Magnetisme animal, third edition, Paris,
1864, pp. 95 et seq.
Toward the end of the same century similar manifestations began to
appear on a large scale in America.
The life of the early colonists in New England was such as to give
rapid growth to the germs of the doctrine of possession brought from
the mother country. Surrounded by the dark pine forests; having as their
neighbours Indians, who were more than suspected of being children of
Satan; harassed by wild beasts apparently sent by the powers of evil
to torment the elect; with no varied literature to while away the
long winter evenings; with few amusements save neighbourhood quarrels;
dwelling intently on every text of Scripture which supported their
gloomy theology, and adopting its most literal interpretation, it is not
strange that they rapidly developed ideas regarding the darker side of
nature.(396)
(396) For the idea that America before the Pilgims had been especially
given over to Satan, see the literature of the early Puritan period,
and especially the poetry of Wigglesworth, treated in Tylor's History of
American Literature, vol. ii, p. 25 et seq.
This fear of witchcraft received a powerful stimulus from the treatises
of learned men. Such works, coming from Europe, which was at that
time filled with the superstition, acted powerfully upon conscientious
preachers, and were brought by them to bear upon the people at large.
Naturally, then, throughout the latter half of the seventeenth century
we find scattered cases of diabolic possession. At Boston, Springfield,
Hartford, Groton, and other towns, cases occurred, and here and there we
hear of death-sentences.
In the last quarter of the seventeenth century the fruit of these ideas
began to ripen. In the year 1684 Increase Mather published his book,
Remarkable Providences, laying stress upon diabolic possession and
witchcraft. This book, having been sent over to England, exercised an
influence there, and came back with the approval of no less a man than
Richard Baxter: by this its power at home was increased.
In 1688 a poor family in Boston was afflicted by demons: four children,
the eldest thirteen years of age, began leaping and barking like dogs or
purring like cats, and complaining of being pricked, pinched, and cut;
and, to help the matter, an old Irishwoman was tried and executed.
All this belief might have passed away like a troubled dream had it not
become incarnate in a strong man. This man was Cotton Mather, the son of
Increase Mather. Deeply religious, possessed of excellent abilities, a
great scholar, anxious to promote the welfare of his flock in this world
and in the next, he was far in advance of ecclesiastics generally on
nearly all the main questions between science and theology. He came out
of his earlier superstition regarding the divine origin of the Hebrew
punctuation; he opposed the old theologic idea regarding the taking of
interest for money; he favoured inoculation as a preventive of smallpox
when a multitude of clergymen and laymen opposed it; he accepted
the Newtonian astronomy despite the outcries against its "atheistic
tendency"; he took ground against the time-honoured dogma that comets
are "signs and wonders." He had, indeed, some of the defects of his
qualities, and among them pedantic vanity, pride of opinion, and love
of power; but he was for his time remarkably liberal and undoubtedly
sincere. He had thrown off a large part of his father's theology, but
one part of it he could not throw off: he was one of the best biblical
scholars of his time, and he could not break away from the fact that
the sacred Scriptures explicitly recognise witchcraft and demoniacal
possession as realities, and enjoin against witchcraft the penalty
of death. Therefore it was that in 1689 he published his Memorable
Providences relating to Witchcrafts and Possessions. The book, according
to its title-page, was "recommended by the Ministers of Boston and
Charleston," and its stories soon became the familiar reading of men,
women, and children throughout New England.
Out of all these causes thus brought to bear upon public opinion
began in 1692 a new outbreak of possession, which is one of the most
instructive in history. The Rev. Samuel Parris was the minister of
the church in Salem, and no pope ever had higher ideas of his own
infallibility, no bishop a greater love of ceremony, no inquisitor a
greater passion for prying and spying.(397)
(397) For curious examples of this, see Upham's History of Salem
Witchcraft, vol. i.
Before long Mr. Parris had much upon his hands. Many of his hardy,
independent parishioners disliked his ways. Quarrels arose. Some of the
leading men of the congregation were pitted against him. The previous
minister, George Burroughs, had left the germs of troubles and
quarrels, and to these were now added new complications arising from the
assumptions of Parris. There were innumerable wranglings and lawsuits;
in fact, all the essential causes for Satanic interference which we saw
at work in and about the monastery at Loudun, and especially the turmoil
of a petty village where there is no intellectual activity, and
where men and women find their chief substitute for it in squabbles,
religious, legal, political, social, and personal.
In the darkened atmosphere thus charged with the germs of disease it
was suddenly discovered that two young girls in the family of Mr. Parris
were possessed of devils: they complained of being pinched, pricked,
and cut, fell into strange spasms and made strange speeches--showing the
signs of diabolic possession handed down in fireside legends or dwelt
upon in popular witch literature--and especially such as had lately been
described by Cotton Mather in his book on Memorable Providences. The
two girls, having been brought by Mr. Parris and others to tell who
had bewitched them, first charged an old Indian woman, and the poor old
Indian husband was led to join in the charge. This at once afforded
new scope for the activity of Mr. Parris. Magnifying his office, he
immediately began making a great stir in Salem and in the country round
about. Two magistrates were summoned. With them came a crowd, and a
court was held at the meeting-house. The scenes which then took place
would have been the richest of farces had they not led to events so
tragical. The possessed went into spasms at the approach of those
charged with witchcraft, and when the poor old men and women attempted
to attest their innocence they were overwhelmed with outcries by the
possessed, quotations of Scripture by the ministers, and denunciations
by the mob. One especially--Ann Putnam, a child of twelve years--showed
great precocity and played a striking part in the performances. The
mania spread to other children; and two or three married women also,
seeing the great attention paid to the afflicted, and influenced by that
epidemic of morbid imitation which science now recognises in all such
cases, soon became similarly afflicted, and in their turn made charges
against various persons. The Indian woman was flogged by her master, Mr.
Parris, until she confessed relations with Satan; and others were forced
or deluded into confession. These hysterical confessions, the results
of unbearable torture, or the reminiscences of dreams, which had been
prompted by the witch legends and sermons of the period, embraced such
facts as flying through the air to witch gatherings, partaking of witch
sacraments, signing a book presented by the devil, and submitting to
Satanic baptism. The possessed had begun with charging their possession
upon poor and vagrant old women, but ere long, emboldened by their
success, they attacked higher game, struck at some of the foremost
people of the region, and did not cease until several of these were
condemned to death, and every man, woman, and child brought under a
reign of terror. Many fled outright, and one of the foremost citizens of
Salem went constantly armed, and kept one of his horses saddled in the
stable to flee if brought under accusation. The hysterical ingenuity of
the possessed women grew with their success. They insisted that they saw
devils prompting the accused to defend themselves in court. Did one of
the accused clasp her hands in despair, the possessed clasped theirs;
did the accused, in appealing to Heaven, make any gesture, the possessed
simultaneously imitated it; did the accused in weariness drop her head,
the possessed dropped theirs, and declared that the witch was trying
to break their necks. The court-room resounded with groans, shrieks,
prayers, and curses; judges, jury, and people were aghast, and even the
accused were sometimes thus led to believe in their own guilt.
Very striking in all these cases was the alloy of frenzy with trickery.
In most of the madness there was method. Sundry witches charged by the
possessed had been engaged in controversy with the Salem church people.
Others of the accused had quarrelled with Mr. Parris. Still others had
been engaged in old lawsuits against persons more or less connected with
the girls. One of the most fearful charges, which cost the life of a
noble and lovely woman, arose undoubtedly from her better style of dress
and living. Old slumbering neighbourhood or personal quarrels bore in
this way a strange fruitage of revenge; for the cardinal doctrine of a
fanatic's creed is that his enemies are the enemies of God.
Any person daring to hint the slightest distrust of the proceedings was
in danger of being immediately brought under accusation of a league with
Satan. Husbands and children were thus brought to the gallows for daring
to disbelieve these charges against their wives and mothers. Some of
the clergy were accused for endeavouring to save members of their
churches.(398)
(398) This is admirably brought out by Upham, and the lawyerlike
thoroughness with which he has examined all these hidden springs of the
charges is one of the main things which render his book one of the
most valuable contributions to the history and philosophy of demoniacal
possession ever written.
One poor woman was charged with "giving a look toward the great
meeting-house of Salem, and immediately a demon entered the house and
tore down a part of it." This cause for the falling of a bit of poorly
nailed wainscoting seemed perfectly satisfactory to Dr. Cotton Mather,
as well as to the judge and jury, and she was hanged, protesting her
innocence. Still another lady, belonging to one of the most respected
families of the region, was charged with the crime of witchcraft. The
children were fearfully afflicted whenever she appeared near them. It
seemed never to occur to any one that a bitter old feud between the
Rev. Mr. Parris and the family of the accused might have prejudiced the
children and directed their attention toward the woman. No account was
made of the fact that her life had been entirely blameless; and yet,
in view of the wretched insufficiency of proof, the jury brought in a
verdict of not guilty. As they brought in this verdict, all the children
began to shriek and scream, until the court committed the monstrous
wrong of causing her to be indicted anew. In order to warrant this, the
judge referred to one perfectly natural and harmless expression made
by the woman when under examination. The jury at last brought her in
guilty. She was condemned; and, having been brought into the church
heavily ironed, was solemnly excommunicated and delivered over to Satan
by the minister. Some good sense still prevailed, and the Governor
reprieved her; but ecclesiastical pressure and popular clamour were too
powerful. The Governor was induced to recall his reprieve, and she was
executed, protesting her innocence and praying for her enemies.(399)
(399) See Drake, The Witchcraft Delusion in New England, vol. iii, pp.
34 et seq.
Another typical case was presented. The Rev. Mr. Burroughs, against whom
considerable ill will had been expressed, and whose petty parish quarrel
with the powerful Putnam family had led to his dismissal from his
ministry, was named by the possessed as one of those who plagued them,
one of the most influential among the afflicted being Ann Putnam. Mr.
Burroughs had led a blameless life, the main thing charged against him
by the Putnams being that he insisted strenuously that his wife should
not go about the parish talking of her own family matters. He was
charged with afflicting the children, convicted, and executed. At the
last moment he repeated the Lord's Prayer solemnly and fully, which
it was supposed that no sorcerer could do, and this, together with his
straightforward Christian utterances at the execution, shook the faith
of many in the reality of diabolic possession. Ere long it was known
that one of the girls had acknowledged that she had belied some persons
who had been executed, and especially Mr. Burroughs, and that she had
begged forgiveness; but this for a time availed nothing. Persons who
would not confess were tied up and put to a sort of torture which was
effective in securing new revelations.
In the case of Giles Corey the horrors of the persecution culminated.
Seeing that his doom was certain, and wishing to preserve his family
from attainder and their property from confiscation, he refused to
plead. Though eighty years of age, he was therefore pressed to death,
and when, in his last agonies, his tongue was pressed out of his mouth,
the sheriff with his walking-stick thrust it back again.
Everything was made to contribute to the orthodox view of possession. On
one occasion, when a cart conveying eight condemned persons to the place
of execution stuck fast in the mire, some of the possessed declared that
they saw the devil trying to prevent the punishment of his associates.
Confessions of witchcraft abounded; but the way in which these
confessions were obtained is touchingly exhibited in a statement
afterward made by several women. In explaining the reasons why, when
charged with afflicting sick persons, they made a false confession, they
said:
"... By reason of that suddain surprizal, we knowing ourselves altogether
Innocent of that Crime, we were all exceedingly astonished and amazed,
and consternated and affrighted even out of our Reason; and our nearest
and dearest Relations, seeing us in that dreadful condition, and knowing
our great danger, apprehending that there was no other way to save our
lives,... out of tender... pitty persuaded us to confess what we did
confess. And indeed that Confession, that it is said we made, was no
other than what was suggested to us by some Gentlemen; they telling us,
that we were Witches, and they knew it, and we knew it, and they
knew that we knew it, which made us think that it was so; and our
understanding, our reason, and our faculties almost gone, we were not
capable of judging our condition; as also the hard measures they used
with us, rendered us uncapable of making our Defence, but said anything
and everything which they desired, and most of what we said, was in
effect a consenting to what they said...."(400)
(400) See Calef, in Drake, vol ii; also Upham.
Case after case, in which hysteria, fanaticism, cruelty, injustice, and
trickery played their part, was followed up to the scaffold. In a short
time twenty persons had been put to a cruel death, and the number of
the accused grew larger and larger. The highest position and the noblest
character formed no barrier. Daily the possessed became more bold, more
tricky, and more wild. No plea availed anything. In behalf of several
women, whose lives had been of the purest and gentlest, petitions were
presented, but to no effect. A scriptural text was always ready to aid
in the repression of mercy: it was remembered that "Satan himself is
transformed into an angel of light," and above all resounded the Old
Testament injunction, which had sent such multitudes in Europe to the
torture-chamber and the stake, "Thou shalt not suffer a witch to live."
Such clergymen as Noyes, Parris, and Mather, aided by such judges
as Stoughton and Hathorn, left nothing undone to stimulate these
proceedings. The great Cotton Mather based upon this outbreak of disease
thus treated his famous book, Wonders of the Invisible World, thanking
God for the triumphs over Satan thus gained at Salem; and his book
received the approbation of the Governor of the Province, the President
of Harvard College, and various eminent theologians in Europe as well as
in America.
But, despite such efforts as these, observation, and thought upon
observation, which form the beginning of all true science, brought in a
new order of things. The people began to fall away. Justice Bradstreet,
having committed thirty or forty persons, became aroused to the
absurdity of the whole matter; the minister of Andover had the good
sense to resist the theological view; even so high a personage as Lady
Phips, the wife of the Governor, began to show lenity.
Each of these was, in consequence of this disbelief, charged with
collusion with Satan; but such charges seemed now to lose their force.
In the midst of all this delusion and terrorism stood Cotton Mather firm
as ever. His efforts to uphold the declining superstition were heroic.
But he at last went one step too far. Being himself possessed of a mania
for myth-making and wonder-mongering, and having described a case
of witchcraft with possibly greater exaggeration than usual, he was
confronted by Robert Calef. Calef was a Boston merchant, who appears
to have united the good sense of a man of business to considerable
shrewdness in observation, power in thought, and love for truth; and
he began writing to Mather and others, to show the weak points in the
system. Mather, indignant that a person so much his inferior dared
dissent from his opinion, at first affected to despise Calef; but, as
Calef pressed him more and more closely, Mather denounced him, calling
him among other things "A Coal from Hell." All to no purpose: Calef
fastened still more firmly upon the flanks of the great theologian.
Thought and reason now began to resume their sway.
The possessed having accused certain men held in very high respect,
doubts began to dawn upon the community at large. Here was the
repetition of that which had set men thinking in the German bishoprics
when those under trial for witchcraft there had at last, in their
desperation or madness, charged the very bishops and the judges upon
the bench with sorcery. The party of reason grew stronger. The Rev. Mr.
Parris was soon put upon the defensive: for some of the possessed began
to confess that they had accused people wrongfully. Herculean efforts
were made by certain of the clergy and devout laity to support the
declining belief, but the more thoughtful turned more and more against
it; jurymen prominent in convictions solemnly retracted their verdicts
and publicly craved pardon of God and man. Most striking of all was the
case of Justice Sewall. A man of the highest character, he had in view
of authority deduced from Scripture and the principles laid down by the
great English judges, unhesitatingly condemned the accused; but reason
now dawned upon him. He looked back and saw the baselessness of the
whole proceedings, and made a public statement of his errors. His diary
contains many passages showing deep contrition, and ever afterward, to
the end of his life, he was wont, on one day in the year, to enter into
solitude, and there remain all the day long in fasting, prayer, and
penitence.
Chief-Justice Stoughton never yielded. To the last he lamented the "evil
spirit of unbelief" which was thwarting the glorious work of freeing New
England from demons.
The church of Salem solemnly revoked the excommunications of the
condemned and drove Mr. Parris from the pastorate. Cotton Mather
passed his last years in groaning over the decline of the faith and the
ingratitude of a people for whom he had done so much. Very significant
is one of his complaints, since it shows the evolution of a more
scientific mode of thought abroad as well as at home: he laments in his
diary that English publishers gladly printed Calef's book, but would no
longer publish his own, and he declares this "an attack upon the glory
of the Lord."
About forty years after the New England epidemic of "possession"
occurred another typical series of phenomena in France. In 1727 there
died at the French capital a simple and kindly ecclesiastic, the
Archdeacon Paris. He had lived a pious, Christian life, and was endeared
to multitudes by his charity; unfortunately, he had espoused the
doctrine of Jansen on grace and free will, and, though he remained in
the Gallican Church, he and those who thought like him were opposed by
the Jesuits, and finally condemned by a papal bull.
His remains having been buried in the cemetery of St. Medard, the
Jansenists flocked to say their prayers at his grave, and soon miracles
began to be wrought there. Ere long they were multiplied. The sick being
brought and laid upon the tombstone, many were cured. Wonderful stories
were attested by eye-witnesses. The myth-making tendency--the passion
for developing, enlarging, and spreading tales of wonder--came into full
play and was given free course.
Many thoughtful men satisfied themselves of the truth of these
representations. One of the foremost English scholars came over,
examined into them, and declared that there could be no doubt as to the
reality of the cures.
This state of things continued for about four years, when, in 1731, more
violent effects showed themselves. Sundry persons approaching the tomb
were thrown into convulsions, hysterics, and catalepsy; these diseases
spread, became epidemic, and soon multitudes were similarly afflicted.
Both religious parties made the most of these cases. In vain did such
great authorities in medical science as Hecquet and Lorry attribute the
whole to natural causes: the theologians on both sides declared them
supernatural--the Jansenists attributing them to God, the Jesuits to
Satan.
Of late years such cases have been treated in France with much
shrewdness. When, about the middle of the present century, the Arab
priests in Algiers tried to arouse fanaticism against the French
Christians by performing miracles, the French Government, instead of
persecuting the priests, sent Robert-Houdin, the most renowned juggler
of his time, to the scene of action, and for every Arab miracle Houdin
performed two: did an Arab marabout turn a rod into a serpent, Houdin
turned his rod into two serpents; and afterward showed the people how he
did it.
So, too, at the last International Exposition, the French Government,
observing the evil effects produced by the mania for table turning and
tipping, took occasion, when a great number of French schoolmasters and
teachers were visiting the exposition, to have public lectures given in
which all the business of dark closets, hand-tying, materialization of
spirits, presenting the faces of the departed, and ghostly portraiture
was fully performed by professional mountebanks, and afterward as fully
explained.
So in this case. The Government simply ordered the gate of the cemetery
to be locked, and when the crowd could no longer approach the tomb the
miracles ceased. A little Parisian ridicule helped to end the matter. A
wag wrote up over the gate of the cemetery.
"De par le Roi, defense a Dieu De faire des miracles dans ce lieu"--
which, being translated from doggerel French into doggerel English, is--
"By order of the king, the Lord must forbear To work any more of his miracles here."
But the theological spirit remained powerful. The French Revolution had
not then intervened to bring it under healthy limits. The agitation
was maintained, and, though the miracles and cases of possession were
stopped in the cemetery, it spread. Again full course was given to
myth-making and the retailing of wonders. It was said that men had
allowed themselves to be roasted before slow fires, and had been
afterward found uninjured; that some had enormous weights piled upon
them, but had supernatural powers of resistance given them; and that, in
one case, a voluntary crucifixion had taken place.
This agitation was long, troublesome, and no doubt robbed many
temporarily or permanently of such little brains as they possessed.
It was only when the violence had become an old story and the charm of
novelty had entirely worn off, and the afflicted found themselves
no longer regarded with especial interest, that the epidemic died
away.(401)
(401) See Madden, Phantasmata, chap. xiv; also Sir James Stephen,
History of France, lecture xxvi; also Henry Martin, Histoire de France,
vol. xv, pp. 168 et seq.; also Calmeil, liv. v, chap. xxiv; also
Hecker's essay; and, for samples of myth-making, see the apocryphal
Souvenirs de Crequy.
But in Germany at that time the outcome of this belief was far more
cruel. In 1749 Maria Renata Singer, sub-prioress of a convent at
Wurzburg, was charged with bewitching her fellow-nuns. There was the
usual story--the same essential facts as at Loudun--women shut up
against their will, dreams of Satan disguised as a young man, petty
jealousies, spites, quarrels, mysterious uproar, trickery, utensils
thrown about in a way not to be accounted for, hysterical shrieking and
convulsions, and, finally, the torture, confession, and execution of the
supposed culprit.(402)
(402) See Soldan, Scherr, Diefenbach, and others.
Various epidemics of this sort broke out from time to time in other
parts of the world, though happily, as modern scepticism prevailed, with
less cruel results.
In 1760 some congregations of Calvinistic Methodists in Wales became so
fervent that they began leaping for joy. The mania spread, and gave rise
to a sect called the "Jumpers." A similar outbreak took place afterward
in England, and has been repeated at various times and places since in
our own country.(403)
(403) See Adam's Dictionary of All Religions, article on Jumpers; also
Hecker.
In 1780 came another outbreak in France; but this time it was not the
Jansenists who were affected, but the strictly orthodox. A large number
of young girls between twelve and nineteen years of age, having been
brought together at the church of St. Roch, in Paris, with preaching
and ceremonies calculated to arouse hysterics, one of them fell into
convulsions. Immediately other children were similarly taken, until some
fifty or sixty were engaged in the same antics. This mania spread to
other churches and gatherings, proved very troublesome, and in some
cases led to results especially painful.
About the same period came a similar outbreak among the Protestants
of the Shetland Isles. A woman having been seized with convulsions at
church, the disease spread to others, mainly women, who fell into the
usual contortions and wild shriekings. A very effective cure proved to
be a threat to plunge the diseased into a neighbouring pond.
II. BEGINNINGS OF HELPFUL SCEPTICISM.
But near the end of the eighteenth century a fact very important for
science was established. It was found that these manifestations do not
arise in all cases from supernatural sources. In 1787 came the noted
case at Hodden Bridge, in Lancashire. A girl working in a cotton
manufactory there put a mouse into the bosom of another girl who had
a great dread of mice. The girl thus treated immediately went into
convulsions, which lasted twenty-four hours. Shortly afterward three
other girls were seized with like convulsions, a little later six more,
and then others, until, in all, twenty-four were attacked. Then came a
fact throwing a flood of light upon earlier occurrences. This epidemic,
being noised abroad, soon spread to another factory five miles distant.
The patients there suffered from strangulation, danced, tore their hair,
and dashed their heads against the walls. There was a strong belief that
it was a disease introduced in cotton, but a resident physician amused
the patients with electric shocks, and the disease died out.
In 1801 came a case of like import in the Charite Hospital in Berlin.
A girl fell into strong convulsions. The disease proved contagious,
several others becoming afflicted in a similar way; but nearly all were
finally cured, principally by the administration of opium, which appears
at that time to have been a fashionable remedy.
Of the same sort was a case at Lyons in 1851. Sixty women were working
together in a shop, when one of them, after a bitter quarrel with
her husband, fell into a violent nervous paroxysm. The other women,
sympathizing with her, gathered about to assist her, but one after
another fell into a similar condition, until twenty were thus
prostrated, and a more general spread of the epidemic was only prevented
by clearing the premises.(404)
(404) For these examples and others, see Tuke, Influence of the Mind
upon the Body, vol. i, pp. 100, 277; also Hecker's essay.
But while these cases seemed, in the eye of Science, fatal to the old
conception of diabolic influence, the great majority of such epidemics,
when unexplained, continued to give strength to the older view.
In Roman Catholic countries these manifestations, as we have seen, have
generally appeared in convents, or in churches where young girls are
brought together for their first communion, or at shrines where miracles
are supposed to be wrought.
In Protestant countries they appear in times of great religious
excitement, and especially when large bodies of young women are
submitted to the influence of noisy and frothy preachers. Well-known
examples of this in America are seen in the "Jumpers," "Jerkers," and
various revival extravagances, especially among the negroes and "poor
whites" of the Southern States.
The proper conditions being given for the development of the
disease--generally a congregation composed mainly of young women--any
fanatic or overzealous priest or preacher may stimulate hysterical
seizures, which are very likely to become epidemic.
As a recent typical example on a large scale, I take the case of
diabolic possession at Morzine, a French village on the borders of
Switzerland; and it is especially instructive, because it was thoroughly
investigated by a competent man of science.
About the year 1853 a sick girl at Morzine, acting strangely, was
thought to be possessed of the devil, and was taken to Besancon,
where she seems to have fallen into the hands of kindly and sensible
ecclesiastics, and, under the operation of the relics preserved in the
cathedral there--especially the handkerchief of Christ--the devil was
cast out and she was cured. Naturally, much was said of the affair among
the peasantry, and soon other cases began to show themselves. The priest
at Morzine attempted to quiet the matter by avowing his disbelief in
such cases of possession; but immediately a great outcry was raised
against him, especially by the possessed themselves. The matter was
now widely discussed, and the malady spread rapidly; myth-making and
wonder-mongering began; amazing accounts were thus developed and sent
out to the world. The afflicted were said to have climbed trees like
squirrels; to have shown superhuman strength; to have exercised the gift
of tongues, speaking in German, Latin, and even in Arabic; to have
given accounts of historical events they had never heard of; and to have
revealed the secret thoughts of persons about them. Mingled with such
exhibitions of power were outbursts of blasphemy and obscenity.
But suddenly came something more miraculous, apparently, than all
these wonders. Without any assigned cause, this epidemic of possession
diminished and the devil disappeared.
Not long after this, Prof. Tissot, an eminent member of the medical
faculty at Dijon, visited the spot and began a series of researches, of
which he afterward published a full account. He tells us that he found
some reasons for the sudden departure of Satan which had never been
published. He discovered that the Government had quietly removed one or
two very zealous ecclesiastics to another parish, had sent the police
to Morzine to maintain order, and had given instructions that those
who acted outrageously should be simply treated as lunatics and sent
to asylums. This policy, so accordant with French methods of
administration, cast out the devil: the possessed were mainly cured, and
the matter appeared ended.
But Dr. Tissot found a few of the diseased still remaining, and he soon
satisfied himself by various investigations and experiments that they
were simply suffering from hysteria. One of his investigations is
especially curious. In order to observe the patients more carefully, he
invited some of them to dine with him, gave them without their knowledge
holy water in their wine or their food, and found that it produced no
effect whatever, though its results upon the demons when the possessed
knew of its presence had been very marked. Even after large draughts of
holy water had been thus given, the possessed remained afflicted, urged
that the devil should be cast out, and some of them even went into
convulsions; the devil apparently speaking from their mouths. It was
evident that Satan had not the remotest idea that he had been thoroughly
dosed with the most effective medicine known to the older theology.(405)
(405) For an amazing delineation of the curative and other virtues of
holy water, see the Abbe Gaume, L'Eau benite au XIXme Siecle, Paris,
1866.
At last Tissot published the results of his experiments, and the
stereotyped answer was soon made. It resembled the answer made by the
clerical opponents of Galileo when he showed them the moons of Jupiter
through his telescope, and they declared that the moons were created
by the telescope. The clerical opponents of Tissot insisted that the
non-effect of the holy water upon the demons proved nothing save the
extraordinary cunning of Satan; that the archfiend wished it to be
thought that he does not exist, and so overcame his repugnance to holy
water, gulping it down in order to conceal his presence.
Dr. Tissot also examined into the gift of tongues exercised by the
possessed. As to German and Latin, no great difficulty was presented:
it was by no means hard to suppose that some of the girls might have
learned some words of the former language in the neighbouring Swiss
cantons where German was spoken, or even in Germany itself; and as to
Latin, considering that they had heard it from their childhood in the
church, there seemed nothing very wonderful in their uttering some words
in that language also. As to Arabic, had they really spoken it, that
might have been accounted for by the relations of the possessed with
Zouaves or Spahis from the French army; but, as Tissot could discover no
such relations, he investigated this point as the most puzzling of all.
On a close inquiry, he found that all the wonderful examples of speaking
Arabic were reduced to one. He then asked whether there was any other
person speaking or knowing Arabic in the town. He was answered that
there was not. He asked whether any person had lived there, so far as
any one could remember, who had spoken or understood Arabic, and he was
answered in the negative.
He then asked the witnesses how they knew that the language spoken
by the girl was Arabic: no answer was vouchsafed him; but he was
overwhelmed with such stories as that of a pig which, at sight of the
cross on the village church, suddenly refused to go farther; and he was
denounced thoroughly in the clerical newspapers for declining to accept
such evidence.
At Tissot's visit in 1863 the possession had generally ceased, and the
cases left were few and quiet. But his visits stirred a new controversy,
and its echoes were long and loud in the pulpits and clerical journals.
Believers insisted that Satan had been removed by the intercession
of the Blessed Virgin; unbelievers hinted that the main cause of
the deliverance was the reluctance of the possessed to be shut up in
asylums.
Under these circumstances the Bishop of Annecy announced that he would
visit Morzine to administer Confirmation, and word appears to have
spread that he would give a more orthodox completion to the work already
done, by exorcising the devils who remained. Immediately several new
cases of possession appeared; young girls who had been cured were
again affected; the embers thus kindled were fanned into a flame by a
"mission" which sundry priests held in the parish to arouse the people
to their religious duties--a mission in Roman Catholic countries being
akin to a "revival" among some Protestant sects. Multitudes of young
women, excited by the preaching and appeals of the clergy, were again
thrown into the old disease, and at the coming of the good bishop it
culminated.
The account is given in the words of an eye-witness:
"At the solemn entrance of the bishop into the church, the possessed
persons threw themselves on the ground before him, or endeavoured to
throw themselves upon him, screaming frightfully, cursing, blaspheming,
so that the people at large were struck with horror. The possessed
followed the bishop, hooted him, and threatened him, up to the middle
of the church. Order was only established by the intervention of the
soldiers. During the confirmation the diseased redoubled their howls and
infernal vociferations, and tried to spit in the face of the bishop and
to tear off his pastoral raiment. At the moment when the prelate gave
his benediction a still more outrageous scene took place. The violence
of the diseased was carried to fury, and from all parts of the church
arose yells and fearful howling; so frightful was the din that tears
fell from the eyes of many of the spectators, and many strangers were
thrown into consternation."
Among the very large number of these diseased persons there were only
two men; of the remainder only two were of advanced age; the great
majority were young women between the ages of eighteen and twenty-five
years.
The public authorities shortly afterward intervened, and sought to
cure the disease and to draw the people out of their mania by singing,
dancing, and sports of various sorts, until at last it was brought under
control.(406)
(406) See Tissot, L'Imagination: ses Bienfaits et ses Egarements sutout
dans le Domaine du Merveilleux, Paris, 1868, liv. iv, ch. vii, S 7:
Les Possedees de Morzine; also Constans, Relation sur une Epidemie de
Hystero-Demonopathies, Paris, 1863.
Scenes similar to these, in their essential character, have arisen more
recently in Protestant countries, but with the difference that what has
been generally attributed by Roman Catholic ecclesiastics to Satan is
attributed by Protestant ecclesiastics to the Almighty. Typical among
the greater exhibitions of this were those which began in the Methodist
chapel at Redruth in Cornwall--convulsions, leaping, jumping, until some
four thousand persons were seized by it. The same thing is seen in the
ruder parts of America at "revivals" and camp meetings. Nor in the
ruder parts of America alone. In June, 1893, at a funeral in the city
of Brooklyn, one of the mourners having fallen into hysterical fits,
several other cases at once appeared in various parts of the church
edifice, and some of the patients were so seriously affected that they
were taken to a hospital.
In still another field these exhibitions are seen, but more after a
medieval pattern: in the Tigretier of Abyssinia we have epidemics of
dancing which seek and obtain miraculous cures.
Reports of similar manifestations are also sent from missionaries
from the west coast of Africa, one of whom sees in some of them the
characteristics of cases of possession mentioned in our Gospels, and is
therefore inclined to attribute them to Satan.(407)
(407) For the cases in Brooklyn, see the New York Tribune of about June
10, 1893. For the Tigretier, with especially interesting citations, see
Hecker, chap. iii, sec. 1. For the cases in western Africa, see the Rev.
J. L. Wilson, Western Africa, p. 217.
III. THEOLOGICAL "RESTATEMENTS."--FINAL TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW
AND METHODS.
But, happily, long before these latter occurrences, science had come
into the field and was gradually diminishing this class of diseases.
Among the earlier workers to this better purpose was the great Dutch
physician Boerhaave. Finding in one of the wards in the hospital at
Haarlem a number of women going into convulsions and imitating each
other in various acts of frenzy, he immediately ordered a furnace of
blazing coals into the midst of the ward, heated cauterizing irons, and
declared that he would burn the arms of the first woman who fell into
convulsions. No more cases occurred.(408)
(408) See Figuier, Histoire de Merveilleux, vol. i, p. 403.
These and similar successful dealings of medical science with mental
disease brought about the next stage in the theological development. The
Church sought to retreat, after the usual manner, behind a compromise.
Early in the eighteenth century appeared a new edition of the great work
by the Jesuit Delrio which for a hundred years had been a text-book for
the use of ecclesiastics in fighting witchcraft; but in this edition
the part played by Satan in diseases was changed: it was suggested that,
while diseases have natural causes, it is necessary that Satan enter
the human body in order to make these causes effective. This work claims
that Satan "attacks lunatics at the full moon, when their brains are
full of humours"; that in other cases of illness he "stirs the black
bile"; and that in cases of blindness and deafness he "clogs the eyes
and ears." By the close of the century this "restatement" was evidently
found untenable, and one of a very different sort was attempted in
England.
In the third edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica, published in 1797,
under the article Daemoniacs, the orthodox view was presented in the
following words: "The reality of demoniacal possession stands upon the
same evidence with the gospel system in general."
This statement, though necessary to satisfy the older theological
sentiment, was clearly found too dangerous to be sent out into the
modern sceptical world without some qualification. Another view was
therefore suggested, namely, that the personages of the New Testament
"adopted the vulgar language in speaking of those unfortunate persons
who were generally imagined to be possessed with demons." Two or three
editions contained this curious compromise; but near the middle of the
present century the whole discussion was quietly dropped.
Science, declining to trouble itself with any of these views, pressed
on, and toward the end of the century we see Dr. Rhodes at Lyons curing
a very serious case of possession by the use of a powerful emetic; yet
myth-making came in here also, and it was stated that when the emetic
produced its effect people had seen multitudes of green and yellow
devils cast forth from the mouth of the possessed.
The last great demonstration of the old belief in England was made in
1788. Near the city of Bristol at that time lived a drunken epileptic,
George Lukins. In asking alms, he insisted that he was "possessed," and
proved it by jumping, screaming, barking, and treating the company to a
parody of the Te Deum.
He was solemnly brought into the Temple Church, and seven clergymen
united in the effort to exorcise the evil spirit. Upon their adjuring
Satan, he swore "by his infernal den" that he would not come out of
the man--"an oath," says the chronicler, "nowhere to be found but in
Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, from which Lukins probably got it."
But the seven clergymen were at last successful, and seven devils were
cast out, after which Lukins retired, and appears to have been supported
during the remainder of his life as a monument of mercy.
With this great effort the old theory in England seemed practically
exhausted.
Science had evidently carried the stronghold. In 1876, at a little
town near Amiens, in France, a young woman suffering with all the usual
evidences of diabolic possession was brought to the priest. The priest
was besought to cast out the devil, but he simply took her to the
hospital, where, under scientific treatment, she rapidly became
better.(409)
(409) See Figuier; also Collin de Plancy, Dictionnaire Infernale,
article Posseses.
The final triumph of science in this part of the great field has been
mainly achieved during the latter half of the present century.
Following in the noble succession of Paracelsus and John Hunter and
Pinel and Tuke and Esquirol, have come a band of thinkers and workers
who by scientific observation and research have developed new growths of
truth, ever more and more precious.
Among the many facts thus brought to bear upon this last stronghold
of the Prince of Darkness, may be named especially those indicating
"expectant attention"--an expectation of phenomena dwelt upon until the
longing for them becomes morbid and invincible, and the creation of
them perhaps unconscious. Still other classes of phenomena leading to
epidemics are found to arise from a morbid tendency to imitation. Still
other groups have been brought under hypnotism. Multitudes more have
been found under the innumerable forms and results of hysteria. A study
of the effects of the imagination upon bodily functions has also yielded
remarkable results.
And, finally, to supplement this work, have come in an array of
scholars in history and literature who have investigated myth-making and
wonder-mongering.
Thus has been cleared away that cloud of supernaturalism which so long
hung over mental diseases, and thus have they been brought within the
firm grasp of science.(410)
(410) To go into even leading citations in this vast and beneficent
literature would take me far beyond my plan and space, but I may
name, among easily accessible authorities, Brierre de Boismont on
Hallucinations, Hulme's translation, 1860; also James Braid, The Power
of the Mind over the Body, London, 1846; Krafft-Ebing, Lehrbuch der
Psychiatrie, Stuttgart, 1888; Tuke, Influence of the Mind on the Body,
London, 1884; Maudsley, Pathology of the Mind, London, 1879; Carpenter,
Mental Physiology, sixth edition, London, 1888; Lloyd Tuckey, Faith
Cure, in The Nineteenth Century for December, 1888; Pettigrew,
Superstitions connected with the Practice of Medicine and Surgery,
London, 1844; Snell, Hexenprocesse und Geistesstorung, Munchen,
1891. For a very valuable study of interesting cases, see The Law
of Hypnotism, by Prof. R. S. Hyer, of the Southwestern University,
Georgetown, Texas, 1895.
As to myth-making and wonder-mongering, the general reader will find
interesting supplementary accounts in the recent works of Andrew Lang
and Baring-Gould.
A very curious evidence of the effects of the myth-making tendency
has recently come to the attention of the writer of this article.
Periodically, for many years past, we have seen, in books of travel
and in the newspapers, accounts of the wonderful performances of the
jugglers in India; of the stabbing of a child in a small basket in the
midst of an arena, and the child appearing alive in the surrounding
crowd; of seeds planted, sprouted, and becoming well-grown trees under
the hand of the juggler; of ropes thrown into the air and sustained by
invisible force. Count de Gubernatis, the eminent professor and Oriental
scholar at Florence, informed the present writer that he had recently
seen and studied these exhibitions, and that, so far from being
wonderful, they were much inferior to the jugglery so well known in all
our Western capitals.
Conscientious men still linger on who find comfort in holding fast
to some shred of the old belief in diabolic possession. The sturdy
declaration in the last century by John Wesley, that "giving up
witchcraft is giving up the Bible," is echoed feebly in the latter
half of this century by the eminent Catholic ecclesiastic in France who
declares that "to deny possession by devils is to charge Jesus and his
apostles with imposture," and asks, "How can the testimony of apostles,
fathers of the Church, and saints who saw the possessed and so declared,
be denied?" And a still fainter echo lingers in Protestant England.(411)
(411) See the Abbe Barthelemi, in the Dictionnaire de la Conversation;
also the Rev. W. Scott's Doctrine of Evil Spirits proved, London, 1853;
also the vigorous protest of Dean Burgon against the action of the New
Testament revisers, in substituting the word "epileptic" for "lunatic"
in Matthew xvii, 15, published in the Quarterly Review for January,
1882.
But, despite this conscientious opposition, science has in these latter
days steadily wrought hand in hand with Christian charity in this field,
to evolve a better future for humanity. The thoughtful physician and the
devoted clergyman are now constantly seen working together; and it is
not too much to expect that Satan, having been cast out of the insane
asylums, will ere long disappear from monasteries and camp meetings,
even in the most unenlightened regions of Christendom.
CHAPTER XVII. FROM BABEL TO COMPARATIVE PHILOLOGY.
I. THE SACRED THEORY IN ITS FIRST FORM.
Among the sciences which have served as entering wedges into the heavy
mass of ecclesiastical orthodoxy--to cleave it, disintegrate it, and let
the light of Christianity into it--none perhaps has done a more striking
work than Comparative Philology. In one very important respect the
history of this science differs from that of any other; for it is the
only one whose conclusions theologians have at last fully adopted as
the result of their own studies. This adoption teaches a great lesson,
since, while it has destroyed theological views cherished during many
centuries, and obliged the Church to accept theories directly contrary
to the plain letter of our sacred books, the result is clearly seen to
have helped Christianity rather than to have hurt it. It has certainly
done much to clear our religious foundations of the dogmatic rust which
was eating into their structure.
How this result was reached, and why the Church has so fully accepted
it, I shall endeavour to show in the present chapter. At a very early
period in the evolution of civilization men began to ask questions
regarding language; and the answers to these questions were naturally
embodied in the myths, legends, and chronicles of their sacred books.
Among the foremost of these questions were three: "Whence came
language?" "Which was the first language?" "How came the diversity of
language?"
The answer to the first of these was very simple: each people naturally
held that language was given it directly or indirectly by some special
or national deity of its own; thus, to the Chaldeans by Oannes, to the
Egyptians by Thoth, to the Hebrews by Jahveh.
The Hebrew answer is embodied in the great poem which opens our sacred
books. Jahveh talks with Adam and is perfectly understood; the serpent
talks with Eve and is perfectly understood; Jahveh brings the animals
before Adam, who bestows on each its name. Language, then, was God-given
and complete. Of the fact that every language is the result of a growth
process there was evidently, among the compilers of our sacred books, no
suspicion.
The answer to the second of these questions was no less simple. As,
very generally, each nation believed its own chief divinity to be "a god
above all gods,"--as each believed itself "a chosen people,"--as each
believed its own sacred city the actual centre of the earth, so each
believed its own language to be the first--the original of all. This
answer was from the first taken for granted by each "chosen people," and
especially by the Hebrews: throughout their whole history, whether the
Almighty talks with Adam in the Garden or writes the commandments on
Mount Sinai, he uses the same language--the Hebrew.
The answer to the third of these questions, that regarding the diversity
of languages, was much more difficult. Naturally, explanations of this
diversity frequently gave rise to legends somewhat complicated.
The "law of wills and causes," formulated by Comte, was exemplified here
as in so many other cases. That law is, that, when men do not know the
natural causes of things, they simply attribute them to wills like their
own; thus they obtain a theory which provisionally takes the place of
science, and this theory forms a basis for theology.
Examples of this recur to any thinking reader of history. Before
the simpler laws of astronomy were known, the sun was supposed to be
trundled out into the heavens every day and the stars hung up in the
firmament every night by the right hand of the Almighty. Before the
laws of comets were known, they were thought to be missiles hurled by
an angry God at a wicked world. Before the real cause of lightning was
known, it was supposed to be the work of a good God in his wrath, or of
evil spirits in their malice. Before the laws of meteorology were known,
it was thought that rains were caused by the Almighty or his angels
opening "the windows of heaven" to let down upon the earth "the waters
that be above the firmament." Before the laws governing physical
health were known, diseases were supposed to result from the direct
interposition of the Almighty or of Satan. Before the laws governing
mental health were known, insanity was generally thought to be diabolic
possession. All these early conceptions were naturally embodied in the
sacred books of the world, and especially in our own.(412)
(412) Any one who wishes to realize the mediaeval view of the direct
personal attention of the Almighty to the universe, can perhaps do so
most easily by looking over the engravings in the well-known Nuremberg
Chronicle, representing him in the work of each of the six days, and
resting afterward.
So, in this case, to account for the diversity of tongues, the direct
intervention of the Divine Will was brought in. As this diversity was
felt to be an inconvenience, it was attributed to the will of a Divine
Being in anger. To explain this anger, it was held that it must have
been provoked by human sin.
Out of this conception explanatory myths and legends grew as thickly and
naturally as elms along water-courses; of these the earliest form known
to us is found in the Chaldean accounts, and nowhere more clearly than
in the legend of the Tower of Babel.
The inscriptions recently found among the ruins of Assyria have thrown
a bright light into this and other scriptural myths and legends: the
deciphering of the characters in these inscriptions by Grotefend, and
the reading of the texts by George Smith, Oppert, Sayce, and others,
have given us these traditions more nearly in their original form than
they appear in our own Scriptures.
The Hebrew story of Babel, like so many other legends in the sacred
books of the world, combined various elements. By a play upon words,
such as the history of myths and legends frequently shows, it wrought
into one fabric the earlier explanations of the diversities of human
speech and of the great ruined tower at Babylon. The name Babel (bab-el)
means "Gate of God" or "Gate of the Gods." All modern scholars of note
agree that this was the real significance of the name; but the Hebrew
verb which signifies TO CONFOUND resembles somewhat the word Babel, so
that out of this resemblance, by one of the most common processes in
myth formation, came to the Hebrew mind an indisputable proof that the
tower was connected with the confusion of tongues, and this became part
of our theological heritage.
In our sacred books the account runs as follows:
"And the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.
"And it came to pass, as they journeyed from the east, that they found a
plain in the land of Shinar; and they dwelt there.
"And they said one to another, Go to, let us make brick, and burn them
thoroughly. And they had brick for stone, and slime had they for mortar.
"And they said, Go to, let us build us a city, and a tower, whose top
may reach unto heaven; and let us make us a name, lest we be scattered
abroad upon the face of the whole earth.
"And the Lord came down to see the city and the tower, which the
children of men builded.
"And the Lord said, Behold, the people is one, and they have all one
language; and this they begin to do: and now nothing will be restrained
from them, which they have imagined to do.
"Go to, let us go down, and there confound their language, that they may
not understand one another's speech.
"So the Lord scattered them abroad from thence upon the face of all the
earth: and they left off to build the city.
"Therefore is the name of it called Babel; because the Lord did there
confound the language of all the earth: and from thence did the Lord
scatter them abroad upon the face of all the earth." (Genesis xi, 1-9.)
Thus far the legend had been but slightly changed from the earlier
Chaldean form in which it has been found in the Assyrian inscriptions.
Its character is very simple: to use the words of Prof. Sayce, "It takes
us back to the age when the gods were believed to dwell in the visible
sky, and when man, therefore, did his best to rear his altars as near
them as possible." And this eminent divine might have added that it
takes us back also to a time when it was thought that Jehovah, in order
to see the tower fully, was obliged to come down from his seat above the
firmament.
As to the real reasons for the building of the towers which formed so
striking a feature in Chaldean architecture--any one of which may easily
have given rise to the explanatory myth which found its way into our
sacred books--there seems a substantial agreement among leading scholars
that they were erected primarily as parts of temples, but largely for
the purpose of astronomical observations, to which the Chaldeans were
so devoted, and to which their country, with its level surface and clear
atmosphere, was so well adapted. As to the real cause of the ruin of
such structures, one of the inscribed cylinders discovered in recent
times, speaking of a tower which most of the archaeologists identify
with the Tower of Babel, reads as follows:
"The building named the Stages of the Seven Spheres, which was the Tower
of Borsippa, had been built by a former king. He had completed forty-two
cubits, but he did not finish its head. During the lapse of time, it
had become ruined; they had not taken care of the exit of the waters,
so that rain and wet had penetrated into the brickwork; the casing
of burned brick had swollen out, and the terraces of crude brick are
scattered in heaps."
We can well understand how easily "the gods, assisted by the winds," as
stated in the Chaldean legend, could overthrow a tower thus built.
It may be instructive to compare with the explanatory myth developed
first by the Chaldeans, and in a slightly different form by the Hebrews,
various other legends to explain the same diversity of tongues. The
Hindu legend of the confusion of tongues is as follows:
"There grew in the centre of the earth the wonderful 'world tree,' or
'knowledge tree.' It was so tall that it reached almost to heaven.
It said in its heart, 'I shall hold my head in heaven and spread my
branches over all the earth, and gather all men together under my
shadow, and protect them, and prevent them from separating.' But Brahma,
to punish the pride of the tree, cut off its branches and cast them down
on the earth, when they sprang up as wata trees, and made differences of
belief and speech and customs to prevail on the earth, to disperse men
upon its surface."
Still more striking is a Mexican legend: according to this, the giant
Xelhua built the great Pyramid of Cholula, in order to reach heaven,
until the gods, angry at his audacity, threw fire upon the building and
broke it down, whereupon every separate family received a language of
its own.
Such explanatory myths grew or spread widely over the earth. A
well-known form of the legend, more like the Chaldean than the Hebrew
later form, appeared among the Greeks. According to this, the Aloidae
piled Mount Ossa upon Olympus and Pelion upon Ossa, in their efforts to
reach heaven and dethrone Jupiter.
Still another form of it entered the thoughts of Plato. He held that in
the golden age men and beasts all spoke the same language, but that
Zeus confounded their speech because men were proud and demanded eternal
youth and immortality.(413)
(413) For the identification of the Tower of Babel with the "Birs
Nimrad" amid the ruins of the city of Borsippa, see Rawlinson; also
Schrader, The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament, London,
1885, pp. 106-112 and following; and especially George Smith, Assyrian
Discoveries, p. 59. For some of these inscriptions discovered and read
by George Smith, see his Chaldean Account of Genesis, new York, 1876,
pp. 160-162. For the statement regarding the origin of the word Babel,
see Ersch and Gruber, article Babylon; also the Rev. Prof. A. H. Sayce
in the latest edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica; also Colenso,
Pentateuch Examined, part iv, p. 302; also John Fiske, Myths and
Myth-makers, p. 72; also Lenormont, Histoire Ancienne de l'Orient,
Paris, 1881, vol. i, pp. 115 et seq. As to the character and purpose of
the great tower of the temple of Belus, see Smith's Bible Dictionary,
article Babel, quoting Diodorus; also Rawlinson, especially in Journal
of the Asiatic Society for 1861; also Sayce, Religion of the Ancient
Babylonians (Hibbert Lectures for 1887), London, 1887, chap. ii and
elsewhere, especially pages 96, 397, 407; also Max Duncker, History
of Antiquity, Abbott's translation, vol. ii, chaps. ii, and iii.
For similar legends in other parts of the world, see Delitzsch; also
Humboldt, American Researches; also Brinton, Myths of the New World;
also Colenso, as above. The Tower of Cholula is well known, having
been described by Humboldt and Lord Kingsborough. For superb engravings
showing the view of Babel as developed by the theological imagination,
see Kircher, Turris Babel, Amsterdam, 1679. For the Law of Wills and
Causes, with deductions from it well stated, see Beattie Crozier,
Civilization and Progress, London, 1888, pp. 112, 178, 179, 273. For
Plato, see the Politicus, p. 272, ed. Stephani, cited in Ersch and
Gruber, article Babylon. For a good general statement, see Bible Myths,
New York, 1883, chap. iii. For Aristotle's strange want of interest in
any classification of the varieties of human speech, see Max Muller,
Lectures on the Science of Language, London, 1864, series i, chap. iv,
pp. 123-125.
But naturally the version of the legend which most affected Christendom
was that modification of the Chaldean form developed among the Jews and
embodied in their sacred books. To a thinking man in these days it is
very instructive. The coming down of the Almighty from heaven to see
the tower and put an end to it by dispersing its builders, points to the
time when his dwelling was supposed to be just above the firmament or
solid vault above the earth: the time when he exercised his beneficent
activity in such acts as opening "the windows of heaven" to give down
rain upon the earth; in bringing out the sun every day and hanging up
the stars every night to give light to the earth; in hurling comets, to
give warning; in placing his bow in the cloud, to give hope; in, coming
down in the cool of the evening to walk and talk with the man he had
made; in making coats of skins for Adam and Eve; in enjoying the odour
of flesh which Noah burned for him; in eating with Abraham under the
oaks of Mamre; in wrestling with Jacob; and in writing with his own
finger on the stone tables for Moses.
So came the answer to the third question regarding language; and all
three answers, embodied in our sacred books and implanted in the Jewish
mind, supplied to the Christian Church the germs of a theological
development of philology. These germs developed rapidly in the warm
atmosphere of devotion and ignorance of natural law which pervaded the
early Church, and there grew a great orthodox theory of language, which
was held throughout Christendom, "always, everywhere, and by all," for
nearly two thousand years, and to which, until the present century, all
science has been obliged, under pains and penalties, to conform.
There did, indeed, come into human thought at an early period some
suggestions of the modern scientific view of philology. Lucretius had
proposed a theory, inadequate indeed, but still pointing toward the
truth, as follows: "Nature impelled man to try the various sounds of the
tongue, and so struck out the names of things, much in the same way as
the inability to speak is seen in its turn to drive children to the use
of gestures." But, among the early fathers of the Church, the only one
who seems to have caught an echo of this utterance was St. Gregory of
Nyssa: as a rule, all the other great founders of Christian theology, as
far as they expressed themselves on the subject, took the view that the
original language spoken by the Almighty and given by him to men was
Hebrew, and that from this all other languages were derived at the
destruction of the Tower of Babel. This doctrine was especially upheld
by Origen, St. Jerome, and St. Augustine. Origen taught that "the
language given at the first through Adam, the Hebrew, remained among
that portion of mankind which was assigned not to any angel, but
continued the portion of God himself." St. Augustine declared that, when
the other races were divided by their own peculiar languages, Heber's
family preserved that language which is not unreasonably believed to
have been the common language of the race, and that on this account it
was henceforth called Hebrew. St. Jerome wrote, "The whole of antiquity
affirms that Hebrew, in which the Old Testament is written, was the
beginning of all human speech."
Amid such great authorities as these even Gregory of Nyssa struggled in
vain. He seems to have taken the matter very earnestly, and to have
used not only argument but ridicule. He insists that God does not speak
Hebrew, and that the tongue used by Moses was not even a pure dialect
of one of the languages resulting from "the confusion." He makes man
the inventor of speech, and resorts to raillery: speaking against his
opponent Eunomius, he says that, "passing in silence his base and abject
garrulity," he will "note a few things which are thrown into the midst
of his useless or wordy discourse, where he represents God teaching
words and names to our first parents, sitting before them like some
pedagogue or grammar master." But, naturally, the great authority
of Origen, Jerome, and Augustine prevailed; the view suggested by
Lucretius, and again by St. Gregory of Nyssa, died, out; and "always,
everywhere, and by all," in the Church, the doctrine was received that
the language spoken by the Almighty was Hebrew,--that it was taught
by him to Adam,--and that all other languages on the face of the earth
originated from it at the dispersion attending the destruction of the
Tower of Babel.(414)
(414) For Lucretius's statement, see the De Rerum Natura, lib. v,
Munro's edition, with translation, Cambridge, 1886, vol. iii. p.
141. For the opinion of Gregory of Nyssa, see Benfey, Geschichte der
Sprachwissenschaft in Deutschland, Munchen, 1869, p. 179; and for the
passage cited, see Gregory of Nyssa in his Contra Eunomium, xii, in
Migne's Patr. Graeca, vol. ii, p. 1043. For St. Jerome, see his Epistle
XVIII, in Migne's Patr. Lat., vol. xxii, p. 365. For citation from St.
Augustine, see the City of God, Dod's translation, Edinburgh, 1871,
vol. ii, p. 122. For citation from Origen, see his Homily XI, cited by
Guichard in preface to L'Harmonie Etymologique, Paris, 1631, lib. xvi,
chap. xi. For absolutely convincing proofs that the Jews derived the
Babel and other legends of their sacred books fro the Chaldeans, see
George Smith, Chaldean Account of Genesis, passim; but especially for a
most candid though somewhat reluctant summing up, see p. 291.
This idea threw out roots and branches in every direction, and so
developed ever into new and strong forms. As all scholars now know,
the vowel points in the Hebrew language were not adopted until at some
period between the second and tenth centuries; but in the mediaeval
Church they soon came to be considered as part of the great miracle,--as
the work of the right hand of the Almighty; and never until the
eighteenth century was there any doubt allowed as to the divine origin
of these rabbinical additions to the text. To hesitate in believing that
these points were dotted virtually by the very hand of God himself came
to be considered a fearful heresy.
The series of battles between theology and science in the field
of comparative philology opened just on this point, apparently
so insignificant: the direct divine inspiration of the rabbinical
punctuation. The first to impugn this divine origin of these vocal
points and accents appears to have been a Spanish monk, Raymundus
Martinus, in his Pugio Fidei, or Poniard of the Faith, which he put
forth in the thirteenth century. But he and his doctrine disappeared
beneath the waves of the orthodox ocean, and apparently left no trace.
For nearly three hundred years longer the full sacred theory held its
ground; but about the opening of the sixteenth century another glimpse
of the truth was given by a Jew, Elias Levita, and this seems to have
had some little effect, at least in keeping the germ of scientific truth
alive.
The Reformation, with its renewal of the literal study of the
Scriptures, and its transfer of all infallibility from the Church and
the papacy to the letter of the sacred books, intensified for a time the
devotion of Christendom to this sacred theory of language. The belief
was strongly held that the writers of the Bible were merely pens in
the hand of God (Dei calami.{;?} Hence the conclusion that not only the
sense but the words, letters, and even the punctuation proceeded from
the Holy Spirit. Only on this one question of the origin of the Hebrew
points was there any controversy, and this waxed hot. It began to be
especially noted that these vowel points in the Hebrew Bible did not
exist in the synagogue rolls, were not mentioned in the Talmud, and
seemed unknown to St. Jerome; and on these grounds some earnest men
ventured to think them no part of the original revelation to Adam.
Zwingli, so much before most of the Reformers in other respects,
was equally so in this. While not doubting the divine origin and
preservation of the Hebrew language as a whole, he denied the antiquity
of the vocal points, demonstrated their unessential character, and
pointed out the fact that St. Jerome makes no mention of them. His
denial was long the refuge of those who shared this heresy.
But the full orthodox theory remained established among the vast
majority both of Catholics and Protestants. The attitude of the former
is well illustrated in the imposing work of the canon Marini, which
appeared at Venice in 1593, under the title of Noah's Ark: A New
Treasury of the Sacred Tongue. The huge folios begin with the
declaration that the Hebrew tongue was "divinely inspired at the very
beginning of the world," and the doctrine is steadily maintained that
this divine inspiration extended not only to the letters but to the
punctuation.
Not before the seventeenth century was well under way do we find a
thorough scholar bold enough to gainsay this preposterous doctrine. This
new assailant was Capellus, Professor of Hebrew at Saumur; but he dared
not put forth his argument in France: he was obliged to publish it in
Holland, and even there such obstacles were thrown in his way that it
was ten years before he published another treatise of importance.
The work of Capellus was received as settling the question by very many
open-minded scholars, among whom was Hugo Grotius. But many theologians
felt this view to be a blow at the sanctity and integrity of the sacred
text; and in 1648 the great scholar, John Buxtorf the younger, rose
to defend the orthodox citadel: in his Anticritica he brought all his
stores of knowledge to uphold the doctrine that the rabbinical points
and accents had been jotted down by the right hand of God.
The controversy waxed hot: scholars like Voss and Brian Walton supported
Capellus; Wasmuth and many others of note were as fierce against him.
The Swiss Protestants were especially violent on the orthodox side;
their formula consensus of 1675 declared the vowel points to be
inspired, and three years later the Calvinists of Geneva, by a
special canon, forbade that any minister should be received into their
jurisdiction until he publicly confessed that the Hebrew text, as it
to-day exists in the Masoretic copies, is, both as to the consonants and
vowel points, divine and authentic.
While in Holland so great a man as Hugo Grotius supported the view
of Capellus, and while in France the eminent Catholic scholar Richard
Simon, and many others, Catholic and Protestant, took similar ground
against this divine origin of the Hebrew punctuation, there was arrayed
against them a body apparently overwhelming. In France, Bossuet, the
greatest theologian that France has ever produced, did his best to crush
Simon. In Germany, Wasmuth, professor first at Rostock and afterward at
Kiel, hurled his Vindiciae at the innovators. Yet at this very moment
the battle was clearly won; the arguments of Capellus were irrefragable,
and, despite the commands of bishops, the outcries of theologians,
and the sneering of critics, his application of strictly scientific
observation and reasoning carried the day.
Yet a casual observer, long after the fate of the battle was really
settled, might have supposed that it was still in doubt. As is not
unusual in theologic controversies, attempts were made to galvanize the
dead doctrine into an appearance of life. Famous among these attempts
was that made as late as the beginning of the eighteenth century by two
Bremen theologians, Hase and Iken. They put forth a compilation in two
huge folios simultaneously at Leyden and Amsterdam, prominent in which
work is the treatise on The Integrity of Scripture, by Johann Andreas
Danzius, Professor of Oriental Languages and Senior Member of the
Philosophical Faculty of Jena, and, to preface it, there was a formal
and fulsome approval by three eminent professors of theology at Leyden.
With great fervour the author pointed out that "religion itself depends
absolutely on the infallible inspiration, both verbal and literal, of
the Scripture text"; and with impassioned eloquence he assailed the
blasphemers who dared question the divine origin of the Hebrew points.
But this was really the last great effort. That the case was lost was
seen by the fact that Danzius felt obliged to use other missiles than
arguments, and especially to call his opponents hard names. From this
period the old sacred theory as to the origin of the Hebrew points may
be considered as dead and buried.
II. THE SACRED THEORY OF LANGUAGE IN ITS SECOND FORM.
But the war was soon to be waged on a wider and far more important
field. The inspiration of the Hebrew punctuation having been given up,
the great orthodox body fell back upon the remainder of the theory,
and intrenched this more strongly than ever: the theory that the Hebrew
language was the first of all languages--that which was spoken by the
Almighty, given by him to Adam, transmitted through Noah to the world
after the Deluge--and that the "confusion of tongues" was the origin of
all other languages.
In giving account of this new phase of the struggle, it is well to go
back a little. From the Revival of Learning and the Reformation had come
the renewed study of Hebrew in the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries,
and thus the sacred doctrine regarding the origin of the Hebrew language
received additional authority. All the early Hebrew grammars, from that
of Reuchlin down, assert the divine origin and miraculous claims of
Hebrew. It is constantly mentioned as "the sacred tongue"--sancta
lingua. In 1506, Reuchlin, though himself persecuted by a large faction
in the Church for advanced views, refers to Hebrew as "spoken by the
mouth of God."
This idea was popularized by the edition of the Margarita Philosophica,
published at Strasburg in 1508. That work, in its successive editions
a mirror of human knowledge at the close of the Middle Ages and the
opening of modern times, contains a curious introduction to the study of
Hebrew, In this it is declared that Hebrew was the original speech
"used between God and man and between men and angels." Its full-page
frontispiece represents Moses receiving from God the tables of stone
written in Hebrew; and, as a conclusive argument, it reminds us that
Christ himself, by choosing a Hebrew maid for his mother, made that his
mother tongue.
It must be noted here, however, that Luther, in one of those outbursts
of strong sense which so often appear in his career, enforced the
explanation that the words "God said" had nothing to do with the
articulation of human language. Still, he evidently yielded to the
general view. In the Roman Church at the same period we have a typical
example of the theologic method applied to philology, as we have seen it
applied to other sciences, in the statement by Luther's great opponent,
Cajetan, that the three languages of the inscription on the cross of
Calvary "were the representatives of all languages, because the number
three denotes perfection."
In 1538 Postillus made a very important endeavour at a comparative study
of languages, but with the orthodox assumption that all were derived
from one source, namely, the Hebrew. Naturally, Comparative Philology
blundered and stumbled along this path into endless absurdities. The
most amazing efforts were made to trace back everything to the sacred
language. English and Latin dictionaries appeared, in which every word
was traced back to a Hebrew root. No supposition was too absurd in
this attempt to square Science with Scripture. It was declared that, as
Hebrew is written from right to left, it might be read either way, in
order to produce a satisfactory etymology. The whole effort in all this
sacred scholarship was, not to find what the truth is--not to see how
the various languages are to be classified, or from what source they
are really derived--but to demonstrate what was supposed necessary to
maintain what was then held to be the truth of Scripture; namely, that
all languages are derived from the Hebrew.
This stumbling and blundering, under the sway of orthodox necessity, was
seen among the foremost scholars throughout Europe. About the middle of
the sixteenth century the great Swiss scholar, Conrad Gesner, beginning
his Mithridates, says, "While of all languages Hebrew is the first and
oldest, of all is alone pure and unmixed, all the rest are much mixed,
for there is none which has not some words derived and corrupted from
Hebrew."
Typical, as we approach the end of the sixteenth century, are the
utterances of two of the most noted English divines. First of these
may be mentioned Dr. William Fulke, Master of Pembroke Hall, in the
University of Cambridge. In his Discovery of the Dangerous Rock of the
Romish Church, published in 1580, he speaks of "the Hebrew tongue,... the
first tongue of the world, and for the excellency thereof called 'the
holy tongue.'"
Yet more emphatic, eight years later, was another eminent divine, Dr.
William Whitaker, Regius Professor of Divinity and Master of St. John's
College at Cambridge. In his Disputation on Holy Scripture, first
printed in 1588, he says: "The Hebrew is the most ancient of all
languages, and was that which alone prevailed in the world before the
Deluge and the erection of the Tower of Babel. For it was this which
Adam used and all men before the Flood, as is manifest from the
Scriptures, as the fathers testify." He then proceeds to quote passages
on this subject from St. Jerome, St. Augustine, and others, and cites
St. Chrysostom in support of the statement that "God himself showed the
model and method of writing when he delivered the Law written by his own
finger to Moses."(415)
(415) For the whole scriptural argument, embracing the various texts on
which the sacred science of Philology was founded, with the use made
of such texts, see Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft in
Deutschland, Munchen, 1869, pp. 22-26. As to the origin of the vowel
points, see Benfey, as above; he holds that they began to be inserted
in the second century A.D., and that the process lasted until about the
tenth. For Raymundus and his Pugio Fidei, see G. L. Bauer, Prolegomena
to his revision of Glassius's Philologia Sacra, Leipsic, 1795,--see
especially pp. 8-14, in tome ii of the work. For Zwingli, see Praef. in
Apol. comp. Isaiae (Opera, iii). See also Morinus, De Lingua primaeva,
p.447. For Marini, see his Arca Noe: Thesaurus Linguae Sanctae, Venet.,
1593, and especially the preface. For general account of Capellus,
see G. L. Bauer, in his Prolegomena, as above, vol. ii, pp. 8-14. His
Arcanum Premetationis Revelatum was brought out at Leyden in 1624; his
Critica Sacra ten years later. See on Capellus and Swiss theologues,
Wolfius, Bibliotheca Nebr., tome ii, p. 27. For the struggle, see
Schnedermann, Die Controverse des Ludovicus Capellus mit den Buxtorfen,
Leipsic, 1879, cited in article Hebrew, in Encyclopaedia Britannica. For
Wasmuth, see his Vindiciae Sanctae Hebraicae Scripturae, Rostock, 1664.
For Reuchlin, see the dedicatory preface to his Rudimenta Hebraica,
Pforzheim, 1506, folio, in which he speaks of the "in divina scriptura
dicendi genus, quale os Dei locatum est." The statement in the Margarita
Philosophica as to Hebrew is doubtless based on Reuchlin's Rudimenta
Hebraica, which it quotes, and which first appeared in 1506. It is
significant that this section disappeared from the Margarita in the
following editions; but this disappearence is easily understood when we
recall the fact that Gregory Reysch, its author, having become one
of the Papal Commission to judge Reuchlin in his quarrel with the
Dominicans, thought it prudent to side with the latter, and therefore,
doubtless, considered it wise to suppress all evidence of Reuchlin's
influence upon his beliefs. All the other editions of the Margarita in
my possession are content with teaching, under the head of the Alphabet,
that the Hebrew letters were invented by Adam. On Luther's view of
the words "God said," see Farrar, Language and Languages. For a most
valuable statement regarding the clashing opinions at the Reformation,
see Max Muller, as above, lecture iv, p. 132. For the prevailing view
among the Reformers, see Calovius, vol. i, p. 484, and Thulock, The
Doctrine of Inspiration, in Theolog. Essays, Boston, 1867. Both Muller
and Benfey note, as especially important, the difference between the
Church view and the ancient heathen view regarding "barbarians." See
Muller, as above, lecture iv, p. 127, and Benfey, as above, pp. 170 et
seq. For a very remarkable list of Bibles printed at an early period,
see Benfey, p. 569. On the attempts to trace all words back to Hebrew
roots, see Sayce, Introduction to the Science of Language, chap. vi. For
Gesner, see his Mithridates (de differentiis linguarum), Zurich, 1555.
For a similar attempt to prove that Italian was also derived from
Hebrew, see Giambullari, cited in Garlanda, p. 174. For Fulke, see
the Parker Society's Publications, 1848, p. 224. For Whitaker, see his
Disputation on Holy Scripture in the same series, pp. 112-114.
This sacred theory entered the seventeenth century in full force, and
for a time swept everything before it. Eminent commentators, Catholic
and Protestant, accepted and developed it.
Great prelates, Catholic and Protestant, stood guard over it, favouring
those who supported it, doing their best to destroy those who would
modify it.
In 1606 Stephen Guichard built new buttresses for it in Catholic France.
He explains in his preface that his intention is "to make the reader see
in the Hebrew word not only the Greek and Latin, but also the Italian,
the Spanish, the French, the German, the Flemish, the English, and many
others from all languages." As the merest tyro in philology can now see,
the great difficulty that Guichard encounters is in getting from the
Hebrew to the Aryan group of languages. How he meets this difficulty may
be imagined from his statement, as follows: "As for the derivation of
words by addition, subtraction, and inversion of the letters, it is
certain that this can and ought thus to be done, if we would find
etymologies--a thing which becomes very credible when we consider that
the Hebrews wrote from right to left and the Greeks and others from
left to right. All the learned recognise such derivations as
necessary;... and... certainly otherwise one could scarcely trace any
etymology back to Hebrew."
Of course, by this method of philological juggling, anything could be
proved which the author thought necessary to his pious purpose.
Two years later, Andrew Willett published at London his Hexapla,
or Sixfold Commentary upon Genesis. In this he insists that the
one language of all mankind in the beginning "was the Hebrew tongue
preserved still in Heber's family." He also takes pains to say that the
Tower of Babel "was not so called of Belus, as some have imagined, but
of confusion, for so the Hebrew word ballal signifieth"; and he quotes
from St. Chrysostom to strengthen his position.
In 1627 Dr. Constantine l'Empereur was inducted into the chair of
Philosophy of the Sacred Language in the University of Leyden. In his
inaugural oration on The Dignity and Utility of the Hebrew Tongue, he
puts himself on record in favour of the Divine origin and miraculous
purity of that language. "Who," he says, "can call in question the fact
that the Hebrew idiom is coeval with the world itself, save such as seek
to win vainglory for their own sophistry?"
Two years after Willett, in England, comes the famous Dr. Lightfoot, the
most renowned scholar of his time in Hebrew, Greek, and Latin; but
all his scholarship was bent to suit theological requirements. In his
Erubhin, published in 1629, he goes to the full length of the sacred
theory, though we begin to see a curious endeavour to get over some
linguistic difficulties.
One passage will serve to show both the robustness of his faith and the
acuteness of his reasoning, in view of the difficulties which scholars
now began to find in the sacred theory." Other commendations this tongue
(Hebrew) needeth none than what it hath of itself; namely, for sanctity
it was the tongue of God; and for antiquity it was the tongue of Adam.
God the first founder, and Adam the first speaker of it.... It began with
the world and the Church, and continued and increased in glory till the
captivity in Babylon.... As the man in Seneca, that through sickness lost
his memory and forgot his own name, so the Jews, for their sins, lost
their language and forgot their own tongue.... Before the confusion of
tongues all the world spoke their tongue and no other but since the
confusion of the Jews they speak the language of all the world and not
their own."
But just at the middle of the century (1657) came in England a champion
of the sacred theory more important than any of these--Brian Walton,
Bishop of Chester. His Polyglot Bible dominated English scriptural
criticism throughout the remainder of the century. He prefaces his
great work by proving at length the divine origin of Hebrew, and
the derivation from it of all other forms of speech. He declares it
"probable that the first parent of mankind was the inventor of letters."
His chapters on this subject are full of interesting details. He says
that the Welshman, Davis, had already tried to prove the Welsh the
primitive speech; Wormius, the Danish; Mitilerius, the German; but the
bishop stands firmly by the sacred theory, informing us that "even in
the New World are found traces of the Hebrew tongue, namely, in New
England and in New Belgium, where the word Aguarda signifies earth,
and the name Joseph is found among the Hurons." As we have seen, Bishop
Walton had been forced to give up the inspiration of the rabbinical
punctuation, but he seems to have fallen back with all the more tenacity
on what remained of the great sacred theory of language, and to have
become its leading champion among English-speaking peoples.
At that same period the same doctrine was put forth by a great authority
in Germany. In 1657 Andreas Sennert published his inaugural address
as Professor of Sacred Letters and Dean of the Theological Faculty at
Wittenberg. All his efforts were given to making Luther's old university
a fortress of the orthodox theory. His address, like many others in
various parts of Europe, shows that in his time an inaugural with any
save an orthodox statement of the theological platform would not be
tolerated. Few things in the past are to the sentimental mind more
pathetic, to the philosophical mind more natural, and to the progressive
mind more ludicrous, than addresses at high festivals of theological
schools. The audience has generally consisted mainly of estimable
elderly gentlemen, who received their theology in their youth, and who
in their old age have watched over it with jealous care to keep it well
protected from every fresh breeze of thought. Naturally, a theological
professor inaugurated under such auspices endeavours to propitiate his
audience. Sennert goes to great lengths both in his address and in his
grammar, published nine years later; for, declaring the Divine origin of
Hebrew to be quite beyond controversy, he says: "Noah received it from
our first parents, and guarded it in the midst of the waters; Heber and
Peleg saved it from the confusion of tongues."
The same doctrine was no less loudly insisted upon by the greatest
authority in Switzerland, Buxtorf, professor at Basle, who proclaimed
Hebrew to be "the tongue of God, the tongue of angels, the tongue of the
prophets"; and the effect of this proclamation may be imagined when we
note in 1663 that his book had reached its sixth edition.
It was re-echoed through England, Germany, France, and America, and,
if possible, yet more highly developed. In England Theophilus Gale set
himself to prove that not only all the languages, but all the learning
of the world, had been drawn from the Hebrew records.
This orthodox doctrine was also fully vindicated in Holland. Six
years before the close of the seventeenth century, Morinus, Doctor of
Theology, Professor of Oriental Languages, and pastor at Amsterdam,
published his great work on Primaeval Language. Its frontispiece depicts
the confusion of tongues at Babel, and, as a pendant to this, the
pentecostal gift of tongues to the apostles. In the successive chapters
of the first book he proves that language could not have come into
existence save as a direct gift from heaven; that there is a primitive
language, the mother of all the rest; that this primitive language still
exists in its pristine purity; that this language is the Hebrew. The
second book is devoted to proving that the Hebrew letters were divinely
received, have been preserved intact, and are the source of all other
alphabets. But in the third book he feels obliged to allow, in the face
of the contrary dogma held, as he says, by "not a few most eminent
men piously solicitous for the authority of the sacred text," that the
Hebrew punctuation was, after all, not of Divine inspiration, but a late
invention of the rabbis.
France, also, was held to all appearance in complete subjection to the
orthodox idea up to the end of the century. In 1697 appeared at Paris
perhaps the most learned of all the books written to prove Hebrew the
original tongue and source of all others. The Gallican Church was
then at the height of its power. Bossuet as bishop, as thinker, and as
adviser of Louis XIV, had crushed all opposition to orthodoxy. The Edict
of Nantes had been revoked, and the Huguenots, so far as they could
escape, were scattered throughout the world, destined to repay France
with interest a thousandfold during the next two centuries. The bones of
the Jansenists at Port Royal were dug up and scattered. Louis XIV stood
guard over the piety of his people. It was in the midst of this series
of triumphs that Father Louis Thomassin, Priest of the Oratory, issued
his Universal Hebrew Glossary. In this, to use his own language, "the
divinity, antiquity, and perpetuity of the Hebrew tongue, with its
letters, accents, and other characters," are established forever and
beyond all cavil, by proofs drawn from all peoples, kindreds, and
nations under the sun. This superb, thousand-columned folio was issued
from the royal press, and is one of the most imposing monuments of human
piety and folly--taking rank with the treatises of Fromundus against
Galileo, of Quaresmius on Lot's Wife, and of Gladstone on Genesis and
Geology.
The great theologic-philologic chorus was steadily maintained, and, as
in a responsive chant, its doctrines were echoed from land to land. From
America there came the earnest words of John Eliot, praising Hebrew
as the most fit to be made a universal language, and declaring it the
tongue "which it pleased our Lord Jesus to make use of when he spake
from heaven unto Paul." At the close of the seventeenth century came
from England a strong antiphonal answer in this chorus; Meric Casaubon,
the learned Prebendary of Canterbury, thus declared: "One language, the
Hebrew, I hold to be simply and absolutely the source of all." And, to
swell the chorus, there came into it, in complete unison, the voice
of Bentley--the greatest scholar of the old sort whom England has ever
produced. He was, indeed, one of the most learned and acute critics of
any age; but he was also Master of Trinity, Archdeacon of Bristol, held
two livings besides, and enjoyed the honour of refusing the bishopric of
Bristol, as not rich enough to tempt him. Noblesse oblige: that Bentley
should hold a brief for the theological side was inevitable, and we
need not be surprised when we hear him declaring: "We are sure, from the
names of persons and places mentioned in Scripture before the Deluge,
not to insist upon other arguments, that the Hebrew was the primitive
language of mankind, and that it continued pure above three thousand
years until the captivity in Babylon." The power of the theologic bias,
when properly stimulated with ecclesiastical preferment, could hardly
be more perfectly exemplified than in such a captivity of such a man as
Bentley.
Yet here two important exceptions should be noted. In England, Prideaux,
whose biblical studies gave him much authority, opposed the dominant
opinion; and in America, Cotton Mather, who in taking his Master's
degree at Harvard had supported the doctrine that the Hebrew vowel
points were of divine origin, bravely recanted and declared for the
better view.(416)
(416) The quotation from Guichard is from L'Harmonie Etymologique des
Langues,... dans laquelle par plusiers Antiquites et Etymologies
de toute sorte, je demonstre evidemment que toutes les langues sont
descendues de l'Hebraique; par M. Estienne Guichard, Paris, 1631. The
first edition appeared in 1606. For Willett, see his Hexapla, London,
1608, pp. 125-128. For the Address of L'Empereur, see his publication,
Leyden, 1627. The quotation from Lightfoot, beginning "Other
commendations," etc., is taken from his Erubhin, or Miscellanies,
edition of 1629; see also his works, vol. iv, pp. 46, 47, London, 1822.
For Bishop Brian Walton, see the Cambridge edition of his works, 1828,
Prolegomena S 1 and 3. As to Walton's giving up the rabbinical points,
he mentions in one of the latest editions of his works the fact that
Isaac Casabon, Joseph Scaliger, Isaac Vossius, Grotius, Beza, Luther,
Zwingli, Brentz, Oecolampadius, Calvin, and even some of the Popes were
with him in this. For Sennert, see his Dissertation de Ebraicae S. S.
Linguae Origine, etc., Wittenberg, 1657; also his Grammitica Orientalis,
Wittenberg, 1666. For Buxtorf, see the preface to his Thesaurus
Grammaticus Linguae Sanctae Hebraeae, sixth edition, 1663. For Gale,
see his Court of the Gentiles, Oxford, 1672. For Morinus, see his
Exercitationes de Lingua Primaeva, Utrecht, 1697. For Thomassin, see
his Glossarium Universale Hebraicum, Paris, 1697. For John Eliot's
utterance, see Mather's Magnalia, book iii, p. 184. For Meric Casaubon,
see his De Lingua Anglia Vet., p. 160, cited by Massey, p. 16 of Origin
and Progress of Letters. For Bentley, see his works, London, 1836, vol.
ii, p. 11, and citations by Welsford, Mithridates Minor, p. 2. As to
Bentley's position as a scholar, see the famous estimate in Macaulay's
Essays. For a short but very interesting account of him, see Mark
Pattison's article in vol. iii of the last edition of the Encyclopaedia
Britannica. The postion of Pattison as an agnostic dignitary in the
English Church eminently fitted him to understand Bentley's career, both
as regards the orthodox and the scholastic world. For perhaps the
most striking account of the manner in which Bentley lorded it in the
scholastic world of his time, see Monk's Life of Bentley, vol. ii, chap.
xvii, and especially his contemptuous reply to the judges, as given in
vol. ii, pp. 211, 212. For Cotton Mather, see his biography by Samuel
Mather, Boston, 1729, pp. 5, 6.
But even this dissent produced little immediate effect, and at the
beginning of the eighteenth century this sacred doctrine, based upon
explicit statements of Scripture, seemed forever settled. As we have
seen, strong fortresses had been built for it in every Christian land:
nothing seemed more unlikely than that the little groups of scholars
scattered through these various countries could ever prevail against
them. These strongholds were built so firmly, and had behind them so
vast an army of religionists of every creed, that to conquer them seemed
impossible. And yet at that very moment their doom was decreed. Within
a few years from this period of their greatest triumph, the garrisons of
all these sacred fortresses were in hopeless confusion, and the armies
behind them in full retreat; a little later, all the important orthodox
fortresses and forces were in the hands of the scientific philologists.
How this came about will be shown in the third part of this chapter.
III. BREAKING DOWN OF THE THEOLOGICAL VIEW.
We have now seen the steps by which the sacred theory of human language
had been developed: how it had been strengthened in every land until
it seemed to bid defiance forever to advancing thought; how it rested
firmly upon the letter of Scripture, upon the explicit declarations of
leading fathers of the Church, of the great doctors of the Middle Ages,
of the most eminent theological scholars down to the beginning of the
eighteenth century, and was guarded by the decrees of popes, kings,
bishops, Catholic and Protestant, and the whole hierarchy of authorities
in church and state.
And yet, as we now look back, it is easy to see that even in that hour
of its triumph it was doomed.
The reason why the Church has so fully accepted the conclusions of
science which have destroyed the sacred theory is instructive. The
study of languages has been, since the Revival of Learning and the
Reformation, a favourite study with the whole Western Church, Catholic
and Protestant. The importance of understanding the ancient tongues in
which our sacred books are preserved first stimulated the study, and
Church missionary efforts have contributed nobly to supply the material
for extending it, and for the application of that comparative method
which, in philology as in other sciences, has been so fruitful. Hence it
is that so many leading theologians have come to know at first hand
the truths given by this science, and to recognise its fundamental
principles. What the conclusions which they, as well as all other
scholars in this field, have been absolutely forced to accept, I shall
now endeavour to show.
The beginnings of a scientific theory seemed weak indeed, but they were
none the less effective. As far back as 1661, Hottinger, professor at
Heidelberg, came into the chorus of theologians like a great bell in
a chime; but like a bell whose opening tone is harmonious and whose
closing tone is discordant. For while, at the beginning, Hottinger cites
a formidable list of great scholars who had held the sacred theory of
the origin of language, he goes on to note a closer resemblance to the
Hebrew in some languages than in others, and explains this by declaring
that the confusion of tongues was of two sorts, total and partial: the
Arabic and Chaldaic he thinks underwent only a partial confusion; the
Egyptian, Persian, and all the European languages a total one. Here
comes in the discord; here gently sounds forth from the great chorus
a new note--that idea of grouping and classifying languages which at a
later day was to destroy utterly the whole sacred theory.
But the great chorus resounded on, as we have seen, from shore to shore,
until the closing years of the seventeenth century; then arose men
who silenced it forever. The first leader who threw the weight of his
knowledge, thought, and authority against it was Leibnitz. He declared,
"There is as much reason for supposing Hebrew to have been the primitive
language of mankind as there is for adopting the view of Goropius, who
published a work at Antwerp in 1580 to prove that Dutch was the language
spoken in paradise."
In a letter to Tenzel, Leibnitz wrote, "To call Hebrew the primitive
language is like calling the branches of a tree primitive branches, or
like imagining that in some country hewn trunks could grow instead of
trees." He also asked, "If the primeval language existed even up to the
time of Moses, whence came the Egyptian language?"
But the efficiency of Leibnitz did not end with mere suggestions. He
applied the inductive method to linguistic study, made great efforts to
have vocabularies collected and grammars drawn up wherever missionaries
and travellers came in contact with new races, and thus succeeded in
giving the initial impulse to at least three notable collections--that
of Catharine the Great, of Russia; that of the Spanish Jesuit, Lorenzo
Hervas; and, at a later period, the Mithridates of Adelung. The interest
of the Empress Catharine in her collection of linguistic materials was
very strong, and her influence is seen in the fact that Washington, to
please her, requested governors and generals to send in materials from
various parts of the United States and the Territories. The work of
Hervas extended over the period from 1735 to 1809: a missionary in
America, he enlarged his catalogue of languages to six volumes, which
were published in Spanish in 1800, and contained specimens of more than
three hundred languages, with the grammars of more than forty. It should
be said to his credit that Hervas dared point out with especial care the
limits of the Semitic family of languages, and declared, as a result of
his enormous studies, that the various languages of mankind could not
have been derived from the Hebrew.
While such work was done in Catholic Spain, Protestant Germany was
honoured by the work of Adelung. It contained the Lord's Prayer in
nearly five hundred languages and dialects, and the comparison of these,
early in the nineteenth century, helped to end the sway of theological
philology.
But the period which intervened between Leibnitz and this modern
development was a period of philological chaos. It began mainly with the
doubts which Leibnitz had forced upon Europe, and ended only with the
beginning of the study of Sanskrit in the latter half of the eighteenth
century, and with the comparisons made by means of the collections of
Catharine, Hervas, and Adelung at the beginning of the nineteenth. The
old theory that Hebrew was the original language had gone to pieces;
but nothing had taken its place as a finality. Great authorities,
like Buddeus, were still cited in behalf of the narrower belief; but
everywhere researches, unorganized though they were, tended to destroy
it. The story of Babel continued indeed throughout the whole eighteenth
century to hinder or warp scientific investigation, and a very curious
illustration of this fact is seen in the book of Lord Nelme on The
Origin and Elements of Language. He declares that connected with the
confusion was the cleaving of America from Europe, and he regards the
most terrible chapters in the book of Job as intended for a description
of the Flood, which in all probability Job had from Noah himself. Again,
Rowland Jones tried to prove that Celtic was the primitive tongue, and
that it passed through Babel unharmed. Still another effect was made by
a Breton to prove that all languages took their rise in the language of
Brittany. All was chaos. There was much wrangling, but little earnest
controversy. Here and there theologians were calling out frantically,
beseeching the Church to save the old doctrine as "essential to the
truth of Scripture"; here and there other divines began to foreshadow
the inevitable compromise which has always been thus vainly attempted in
the history of every science. But it was soon seen by thinking men that
no concessions as yet spoken of by theologians were sufficient. In
the latter half of the century came the bloom period of the French
philosophers and encyclopedists, of the English deists, of such German
thinkers as Herder, Kant, and Lessing; and while here and there some
writer on the theological side, like Perrin, amused thinking men by
his flounderings in this great chaos, all remained without form and
void.(417)
(417) For Hottinger, see the preface to his Etymologicum Orientale,
Frankfort, 1661. For Leibnitz, Catharine the Great, Hervas, and Adelung,
see Max Muller, as above, from whom I have quoted very fully; see also
Benfey, Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft, etc., p. 269. Benfey declares
that the Catalogue of Hervas is even now a mine for the philologist. For
the first two citations from Leibnitz, as well as for a statement of his
importance in the history of languages, see Max Muller, as above, pp.
135, 136. For the third quotation, Leibnitz, Opera, Geneva, 1768, vi,
part ii, p. 232. For Nelme, see his Origin and Elements of Language,
London, 1772, pp. 85-100. For Rowland Jones, see The Origin of Language
and Nations, London, 1764, and preface. For the origin of languages in
Brittany, see Le Brigant, Paris, 1787. For Herder and Lessing, see Canon
Farrar's treatise; on Lessing, see Sayce, as above. As to Perrin, see
his essay Sur l'Origine et l'Antiquite des Langues, London, 1767.
Nothing better reveals to us the darkness and duration of this chaos
in England than a comparison of the articles on Philology given in the
successive editions of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. The first edition
of that great mirror of British thought was printed in 1771: chaos
reigns through the whole of its article on this subject. The writer
divides languages into two classes, seems to indicate a mixture of
divine inspiration with human invention, and finally escapes under a
cloud. In the second edition, published in 1780, some progress has been
made. The author states the sacred theory, and declares: "There are some
divines who pretend that Hebrew was the language in which God talked
with Adam in paradise, and that the saints will make use of it in heaven
in those praises which they will eternally offer to the Almighty. These
doctors seem to be as certain in regard to what is past as to what is to
come."
This was evidently considered dangerous. It clearly outran the belief
of the average British Philistine; and accordingly we find in the third
edition, published seventeen years later, a new article, in which, while
the author gives, as he says, "the best arguments on both sides," he
takes pains to adhere to a fairly orthodox theory.
This soothing dose was repeated in the fourth and fifth editions. In
1824 appeared a supplement to the fourth, fifth, and sixth editions,
which dealt with the facts so far as they were known; but there was
scarcely a reference to the biblical theory throughout the article.
Three years later came another supplement. While this chaos was fast
becoming cosmos in Germany, such a change had evidently not gone far
in England, for from this edition of the Encyclopaedia the subject of
philology was omitted. In fact, Babel and Philology made nearly as much
trouble to encyclopedists as Noah's Deluge and Geology. Just as in
the latter case they had been obliged to stave off a presentation of
scientific truth, by the words "For Deluge, see Flood" and "For
Flood, see Noah," so in the former they were obliged to take various
provisional measures, some of them comical. In 1842 came the seventh
edition. In this the first part of the old article on Philology which
had appeared in the third, fourth, and fifth editions was printed, but
the supernatural part was mainly cut out. Yet we find a curious
evidence of the continued reign of chaos in a foot-note inserted by
the publishers, disavowing any departure from orthodox views. In 1859
appeared the eighth edition. This abandoned the old article completely,
and in its place gave a history of philology free from admixture of
scriptural doctrines.
Finally, in the year 1885, appeared the ninth edition, in which
Professors Whitney of Yale and Sievers of Tubingen give admirably and in
fair compass what is known of philology, making short work of the sacred
theory--in fact, throwing it overboard entirely.
IV. TRIUMPH OF THE NEW SCIENCE.
Such was that chaos of thought into which the discovery of Sanskrit
suddenly threw its great light. Well does one of the foremost modern
philologists say that this "was the electric spark which caused the
floating elements to crystallize into regular forms." Among the first to
bring the knowledge of Sanskrit to Europe were the Jesuit missionaries,
whose services to the material basis of the science of comparative
philology had already been so great; and the importance of the new
discovery was soon seen among all scholars, whether orthodox or
scientific. In 1784 the Asiatic Society at Calcutta was founded, and
with it began Sanskrit philology. Scholars like Sir William Jones,
Carey, Wilkins, Foster, Colebrooke, did noble work in the new field. A
new spirit brooded over that chaos, and a great new orb of science was
evolved.
The little group of scholars who gave themselves up to these researches,
though almost without exception reverent Christians, were recognised
at once by theologians as mortal foes of the whole sacred theory of
language. Not only was the dogma of the multiplication of languages
at the Tower of Babel swept out of sight by the new discovery, but the
still more vital dogma of the divine origin of language, never
before endangered, was felt to be in peril, since the evidence became
overwhelming that so many varieties had been produced by a process of
natural growth.
Heroic efforts were therefore made, in the supposed interest of
Scripture, to discredit the new learning. Even such a man as Dugald
Stewart declared that the discovery of Sanskrit was altogether
fraudulent, and endeavoured to prove that the Brahmans had made it up
from the vocabulary and grammar of Greek and Latin. Others exercised
their ingenuity in picking the new discovery to pieces, and still others
attributed it all to the machinations of Satan.
On the other hand, the more thoughtful men in the Church endeavoured to
save something from the wreck of the old system by a compromise. They
attempted to prove that Hebrew is at least a cognate tongue with the
original speech of mankind, if not the original speech itself; but
here they were confronted by the authority they dreaded most--the great
Christian scholar, Sir William Jones himself. His words were: "I can
only declare my belief that the language of Noah is irretrievably lost.
After diligent search I can not find a single word used in common by
the Arabian, Indian, and Tartar families, before the intermixture of
dialects occasioned by the Mohammedan conquests."
So, too, in Germany came full acknowledgment of the new truth, and from
a Roman Catholic, Frederick Schlegel. He accepted the discoveries in the
old language and literature of India as final: he saw the significance
of these discoveries as regards philology, and grouped the languages of
India, Persia, Greece, Italy, and Germany under the name afterward so
universally accepted--Indo-Germanic.
It now began to be felt more and more, even among the most devoted
churchmen, that the old theological dogmas regarding the origin of
language, as held "always, everywhere, and by all," were wrong, and that
Lucretius and sturdy old Gregory of Nyssa might be right.
But this was not the only wreck. During ages the great men in the Church
had been calling upon the world to admire the amazing exploit of Adam in
naming the animals which Jehovah had brought before him, and to accept
the history of language in the light of this exploit. The early fathers,
the mediaeval doctors, the great divines of the Reformation period,
Catholic and Protestant, had united in this universal chorus. Clement
of Alexandria declared Adam's naming of the animals proof of a prophetic
gift. St. John Chrysostom insisted that it was an evidence of consummate
intelligence. Eusebius held that the phrase "That was the name thereof"
implied that each name embodied the real character and description of
the animal concerned.
This view was echoed by a multitude of divines in the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries. Typical among these was the great Dr. South, who,
in his sermon on The State of Man before the Fall, declared that "Adam
came into the world a philosopher, which sufficiently appears by his
writing the nature of things upon their names."
In the chorus of modern English divines there appeared one of eminence
who declared against this theory: Dr. Shuckford, chaplain in ordinary
to his Majesty George II, in the preface to his work on The Creation and
Fall of Man, pronounced the whole theory "romantic and irrational." He
goes on to say: "The original of our speaking was from God; not that God
put into Adam's mouth the very sounds which he designed he should use as
the names of things; but God made Adam with the powers of a man; he had
the use of an understanding to form notions in his mind of the things
about him, and he had the power to utter sounds which should be to
himself the names of things according as he might think fit to call
them."
This echo of Gregory of Nyssa was for many years of little avail.
Historians of philosophy still began with Adam, because only a
philosopher could have named all created things. There was, indeed,
one difficulty which had much troubled some theologians: this was, that
fishes were not specially mentioned among the animals brought by Jehovah
before Adam for naming. To meet this difficulty there was much argument,
and some theologians laid stress on the difficulty of bringing fishes
from the sea to the Garden of Eden to receive their names; but naturally
other theologians replied that the almighty power which created the
fishes could have easily brought them into the garden, one by one, even
from the uttermost parts of the sea. This point, therefore, seems to
have been left in abeyance.(418)
(418) For the danger of "the little system of the history of the world,"
see Sayce, as above. On Dugald Stewart's contention, see Max Muller,
Lectures on Language, pp. 167, 168. For Sir William Jones, see his
Works, London, 1807, vol. i, p. 199. For Schlegel, see Max Muller, as
above. For an enormous list of great theologians, from the fathers down,
who dwelt on the divine inspiration and wonderful gifts of Adam on this
subject, see Canon Farrar, Language and Languages. The citation from
Clement of Alexandria is Strom.. i, p. 335. See also Chrysostom, Hom.
XIV in Genesin; also Eusebius, Praep. Evang. XI, p. 6. For the two
quotations given above from Shuckford, see The Creation and Fall of Man,
London, 1763, preface, p. lxxxiii; also his Sacred and Profane History
of the World, 1753; revised edition by Wheeler, London, 1858. For the
argument regarding the difficulty of bringing the fishes to be named
into the Garden of Eden, see Massey, Origin and Progress of Letters,
London, 1763, pp. 14-19.
It had continued, then, the universal belief in the Church that the
names of all created things, except possibly fishes, were given by Adam
and in Hebrew; but all this theory was whelmed in ruin when it was found
that there were other and indeed earlier names for the same animals
than those in the Hebrew language; and especially was this enforced on
thinking men when the Egyptian discoveries began to reveal the pictures
of animals with their names in hieroglyphics at a period earlier than
that agreed on by all the sacred chronologists as the date of the
Creation.
Still another part of the sacred theory now received its death-blow.
Closely allied with the question of the origin of language was that of
the origin of letters. The earlier writers had held that letters were
also a divine gift to Adam; but as we go on in the eighteenth century
we find theological opinion inclining to the belief that this gift was
reserved for Moses. This, as we have seen, was the view of St. John
Chrysostom; and an eminent English divine early in the eighteenth
century, John Johnson, Vicar of Kent, echoed it in the declaration
concerning the alphabet, that "Moses first learned it from God by
means of the lettering on the tables of the law." But here a difficulty
arose--the biblical statement that God commanded Moses to "write in a
book" his decree concerning Amalek before he went up into Sinai.
With this the good vicar grapples manfully. He supposes that God had
previously concealed the tables of stone in Mount Horeb, and that
Moses, "when he kept Jethro's sheep thereabout, had free access to these
tables, and perused them at discretion, though he was not permitted
to carry them down with him." Our reconciler then asks for what other
reason could God have kept Moses up in the mountain forty days at a
time, except to teach him to write; and says, "It seems highly probable
that the angel gave him the alphabet of the Hebrew, or in some other way
unknown to us became his guide."
But this theory of letters was soon to be doomed like the other parts
of the sacred theory. Studies in Comparative Philology, based upon
researches in India, began to be reenforced by facts regarding the
inscriptions in Egypt, the cuneiform inscriptions of Assyria, the
legends of Chaldea, and the folklore of China--where it was found in the
sacred books that the animals were named by Fohi, and with such wisdom
and insight that every name disclosed the nature of the corresponding
animal.
But, although the old theory was doomed, heroic efforts were still made
to support it. In 1788 James Beattie, in all the glory of his Oxford
doctorate and royal pension, made a vigorous onslaught, declaring the
new system of philology to be "degrading to our nature," and that the
theory of the natural development of language is simply due to the
beauty of Lucretius' poetry. But his main weapon was ridicule, and in
this he showed himself a master. He tells the world, "The following
paraphrase has nothing of the elegance of Horace or Lucretius, but seems
to have all the elegance that so ridiculous a doctrine deserves":
"When men out of the earth of old A dumb and beastly vermin crawled;
For acorns, first, and holes of shelter, They tooth and nail, and helter
skelter, Fought fist to fist; then with a club Each learned his brother
brute to drub; Till, more experienced grown, these cattle Forged fit
accoutrements for battle. At last (Lucretius says and Creech) They set
their wits to work on SPEECH: And that their thoughts might all have
marks To make them known, these learned clerks Left off the trade of
cracking crowns, And manufactured verbs and nouns."
But a far more powerful theologian entered the field in England to save
the sacred theory of language--Dr. Adam Clarke. He was no less severe
against Philology than against Geology. In 1804, as President of the
Manchester Philological Society, he delivered an address in which he
declared that, while men of all sects were eligible to membership,
"he who rejects the establishment of what we believe to be a divine
revelation, he who would disturb the peace of the quiet, and by doubtful
disputations unhinge the minds of the simple and unreflecting, and
endeavour to turn the unwary out of the way of peace and rational
subordination, can have no seat among the members of this institution."
The first sentence in this declaration gives food for reflection, for it
is the same confusion of two ideas which has been at the root of so much
interference of theology with science for the last two thousand years.
Adam Clarke speaks of those "who reject the establishment of what,
WE BELIEVE, to be a divine revelation." Thus comes in that customary
begging of the question--the substitution, as the real significance of
Scripture, of "WHAT WE BELIEVE" for what IS.
The intended result, too, of this ecclesiastical sentence was simple
enough. It was, that great men like Sir William Jones, Colebrooke, and
their compeers, must not be heard in the Manchester Philological Society
in discussion with Dr. Adam Clarke on questions regarding Sanskrit and
other matters regarding which they knew all that was then known, and Dr.
Clarke knew nothing.
But even Clarke was forced to yield to the scientific current. Thirty
years later, in his Commentary on the Old Testament, he pitched the
claims of the sacred theory on a much lower key. He says: "Mankind was
of one language, in all likelihood the Hebrew.... The proper names and
other significations given in the Scripture seem incontestable evidence
that the Hebrew language was the original language of the earth,--the
language in which God spoke to man, and in which he gave the revelation
of his will to Moses and the prophets." Here are signs that this great
champion is growing weaker in the faith: in the citations made it will
be observed he no longer says "IS," but "SEEMS"; and finally we have him
saying, "What the first language was is almost useless to inquire, as it
is impossible to arrive at any satisfactory information on this point."
In France, during the first half of the nineteenth century, yet
more heavy artillery was wheeled into place, in order to make a last
desperate defence of the sacred theory. The leaders in this effort were
the three great Ultramontanes, De Maistre, De Bonald, and Lamennais.
Condillac's contention that "languages were gradually and insensibly
acquired, and that every man had his share of the general result,"
they attacked with reasoning based upon premises drawn from the book of
Genesis. De Maistre especially excelled in ridiculing the philosophic or
scientific theory. Lamennais, who afterward became so vexatious a thorn
in the side of the Church, insisted, at this earlier period, that "man
can no more think without words than see without light." And then, by
that sort of mystical play upon words so well known in the higher ranges
of theologic reasoning, he clinches his argument by saying, "The Word is
truly and in every sense 'the light which lighteth every man that cometh
into the world.'"
But even such champions as these could not stay the progress of thought.
While they seemed to be carrying everything before them in France,
researches in philology made at such centres of thought as the Sorbonne
and the College of France were undermining their last great fortress.
Curious indeed is it to find that the Sorbonne, the stronghold of
theology through so many centuries, was now made in the nineteenth
century the arsenal and stronghold of the new ideas. But the most
striking result of the new tendency in France was seen when the greatest
of the three champions, Lamennais himself, though offered the highest
Church preferment, and even a cardinal's hat, braved the papal anathema,
and went over to the scientific side.(419)
(419) For Johnson's work, showing how Moses learned the alphabet, see
the Collection of Discourses by Rev. John Johnson, A. M., Vicar of Kent,
London, 1728, p. 42, and the preface. For Beattie, see his Theory of
Language, London, 1788, p. 98; also pp. 100, 101. For Adam Clarke, see,
for the speech cited, his Miscellaneous Works, London, 1837; for the
passage from his Commentary, see the London edition of 1836, vol. i,
p. 93; for the other passage, see Introduction to Bibliographical
Miscellany, quoted in article, Origin of Language and Alphabetical
Characters, in Methodist Magazine, vol. xv, p. 214. For De Bonald,
see his Recherches Philosophiques, part iii, chap. ii, De l'Origine du
Language, in his Oeuvres, Bruxelles, 1852, vol. i, Les Soirees de Saint
Petersbourg, deuxieme entretien, passim. For Lamennais, see his Oeuvres
Completes, Paris, 1836-'37, tome ii, pp.78-81, chap. xv of Essai sur
l'Indifference en Matiere de Religion.
In Germany philological science took so strong a hold that its positions
were soon recognised as impregnable. Leaders like the Schlegels, Wilhelm
von Humboldt, and above all Franz Bopp and Jacob Grimm, gave such
additional force to scientific truth that it could no longer be
withstood. To say nothing of other conquests, the demonstration of that
great law in philology which bears Grimm's name brought home to all
thinking men the evidence that the evolution of language had not been
determined by the philosophic utterances of Adam in naming the animals
which Jehovah brought before him, but in obedience to natural law.
True, a few devoted theologians showed themselves willing to lead a
forlorn hope; and perhaps the most forlorn of all was that of 1840,
led by Dr. Gottlieb Christian Kayser, Professor of Theology at the
Protestant University of Erlangen. He does not, indeed, dare put in the
old claim that Hebrew is identical with the primitive tongue, but he
insists that it is nearer it than any other. He relinquishes the two
former theological strongholds--first, the idea that language was taught
by the Almighty to Adam, and, next, that the alphabet was thus taught to
Moses--and falls back on the position that all tongues are thus derived
from Noah, giving as an example the language of the Caribbees, and
insisting that it was evidently so derived. What chance similarity in
words between Hebrew and the Caribbee tongue he had in mind is past
finding out. He comes out strongly in defence of the biblical account of
the Tower of Babel, and insists that "by the symbolical expression 'God
said, Let us go down,' a further natural phenomenon is intimated, to
wit, the cleaving of the earth, whereby the return of the dispersed
became impossible--that is to say, through a new or not universal
flood, a partial inundation and temporary violent separation of great
continents until the time of the rediscovery" By these words the learned
doctor means nothing less than the separation of Europe from America.
While at the middle of the nineteenth century the theory of the origin
and development of language was upon the continent considered as
settled, and a well-ordered science had there emerged from the old
chaos, Great Britain still held back, in spite of the fact that the most
important contributors to the science were of British origin. Leaders in
every English church and sect vied with each other, either in denouncing
the encroachments of the science of language or in explaining them away.
But a new epoch had come, and in a way least expected. Perhaps the most
notable effort in bringing it in was made by Dr. Wiseman, afterward
Cardinal Archbishop of Westminster. His is one of the best examples of
a method which has been used with considerable effect during the latest
stages of nearly all the controversies between theology and science.
It consists in stating, with much fairness, the conclusions of the
scientific authorities, and then in persuading one's self and trying
to persuade others that the Church has always accepted them and accepts
them now as "additional proofs of the truth of Scripture." A little
juggling with words, a little amalgamation of texts, a little judicious
suppression, a little imaginative deduction, a little unctuous phrasing,
and the thing is done. One great service this eminent and kindly
Catholic champion undoubtedly rendered: by this acknowledgment, so
widely spread in his published lectures, he made it impossible for
Catholics or Protestants longer to resist the main conclusions
of science. Henceforward we only have efforts to save theological
appearances, and these only by men whose zeal outran their discretion.
On both sides of the Atlantic, down to a recent period, we see these
efforts, but we see no less clearly that they are mutually destructive.
Yet out of this chaos among English-speaking peoples the new science
began to develop steadily and rapidly. Attempts did indeed continue
here and there to save the old theory. Even as late as 1859 we hear
the eminent Presbyterian divine, Dr. John Cumming, from his pulpit
in London, speaking of Hebrew as "that magnificent tongue--that
mother-tongue, from which all others are but distant and debilitated
progenies."
But the honour of producing in the nineteenth century the most absurd
known attempt to prove Hebrew the primitive tongue belongs to the
youngest of the continents, Australia. In the year 1857 was printed at
Melbourne The Triumph of Truth, or a Popular Lecture on the Origin of
Languages, by B. Atkinson, M.R.C.P.L.--whatever that may mean. In this
work, starting with the assertion that "the Hebrew was the primary stock
whence all languages were derived," the author states that Sanskrit is
"a dialect of the Hebrew," and declares that "the manuscripts found
with mummies agree precisely with the Chinese version of the Psalms of
David." It all sounds like Alice in Wonderland. Curiously enough, in
the latter part of his book, evidently thinking that his views would not
give him authority among fastidious philologists, he says, "A great deal
of our consent to the foregoing statements arises in our belief in the
Divine inspiration of the Mosaic account of the creation of the world
and of our first parents in the Garden of Eden." A yet more
interesting light is thrown upon the author's view of truth, and of its
promulgation, by his dedication: he says that, "being persuaded that
literary men ought to be fostered by the hand of power," he dedicates
his treatise "to his Excellency Sir H. Barkly," who was at the time
Governor of Victoria.
Still another curious survival is seen in a work which appeared as late
as 1885, at Edinburgh, by William Galloway, M.A., Ph.D., M.D. The author
thinks that he has produced abundant evidence to prove that "Jehovah,
the Second Person of the Godhead, wrote the first chapter of Genesis on
a stone pillar, and that this is the manner by which he first revealed
it to Adam; and thus Adam was taught not only to speak but to read and
write by Jehovah, the Divine Son; and that the first lesson he got was
from the first chapter of Genesis." He goes on to say: "Jehovah wrote
these first two documents; the first containing the history of the
Creation, and the second the revelation of man's redemption,... for
Adam's and Eve's instruction; it is evident that he wrote them in the
Hebrew tongue, because that was the language of Adam and Eve." But this
was only a flower out of season.
And, finally, in these latter days Mr. Gladstone has touched the
subject. With that well-known facility in believing anything he wishes
to believe, which he once showed in connecting Neptune's trident
with the doctrine of the Trinity, he floats airily over all the
impossibilities of the original Babel legend and all the conquests of
science, makes an assertion regarding the results of philology which no
philologist of any standing would admit, and then escapes in a cloud of
rhetoric after his well-known fashion.
This, too, must be set down simply as a survival, for in the British
Isles as elsewhere the truth has been established. Such men as Max
Muller and Sayce in England,--Steinthal, Schleicher, Weber, Karl
Abel, and a host of others in Germany,--Ascoli and De Gubernatis in
Italy,--and Whitney, with the scholars inspired by him, in America,
have carried the new science to a complete triumph. The sons of
Yale University may well be proud of the fact that this old Puritan
foundation was made the headquarters of the American Oriental Society,
which has done so much for the truth in this field.(420)
(420) For Mr. Gladstone's view, see his Impregnable Rock of Holy
Scripture, London, 1890, pp. 241 et seq. The passage connecting the
trident of Neptune with the Trinity is in his Juventus Mundi. To any
American boy who sees how inevitably, both among Indian and white
fishermen, the fish spear takes the three-pronged form, this utterance
of Mr. Gladstone is amazing.
V. SUMMARY.
It may be instructive, in conclusion, to sum up briefly the history of
the whole struggle.
First, as to the origin of speech, we have in the beginning the whole
Church rallying around the idea that the original language was Hebrew;
that this language, even including the medieval rabbinical punctuation,
was directly inspired by the Almighty; that Adam was taught it by God
himself in walks and talks; and that all other languages were derived
from it at the "confusion of Babel."
Next, we see parts of this theory fading out: the inspiration of the
rabbinical points begins to disappear. Adam, instead of being taught
directly by God, is "inspired" by him.
Then comes the third stage: advanced theologians endeavour to compromise
on the idea that Adam was "given verbal roots and a mental power."
Finally, in our time, we have them accepting the theory that language is
the result of an evolutionary process in obedience to laws more or less
clearly ascertained. Babel thus takes its place quietly among the sacred
myths.
As to the origin of writing, we have the more eminent theologians
at first insisting that God taught Adam to write; next we find them
gradually retreating from this position, but insisting that writing was
taught to the world by Noah. After the retreat from this position, we
find them insisting that it was Moses whom God taught to write.
But scientific modes of thought still progressed, and we next have
influential theologians agreeing that writing was a Mosaic invention;
this is followed by another theological retreat to the position that
writing was a post-Mosaic invention. Finally, all the positions are
relinquished, save by some few skirmishers who appear now and then
upon the horizon, making attempts to defend some subtle method of
"reconciling" the Babel myth with modern science.
Just after the middle of the nineteenth century the last stage of
theological defence was evidently reached--the same which is seen in the
history of almost every science after it has successfully fought its way
through the theological period--the declaration which we have already
seen foreshadowed by Wiseman, that the scientific discoveries in
question are nothing new, but have really always been known and held by
the Church, and that they simply substantiate the position taken by
the Church. This new contention, which always betokens the last gasp of
theological resistance to science, was now echoed from land to land. In
1856 it was given forth by a divine of the Anglican Church, Archdeacon
Pratt, of Calcutta. He gives a long list of eminent philologists who had
done most to destroy the old supernatural view of language, reads into
their utterances his own wishes, and then exclaims, "So singularly do
their labours confirm the literal truth of Scripture."
Two years later this contention was echoed from the American
Presbyterian Church, and Dr. B. W. Dwight, having stigmatized as
"infidels" those who had not incorporated into their science the literal
acceptance of Hebrew legend, declared that "chronology, ethnography,
and etymology have all been tortured in vain to make them contradict the
Mosaic account of the early history of man." Twelve years later this was
re-echoed from England. The Rev. Dr. Baylee, Principal of the College of
St. Aidan's, declared, "With regard to the varieties of human language,
the account of the confusion of tongues is receiving daily confirmation
by all the recent discoveries in comparative philology." So, too, in
the same year (1870), in the United Presbyterian Church of Scotland,
Dr. John Eadie, Professor of Biblical Literature and Exegesis, declared,
"Comparative philology has established the miracle of Babel."
A skill in theology and casuistry so exquisite as to contrive such
assertions, and a faith so robust as to accept them, certainly leave
nothing to be desired. But how baseless these contentions are is shown,
first, by the simple history of the attitude of the Church toward this
question; and, secondly, by the fact that comparative philology now
reveals beyond a doubt that not only is Hebrew not the original or
oldest language upon earth, but that it is not even the oldest form in
the Semitic group to which it belongs. To use the words of one of the
most eminent modern authorities, "It is now generally recognised that
in grammatical structure the Arabic preserves much more of the original
forms than either the Hebrew or Aramaic."
History, ethnology, and philology now combine inexorably to place the
account of the confusion of tongues and the dispersion of races at Babel
among the myths; but their work has not been merely destructive: more
and more strong are the grounds for belief in an evolution of language.
A very complete acceptance of the scientific doctrines has been made
by Archdeacon Farrar, Canon of Westminster. With a boldness which in an
earlier period might have cost him dear, and which merits praise even
now for its courage, he says: "For all reasoners except that portion of
the clergy who in all ages have been found among the bitterest enemies
of scientific discovery, these considerations have been conclusive. But,
strange to say, here, as in so many other instances, this self-styled
orthodoxy--more orthodox than the Bible itself--directly contradicts
the very Scriptures which it professes to explain, and by sheer
misrepresentation succeeds in producing a needless and deplorable
collision between the statements of Scripture and those other mighty and
certain truths which have been revealed to science and humanity as their
glory and reward."
Still another acknowledgment was made in America through the
instrumentality of a divine of the Methodist Episcopal Church, whom
the present generation at least will hold in honour not only for his
scholarship but for his patriotism in the darkest hour of his country's
need--John McClintock. In the article on Language, in the Biblical
Cyclopaedia, edited by him and the Rev. Dr. Strong, which appeared
in 1873, the whole sacred theory is given up, and the scientific view
accepted.(421)
(421) For Kayser, see his work, Ueber die Ursprache, oder uber eine
Behauptung Mosis, dass alle Sprachen der Welt von einer einzigen der
Noahhischen abstammen, Erlangen, 1840; see especially pp. 5, 80, 95,
112. For Wiseman, see his Lectures on the Connection between Science and
Revealed Religion, London, 1836. For examples typical of very many in
this field, see the works of Pratt, 1856; Dwight, 1858; Jamieson, 1868.
For citation from Cumming, see his Great Tribulation, London, 1859, p.
4; see also his Things Hard to be Understood, London, 1861, p. 48. For
an admirable summary of the work of the great modern philologists, and
a most careful estimate of the conclusions reached, see Prof. Whitney's
article on Philology in the Encyclopaedia Britannica. A copy of Mr.
Atkinson's book is in the Harvard College Library, it having been
presented by the Trustees of the Public Library of Victoria. For
Galloway, see his Philosophy of the Creation, Edinburgh and London,
1885, pp. 21, 238, 239, 446. For citation from Baylee, see his Verbal
Inspiration the True Characteristic of God's Holy Word, London, 1870,
p. 14 and elsewhere. For Archdeacon Pratt, see his Scripture and Science
not at Variance, London, 1856, p. 55. For the citation from Dr. Eadie,
see his Biblical Cyclopaedia, London, 1870, p. 53. For Dr. Dwight,
see The New-Englander, vol. xvi, p. 465. For the theological article
referred to as giving up the sacred theory, see the Cyclopaedia of
Biblical, Theological, and Ecclesiastical Literature, prepared by Rev.
John McClintock, D. D., and James Strong, New York, 1873, vol. v, p.
233. For Arabic as an earlier Semitic development than Hebrew, as well
as for much other valuable information on the questions recently
raised, see article Hebrew, by W. R. Smith, in the latest edition of
the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For quotation from Canon Farrar, see his
language and Languages, London, 1878, pp. 6,7.
It may, indeed, be now fairly said that the thinking leaders of theology
have come to accept the conclusions of science regarding the origin of
language, as against the old explanations by myth and legend. The result
has been a blessing both to science and to religion. No harm has been
done to religion; what has been done is to release it from the clog of
theories which thinking men saw could no longer be maintained. No matter
what has become of the naming of the animals by Adam, of the origin of
the name Babel, of the fear of the Almighty lest men might climb up into
his realm above the firmament, and of the confusion of tongues and the
dispersion of nations; the essentials of Christianity, as taught by its
blessed Founder, have simply been freed, by Comparative Philology, from
one more great incubus, and have therefore been left to work with more
power upon the hearts and minds of mankind.
Nor has any harm been done to the Bible. On the contrary, this divine
revelation through science has made it all the more precious to us.
In these myths and legends caught from earlier civilizations we see an
evolution of the most important religious and moral truths for our
race. Myth, legend, and parable seem, in obedience to a divine law, the
necessary setting for these truths, as they are successively evolved,
ever in higher and higher forms. What matters it, then, that we have
come to know that the accounts of Creation, the Fall, the Deluge, and
much else in our sacred books, were remembrances of lore obtained from
the Chaldeans? What matters it that the beautiful story of Joseph is
found to be in part derived from an Egyptian romance, of which the
hieroglyphs may still be seen? What matters it that the story of David
and Goliath is poetry; and that Samson, like so many men of strength
in other religions, is probably a sun-myth? What matters it that the
inculcation of high duty in the childhood of the world is embodied in
such quaint stories as those of Jonah and Balaam? The more we realize
these facts, the richer becomes that great body of literature brought
together within the covers of the Bible. What matters it that those who
incorporated the Creation lore of Babylonia and other Oriental
nations into the sacred books of the Hebrews, mixed it with their own
conceptions and deductions? What matters it that Darwin changed the
whole aspect of our Creation myths; that Lyell and his compeers placed
the Hebrew story of Creation and of the Deluge of Noah among legends;
that Copernicus put an end to the standing still of the sun for Joshua;
that Halley, in promulgating his law of comets, put an end to the
doctrine of "signs and wonders"; that Pinel, in showing that all
insanity is physical disease, relegated to the realm of mythology the
witch of Endor and all stories of demoniacal possession; that the Rev.
Dr. Schaff, and a multitude of recent Christian travellers in Palestine,
have put into the realm of legend the story of Lot's wife transformed
into a pillar of salt; that the anthropologists, by showing how man
has risen everywhere from low and brutal beginnings, have destroyed the
whole theological theory of "the fall of man"? Our great body of sacred
literature is thereby only made more and more valuable to us: more and
more we see how long and patiently the forces in the universe which make
for righteousness have been acting in and upon mankind through the only
agencies fitted for such work in the earliest ages of the world--through
myth, legend, parable, and poem.
CHAPTER XVIII. FROM THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS TO COMPARATIVE MYTHOLOGY,
I. THE GROWTH OF EXPLANATORY TRANSFORMATION MYTHS.
A few years since, Maxime Du Camp, an eminent member of the French
Academy, travelling from the Red Sea to the Nile through the Desert
of Kosseir, came to a barren slope covered with boulders, rounded and
glossy.
His Mohammedan camel-driver accounted for them on this wise:
"Many years ago Hadji Abdul-Aziz, a sheik of the dervishes, was
travelling on foot through this desert: it was summer: the sun was hot
and the dust stifling; thirst parched his lips, fatigue weighed down his
back, sweat dropped from his forehead, when looking up he saw--on this
very spot--a garden beautifully green, full of fruit, and, in the midst
of it, the gardener.
"'O fellow-man,' cried Hadji Abdul-Aziz, 'in the name of Allah, clement
and merciful, give me a melon and I will give you my prayers.'"
The gardener answered: 'I care not for your prayers; give me money, and
I will give you fruit.'
"'But,' said the dervish, 'I am a beggar; I have never had money; I am
thirsty and weary, and one of your melons is all that I need.'
"'No,' said the gardener; 'go to the Nile and quench your thirst.'
"Thereupon the dervish, lifting his eyes toward heaven, made this
prayer: 'O Allah, thou who in the midst of the desert didst make the
fountain of Zem-Zem spring forth to satisfy the thirst of Ismail, father
of the faithful: wilt thou suffer one of thy creatures to perish thus of
thirst and fatigue? '
"And it came to pass that, hardly had the dervish spoken, when an
abundant dew descended upon him, quenching his thirst and refreshing him
even to the marrow of his bones.
"Now at the sight of this miracle the gardener knew that the dervish was
a holy man, beloved of Allah, and straightway offered him a melon.
"'Not so,' answered Hadji Abdul-Aziz; 'keep what thou hast, thou wicked
man. May thy melons become as hard as thy heart, and thy field as barren
as thy soul!'
"And straightway it came to pass that the melons were changed into
these blocks of stone, and the grass into this sand, and never since has
anything grown thereon."
In this story, and in myriads like it, we have a survival of that early
conception of the universe in which so many of the leading moral and
religious truths of the great sacred books of the world are imbedded.
All ancient sacred lore abounds in such mythical explanations of
remarkable appearances in nature, and these are most frequently prompted
by mountains, rocks, and boulders seemingly misplaced.
In India we have such typical examples among the Brahmans as the
mountain-peak which Durgu threw at Parvati; and among the Buddhists the
stone which Devadatti hurled at Buddha.
In Greece the Athenian, rejoicing in his belief that Athena guarded her
chosen people, found it hard to understand why the great rock Lycabettus
should be just too far from the Acropolis to be of use as an outwork;
but a myth was developed which explained all. According to this, Athena
had intended to make Lycabettus a defence for the Athenians, and she
was bringing it through the air from Pallene for that very purpose; but,
unfortunately, a raven met her and informed her of the wonderful birth
of Erichthonius, which so surprised the goddess that she dropped the
rock where it now stands.
So, too, a peculiar rock at Aegina was accounted for by a long and
circumstantial legend to the effect that Peleus threw it at Phocas.
A similar mode of explaining such objects is seen in the mythologies of
northern Europe. In Scandinavia we constantly find rocks which tradition
accounts for by declaring that they were hurled by the old gods at each
other, or at the early Christian churches.
In Teutonic lands, as a rule, wherever a strange rock or stone is found,
there will be found a myth or a legend, heathen or Christian, to account
for it.
So, too, in Celtic countries: typical of this mode of thought in
Brittany and in Ireland is the popular belief that such features in the
landscape were dropped by the devil or by fairies.
Even at a much later period such myths have grown and bloomed. Marco
Polo gives a long and circumstantial legend of a mountain in Asia Minor
which, not long before his visit, was removed by a Christian who,
having "faith as a grain of mustard seed," and remembering the Saviour's
promise, transferred the mountain to its present place by prayer, "at
which marvel many Saracens became Christians."(422)
(422) For Maxime Du Camp, see Le Nil: Egypte et Nubie, Paris, 1877,
chapter v. For India, see Duncker, Geschichte des Alterthums, vol. iii,
p. 366; also Coleman, Mythology of the Hindus, p. 90. For Greece, as to
the Lycabettus myth, see Leake, Topography of Athens, vol. i, sec. 3;
also Burnouf, La Legende Athenienne, p. 152. For the rock at Aegina,
see Charton, vol. i, p. 310. For Scandanavia, see Thorpe, Northern
Antiquities, passim. For Teutonic countries, see Grimm, Deutsche
Mythologie; Panzer, Beitrag zur deutschen Mythologie, vol. ii; Zingerle,
Sagen aus Tyrol, pp. 111 et seq., 488, 504, 543; and especially J. B.
Friedrich, Symbolik und Mythologie der Natur, pp. 116 et seq. For Celtic
examples I am indebted to that learned and genial scholar, Prof. J.
P. Mahaffy, of Trinity College, Dublin. See also story of the devil
dropping a rock when forced by the archangel Michael to aid him in
building Mont Saint-Michel on the west coast of France, in Sebillot's
Traditions de la Haute Bretagne, vol. i, p. 22; also multitudes of other
examples in the same work. For Marco Polo, see in Grynaeus, p. 337; also
Charton, Voyageurs anciens et modernes, tome ii, pp. 274 et seq., where
the legend is given in full.
Similar mythical explanations are also found, in all the older religions
of the world, for curiously marked meteoric stones, fossils, and the
like.
Typical examples are found in the imprint of Buddha's feet on stones in
Siam and Ceylon; in the imprint of the body of Moses, which down to the
middle of the last century was shown near Mount Sinai; in the imprint
of Poseidon's trident on the Acropolis at Athens; in the imprint of the
hands or feet of Christ on stones in France, Italy, and Palestine; in
the imprint of the Virgin's tears on stones at Jerusalem; in the imprint
of the feet of Abraham at Jerusalem and of Mohammed on a stone in the
Mosque of Khait Bey at Cairo; in the imprint of the fingers of giants on
stones in the Scandinavian Peninsula, in north Germany, and in western
France; in the imprint of the devil's thighs on a rock in Brittany,
and of his claws on stones which he threw at churches in Cologne and
Saint-Pol-de-Leon; in the imprint of the shoulder of the devil's grand
mother on the "elbow-stone" at the Mohriner see; in the imprint of
St. Otho's feet on a stone formerly preserved in the castle church at
Stettin; in the imprint of the little finger of Christ and the head
of Satan at Ehrenberg; and in the imprint of the feet of St. Agatha
at Catania, in Sicily. To account for these appearances and myriads of
others, long and interesting legends were developed, and out of this
mass we may take one or two as typical.
One of the most beautiful was evolved at Rome. On the border of the
medieval city stands the church of "Domine quo vadis"; it was erected in
honour of a stone, which is still preserved, bearing a mark resembling a
human footprint--perhaps the bed of a fossil.
Out of this a pious legend grew as naturally as a wild rose in a
prairie. According to this story, in one of the first great persecutions
the heart of St. Peter failed him, and he attempted to flee from the
city: arriving outside the walls he was suddenly confronted by the
Master, whereupon Peter in amazement asked, "Lord, whither goest thou?"
(Domine quo vadis?); to which the Master answered, "To Rome, to be
crucified again." The apostle, thus rebuked, returned to martyrdom; the
Master vanished, but left, as a perpetual memorial, his footprint in the
solid rock.
Another legend accounts for a curious mark in a stone at Jerusalem.
According to this, St. Thomas, after the ascension of the Lord, was
again troubled with doubts, whereupon the Virgin Mother threw down her
girdle, which left its imprint upon the rock, and thus converted the
doubter fully and finally.
And still another example is seen at the very opposite extreme of
Europe, in the legend of the priestess of Hertha in the island of Rugen.
She had been unfaithful to her vows, and the gods furnished a proof of
her guilt by causing her and her child to sink into the rock on which
she stood.(423)
(423) For myths and legend crystallizing about boulders and other stones
curiously shaped or marked, see, on the general subject, in addition to
works already cited, Des Brosses, Les Dieux Fetiches, 1760, passim, but
especially pages 166, 167; and for a condensed statement as to worship
paid them, see Gerard de Rialle, Mythologie comparee, vol. vi, chapter
ii. For imprints of Buddha's feet, see Tylor, Researches into the Early
History of Mankind, London, 1878, pp. 115 et seq.; also Coleman, p. 203,
and Charton, Voyageurs anciens et modernes, tome i, pp. 365, 366, where
engravings of one of the imprints, and of the temple above another, are
seen. There are five which are considered authentic by the Siamese,
and a multitude of others more or less strongly insisted upon. For the
imprint os Moses' body, see travellers from Sir John Mandeville down.
For the mark of Neptune's trident, see last edition of Murray's Handbook
of Greece, vol. i, p. 322; and Burnouf, La Legende Athenienne, p. 153.
For imprint of the feet of Christ, and of the Virgin's girdle and tears,
see many of the older travellers in Palestine, as Arculf, Bouchard,
Roger, and especially Bertrandon de la Brocquiere in Wright's
collection, pp. 339, 340; also Maundrell's Travels, and Mandeville. For
the curious legend regarding the imprint of Abraham's foot, see Weil,
Biblische Legenden der Muselmanner, pp. 91 et seq. For many additional
examples in Palestine, particularly the imprints of the bodies of three
apostles on stones in the Garden of Gethsemane and of St. Jerome's body
in the desert, see Beauvau, Relation du Voyage du Lavant, Nancy, 1615,
passim. For the various imprints made by Satan and giants in Scandanavia
and Germany, see Thorpe, vol. ii, p. 85; Friedrichs, pp. 126 and passim.
For a very rich collection of such explanatory legends regarding stones
and marks in Germany, see Karl Bartsch, Sagen, Marchen und Gebrauche
aus Meklenburg, Wien, 1880, vol. ii, pp. 420 et seq. For a woodcut
representing the imprint of Christ's feet on the stone from which he
ascended to heaven, see woodcut in Mandeville, edition of 1484, in the
White Library, Cornell University. For the legend of Domine quo vadis,
see many books of travel and nearly all guide books for Rome, from
the mediaeval Mirabilia Romae to the latest edition of Murray. The
footprints of Mohammed at Cairo were shown to the present writer in
1889. On the general subject, with many striking examples, see Falsan,
La Periode glaciaire, Paris, 1889, pp. 17, 294, 295.
Another and very fruitful source of explanatory myths is found in
ancient centres of volcanic action, and especially in old craters of
volcanoes and fissures filled with water.
In China we have, among other examples, Lake Man, which was once the
site of the flourishing city Chiang Shui--overwhelmed and sunk on
account of the heedlessness of its inhabitants regarding a divine
warning.
In Phrygia, the lake and morass near Tyana were ascribed to the wrath
of Zeus and Hermes, who, having visited the cities which formerly stood
there, and having been refused shelter by all the inhabitants save
Philemon and Baucis, rewarded their benefactors, but sunk the wicked
cities beneath the lake and morass.
Stories of similar import grew up to explain the crater near Sipylos
in Asia Minor and that of Avernus in Italy: the latter came to be
considered the mouth of the infernal regions, as every schoolboy knows
when he has read his Virgil.
In the later Christian mythologies we have such typical legends as those
which grew up about the old crater in Ceylon; the salt water in it being
accounted for by supposing it the tears of Adam and Eve, who retreated
to this point after their expulsion from paradise and bewailed their sin
during a hundred years.
So, too, in Germany we have multitudes of lakes supposed to owe their
origin to the sinking of valleys as a punishment for human sin. Of these
are the "Devil's Lake," near Gustrow, which rose and covered a
church and its priests on account of their corruption; the lake at
Probst-Jesar, which rose and covered an oak grove and a number of
peasants resting in it on account of their want of charity to beggars;
and the Lucin Lake, which rose and covered a number of soldiers on
account of their cruelty to a poor peasant.
Such legends are found throughout America and in Japan, and will
doubtless be found throughout Asia and Africa, and especially among
the volcanic lakes of South America, the pitch lakes of the Caribbean
Islands, and even about the Salt Lake of Utah; for explanatory myths and
legends under such circumstances are inevitable.(424)
(424) As to myths explaining volcanic craters and lakes, and embodying
ideas of the wrath of Heaven against former inhabitants of the
neighboring country, see Forbiger, Alte Geographie, Hamburg, 1877, vol.
i, p. 563. For exaggerations concerning the Dead Sea, see ibid., vol. i,
p. 575. For the sinking of Chiang Shui and other examples, see Denny's
Folklore of China, pp. 126 et seq. For the sinking of the Phrygian
region, the destruction of its inhabitants, and the saving of Philemon
and Baucis, see Ovid's Metamorphoses, book viii; also Botticher,
Baumcultus der Alten, etc. For the lake in Ceylon arising from the tears
of Adam and Eve, see variants of the original legend in Mandeville and
in Jurgen Andersen, Reisebeschreibung, 1669, vol. ii, p. 132. For
the volcanic nature of the Dead Sea, see Daubeny, cited in Smith's
Dictionary of the Bible, s.v. Palestine. For lakes in Germany owing
their origin to human sin and various supernatural causes, see Karl
Bartsch, Sagen, Marche und Gebrauche aus Meklenburg, vol. i, pp. 397 et
seq. For lakes in America, see any good collection of Indian legends.
For lakes in Japan sunk supernaturally, see Braun's Japanesische Marche
und Sagen, Leipsic, 1885, pp. 350, 351.
To the same manner of explaining striking appearances in physical
geography, and especially strange rocks and boulders, we mainly owe
the innumerable stories of the transformation of living beings, and
especially of men and women, into these natural features.
In the mythology of China we constantly come upon legends of such
transformations--from that of the first Counsellor of the Han dynasty
to those of shepherds and sheep. In the Brahmanic mythology of India,
Salagrama, the fossil ammonite, is recognised as containing the body of
Vishnu's wife, and the Binlang stone has much the same relation to Siva;
so, too, the nymph Ramba was changed, for offending Ketu, into a mass of
sand; by the breath of Siva elephants were turned into stone; and in a
very touching myth Luxman is changed into stone but afterward released.
In the Buddhist mythology a Nat demon is represented as changing himself
into a grain of sand.
Among the Greeks such transformation myths come constantly before
us--both the changing of stones to men and the changing of men to
stones. Deucalion and Pyrrha, escaping from the flood, repeopled the
earth by casting behind them stones which became men and women; Heraulos
was changed into stone for offending Mercury; Pyrrhus for offending
Rhea; Phineus, and Polydectes with his guests, for offending Perseus:
under the petrifying glance of Medusa's head such transformations became
a thing of course.
To myth-making in obedience to the desire of explaining unusual
natural appearances, coupled with the idea that sin must be followed by
retribution, we also owe the well-known Niobe myth. Having incurred the
divine wrath, Niobe saw those dearest to her destroyed by missiles from
heaven, and was finally transformed into a rock on Mount Sipylos which
bore some vague resemblance to the human form, and her tears became the
rivulets which trickled from the neighbouring strata.
Thus, in obedience to a moral and intellectual impulse, a striking
geographical appearance was explained, and for ages pious Greeks looked
with bated breath upon the rock at Sipylos which was once Niobe, just
as for ages pious Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans looked with awe upon
the salt pillar at the Dead Sea which was once Lot's wife.
Pausanias, one of the most honest of ancient travellers, gives us a
notable exhibition of this feeling. Having visited this monument of
divine vengeance at Mount Sipylos, he tells us very naively that, though
he could discern no human features when standing near it, he thought
that he could see them when standing at a distance. There could
hardly be a better example of that most common and deceptive of all
things--belief created by the desire to believe.
In the pagan mythology of Scandinavia we have such typical examples as
Bors slaying the giant Ymir and transforming his bones into boulders;
also "the giant who had no heart" transforming six brothers and their
wives into stone; and, in the old Christian mythology, St. Olaf changing
into stone the wicked giants who opposed his preaching.
So, too, in Celtic countries we have in Ireland such legends as those of
the dancers turned into stone; and, in Brittany, the stones at Plesse,
which were once hunters and dogs violating the sanctity of Sunday; and
the stones of Carnac, which were once soldiers who sought to kill St.
Cornely.
Teutonic mythology inherited from its earlier Eastern days a similar
mass of old legends, and developed a still greater mass of new ones.
Thus, near the Konigstein, which all visitors to the Saxon Switzerland
know so well, is a boulder which for ages was believed to have once been
a maiden transformed into stone for refusing to go to church; and near
Rosenberg in Mecklenburg is another curiously shaped stone of which
a similar story is told. Near Spornitz, in the same region, are seven
boulders whose forms and position are accounted for by a long and
circumstantial legend that they were once seven impious herdsmen; near
Brahlsdorf is a stone which, according to a similar explanatory myth,
was once a blasphemous shepherd; near Schwerin are three boulders which
were once wasteful servants; and at Neustadt, down to a recent period,
was shown a collection of stones which were once a bride and bridegroom
with their horses--all punished for an act of cruelty; and these stories
are but typical of thousands.
At the other extremity of Europe we may take, out of the multitude
of explanatory myths, that which grew about the well-known group of
boulders near Belgrade. In the midst of them stands one larger than the
rest: according to the legend which was developed to account for all
these, there once lived there a swineherd, who was disrespectful to the
consecrated Host; whereupon he was changed into the larger stone, and
his swine into the smaller ones. So also at Saloniki we have the pillars
of the ruined temple, which are widely believed, especially among the
Jews of that region, to have once been human beings, and are therefore
known as the "enchanted columns."
Among the Arabs we have an addition to our sacred account of Adam--the
legend of the black stone of the Caaba at Mecca, into which the angel
was changed who was charged by the Almighty to keep Adam away from the
forbidden fruit, and who neglected his duty.
Similar old transformation legends are abundant among the Indians of
America, the negroes of Africa, and the natives of Australia and the
Pacific islands.
Nor has this making of myths to account for remarkable appearances yet
ceased, even in civilized countries.
About the beginning of this century the Grand Duke of Weimar, smitten
with the classical mania of his time, placed in the public park near
his palace a little altar, and upon this was carved, after the manner
so frequent in classical antiquity, a serpent taking a cake from it.
And shortly there appeared, in the town and the country round about, a
legend to explain this altar and its decoration. It was commonly said
that a huge serpent had laid waste that region in the olden time, until
a wise and benevolent baker had rid the world of the monster by means of
a poisoned biscuit.
So, too, but a few years since, in the heart of the State of New York,
a swindler of genius having made and buried a "petrified giant," one
theologian explained it by declaring it a Phoenician idol, and published
the Phoenician inscription which he thought he had found upon it; others
saw in it proofs that "there were giants in those days," and within a
week after its discovery myths were afloat that the neighbouring remnant
of the Onondaga Indians had traditions of giants who frequently roamed
through that region.(425)
(425) For transformation myths and legends, identifying rocks and stones
with gods and heroes, see Welcker, Gotterlehre, vol. i, p. 220. For
recent and more accessible statements for the general reader, see
Robertson Smith's admirable Lectures on the Religion of the Semites,
Edinburgh, 1889, pp. 86 et seq. For some thoughtful remarks on the
ancient adoration of stones rather than statues, with refernce to
the anointing of stones at Bethel by Jacob, see Dodwell, Tour through
Greece, vol. ii, p. 172; also Robertson Smith, as above, Lecture V. For
Chinese transformation legends, see Denny's Folklore of China, pp. 96,
128. For Hindu and other ancient legends of transformations, see
Dawson, Dictionary of Hindu Mythology; also Coleman, as above; also Cox,
Mythology of the Aryan Nations, pp. 81-97, etc. For such transformations
in Greece, see the Iliad, and Ovid, as above; also Stark, Niobe und die
Niobiden, p. 444 and elsewhere; also Preller, Griechische Mythologie,
passim; also Baumeister, Denkmaler des classischen Alterthums, article
Niobe; also Botticher, as above; also Curtius, Griechische Geschichte,
vol i, pp. 71, 72. For Pausanius's naive confession regarding the
Sipylos rock, see book i, p. 215. See also Texier, Asie Mineure, pp. 265
et seq.; also Chandler, Travels in Greece, vol. ii, p. 80, who seems to
hold to the later origin of the statue. At the end of Baumeister there
is an engraving copied from Stuart which seems to show that, as to the
Niobe legend, at a later period, Art was allowed to help Nature. For the
general subject, see Scheiffle, Programm des K. Gymnasiums in
Ellwangen: Mythologische Parallelen, 1865. For Scandinavian and Teutonic
transformation legends, see Grimm, Deutsche Mythologie, vierte Ausg.,
vol. i, p. 457; also Thorpe, Northern Antiquities; also Friedrich,
passim, especially p. 116 et seq.; also, for a mass of very curious
ones, Karl Bartsch, Sagen, Marchen und gebrauche aus Meklenburg, vol. i,
pp. 420 et seq.; also Karl Simrock's edition of the Edda, ninth edition,
p. 319; also John Fiske, Myths and Myth-makers, pp. 8, 9. On the
universality of such legends and myths, see Ritter's Erdkunde, vol. xiv,
pp. 1098-1122. For Irish examples, see Manz, Real-Encyclopadie, article
Stein; and for multitudes of examples in Brittany, see Sebillot,
Traditions de la Haute-Bretagne. For the enchanted columns at Saloniki,
see the latest edition of Murray's Handbook of Turkey, vol. ii, p. 711.
For the legend of the angel changed into stone for neglecting to guard
Adam, see Weil, university librarian at Heidelberg, Biblische Legende
der Muselmanner, Frankfort-am-Main, 1845, pp. 37, 84. For similar
transformation legends in Australia and among the American Indians, see
Andrew Lang, Mythology, French translation, pp. 83, 102; also his Myth,
Ritual, and Religion, vol. i, pp. 150 et seq., citing numerous examples
from J. G. Muller, Urreligionen, and Dorman's Primitive Superstitions;
also Report of the Bureau of Ethnoligy for 1880-'81; and for an African
example, see account of the rock at Balon which was once a woman, in
Berenger-Feraud, Contes populaires de la Senegambie, chap. viii. For the
Weimar legend, see Lewes, Life of Goethe, book iv. For the myths which
arose about the swindling "Cardiff giant" in the State of New York, see
especially an article by G. A. Stockwell, M. D., in The Popular Science
Monthly for June, 1878; see also W. A. McKinney in The New-Englander
for October, 1875; and for the "Phoenician inscription," given at length
with a translation, see the Rev. Alexander McWhorter, in The Galaxy for
July, 1872. The present writer visited the "giant" shortly after it
was "discovered," carefully observed it, and the myths to which it gave
rise, has in his possession a mass of curious documents regarding this
fraud, and hopes ere long to prepare a supplement to Dr. Stockwell's
valuable paper.
To the same stage of thought belongs the conception of human beings
changed into trees. But, in the historic evolution of religion
and morality, while changes into stone or rock were considered as
punishments, or evidences of divine wrath, those into trees and shrubs
were frequently looked upon as rewards, or evidences of divine favour.
A very beautiful and touching form of this conception is seen in such
myths as the change of Philemon into the oak, and of Baucis into the
linden; of Myrrha into the myrtle; of Melos into the apple tree; of
Attis into the pine; of Adonis into the rose tree; and in the springing
of the vine and grape from the blood of the Titans, the violet from the
blood of Attis, and the hyacinth from the blood of Hyacinthus.
Thus it was, during the long ages when mankind saw everywhere miracle
and nowhere law, that, in the evolution of religion and morality,
striking features in physical geography became connected with the idea
of divine retribution.(426)
(426) For the view taken in Greece and Rome of transformations into
trees and shrubs, see Botticher, Baumcultus der Hellenen, book i, chap.
xix; also Ovid, Metamorphoses, passim; also foregoing notes.
But, in the natural course of intellectual growth, thinking men began to
doubt the historical accuracy of these myths and legends--or, at least,
to doubt all save those of the theology in which they happened to be
born; and the next step was taken when they began to make comparisons
between the myths and legends of different neighbourhoods and countries:
so came into being the science of comparative mythology--a science sure
to be of vast value, because, despite many stumblings and vagaries,
it shows ever more and more how our religion and morality have been
gradually evolved, and gives a firm basis to a faith that higher planes
may yet be reached.
Such a science makes the sacred books of the world more and more
precious, in that it shows how they have been the necessary envelopes of
our highest spiritual sustenance; how even myths and legends apparently
the most puerile have been the natural husks and rinds and shells of our
best ideas; and how the atmosphere is created in which these husks and
rinds and shells in due time wither, shrivel, and fall away, so that the
fruit itself may be gathered to sustain a nobler religion and a purer
morality.
The coming in of Christianity contributed elements of inestimable value
in this evolution, and, at the centre of all, the thoughts, words, and
life of the Master. But when, in the darkness that followed the
downfall of the Roman Empire, there was developed a theology and a vast
ecclesiastical power to enforce it, the most interesting chapters in
this evolution of religion and morality were removed from the domain of
science.
So it came that for over eighteen hundred years it has been thought
natural and right to study and compare the myths and legends arising
east and west and south and north of Palestine with each other, but
never with those of Palestine itself; so it came that one of the regions
most fruitful in materials for reverent thought and healthful comparison
was held exempt from the unbiased search for truth; so it came that, in
the name of truth, truth was crippled for ages. While observation, and
thought upon observation, and the organized knowledge or science which
results from these, progressed as regarded the myths and legends of
other countries, and an atmosphere was thus produced giving purer
conceptions of the world and its government, myths of that little
geographical region at the eastern end of the Mediterranean retained
possession of the civilized world in their original crude form, and have
at times done much to thwart the noblest efforts of religion, morality,
and civilization.
II. MEDIAEVAL GROWTH OF THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS.
The history of myths, of their growth under the earlier phases of human
thought and of their decline under modern thinking, is one of the most
interesting and suggestive of human studies; but, since to treat it as
a whole would require volumes, I shall select only one small group, and
out of this mainly a single myth--one about which there can no longer be
any dispute--the group of myths and legends which grew upon the shore of
the Dead Sea, and especially that one which grew up to account for the
successive salt columns washed out by the rains at its southwestern
extremity.
The Dead Sea is about fifty miles in length and ten miles in width; it
lies in a very deep fissure extending north and south, and its surface
is about thirteen hundred feet below that of the Mediterranean. It has,
therefore, no outlet, and is the receptacle for the waters of the whole
system to which it belongs, including those collected by the Sea of
Galilee and brought down thence by the river Jordan.
It certainly--or at least the larger part of it--ranks geologically
among the oldest lakes on earth. In a broad sense the region is
volcanic: On its shore are evidences of volcanic action, which must from
the earliest period have aroused wonder and fear, and stimulated the
myth-making tendency to account for them. On the eastern side are
impressive mountain masses which have been thrown up from old volcanic
vents; mineral and hot springs abound, some of them spreading sulphurous
odours; earthquakes have been frequent, and from time to time these have
cast up masses of bitumen; concretions of sulphur and large formations
of salt constantly appear.
The water which comes from the springs or oozes through the salt layers
upon its shores constantly brings in various salts in solution, and,
being rapidly evaporated under the hot sun and dry wind, there has been
left, in the bed of the lake, a strong brine heavily charged with the
usual chlorides and bromides--a sort of bitter "mother liquor" This
fluid has become so dense as to have a remarkable power of supporting
the human body; it is of an acrid and nauseating bitterness; and by
ordinary eyes no evidence of life is seen in it.
Thus it was that in the lake itself, and in its surrounding shores,
there was enough to make the generation of explanatory myths on a large
scale inevitable.
The main northern part of the lake is very deep, the plummet having
shown an abyss of thirteen hundred feet; but the southern end is shallow
and in places marshy.
The system of which it forms a part shows a likeness to that in South
America of which the mountain lake Titicaca is the main feature; as a
receptacle for surplus waters, only rendering them by evaporation, it
resembles the Caspian and many other seas; as a sort of evaporating dish
for the leachings of salt rock, and consequently holding a body of water
unfit to support the higher forms of animal life, it resembles,
among others, the Median lake of Urumiah; as a deposit of bitumen, it
resembles the pitch lakes of Trinidad.(427)
(427) For modern views of the Dead Sea, see the Rev. Edward Robinson, D.
D., Biblical Researches, various editions; Lynch's Exploring Expedition;
De Saulcy, Voyage autour de la Mer Morte; Stanley's Palestine and Syria;
Schaff's Through Bible Lands; and other travellers hereafter quoted. For
good photogravures, showing the character of the whole region, see the
atlas forming part of De Luynes's monumental Voyage d'Exploration. For
geographical summaries, see Reclus, La Terre, Paris, 1870, pp. 832-834;
Ritter, Erdkunde, volumes devoted to Palestine and especially as
supplemented in Gage's translation with additions; Reclus, Nouvelle
Geographie Universelle, vol. ix, p. 736, where a small map is given
presenting the difference in depth between the two ends of the lake,
of which so much was made theologically before Lartet. For still better
maps, see De Saulcy, and especially De Luynes, Voyage d'Exploration
(atlas). For very interesting panoramic views, see last edition of Canon
Tristram's Land of Israel, p. 635. For the geology, see Lartet, in his
reports to the French Geographical Society, and especially in vol. iii
of De Luynes's work, where there is an admirable geological map with
sections, etc.; also Ritter; also Sir J. W. Dawson's Egypt and Syria,
published by the Religious Tract Society; also Rev. Cunningham Geikie,
D. D., Geology of Palestine; and for pictures showing salt formation,
Tristram, as above. For the meteorology, see Vignes, report to De
Luynes, pp. 65 et seq. For chemistry of the Dead Sea, see as above,
and Terreil's report, given in Gage's Ritter, vol. iii, appendix 2, and
tables in De Luynes's third volume. For zoology of the Dead Sea, as to
entire absence of life in it, see all earlier travellers; as to presence
of lower forms of life, see Ehrenberg's microscopic examinations in
Gage's Ritter. See also reports in third volume of De Luynes. For botany
of the Dead Sea, and especially regarding "apples of Sodom," see Dr.
Lortet's La Syrie, p. 412; also Reclus, Nouvelle Geographie, vol. ix,
p. 737; also for photographic representations of them, see portfolio
forming part of De Luynes's work, plate 27. For Strabo's very perfect
description, see his Geog., lib. xvi, cap. ii; also Fallmerayer, Werke,
pp. 177, 178. For names and positions of a large number of salt lakes in
various parts of the world more or less resembling the Dead Sea, see De
Luynes, vol. iii, pp. 242 et seq. For Trinidad "pitch lakes," found by
Sir Walter Raleigh in 1595, see Lengegg, El Dorado, part i, p. 103, and
part ii, p. 101; also Reclus, Ritter, et al. For the general subject,
see Schenkel, Bibel-Lexikon, s.v. Todtes Meer, an excellent summery.
The description of the Dead Sea in Lenormant's great history is utterly
unworthy of him, and must have been thrown together from old notes after
his death. It is amazing to see in such a work the old superstitions
that birds attempting to fly over the sea are suffocated. See Lenormant,
Histoire ancienne de l'Orient, edition of 1888, vol. vi, p. 112. For the
absorption and adoption of foreign myths and legends by the Jews, see
Baring-Gould, Curious Myths of the Middle Ages, p. 390. For the views of
Greeks and Romans, see especially Tacitus, Historiae, book v, Pliny, and
Strabo, in whose remarks are the germs of many of the mediaeval myths.
For very curious examples of these, see Baierus, De Excidio Sodomae,
Halle, 1690, passim.
In all this there is nothing presenting any special difficulty to the
modern geologist or geographer; but with the early dweller in Palestine
the case was very different. The rocky, barren desolation of the Dead
Sea region impressed him deeply; he naturally reasoned upon it; and this
impression and reasoning we find stamped into the pages of his sacred
literature, rendering them all the more precious as a revelation of the
earlier thought of mankind. The long circumstantial account given in
Genesis, its application in Deuteronomy, its use by Amos, by Isaiah,
by Jeremiah, by Zephaniah, and by Ezekiel, the references to it in
the writings attributed to St. Paul, St. Peter, and St. Jude, in the
Apocalypse, and, above all, in more than one utterance of the Master
himself--all show how deeply these geographical features impressed the
Jewish mind.
At a very early period, myths and legends, many and circumstantial, grew
up to explain features then so incomprehensible.
As the myth and legend grew up among the Greeks of a refusal of
hospitality to Zeus and Hermes by the village in Phrygia, and the
consequent sinking of that beautiful region with its inhabitants beneath
a lake and morass, so there came belief in a similar offence by the
people of the beautiful valley of Siddim, and the consequent sinking
of that valley with its inhabitants beneath the waters of the Dead Sea.
Very similar to the accounts of the saving of Philemon and Baucis are
those of the saving of Lot and his family.
But the myth-making and miracle-mongering by no means ceased in ancient
times; they continued to grow through the medieval and modern period
until they have quietly withered away in the light of modern scientific
investigation, leaving to us the religious and moral truths they
inclose.
It would be interesting to trace this whole group of myths: their
origin in times prehistoric, their development in Greece and Rome, their
culmination during the ages of faith, and their disappearance in the age
of science. It would be especially instructive to note the conscientious
efforts to prolong their life by making futile compromises between
science and theology regarding them; but I shall mention this main group
only incidentally, confining my self almost entirely to the one above
named--the most remarkable of all--the myth which grew about the salt
pillars of Usdum.
I select this mainly because it involves only elementary principles,
requires no abstruse reasoning, and because all controversy regarding it
is ended. There is certainly now no theologian with a reputation to lose
who will venture to revive the idea regarding it which was sanctioned
for hundreds, nay, thousands, of years by theology, was based on
Scripture, and was held by the universal Church until our own century.
The main feature of the salt region of Usdum is a low range of hills
near the southwest corner of the Dead Sea, extending in a southeasterly
direction for about five miles, and made up mainly of salt rock. This
rock is soft and friable, and, under the influence of the heavy winter
rains, it has been, without doubt, from a period long before human
history, as it is now, cut ever into new shapes, and especially into
pillars or columns, which sometimes bear a resemblance to the human
form.
An eminent clergyman who visited this spot recently speaks of the
appearance of this salt range as follows:
"Fretted by fitful showers and storms, its ridge is exceedingly uneven,
its sides carved out and constantly changing;... and each traveller
might have a new pillar of salt to wonder over at intervals of a few
years."(428)
(428) As to the substance of the "pillars" or "statues" or "needles" of
salt at Usdum, many travellers speak of it as "marl and salt." Irby and
Mangles, in their Travels in Egypt, Nubia, Syria, and the Holy Land,
chap. vii, call it "salt and hardened sand." The citation as to frequent
carving out of new "pillars" is from the Travels in Palestine of the
Rev. H. F. Osborn, D. D.; see also Palmer, Desert of the Exodus, vol ii,
pp. 478, 479. For engravings of the salt pillar at different times,
compare that given by Lynch in 1848, when it appeared as a column forty
feet high, with that given by Palmer as the frontpiece to his Desert of
the Exodus, Cambridge, England, 1871, when it was small and "does
really bear a curious resemblance to an Arab woman with a child upon
he shoulders", and this again with the picture of the salt formation at
Usdum given by Canon Tristram, at whose visit there was neither "pillar"
nor "statue." See The Land of Israel, by H. B. Tristram, D. D., F. R.
S., London, 1882, p. 324. For similar pillars of salt washed out from
the mud at Catalonia, see Lyell.
Few things could be more certain than that, in the indolent dream-life
of the East, myths and legends would grow up to account for this as
for other strange appearances in all that region. The question which
a religious Oriental put to himself in ancient times at Usdum was
substantially that which his descendant to-day puts to himself at
Kosseir. "Why is this region thus blasted?" "Whence these pillars of
salt?" or "Whence these blocks of granite?" "What aroused the vengeance
of Jehovah or of Allah to work these miracles of desolation?"
And, just as Maxime Du Camp recorded the answer of the modern Shemite at
Kosseir, so the compilers of the Jewish sacred books recorded the answer
of the ancient Shemite at the Dead Sea; just as Allah at Kosseir blasted
the land and transformed the melons into boulders which are seen to this
day, so Jehovah at Usdum blasted the land and transformed Lot's wife
into a pillar of salt, which is seen to this day.
No more difficulty was encountered in the formation of the Lot legend,
to account for that rock resembling the human form, than in the
formation of the Niobe legend, which accounted for a supposed
resemblance in the rock at Sipylos: it grew up just as we have seen
thousands of similar myths and legends grow up about striking natural
appearances in every early home of the human race. Being thus consonant
with the universal view regarding the relation of physical geography to
the divine government, it became a treasure of the Jewish nation and
of the Christian Church--a treasure not only to be guarded against
all hostile intrusion, but to be increased, as we shall see, by the
myth-making powers of Jews, Christians, and Mohammedans for thousands
of years. The spot where the myth originated was carefully kept in mind;
indeed, it could not escape, for in that place alone were constantly
seen the phenomena which gave rise to it. We have a steady chain of
testimony through the ages, all pointing to the salt pillar as the
irrefragable evidence of divine judgment. That great theological test of
truth, the dictum of St. Vincent of Lerins, would certainly prove
that the pillar was Lot's wife, for it was believed so to be by Jews,
Christians, and Mohammedans from the earliest period down to a time
almost within present memory--"always, everywhere, and by all." It would
stand perfectly the ancient test insisted upon by Cardinal Newman,"
Securus judicat orbis terrarum."
For, ever since the earliest days of Christianity, the identity of the
salt pillar with Lot's wife has been universally held and supported by
passages in Genesis, in St. Luke's Gospel, and in the Second Epistle of
St. Peter--coupled with a passage in the book of the Wisdom of Solomon,
which to this day, by a majority in the Christian Church, is believed to
be inspired, and from which are specially cited the words, "A standing
pillar of salt is a monument of an unbelieving soul."(429)
(429) For the usual biblical citations, see Genesis xix, 26; St. Luke
xvii, 32; II Peter ii, 6. For the citation from Wisdom, see chap. x,
v. 7. For the account of the transformation of Lot's wife put into
its proper relations with the Jehovistic and Elohistic documents, see
Lenormant's La Genese, Paris, 1883, pp. 53, 199, and 317, 318.
Never was chain of belief more continuous. In the first century of the
Christian era Josephus refers to the miracle, and declares regarding
the statue, "I have seen it, and it remains at this day"; and Clement,
Bishop of Rome, one of the most revered fathers of the Church, noted
for the moderation of his statements, expresses a similar certainty,
declaring the miraculous statue to be still standing.
In the second century that great father of the Church, bishop and
martyr, Irenaeus, not only vouched for it, but gave his approval to the
belief that the soul of Lot's wife still lingered in the statue, giving
it a sort of organic life: thus virtually began in the Church that
amazing development of the legend which we shall see taking various
forms through the Middle Ages--the story that the salt statue exercised
certain physical functions which in these more delicate days can not be
alluded to save under cover of a dead language.
This addition to the legend, which in these signs of life, as in other
things, is developed almost exactly on the same lines with the legend
of the Niobe statue in the rock of Mount Sipylos and with the legends of
human beings transformed into boulders in various mythologies, was for
centuries regarded as an additional confirmation of revealed truth.
In the third century the myth burst into still richer bloom in a
poem long ascribed to Tertullian. In this poem more miraculous
characteristics of the statue are revealed. It could not be washed away
by rains; it could not be overthrown by winds; any wound made upon it
was miraculously healed; and the earlier statements as to its physical
functions were amplified in sonorous Latin verse.
With this appeared a new legend regarding the Dead Sea; it became
universally believed, and we find it repeated throughout the whole
medieval period, that the bitumen could only he dissolved by such fluids
as in the processes of animated nature came from the statue.
The legend thus amplified we shall find dwelt upon by pious travellers
and monkish chroniclers for hundreds of years: so it came to be more
and more treasured by the universal Church, and held more and more
firmly--"always, everywhere, and by all."
In the two following centuries we have an overwhelming mass of
additional authority for the belief that the very statue of salt into
which Lot's wife was transformed was still existing. In the fourth, the
continuance of the statue was vouched for by St. Silvia, who visited the
place: though she could not see it, she was told by the Bishop of Segor
that it had been there some time before, and she concluded that it
had been temporarily covered by the sea. In both the fourth and fifth
centuries such great doctors in the Church as St. Jerome, St. John
Chrysostom, and St. Cyril of Jerusalem agreed in this belief and
statement; hence it was, doubtless, that the Hebrew word which is
translated in the authorized English version "pillar," was translated
in the Vulgate, which the majority of Christians believe virtually
inspired, by the word "statue"; we shall find this fact insisted upon by
theologians arguing in behalf of the statue, as a result and monument of
the miracle, for over fourteen hundred years afterward.(430)
(430) See Josephus, Antiquities, book i, chap. xi; Epist. I; Cyril
Hieros, Catech., xix; Chrysostom, Hom. XVIII, XLIV, in Genes.; Irenaeus,
lib. iv, c. xxxi, of his Heresies, edition Oxon., 1702. For St. Silvia,
see S. Silviae Aquitanae Peregrinatio ad Loca Sancta, Romae, 1887, p.
55; also edition of 1885, p. 25. For recent translation, see Pilgrimage
of St. Silvia, p. 28, in publications of Palestine Text Society for
1891. For legends of signs of continued life in boulders and stones
into which human beings have been transformed for sin, see Karl Bartsch,
Sage, etc., vol. ii, pp. 420 et seq.
About the middle of the sixth century Antoninus Martyr visited the Dead
Sea region and described it, but curiously reversed a simple truth in
these words: "Nor do sticks or straws float there, nor can a man swim,
but whatever is cast into it sinks to the bottom." As to the statue of
Lot's wife, he threw doubt upon its miraculous renewal, but testified
that it was still standing.
In the seventh century the Targum of Jerusalem not only testified that
the salt pillar at Usdum was once Lot's wife, but declared that she must
retain that form until the general resurrection. In the seventh century
too, Bishop Arculf travelled to the Dead Sea, and his work was added
to the treasures of the Church. He greatly develops the legend, and
especially that part of it given by Josephus. The bitumen that floats
upon the sea "resembles gold and the form of a bull or camel"; "birds
can not live near it"; and "the very beautiful apples" which grow there,
when plucked, "burn and are reduced to ashes, and smoke as if they were
still burning."
In the eighth century the Venerable Bede takes these statements of
Arculf and his predecessors, binds them together in his work on The
Holy Places, and gives the whole mass of myths and legends an enormous
impulse.(431)
(431) For Antoninus Martyr, see Tobler's edition of his work in the
Itinera, vol. i, p. 100, Geneva, 1877. For the Targum of Jerusalem, see
citation in Quaresmius, Terrae Sanctae Elucidation, Peregrinatio vi,
cap. xiv; new Venice edition. For Arculf, see Tobler. For Bede, see his
De Locis Sanctis in Tobler's Itinera, vol. i, p. 228. For an admirable
statement of the mediaeval theological view of scientific research,
see Eicken, Geschichte der mittelalterlichen Weltanschauung, Stuttgart,
1887, chap. vi.
In the tenth century new force is given to it by the pious Moslem
Mukadassi. Speaking of the town of Segor, near the salt region, he says
that the proper translation of its name is "Hell"; and of the lake
he says, "Its waters are hot, even as though the place stood over
hell-fire."
In the crusading period, immediately following, all the legends burst
forth more brilliantly than ever.
The first of these new travellers who makes careful statements is Fulk
of Chartres, who in 1100 accompanied King Baldwin to the Dead Sea and
saw many wonders; but, though he visited the salt region at Usdum, he
makes no mention of the salt pillar: evidently he had fallen on evil
times; the older statues had probably been washed away, and no new one
had happened to be washed out of the rocks just at that period.
But his misfortune was more than made up by the triumphant experience
of a far more famous traveller, half a century later--Rabbi Benjamin of
Tudela.
Rabbi Benjamin finds new evidences of miracle in the Dead Sea, and
develops to a still higher point the legend of the salt statue of Lot's
wife, enriching the world with the statement that it was steadily and
miraculously rene wed; that, though the cattle of the region licked its
surface, it never grew smaller. Again a thrill of joy went through the
monasteries and pulpits of Christendom at this increasing "evidence of
the truth of Scripture."
Toward the end of the thirteenth century there appeared in Palestine
a traveller superior to most before or since--Count Burchard, monk of
Mount Sion. He had the advantage of knowing something of Arabic, and his
writings show him to have been observant and thoughtful. No statue of
Lot's wife appears to have been washed clean of the salt rock at his
visit, but he takes it for granted that the Dead Sea is "the mouth of
hell," and that the vapour rising from it is the smoke from Satan's
furnaces.
These ideas seem to have become part of the common stock, for Ernoul,
who travelled to the Dead Sea during the same century, always speaks of
it as the "Sea of Devils."
Near the beginning of the fourteenth century appeared the book of far
wider influence which bears the name of Sir John Mandeville, and in
the various editions of it myths and legends of the Dead Sea and of the
pillar of salt burst forth into wonderful luxuriance.
This book tells us that masses of fiery matter are every day thrown up
from the water "as large as a horse"; that, though it contains no living
thing, it has been shown that men thrown into it can not die; and,
finally, as if to prove the worthlessness of devout testimony to the
miraculous, he says: "And whoever throws a piece of iron therein, it
floats; and whoever throws a feather therein, it sinks to the bottom;
and, because that is contrary to nature, I was not willing to believe it
until I saw it."
The book, of course, mentions Lot's wife, and says that the pillar of
salt "stands there to-day," and "has a right salty taste."
Injustice has perhaps been done to the compilers of this famous work
in holding them liars of the first magnitude. They simply abhorred
scepticism, and thought it meritorious to believe all pious legends.
The ideal Mandeville was a man of overmastering faith, and resembled
Tertullian in believing some things "because they are impossible"; he
was doubtless entirely conscientious; the solemn ending of the
book shows that he listened, observed, and wrote under the deepest
conviction, and those who re-edited his book were probably just as
honest in adding the later stories of pious travellers.
The Travels of Sir John Mandeville, thus appealing to the popular heart,
were most widely read in the monasteries and repeated among the people.
Innumerable copies were made in manuscript, and finally in print, and so
the old myths received a new life.(432)
(432) For Fulk of Chartres and crusading travellers generally, see
Bongars' Gesta Dei and the French Recueil; also Histories of the
Crusades by Wilken, Sybel, Kugler, and others; see also Robinson,
Biblical Researches, vol. ii, p. 109, and Tobler, Bibliographia
Geographica Palestinae, 1867, p. 12. For Benjamin of Tudela's statement,
see Wright's Collection of Travels in Palestine, p. 84, and Asher's
edition of Benjamin of Tudela's travels, vol. i, pp. 71, 72; also
Charton, vol. i, p. 180. For Borchard or Burchard, see full text in the
Reyssbuch dess Heyligen Landes; also Grynaeus, Nov. Orbis, Basil, 1532,
fol. 298, 329. For Ernoul, see his L'Estat de la Cite de Hierusalem, in
Michelant and Reynaud, Itineraires Francaises au 12me et 13me Siecles.
For Petrus Diaconus, see his book De Locis Sanctis, edited by Gamurrini,
Rome, 1887, pp. 126, 127. For Mandeville I have compared several
editions, especially those in the Reyssbuch, in Canisius, and in Wright,
with Halliwell's reprint and with the rare Strasburg edition of 1484
in the Cornell University Library: the whole statement regarding the
experiment with iron and feathers is given differently in different
copies. The statement that he saw the feathers sink and the iron swim
is made in the Reyssbuch edition, Frankfort, 1584. The story, like the
saints' legends, evidently grew as time went on, but is none the less
interesting as showing the general credulity. Since writing the above, I
have been glad to find my view of Mandeville's honesty confirmed by the
Rev. Dr. Robinson, and by Mr. Gage in his edition of Ritter's Palestine.
In the fifteenth century wonders increased. In 1418 we have the Lord of
Caumont, who makes a pilgrimage and gives us a statement which is
the result of the theological reasoning of centuries, and especially
interesting as a typical example of the theological method in contrast
with the scientific. He could not understand how the blessed waters of
the Jordan could be allowed to mingle with the accursed waters of the
Dead Sea. In spite, then, of the eye of sense, he beheld the water with
the eye of faith, and calmly announced that the Jordan water passes
through the sea, but that the two masses of water are not mingled. As to
the salt statue of Lot's wife, he declares it to be still existing; and,
copying a table of indulgences granted by the Church to pious pilgrims,
he puts down the visit to the salt statue as giving an indulgence of
seven years.
Toward the end of the century we have another traveller yet more
influential: Bernard of Breydenbach, Dean of Mainz. His book of travels
was published in 1486, at the famous press of Schoeffer, and in various
translations it was spread through Europe, exercising an influence wide
and deep. His first important notice of the Dead Sea is as follows: "In
this, Tirus the serpent is found, and from him the Tiriac medicine is
made. He is blind, and so full of venom that there is no remedy for
his bite except cutting off the bitten part. He can only be taken by
striking him and making him angry; then his venom flies into his head
and tail." Breydenbach calls the Dead Sea "the chimney of hell," and
repeats the old story as to the miraculous solvent for its bitumen.
He, too, makes the statement that the holy water of the Jordan does not
mingle with the accursed water of the infernal sea, but increases the
miracle which Caumont had announced by saying that, although the waters
appear to come together, the Jordan is really absorbed in the earth
before it reaches the sea.
As to Lot's wife, various travellers at that time had various fortunes.
Some, like Caumont and Breydenbach, took her continued existence for
granted; some, like Count John of Solms, saw her and were greatly
edified; some, like Hans Werli, tried to find her and could not, but,
like St. Silvia, a thousand years before, were none the less edified by
the idea that, for some inscrutable purpose, the sea had been allowed to
hide her from them; some found her larger than they expected, even forty
feet high, as was the salt pillar which happened to be standing at the
visit of Commander Lynch in 1848; but this only added a new proof to the
miracle, for the text was remembered, "There were giants in those days."
Out of the mass of works of pilgrims during the fifteenth century I
select just one more as typical of the theological view then dominant,
and this is the noted book of Felix Fabri, a preaching friar of Ulm. I
select him, because even so eminent an authority in our own time as Dr.
Edward Robinson declares him to have been the most thorough, thoughtful,
and enlightened traveller of that century.
Fabri is greatly impressed by the wonders of the Dead Sea, and typical
of his honesty influenced by faith is his account of the Dead Sea fruit;
he describes it with almost perfect accuracy, but adds the statement
that when mature it is "filled with ashes and cinders."
As to the salt statue, he says: "We saw the place between the sea and
Mount Segor, but could not see the statue itself because we were too far
distant to see anything of human size; but we saw it with firm faith,
because we believed Scripture, which speaks of it; and we were filled
with wonder."
To sustain absolute faith in the statue he reminds his reader's that
"God is able even of these stones to raise up seed to Abraham," and goes
into a long argument, discussing such transformations as those of King
Atlas and Pygmalion's statue, with a multitude of others, winding up
with the case, given in the miracles of St. Jerome, of a heretic who was
changed into a log of wood, which was then burned.
He gives a statement of the Hebrews that Lot's wife received her
peculiar punishment because she had refused to add salt to the food
of the angels when they visited her, and he preaches a short sermon in
which he says that, as salt is the condiment of food, so the salt statue
of Lot's wife "gives us a condiment of wisdom."(433)
(433) For Bernard of Breydenbach, I have used the Latin edition, Mentz,
1486, in the White collection, Cornell University, also the German
edition in the Reyssbuch. For John of Solms, Werli, and the like, see
the Reyssbuch, which gives a full text of their travels. For Fabri
(Schmid), see, for his value, Robinson; also Tobler, Bibliographia, pp.
53 et seq.; and for texts, see Reyssbuch, pp. 122b et seq., but best the
Fratris Fel. Fabri Evagatorium, ed. Hassler, Stuttgart, 1843, vol. iii,
pp. 172 et seq. His book now has been translated into English by the
Palestine Pilgrims' Text Society.
There were, indeed, many discrepancies in the testimony of travellers
regarding the salt pillar--so many, in fact, that at a later period the
learned Dom Calmet acknowledged that they shook his belief in the whole
matter; but, during this earlier time, under the complete sway of the
theological spirit, these difficulties only gave new and more glorious
opportunities for faith.
For, if a considerable interval occurred between the washing of one salt
pillar out of existence and the washing of another into existence, the
idea arose that the statue, by virtue of the soul which still remained
in it, had departed on some mysterious excursion. Did it happen that one
statue was washed out one year in one place and another statue another
year in another place, this difficulty was surmounted by believing that
Lot's wife still walked about. Did it happen that a salt column was
undermined by the rains and fell, this was believed to be but another
sign of life. Did a pillar happen to be covered in part by the sea,
this was enough to arouse the belief that the statue from time to time
descended into the Dead Sea depths--possibly to satisfy that old fatal
curiosity regarding her former neighbours.
Did some smaller block of salt happen to be washed out near the statue,
it was believed that a household dog, also transformed into salt, had
followed her back from beneath the deep. Did more statues than one
appear at one time, that simply made the mystery more impressive.
In facts now so easy of scientific explanation the theologians found
wonderful matter for argument.
One great question among them was whether the soul of Lot's wife did
really remain in the statue. On one side it was insisted that, as Holy
Scripture declares that Lot's wife was changed into a pillar of salt,
and as she was necessarily made up of a soul and a body, the soul must
have become part of the statue. This argument was clinched by citing
that passage in the Book of Wisdom in which the salt pillar is declared
to be still standing as "the monument of an unbelieving SOUL." On the
other hand, it was insisted that the soul of the woman must have been
incorporeal and immortal, and hence could not have been changed into a
substance corporeal and mortal. Naturally, to this it would be answered
that the salt pillar was no more corporeal than the ordinary materials
of the human body, and that it had been made miraculously immortal,
and "with God all things are possible." Thus were opened long vistas of
theological discussion.(434)
(434) For a brief statement of the main arguments for and against the
idea that the soul of Lot's wife remained within the salt statue, see
Cornelius a Lapide, Commentarius in Pentateuchum, Antwerp, 1697, chap.
xix.
As we enter the sixteenth century the Dead Sea myths, and especially the
legends of Lot's wife, are still growing. In 1507 Father Anselm of the
Minorites declares that the sea sometimes covers the feet of the statue,
sometimes the legs, sometimes the whole body.
In 1555, Gabriel Giraudet, priest at Puy, journeyed through Palestine.
His faith was robust, and his attitude toward the myths of the Dead
Sea is seen by his declaration that its waters are so foul that one can
smell them at a distance of three leagues; that straw, hay, or feathers
thrown into them will sink, but that iron and other metals will float;
that criminals have been kept in them three or four days and could not
drown. As to Lot's wife, he says that he found her "lying there, her
back toward heaven, converted into salt stone; for I touched her,
scratched her, and put a piece of her into my mouth, and she tasted
salt."
At the centre of all these legends we see, then, the idea that,
though there were no living beasts in the Dead Sea, the people of the
overwhelmed cities were still living beneath its waters, probably in
hell; that there was life in the salt statue; and that it was still
curious regarding its old neighbours.
Hence such travellers in the latter years of the century as Count Albert
of Lowenstein and Prince Nicolas Radziwill are not at all weakened
in faith by failing to find the statue. What the former is capable of
believing is seen by his statement that in a certain cemetery at Cairo
during one night in the year the dead thrust forth their feet, hands,
limbs, and even rise wholly from their graves.
There seemed, then, no limit to these pious beliefs. The idea that
there is merit in credulity, with the love of myth-making and
miracle-mongering, constantly made them larger. Nor did the Protestant
Reformation diminish them at first; it rather strengthened them and
fixed them more firmly in the popular mind. They seemed destined to last
forever. How they were thus strengthened at first, under Protestantism,
and how they were finally dissolved away in the atmosphere of scientific
thought, will now be shown.(435)
(435) For Father Anselm, see his Descriptio Terrae Sanctae, in H.
Canisius, Thesaurus Monument Eccles., Basnage edition, Amsterdam, 1725,
vol. iv, p. 788. For Giraudet, see his Discours du Voyage d'Outre-Mer,
Paris, 1585, p. 56a. For Radziwill and Lowenstein, see the Reyssbuch,
especially p. 198a.
III. POST-REFORMATION CULMINATION OF THE DEAD SEA LEGENDS.--BEGINNINGS
OF A HEALTHFUL SCEPTICISM.
The first effect of the Protestant Reformation was to popularize the
older Dead Sea legends, and to make the public mind still more receptive
for the newer ones.
Luther's great pictorial Bible, so powerful in fixing the ideas of the
German people, showed by very striking engravings all three of these
earlier myths--the destruction of the cities by fire from heaven, the
transformation of Lot's wife, and the vile origin of the hated Moabites
and Ammonites; and we find the salt statue, especially, in this and
other pictorial Bibles, during generation after generation.
Catholic peoples also held their own in this display of faith. About
1517 Francois Regnault published at Paris a compilation on Palestine
enriched with woodcuts: in this the old Dead Sea legend of the "serpent
Tyrus" reappears embellished, and with it various other new versions
of old stories. Five years later Bartholomew de Salignac travels in the
Holy Land, vouches for the continued existence of the Lot's wife statue,
and gives new life to an old marvel by insisting that the sacred waters
of the Jordan are not really poured into the infernal basin of the Dead
Sea, but that they are miraculously absorbed by the earth.
These ideas were not confined to the people at large; we trace them
among scholars.
In 1581, Bunting, a North German professor and theologian, published his
Itinerary of Holy Scripture, and in this the Dead Sea and Lot legends
continue to increase. He tells us that the water of the sea "changes
three times every day"; that it "spits forth fire" that it throws up
"on high" great foul masses which "burn like pitch" and "swim about like
huge oxen"; that the statue of Lot's wife is still there, and that it
shines like salt.
In 1590, Christian Adrichom, a Dutch theologian, published his famous
work on sacred geography. He does not insist upon the Dead Sea legends
generally, but declares that the statue of Lot's wife is still in
existence, and on his map he gives a picture of her standing at Usdum.
Nor was it altogether safe to dissent from such beliefs. Just as, under
the papal sway, men of science were severely punished for wrong views of
the physical geography of the earth in general, so, when Calvin decided
to burn Servetus, he included in his indictment for heresy a charge
that Servetus, in his edition of Ptolemy, had made unorthodox statements
regarding the physical geography of Palestine.(436)
(436) For biblical engravings showing Lot's wife transformed into a
salt statue, etc., see Luther's Bible, 1534, p. xi; also the pictorial
Electoral Bible; also Merian's Icones Biblicae of 1625; also the
frontpiece of the Luther Bible published at Nuremberg in 1708; also
Scheuchzer's Kupfer-Bibel, Augsburg, 1731, Tab. lxxx. For the account of
the Dead Sea serpent "Tyrus," etc., see La Grande Voyage de Hierusalem,
Paris (1517?), p. xxi. For De Salignac's assertion regarding the salt
pillar and suggestion regarding the absorption of the Jordan before
reaching the Dead Sea, see his Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae, Magdeburg,
1593, SS 34 and 35. For Bunting, see his Itinerarium Sacrae Scripturae,
Magdeburg, 1589, pp. 78, 79. For Andrichom's picture of the salt statue,
see map, p. 38, and text, p. 205, of his Theatrum Terrae Sanctae, 1613.
For Calvin and Servetus, see Willis, Servetus and Calvin, pp. 96, 307;
also the Servetus edition of Ptolemy.
Protestants and Catholics vied with each other in the making of new
myths. Thus, in his Most Devout Journey, published in 1608, Jean
Zvallart, Mayor of Ath in Hainault, confesses himself troubled by
conflicting stories about the salt statue, but declares himself sound in
the faith that "some vestige of it still remains," and makes up for
his bit of freethinking by adding a new mythical horror to the
region--"crocodiles," which, with the serpents and the "foul odour of
the sea," prevented his visit to the salt mountains.
In 1615 Father Jean Boucher publishes the first of many editions of his
Sacred Bouquet of the Holy Land. He depicts the horrors of the Dead Sea
in a number of striking antitheses, and among these is the statement
that it is made of mud rather than of water, that it soils whatever is
put into it, and so corrupts the land about it that not a blade of grass
grows in all that region.
In the same spirit, thirteen years later, the Protestant Christopher
Heidmann publishes his Palaestina, in which he speaks of a fluid
resembling blood oozing from the rocks about the Dead Sea, and cites
authorities to prove that the statue of Lot's wife still exists and
gives signs of life.
Yet, as we near the end of the sixteenth century, some evidences of a
healthful and fruitful scepticism begin to appear.
The old stream of travellers, commentators, and preachers, accepting
tradition and repeating what they have been told, flows on; but here and
there we are refreshed by the sight of a man who really begins to think
and look for himself.
First among these is the French naturalist Pierre Belon. As regards the
ordinary wonders, he had the simple faith of his time. Among a multitude
of similar things, he believed that he saw the stones on which the
disciples were sleeping during the prayer of Christ; the stone on which
the Lord sat when he raised Lazarus from the dead; the Lord's footprints
on the stone from which he ascended into heaven; and, most curious of
all, "the stone which the builders rejected." Yet he makes some advance
on his predecessors, since he shows in one passage that he had thought
out the process by which the simpler myths of Palestine were made. For,
between Bethlehem and Jerusalem, he sees a field covered with small
pebbles, and of these he says: "The common people tell you that a man
was once sowing peas there, when Our Lady passed that way and asked
him what he was doing; the man answered 'I am sowing pebbles' and
straightway all the peas were changed into these little stones."
His ascribing belief in this explanatory transformation myth to the
"common people" marks the faint dawn of a new epoch.
Typical also of this new class is the German botanist Leonhard Rauwolf.
He travels through Palestine in 1575, and, though devout and at times
credulous, notes comparatively few of the old wonders, while he makes
thoughtful and careful mention of things in nature that he really saw;
he declines to use the eyes of the monks, and steadily uses his own to
good purpose.
As we go on in the seventeenth century, this current of new thought is
yet more evident; a habit of observing more carefully and of comparing
observations had set in; the great voyages of discovery by Columbus,
Vasco da Gama, Magellan, and others were producing their effect; and
this effect was increased by the inductive philosophy of Bacon, the
reasonings of Descartes, and the suggestions of Montaigne.
So evident was this current that, as far back as the early days of the
century, a great theologian, Quaresmio of Lodi, had made up his mind
to stop it forever. In 1616, therefore, he began his ponderous work
entitled The Historical, Theological, and Moral Explanation of the
Holy Land. He laboured upon it for nine years, gave nine years more to
perfecting it, and then put it into the hands of the great publishing
house of Plantin at Antwerp: they were four years in printing and
correcting it, and when it at last appeared it seemed certain to
establish the theological view of the Holy Land for all time. While
taking abundant care of other myths which he believed sanctified by Holy
Scripture, Quaresmio devoted himself at great length to the Dead Sea,
but above all to the salt statue; and he divides his chapter on it
into three parts, each headed by a question: First, "HOW was Lot's
wife changed into a statue of salt?" secondly, "WHERE was she thus
transformed?" and, thirdly, "DOES THAT STATUE STILL EXIST?" Through each
of these divisions he fights to the end all who are inclined to swerve
in the slightest degree from the orthodox opinion. He utterly refuses
to compromise with any modern theorists. To all such he says, "The
narration of Moses is historical and is to be received in its natural
sense, and no right-thinking man will deny this." To those who favoured
the figurative interpretation he says, "With such reasonings any passage
of Scripture can be denied."
As to the spot where the miracle occurred, he discusses four places,
but settles upon the point where the picture of the statue is given in
Adrichom's map. As to the continued existence of the statue, he plays
with the opposing view as a cat fondles a mouse; and then shows that the
most revered ancient authorities, venerable men still living, and the
Bedouins, all agree that it is still in being. Throughout the whole
chapter his thoroughness in scriptural knowledge and his profundity
in logic are only excelled by his scorn for those theologians who were
willing to yield anything to rationalism.
So powerful was this argument that it seemed to carry everything before
it, not merely throughout the Roman obedience, but among the most
eminent theologians of Protestantism.
As regards the Roman Church, we may take as a type the missionary priest
Eugene Roger, who, shortly after the appearance of Quaresmio's book,
published his own travels in Palestine. He was an observant man, and his
work counts among those of real value; but the spirit of Quaresmio had
taken possession of him fully. His work is prefaced with a map showing
the points of most importance in scriptural history, and among these he
identifies the place where Samson slew the thousand Philistines with the
jawbone of an ass, and where he hid the gates of Gaza; the cavern which
Adam and Eve inhabited after their expulsion from paradise; the spot
where Balaam's ass spoke; the tree on which Absalom was hanged; the
place where Jacob wrestled with the angel; the steep place where the
swine possessed of devils plunged into the sea; the spot where the
prophet Elijah was taken up in a chariot of fire; and, of course, the
position of the salt statue which was once Lot's wife. He not only
indicates places on land, but places in the sea; thus he shows where
Jonah was swallowed by the whale, and "where St. Peter caught one
hundred and fifty-three fishes."
As to the Dead Sea miracles generally, he does not dwell on them
at great length; he evidently felt that Quaresmio had exhausted the
subject; but he shows largely the fruits of Quaresmio's teaching in
other matters.
So, too, we find the thoughts and words of Quaresmio echoing afar
through the German universities, in public disquisitions, dissertations,
and sermons. The great Bible commentators, both Catholic and Protestant,
generally agreed in accepting them.
But, strong as this theological theory was, we find that, as time went
on, it required to be braced somewhat, and in 1692 Wedelius, Professor
of Medicine at Jena, chose as the subject of his inaugural address The
Physiology of the Destruction of Sodom and of the Statue of Salt.
It is a masterly example of "sanctified science." At great length he
dwells on the characteristics of sulphur, salt, and thunderbolts; mixes
up scriptural texts, theology, and chemistry after a most bewildering
fashion; and finally comes to the conclusion that a thunderbolt, flung
by the Almighty, calcined the body of Lot's wife, and at the same time
vitrified its particles into a glassy mass looking like salt.(437)
(437) For Zvallart, see his Tres-devot Voyage de Ierusalem, Antwerp,
1608, book iv, chapter viii. His journey was made twenty years before.
For Father Boucher, see his Bouquet de la Terre Saincte, Paris, 1622,
pp. 447, 448. For Heidmann, see his Palaestina, 1689, pp. 58-62. For
Belon's credulity in matters referred to, see his Observations de
Plusieurs Singularitez, etc., Paris, 1553, pp. 141-144; and for the
legend of the peas changed into pebbles, p. 145; see also Lartet in De
Luynes, vol. iii, p. 11. For Rauwolf, see the Reyssbuch, and Tobler,
Bibliographia. For a good acoount of the influence of Montaigne in
developing French scepticism, see Prevost-Paradol's study on Montaigne
prefixed to the Le Clerc edition of the Essays, Paris, 1865; also the
well-known passages in Lecky's Rationalism in Europe. For Quaresmio
I have consulted both the Plantin edition of 1639 and the superb new
Venice edition of 1880-'82. The latter, though less prized by book
fanciers, is the more valuable, since it contains some very interesting
recent notes. For the above discussion, see Plantin edition, vol. ii,
pp. 758 et seq., and Venice edition, vol. ii, pp. 572-574. As to the
effect of Quaresmio on the Protestant Church, see Wedelius, De Statua
Salis, Jenae, 1692, pp.6, 7, and elsewhere. For Eugene Roger, see his La
Terre Saincte, Paris, 1664; the map, showing various sites referred to,
is in the preface; and for basilisks, salamanders, etc., see pp. 89-92,
139, 218, and elsewhere.
Not only were these views demonstrated, so far as theologico-scientific
reasoning could demonstrate anything, but it was clearly shown, by a
continuous chain of testimony from the earliest ages, that the salt
statue at Usdum had been recognised as the body of Lot's wife by Jews,
Mohammedans, and the universal Christian Church, "always, everywhere,
and by all."
Under the influence of teachings like these--and of the winter
rains--new wonders began to appear at the salt pillar. In 1661 the
Franciscan monk Zwinner published his travels in Palestine, and gave not
only most of the old myths regarding the salt statue, but a new one, in
some respects more striking than any of the old--for he had heard that a
dog, also transformed into salt, was standing by the side of Lot's wife.
Even the more solid Benedictine scholars were carried away, and we find
in the Sacred History by Prof. Mezger, of the order of St. Benedict,
published in 1700, a renewal of the declaration that the salt statue
must be a "PERPETUAL memorial."
But it was soon evident that the scientific current was still working
beneath this ponderous mass of theological authority. A typical evidence
of this we find in 1666 in the travels of Doubdan, a canon of St. Denis.
As to the Dead Sea, he says that he saw no smoke, no clouds, and no
"black, sticky water"; as to the statue of Lot's wife, he says, "The
moderns do not believe so easily that she has lasted so long"; then, as
if alarmed at his own boldness, he concedes that the sea MAY be black
and sticky in the middle; and from Lot's wife he escapes under cover of
some pious generalities. Four years later another French ecclesiastic,
Jacques Goujon, referring in his published travels to the legends of
the salt pillar, says: "People may believe these stories as much as
they choose; I did not see it, nor did I go there." So, too, in
1697, Morison, a dignitary of the French Church, having travelled in
Palestine, confesses that, as to the story of the pillar of salt, he has
difficulty in believing it.
The same current is observed working still more strongly in the
travels of the Rev. Henry Maundrell, an English chaplain at Aleppo, who
travelled through Palestine during the same year. He pours contempt over
the legends of the Dead Sea in general: as to the story that birds could
not fly over it, he says that he saw them flying there; as to the utter
absence of life in the sea, he saw small shells in it; he saw no traces
of any buried cities; and as to the stories regarding the statue of
Lot's wife and the proposal to visit it, he says, "Nor could we give
faith enough to these reports to induce us to go on such an errand."
The influence of the Baconian philosophy on his mind is very clear; for,
in expressing his disbelief in the Dead Sea apples, with their contents
of ashes, he says that he saw none, and he cites Lord Bacon in support
of scepticism on this and similar points.
But the strongest effect of this growing scepticism is seen near the end
of that century, when the eminent Dutch commentator Clericus (Le Clerc)
published his commentary on the Pentateuch and his Dissertation on the
Statue of Salt.
At great length he brings all his shrewdness and learning to bear
against the whole legend of the actual transformation of Lot's wife and
the existence of the salt pillar, and ends by saying that "the whole
story is due to the vanity of some and the credulity of more."
In the beginning of the eighteenth century we find new tributaries
to this rivulet of scientific thought. In 1701 Father Felix Beaugrand
dismisses the Dead Sea legends and the salt statue very curtly and
dryly--expressing not his belief in it, but a conventional wish to
believe.
In 1709 a scholar appeared in another part of Europe and of different
faith, who did far more than any of his predecessors to envelop the Dead
Sea legends in an atmosphere of truth--Adrian Reland, professor at the
University of Utrecht. His work on Palestine is a monument of patient
scholarship, having as its nucleus a love of truth as truth: there is
no irreverence in him, but he quietly brushes away a great mass of myths
and legends: as to the statue of Lot's wife, he treats it warily, but
applies the comparative method to it with killing effect, by showing
that the story of its miraculous renewal is but one among many of its
kind.(438)
(438) For Zwinner, see his Blumenbuch des Heyligen Landes, Munchen,
1661, p. 454. For Mezger, see his Sacra Historia, Augsburg, 1700, p. 30.
For Doubdan, see his Voyage de la Terre-Sainte, Paris, 1670, pp. 338,
339; also Tobler and Gage's Ritter. For Goujon, see his Histoire et
Voyage de la Terre Saincte, Lyons, 1670, p. 230, etc. For Morison,
see his Voyage, book ii, pp. 516, 517. For Maundrell, see in Wright's
Collection, pp. 383 et seq. For Clericus, see his Dissertation de Salis
Statua, in his Pentateuch, edition of 1696, pp. 327 et seq. For Father
Beaugrand, see his Voyage, Paris, 1701, pp. 137 et seq. For Reland, see
his Palaestina, Utrecht, 1714, vol. i, pp. 61-254, passim.
Yet to superficial observers the old current of myth and marvel seemed
to flow into the eighteenth century as strong as ever, and of this
we may take two typical evidences. The first of these is the Pious
Pilgrimage of Vincent Briemle. His journey was made about 1710; and his
work, brought out under the auspices of a high papal functionary some
years later, in a heavy quarto, gave new life to the stories of the
hellish character of the Dead Sea, and especially to the miraculous
renewal of the salt statue.
In 172O came a still more striking effort to maintain the old belief
in the north of Europe, for in that year the eminent theologian Masius
published his great treatise on The Conversion of Lot's Wife into a
Statue of Salt.
Evidently intending that this work should be the last word on this
subject in Germany, as Quaresmio had imagined that his work would be
the last in Italy, he develops his subject after the high scholastic and
theologic manner. Calling attention first to the divine command in the
New Testament, "Remember Lot's wife," he argues through a long series
of chapters. In the ninth of these he discusses "the impelling cause" of
her looking back, and introduces us to the question, formerly so often
treated by theologians, whether the soul of Lot's wife was finally
saved. Here we are glad to learn that the big, warm heart of Luther
lifted him above the common herd of theologians, and led him to declare
that she was "a faithful and saintly woman," and that she certainly was
not eternally damned. In justice to the Roman Church also it should be
said that several of her most eminent commentators took a similar view,
and insisted that the sin of Lot's wife was venial, and therefore, at
the worst, could only subject her to the fires of purgatory.
The eleventh chapter discusses at length the question HOW she was
converted into salt, and, mentioning many theological opinions, dwells
especially upon the view of Rivetus, that a thunderbolt, made up
apparently of fire, sulphur, and salt, wrought her transformation at the
same time that it blasted the land; and he bases this opinion upon the
twenty-ninth chapter of Deuteronomy and the one hundred and seventh
Psalm.
Later, Masius presents a sacred scientific theory that "saline particles
entered into her until her whole body was infected"; and with this
he connects another piece of sanctified science, to the effect that
"stagnant bile" may have rendered the surface of her body "entirely
shining, bitter, dry, and deformed."
Finally, he comes to the great question whether the salt pillar is still
in existence. On this he is full and fair. On one hand he allows that
Luther thought that it was involved in the general destruction of Sodom
and Gomorrah, and he cites various travellers who had failed to find it;
but, on the other hand, he gives a long chain of evidence to show
that it continued to exist: very wisely he reminds the reader that the
positive testimony of those who have seen it must outweigh the negative
testimony of those who have not, and he finally decides that the salt
statue is still in being.
No doubt a work like this produced a considerable effect in Protestant
countries; indeed, this effect seems evident as far off as England, for,
in 172O, we find in Dean Prideaux's Old and New Testament connected
a map on which the statue of salt is carefully indicated. So, too, in
Holland, in the Sacred Geography published at Utrecht in 1758 by
the theologian Bachiene, we find him, while showing many signs of
rationalism, evidently inclined to the old views as to the existence
of the salt pillar; but just here comes a curious evidence of the real
direction of the current of thought through the century, for, nine years
later, in the German translation of Bachiene's work we find copious
notes by the translator in a far more rationalistic spirit; indeed,
we see the dawn of the inevitable day of compromise, for we now have,
instead of the old argument that the divine power by one miraculous
act changed Lot's wife into a salt pillar, the suggestion that she was
caught in a shower of sulphur and saltpetre, covered by it, and that the
result was a lump, which in a general way IS CALLED in our sacred books
"a pillar of salt."(439)
(439) For Briemle, see his Andachtige Pilgerfahrt, p. 129. For Masius,
see his De Uxore Lothi in Statuam Salis Conversa, Hafniae, 1720,
especially pages 29-31. For Dean Prideaux, see his Old and New Testament
connected in the History of the Jews, 1720, map at page 7. For Bachiene,
see his Historische und geographische Beschreibung von Palaestina,
Leipzig, 1766, vol. i, pp. 118-120, and notes.
But, from the middle of the eighteenth century, the new current sets
through Christendom with ever-increasing strength. Very interesting is
it to compare the great scriptural commentaries of the middle of this
century with those published a century earlier.
Of the earlier ones we may take Matthew Poole's Synopsis as a type:
as authorized by royal decree in 1667 it contains very substantial
arguments for the pious belief in the statue. Of the later ones we may
take the edition of the noted commentary of the Jesuit Tirinus seventy
years later: while he feels bound to present the authorities, he
evidently endeavours to get rid of the subject as speedily as possible
under cover of conventionalities; of the spirit of Quaresmio he shows no
trace.(440)
(440) For Poole (Polus) see his Synopsis, 1669, p. 179; and for Titinus,
the Lyons edition of his Commentary, 1736, p. 10.
About 1760 came a striking evidence of the strength of this new current.
The Abate Mariti then published his book upon the Holy Land; and of
this book, by an Italian ecclesiastic, the most eminent of German
bibliographers in this field says that it first broke a path for
critical study of the Holy Land. Mariti is entirely sceptical as to the
sinking of the valley of Siddim and the overwhelming of the cities. He
speaks kindly of a Capuchin Father who saw everywhere at the Dead Sea
traces of the divine malediction, while he himself could not see them,
and says, "It is because a Capuchin carries everywhere the five senses
of faith, while I only carry those of nature." He speaks of "the lies of
Josephus," and makes merry over "the rude and shapeless block" which the
guide assured him was the statue of Lot's wife, explaining the want
of human form in the salt pillar by telling him that this complete
metamorphosis was part of her punishment.
About twenty years later, another remarkable man, Volney, broaches the
subject in what was then known as the "philosophic" spirit. Between the
years 1783 and 1785 he made an extensive journey through the Holy Land
and published a volume of travels which by acuteness of thought and
vigour of style secured general attention. In these, myth and legend
were thrown aside, and we have an account simply dictated by the love of
truth as truth. He, too, keeps the torch of science burning by applying
his geological knowledge to the regions which he traverses.
As we look back over the eighteenth century we see mingled with the new
current of thought, and strengthening it, a constantly increasing stream
of more strictly scientific observation and reflection.
To review it briefly: in the very first years of the century Maraldi
showed the Paris Academy of Sciences fossil fishes found in the Lebanon
region; a little later, Cornelius Bruyn, in the French edition of his
Eastern travels, gave well-drawn representations of fossil fishes and
shells, some of them from the region of the Dead Sea; about the middle
of the century Richard Pococke, Bishop of Meath, and Korte of Altona
made more statements of the same sort; and toward the close of the
century, as we have seen, Volney gave still more of these researches,
with philosophical deductions from them.
The result of all this was that there gradually dawned upon thinking
men the conviction that, for ages before the appearance of man on the
planet, and during all the period since his appearance, natural laws
have been steadily in force in Palestine as elsewhere; this conviction
obliged men to consider other than supernatural causes for the phenomena
of the Dead Sea, and myth and marvel steadily shrank in value.
But at the very threshold of the nineteenth century Chateaubriand came
into the field, and he seemed to banish the scientific spirit, though
what he really did was to conceal it temporarily behind the vapours
of his rhetoric. The time was propitious for him. It was the period of
reaction after the French Revolution, when what was called religion was
again in fashion, and when even atheists supported it as a good thing
for common people: of such an epoch Chateaubriand, with his superficial
information, thin sentiment, and showy verbiage, was the foreordained
prophet. His enemies were wont to deny that he ever saw the Holy Land;
whether he did or not, he added nothing to real knowledge, but simply
threw a momentary glamour over the regions he described, and especially
over the Dead Sea. The legend of Lot's wife he carefully avoided, for he
knew too well the danger of ridicule in France.
As long as the Napoleonic and Bourbon reigns lasted, and indeed for some
time afterward, this kind of dealing with the Holy Land was fashionable,
and we have a long series of men, especially of Frenchmen, who evidently
received their impulse from Chateaubriand.
About 1831 De Geramb, Abbot of La Trappe, evidently a very noble and
devout spirit, sees vapour above the Dead Sea, but stretches the truth a
little--speaking of it as "vapour or smoke." He could not find the salt
statue, and complains of the "diversity of stories regarding it." The
simple physical cause of this diversity--the washing out of different
statues in different years--never occurs to him; but he comforts himself
with the scriptural warrant for the metamorphosis.(441)
(441) For Mariti, see his Voyage, etc., vol. ii, pp. 352-356. For
Tobler's high opinion of him, see the Bibliographia, pp. 132, 133. For
Volney, see his Voyage en Syrie et Egypte, Paris, 1807, vol. i, pp.
308 et seq.; also, for a statement of contributions of the eighteenth
century to geology, Lartet in De Luynes's Mer Morte, vol. iii, p. 12.
For Cornelius Bruyn, see French edition of his works, 1714 (in which his
name is given as "Le Brun"), especially for representations of fossils,
pp. 309, 375. For Chateaubriand, see his Voyage, etc., vol. ii, part
iii. For De Geramb, see his Voyage, vol. ii, pp. 45-47.
But to the honour of scientific men and scientific truth it should
be said that even under Napoleon and the Bourbons there were men who
continued to explore, observe, and describe with the simple love of
truth as truth, and in spite of the probability that their researches
would be received during their lifetime with contempt and even
hostility, both in church and state.
The pioneer in this work of the nineteenth century was the German
naturalist Ulrich Seetzen. He began his main investigation in 1806, and
soon his learning, courage, and honesty threw a flood of new light into
the Dead Sea questions.
In this light, myth and legend faded more rapidly than ever. Typical
of his method is his examination of the Dead Sea fruit. He found, on
reaching Palestine, that Josephus's story regarding it, which had been
accepted for nearly two thousand years, was believed on all sides; more
than this, he found that the original myth had so grown that a multitude
of respectable people at Bethlehem and elsewhere assured him that not
only apples, but pears, pomegranates, figs, lemons, and many other
fruits which grow upon the shores of the Dead Sea, though beautiful to
look upon, were filled with ashes. These good people declared to Seetzen
that they had seen these fruits, and that, not long before, a basketful
of them which had been sent to a merchant of Jaffa had turned to ashes.
Seetzen was evidently perplexed by this mass of testimony and naturally
anxious to examine these fruits. On arriving at the sea he began to look
for them, and the guide soon showed him the "apples." These he found to
be simply an asclepia, which had been described by Linnaeus, and which
is found in the East Indies, Arabia, Egypt, Jamaica, and elsewhere--the
"ashes" being simply seeds. He looked next for the other fruits, and
the guide soon found for him the "lemons": these he discovered to be a
species of solanum found in other parts of Palestine and elsewhere, and
the seeds in these were the famous "cinders." He looked next for the
pears, figs, and other accursed fruits; but, instead of finding them
filled with ashes and cinders, he found them like the same fruits in
other lands, and he tells us that he ate the figs with much pleasure.
So perished a myth which had been kept alive two thousand years,--partly
by modes of thought natural to theologians, partly by the self-interest
of guides, and partly by the love of marvel-mongering among travellers.
The other myths fared no better. As to the appearance of the sea, he
found its waters not "black and sticky," but blue and transparent; he
found no smoke rising from the abyss, but tells us that sunlight and
cloud and shore were pleasantly reflected from the surface. As to Lot's
wife, he found no salt pillar which had been a careless woman, but the
Arabs showed him many boulders which had once been wicked men.
His work was worthily continued by a long succession of true
investigators,--among them such travellers or geographers as Burckhardt,
Irby, Mangles, Fallmerayer, and Carl von Raumer: by men like these the
atmosphere of myth and legend was steadily cleared away; as a rule, they
simply forgot Lot's wife altogether.
In this noble succession should be mentioned an American theologian, Dr.
Edward Robinson, professor at New York. Beginning about 1826, he devoted
himself for thirty years to the thorough study of the geography of
Palestine, and he found a worthy coadjutor in another American divine,
Dr. Eli Smith. Neither of these men departed openly from the old
traditions: that would have cost a heart-breaking price--the loss of all
further opportunity to carry on their researches. Robinson did not even
think it best to call attention to the mythical character of much on
which his predecessors had insisted; he simply brought in, more and
more, the dry, clear atmosphere of the love of truth for truth's sake,
and, in this, myths and legends steadily disappeared. By doing this
he rendered a far greater service to real Christianity than any other
theologian had ever done in this field.
Very characteristic is his dealing with the myth of Lot's wife. Though
more than once at Usdum,--though giving valuable information regarding
the sea, shore, and mountains there, he carefully avoids all mention of
the salt pillar and of the legend which arose from it. In this he set
an example followed by most of the more thoughtful religious travellers
since his time. Very significant is it to see the New Testament
injunction, "Remember Lot's wife," so utterly forgotten. These later
investigators seem never to have heard of it; and this constant
forgetfulness shows the change which had taken place in the enlightened
thinking of the world.
But in the year 1848 came an episode very striking in its character and
effect.
At that time, the war between the United States and Mexico having
closed, Lieutenant Lynch, of the United States Navy, found himself in
the port of Vera Cruz, commanding an old hulk, the Supply. Looking about
for something to do, it occurred to him to write to the Secretary of
the Navy asking permission to explore the Dead Sea. Under ordinary
circumstances the proposal would doubtless have been strangled with
red tape; but, fortunately, the Secretary at that time was Mr. John Y.
Mason, of Virginia. Mr. Mason was famous for his good nature. Both
at Washington and at Paris, where he was afterward minister, this
predominant trait has left a multitude of amusing traditions; it was of
him that Senator Benton said, "To be supremely happy he must have his
paunch full of oysters and his hands full of cards."
The Secretary granted permission, but evidently gave the matter not
another thought. As a result, came an expedition the most comical and
one of the most rich in results to be found in American annals. Never
was anything so happy-go-lucky. Lieutenant Lynch started with his hulk,
with hardly an instrument save those ordinarily found on shipboard, and
with a body of men probably the most unfit for anything like scientific
investigation ever sent on such an errand; fortunately, he picked up
a young instructor in mathematics, Mr. Anderson, and added to his
apparatus two strong iron boats.
Arriving, after a tedious voyage, on the coast of Asia Minor, he set to
work. He had no adequate preparation in general history, archaeology,
or the physical sciences; but he had his American patriotism, energy,
pluck, pride, and devotion to duty, and these qualities stood him in
good stead. With great labour he got the iron boats across the country.
Then the tug of war began. First of all investigators, he forced his way
through the whole length of the river Jordan and from end to end of the
Dead Sea. There were constant difficulties--geographical, climatic, and
personal; but Lynch cut through them all. He was brave or shrewd, as
there was need. Anderson proved an admirable helper, and together
they made surveys of distances, altitudes, depths, and sundry simple
investigations in a geological, mineralogical, and chemical way. Much
was poorly done, much was left undone, but the general result was most
honourable both to Lynch and Anderson; and Secretary Mason found that
his easy-going patronage of the enterprise was the best act of his
official life.
The results of this expedition on public opinion were most curious.
Lynch was no scholar in any sense; he had travelled little, and thought
less on the real questions underlying the whole investigation; as to
the difference in depth of the two parts of the lake, he jumped--with
a sailor's disregard of logic--to the conclusion that it somehow proved
the mythical account of the overwhelming of the cities, and he indulged
in reflections of a sort probably suggested by his recollections of
American Sunday-schools.
Especially noteworthy is his treatment of the legend of Lot's wife. He
found the pillar of salt. It happened to be at that period a circular
column of friable salt rock, about forty feet high; yet, while he
accepts every other old myth, he treats the belief that this was once
the wife of Lot as "a superstition." One little circumstance added
enormously to the influence of this book, for, as a frontispiece, he
inserted a picture of the salt column. It was delineated in rather a
poetic manner: light streamed upon it, heavy clouds hung above it,
and, as a background, were ranged buttresses of salt rock furrowed and
channelled out by the winter rains: this salt statue picture was spread
far and wide, and in thousands of country pulpits and Sunday-schools it
was shown as a tribute of science to Scripture.
Nor was this influence confined to American Sunday-school children:
Lynch had innocently set a trap into which several European theologians
stumbled. One of these was Dr. Lorenz Gratz, Vicar-General of Augsburg,
a theological professor. In the second edition of his Theatre of the
Holy Scriptures, published in 1858, he hails Lynch's discovery of the
salt pillar with joy, forgets his allusion to the old theory regarding
it as a superstition, and does not stop to learn that this was one of a
succession of statues washed out yearly by the rains, but accepts it as
the originaL Lot's wife.
The French churchmen suffered most. About two years after Lynch, De
Saulcy visited the Dead Sea to explore it thoroughly, evidently in the
interest of sacred science--and of his own promotion. Of the modest
thoroughness of Robinson there is no trace in his writings. He promptly
discovered the overwhelmed cities, which no one before or since has ever
found, poured contempt on other investigators, and threw over his whole
work an air of piety. But, unfortunately, having a Frenchman's dread of
ridicule, he attempted to give a rationalistic explanation of what he
calls "the enormous needles of salt washed out by the winter rain," and
their connection with the Lot's wife myth, and declared his firm belief
that she, "being delayed by curiosity or terror, was crushed by a rock
which rolled down from the mountain, and when Lot and his children
turned about they saw at the place where she had been only the rock of
salt which covered her body."
But this would not do at all, and an eminent ecclesiastic privately and
publicly expostulated with De Saulcy--very naturally declaring that "it
was not Lot who wrote the book of Genesis."
The result was that another edition of De Saulcy's work was published by
a Church Book Society, with the offending passage omitted; but a passage
was retained really far more suggestive of heterodoxy, and this was an
Arab legend accounting for the origin of certain rocks near the Dead Sea
curiously resembling salt formations. This in effect ran as follows:
"Abraham, the friend of God, having come here one day with his mule to
buy salt, the salt-workers impudently told him that they had no salt to
sell, whereupon the patriarch said: 'Your words are, true, you have
no salt to sell,' and instantly the salt of this whole region was
transformed into stone, or rather into a salt which has lost its
savour."
Nothing could be more sure than this story to throw light into the
mental and moral process by which the salt pillar myth was originally
created.
In the years 1864 and 1865 came an expedition on a much more imposing
scale: that of the Duc de Luynes. His knowledge of archaeology and his
wealth were freely devoted to working the mine which Lynch had opened,
and, taking with him an iron vessel and several savants, he devoted
himself especially to finding the cities of the Dead Sea, and to
giving less vague accounts of them than those of De Saulcy. But he
was disappointed, and honest enough to confess his disappointment. So
vanished one of the most cherished parts of the legend.
But worse remained behind. In the orthodox duke's company was an acute
geologist, Monsieur Lartet, who in due time made an elaborate report,
which let a flood of light into the whole region.
The Abbe Richard had been rejoicing the orthodox heart of France by
exhibiting some prehistoric flint implements as the knives which Joshua
had made for circumcision. By a truthful statement Monsieur Lartet set
all France laughing at the Abbe, and then turned to the geology of the
Dead Sea basin. While he conceded that man may have seen some volcanic
crisis there, and may have preserved a vivid remembrance of the vapour
then rising, his whole argument showed irresistibly that all the
phenomena of the region are due to natural causes, and that, so far from
a sudden rising of the lake above the valley within historic times, it
has been for ages steadily subsiding.
Since Balaam was called by Balak to curse his enemies, and "blessed them
altogether," there has never been a more unexpected tribute to truth.
Even the salt pillar at Usdum, as depicted in Lynch's book, aided to
undermine the myth among thinking men; for the background of the picture
showed other pillars of salt in process of formation; and the ultimate
result of all these expeditions was to spread an atmosphere in which
myth and legend became more and more attenuated.
To sum up the main points in this work of the nineteenth century:
Seetzen, Robinson, and others had found that a human being could
traverse the lake without being killed by hellish smoke; that the waters
gave forth no odours; that the fruits of the region were not created
full of cinders to match the desolation of the Dead Sea, but were
growths not uncommon in Asia Minor and elsewhere; in fact, that all the
phenomena were due to natural causes.
Ritter and others had shown that all noted features of the Dead Sea
and the surrounding country were to be found in various other lakes and
regions, to which no supernatural cause was ascribed among enlightened
men. Lynch, Van de Velde, Osborne, and others had revealed the fact that
the "pillar of salt" was frequently formed anew by the rains; and Lartet
and other geologists had given a final blow to the myths by making it
clear from the markings on the neighbouring rocks that, instead of a
sudden upheaval of the sea above the valley of Siddim, there had been a
gradual subsidence for ages.(442)
(442) For Seetzen, see his Reisen, edited by Kruse, Berlin, 1854-'59;
for the "Dead Sea Fruits," vol. ii, pp. 231 et seq.; for the appearance
of the sea, etc., p. 243, and elsewhere; for the Arab explanatory
transformation legends, vol. iii, pp. 7, 14, 17. As to similarity of the
"pillars of salt" to columns washed out by rains elsewhere, see Kruse's
commentary in vol. iv, p. 240; also Fallmerayer, vol. i, p. 197. For
Irby and Mangles, see work already cited. For Robinson, see his Biblical
Researches, London,1841; also his Later Biblical Researches, London,
1856. For Lynch, see his Narrative, London, 1849. For Gratz, see his
Schauplatz der Heyl. Schrift, pp. 186, 187. For De Saulcy, see his
Voyage autour de la Mer Morte, Paris, 1853, especially vol. i, p. 252,
and his journal of the early months of 1851, in vol. ii, comparing it
with his work of the same title published in 1858 in the Bibliotheque
Catholique de Voyages et du Romans, vol. i, pp. 78-81. For Lartet, see
his papers read before the Geographical Society at Paris; also citations
in Robinson; but, above all, his elaborate reports which form the
greater part of the second and third volumes of the monumental work
which bears the name of De Luynes, already cited. For exposures of De
Saulcey's credulity and errors, see Van de Velde, Syria and Palestine,
passim; also Canon Tristram's Land of Israel; also De Luynes, passim.
Even before all this evidence was in, a judicial decision had been
pronounced upon the whole question by an authority both Christian
and scientific, from whom there could be no appeal. During the second
quarter of the century Prof. Carl Ritter, of the University of Berlin,
began giving to the world those researches which have placed him at
the head of all geographers ancient or modern, and finally he brought
together those relating to the geography of the Holy Land, publishing
them as part of his great work on the physical geography of the
earth. He was a Christian, and nothing could be more reverent than his
treatment of the whole subject; but his German honesty did not permit
him to conceal the truth, and he simply classed together all the stories
of the Dead Sea--old and new--no matter where found, whether in the
sacred books of Jews, Christians, or Mohammedans, whether in lives of
saints or accounts of travellers, as "myths" and "sagas."
From this decision there has never been among intelligent men any
appeal.
The recent adjustment of orthodox thought to the scientific view of the
Dead Sea legends presents some curious features. As typical we may
take the travels of two German theologians between 1860 and 1870--John
Kranzel, pastor in Munich, and Peter Schegg, lately professor in the
university of that city.
The archdiocese of Munich-Freising is one of those in which the attempt
to suppress modern scientific thought has been most steadily carried on.
Its archbishops have constantly shown themselves assiduous in securing
cardinals' hats by thwarting science and by stupefying education.
The twin towers of the old cathedral of Munich have seemed to throw a
killing shadow over intellectual development in that region. Naturally,
then, these two clerical travellers from that diocese did not commit
themselves to clearing away any of the Dead Sea myths; but it is
significant that neither of them follows the example of so many of their
clerical predecessors in defending the salt-pillar legend: they steadily
avoid it altogether.
The more recent history of the salt pillar, since Lynch, deserves
mention. It appears that the travellers immediately after him found
it shaped by the storms into a spire; that a year or two later it had
utterly disappeared; and about the year 1870 Prof. Palmer, on visiting
the place, found at some distance from the main salt bed, as he says,
"a tall, isolated needle of rock, which does really bear a curious
resemblance to an Arab woman with a child upon her shoulders."
And, finally, Smith's Dictionary of the Bible, the standard work of
reference for English-speaking scholars, makes its concession to the old
belief regarding Sodom and Gomorrah as slight as possible, and the myth
of Lot's wife entirely disappears.
IV. THEOLOGICAL EFFORTS AT COMPROMISE.--TRIUMPH OF THE SCIENTIFIC VIEW.
The theological effort to compromise with science now came in more
strongly than ever. This effort had been made long before: as we have
seen, it had begun to show itself decidedly as soon as the influence
of the Baconian philosophy was felt. Le Clerc suggested that the shock
caused by the sight of fire from heaven killed Lot's wife instantly and
made her body rigid as a statue. Eichhorn suggested that she fell into a
stream of melted bitumen. Michaelis suggested that her relatives raised
a monument of salt rock to her memory. Friedrichs suggested that she
fell into the sea and that the salt stiffened around her clothing, thus
making a statue of her. Some claimed that a shower of sulphur came
down upon her, and that the word which has been translated "salt" could
possibly be translated "sulphur." Others hinted that the salt by its
antiseptic qualities preserved her body as a mummy. De Saulcy, as we
have seen, thought that a piece of salt rock fell upon her, and very
recently Principal Dawson has ventured the explanation that a flood of
salt mud coming from a volcano incrusted her.
But theologians themselves were the first to show the inadequacy of
these explanations. The more rationalistic pointed out the fact that
they were contrary to the sacred text: Von Bohlen, an eminent professor
at Konigsberg, in his sturdy German honesty, declared that the salt
pillar gave rise to the story, and compared the pillar of salt causing
this transformation legend to the rock in Greek mythology which gave
rise to the transformation legend of Niobe.
On the other hand, the more severely orthodox protested against such
attempts to explain away the clear statements of Holy Writ. Dom Calmet,
while presenting many of these explanations made as early as his time,
gives us to understand that nearly all theologians adhered to the idea
that Lot's wife was instantly and really changed into salt; and in
our own time, as we shall presently see, have come some very vigorous
protests.
Similar attempts were made to explain the other ancient legends
regarding the Dead Sea. One of the most recent of these is that the
cities of the plain, having been built with blocks of bituminous rock,
were set on fire by lightning, a contemporary earthquake helping on the
work. Still another is that accumulations of petroleum and inflammable
gas escaped through a fissure, took fire, and so produced the
catastrophe.(443)
(443) For Kranzel, see his Reise nach Jerusalem, etc. For Schegg, see
his Gedenkbuch einer Pilgerreise, etc., 1867, chap. xxiv. For Palmer,
see his Desert of the Exodus, vol. ii, pp. 478, 479. For the various
compromises, see works already cited, passim. For Von Bohlen, see
his Genesis, Konigsberg, 1835, pp. 200-213. For Calmet, see his
Dictionarium, etc, Venet., 1766. For very recent compromises, see J. W.
Dawson and Dr. Cunningham Geikie in works cited.
The revolt against such efforts to RECONCILE scientific fact with myth
and legend had become very evident about the middle of the nineteenth
century. In 1851 and 1852 Van de Velde made his journey. He was a most
devout man, but he confessed that the volcanic action at the Dead Sea
must have been far earlier than the catastrophe mentioned in our sacred
books, and that "the overthrow of Sodom and Gomorrah had nothing to
do with this." A few years later an eminent dignitary of the English
Church, Canon Tristram, doctor of divinity and fellow of the Royal
Society, who had explored the Holy Land thoroughly, after some
generalities about miracles, gave up the whole attempt to make science
agree with the myths, and used these words: "It has been frequently
assumed that the district of Usdum and its sister cities was the result
of some tremendous geological catastrophe.... Now, careful examination by
competent geologists, such as Monsieur Lartet and others, has shown that
the whole district has assumed its present shape slowly and gradually
through a succession of ages, and that its peculiar phenomena are
similar to those of other lakes." So sank from view the whole mass
of Dead Sea myths and legends, and science gained a victory both for
geology and comparative mythology.
As a protest against this sort of rationalism appeared in 1876 an
edition of Monseigneur Mislin's work on The Holy Places. In order to
give weight to the book, it was prefaced by letters from Pope Pius IX
and sundry high ecclesiastics--and from Alexandre Dumas! His hatred
of Protestant missionaries in the East is phenomenal: he calls them
"bagmen," ascribes all mischief and infamy to them, and his hatred is
only exceeded by his credulity. He cites all the arguments in favour of
the salt statue at Usdum as the identical one into which Lot's wife was
changed, adds some of his own, and presents her as "a type of doubt and
heresy." With the proverbial facility of dogmatists in translating any
word of a dead language into anything that suits their purpose, he says
that the word in the nineteenth chapter of Genesis which is translated
"statue" or "pillar," may be translated "eternal monument"; he is
especially severe on poor Monsieur De Saulcy for thinking that Lot's
wife was killed by the falling of a piece of salt rock; and he actually
boasts that it was he who caused De Saulcy, a member of the French
Institute, to suppress the obnoxious passage in a later edition.
Between 1870 and 1880 came two killing blows at the older theories, and
they were dealt by two American scholars of the highest character.
First of these may be mentioned Dr. Philip Schaff, a professor in the
Presbyterian Theological Seminary at New York, who published his travels
in 1877. In a high degree he united the scientific with the religious
spirit, but the trait which made him especially fit for dealing with
this subject was his straightforward German honesty. He tells the simple
truth regarding the pillar of salt, so far as its physical origin and
characteristics are concerned, and leaves his reader to draw the natural
inference as to its relation to the myth. With the fate of Dr. Robertson
Smith in Scotland and Dr. Woodrow in South Carolina before him--both
recently driven from their professorships for truth-telling--Dr. Schaff
deserves honour for telling as much as he does.
Similar in effect, and even more bold in statement, were the travels of
the Rev. Henry Osborn, published in 1878. In a truly scientific spirit
he calls attention to the similarity of the Dead Sea, with the river
Jordan, to sundry other lake and river systems; points out the endless
variations between writers describing the salt formations at Usdum;
accounts rationally for these variations, and quotes from Dr. Anderson's
report, saying, "From the soluble nature of the salt and the crumbling
looseness of the marl, it may well be imagined that, while some of these
needles are in the process of formation, others are being washed away."
Thus came out, little by little, the truth regarding the Dead Sea myths,
and especially the salt pillar at Usdum; but the final truth remained to
be told in the Church, and now one of the purest men and truest divines
of this century told it. Arthur Stanley, Dean of Westminster, visiting
the country and thoroughly exploring it, allowed that the physical
features of the Dead Sea and its shores suggested the myths and legends,
and he sums up the whole as follows: "A great mass of legends and
exaggerations, partly the cause and partly the result of the old belief
that the cities were buried under the Dead Sea, has been gradually
removed in recent years."
So, too, about the same time, Dr. Conrad Furrer, pastor of the great
church of St. Peter at Zurich, gave to the world a book of travels,
reverent and thoughtful, and in this honestly acknowledged that the
needles of salt at the southern end of the Dead Sea "in primitive times
gave rise to the tradition that Lot's wife was transformed into a statue
of salt." Thus was the mythical character of this story at last openly
confessed by Leading churchmen on both continents.
Plain statements like these from such sources left the high theological
position more difficult than ever, and now a new compromise was
attempted. As the Siberian mother tried to save her best-beloved child
from the pursuing wolves by throwing over to them her less favoured
children, so an effort was now made in a leading commentary to save the
legends of the valley of Siddim and the miraculous destruction of the
cities by throwing overboard the legend of Lot's wife.(444)
(444) For Mislin, see his Les Saints Lieux, Paris, vol. iii, pp.
290-293, especially note at foot of page 292. For Schaff, see his
Through Bible Lands, especially chapter xxix; see also Rev. H. S.
Osborn, M. A., The Holy Land, pp. 267 et seq.; also Stanley's Sinai and
Palestine, London, 1887, especially pp. 290-293. For Furrer, see his
En Palestine, Geneva, 1886, vol. i, p.246. For the attempt to save
one legend by throwing overboard the other, see Keil and Delitzsch,
Biblischer Commentar uber das Alte Testament, vol. i, pp. 155, 156. For
Van de Velde, see his Syria and Palestine, vol. ii, p. 120.
An amusing result has followed this development of opinion. As we have
already seen, traveller after traveller, Catholic and Protestant, now
visits the Dead Sea, and hardly one of them follows the New Testament
injunction to "remember Lot's wife." Nearly every one of them seems to
think it best to forget her. Of the great mass of pious legends they are
shy enough, but that of Lot's wife, as a rule, they seem never to
have heard of, and if they do allude to it they simply cover the whole
subject with a haze of pious rhetoric.(445)
(445) The only notice of the Lot's wife legend in the editions of
Robinson at my command is a very curious one by Leopold von Buch, the
eminent geologist. Robinson, with a fearlessness which does him credit,
consulted Von Buch, who in his answer was evidently inclined to make
things easier for Robinson by hinting that Lot was so much struck by
the salt formations that HE IMAGINED that his wife had been changed into
salt. On this theory, Robinson makes no comment. See Robinson, Biblical
Researches in Palestine, etc., London, 1841, vol. ii, p. 674.
Naturally, under this state of things, there has followed the usual
attempt to throw off from Christendom the responsibility of the old
belief, and in 1887 came a curious effort of this sort. In that year
appeared the Rev. Dr. Cunningham Geikie's valuable work on The Holy Land
and the Bible. In it he makes the following statement as to the
salt formation at Usdum: "Here and there, hardened portions of salt
withstanding the water, while all around them melts and wears off, rise
up isolated pillars, one of which bears among the Arabs the name of
'Lot's wife.'"
In the light of the previous history, there is something at once
pathetic and comical in this attempt to throw the myth upon the
shoulders of the poor Arabs. The myth was not originated by Mohammedans;
it appears, as we have seen, first among the Jews, and, I need hardly
remind the reader, comes out in the Book of Wisdom and in Josephus, and
has been steadily maintained by fathers, martyrs, and doctors of the
Church, by at least one pope, and by innumerable bishops, priests,
monks, commentators, and travellers, Catholic and Protestant, ever
since. In thus throwing the responsibility of the myth upon the Arabs
Dr. Geikie appears to show both the "perfervid genius" of his countrymen
and their incapacity to recognise a joke.
Nor is he more happy in his rationalistic explanations of the whole mass
of myths. He supposes a terrific storm, in which the lightning kindled
the combustible materials of the cities, aided perhaps by an earthquake;
but this shows a disposition to break away from the exact statements of
the sacred books which would have been most severely condemned by the
universal Church during at least eighteen hundred years of its history.
Nor would the explanations of Sir William Dawson have fared any better:
it is very doubtful whether either of them could escape unscathed today
from a synod of the Free Church of Scotland, or of any of the leading
orthodox bodies in the Southern States of the American Union.(446)
(446) For these most recent explanations, see Rev. Cunningham Geikie, D.
D., in work cited; also Sir J. W. Dawson, Egypt and Syria, published
by the Religious Tract Society, 1887, pp. 125, 126; see also Dawson's
article in The Expositor for January, 1886.
How unsatisfactory all such rationalism must be to a truly theological
mind is seen not only in the dealings with Prof. Robertson Smith in
Scotland and Prof. Woodrow in South Carolina, but most clearly in a book
published in 1886 by Monseigneur Haussmann de Wandelburg. Among other
things, the author was Prelate of the Pope's House-hold, a Mitred Abbot,
Canon of the Holy Sepulchre, and a Doctor of Theology of the Pontifical
University at Rome, and his work is introduced by approving letters from
Pope Leo XIII and the Patriarch of Jerusalem. Monseigneur de Wandelburg
scorns the idea that the salt column at Usdum is not the statue of Lot's
wife; he points out not only the danger of yielding this evidence
of miracle to rationalism, but the fact that the divinely inspired
authority of the Book of Wisdom, written, at the latest, two hundred and
fifty years before Christ, distinctly refers to it. He summons Josephus
as a witness. He dwells on the fact that St. Clement of Rome, Irenaeus,
Hegesippus, and St. Cyril, "who as Bishop of Jerusalem must have known
better than any other person what existed in Palestine," with St.
Jerome, St. Chrysostom, and a multitude of others, attest, as a matter
of their own knowledge or of popular notoriety, that the remains of
Lot's wife really existed in their time in the form of a column of salt;
and he points triumphantly to the fact that Lieutenant Lynch found this
very column. In the presence of such a continuous line of witnesses,
some of them considered as divinely inspired, and all of them greatly
revered--a line extending through thirty-seven hundred years--he
condemns most vigorously all those who do not believe that the pillar
of salt now at Usdum is identical with the wife of Lot, and stigmatizes
them as people who "do not wish to believe the truth of the Word of
God."
His ignorance of many of the simplest facts bearing upon the legend is
very striking, yet he does not hesitate to speak of men who know far
more and have thought far more upon the subject as "grossly ignorant."
The most curious feature in his ignorance is the fact that he is
utterly unaware of the annual changes in the salt statue. He is entirely
ignorant of such facts as that the priest Gabriel Giraudet in the
sixteenth century found the statue lying down; that the monk Zwinner
found it in the seventeenth century standing, and accompanied by a dog
also transformed into salt; that Prince Radziwill found no statue at
all; that the pious Vincent Briemle in the eighteenth century found
the monument renewing itself; that about the middle of the nineteenth
century Lynch found it in the shape of a tower or column forty feet
high; that within two years afterward De Saulcy found it washed into the
form of a spire; that a year later Van de Velde found it utterly washed
away; and that a few years later Palmer found it "a statue bearing a
striking resemblance to an Arab woman with a child in her arms." So
ended the last great demonstration, thus far, on the side of sacred
science--the last retreating shot from the theological rear guard.
It is but just to say that a very great share in the honour of the
victory of science in this field is due to men trained as theologians.
It would naturally be so, since few others have devoted themselves to
direct labour in it; yet great honour is none the less due to such men
as Reland, Mariti, Smith, Robinson, Stanley, Tristram, and Schat.
They have rendered even a greater service to religion than to science,
for they have made a beginning, at least, of doing away with that
enforced belief in myths as history which has become a most serious
danger to Christianity.
For the worst enemy of Christianity could wish nothing more than that
its main Leaders should prove that it can not be adopted save by those
who accept, as historical, statements which unbiased men throughout the
world know to be mythical. The result of such a demonstration would only
be more and more to make thinking people inside the Church dissemblers,
and thinking people outside, scoffers. Far better is it to welcome the
aid of science, in the conviction that all truth is one, and, in the
light of this truth, to allow theology and science to work together in
the steady evolution of religion and morality.
The revelations made by the sciences which most directly deal with the
history of man all converge in the truth that during the earlier stages
of this evolution moral and spiritual teachings must be inclosed in
myth, legend, and parable. "The Master" felt this when he gave to the
poor peasants about him, and so to the world, his simple and beautiful
illustrations. In making this truth clear, science will give to religion
far more than it will take away, for it will throw new life and light
into all sacred literature.
CHAPTER XIX. FROM LEVITICUS TO POLITICAL ECONOMY
I. ORIGIN AND PROGRESS OF HOSTILITY TO LOANS AT INTEREST.
Among questions on which the supporters of right reason in political
and social science have only conquered theological opposition after
centuries of war, is the taking of interest on loans. In hardly any
struggle has rigid adherence to the letter of our sacred books been more
prolonged and injurious.
Certainly, if the criterion of truth, as regards any doctrine, be that
of St. Vincent of Lerins--that it has been held in the Church "always,
everywhere, and by all"--then on no point may a Christian of these days
be more sure than that every savings institution, every loan and trust
company, every bank, every loan of capital by an individual, every means
by which accumulated capital has been lawfully lent even at the most
moderate interest, to make men workers rather than paupers, is based on
deadly sin.
The early evolution of the belief that taking interest for money is
sinful presents a curious working together of metaphysical, theological,
and humanitarian ideas.
In the main centre of ancient Greek civilization, the loaning of money
at interest came to be accepted at an early period as a condition of
productive industry, and no legal restriction was imposed. In Rome there
was a long process of development: the greed of creditors in early times
led to laws against the taking of interest; but, though these lasted
long, that strong practical sense which gave Rome the empire of
the world substituted finally, for this absolute prohibition, the
establishment of rates by law. Yet many of the leading Greek and
Roman thinkers opposed this practical settlement of the question, and,
foremost of all, Aristotle. In a metaphysical way he declared that money
is by nature "barren"; that the birth of money from money is therefore
"unnatural"; and hence that the taking of interest is to be censured
and hated. Plato, Plutarch, both the Catos, Cicero, Seneca, and
various other leaders of ancient thought, arrived at much the same
conclusion--sometimes from sympathy with oppressed debtors; sometimes
from dislike of usurers; sometimes from simple contempt of trade.
From these sources there came into the early Church the germ of a
theological theory upon the subject.
But far greater was the stream of influence from the Jewish and
Christian sacred books. In the Old Testament stood various texts
condemning usury--the term usury meaning any taking of interest: the law
of Moses, while it allowed usury in dealing with strangers, forbade it
in dealing with Jews. In the New Testament, in the Sermon on the Mount,
as given by St. Luke, stood the text "Lend, hoping for nothing again."
These texts seemed to harmonize with the most beautiful characteristic
of primitive Christianity; its tender care for the poor and oppressed:
hence we find, from the earliest period, the whole weight of the Church
brought to bear against the taking of interest for money.(448)
(448) On the general allowance of interest for money in Greece, even at
high rates, see Bockh, Public Economy of the Athenians, translated by
Lamb, Boston, 1857, especially chaps. xxii, xxiii, and xxiv of book i.
For a view of usury taken by Aristotle, see his Politics and Economics,
translated by Walford, p. 27; also Grote, History of Greece, vol. iii,
chap. xi. For summary of opinions in Greece and Rome, and their relation
to Christian thought, see Bohm-Bawerk, Capital and Interest, translated
by Smart, London, 1890, chap. i. For a very full list of scripture texts
against the taking of interest, see Pearson, The Theories on Usury
in Europe, 1100-1400, Cambridge (England), 1876, p. 6. The texts most
frequently cited were Leviticus xxv, 36, 37; Deuteronomy xxiii, 19 and
26; Psalms, xv, 5; Ezekiel xviii, 8 and 17; St. Luke, vi, 35. For a
curious modern use of them, see D. S. Dickinson's speech in the State of
New York, in vol. i of his collected writings. See also Lecky, History
of Rationalism in Europe, vol. ii, chap. vi; and above all, as the most
recent historical summary by a leading historian of political economy,
Bohm-Bawerk, as above.
The great fathers of the Eastern Church, and among them St. Basil,
St. Chrysostom, and St. Gregory of Nyssa,--the fathers of the Western
Church, and among them Tertullian, St. Ambrose, St. Augustine, and St.
Jerome, joined most earnestly in this condemnation. St. Basil denounces
money at interest as a "fecund monster," and says, "The divine law
declares expressly, 'Thou shalt not lend on usury to thy brother or thy
neighbour.'" St. Gregory of Nyssa calls down on him who lends money at
interest the vengeance of the Almighty. St. Chrysostom says: "What can
be more unreasonable than to sow without land, without rain, without
ploughs? All those who give themselves up to this damnable culture
shall reap only tares. Let us cut off these monstrous births of gold and
silver; let us stop this execrable fecundity."
Lactantius called the taking of interest "robbery." St. Ambrose declared
it as bad as murder, St. Jerome threw the argument into the form of a
dilemma, which was used as a weapon against money-lenders for centuries.
Pope Leo the Great solemnly adjudged it a sin worthy of severe
punishment.(449)
(449) For St. Basil and St. Gregory of Nyssa, see French translation
of their diatribes in Homelies contre les Usuriers, Paris, Hachette,
1861-'62, especially p. 30 of St. Basil. For some doubtful reservations
by St. Augustine, see Murray, History of Usury. For St. Ambrose, see De
Officiis, lib. iii, cap. ii, in Migne, Patr. Lat., vol. xvi; also the De
Tobia, in Migne, vol. xiv. For St. Augustine, see De Bapt. contr Donat.,
lib. iv, cap. ix, in Migne, vol. xliii. For Lactantius, see his Opera,
Leyden, 1660, p. 608. For Cyprian, see his Testimonies against the Jews,
translated by Wallis, book iii, article 48. For St. Jerome, see his Com.
in Ezekiel, xviii, 8, in Migne, vol. xxv, pp. 170 et seq. For Leo the
Great, see his letter to the bishops of various provinces of Italy,
cited in the Jus. Can., cap. vii, can. xiv, qu. 4. For very fair
statements of the attitude of the fathers on this question, see Addis
and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, London, 1884, and Smith and Cheetham,
Dictionary of Christian Antiquities, London, 1875-'80; in each, under
article Usury.
This unanimity of the fathers of the Church brought about a
crystallization of hostility to interest-bearing loans into numberless
decrees of popes and councils and kings and legislatures throughout
Christendom during more than fifteen hundred years, and the canon law
was shaped in accordance with these. At first these were more especially
directed against the clergy, but we soon find them extending to the
laity. These prohibitions were enforced by the Council of Arles in 314,
and a modern Church apologist insists that every great assembly of the
Church, from the Council of Elvira in 306 to that of Vienne in 1311,
inclusive, solemnly condemned lending money at interest. The greatest
rulers under the sway of the Church--Justinian, in the Empire of the
East; Charlemagne, in the Empire of the West; Alfred, in England; St.
Louis, in France--yielded fully to this dogma. In the ninth century
Alfred went so far as to confiscate the estates of money-lenders,
denying them burial in Consecrated ground; and similar decrees were made
in other parts of Europe. In the twelfth century the Greek Church seems
to have relaxed its strictness somewhat, but the Roman Church grew
more severe. St. Anselm proved from the Scriptures that the taking of
interest is a breach of the Ten Commandments. Peter Lombard, in his
Sentences, made the taking of interest purely and simply theft. St.
Bernard, reviving religious earnestness in the Church, took the same
view. In 1179 the Third Council of the Lateran decreed that impenitent
money-lenders should be excluded from the altar, from absolution in the
hour of death, and from Christian burial. Pope Urban III reiterated
the declaration that the passage in St. Luke forbade the taking of any
interest whatever. Pope Alexander III declared that the prohibition in
this matter could never be suspended by dispensation.
In the thirteenth century Pope Gregory IX dealt an especially severe
blow at commerce by his declaration that even to advance on interest the
money necessary in maritime trade was damnable usury; and this was fitly
followed by Gregory X, who forbade Christian burial to those guilty of
this practice; the Council of Lyons meted out the same penalty. This
idea was still more firmly fastened upon the world by the two greatest
thinkers of the time: first, by St. Thomas Aquinas, who knit it into the
mind of the Church by the use of the Scriptures and of Aristotle; and
next by Dante, who pictured money-lenders in one of the worst regions of
hell.
About the beginning of the fourteenth century the "Subtile Doctor" of
the Middle Ages, Duns Scotus, gave to the world an exquisite piece of
reasoning in evasion of the accepted doctrine; but all to no purpose:
the Council of Vienne, presided over by Pope Clement V, declared that
if any one "shall pertinaciously presume to affirm that the taking of
interest for money is not a sin, we decree him to be a heretic, fit for
punishment." This infallible utterance bound the dogma with additional
force on the conscience of the universal Church.
Nor was this a doctrine enforced by rulers only; the people were no less
strenuous. In 1390 the city authorities of London enacted that, "if any
person shall lend or put into the hands of any person gold or silver
to receive gain thereby, such person shall have the punishment for
usurers." And in the same year the Commons prayed the king that the laws
of London against usury might have the force of statutes throughout the
realm.
In the fifteenth century the Council of the Church at Salzburg excluded
from communion and burial any who took interest for money, and this was
a very general rule throughout Germany.
An exception was, indeed, sometimes made: some canonists held that Jews
might be allowed to take interest, since they were to be damned in any
case, and their monopoly of money-lending might prevent Christians from
losing their souls by going into the business. Yet even the Jews were
from time to time punished for the crime of usury; and, as regards
Christians, punishment was bestowed on the dead as well as the
living--the bodies of dead money-lenders being here and there dug up and
cast out of consecrated ground.
The popular preachers constantly declaimed against all who took
interest. The medieval anecdote books for pulpit use are especially full
on this point. Jacques de Vitry tells us that demons on one occasion
filled a dead money-lender's mouth with red-hot coins; Cesarius of
Heisterbach declared that a toad was found thrusting a piece of money
into a dead usurer's heart; in another case, a devil was seen pouring
molten gold down a dead money-lender's throat.(450)
(450) For an enumeration of councils condemning the taking of interest
for money, see Liegeois, Essai sur l'Histoire et la Legislation de
l'Usure, Paris, 1865, p. 78; also the Catholic Dictionary as above. For
curious additional details and sources regarding mediaeval horror of
usurers, see Ducange, Glossarium, etc., article Caorcini. T he date 306,
for the Council of Elvira is that assigned by Hefele. For the decree
of Alexander III, see citation from the Latin text in Lecky. For a
long catalogue of ecclesiastical and civil decrees against taking of
interest, see Petit, Traite de l'Usure, Paris, 1840. For the reasoning
at the bottom of this, see Cunningham, Christian Opinion on Usury,
London, 1884. For the Salzburg decrees, see Zillner, Salzburgusche
Culturgeschichte, p. 232; and for Germany generally, see Neumann,
Geschichte des Wuchers in Deutschland, Halle, 1865, especially pp. 22 et
seq; also Roscher, National-Oeconomis. For effect of mistranslation
of the passage of Luke in the Vulgate, see Dollinger, p. 170, and
especially pp. 224, 225 For the capitularies of Charlemagne against
usury, see Liegeois, p. 77. For Gregory X and the Council of Lyons, see
Sextus Decretalium liber, pp. 669 et. seq. For Peter Lombard, see his
Lib. Sententiarum, III, dist. xxxvii, 3. For St. Thomas Aquinas, see his
works, Migne, vol. iii, Paris 1889, quaestio 78, pp. 587 et seq., citing
the Scriptures and Aristotle, and especially developing Aristotle's
metaphysical idea regarding the "barrenness" of money. For a very good
summary of St. Thomas's ideas, see Pearson. pp. 30 et seq. For Dante,
see in canto xi of the Inferno a revelation of the amazing depth of the
hostility to the taking of interest. For the London law of 1390 and the
petition to the king, see Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and
Commerce, pp. 210, 326; also the Abridgment of the Records in the Tower
of London, p. 339. For the theory that Jews, being damned already, might
be allowed to practice usury, see Liegeois, Histoire de l'Usure, p. 82.
For St. Bernard's view, see Epist. CCCLXIII, in Migne, vol. clxxxii,
p. 567. For ideas and anecdotes for preachers' use, see Joannes a San
Geminiano, Summa de Exemplis, Antwerp, 1629, fol. 493, a; also the
edition of Venice, 1584, ff. 132, 159; but especially, for multitudes
of examples, see the Exempla of Jacques de Vitry, edited by Prof. T.
F. Crane, of Cornell University, London, 1890, pp. 203 et seq. For the
canon law in regard to interest, see a long line of authorities cited in
Die Wucherfrage, St. Louis, 1869, pp. 92 et seq., and especially Decret.
Gregor., lib v, lit. 19, cap. iii, and Clementin., lib. v, lit. 5, sec.
2; see also the Corpus Juris Canonici, Paris, 1618, pp. 227, 228.
For the position of the English Church, see Gibson's Corpus Juris
Ecclesiastici Anglicani, pp. 1070, 1071, 1106.
This theological hostility to the taking of interest was imbedded firmly
in the canon law. Again and again it defined usury to be the taking of
anything of value beyond the exact original amount of a loan; and
under sanction of the universal Church it denounced this as a crime
and declared all persons defending it to be guilty of heresy. What this
meant the world knows but too well.
The whole evolution of European civilization was greatly hindered by
this conscientious policy. Money could only be loaned in most countries
at the risk of incurring odium in this world and damnation in the
next; hence there was but little capital and few lenders. The rates of
interest became at times enormous; as high as forty per cent in England,
and ten per cent a month in Italy and Spain. Commerce, manufactures, and
general enterprise were dwarfed, while pauperism flourished.
Yet worse than these were the moral results. Doing what one holds to be
evil is only second in bad consequences to doing what is really evil;
hence, all lending and borrowing, even for the most legitimate purposes
and at the most reasonable rates, tended to debase both borrower and
lender. The prohibition of lending at interest in continental Europe
promoted luxury and discouraged economy; the rich, who were not
engaged in business, finding no easy way of employing their incomes
productively, spent them largely in ostentation and riotous living. One
evil effect is felt in all parts of the world to this hour. The Jews,
so acute in intellect and strong in will, were virtually drawn or driven
out of all other industries or professions by the theory that their
race, being accursed, was only fitted for the abhorred profession of
money-lending.(451)
(451) For evil economic results, and especially for the rise of the rate
of interest in England and elsewhere at times to forty per cent, see
Cunningham, Growth of English Industry and Commerce, Cambridge, 1890,
p. 189; and for its rising to ten per cent a month, see Bedarride, Les
Juifs en France, en Italie, at en Espagne, p. 220; see also Hallam's
Middle Ages, London, 1853, pp. 401, 402. For the evil moral effects of
the Church doctrine against taking interest, see Montesquieu, Esprit
des Lois, lib. xxi, chap. xx; see also Sismondi, cited in Lecky. For
the trifling with conscience, distinction between "consumptibles" and
"fungibles," "possessio" and "dominium," etc., see Ashley, English
Economic History, New York, pp. 152, 153; see also Leopold Delisle,
Etudes, pp. 198, 468. For the effects of these doctrines on the Jews,
see Milman, History of the Jews, vol. iii, p. 179; also Wellhausen,
History of Israel, London, 1885, p. 546; also Beugnot, Les Juifs
d'Occident, Paris, 1824, pt. 2, p. 114 (on driving Jews out of other
industries than money-lending). For a noted mediaeval evasion of the
Church rules against usury, see Peruzzi, Storia del Commercio e dei
Banchieri di Firenze, Florence, 1868, pp. 172, 173.
These evils were so manifest, when trade began to revive throughout
Europe in the fifteenth century, that most earnest exertions were put
forth to induce the Church to change its position.
The first important effort of this kind was made by John Gerson. His
general learning made him Chancellor of the University of Paris; his
sacred learning made him the leading orator at the Council of Constance;
his piety led men to attribute to him The Imitation of Christ. Shaking
off theological shackles, he declared, "Better is it to lend money at
reasonable interest, and thus to give aid to the poor, than to see them
reduced by poverty to steal, waste their goods, and sell at a low price
their personal and real property."
But this idea was at once buried beneath citations from the Scriptures,
the fathers, councils, popes, and the canon law. Even in the most active
countries there seemed to be no hope. In England, under Henry VII,
Cardinal Morton, the lord chancellor, addressed Parliament, asking it to
take into consideration loans of money at interest. The result was a law
which imposed on lenders at interest a fine of a hundred pounds besides
the annulment of the loan; and, to show that there was an offence
against religion involved, there was added a clause "reserving to the
Church, notwithstanding this punishment, the correction of their souls
according to the laws of the same."
Similar enactments were made by civil authority in various parts of
Europe; and just when the trade, commerce, and manufactures of the
modern epoch had received an immense impulse from the great series of
voyages of discovery by such men as Columbus, Vasco da Gama, Magellan,
and the Cabots, this barrier against enterprise was strengthened by a
decree from no less enlightened a pontiff than Leo X.
The popular feeling warranted such decrees. As late as the end of
the Middle Ages we find the people of Piacenza dragging the body of a
money-lender out of his grave in consecrated ground and throwing it into
the river Po, in order to stop a prolonged rainstorm; and outbreaks of
the same spirit were frequent in other countries. (452)
(452) For Gerson's argument favouring a reasonable rate of interest, see
Coquelin and Guillaumin, Dictionnaire, article Interet. For the renewed
opposition to the taking of interest in England, see Craik, History of
British Commerce, chap. vi. The statute cited is 3 Henry VII, chap. vi;
it is found in Gibson's Corpus Juris Eccles. Anglic., p. 1071. For
the adverse decree of Leo X, see Liegeois, p. 76. See also Lecky,
Rationalism, vol. ii. For the dragging out of the usurer's body at
Piacenza, see Burckhardt, The Renaissance in Italy, London, 1878, vol.
ii, p. 339. For public opinion of similar strength on this subject in
England, see Cunningham, p. 239; also Pike, History of Crime in England,
vol. i, pp. 127, 193. For good general observations on the same, see
Stephen, History of Criminal Law in England, London, 1883, vol. iii, pp.
195-197. For usury laws in Castile and Aragon, see Bedarride, pp.
191, 192. For exceedingly valuable details as to the attitude of the
mediaeval Church, see Leopold Delisle, Etudes sur la Classe Agricole en
Normandie au Moyen Age, Evreux, 1851, pp. 200 et seq., also p. 468. For
penalties in France, see Matthew Paris, Chronica Majora, in the Rolls
Series, especially vol. iii, pp. 191, 192. For a curious evasion,
sanctioned by Popes Martin V and Calixtus III when Church corporations
became money-lenders, see H. C. Lea on The Ecclesiastical Treatment of
Usury, in the Yale Review for February, 1894. For a detailed development
of interesting subordinate points, see Ashley, Introduction to English
Economic History and Theory, vol. ii, ch, vi.
Another mode of obtaining relief was tried. Subtle theologians devised
evasions of various sorts. Two among these inventions of the schoolmen
obtained much notoriety.
The first was the doctrine of "damnum emergens": if a lender suffered
loss by the failure of the borrower to return a loan at a date named,
compensation might be made. Thus it was that, if the nominal date of
payment was made to follow quickly after the real date of the loan,
the compensation for the anticipated delay in payment had a very strong
resemblance to interest. Equally cogent was the doctrine of "lucrum
cessans": if a man, in order to lend money, was obliged to diminish his
income from productive enterprises, it was claimed that he might receive
in return, in addition to his money, an amount exactly equal to this
diminution in his income.
But such evasions were looked upon with little favour by the great body
of theologians, and the name of St. Thomas Aquinas was triumphantly
cited against them.
Opposition on scriptural grounds to the taking of interest was not
confined to the older Church. Protestantism was led by Luther and
several of his associates into the same line of thought and practice.
Said Luther. "To exchange anything with any one and gain by the exchange
is not to do a charity; but to steal. Every usurer is a thief worthy
of the gibbet. I call those usurers who lend money at five or six per
cent." But it is only just to say that at a later period Luther took
a much more moderate view. Melanchthon, defining usury as any interest
whatever, condemned it again and again; and the Goldberg Catechism of
1558, for which he wrote a preface and recommendation, declares every
person taking interest for money a thief. From generation to generation
this doctrine was upheld by the more eminent divines of the Lutheran
Church in all parts of Germany. The English reformers showed the same
hostility to interest-bearing loans. Under Henry VIII the law of Henry
VII against taking interest had been modified for the better; but the
revival of religious feeling under Edward VI caused in 1552 the passage
of the "Bill of Usury." In this it is said, "Forasmuch as usury is
by the word of God utterly prohibited, as a vice most odious and
detestable, as in divers places of the Holy Scriptures it is evident to
be seen, which thing by no godly teachings and persuasions can sink into
the hearts of divers greedy, uncharitable, and covetous persons of
this realm, nor yet, by any terrible threatenings of God's wrath and
vengeance," etc., it is enacted that whosoever shall thereafter lend
money "for any manner of usury, increase, lucre, gain, or interest, to
be had, received, or hoped for," shall forfeit principal and interest,
and suffer imprisonment and fine at the king's pleasure.(453)
(453) For Luther's views, see his sermon, Von dem Wucher, Wittenberg,
1519; also the Table Talk, cited in Coquelin and Guillaumin, article
Interet. For the later, more moderate views of Luther, Melanchthon, and
Zwingli, making a compromise with the needs of society, see Bohm-Bawerk,
p. 27, citing Wiskemann. For Melanchthon and a long line of the most
eminent Lutheran divines who have denounced the taking of interest, see
Die Wucherfrage, St. Louis, 1869, pp. 94 et seq. For the law against
usury under Edward VI, see Cobbett's Parliamentary History, vol. i, p.
596; see also Craik, History of British Commerce, chap. vi.
But, most fortunately, it happened that Calvin, though at times
stumbling over the usual texts against the taking of interest for money,
turned finally in the right direction. He cut through the metaphysical
arguments of Aristotle, and characterized the subtleties devised to
evade the Scriptures as "a childish game with God." In place of
these subtleties there was developed among Protestants a serviceable
fiction--the statement that usury means ILLEGAL OR OPPRESSIVE INTEREST.
Under the action of this fiction, commerce and trade revived rapidly
in Protestant countries, though with occasional checks from exact
interpreters of Scripture. At the same period in France, the great
Protestant jurist Dumoulin brought all his legal learning and skill in
casuistry to bear on the same side. A certain ferretlike acuteness
and litheness seem to have enabled him to hunt down the opponents of
interest-taking through the most tortuous arguments of scholasticism.
In England the struggle went on with varying fortune; statesmen on one
side, and theologians on the other. We have seen how, under Henry
VIII, interest was allowed at a fixed rate, and how, the development of
English Protestantism having at first strengthened the old theological
view, there was, under Edward VI, a temporarily successful attempt to
forbid the taking of interest by law.
The Puritans, dwelling on Old Testament texts, continued for a
considerable time especially hostile to the taking of any interest.
Henry Smith, a noted preacher, thundered from the pulpit of St. Clement
Danes in London against "the evasions of Scripture" which permitted men
to lend money on interest at all. In answer to the contention that only
"biting" usury was oppressive, Wilson, a noted upholder of the strict
theological view in political economy, declared: "There is difference in
deed between the bite of a dogge and the bite of a flea, and yet, though
the flea doth lesse harm, yet the flea doth bite after hir kinde, yea,
and draweth blood, too. But what a world this is, that men will make sin
to be but a fleabite, when they see God's word directly against them!"
The same view found strong upholders among contemporary English
Catholics. One of the most eminent of these, Nicholas Sanders, revived
very vigorously the use of an old scholastic argument. He insisted
that "man can not sell time," that time is not a human possession, but
something which is given by God alone: he declared, "Time was not of
your gift to your neighbour, but of God's gift to you both."
In the Parliament of the period, we find strong assertions of the old
idea, with constant reference to Scripture and the fathers. In one
debate, Wilson cited from Ezekiel and other prophets and attributed to
St. Augustine the doctrine that "to take but a cup of wine is usury
and damnable." Fleetwood recalled the law of King Edward the Confessor,
which submitted usurers to the ordeal.
But arguments of this sort had little influence upon Elizabeth and her
statesmen. Threats of damnation in the next world troubled them little
if they could have their way in this. They re-established the practice
of taking interest under restrictions, and this, in various forms,
has remained in England ever since. Most notable in this phase of the
evolution of scientific doctrine in political economy at that period
is the emergence of a recognised difference between USURY and
INTEREST. Between these two words, which had so long been synonymous,
a distinction now appears: the former being construed to indicate
OPPRESSIVE INTEREST, and the latter JUST RATES for the use of money.
This idea gradually sank into the popular mind of Protestant countries,
and the scriptural texts no longer presented any difficulty to the
people at large, since there grew up a general belief that the word
"usury," as employed in Scripture, had ALWAYS meant exorbitant interest;
and this in spite of the parable of the Talents. Still, that the old
Aristotelian quibble had not been entirely forgotten, is clearly seen by
various passages in Shakespeare's Merchant of Venice. But this line of
reasoning seems to have received its quietus from Lord Bacon. He did
not, indeed, develop a strong and connected argument on the subject;
but he burst the bonds of Aristotle, and based interest for money upon
natural laws. How powerful the new current of thought was, is seen
from the fact that James I, of all monarchs the most fettered by
scholasticism and theology, sanctioned a statute dealing with interest
for money as absolutely necessary. Yet, even after this, the old idea
asserted itself; for the bishops utterly refused to agree to the law
allowing interest until a proviso was inserted that "nothing in this law
contained shall be construed or expounded to allow the practice of usury
in point of religion or conscience." The old view cropped out from time
to time in various public declarations. Famous among these were the
Treatise of Usury, published in 1612 by Dr. Fenton, who restated the
old arguments with much force, and the Usury Condemned of John Blaxton,
published in 1634. Blaxton, who also was a clergyman, defined usury as
the taking of any interest whatever for money, citing in support of this
view six archbishops and bishops and over thirty doctors of divinity in
the Anglican Church, some of their utterances being very violent and all
of them running their roots down into texts of Scripture. Typical among
these is a sermon of Bishop Sands, in which he declares, regarding the
taking of interest: "This canker hath corrupted all England; we shall
doe God and our country true service by taking away this evill; represse
it by law, else the heavy hand of God hangeth over us and will strike
us."
II. RETREAT OF THE CHURCH, PROTESTANT AND CATHOLIC.
But about the middle of the seventeenth century Sir Robert Filmer gave
this doctrine the heaviest blow it ever received in England. Taking up
Dr. Fenton's treatise, he answered it, and all works like it, in a way
which, however unsuitable to this century, was admirably adapted to
that. He cites Scripture and chops logic after a masterly manner.
Characteristic is this declaration: "St. Paul doth, with one breath,
reckon up seventeen sins, and yet usury is none of them; but many
preachers can not reckon up seven deadly sins, except they make usury
one of them." Filmer followed Fenton not only through his theology, but
through his political economy, with such relentless keenness that the
old doctrine seems to have been then and there practically worried out
of existence, so far as England was concerned.
Departures from the strict scriptural doctrines regarding interest soon
became frequent in Protestant countries, and they were followed up with
especial vigour in Holland. Various theologians in the Dutch Church
attempted to assert the scriptural view by excluding bankers from
the holy communion; but the commercial vigour of the republic was too
strong: Salmasius led on the forces of right reason brilliantly, and by
the middle of the seventeenth century the question was settled rightly
in that country. This work was aided, indeed, by a far greater man, Hugo
Grotius; but here was shown the power of an established dogma. Great as
Grotius was--and it may well be held that his book on War and Peace
has wrought more benefit to humanity than any other attributed to
human authorship--he was, in the matter of interest for money, too much
entangled in theological reasoning to do justice to his cause or
to himself. He declared the prohibition of it to be scriptural, but
resisted the doctrine of Aristotle, and allowed interest on certain
natural and practical grounds.
In Germany the struggle lasted longer. Of some little significance,
perhaps, is the demand of Adam Contzen, in 1629, that lenders
at interest should be punished as thieves; but by the end of the
seventeenth century Puffendorf and Leibnitz had gained the victory.
Protestantism, open as it was to the currents of modern thought, could
not long continue under the dominion of ideas unfavourable to economic
development, and perhaps the most remarkable proof of this was presented
early in the eighteenth century in America, by no less strict a
theologian than Cotton Mather. In his Magnalia he argues against the
whole theological view with a boldness, acuteness, and good sense which
cause us to wonder that this can be the same man who was so infatuated
regarding witchcraft. After an argument so conclusive as his, there
could have been little left of the old anti-economic doctrine in New
England.(454)
(454) For Calvin's views, see his letter published in the appendix to
Pearson's Theories on Usury. His position is well-stated in Bohm-Bawerk,
pp. 28 et seq., where citations are given. See also Economic Tracts,
No. IV, New York, 1881, pp. 34, 35; and for some serviceable Protestant
fictions, see Cunningham, Christian Opinion on Usury, pp. 60, 61. For
Dumoulin (Molinaeus), see Bohm-Bawerk, as above, pp. 29 et seq. For
debates on usury in the British Parliament in Elizabeth's time, see
Cobbett, Parliamentary History, vol. i, pp 756 et seq. A striking
passage in Shakespeare is found in the Merchant of Venice, Act I, scene
iii: "If thou wilt lend this money, lend it not as to thy friend; for
when did friendship take a breed for barren metal of his friend?" For
the right direction taken by Lord Bacon, see Neumann, Geschichte des
Wuchers in Deutschland, Halle, 1864, pp. 497, 498. For Salmasius, see
his De Usuris, Leyden, 1638, and for others mentioned, see Bohm-Bawerk,
pp. 34 et seq.; also Lecky, vol. ii. p. 256. For the saving clause
inderted by the bishops in the statute of James I, see the Corpus Juris
Eccles. Anglic., p. 1071; also Murray, History of Usury, Philadelphia,
1866, p. 49.
For Blaxton, see his English Usurer, or Usury Condemned, by John
Blaxton, Preacher of God's Word, London, 1634. Blaxton gives some of
Calvin's earlier utterances against interest. For Bishop Sands;s sermon,
see p. 11. For Filmer, see his Quaestio Quodlibetica, London, 1652,
reprinted in the Harleian Miscellany, vol x, pp. 105 et seq. For
Grotius, see the De Jure Belli ac Pacis, lib. ii, cap. xii. For Cotton
Mather's argument, see the Magnalia, London, 1702, pp. 5, 52.
But while the retreat of the Protestant Church from the old doctrine
regarding the taking of interest was henceforth easy, in the Catholic
Church it was far more difficult. Infallible popes and councils, with
saints, fathers, and doctors, had so constantly declared the taking of
any interest at all to be contrary to Scripture, that the more exact
though less fortunate interpretation of the sacred text relating to
interest continued in Catholic countries. When it was attempted in
France in the seventeenth century to argue that usury "means oppressive
interest," the Theological Faculty of the Sorbonne declared that usury
is the taking of any interest at all, no matter how little; and the
eighteenth chapter of Ezekiel was cited to clinch this argument.
Another attempt to ease the burden of industry and commerce was made by
declaring that "usury means interest demanded not as a matter of favour
but as a matter of right." This, too, was solemnly condemned by Pope
innocent XI.
Again an attempt was made to find a way out of the difficulty by
declaring that "usury is interest greater than the law allows." This,
too, was condemned, and so also was the declaration that "usury is
interest on loans not for a fixed time."
Still the forces of right reason pressed on, and among them, in the
seventeenth century, in France, was Richard Simon. He attempted to gloss
over the declarations of Scripture against lending at interest, in an
elaborate treatise, but was immediately confronted by Bossuet. Just as
Bossuet had mingled Scripture with astronomy and opposed the Copernican
theory, so now he mingled Scripture with political economy and denounced
the lending of money at interest. He called attention to the fact that
the Scriptures, the councils of the Church from the beginning, the
popes, the fathers, had all interpreted the prohibition of "usury" to
be a prohibition of any lending at interest; and he demonstrated this
interpretation to be the true one. Simon was put to confusion and his
book condemned.
There was but too much reason for Bossuet's interpretation. There stood
the fact that the prohibition of one of the most simple and beneficial
principles in political and economical science was affirmed, not only
by the fathers, but by twenty-eight councils of the Church, six of them
general councils, and by seventeen popes, to say nothing of innumerable
doctors in theology and canon law. And these prohibitions by the Church
had been accepted as of divine origin by all obedient sons of the Church
in the government of France. Such rulers as Charles the Bald in the
ninth century, and St. Louis in the thirteenth, had riveted this idea
into the civil law so firmly that it seemed impossible ever to detach
it.(455)
(455) For the declaration of the Sorbonne in the seventeenth century
against taking of interest, see Lecky, Rationalism, vol. ii, p. 248,
note. For the special condemnation by Innocent XI, see Viva, Damnatae
Theses, Pavia, 1715, pp. 112-114. For consideration of various ways of
escaping the difficulty regarding interest, see Lecky, Rationalism,
vol. ii, pp. 249, 250. For Bousset's strong declaration against taking
interest, see his Oeuvres, Paris, 1845-'46, vol. i, p. 734, vol. vi,
p. 654, and vol. ix, p. 49 et seq. For the number of councils and popes
condemning usury, see Lecky, as above, vol. ii, p. 255, note, citing
Concina.
As might well be expected, Italy was one of the countries in which
the theological theory regarding usury--lending at interest--was most
generally asserted and assented to. Among the great number of Italian
canonists who supported the theory, two deserve especial mention, as
affording a contrast to the practical manner in which the commercial
Italians met the question.
In the sixteenth century, very famous among canonists was the learned
Benedictine, Vilagut. In 1589 he published at Venice his great work
on usury, supporting with much learning and vigour the most extreme
theological consequences of the old doctrine. He defines usury as the
taking of anything beyond the original loan, and declares it mortal sin;
he advocates the denial to usurers of Christian burial, confession,
the sacraments, absolution, and connection with the universities; he
declares that priests receiving offerings from usurers should refrain
from exercising their ministry until the matter is passed upon by the
bishop.
About the middle of the seventeenth century another ponderous folio was
published in Venice upon the same subject and with the same title, by
Onorato Leotardi. So far from showing any signs of yielding, he is even
more extreme than Vilagut had been, and quotes with approval the old
declaration that lenders of money at interest are not only robbers but
murderers.
So far as we can learn, no real opposition was made in either century to
this theory, as a theory; as to PRACTICE, it was different. The Italian
traders did not answer theological argument; they simply overrode it. In
spite of theology, great banks were established, and especially that
of Venice at the end of the twelfth century, and those of Barcelona and
Genoa at the beginning of the fifteenth. Nowhere was commerce carried
on in more complete defiance of this and other theological theories
hampering trade than in the very city where these great treatises
were published. The sin of usury, like the sin of commerce with the
Mohammedans, seems to have been settled for by the Venetian merchants
on their deathbeds; and greatly to the advantage of the magnificent
churches and ecclesiastical adornments of the city.
By the seventeenth century the clearest thinkers in the Roman Church saw
that her theology must be readjusted to political economy: so began a
series of amazing attempts to reconcile a view permitting usury with the
long series of decrees of popes and councils forbidding it.
In Spain, the great Jesuit casuist Escobar led the way, and rarely
had been seen such exquisite hair-splitting. But his efforts were not
received with the gratitude they perhaps deserved. Pascal, revolting at
their moral effect, attacked them unsparingly in his Provincial Letters,
citing especially such passages as the following: "It is usury to
receive profit from those to whom one lends, if it be exacted as justly
due; but, if it be exacted as a debt of gratitude, it is not usury."
This and a multitude of similar passages Pascal covered with the keen
ridicule and indignant denunciation of which he was so great a master.
But even the genius of Pascal could not stop such efforts. In the
eighteenth century they were renewed by a far greater theologian than
Escobar--by him who was afterward made a saint and proclaimed a doctor
of the Church--Alphonso Liguori.
Starting with bitter denunciations of usury, Liguori soon developed a
multitude of subtle devices for escaping the guilt of it. Presenting
a long and elaborate theory of "mental, usury" he arrives at the
conclusion that, if the borrower pay interest of his own free will, the
lender may keep it. In answer to the question whether the lender may
keep what the borrower paid, not out of gratitude but out of fear--fear
that otherwise loans might be refused him in future--Liguori says, "To
be usury it must be paid by reason of a contract, or as justly due;
payment by reason of such a fear does not cause interest to be paid
as an actual price." Again Liguori tells us, "It is not usury to
exact something in return for the danger and expense of regaining
the principal." The old subterfuges of "Damnum emergens" and "Lucrum
cessans" are made to do full duty. A remarkable quibble is found in the
answer to the question whether he sins who furnishes money to a man
whom he knows to intend employing it in usury. After citing affirmative
opinions from many writers, Liguori says, "Notwithstanding these
opinions, the better opinion seems to me to be that the man thus putting
out his money is not bound to make restitution, for his action is not
injurious to the borrower, but rather favourable to him," and this
reasoning the saint develops at great length.
In the Latin countries this sort of casuistry eased the relations of
the Church with the bankers, and it was full time; for now there came
arguments of a different kind. The eighteenth century philosophy
had come upon the stage, and the first effective onset of political
scientists against the theological opposition in southern Europe was
made in Italy--the most noted leaders in the attack being Galiani and
Maffei. Here and there feeble efforts were made to meet them, but it was
felt more and more by thinking churchmen that entirely different tactics
must be adopted.
About the same time came an attack in France, and though its results
were less immediate at home, they were much more effective abroad. In
1748 appeared Montesquieu's Spirit of the Laws. In this famous book were
concentrated twenty years of study and thought by a great thinker on
the interests of the world about him. In eighteen months it went through
twenty-two editions; it was translated into every civilized language;
and among the things on which Montesquieu brought his wit and wisdom
to bear with especial force was the doctrine of the Church regarding
interest on loans. In doing this he was obliged to use a caution in
forms which seems strangely at variance with the boldness of his ideas.
In view of the strictness of ecclesiastical control in France, he felt
it safest to make his whole attack upon those theological and economic
follies of Mohammedan countries which were similar to those which the
theological spirit had fastened on France.(456)
(456) For Vilagut, see his Tractatus de Usuris, Venice, 1589, especially
pp. 21, 25, 399. For Leotardi, see his De Usuris, Venice, 1655,
especially preface, pp. 6, 7 et seq. For Pascal and Escobar, see the
Provincial Letters, edited by Sayres, Cambridge, 1880, Letter VIII, pp.
183-186; also a note to the same letter, p. 196. For Liguori, see
his Theologia Moralis, Paris, 1834, lib. iii, tract v, cap. iii: De
Contractibus, dub, vii. For the eighteenth century attack in Italy, see
Bohm-Bawerk, pp. 48 et seq. For Montesquieu's view of interest on loans,
see the Esprit des Lois, livre xxii.
By the middle of the eighteenth century the Church authorities at
Rome clearly saw the necessity of a concession: the world would endure
theological restriction no longer; a way of escape MUST be found. It was
seen, even by the most devoted theologians, that mere denunciations and
use of theological arguments or scriptural texts against the scientific
idea were futile.
To this feeling it was due that, even in the first years of the century,
the Jesuit casuists had come to the rescue. With exquisite subtlety some
of their acutest intellects devoted themselves to explaining away the
utterances on this subject of saints, fathers, doctors, popes, and
councils. These explanations were wonderfully ingenious, but many of the
older churchmen continued to insist upon the orthodox view, and at last
the Pope himself intervened. Fortunately for the world, the seat of
St. Peter was then occupied by Benedict XIV, certainly one of the most
gifted, morally and intellectually, in the whole line of Roman pontiffs.
Tolerant and sympathetic for the oppressed, he saw the necessity of
taking up the question, and he grappled with it effectually: he
rendered to Catholicism a service like that which Calvin had rendered
to Protestantism, by shrewdly cutting a way through the theological
barrier. In 1745 he issued his encyclical Vix pervenit, which declared
that the doctrine of the Church remained consistent with itself; that
usury is indeed a sin, and that it consists in demanding any amount
beyond the exact amount lent, but that there are occasions when on
special grounds the lender may obtain such additional sum.
What these "occasions" and "special grounds" might be, was left very
vague; but this action was sufficient.
At the same time no new restrictions upon books advocating the taking
of interest for money were imposed, and, in the year following his
encyclical, Benedict openly accepted the dedication of one of them--the
work of Maffei, and perhaps the most cogent of all.
Like the casuistry of Boscovich in using the Copernican theory for
"convenience in argument," while acquiescing in its condemnation by the
Church authorities, this encyclical of Pope Benedict broke the spell.
Turgot, Quesnay, Adam Smith, Hume, Bentham, and their disciples pressed
on, and science won for mankind another great victory.(457)
(457) For Quesnay, see his Observations sur l'Interet de l'Argent, in
his Oeuvres, Frankfort and Paris, 1888, pp. 399 et seq. For Turgot, see
the Collections des Economistes, Paris, 1844, vols. iii and iv; also
Blanqui, Histoire de l'Economie Politique, English translation, p. 373.
For an excellent though brief summary of the efforts of the Jesuits to
explain away the old action of the Church, see Lecky, vol. ii, pp
256, 257. For the action of Benedict XIV, see Reusch, Der Index der
Vorbotenen Bucher, Bonn, 1885, vol. ii, pp 847, 848. For a comical
picture of the "quagmire' into which the hierarchy brought itself in the
squaring of its practice with its theory, see Dollinger, as above, pp.
227, 228. For cunningly vague statements of the action of Benedict XIV,
see Mastrofini, Sur l'Usure, French translation, Lyons, 1834, pp. 125,
255. The abbate, as will be seen, has not the slightest hesitaion in
telling an untruth in order to preserve the consistency of papal action
in the matter of usury--e.g., pp. 93, 94 96, and elsewhere.
Yet in this case, as in others, insurrections against the sway of
scientific truth appeared among some overzealous religionists. When the
Sorbonne, having retreated from its old position, armed itself with
new casuistries against those who held to its earlier decisions, sundry
provincial doctors in theology protested indignantly, making the
old citations from the Scriptures, fathers, saints, doctors, popes,
councils, and canonists. Again the Roman court intervened. In 1830
the Inquisition at Rome, with the approval of Pius VIII, though still
declining to commit itself on the DOCTRINE involved, decreed that, as to
PRACTICE, confessors should no longer disturb lenders of money at legal
interest.
But even this did not quiet the more conscientious theologians. The old
weapons were again furbished and hurled by the Abbe Laborde, Vicar
of the Metropolitan Archdiocese of Auch, and by the Abbe Dennavit,
Professor of Theology at Lyons. Good Abbe Dennavit declared that he
refused absolution to those who took interest and to priests who pretend
that the sanction of the civil law is sufficient.
But the "wisdom of the serpent" was again brought into requisition, and
early in the decade between 1830 and 1840 the Abbate Mastrofini issued
a work on usury, which, he declared on its title-page, demonstrated that
"moderate usury is not contrary to Holy Scripture, or natural law,
or the decisions of the Church." Nothing can be more comical than the
suppressions of truth, evasions of facts, jugglery with phrases,
and perversions of history, to which the abbate is forced to resort
throughout his book in order to prove that the Church has made no
mistake. In the face of scores of explicit deliverances and decrees of
fathers, doctors, popes, and councils against the taking of any interest
whatever for money, he coolly pretended that what they had declared
against was EXORBITANT interest. He made a merit of the action of the
Church, and showed that its course had been a blessing to humanity. But
his masterpiece is in dealing with the edicts of Clement V and Benedict
XIV. As to the first, it will be remembered that Clement, in accord
with the Council of Vienne, had declared that "any one who shall
pertinaciously presume to affirm that the taking of interest for money
is not a sin, we decree him to be a heiretic fit for punishment," and we
have seen that Benedict XIV did not at all deviate from the doctrines of
his predecessors. Yet Mastrofini is equal to his task, and brings out,
as the conclusion of his book, the statement put upon his title-page,
that what the Church condemns is only EXORBITANT interest.
This work was sanctioned by various high ecclesiastical dignitaries, and
served its purpose; for it covered the retreat of the Church.
In 1872 the Holy Office, answering a question solemnly put by the Bishop
of Ariano, as solemnly declared that those who take eight per cent
interest per annum are "not to be disquieted"; and in 1873 appeared a
book published under authority from the Holy See, allowing the faithful
to take moderate interest under condition that any future decisions
of the Pope should be implicitly obeyed. Social science as applied to
political economy had gained a victory final and complete. The Torlonia
family at Rome to-day, with its palaces, chapels, intermarriages,
affiliations, and papal favour--all won by lending money at interest,
and by liberal gifts, from the profits of usury, to the Holy See--is but
one out of many growths of its kind on ramparts long since surrendered
and deserted.(458)
(458) For the decree forbidding confessors to trouble lenders of money
at legal interest, see Addis and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, as above;
also Mastrofini, as above, in the appendix, where various other
recent Roman decrees are given. As to the controversy generally, see
Mastrofini; also La Replique des douze Docteurs, cited by Guillaumin and
Coquelin; also Reusch, vol. ii, p. 850. As an example of Mastrofini's
way of making black appear white, compare the Latin text of the decree
on page 97 with his statements regarding it; see also his cunning
substitution of the new significance of the word usury for the old in
various parts of his book. A good historical presentation of the general
subject will be found in Roscher, Geschichte der National-Oeconomie in
Deutschland, Munchen, 1874, under articles Wucher and Zinsnehmen. For
France, see especially Petit, Traite de l'Usure, Paris, 1840; and for
Germany, see Neumann, Geschichte des Wuchers in Deutschland, Halle,
1865. For the view of a modern leader of thought in this field, see
Jeremy Bentham, Defence of Usury, Letter X. For an admirable piece of
research into the nicer points involved in the whole subject, see H.
C. Lea, The Ecclesiatical Treatment of Usury, in the Yale Review for
February, 1894.
The dealings of theology with public economy were by no means confined
to the taking of interest for money. It would be interesting to note
the restrictions placed upon commerce by the Church prohibition of
commercial intercourse with infidels, against which the Republic of
Venice fought a good fight; to note how, by a most curious perversion
of Scripture in the Greek Church, many of the peasantry of Russia were
prevented from raising and eating potatoes; how, in Scotland, at the
beginning of this century, the use of fanning mills for winnowing grain
was widely denounced as contrary to the text, "The wind bloweth where it
listeth," etc., as leaguing with Satan, who is "Prince of the powers of
the air," and therefore as sufficient cause for excommunication from the
Scotch Church. Instructive it would be also to note how the introduction
of railways was declared by an archbishop of the French Church to be an
evidence of the divine displeasure against country innkeepers who set
meat before their guests on fast days, and who were now punished by
seeing travellers carried by their doors; how railways and telegraphs
were denounced from a few noted pulpits as heralds of Antichrist; and
how in Protestant England the curate of Rotherhithe, at the breaking in
of the Thames Tunnel, so destructive to life and property, declared it
from his pulpit a just judgment upon the presumptuous aspirations of
mortal man.
The same tendency is seen in the opposition of conscientious men to the
taking of the census in Sweden and the United States, on account of
the terms in which the numbering of Israel is spoken of in the Old
Testament. Religious scruples on similar grounds have also been avowed
against so beneficial a thing as life insurance.
Apparently unimportant as these manifestations are, they indicate a
widespread tendency; in the application of scriptural declarations to
matters of social economy, which has not yet ceased, though it is fast
fading away.(459)
(459) For various interdicts laid upon commerce by the Church, see Heyd,
Histoire du Commerce du Levant au Moyen-Age, Leipsic, 1886, vol. ii,
passim. For the injury done to commerce by prohibition of intercourse
with the infidel, see Lindsay, History of Merchant Shipping, London,
1874, vol. ii. For superstitions regarding the introduction of the
potato in Russia, and the name "devil's root" given it, see Hellwald,
Culturgeschichte, vol. ii, p. 476; also Haxthausen, La Russie. For
opposition to winnowing machines, see Burton, History of Scotland, vol.
viii, p. 511; also Lecky, Eighteenth Century, vol. ii, p. 83; also Mause
Headrigg's views in Scott's Old Mortality, chap. vii. For the case of a
person debarred from the communion for "raising the devil's wind" with
a winnowing machine, see Works of Sir J. Y. Simpson, vol. ii. Those
doubting the authority or motives of Simpson may be reminded that he
was to the day of his death one of the strictest adherants to Scotch
orthodoxy. As to the curate of Rotherhithe, see Journal of Sir I. Brunel
for May 20, 1827, in Life of I. K. Brunel, p. 30. As to the conclusions
drawn from the numbering of Israel, see Michaelis, Commentaries on the
Laws of Moses, 1874, vol. ii, p. 3. The author of this work himself
witnessed the reluctance of a very conscientious man to answer the
questions of a census marshal, Mr. Lewis Hawley, of Syracuse, New York;
and this reluctance was based upon the reasons assigned in II Samuel
xxiv, 1, and I Chronicles xxi,1, for the numbering of the children of
Israel.
Worthy of especial study, too, would be the evolution of the modern
methods of raising and bettering the condition of the poor,--the
evolution, especially, of the idea that men are to be helped to help
themselves, in opposition to the old theories of indiscriminate giving,
which, taking root in some of the most beautiful utterances of our
sacred books, grew in the warm atmosphere of medieval devotion into
great systems for the pauperizing of the labouring classes. Here, too,
scientific modes of thought in social science have given a new and
nobler fruitage to the whole growth of Christian benevolence.(460)
(460) Among the vast number of authorities regarding the evolution of
better methods in dealing with pauperism, I would call attention to
a work which is especially suggestive--Behrends, Christianity and
Socialism, New York, 1886.
CHAPTER XX. FROM THE DIVINE ORACLES TO THE HIGHER CRITICISM.
I. THE OLDER INTERPRETATION.
The great sacred books of the world are the most precious of human
possessions. They embody the deepest searchings into the most vital
problems of humanity in all its stages: the naive guesses of the world's
childhood, the opening conceptions of its youth, the more fully rounded
beliefs of its maturity.
These books, no matter how unhistorical in parts and at times,
are profoundly true. They mirror the evolution of man's loftiest
aspirations, hopes, loves, consolations, and enthusiasms; his hates and
fears; his views of his origin and destiny; his theories of his rights
and duties; and these not merely in their lights but in their shadows.
Therefore it is that they contain the germs of truths most necessary in
the evolution of humanity, and give to these germs the environment and
sustenance which best insure their growth and strength.
With wide differences in origin and character, this sacred literature
has been developed and has exercised its influence in obedience to
certain general laws. First of these in time, if not in importance, is
that which governs its origin: in all civilizations we find that the
Divine Spirit working in the mind of man shapes his sacred books first
of all out of the chaos of myth and legend; and of these books, when
life is thus breathed into them, the fittest survive.
So broad and dense is this atmosphere of myth and legend enveloping
them that it lingers about them after they have been brought forth
full-orbed; and, sometimes, from it are even produced secondary mythical
and legendary concretions--satellites about these greater orbs of early
thought. Of these secondary growths one may be mentioned as showing how
rich in myth-making material was the atmosphere which enveloped our own
earlier sacred literature.
In the third century before Christ there began to be elaborated among
the Jewish scholars of Alexandria, then the great centre of human
thought, a Greek translation of the main books constituting the Old
Testament. Nothing could be more natural at that place and time than
such a translation; yet the growth of explanatory myth and legend around
it was none the less luxuriant. There was indeed a twofold growth. Among
the Jews favourable to the new version a legend rose which justified it.
This legend in its first stage was to the effect that the Ptolemy then
on the Egyptian throne had, at the request of his chief librarian, sent
to Jerusalem for translators; that the Jewish high priest Eleazar had
sent to the king a most precious copy of the Scriptures from the temple
at Jerusalem, and six most venerable, devout, and learned scholars from
each of the twelve tribes of Israel; that the number of translators thus
corresponded with the mysterious seventy-two appellations of God;
and that the combined efforts of these seventy-two men produced a
marvellously perfect translation.
But in that atmosphere of myth and marvel the legend continued to grow,
and soon we have it blooming forth yet more gorgeously in the statement
that King Ptolemy ordered each of the seventy-two to make by himself
a full translation of the entire Old Testament, and shut up each
translator in a separate cell on the island of Pharos, secluding him
there until the work was done; that the work of each was completed in
exactly seventy-two days; and that when, at the end of the seventy-two
days, the seventy-two translations were compared, each was found exactly
like all the others. This showed clearly Jehovah's APPROVAL.
But out of all this myth and legend there was also evolved an account of
a very different sort. The Jews who remained faithful to the traditions
of their race regarded this Greek version as a profanation, and
therefore there grew up the legend that on the completion of the work
there was darkness over the whole earth during three days. This showed
clearly Jehovah's DISAPPROVAL.
These well-known legends, which arose within what--as compared with any
previous time--was an exceedingly enlightened period, and which were
steadfastly believed by a vast multitude of Jews and Christians for
ages, are but single examples among scores which show how inevitably
such traditions regarding sacred books are developed in the earlier
stages of civilization, when men explain everything by miracle and
nothing by law.(461)
(461) For the legend regarding the Septaguint, especially as developed
by the letters of Pseudo-Aristeas, and for quaint citations from the
fathers regarding it, see The History of the Seventy-two Interpretors,
from the Greek of Aristeas, translated by Mr. Lewis, London, 1715; also
Clement of Alexandria, in the Ante-Nicene Christian Library, Edinburgh,
1867, p. 448. For interesting summaries showing the growth of the
story, see Drummond, Philo Judaeus and the Growth of the Alexandrian
Philosophy, London, 1888, vol. i, pp. 231 et seq.; also Renan, Histoire
du Peuple Israel, vol. iv, chap. iv; also, for Philo Judaeus's part in
developing the legend, see Rev. Dr. Sanday's Bampton Lectures for 1893,
on Inspiration, pp. 86, 87.
As the second of these laws governing the evolution of sacred literature
may be mentioned that which we have constantly seen so effective in the
growth of theological ideas--that to which Comte gave the name of the
Law of Wills and Causes. Obedient to this, man attributes to the Supreme
Being a physical, intellectual, and moral structure like his own; hence
it is that the votary of each of the great world religions ascribes to
its sacred books what he considers absolute perfection: he imagines them
to be what he himself would give the world, were he himself infinitely
good, wise, and powerful.
A very simple analogy might indeed show him that even a literature
emanating from an all-wise, beneficent, and powerful author might not
seem perfect when judged by a human standard; for he has only to look
about him in the world to find that the work which he attributes to an
all-wise, all-beneficent, and all-powerful Creator is by no means free
from evil and wrong.
But this analogy long escapes him, and the exponent of each great
religion proves to his own satisfaction, and to the edification of his
fellows, that their own sacred literature is absolutely accurate in
statement, infinitely profound in meaning, and miraculously perfect in
form. From these premises also he arrives at the conclusion that his own
sacred literature is unique; that no other sacred book can have emanated
from a divine source; and that all others claiming to be sacred are
impostures.
Still another law governing the evolution of sacred literature in every
great world religion is, that when the books which compose it are once
selected and grouped they come to be regarded as a final creation from
which nothing can be taken away, and of which even error in form, if
sanctioned by tradition, may not be changed.
The working of this law has recently been seen on a large scale.
A few years since, a body of chosen scholars, universally acknowledged
to be the most fit for the work, undertook, at the call of
English-speaking Christendom, to revise the authorized English version
of the Bible.
Beautiful as was that old version, there was abundant reason for a
revision. The progress of biblical scholarship had revealed multitudes
of imperfections and not a few gross errors in the work of the early
translators, and these, if uncorrected, were sure to bring the sacred
volume into discredit.
Nothing could be more reverent than the spirit of the revisers, and the
nineteenth century has known few historical events of more significant
and touching beauty than the participation in the holy communion by all
these scholars--prelates, presbyters, ministers, and laymen of churches
most widely differing in belief and observance--kneeling side by side at
the little altar in Westminster Abbey.
Nor could any work have been more conservative and cautious than
theirs; as far as possible they preserved the old matter and form with
scrupulous care.
Yet their work was no sooner done than it was bitterly attacked and
widely condemned; to this day it is largely regarded with dislike.
In Great Britain, in America, in Australia, the old version, with its
glaring misconceptions, mistranslations, and interpolations, is still
read in preference to the new; the great body of English-speaking
Christians clearly preferring the accustomed form of words given by the
seventeenth-century translators, rather than a nearer approach to the
exact teaching of the Holy Ghost.
Still another law is, that when once a group of sacred books has
been evolved--even though the group really be a great library of most
dissimilar works, ranging in matter from the hundredth Psalm to the
Song of Songs, and in manner from the sublimity of Isaiah to the offhand
story-telling of Jonah--all come to be thought one inseparable mass
of interpenetrating parts; every statement in each fitting exactly and
miraculously into each statement in every other; and each and every one,
and all together, literally true to fact, and at the same time full of
hidden meanings.
The working of these and other laws governing the evolution of sacred
literature is very clearly seen in the great rabbinical schools which
flourished at Jerusalem, Tiberias, and elsewhere, after the return of
the Jews from the Babylonian captivity, and especially as we approach
the time of Christ. These schools developed a subtlety in the study of
the Old Testament which seems almost preternatural. The resultant system
was mainly a jugglery with words, phrases, and numbers, which finally
became a "sacred science," with various recognised departments, in which
interpretation was carried on sometimes by attaching a numerical
value to letters; sometimes by interchange of letters from differently
arranged alphabets; sometimes by the making of new texts out of the
initial letters of the old; and with ever-increasing subtlety.
Such efforts as these culminated fitly in the rabbinical declaration
that each passage in the law has seventy distinct meanings, and that God
himself gives three hours every day to their study.
After this the Jewish world was prepared for anything, and it does not
surprise us to find such discoveries in the domain of ethical culture as
the doctrine that, for inflicting the forty stripes save one upon those
who broke the law, the lash should be braided of ox-hide and ass-hide;
and, as warrant for this construction of the lash, the text, "The ox
knoweth his owner, and the ass his master's crib, but Israel doth not
know"; and, as the logic connecting text and lash, the statement that
Jehovah evidently intended to command that "the men who know not shall
be beaten by those animals whose knowledge shames them."
By such methods also were revealed such historical treasures as that Og,
King of Bashan, escaped the deluge by wading after Noah's ark.
There were, indeed, noble exceptions to this kind of teaching. It can
not be forgotten that Rabbi Hillel formulated the golden rule, which
had before him been given to the extreme Orient by Confucius, and which
afterward received a yet more beautiful and positive emphasis from Jesus
of Nazareth; but the seven rules of interpretation laid down by Hillel
were multiplied and refined by men like Rabbi Ismael and Rabbi Eleazar
until they justified every absurd subtlety.(462)
(462) For a multitude of amusing examples of rabbinical interpretations,
see an article in Blackwood's Magazine for November, 1882. For a more
general discussion, see Archdeacon Farrar's History of Interpretation,
lect. i and ii, and Rev. Prof. H. P. Smith's Inspiration and Inerrancy,
Cincinnati, 1893, especially chap. iv; also Reuss, History of the New
Testament, English translation, pp. 527, 528.
An eminent scholar has said that while the letter of Scripture became
ossified in Palestine, it became volatilized at Alexandria; and the
truth of this remark was proved by the Alexandrian Jewish theologians
just before the beginning of our era.
This, too, was in obedience to a law of development, which is, that
when literal interpretation clashes with increasing knowledge or with
progress in moral feeling, theologians take refuge in mystic meanings--a
law which we see working in all great religions, from the Brahmans
finding hidden senses in the Vedas, to Plato and the Stoics finding
them in the Greek myths; and from the Sofi reading new meanings into the
Koran, to eminent Christian divines of the nineteenth century giving a
non-natural sense to some of the plainest statements in the Bible.
Nothing is more natural than all this. When naive statements of sacred
writers, in accord with the ethics of early ages, make Brahma perform
atrocities which would disgrace a pirate; and Jupiter take part in
adventures worthy of Don Juan; and Jahveh practise trickery, cruelty,
and high-handed injustice which would bring any civilized mortal into
the criminal courts, the invention of allegory is the one means of
saving the divine authority as soon as men reach higher planes of
civilization.
The great early master in this evolution of allegory, for the
satisfaction of Jews and Christians, was Philo: by him its use came in
as never before. The four streams of the garden of Eden thus become the
four virtues; Abraham's country and kindred, from which he was commanded
to depart, the human body and its members; the five cities of Sodom,
the five senses; the Euphrates, correction of manners. By Philo and
his compeers even the most insignificant words and phrases, and those
especially, were held to conceal the most precious meanings.
A perfectly natural and logical result of this view was reached when
Philo, saturated as he was with Greek culture and nourished on pious
traditions of the utterances at Delphi and Dodona, spoke reverently of
the Jewish Scriptures as "oracles". Oracles they became: as oracles they
appeared in the early history of the Christian Church; and oracles they
remained for centuries: eternal life or death, infinite happiness or
agony, as well as ordinary justice in this world, being made to depend
on shifting interpretations of a long series of dark and doubtful
utterances--interpretations frequently given by men who might have been
prophets and apostles, but who had become simply oracle-mongers.
Pressing these oracles into the service of science, Philo became the
forerunner of that long series of theologians who, from Augustine and
Cosmas to Mr. Gladstone, have attempted to extract from scriptural myth
and legend profound contributions to natural science. Thus he taught
that the golden candlesticks in the tabernacle symbolized the planets,
the high priest's robe the universe, and the bells upon it the harmony
of earth and water--whatever that may mean. So Cosmas taught, a thousand
years later, that the table of shewbread in the tabernacle showed forth
the form and construction of the world; and Mr. Gladstone hinted,
more than a thousand years later still, that Neptune's trident had a
mysterious connection with the Christian doctrine of the Trinity.(463)
(463) For Philo Judaeus, see Yonge's translation, Bohn's edition; see
also Sanday, Inspiration, pp. 78-85. For admirable general remarks on
this period in history of exegesis, see Bartlett, Bampton Lectures,
1888, p. 29. For efforts in general to save the credit of myths by
allegorical interpretation, and for those of Philo in particular, see
Drummond, Philo Judaeus, London, 1888, vol. i, pp. 18, 19, and notes.
For interesting examples of Alexandrian exegesis and for Philo's
application of the term "oracle" to the Jewish Scriptures, see Farrar,
History of Interpretation, p. 147 and note. For his discovery of symbols
of the universe in the furniture of the tabernacle, see Drummond, as
above, pp. 269 et seq. For the general subject, admirably discussed
from a historical point of view, see the Rev. Edwin Hatch, D. D., The
Influence of Greek Ideas and Usages upon the Christian Church, Hibbert
Lectures for 1888, chap. iii. For Cosmas, see my chapters on Geography
and Astronomy. For Mr. Gladstone's view of the connection between
Neptune's trident and the doctrine of the Trinity, see his Juventus
Mundi.
These methods, as applied to the Old Testament, had appeared at times
in the New; in spite of the resistance of Tertullian and Irenaeus, they
were transmitted to the Church; and in the works of the early fathers
they bloomed forth luxuriantly.
Justin Martyr and Clement of Alexandria vigorously extended them.
Typical of Justin's method is his finding, in a very simple reference by
Isaiah to Damascus, Samaria, and Assyria, a clear prophecy of the three
wise men of the East who brought gifts to the infant Saviour; and in the
bells on the priest's robe a prefiguration of the twelve apostles.
Any difficulty arising from the fact that the number of bells is not
specified in Scripture, Justin overcame by insisting that David referred
to this prefiguration in the nineteenth Psalm: "Their sound is gone out
through all the earth, and their words to the end of the world."
Working in this vein, Clement of Alexandria found in the form,
dimensions, and colour of the Jewish tabernacle a whole wealth of
interpretation--the altar of incense representing the earth placed at
the centre of the universe; the high priest's robe the visible world;
the jewels on the priest's robe the zodiac; and Abraham's three days'
journey to Mount Moriah the three stages of the soul in its progress
toward the knowledge of God. Interpreting the New Testament, he lessened
any difficulties involved in the miracle of the barley loaves and fishes
by suggesting that what it really means is that Jesus gave mankind a
preparatory training for the gospel by means of the law and philosophy;
because, as he says, barley, like the law, ripens sooner than wheat,
which represents the gospel; and because, just as fishes grow in the
waves of the ocean, so philosophy grew in the waves of the Gentile
world.
Out of reasonings like these, those who followed, especially Cosmas,
developed, as we have seen, a complete theological science of geography
and astronomy.(464)
(464) For Justin, see the Dialogue with Trypho, chaps. xlii, lxxvi, and
lxxxiii. For Clement of Alexandria, see his Miscellanies, book v,
chaps. vi and xi, and book vii, chap. xvi, and especially Hatch, Hibbert
Lectures, as above, pp. 76, 77. As to the loose views of the canon held
by these two fathers and others of their time, see Ladd, Doctrine of
the Sacred Scriptures, vol. ii, pp. 86, 88; also Diestel, Geschichte des
alten Testaments.
But the instrument in exegesis which was used with most cogent force was
the occult significance of certain numbers. The Chaldean and Egyptian
researches of our own time have revealed the main source of this line of
thought; the speculations of Plato upon it are well known; but among
the Jews and in the early Church it grew into something far beyond the
wildest imaginings of the priests of Memphis and Babylon.
Philo had found for the elucidation of Scripture especially deep
meanings in the numbers four, six, and seven; but other interpreters
soon surpassed him. At the very outset this occult power was used in
ascertaining the canonical books of Scripture. Josephus argued that,
since there were twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet, there
must be twenty-two sacred books in the Old Testament; other Jewish
authorities thought that there should be twenty-four books, on account
of the twenty-four watches in the temple. St. Jerome wavered between the
argument based upon the twenty-two letters in the Hebrew alphabet and
that suggested by the twenty-four elders in the Apocalypse. Hilary of
Poitiers argued that there must be twenty-four books, on account of the
twenty-four letters in the Greek alphabet. Origen found an argument
for the existence of exactly four gospels in the existence of just four
elements. Irenaeus insisted that there could be neither more nor fewer
than four gospels, since the earth has four quarters, the air four
winds, and the cherubim four faces; and he denounced those who declined
to accept this reasoning as "vain, ignorant, and audacious."(465)
(465) For Jerome and Origen, see notes on pages following. For Irenaeus,
see Irenaeus, Adversus Hoeres., lib. iii, cap. xi, S 8. For the general
subject, see Sanday, Inspiration, p. 115; also Farrar and H. P. Smith
as above. For a recent very full and very curious statement from a Roman
Catholic authority regarding views cherished in the older Church as to
the symbolism of numbers, see Detzel, Christliche Iconographie, Freiburg
in Bresigau, Band i, Einleitung, p. 4.
But during the first half of the third century came one who exercised
a still stronger influence in this direction--a great man who, while
rendering precious services, did more than any other to fasten upon the
Church a system which has been one of its heaviest burdens for more than
sixteen hundred years: this was Origen. Yet his purpose was noble
and his work based on profound thought. He had to meet the leading
philosophers of the pagan world, to reply to their arguments against the
Old Testament, and especially to break the force of their taunts against
its imputation of human form, limitations, passions, weaknesses, and
even immoralities to the Almighty.
Starting with a mistaken translation of a verse in the book of Proverbs,
Origen presented as a basis for his main structure the idea of
a threefold sense of Scripture: the literal, the moral, and the
mystic--corresponding to the Platonic conception of the threefold nature
of man. As results of this we have such masterpieces as his proof, from
the fifth verse of chapter xxv of Job, that the stars are living beings,
and from the well-known passage in the nineteenth chapter of St. Matthew
his warrant for self-mutilation. But his great triumphs were in the
allegorical method. By its use the Bible was speedily made an oracle
indeed, or, rather, a book of riddles. A list of kings in the Old
Testament thus becomes an enumeration of sins; the waterpots of stone,
"containing two or three firkins apiece," at the marriage of Cana,
signify the literal, moral, and spiritual sense of Scripture; the
ass upon which the Saviour rode on his triumphal entry into Jerusalem
becomes the Old Testament, the foal the New Testament, and the two
apostles who went to loose them the moral and mystical senses; blind
Bartimeus throwing off his coat while hastening to Jesus, opens a whole
treasury of oracular meanings.
The genius and power of Origen made a great impression on the strong
thinkers who followed him. St. Jerome called him "the greatest master in
the Church since the apostles," and Athanasius was hardly less emphatic.
The structure thus begun was continued by leading theologians during
the centuries following: St. Hilary of Poitiers--"the Athanasius of
Gaul"--produced some wonderful results of this method; but St. Jerome,
inspired by the example of the man whom he so greatly admired, went
beyond him. A triumph of his exegesis is seen in his statement that
the Shunamite damsel who was selected to cherish David in his old age
signified heavenly wisdom.
The great mind of St. Augustine was drawn largely into this kind of
creation, and nothing marks more clearly the vast change which had come
over the world than the fact that this greatest of the early Christian
thinkers turned from the broader paths opened by Plato and Aristotle
into that opened by Clement of Alexandria.
In the mystic power of numbers to reveal the sense of Scripture
Augustine found especial delight. He tells us that there is deep meaning
in sundry scriptural uses of the number forty, and especially as the
number of days required for fasting. Forty, he reminds us, is four times
ten. Now, four, he says, is the number especially representing time, the
day and the year being each divided into four parts; while ten, being
made up of three and seven, represents knowledge of the Creator and
creature, three referring to the three persons in the triune Creator,
and seven referring to the three elements, heart, soul, and mind, taken
in connection with the four elements, fire, air, earth, and water, which
go to make up the creature. Therefore this number ten, representing
knowledge, being multiplied by four, representing time, admonishes us
to live during time according to knowledge--that is, to fast for forty
days. Referring to such misty methods as these, which lead the reader to
ask himself whether he is sleeping or waking, St. Augustine remarks
that "ignorance of numbers prevents us from understanding such things
in Scripture." But perhaps the most amazing example is to be seen in his
notes on the hundred and fifty and three fishes which, according to St.
John's Gospel, were caught by St. Peter and the other apostles. Some
points in his long development of this subject may be selected to show
what the older theological method could be made to do for a great
mind. He tells us that the hundred and fifty and three fishes embody
a mystery; that the number ten, evidently as the number of the
commandments, indicates the law; but, as the law without the spirit only
kills, we must add the seven gifts of the spirit, and we thus have the
number seventeen, which signifies the old and new dispensations; then,
if we add together every several number which seventeen contains from
one to seventeen inclusive, the result is a hundred and fifty and
three--the number of the fishes. With this sort of reasoning he finds
profound meanings in the number of furlongs mentioned in he sixth
chapter of St. John. Referring to the fact that the disciples had rowed
about "twenty-five or thirty furlongs," he declares that "twenty-five
typifies the law, because it is five times five, but the law was
imperfect before the gospel came; now perfection is comprised in six,
since God in six days perfected the world, hence five is multiplied by
six that the law may be perfected by the gospel, and six times five is
thirty."
But Augustine's exploits in exegesis were not all based on numerals; he
is sometimes equally profound in other modes. Thus he tells us that the
condemnation of the serpent to eat dust typifies the sin of curiosity,
since in eating dust he "penetrates the obscure and shadowy"; and that
Noah's ark was "pitched within and without with pitch" to show the
safety of the Church from the leaking in of heresy.
Still another exploit--one at which the Church might well have stood
aghast--was his statement that the drunkenness of Noah prefigured the
suffering and death of Christ. It is but just to say that he was not
the original author of this interpretation: it had been presented long
before by St. Cyprian. But this was far from Augustine's worst. Perhaps
no interpretation of Scripture has ever led to more cruel and persistent
oppression, torture, and bloodshed than his reading into one of the most
beautiful parables of Jesus of Nazareth--into the words "Compel them
to come in"--a warrant for religious persecution: of all unintended
blasphemies since the world began, possibly the most appalling. Another
strong man follows to fasten these methods on the Church: St. Gregory
the Great. In his renowned work on the book of Job, the Magna Moralia,
given to the world at the end of the sixth century, he lays great stress
on the deep mystical meanings of the statement that Job had seven sons.
He thinks the seven sons typify the twelve apostles, for "the apostles
were selected through the sevenfold grace of the Spirit; moreover,
twelve is produced from seven--that is, the two parts of seven, four
and three, when multiplied together give twelve." He also finds deep
significance in the number of the apostles; this number being evidently
determined by a multiplication of the number of persons in the Trinity
by the number of quarters of the globe. Still, to do him justice, it
must be said that in some parts of his exegesis the strong sense which
was one of his most striking characteristics crops out in a way very
refreshing. Thus, referring to a passage in the first chapter of Job,
regarding the oxen which were ploughing and the asses which were feeding
beside them, he tells us pithily that these typify two classes of
Christians: the oxen, the energetic Christians who do the work of the
Church; the asses, the lazy Christians who merely feed.(466)
(466) For Origen, see the De Principiis, book iv, chaps. i-vii et seq.,
Crombie's translation; also the Contra Celsum, vol. vi, p. 70; vol.
vii, p. 20, etc.; also various citations in Farrar. For Hilary, see his
Tractatus super Psalmos, cap. ix, li, etc. in Migne, vol. ix, and De
Trinitate, lib. ii, cap. ii. For Jerome's interpretation of the text
relating to the Shunamite woman, see Epist. lii, in Migne, vol. xxii,
pp. 527, 528. For Augustine's use of numbers, see the De Doctrina
Christiana, lib. ii, cap. xvi; and for the explanation of the draught of
fishes, see Augustine in, In Johan. Evangel., tractat. cxxii; and on the
twenty-five to thirty furlongs, ibid., tract. xxv, cap. 6; and for the
significance of the serpent eating dust, De Gen., lib. ii, c. 18. or the
view that the drunkenness of Noah prefigured the suffering of Christ, as
held by SS. Cyprian and Augustine, see Farrar, as above, pp. 181, 238.
For St. Gregory, see the Magna Moralia, lib. i, cap. xiv.
Thus began the vast theological structure of oracular interpretation
applied to the Bible. As we have seen, the men who prepared the
ground for it were the rabbis of Palestine and the Hellenized Jews of
Alexandria; and the four great men who laid its foundation courses were
Origen, St. Augustine, St. Jerome, and St. Gregory.
During the ten centuries following the last of these men this structure
continued to rise steadily above the plain meanings of Scripture. The
Christian world rejoiced in it, and the few great thinkers who dared
bring the truth to bear upon it were rejected. It did indeed seem at one
period in the early Church that a better system might be developed. The
School of Antioch, especially as represented by Chrysostom, appeared
likely to lead in this better way, but the dominant forces were too
strong; the passion for myth and marvel prevailed over the love of
real knowledge, and the reasonings of Chrysostom and his compeers were
neglected.(467)
(467) For the work of the School of Antioch, and especially of
Chrysostom, see the eloquent tribute to it by Farrar, as above.
In the ninth century came another effort to present the claims of right
reason. The first man prominent in this was St. Agobard, Bishop of
Lyons, whom an eminent historian has well called the clearest head
of his time. With the same insight which penetrated the fallacies and
follies of image worship, belief in witchcraft persecution, the ordeal,
and the judicial duel, he saw the futility of this vast fabric of
interpretation, protested against the idea that the Divine Spirit
extended its inspiration to the mere words of Scripture, and asked a
question which has resounded through every generation since: "If you
once begin such a system, who can measure the absurdity which will
follow?"
During the same century another opponent of this dominant system
appeared: John Scotus Erigena. He contended that "reason and authority
come alike from the one source of Divine Wisdom"; that the fathers,
great as their authority is, often contradict each other; and that, in
last resort, reason must be called in to decide between them.
But the evolution of unreason continued: Agobard was unheeded, and
Erigena placed under the ban by two councils--his work being condemned
by a synod as a "Commentum Diaboli." Four centuries later Honorius
III ordered it to be burned, as "teeming with the venom of hereditary
depravity"; and finally, after eight centuries, Pope Gregory XIII placed
it on the Index, where, with so many other works which have done good
service to humanity, it remains to this day. Nor did Abelard, who, three
centuries after Agobard and Erigena, made an attempt in some respects
like theirs, have any better success: his fate at the hands of St.
Bernard and the Council of Sens the world knows by heart. Far more
consonant with the spirit of the universal Church was the teaching in
the twelfth century of the great Hugo of St. Victor, conveyed in these
ominous words, "Learn first what is to be believed" (Disce primo quod
credendum est), meaning thereby that one should first accept doctrines,
and then find texts to confirm them.
These principles being dominant, the accretions to the enormous fabric
of interpretation went steadily on. Typical is the fact that the
Venerable Bede contributed to it the doctrine that, in the text
mentioning Elkanah and his two wives, Elkanah means Christ and the two
wives the Synagogue and the Church. Even such men as Alfred the Great
and St. Thomas Aquinas were added to the forces at work in building
above the sacred books this prodigious structure of sophistry.
Perhaps nothing shows more clearly the tenacity of the old system of
interpretation than the sermons of Savonarola. During the last decade of
the fifteenth century, just at the close of the medieval period, he was
engaged in a life-and-death struggle at Florence. No man ever preached
more powerfully the gospel of righteousness; none ever laid more stress
on conduct; even Luther was not more zealous for reform or more careless
of tradition; and yet we find the great Florentine apostle and martyr
absolutely tied fast to the old system of allegorical interpretation.
The autograph notes of his sermons, still preserved in his cell at San
Marco, show this abundantly. Thus we find him attaching to the creation
of grasses and plants on the third day an allegorical connection with
the "multitude of the elect" and with the "sound doctrines of the
Church," and to the creation of land animals on the sixth day a similar
relation to "the Jewish people" and to "Christians given up to things
earthly."(468)
(468) For Agobard, see the Liber adversus Fredigisum, cap. xii; also
Reuter's Relig. Aufklarung im Mittelalter, vol. i, p. 24; also Poole,
Illustrations of the History of Medieval Thought, London, 1884, pp. 38
et seq. For Erigena, see his De Divisione Naturae, lib. iv, cap. v; also
i, cap. lxvi-lxxi; and for general account, see Ueberweg, History
of Philosophy, New York, 1871, vol. i, pp. 358 et seq.; and for the
treatment of his work by the Church, see the edition of the Index under
Leo XIII, 1881. For Abelard, see the Sic et Non, Prologue, Migne, vol.
iii, pp. 371-377. For Hugo of St. Victor, see Erudit. Didask., lib. vii,
vi, 4, in Migne, clxxvi. For Savonarola's interpretations, see various
references to his preaching in Villari's life of Savonarola, English
translation, London, 1890, and especially the exceedingly interesting
table in the appendix to vol. i, chap. vii.
The revival of learning in the fifteenth century seemed likely to
undermine this older structure.
Then it was that Lorenzo Valla brought to bear on biblical research,
for the first time, the spirit of modern criticism. By truly scientific
methods he proved the famous "Letter of Christ to Abgarus" a forgery;
the "Donation of Constantine," one of the great foundations of the
ecclesiastical power in temporal things, a fraud; and the "Apostles'
Creed" a creation which post-dated the apostles by several centuries.
Of even more permanent influence was his work upon the New Testament,
in which he initiated the modern method of comparing manuscripts to find
what the sacred text really is. At an earlier or later period he would
doubtless have paid for his temerity with his life; fortunately, just
at that time the ruling pontiff and his Contemporaries cared much for
literature and little for orthodoxy, and from their palaces he could bid
defiance to the Inquisition.
While Valla thus initiated biblical criticism south of the Alps, a much
greater man began a more fruitful work in northern Europe. Erasmus, with
his edition of the New Testament, stands at the source of that great
stream of modern research and thought which is doing so much to
undermine and dissolve away the vast fabric of patristic and scholastic
interpretation.
Yet his efforts to purify the scriptural text seemed at first to
encounter insurmountable difficulties, and one of these may stimulate
reflection. He had found, what some others had found before him, that
the famous verse in the fifth chapter of the First Epistle General of
St. John, regarding the "three witnesses," was an interpolation. Careful
research through all the really important early manuscripts showed that
it appeared in none of them. Even after the Bible had been corrected,
in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, by Lanfranc, Archbishop of
Canterbury, and by Nicholas, cardinal and librarian of the Roman Church,
"in accordance with the orthodox faith," the passage was still wanting
in the more authoritative Latin manuscripts. There was not the slightest
tenable ground for believing in the authenticity of the text; on the
contrary, it has been demonstrated that, after a universal silence
of the orthodox fathers of the Church, of the ancient versions of the
Scriptures, and of all really important manuscripts, the verse first
appeared in a Confession of Faith drawn up by an obscure zealot toward
the end of the fifth century. In a very mild exercise, then, of critical
judgment, Erasmus omitted this text from the first two editions of
his Greek Testament as evidently spurious. A storm arose at once. In
England, Lee, afterward Archbishop of York; in Spain, Stunica, one of
the editors of the Complutensian Polyglot; and in France, Bude, Syndic
of the Sorbonne, together with a vast army of monks in England and
on the Continent, attacked him ferociously. He was condemned by the
University of Paris, and various propositions of his were declared to
be heretical and impious. Fortunately, the worst persecutors could not
reach him; otherwise they might have treated him as they treated his
disciple, Berquin, whom in 1529 they burned at Paris.
The fate of this spurious text throws light into the workings of human
nature in its relations to sacred literature. Although Luther omitted it
from his translation of the New Testament, and kept it out of every copy
published during his lifetime, and although at a later period the most
eminent Christian scholars showed that it had no right to a place in the
Bible, it was, after Luther's death, replaced in the German translation,
and has been incorporated into all important editions of it, save one,
since the beginning of the seventeenth century. So essential was it
found in maintaining the dominant theology that, despite the fact that
Sir Isaac Newton, Richard Porson, the nineteenth-century revisers, and
all other eminent authorities have rejected it, the Anglican Church
still retains it in its Lectionary, and the Scotch Church continues to
use it in the Westminster Catechism, as a main support of the doctrine
of the Trinity.
Nor were other new truths presented by Erasmus better received. His
statement that "some of the epistles ascribed to St. Paul are certainly
not his," which is to-day universally acknowledged as a truism, also
aroused a storm. For generations, then, his work seemed vain.
On the coming in of the Reformation the great structure of belief in the
literal and historical correctness of every statement in the Scriptures,
in the profound allegorical meanings of the simplest texts, and even
in the divine origin of the vowel punctuation, towered more loftily and
grew more rapidly than ever before. The Reformers, having cast off the
authority of the Pope and of the universal Church, fell back all the
more upon the infallibility of the sacred books. The attitude of Luther
toward this great subject was characteristic. As a rule, he adhered
tenaciously to the literal interpretation of the Scriptures; his
argument against Copernicus is a fair example of his reasoning in this
respect; but, with the strong good sense which characterized him, he
from time to time broke away from the received belief. Thus, he took
the liberty of understanding certain passages in the Old Testament in a
different sense from that given them by the New Testament, and declared
St. Paul's allegorical use of the story of Sarah and Hagar "too unsound
to stand the test." He also emphatically denied that the Epistle to the
Hebrews was written by St. Paul, and he did this in the exercise of
a critical judgment upon internal evidence. His utterance as to the
Epistle of St. James became famous. He announced to the Church: "I do
not esteem this an apostolic, epistle; I will not have it in my
Bible among the canonical books," and he summed up his opinion in his
well-known allusion to it as "an epistle of straw."
Emboldened by him, the gentle spirit of Melanchthon, while usually
taking the Bible very literally, at times revolted; but this was not due
to any want of loyalty to the old method of interpretation: whenever the
wildest and most absurd system of exegesis seemed necessary to support
any part of the reformed doctrine, Luther and Melanchthon unflinchingly
developed it. Both of them held firmly to the old dictum of Hugo of St.
Victor, which, as we have seen, was virtually that one must first accept
the doctrine, and then find scriptural warrant for it. Very striking
examples of this were afforded in the interpretation by Luther and
Melanchthon of certain alleged marvels of their time, and one out of
several of these may be taken as typical of their methods.
In 1523 Luther and Melanchthon jointly published a work under the title
Der Papstesel--interpreting the significance of a strange, ass-like
monster which, according to a popular story, had been found floating
in the Tiber some time before. This book was illustrated by startling
pictures, and both text and pictures were devoted to proving that this
monster was "a sign from God," indicating the doom of the papacy. This
treatise by the two great founders of German Protestantism pointed out
that the ass's head signified the Pope himself; "for," said they, "as
well as an ass's head is suited to a human body, so well is the Pope
suited to be head over the Church." This argument was clinched by a
reference to Exodus. The right hand of the monster, said to be like an
elephant's foot, they made to signify the spiritual rule of the Pope,
since "with it he tramples upon all the weak": this they proved from
the book of Daniel and the Second Epistle to Timothy. The monster's left
hand, which was like the hand of a man, they declared to mean the Pope's
secular rule, and they found passages to support this view in Daniel
and St. Luke. The right foot, which was like the foot of an ox, they
declared to typify the servants of the spiritual power; and proved this
by a citation from St. Matthew. The left foot, like a griffin's claw,
they made to typify the servants of the temporal power of the Pope,
and the highly developed breasts and various other members, cardinals,
bishops, priests, and monks, "whose life is eating, drinking, and
unchastity": to prove this they cited passages from Second Timothy and
Philippians. The alleged fish-scales on the arms, legs, and neck of the
monster they made to typify secular princes and lords; "since," as they
said, "in St. Matthew and Job the sea typifies the world, and fishes
men." The old man's head at the base of the monster's spine they
interpreted to mean "the abolition and end of the papacy," and proved
this from Hebrews and Daniel. The dragon which opens his mouth in the
rear and vomits fire, "refers to the terrible, virulent bulls and books
which the Pope and his minions are now vomiting forth into the world."
The two great Reformers then went on to insist that, since this monster
was found at Rome, it could refer to no person but the Pope; "for,"
they said, "God always sends his signs in the places where their meaning
applies." Finally, they assured the world that the monster in general
clearly signified that the papacy was then near its end. To this
development of interpretation Luther and Melanchthon especially devoted
themselves; the latter by revising this exposition of the prodigy, and
the former by making additions to a new edition. Such was the success of
this kind of interpretation that Luther, hearing that a monstrous calf
had been found at Freiburg, published a treatise upon it--showing, by
citations from the books of Exodus, Kings, the Psalms, Isaiah, Daniel,
and the Gospel of St. John, that this new monster was the especial work
of the devil, but full of meaning in regard to the questions at issue
between the Reformers and the older Church.
The other main branch of the Reformed Church appeared for a time to
establish a better system. Calvin's strong logic seemed at one period
likely to tear his adherents away from the older method; but the
evolution of scholasticism continued, and the influence of the German
reformers prevailed. At every theological centre came an amazing
development of interpretation.
Eminent Lutheran divines in the seventeenth century, like Gerhard,
Calovius, Coccerus, and multitudes of others, wrote scores of quartos
to further this system, and the other branch of the Protestant Church
emulated their example. The pregnant dictum of St. Augustine--"Greater
is the authority of Scripture than all human capacity"--was steadily
insisted upon, and, toward the close of the seventeenth century,
Voetius, the renowned professor at Utrecht, declared, "Not a word is
contained in the Holy Scriptures which is not in the strictest sense
inspired, the very punctuation not excepted"; and this declaration was
echoed back from multitudes of pulpits, theological chairs, synods,
and councils. Unfortunately, it was very difficult to find what the
"authority of Scripture" really was. To the greater number of Protestant
ecclesiastics it meant the authority of any meaning in the text which
they had the wit to invent and the power to enforce.
To increase this vast confusion, came, in the older branch of the
Church, the idea of the divine inspiration of the Latin translation
of the Bible ascribed to St. Jerome--the Vulgate. It was insisted by
leading Catholic authorities that this was as completely a product
of divine inspiration as was the Hebrew original. Strong men arose to
insist even that, where the Hebrew and the Latin differed, the Hebrew
should be altered to fit Jerome's mistranslation, as the latter, having
been made under the new dispensation, must be better than that made
under the old. Even so great a man as Cardinal Bellarmine exerted
himself in vain against this new tide of unreason.(469)
(469) For Valla, see various sources already named; and for an
especially interesting account, Symond's Renaissance in Italy, the
Revival of Learning, pp. 260-269; and for the opinion of the best
contemporary judge, see Erasmus, Opera, Leyden, 1703, tom. iii, p. 98.
For Erasmus and his opponents, see Life of Erasmus, by Butler, London,
1825, pp. 179-182; but especially, for the general subject, Bishop
Creighton's History of the Papacy during the Reformation. For the attack
by Bude and the Sorbonne and the burning of Berquin, see Drummond, Life
and character of Erasmus, vol. ii, pp. 220-223; also pp. 230-239. As
to the text of the Three Witnesses, see Gibbon, Decline and Fall of
the Roman Empire, chap. xxxvi, notes 116-118; also Dean Milman's note
thereupon. For a full and learned statement of the evidence against
the verse, see Porson's Letters to Travis, London, 1790, in which an
elaborate discussion of all the MSS. is given. See also Jowett in Essays
and Reviews, p. 307. For a very full and impartial history of the long
controversy over this passage, see Charles Butler's Horae Biblicae,
reprinted in Jared Sparks's Theological Essays and Tracts, vol. ii. For
Luther's ideas of interpretation, see his Sammtliche Schriften, Walch
edition, vol. i, p. 1199, vol. ii, p. 1758, vol. viii, p. 2140; for some
of his more free views, vol. xiv, p. 472, vol. vi, p. 121, vol. xi, p.
1448, vol. xii, p. 830; also Tholuck, Doctrine of Inspiration, Boston,
1867, citing the Colloquia, Frankfort, 1571, vol. ii, p. 102; also
the Vorreden zu der deutschen Bibelubersetzung, in Walch's edition, as
above, vol. xiv, especially pp. 94, 98, and 146-150. As to Melanchthon,
see especially his Loci Communes, 1521; and as to the enormous growth
of commentaries in the generations immediately following, see Charles
Beard, Hibbert Lectures for 1883, on the Reformation, especially the
admirable chapter on Protestant Scholasticism; also Archdeacon Farrar,
history of Interpretation. For the Papstesel, etc., see Luther's
Sammtliche Schriften, edit. Walch, vol. xiv, pp. 2403 et seq.; also
Melanchthon's Opera, edit. Bretschneider, vol. xx, pp. 665 et seq.
In the White Library of Cornell University will be found an original
edition of the book, with engravings of the monster. For the Monchkalb,
see Luther's works as above, vol. xix, pp. 2416 et seq. For the spirit
of Calvin in interpretation, see Farrar, ans especially H. P. Smith, D.
D., Inspiration and Inerrancy, chap. iv, and the very brilliant essay
forming chap. iii of the same work, by L. J. Evans, pp. 66 and 67,
note. For the attitude of the older Church toward the Vulgate, see
Pallavicini, Histoire du Concile de Trente, Montrouge, 1844, tome i, pp
19,20; but especially Symonds, The Catholic Reaction, vol. i, pp. 226 et
seq. As to a demand for the revision of the Hebrew Bible to correct its
differences from the Vulgate, see Emanuel Deutsch's Literary Remains,
New York, 1874, p. 9. For the work and spirit of Calovius and other
commentators immediately following the Reformation, see Farrar, as
above; also Beard, Schaff, and Hertzog, Geschichte des alten Testaments
in der christlichen Kirche, pp. 527 et seq. As to extreme views of
Voetius and others, see Tholuck, as above. For the Formula Concensus
Helvetica, which in 1675 affirmed the inspiration of the vowel points,
see Schaff, Creeds.
Nor was a fanatical adhesion to the mere letter of the sacred text
confined to western Europe. About the middle of the seventeenth century,
in the reign of Alexis, father of Peter the Great, Nikon, Patriarch of
the Russian Greek Church, attempted to correct the Slavonic Scriptures
and service-books. They were full of interpolations due to ignorance,
carelessness, or zeal, and in order to remedy this state of the texts
Nikon procured a number of the best Greek and Slavonic manuscripts, set
the leading and most devout scholars he could find at work upon them,
and caused Russian Church councils in 1655 and 1666 to promulgate the
books thus corrected.
But the same feelings which have wrought so strongly against our
nineteenth-century revision of the Bible acted even more forcibly
against that revision in the seventeenth century. Straightway great
masses of the people, led by monks and parish priests, rose in revolt.
The fact that the revisers had written in the New Testament the name of
Jesus correctly, instead of following the old wrong orthography, aroused
the wildest fanaticism. The monks of the great convent of Solovetsk,
when the new books were sent them, cried in terror: "Woe, woe! what
have you done with the Son of God?" They then shut their gates, defying
patriarch, council, and Czar, until, after a struggle lasting seven
years, their monastery was besieged and taken by an imperial army. Hence
arose the great sect of the "Old Believers," lasting to this day, and
fanatically devoted to the corrupt readings of the old text.(470)
(470) The present writer, visiting Moscow in the spring of 1894,
was presented by Count Leo Tolstoi to one of the most eminent and
influential members of the sect of "Old Believers," which dates from
the reform of Nikon. Nothing could exceed the fervor with which this
venerable man, standing in the chapel of his superb villa, expatiated on
the horrors of making the sign of the cross with three fingers instead
of two. His argument was that the TWO fingers, as used by the "Old
Believers," typify the divine and human nature of our Lord, and hence
that the use of them is strictly correct; whereas signing with THREE
fingers, representing the blessed Trinity, is "virtually to crucify all
three persons of the Godhead afresh." Not less cogent were his arguments
regarding the immense value of the old text of Scripture as compared
with the new. For the revolt against Nikon and his reforms, see Rambaud,
History of Russia, vol. i, pp. 414-416; also Wallace, Russia, vol. ii,
pp. 307-309; also Leroy-Beaulieu, L'Empire des Tsars, vol. iii, livre
iii.
Strange to say, on the development of Scripture interpretation, largely
in accordance with the old methods, wrought, about the beginning of the
eighteenth century, Sir Isaac Newton.
It is hard to believe that from the mind which produced the Principia,
and which broke through the many time-honoured beliefs regarding the
dates and formation of scriptural books, could have come his discussions
regarding the prophecies; still, at various points even in this work,
his power appears. From internal evidence he not only discarded the text
of the Three Witnesses, but he decided that the Pentateuch must have
been made up from several books; that Genesis was not written until
the reign of Saul; that the books of Kings and Chronicles were probably
collected by Ezra; and, in a curious anticipation of modern criticism,
that the book of Psalms and the prophecies of Isaiah and Daniel were
each written by various authors at various dates. But the old belief in
prophecy as prediction was too strong for him, and we find him applying
his great powers to the relation of the details given by the prophets
and in the Apocalypse to the history of mankind since unrolled,
and tracing from every statement in prophetic literature its exact
fulfilment even in the most minute particulars.
By the beginning of the eighteenth century the structure of scriptural
interpretation had become enormous. It seemed destined to hide forever
the real character of our sacred literature and to obscure the great
light which Christianity had brought into the world. The Church, Eastern
and Western, Catholic and Protestant, was content to sit in its shadow,
and the great divines of all branches of the Church reared every sort
of fantastic buttress to strengthen or adorn it. It seemed to be founded
for eternity; and yet, at this very time when it appeared the strongest,
a current of thought was rapidly dissolving away its foundations, and
preparing that wreck and ruin of the whole fabric which is now, at the
close of the nineteenth century, going on so rapidly.
The account of the movement thus begun is next to be given.(471)
(471) For Newton's boldness in textual criticism, compared with his
credulity as to the literal fulfilment of prophecy, see his Observations
upon the Prophesies of Daniel and the Apocalypse of St. John, in his
works, edited by Horsley, London, 1785, vol. v, pp. 297-491.
II. BEGINNINGS OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
At the base of the vast structure of the older scriptural interpretation
were certain ideas regarding the first five books of the Old Testament.
It was taken for granted that they had been dictated by the Almighty
to Moses about fifteen hundred years before our era; that some parts of
them, indeed, had been written by the corporeal finger of Jehovah, and
that all parts gave not merely his thoughts but his exact phraseology.
It was also held, virtually by the universal Church, that while
every narrative or statement in these books is a precise statement of
historical or scientific fact, yet that the entire text contains
vast hidden meanings. Such was the rule: the exceptions made by a few
interpreters here and there only confirmed it. Even the indifference
of St. Jerome to the doctrine of Mosaic authorship did not prevent its
ripening into a dogma.
The book of Genesis was universally held to be an account, not only
divinely comprehensive but miraculously exact, of the creation and of
the beginnings of life on the earth; an account to which all discoveries
in every branch of science must, under pains and penalties, be made to
conform. In English-speaking lands this has lasted until our own time:
the most eminent of recent English biologists has told us how in every
path of natural science he has, at some stage in his career, come across
a barrier labelled "No thoroughfare Moses."
A favourite subject of theological eloquence was the perfection of the
Pentateuch, and especially of Genesis, not only as a record of the past,
but as a revelation of the future.
The culmination of this view in the Protestant Church was the Pansophia
Mosaica of Pfeiffer, a Lutheran general superintendent, or bishop, in
northern Germany, near the beginning of the seventeenth century. He
declared that the text of Genesis "must be received strictly"; that "it
contains all knowledge, human and divine"; that "twenty-eight articles
of the Augsburg Confession are to be found in it"; that "it is an
arsenal of arguments against all sects and sorts of atheists, pagans,
Jews, Turks, Tartars, papists, Calvinists, Socinians, and Baptists";
"the source of all sciences and arts, including law, medicine,
philosophy, and rhetoric"; "the source and essence of all histories and
of all professions, trades, and works"; "an exhibition of all virtues
and vices"; "the origin of all consolation."
This utterance resounded through Germany from pulpit to pulpit, growing
in strength and volume, until a century later it was echoed back by
Huet, the eminent bishop and commentator of France. He cited a hundred
authors, sacred and profane, to prove that Moses wrote the Pentateuch;
and not only this, but that from the Jewish lawgiver came the heathen
theology--that Moses was, in fact, nearly the whole pagan pantheon
rolled into one, and really the being worshipped under such names as
Bacchus, Adonis, and Apollo.(472)
(472) For the passage from Huxley regarding Mosaic barriers to modern
thought, see his Essays, recently published. For Pfeiffer, see Zoeckler,
Theologie und Naturwissenschaft, vol. i, pp. 688, 689. For St. Jerome's
indifference as to the Mosaic authorship, see the first of the excellent
Sketches of the Pentateuch Criticism, by the Rev. S. J. Curtiss, in the
Bibliotheca Sacra for January, 1884. For Huet, see also Curtiss, ibid.
About the middle of the twelfth century came, so far as the world now
knows, the first gainsayer of this general theory. Then it was that Aben
Ezra, the greatest biblical scholar of the Middle Ages, ventured
very discreetly to call attention to certain points in the Pentateuch
incompatible with the belief that the whole of it had been written by
Moses and handed down in its original form. His opinion was based upon
the well-known texts which have turned all really eminent biblical
scholars in the nineteenth century from the old view by showing the
Mosaic authorship of the five books in their present form to be clearly
disproved by the books themselves; and, among these texts, accounts
of Moses' own death and burial, as well as statements based on names,
events, and conditions which only came into being ages after the time of
Moses.
But Aben Ezra had evidently no aspirations for martyrdom; he fathered
the idea upon a rabbi of a previous generation, and, having veiled his
statement in an enigma, added the caution, "Let him who understands hold
his tongue."(473)
(473) For the texts referred to by Aben Ezra as incompatible with the
Mosaic authorship of the Pentateuch, see Meyer, Geschichte der Exegese,
vol. i, pp. 85-88; and for a pithy short account, Moore's introduction
to The Genesis of Genesis, by B. W. Bacon, Hartford, 1893, p. 23; also
Curtiss, as above. For a full exhibition of the absolute incompatibility
of these texts with the Mosaic authorship, etc., see The Higher
Criticism of the Pentateuch, by C. A. Briggs, D. D., New York, 1893,
especially chap. iv; also Robertson Smith, art. Bible, in Encycl. Brit.
For about four centuries the learned world followed the prudent rabbi's
advice, and then two noted scholars, one of them a Protestant, the other
a Catholic, revived his idea. The first of these, Carlstadt, insisted
that the authorship of the Pentateuch was unknown and unknowable; the
other, Andreas Maes, expressed his opinion in terms which would not now
offend the most orthodox, that the Pentateuch had been edited by Ezra,
and had received in the process sundry divinely inspired words and
phrases to clear the meaning. Both these innovators were dealt
with promptly: Carlstadt was, for this and other troublesome ideas,
suppressed with the applause of the Protestant Church; and the book of
Maes was placed by the older Church on the Index.
But as we now look back over the Revival of Learning, the Age of
Discovery, and the Reformation, we can see clearly that powerful as the
older Church then was, and powerful as the Reformed Church was to be,
there was at work something far more mighty than either or than both;
and this was a great law of nature--the law of evolution through
differentiation. Obedient to this law there now began to arise, both
within the Church and without it, a new body of scholars--not so much
theologians as searchers for truth by scientific methods. Some, like
Cusa, were ecclesiastics; some, like Valla, Erasmus, and the Scaligers,
were not such in any real sense; but whether in holy orders, really,
nominally, or not at all, they were, first of all, literary and
scientific investigators.
During the sixteenth century a strong impulse was given to more thorough
research by several very remarkable triumphs of the critical method
as developed by this new class of men, and two of these ought here to
receive attention on account of their influence upon the whole after
course of human thought.
For many centuries the Decretals bearing the great name of Isidore had
been cherished as among the most valued muniments of the Church. They
contained what claimed to be a mass of canons, letters of popes, decrees
of councils, and the like, from the days of the apostles down to the
eighth century--all supporting at important points the doctrine, the
discipline, the ceremonial, and various high claims of the Church and
its hierarchy.
But in the fifteenth century that sturdy German thinker, Cardinal
Nicholas of Cusa, insisted on examining these documents and on applying
to them the same thorough research and patient thought which led him,
even before Copernicus, to detect the error of the Ptolemaic astronomy.
As a result, he avowed his scepticism regarding this pious literature;
other close thinkers followed him in investigating it, and it was
soon found a tissue of absurd anachronisms, with endless clashing and
confusion of events and persons.
For a time heroic attempts were made by Church authorities to cover up
these facts. Scholars revealing them were frowned upon, even persecuted,
and their works placed upon the Index; scholars explaining them
away--the "apologists" or "reconcilers" of that day--were rewarded with
Church preferment, one of them securing for a very feeble treatise
a cardinal's hat. But all in vain; these writings were at length
acknowledged by all scholars of note, Catholic and Protestant, to be
mainly a mass of devoutly cunning forgeries.
While the eyes of scholars were thus opened as never before to the skill
of early Church zealots in forging documents useful to ecclesiasticism,
another discovery revealed their equal skill in forging documents useful
to theology.
For more than a thousand years great stress had been laid by theologians
upon the writings ascribed to Dionysius the Areopagite, the Athenian
convert of St. Paul. Claiming to come from one so near the great
apostle, they were prized as a most precious supplement to Holy Writ.
A belief was developed that when St. Paul had returned to earth,
after having been "caught up to the third heaven," he had revealed to
Dionysius the things he had seen. Hence it was that the varied pictures
given in these writings of the heavenly hierarchy and the angelic
ministers of the Almighty took strong hold upon the imagination of the
universal Church: their theological statements sank deeply into
the hearts and minds of the Mystics of the twelfth century and the
Platonists of the fifteenth; and the ten epistles they contained,
addressed to St. John, to Titus, to Polycarp, and others of the earliest
period, were considered treasures of sacred history. An Emperor of
the East had sent these writings to an Emperor of the West as the most
precious of imperial gifts. Scotus Erigena had translated them; St.
Thomas Aquinas had expounded them; Dante had glorified them; Albert
the Great had claimed that they were virtually given by St. Paul and
inspired by the Holy Ghost. Their authenticity was taken for granted by
fathers, doctors, popes, councils, and the universal Church.
But now, in the glow of the Renascence, all this treasure was found to
be but dross. Investigators in the old Church and in the new joined in
proving that the great mass of it was spurious.
To say nothing of other evidences, it failed to stand the simplest of
all tests, for these writings constantly presupposed institutions and
referred to events of much later date than the time of Dionysius; they
were at length acknowledged by all authorities worthy of the name,
Catholic as well as Protestant, to be simply--like the Isidorian
Decretals--pious frauds.
Thus arose an atmosphere of criticism very different from the atmosphere
of literary docility and acquiescence of the "Ages of Faith"; thus it
came that great scholars in all parts of Europe began to realize, as
never before, the part which theological skill and ecclesiastical zeal
had taken in the development of spurious sacred literature; thus was
stimulated a new energy in research into all ancient documents, no
matter what their claims. To strengthen this feeling and to intensify
the stimulating qualities of this new atmosphere came, as we have seen,
the researches and revelations of Valla regarding the forged Letter of
Christ to Abgarus, the fraudulent Donation of Constantine, and the late
date of the Apostles' Creed; and, to give this feeling direction toward
the Hebrew and Christian sacred books, came the example of Erasmus.(474)
(474) For very fair statements regarding the great forged documents of
the Middle Ages, see Addis and Arnold, Catholic Dictionary, articles
Dionysius the Areopagite and False Decretals, and in the latter the
curious acknowledgment that the mass of pseudo-Isidorian Decretals "is
what we now call a forgery."
For the derivation of Dionysius's ideas from St. Paul, and for the idea
of inspiration attributed to him, see Albertus Magnus, Opera Omnia, vol.
xiii, early chapters and chap. vi. For very interesting details on this
general subject, see Dollinger, Das Papstthum, chap. ii; also his Fables
respecting the Popes of the Middle Ages, translated by Plummer and H. B.
Smith, part i, chap. v. Of the exposure of these works, see Farrar, as
above, pp. 254, 255; also Beard, Hibbert Lectures, pp. 4, 354. For the
False Decretals, see Milman, History of Latin Christianity, vol. ii, pp.
373 et seq. For the great work of the pseudo-Dionysius, see ibid., vol.
iii, p. 352, and vol. vi, pp. 402 et seq., and Canon Westcott's article
on Dionysius the Areopagite in vol. v of the Contemporary Review; also
the chapters on Astronomy in this work.
Naturally, then, in this new atmosphere the bolder scholars of Europe
soon began to push more vigorously the researches begun centuries before
by Aben Ezra, and the next efforts of these men were seen about the
middle of the seventeenth century, when Hobbes, in his Leviathan, and
La Pevrere, in his Preadamites, took them up and developed them still
further. The result came speedily. Hobbes, for this and other sins, was
put under the ban, even by the political party which sorely needed him,
and was regarded generally as an outcast; while La Peyrere, for this and
other heresies, was thrown into prison by the Grand Vicar of Mechlin,
and kept there until he fully retracted: his book was refuted by seven
theologians within a year after its appearance, and within a generation
thirty-six elaborate answers to it had appeared: the Parliament of Paris
ordered it to be burned by the hangman.
In 1670 came an utterance vastly more important, by a man far greater
than any of these--the Tractatus Thrologico-Politicus of Spinoza.
Reverently but firmly he went much more deeply into the subject.
Suggesting new arguments and recasting the old, he summed up all with
judicial fairness, and showed that Moses could not have been the author
of the Pentateuch in the form then existing; that there had been glosses
and revisions; that the biblical books had grown up as a literature;
that, though great truths are to be found in them, and they are to be
regarded as a divine revelation, the old claims of inerrancy for them
can not be maintained; that in studying them men had been misled by
mistaking human conceptions for divine meanings; that, while prophets
have been inspired, the prophetic faculty has not been the dowry of the
Jewish people alone; that to look for exact knowledge of natural and
spiritual phenomena in the sacred books is an utter mistake; and that
the narratives of the Old and New Testaments, while they surpass those
of profane history, differ among themselves not only in literary merit,
but in the value of the doctrines they inculcate. As to the authorship
of the Pentateuch, he arrived at the conclusion that it was written long
after Moses, but that Moses may have written some books from which
it was compiled--as, for example, those which are mentioned in the
Scriptures, the Book of the Wars of God, the Book of the Covenant,
and the like--and that the many repetitions and contradictions in the
various books show a lack of careful editing as well as a variety of
original sources. Spinoza then went on to throw light into some other
books of the Old and New Testaments, and added two general statements
which have proved exceedingly serviceable, for they contain the germs of
all modern broad churchmanship; and the first of them gave the formula
which was destined in our own time to save to the Anglican Church a
large number of her noblest sons: this was, that "sacred Scripture
CONTAINS the Word of God, and in so far as it contains it is
incorruptible"; the second was, that "error in speculative doctrine is
not impious."
Though published in various editions, the book seemed to produce little
effect upon the world at that time; but its result to Spinoza himself
was none the less serious. Though so deeply religious that Novalis
spoke of him as "a God-intoxicated man," and Schleiermacher called him a
"saint," he had been, for the earlier expression of some of the opinions
it contained, abhorred as a heretic both by Jews and Christians: from
the synagogue he was cut off by a public curse, and by the Church he was
now regarded as in some sort a forerunner of Antichrist. For all this,
he showed no resentment, but devoted himself quietly to his studies, and
to the simple manual labour by which he supported himself; declined
all proffered honours, among them a professorship at Heidelberg; found
pleasure only in the society of a few friends as gentle and affectionate
as himself; and died contentedly, without seeing any widespread effect
of his doctrine other than the prevailing abhorrence of himself.
Perhaps in all the seventeenth century there was no man whom Jesus of
Nazareth would have more deeply loved, and no life which he would have
more warmly approved; yet down to a very recent period this hatred for
Spinoza has continued. When, about 1880, it was proposed to erect a
monument to him at Amsterdam, discourses were given in churches and
synagogues prophesying the wrath of Heaven upon the city for such a
profanation; and when the monument was finished, the police were obliged
to exert themselves to prevent injury to the statue and to the eminent
scholars who unveiled it.
But the ideas of Spinoza at last secured recognition. They had sunk
deeply into the hearts and minds of various leaders of thought, and,
most important of all, into the heart and mind of Lessing; he brought
them to bear in his treatise on the Education of the World, as well as
in his drama, Nathan the Wise, and both these works have spoken with
power to every generation since.
In France, also, came the same healthful evolution of thought. For
generations scholars had known that multitudes of errors had crept into
the sacred text. Robert Stephens had found over two thousand variations
in the oldest manuscripts of the Old Testament, and in 1633 Jean Morin,
a priest of the Oratory, pointed out clearly many of the most glaring
of these. Seventeen years later, in spite of the most earnest Protestant
efforts to suppress his work, Cappellus gave forth his Critica Sacra,
demonstrating not only that the vowel pointing of Scripture was not
divinely inspired, but that the Hebrew text itself, from which
the modern translations were made, is full of errors due to the
carelessness, ignorance, and doctrinal zeal of early scribes, and that
there had clearly been no miraculous preservation of the "original
autographs" of the sacred books.
While orthodox France was under the uneasiness and alarm thus caused,
appeared a Critical History of the Old Testament by Richard Simon, a
priest of the Oratory. He was a thoroughly religious man and an acute
scholar, whose whole purpose was to develop truths which he believed
healthful to the Church and to mankind. But he denied that Moses was the
author of the Pentateuch, and exhibited the internal evidence, now so
well known, that the books were composed much later by various persons,
and edited later still. He also showed that other parts of the Old
Testament had been compiled from older sources, and attacked the
time-honoured theory that Hebrew was the primitive language of mankind.
The whole character of his book was such that in these days it would
pass, on the whole, as conservative and orthodox; it had been approved
by the censor in 1678, and printed, when the table of contents and
a page of the preface were shown to Bossuet. The great bishop and
theologian was instantly aroused; he pronounced the work "a mass of
impieties and a bulwark of irreligion"; his biographer tells us that,
although it was Holy Thursday, the bishop, in spite of the solemnity of
the day, hastened at once to the Chancellor Le Tellier, and secured an
order to stop the publication of the book and to burn the whole edition
of it. Fortunately, a few copies were rescued, and a few years later
the work found a new publisher in Holland; yet not until there had been
attached to it, evidently by some Protestant divine of authority, an
essay warning the reader against its dangerous doctrines. Two years
later a translation was published in England.
This first work of Simon was followed by others, in which he sought, in
the interest of scriptural truth, to throw a new and purer light upon
our sacred literature; but Bossuet proved implacable. Although unable
to suppress all of Simon's works, he was able to drive him from the
Oratory, and to bring him into disrepute among the very men who ought to
have been proud of him as Frenchmen and thankful to him as Christians.
But other scholars of eminence were now working in this field, and chief
among them Le Clerc. Virtually driven out of Geneva, he took refuge
at Amsterdam, and there published a series of works upon the Hebrew
language, the interpretation of Scripture, and the like. In these
he combated the prevalent idea that Hebrew was the primitive tongue,
expressed the opinion that in the plural form of the word used in
Genesis for God, "Elohim," there is a trace of Chaldean polytheism, and,
in his discussion on the serpent who tempted Eve, curiously anticipated
modern geological and zoological ideas by quietly confessing his
inability to see how depriving the serpent of feet and compelling him to
go on his belly could be punishment--since all this was natural to the
animal. He also ventured quasi-scientific explanations of the confusion
of tongues at Babel, the destruction of Sodom, the conversion of Lot's
wife into a pillar of salt, and the dividing of the Red Sea. As to
the Pentateuch in general, he completely rejected the idea that it was
written by Moses. But his most permanent gift to the thinking world was
his answer to those who insisted upon the reference by Christ and his
apostles to Moses as the author of the Pentateuch. The answer became a
formula which has proved effective from his day to ours: "Our Lord and
his apostles did not come into this world to teach criticism to the
Jews, and hence spoke according to the common opinion."
Against all these scholars came a theological storm, but it raged most
pitilessly against Le Clerc. Such renowned theologians as Carpzov in
Germany, Witsius in Holland, and Huet in France berated him unmercifully
and overwhelmed him with assertions which still fill us with wonder.
That of Huet, attributing the origin of pagan as well as Christian
theology to Moses, we have already seen; but Carpzov showed that
Protestantism could not be outdone by Catholicism when he declared, in
the face of all modern knowledge, that not only the matter but the exact
form and words of the Bible had been divinely transmitted to the modern
world free from all error.
At this Le Clerc stood aghast, and finally stammered out a sort of half
recantation.(475)
(475) For Carlstadt, and Luther's dealings with him on various accounts,
see Meyer, Geschichte der exegese, vol. ii, pp. 373, 397. As to the
value of Maes's work in general, see Meyer, vol. ii, p. 125; and as
to the sort of work in question, ibid., vol. iii, p. 425, note. For
Carlstadt, see also Farrar, History of Interpretation, and Moore's
introduction, as above. For Hobbes's view that the Pentateuch was
written long after Moses's day, see the Leviathan, vol. iii, p. 33. For
La Peyrere's view, see especially his Prae-Adamitae, lib. iv, chap. ii,
also lib. ii, passim; also Lecky, Rationalism in Europe, vol. i, p. 294;
also interesting points in Bayle's Dictionary. For Spinoza's view,
see the Tractatus Theologico-Politicus, chaps. ii and iii, and for
the persecution, see the various biographies. Details regarding the
demonstration against the unveiling of his statue were given to the
present writer at the time by Berthold Auerbach, who took part in the
ceremony. For Morinus and Cappellus, see Farrar, as above, p. 387
and note. For Richard Simon, see his Histoire Critique de l'Ancien
Testament, liv. i, chaps. ii, iii, iv, v, and xiii. For his denial
of the prevailing theory regarding Hebrew, see liv. i, chap. iv. For
Morinus (Morin) and his work, see the Biog. Univ. and Nouvelle Biog.
Generale; also Curtiss. For Bousset's opposition to Simon, see the
Histoire de Bousser in the Oeuvres de Bousset, Paris, 1846, tome xii,
pp. 330, 331; also t. x, p. 378; also sundry attacks in various volumes.
It is interesting to note that among the chief instigators of the
persecution were the Port-Royalists, upon whose persecution afterward by
the Jesuits so much sympathy has been lavished by the Protestant world.
For Le Clerc, see especially his Pentateuchus, Prolegom, dissertat.
i; also Com. in Genes., cap. vi-viii. For a translation of selected
passages on the points noted, see Twelve Dissertations out of Monsieur
LeClerc's Genesis, done out of Latin by Mr. Brown, London, 1696; also Le
Clerc's Sentiments de Quelques Theologiens de Hollande, passim; also his
work on Inspiration, English translation, Boston, 1820, pp. 47-50,
also 57-67. For Witsius and Carpzov, see Curtiss, as above. For some
subordinate points in the earlier growth of the opinion at present
dominant, see Briggs, The Higher Criticism of the Hexateuch, New York,
1893, chap. iv.
During the eighteenth century constant additions were made to the
enormous structure of orthodox scriptural interpretation, some of them
gaining the applause of the Christian world then, though nearly all
are utterly discredited now. But in 1753 appeared two contributions
of permanent influence, though differing vastly in value. In the
comparative estimate of these two works the world has seen a remarkable
reversal of public opinion.
The first of these was Bishop Lowth's Prelections upon the Sacred Poetry
of the Hebrews. In this was well brought out that characteristic of
Hebrew poetry to which it owes so much of its peculiar charm--its
parallelism.
The second of these books was Astruc's Conjectures on the Original
Memoirs which Moses used in composing the Book of Genesis. In this
was for the first time clearly revealed the fact that, amid various
fragments of old writings, at least two main narratives enter into the
composition of Genesis; that in the first of these is generally used as
an appellation of the Almighty the word "Elohim," and in the second the
word "Yahveh" (Jehovah); that each narrative has characteristics of its
own, in thought and expression, which distinguish it from the other;
that, by separating these, two clear and distinct narratives may be
obtained, each consistent with itself, and that thus, and thus alone,
can be explained the repetitions, discrepancies, and contradictions in
Genesis which so long baffled the ingenuity of commentators, especially
the two accounts of the creation, so utterly inconsistent with each
other.
Interesting as was Lowth's book, this work by Astruc was, as the
thinking world now acknowledges, infinitely more important; it was,
indeed, the most valuable single contribution ever made to biblical
study. But such was not the judgment of the world THEN. While Lowth's
book was covered with honour and its author promoted from the bishopric
of St. David's to that of London, and even offered the primacy,
Astruc and his book were covered with reproach. Though, as an orthodox
Catholic, he had mainly desired to reassert the authorship of Moses
against the argument of Spinoza, he received no thanks on that account.
Theologians of all creeds sneered at him as a doctor of medicine who had
blundered beyond his province; his fellow-Catholics in France bitterly
denounced him as a heretic; and in Germany the great Protestant
theologian, Michaelis, who had edited and exalted Lowth's work, poured
contempt over Astruc as an ignoramus.
The case of Astruc is one of the many which show the wonderful power of
the older theological reasoning to close the strongest minds against
the clearest truths. The fact which he discovered is now as definitely
established as any in the whole range of literature or science. It has
become as clear as the day, and yet for two thousand years the minds of
professional theologians, Jewish and Christian, were unable to detect
it. Not until this eminent physician applied to the subject a mind
trained in making scientific distinctions was it given to the world.
It was, of course, not possible even for so eminent a scholar as
Michaelis to pooh-pooh down a discovery so pregnant; and, curiously
enough, it was one of Michaelis's own scholars, Eichhorn, who did the
main work in bringing the new truth to bear upon the world. He, with
others, developed out of it the theory that Genesis, and indeed the
Pentateuch, is made up entirely of fragments of old writings, mainly
disjointed. But they did far more than this: they impressed upon the
thinking part of Christendom the fact that the Bible is not a BOOK, but
a LITERATURE; that the style is not supernatural and unique, but simply
the Oriental style of the lands and times in which its various parts
were written; and that these must be studied in the light of the modes
of thought and statement and the literary habits generally of Oriental
peoples. From Eichhorn's time the process which, by historical,
philological, and textual research, brings out the truth regarding this
literature has been known as "the higher criticism."
He was a deeply religious man, and the mainspring of his efforts was the
desire to bring back to the Church the educated classes, who had been
repelled by the stiff Lutheran orthodoxy; but this only increased
hostility to him. Opposition met him in Germany at every turn; and in
England, Lloyd, Regius Professor of Hebrew at Cambridge, who sought
patronage for a translation of Eichhorn's work, was met generally with
contempt and frequently with insult.
Throughout Catholic Germany it was even worse. In 1774 Isenbiehl, a
priest at Mayence who had distinguished himself as a Greek and Hebrew
scholar, happened to question the usual interpretation of the passage in
Isaiah which refers to the virgin-born Immanuel, and showed then--what
every competent critic knows now--that it had reference to events looked
for in older Jewish history. The censorship and faculty of theology
attacked him at once and brought him before the elector. Luckily, this
potentate was one of the old easy-going prince-bishops, and contented
himself with telling the priest that, though his contention was perhaps
true, he "must remain in the old paths, and avoid everything likely to
make trouble."
But at the elector's death, soon afterward, the theologians renewed the
attack, threw Isenbiehl out of his professorship and degraded him. One
insult deserves mention for its ingenuity. It was declared that
he--the successful and brilliant professor--showed by the obnoxious
interpretation that he had not yet rightly learned the Scriptures; he
was therefore sent back to the benches of the theological school, and
made to take his seat among the ingenuous youth who were conning the
rudiments of theology. At this he made a new statement, so carefully
guarded that it disarmed many of his enemies, and his high scholarship
soon won for him a new professorship of Greek--the condition being that
he should cease writing upon Scripture. But a crafty bookseller having
republished his former book, and having protected himself by keeping the
place and date of publication secret, a new storm fell upon the author;
he was again removed from his professorship and thrown into prison; his
book was forbidden, and all copies of it in that part of Germany were
confiscated. In 1778, having escaped from prison, he sought refuge with
another of the minor rulers who in blissful unconsciousness were doing
their worst while awaiting the French Revolution, but was at once
delivered up to the Mayence authorities and again thrown into prison.
The Pope, Pius VI, now intervened with a brief on Isenbiehl's book,
declaring it "horrible, false, perverse, destructive, tainted with
heresy," and excommunicating all who should read it. At this, Isenbiehl,
declaring that he had written it in the hope of doing a service to the
Church, recanted, and vegetated in obscurity until his death in 1818.
But, despite theological faculties, prince-bishops, and even popes, the
new current of thought increased in strength and volume, and into it at
the end of the eighteenth century came important contributions from two
sources widely separated and most dissimilar.
The first of these, which gave a stimulus not yet exhausted, was the
work of Herder. By a remarkable intuition he had anticipated some of
those ideas of an evolutionary process in nature and in literature which
first gained full recognition nearly three quarters of a century after
him; but his greatest service in the field of biblical study was his
work, at once profound and brilliant, The Spirit of Hebrew Poetry. In
this field he eclipsed Bishop Lowth. Among other things of importance,
he showed that the Psalms were by different authors and of different
periods--the bloom of a great poetic literature.
Until his time no one had so clearly done justice to their sublimity and
beauty; but most striking of all was his discussion of Solomon's Song.
For over twenty centuries it had been customary to attribute to it
mystical meanings. If here and there some man saw the truth, he was
careful, like Aben Ezra, to speak with bated breath.
The penalty for any more honest interpretation was seen, among
Protestants, when Calvin and Beza persecuted Castellio, covered him with
obloquy, and finally drove him to starvation and death, for throwing
light upon the real character of the Song of Songs; and among Catholics
it was seen when Philip II allowed the pious and gifted Luis de Leon,
for a similar offence, to be thrown into a dungeon of the Inquisition
and kept there for five years, until his health was utterly shattered
and his spirit so broken that he consented to publish a new commentary
on the song, "as theological and obscure as the most orthodox could
desire."
Here, too, we have an example of the efficiency of the older biblical
theology in fettering the stronger minds and in stupefying the weaker.
Just as the book of Genesis had to wait over two thousand years for a
physician to reveal the simplest fact regarding its structure, so the
Song of Songs had to wait even longer for a poet to reveal not only its
beauty but its character. Commentators innumerable had interpreted it;
St. Bernard had preached over eighty sermons on its first two chapters;
Palestrina had set its most erotic parts to sacred music; Jews and
Gentiles, Catholics and Protestants, from Origen to Aben Ezra and from
Luther to Bossuet, had uncovered its deep meanings and had demonstrated
it to be anything and everything save that which it really is. Among
scores of these strange imaginations it was declared to represent the
love of Jehovah for Israel; the love of Christ for the Church; the
praises of the Blessed Virgin; the union of the soul with the body;
sacred history from the Exodus to the Messiah; Church history from the
Crucifixion to the Reformation; and some of the more acute Protestant
divines found in it references even to the religious wars in Germany
and to the Peace of Passau. In these days it seems hard to imagine how
really competent reasoners could thus argue without laughing in each
other's faces, after the manner of Cicero's augurs. Herder showed
Solomon's Song to be what the whole thinking world now knows it to
be--simply an Oriental love-poem.
But his frankness brought him into trouble: he was bitterly assailed.
Neither his noble character nor his genius availed him. Obliged to flee
from one pastorate to another, he at last found a happy refuge at
Weimar in the society of Goethe, Wieland, and Jean Paul, and thence he
exercised a powerful influence in removing noxious and parasitic growths
from religious thought.
It would hardly be possible to imagine a man more different from
Herder than was the other of the two who most influenced biblical
interpretation at the end of the eighteenth century. This was Alexander
Geddes--a Roman Catholic priest and a Scotchman. Having at an early
period attracted much attention by his scholarship, and having received
the very rare distinction, for a Catholic, of a doctorate from the
University of Aberdeen, he began publishing in 1792 a new translation of
the Old Testament, and followed this in 1800 with a volume of critical
remarks. In these he supported mainly three views: first, that the
Pentateuch in its present form could not have been written by Moses;
secondly, that it was the work of various hands; and, thirdly, that it
could not have been written before the time of David. Although there
was a fringe of doubtful theories about them, these main conclusions,
supported as they were by deep research and cogent reasoning, are now
recognised as of great value. But such was not the orthodox opinion
then. Though a man of sincere piety, who throughout his entire life
remained firm in the faith of his fathers, he and his work were at
once condemned: he was suspended by the Catholic authorities as a
misbeliever, denounced by Protestants as an infidel, and taunted by both
as "a would-be corrector of the Holy Ghost." Of course, by this
taunt was meant nothing more than that he dissented from sundry ideas
inherited from less enlightened times by the men who just then happened
to wield ecclesiastical power.
But not all the opposition to him could check the evolution of his
thought. A line of great men followed in these paths opened by Astruc
and Eichhorn, and broadened by Herder and Geddes. Of these was De Wette,
whose various works, especially his Introduction to the Old Testament,
gave a new impulse early in the nineteenth century to fruitful thought
throughout Christendom. In these writings, while showing how largely
myths and legends had entered into the Hebrew sacred books, he threw
especial light into the books Deuteronomy and Chronicles. The former
he showed to be, in the main, a late priestly summary of law, and the
latter a very late priestly recast of early history. He had, indeed, to
pay a penalty for thus aiding the world in its march toward more truth,
for he was driven out of Germany, and obliged to take refuge in a
Swiss professorship; while Theodore Parker, who published an English
translation of his work, was, for this and similar sins, virtually
rejected by what claimed to be the most liberal of all Christian bodies
in the United States.
But contributions to the new thought continued from quarters whence
least was expected. Gesenius, by his Hebrew Grammar, and Ewald, by his
historical studies, greatly advanced it.
To them and to all like them during the middle years of the nineteenth
century was sturdily opposed the colossus of orthodoxy--Hengstenberg. In
him was combined the haughtiness of a Prussian drill-sergeant, the zeal
of a Spanish inquisitor, and the flippant brutality of a French orthodox
journalist. Behind him stood the gifted but erratic Frederick William
IV--a man admirably fitted for a professorship of aesthetics, but whom
an inscrutable fate had made King of Prussia. Both these rulers in the
German Israel arrayed all possible opposition against the great scholars
labouring in the new paths; but this opposition was vain: the succession
of acute and honest scholars continued: Vatke, Bleek, Reuss, Graf,
Kayser, Hupfeld, Delitzsch, Kuenen, and others wrought on in Germany and
Holland, steadily developing the new truth.
Especially to be mentioned among these is Hupfeld, who published in 1853
his treatise on The Sources of Genesis. Accepting the Conjectures which
Astruc had published just a hundred years before, he established what
has ever since been recognised by the leading biblical commentators as
the true basis of work upon the Pentateuch--the fact that THREE true
documents are combined in Genesis, each with its own characteristics.
He, too, had to pay a price for letting more light upon the world. A
determined attempt was made to punish him. Though deeply religious in
his nature and aspirations, he was denounced in 1865 to the Prussian
Government as guilty of irreverence; but, to the credit of his noble and
true colleagues who trod in the more orthodox paths--men like Tholuck
and Julius Muller--the theological faculty of the University of Halle
protested against this persecuting effort, and it was brought to naught.
The demonstrations of Hupfeld gave new life to biblical scholarship in
all lands. More and more clear became the evidence that throughout the
Pentateuch, and indeed in other parts of our sacred books, there had
been a fusion of various ideas, a confounding of various epochs, and a
compilation of various documents. Thus was opened a new field of thought
and work: in sifting out this literature; in rearranging it; and in
bringing it into proper connection with the history of the Jewish race
and of humanity.
Astruc and Hupfeld having thus found a key to the true character of the
"Mosaic" Scriptures, a second key was found which opened the way to the
secret of order in all this chaos. For many generations one thing had
especially puzzled commentators and given rise to masses of futile
"reconciliation": this was the patent fact that such men as Samuel,
David, Elijah, Isaiah, and indeed the whole Jewish people down to the
Exile, showed in all their utterances and actions that they were utterly
ignorant of that vast system of ceremonial law which, according to the
accounts attributed to Moses and other parts of our sacred books, was in
full force during their time and during nearly a thousand years before
the Exile. It was held "always, everywhere, and by all," that in the
Old Testament the chronological order of revelation was: first, the
law; secondly, the Psalms; thirdly, the prophets. This belief continued
unchallenged during more than two thousand years, and until after the
middle of the nineteenth century.
Yet, as far back as 1835, Vatke at Berlin had, in his Religion of the
Old Testament, expressed his conviction that this belief was unfounded.
Reasoning that Jewish thought must have been subject to the laws of
development which govern other systems, he arrived at the conclusion
that the legislation ascribed to Moses, and especially the elaborate
paraphernalia and composite ceremonies of the ritual, could not have
come into being at a period so rude as that depicted in the "Mosaic"
accounts.
Although Vatke wrapped this statement in a mist of Hegelian metaphysics,
a sufficient number of watchmen on the walls of the Prussian Zion saw
its meaning, and an alarm was given. The chroniclers tell us that "fear
of failing in the examinations, through knowing too much, kept students
away from Vatke's lectures." Naturally, while Hengstenberg and Frederick
William IV were commanding the forces of orthodoxy, Vatke thought it
wise to be silent.
Still, the new idea was in the air; indeed, it had been divined about a
year earlier, on the other side of the Rhine, by a scholar well known
as acute and thoughtful--Reuss, of Strasburg. Unfortunately, he too was
overawed, and he refrained from publishing his thought during more
than forty years. But his ideas were caught by some of his most gifted
scholars; and, of these, Graf and Kayser developed them and had the
courage to publish them.
At the same period this new master key was found and applied by a
greater man than any of these--by Kuenen, of Holland; and thus it was
that three eminent scholars, working in different parts of Europe and on
different lines, in spite of all obstacles, joined in enforcing upon the
thinking world the conviction that the complete Levitical law had
been established not at the beginning, but at the end, of the Jewish
nation--mainly, indeed, after the Jewish nation as an independent
political body had ceased to exist; that this code had not been revealed
in the childhood of Israel, but that it had come into being in a
perfectly natural way during Israel's final decay--during the period
when heroes and prophets had been succeeded by priests. Thus was the
historical and psychological evolution of Jewish institutions brought
into harmony with the natural development of human thought; elaborate
ceremonial institutions being shown to have come after the ruder
beginnings of religious development instead of before them. Thus came
a new impulse to research, and the fruitage was abundant; the older
theological interpretation, with its insoluble puzzles, yielded on all
sides.
The lead in the new epoch thus opened was taken by Kuenen. Starting
with strong prepossessions in favour of the older thought, and even with
violent utterances against some of the supporters of the new view, he
was borne on by his love of truth, until his great work, The Religion of
Israel, published in 1869, attracted the attention of thinking scholars
throughout the world by its arguments in favour of the upward movement.
From him now came a third master key to the mystery; for he showed that
the true opening point for research into the history and literature of
Israel is to be found in the utterances of the great prophets of the
eighth century before our era. Starting from these, he opened new paths
into the periods preceding and following them. Recognising the fact
that the religion of Israel was, like other great world religions, a
development of higher ideas out of lower, he led men to bring deeper
thinking and wider research into the great problem. With ample learning
and irresistible logic he proved that Old Testament history is largely
mingled with myth and legend; that not only were the laws attributed
to Moses in the main a far later development, but that much of their
historical setting was an afterthought; also that Old Testament prophecy
was never supernaturally predictive, and least of all predictive of
events recorded in the New Testament. Thus it was that his genius gave
to the thinking world a new point of view, and a masterly exhibition of
the true method of study. Justly has one of the most eminent divines
of the contemporary Anglican Church indorsed the statement of another
eminent scholar, that "Kuenen stood upon his watch-tower, as it were
the conscience of Old Testament science"; that his work is characterized
"not merely by fine scholarship, critical insight, historical sense, and
a religious nature, but also by an incorruptible conscientiousness, and
a majestic devotion to the quest of truth."
Thus was established the science of biblical criticism. And now the
question was, whether the Church of northern Germany would accept
this great gift--the fruit of centuries of devoted toil and
self-sacrifice--and take the lead of Christendom in and by it.
The great curse of Theology and Ecclesiasticism has always been their
tendency to sacrifice large interests to small--Charity to Creed, Unity
to Uniformity, Fact to Tradition, Ethics to Dogma. And now there were
symptoms throughout the governing bodies of the Reformed churches
indicating a determination to sacrifice leadership in this new thought
to ease in orthodoxy. Every revelation of new knowledge encountered
outcry, opposition, and repression; and, what was worse, the ill-judged
declarations of some unwise workers in the critical field were seized
upon and used to discredit all fruitful research. Fortunately, a man now
appeared who both met all this opposition successfully, and put aside
all the half truths or specious untruths urged by minor critics whose
zeal outran their discretion. This was a great constructive scholar--not
a destroyer, but a builder--Wellhausen. Reverently, but honestly and
courageously, with clearness, fulness, and convicting force, he summed
up the conquests of scientific criticism as bearing on Hebrew history
and literature. These conquests had reduced the vast structures which
theologians had during ages been erecting over the sacred text to
shapeless ruin and rubbish: this rubbish he removed, and brought out
from beneath it the reality. He showed Jewish history as an evolution
obedient to laws at work in all ages, and Jewish literature as a growth
out of individual, tribal, and national life. Thus was our sacred
history and literature given a beauty and high use which had long been
foreign to them. Thereby was a vast service rendered immediately to
Germany, and eventually to all mankind; and this service was greatest of
all in the domain of religion.(476)
(476) For Lowth, see the Rev. T. K. Cheyne, D. D., Professor of the
Interpretation of the Holy Scripture in the University of Oxford,
Founders of the Old Testament Criticism, London, 1893, pp. 3, 4.
For Astruc's very high character as a medical authority, see the
Dictionnaire des Sciences Medicales, Paris, 1820; it is significant that
at first he concealed his authorship of the Conjectures. For a brief
statement, see Cheyne; also Moore's introduction to Bacon's Genesis of
Genesis; but for a statement remarkably full and interesting, and based
on knowledge at first hand of Astruc's very rare book, see Curtiss, as
above. For Michaelis and Eichorn, see Meyer, Geschichte der Exegese;
also Cheyne and Moore. For Isenbiehl, see Reusch, in Allg. deutsche
Biographie. The texts cited against him were Isaiah vii, 14, and Matt.
i, 22, 23. For Herder, see various historians of literature and writers
in exegesis, and especially Pfleiderer, Development of Theology in
Germany, chap. ii. For his influence, as well as that of Lessing, see
Beard's Hibbert Lectures, chap. x. For a brief comparison of Lowth's
work with that of Herder, see Farrar, History of Interpretation, p. 377.
For examples of interpretations of the Song of Songs, see Farrar, as
above, p. 33. For Castellio (Chatillon), his anticipation of Herder's
view of Solomon's Song, and his persecution by Calvin and Beza, which
drove him to starvation and death, see Lecky, Rationalism, etc.,
vol. ii, pp. 46-48; also Bayle's Dictionary, article Castalio; also
Montaigne's Essais, liv,. i, chap. xxxiv; and especially the new life
of him by Buisson. For the persecution of Luis de Leon for a similar
offence, see Ticknor, History of Spanish Literature, vol. ii, pp. 41,
42, and note. For a remarkably frank acceptance of the consequences
flowing from Herder's view of it, see Sanday, Inspiration, pp. 211, 405.
For Geddes, see Cheyne, as above. For Theodore Parker, see his various
biographies, passim. For Reuss, Graf, and Kuenen, see Cheyne, as above;
and for the citations referred to, see the Rev. Dr. Driver, Regius
Professor of Hebrew at Oxford, in The Academy, October 27, 1894; also a
note to Wellhausen's article Pentateuch in the Encyclopaedia Britannica.
For a generous yet weighty tribute to Kuenen's method, see Pfleiderer,
as above, book iii, chap. ii. For the view of leading Christian critics
on the book of Chronicles, see especially Driver, Introduction to the
Literature of the Old Testament, pp. 495 et seq.; also Wellhausen, as
above; also Hooykaas, Oort, and Kuenen, Bible for Learners. For many of
the foregoing, see also the writings of Prof. W. Robertson Smith; also
Beard's Hibbert Lectures, chap. x. For Hupfield and his discovery, see
Cheyne, Founders, etc., as above, chap. vii; also Moore's Introduction.
For a justly indignant judgment of Hengstenberg and his school, see
Canon Farrar, as above, p. 417, note; and for a few words throwing a
bright light into his character and career, see C. A. Briggs, D. D.,
Authority of Holy Scripture, p. 93. For Wellhausen, see Pfleiderer, as
above, book iii, chap. ii. For an excellent popular statement of the
general results of German criticism, see J. T. Sunderland, The Bible,
Its Origin, Growth, and Character, New York and London, 1893.
III. THE CONTINUED GROWTH OF SCIENTIFIC INTERPRETATION.
The science of biblical criticism was, as we have seen, first developed
mainly in Germany and Holland. Many considerations there, as elsewhere,
combined to deter men from opening new paths to truth: not even in those
countries were these the paths to preferment; but there, at least, the
sturdy Teutonic love of truth for truth's sake, strengthened by the
Kantian ethics, found no such obstacles as in other parts of Europe.
Fair investigation of biblical subjects had not there been extirpated,
as in Italy and Spain; nor had it been forced into channels which led
nowhither, as in France and southern Germany; nor were men who might
otherwise have pursued it dazzled and drawn away from it by the
multitude of splendid prizes for plausibility, for sophistry, or for
silence displayed before the ecclesiastical vision in England. In the
frugal homes of North German and Dutch professors and pastors high
thinking on these great subjects went steadily on, and the "liberty of
teaching," which is the glory of the northern Continental universities,
while it did not secure honest thinkers against vexations, did at least
protect them against the persecutions which in other countries would
have thwarted their studies and starved their families.(477)
(477) As to the influence of Kant on honest thought in Germany, see
Pfleiderer, as above, chap. i.
In England the admission of the new current of thought was apparently
impossible. The traditional system of biblical interpretation seemed
established on British soil forever. It was knit into the whole fabric
of thought and observance; it was protected by the most justly esteemed
hierarchy the world has ever seen; it was intrenched behind the bishops'
palaces, the cathedral stalls, the professors' chairs, the country
parsonages--all these, as a rule, the seats of high endeavour and
beautiful culture. The older thought held a controlling voice in the
senate of the nation; it was dear to the hearts of all classes; it was
superbly endowed; every strong thinker seemed to hold a brief, or to be
in receipt of a retaining fee for it. As to preferment in the Church,
there was a cynical aphorism current, "He may hold anything who will
hold his tongue."(478)
(478) For an eloquent and at the same time profound statement of the
evils flowing from the "moral terrorism" and "intellectual tyrrany"
at Oxford at the period referred to, see quotation in Pfleiderer,
Development of Theology, p. 371.
For the alloy of interested motives among English Church dignitiaries,
see the pungent criticism of Bishop Hampden by Canon Liddon, in his Life
of Pusey, vol. i, p. 363.
Yet, while there was inevitably much alloy of worldly wisdom in the
opposition to the new thought, no just thinker can deny far higher
motives to many, perhaps to most, of the ecclesiastics who were resolute
against it. The evangelical movement incarnate in the Wesleys had not
spent its strength; the movement begun by Pusey, Newman, Keble, and
their compeers was in full force. The aesthetic reaction, represented on
the Continent by Chateaubriand, Manzoni, and Victor Hugo, and in England
by Walter Scott, Pugin, Ruskin, and above all by Wordsworth, came in
to give strength to this barrier. Under the magic of the men who led in
this reaction, cathedrals and churches, which in the previous century
had been regarded by men of culture as mere barbaric masses of stone and
mortar, to be masked without by classic colonnades and within by rococo
work in stucco and papier mache, became even more beloved than in
the thirteenth century. Even men who were repelled by theological
disputations were fascinated and made devoted reactionists by the newly
revealed beauties of medieval architecture and ritual.(479)
(479) A very curious example of this insensibility among persons of
really high culture is to be found in American literature toward the
end of the eighteenth century. Mrs. Adams, wife of John Adams, afterward
President of the United States, but at that time minister to England,
one of the most gifted women of her time, speaking, in her very
interesting letters from England, of her journey to the seashore, refers
to Canterbury Cathedral, seen from her carriage windows, and which she
evidently did not take the trouble to enter, as "looking like a vast
prison." So, too, about the same time, Thomas Jefferson, the American
plenipotentiary in France, a devoted lover of classical and Renaissance
architecture, giving an account of his journey to Paris, never refers to
any of the beautiful cathedrals or churches upon his route.
The centre and fortress of this vast system, and of the reaction against
the philosophy of the eighteenth century, was the University of Oxford.
Orthodoxy was its vaunt, and a special exponent of its spirit and
object of its admiration was its member of Parliament, Mr. William Ewart
Gladstone, who, having begun his political career by a laboured plea
for the union of church and state, ended it by giving that union what
is likely to be a death-blow. The mob at the circus of Constantinople in
the days of the Byzantine emperors was hardly more wildly orthodox than
the mob of students at this foremost seat of learning of the Anglo-Saxon
race during the middle decades of the nineteenth century. The Moslem
students of El Azhar are hardly more intolerant now than these English
students were then. A curious proof of this had been displayed just
before the end of that period. The minister of the United States at the
court of St. James was then Edward Everett. He was undoubtedly the most
accomplished scholar and one of the foremost statesmen that America
had produced; his eloquence in early life had made him perhaps the most
admired of American preachers; his classical learning had at a later
period made him Professor of Greek at Harvard; he had successfully
edited the leading American review, and had taken a high place in
American literature; he had been ten years a member of Congress; he had
been again and again elected Governor of Massachusetts; and in all
these posts he had shown amply those qualities which afterward made him
President of Harvard, Secretary of State of the United States, and
a United States Senator. His character and attainments were of the
highest, and, as he was then occupying the foremost place in the
diplomatic service of his country, he was invited to receive an
appropriate honorary degree at Oxford. But, on his presentation for
it in the Sheldonian Theatre, there came a revelation to the people he
represented, and indeed to all Christendom: a riot having been
carefully prepared beforehand by sundry zealots, he was most grossly and
ingeniously insulted by the mob of undergraduates and bachelors of art
in the galleries and masters of arts on the floor; and the reason for
this was that, though by no means radical in his religious opinions, he
was thought to have been in his early life, and to be possibly at
that time, below what was then the Oxford fashion in belief, or rather
feeling, regarding the mystery of the Trinity.
At the centre of biblical teaching at Oxford sat Pusey, Regius Professor
of Hebrew, a scholar who had himself remained for a time at a German
university, and who early in life had imbibed just enough of the German
spirit to expose him to suspicion and even to attack. One charge
against him at that time shows curiously what was then expected of a
man perfectly sound in the older Anglican theology. He had ventured
to defend holy writ with the argument that there were fishes actually
existing which could have swallowed the prophet Jonah. The argument
proved unfortunate. He was attacked on the scriptural ground that the
fish which swallowed Jonah was created for that express purpose. He,
like others, fell back under the charm of the old system: his ideas
gave force to the reaction: in the quiet of his study, which, especially
after the death of his son, became a hermitage, he relapsed into
patristic and medieval conceptions of Christianity, enforcing them from
the pulpit and in his published works. He now virtually accepted the
famous dictum of Hugo of St. Victor--that one is first to find what is
to be believed, and then to search the Scriptures for proofs of it. His
devotion to the main features of the older interpretation was seen at
its strongest in his utterances regarding the book of Daniel. Just as
Cardinal Bellarmine had insisted that the doctrine of the incarnation
depends upon the retention of the Ptolemaic astronomy; just as Danzius
had insisted that the very continuance of religion depends on the
divine origin of the Hebrew punctuation; just as Peter Martyr had made
everything sacred depend on the literal acceptance of Genesis; just as
Bishop Warburton had insisted that Christianity absolutely depends upon
a right interpretation of the prophecies regarding Antichrist; just
as John Wesley had insisted that the truth of the Bible depends on the
reality of witchcraft; just as, at a later period, Bishop Wilberforce
insisted that the doctrine of the Incarnation depends on the "Mosaic"
statements regarding the origin of man; and just as Canon Liddon
insisted that Christianity itself depends on a literal belief in Noah's
flood, in the transformation of Lot's wife, and in the sojourn of Jonah
in the whale: so did Pusey then virtually insist that Christianity must
stand or fall with the early date of the book of Daniel. Happily, though
the Ptolemaic astronomy, and witchcraft, and the Genesis creation myths,
and the Adam, Noah, Lot, and Jonah legends, and the divine origin of
the Hebrew punctuation, and the prophecies regarding Antichrist, and the
early date of the book of Daniel have now been relegated to the limbo of
ontworn beliefs, Christianity has but come forth the stronger.
Nothing seemed less likely than that such a vast intrenched camp as that
of which Oxford was the centre could be carried by an effort proceeding
from a few isolated German and Dutch scholars. Yet it was the unexpected
which occurred; and it is instructive to note that, even at the
period when the champions of the older thought were to all appearance
impregnably intrenched in England, a way had been opened into their
citadel, and that the most effective agents in preparing it were really
the very men in the universities and cathedral chapters who had most
distinguished themselves by uncompromising and intolerant orthodoxy.
A rapid survey of the history of general literary criticism at that
epoch will reveal this fact fully. During the last decade of the
seventeenth century there had taken place the famous controversy
over the Letters of Phalaris, in which, against Charles Boyle and his
supporters at Oxford, was pitted Richard Bentley at Cambridge, who
insisted that the letters were spurious. In the series of battles royal
which followed, although Boyle, aided by Atterbury, afterward so noted
for his mingled ecclesiastical and political intrigues, had gained a
temporary triumph by wit and humour, Bentley's final attack had proved
irresistible. Drawing from the stores of his wonderfully wide and minute
knowledge, he showed that the letters could not have been written in the
time of Phalaris--proving this by an exhibition of their style, which
could not then have been in use, of their reference to events which had
not then taken place, and of a mass of considerations which no one but
a scholar almost miraculously gifted could have marshalled so fully. The
controversy had attracted attention not only in England but throughout
Europe. With Bentley's reply it had ended. In spite of public applause
at Atterbury's wit, scholars throughout the world acknowledged Bentley's
victory: he was recognised as the foremost classical scholar of his
time; the mastership of Trinity, which he accepted, and the Bristol
bishopric, which he rejected, were his formal reward.
Although, in his new position as head of the greatest college in
England, he went to extreme lengths on the orthodox side in biblical
theology, consenting even to support the doctrine that the Hebrew
punctuation was divinely inspired, this was as nothing compared with the
influence of the system of criticism which he introduced into English
studies of classical literature in preparing the way for the application
of a similar system to ALL literature, whether called sacred or profane.
Up to that period there had really been no adequate criticism of ancient
literature. Whatever name had been attached to any ancient writing was
usually accepted as the name of the author: what texts should be imputed
to an author was settled generally on authority. But with Bentley began
a new epoch. His acute intellect and exquisite touch revealed clearly
to English scholars the new science of criticism, and familiarized the
minds of thinking men with the idea that the texts of ancient literature
must be submitted to this science. Henceforward a new spirit reigned
among the best classical scholars, prophetic of more and more light in
the greater field of sacred literature. Scholars, of whom Porson was
chief, followed out this method, and though at times, as in Porson's
own case, they were warned off, with much loss and damage, from the
application of it to the sacred text, they kept alive the better
tradition.
A hundred years after Bentley's main efforts appeared in Germany another
epoch-making book--Wolf's Introduction to Homer. In this was broached
the theory that the Iliad and Odyssey are not the works of a single
great poet, but are made up of ballad literature wrought into unity by
more or less skilful editing. In spite of various changes and phases of
opinion on this subject since Wolf's day, he dealt a killing blow at
the idea that classical works are necessarily to be taken at what may be
termed their face value.
More and more clearly it was seen that the ideas of early copyists, and
even of early possessors of masterpieces in ancient literature, were
entirely different from those to which the modern world is accustomed.
It was seen that manipulations and interpolations in the text by
copyists and possessors had long been considered not merely venial sins,
but matters of right, and that even the issuing of whole books under
assumed names had been practised freely.
In 1811 a light akin to that thrown by Bentley and Wolf upon ancient
literature was thrown by Niebuhr upon ancient history. In his History
of Rome the application of scientific principles to the examination
of historical sources was for the first time exhibited largely and
brilliantly. Up to that period the time-honoured utterances of ancient
authorities had been, as a rule, accepted as final: no breaking away,
even from the most absurd of them, was looked upon with favour, and any
one presuming to go behind them was regarded as troublesome and even as
dangerous.
Through this sacred conventionalism Niebuhr broke fearlessly, and,
though at times overcritical, he struck from the early history of Rome a
vast mass of accretions, and gave to the world a residue infinitely more
valuable than the original amalgam of myth, legend, and chronicle.
His methods were especially brought to bear on students' history by
one of the truest men and noblest scholars that the English race
has produced--Arnold of Rugby--and, in spite of the inevitable heavy
conservatism, were allowed to do their work in the field of ancient
history as well as in that of ancient classical literature.
The place of myth in history thus became more and more understood,
and historical foundations, at least so far as SECULAR history was
concerned, were henceforth dealt with in a scientific spirit. The
extension of this new treatment to ALL ancient literature and history
was now simply a matter of time.
Such an extension had already begun; for in 1829 had appeared Milman's
History of the Jews. In this work came a further evolution of the
truths and methods suggested by Bentley, Wolf, and Niebuhr, and their
application to sacred history was made strikingly evident. Milman,
though a clergyman, treated the history of the chosen people in the
light of modern knowledge of Oriental and especially of Semitic peoples.
He exhibited sundry great biblical personages of the wandering days
of Israel as sheiks or emirs or Bedouin chieftains; and the tribes of
Israel as obedient then to the same general laws, customs, and ideas
governing wandering tribes in the same region now. He dealt with
conflicting sources somewhat in the spirit of Bentley, and with the
mythical, legendary, and miraculous somewhat in the spirit of Niebuhr.
This treatment of the history of the Jews, simply as the development of
an Oriental tribe, raised great opposition. Such champions of orthodoxy
as Bishop Mant and Dr. Faussett straightway took the field, and with
such effect that the Family Library, a very valuable series in which
Milman's history appeared, was put under the ban, and its further
publication stopped. For years Milman, though a man of exquisite
literary and lofty historical gifts, as well as of most honourable
character, was debarred from preferment and outstripped by ecclesiastics
vastly inferior to him in everything save worldly wisdom; for years he
was passed in the race for honours by divines who were content either
to hold briefs for all the contemporary unreason which happened to be
popular, or to keep their mouths shut altogether. This opposition to him
extended to his works. For many years they were sneered at, decried, and
kept from the public as far as possible.
Fortunately, the progress of events lifted him, before the closing years
of his life, above all this opposition. As Dean of St. Paul's he really
outranked the contemporary archbishops: he lived to see his main ideas
accepted, and his History of Latin Christianity received as certainly
one of the most valuable, and no less certainly the most attractive, of
all Church histories ever written.
The two great English histories of Greece--that by Thirlwall, which was
finished, and that by Grote, which was begun, in the middle years of
the nineteenth century--came in to strengthen this new development. By
application of the critical method to historical sources, by pointing
out more and more fully the inevitable part played by myth and legend
in early chronicles, by displaying more and more clearly the ease
with which interpolations of texts, falsifications of statements, and
attributions to pretended authors were made, they paved the way still
further toward a just and fruitful study of sacred literature.(480)
(480) For Mr. Gladstone's earlier opinion, see his Church and State, and
Macaulay's review of it. For Pusey, see Mozley, Ward, Newman's
Apologia, Dean Church, etc., and especially his Life, by Liddon. Very
characteristic touches are given in vol. i, showing the origin of many
of his opinions (see letter on p. 184). For the scandalous treatment of
Mr. Everett by the clerical mob at Oxford, see a rather jaunty account
of the preparations and of the whole performance in a letter written at
the time from Oxford by the late Dean Church, in The Life and Letters of
Dean Church, London, 1894, pp. 40, 41. For a brief but excellent summary
of the character and services of Everett, see J. F. Rhodes's History of
the United States from the Compromise of 1850, New York, 1893, vol.
i, pp. 291 et seq. For a succinct and brilliant history of the
Bentley-Boyle controversy, see Macauley's article on Bentley in the
Encyclopaedia Britannica; also Beard's Hibbert Lectures for 1893, pp.
344, 345; also Dissertation in Bentley's work, edited by Dyce, London,
1836, vol. i, especially the preface. For Wolf, see his Prolegomena ad
Homerum, Halle, 1795; for its effects, see the admirable brief statement
in Beard, as above, p. 345. For Niebuhr, see his Roman History,
translated by Hare and Thirlwall, London, 1828; also Beard, as above.
For Milman's view, see, as a specimen, his History of the Jews, last
edition, especially pp. 15-27. For a noble tribute to his character, see
the preface to Lecky's History of European Morals. For Thirlwall, see
his History of Greece, passim; also his letters; also his Charge of the
Bishop of St. David's, 1863.
Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the traditionally orthodox
side of English scholarship, while it had not been able to maintain
any effective quarantine against Continental criticism of classical
literature, had been able to keep up barriers fairly strong against
Continental discussions of sacred literature. But in the second half of
the nineteenth century these barriers were broken at many points, and,
the stream of German thought being united with the current of devotion
to truth in England, there appeared early in 1860 a modest volume
entitled Essays and Reviews. This work discussed sundry of the older
theological positions which had been rendered untenable by modern
research, and brought to bear upon them the views of the newer school
of biblical interpretation. The authors were, as a rule, scholars in
the prime of life, holding influential positions in the universities and
public schools. They were seven--the first being Dr. Temple, a successor
of Arnold at Rugby; and the others, the Rev. Dr. Rowland Williams, Prof.
Baden Powell, the Rev. H. B. Wilson, Mr. C. W. Goodwin, the Rev. Mark
Pattison, and the Rev. Prof. Jowett--the only one of the seven not in
holy orders being Goodwin. All the articles were important, though
the first, by Temple, on The Education of the World, and the last, by
Jowett, on The Interpretation of Scripture, being the most moderate,
served most effectually as entering wedges into the old tradition.
At first no great attention was paid to the book, the only notice being
the usual attempts in sundry clerical newspapers to pooh-pooh it. But in
October, 1860, appeared in the Westminster Review an article exulting
in the work as an evidence that the new critical method had at last
penetrated the Church of England.
The opportunity for defending the Church was at once seized by no less a
personage than Bishop Wilberforce, of Oxford, the same who a few months
before had secured a fame more lasting than enviable by his attacks on
Darwin and the evolutionary theory. His first onslaught was made in
a charge to his clergy. This he followed up with an article in the
Quarterly Review, very explosive in its rhetoric, much like that which
he had devoted in the same periodical to Darwin. The bishop declared
that the work tended "toward infidelity, if not to atheism"; that the
writers had been "guilty of criminal levity"; that, with the exception
of the essay by Dr. Temple, their writings were "full of sophistries and
scepticisms." He was especially bitter against Prof. Jowett's dictum,
"Interpret the Scripture like any other book"; he insisted that Mr.
Goodwin's treatment of the Mosaic account of the origin of man "sweeps
away the whole basis of inspiration and leaves no place for the
Incarnation"; and through the article were scattered such rhetorical
adornments as the words "infidel," "atheistic," "false," and "wanton."
It at once attracted wide attention, but its most immediate effect
was to make the fortune of Essays and Reviews, which was straightway
demanded on every hand, went through edition after edition, and became a
power in the land. At this a panic began, and with the usual results
of panic--much folly and some cruelty. Addresses from clergy and laity,
many of them frantic with rage and fear, poured in upon the bishops,
begging them to save Christianity and the Church: a storm of abuse
arose: the seven essayists were stigmatized as "the seven extinguishers
of the seven lamps of the Apocalypse," "the seven champions NOT of
Christendom." As a result of all this pressure, Sumner, Archbishop of
Canterbury, one of the last of the old, kindly, bewigged pluralists
of the Georgian period, headed a declaration, which was signed by the
Archbishop of York and a long list of bishops, expressing pain at
the appearance of the book, but doubts as to the possibility of any
effective dealing with it. This letter only made matters worse.
The orthodox decried it as timid, and the liberals denounced it as
irregular. The same influences were exerted in the sister island, and
the Protestant archbishops in Ireland issued a joint letter warning the
faithful against the "disingenuousness" of the book. Everything seemed
to increase the ferment. A meeting of clergy and laity having been held
at Oxford in the matter of electing a Professor of Sanscrit, the older
orthodox party, having made every effort to defeat the eminent scholar
Max Miller, and all in vain, found relief after their defeat in new
denunciations of Essays and Reviews.
Of the two prelates who might have been expected to breast the storm,
Tait, Bishop of London, afterward Archbishop of Canterbury, bent to it
for a period, though he soon recovered himself and did good service; the
other, Thirlwall, Bishop of St. David's, bided his time, and, when the
proper moment came, struck most effective blows for truth and justice.
Tait, large-minded and shrewd, one of the most statesmanlike of
prelates, at first endeavoured to detach Temple and Jowett from their
associates; but, though Temple was broken down with a load of care,
and especially by the fact that he had upon his shoulders the school at
Rugby, whose patrons had become alarmed at his connection with the book,
he showed a most refreshing courage and manliness. A passage from his
letters to the Bishop of London runs as follows: "With regard to my own
conduct I can only say that nothing on earth will induce me to do what
you propose. I do not judge for others, but in me it would be base and
untrue." On another occasion Dr. Temple, when pressed in the interest
of the institution of learning under his care to detach himself from his
associates in writing the book, declared to a meeting of the masters
of the school that, if any statements were made to the effect that he
disapproved of the other writers in the volume, he should probably find
it his duty to contradict them. Another of these letters to the Bishop
of London contains sundry passages of great force. One is as follows:
"Many years ago you urged us from the university pulpit to undertake the
critical study of the Bible. You said that it was a dangerous study, but
indispensable. You described its difficulties, and those who listened
must have felt a confidence (as I assuredly did, for I was there) that
if they took your advice and entered on the task, you, at any rate,
would never join in treating them unjustly if their study had brought
with it the difficulties you described. Such a study, so full of
difficulties, imperatively demands freedom for its condition. To tell a
man to study, and yet bid him, under heavy penalties, come to the same
conclusions with those who have not studied, is to mock him. If the
conclusions are prescribed, the study is precluded." And again, what,
as coming from a man who has since held two of the most important
bishoprics in the English Church, is of great importance: "What can be a
grosser superstition than the theory of literal inspiration? But because
that has a regular footing it is to be treated as a good man's mistake,
while the courage to speak the truth about the first chapter of Genesis
is a wanton piece of wickedness."
The storm howled on. In the Convocation of Canterbury it was especially
violent. In the Lower House Archdeacon Denison insisted on the greatest
severity, as he said, "for the sake of the young who are tainted, and
corrupted, and thrust almost to hell by the action of this book." At
another time the same eminent churchman declared: "Of all books in any
language which I ever laid my hands on, this is incomparably the worst;
it contains all the poison which is to be found in Tom Paine's Age of
Reason, while it has the additional disadvantage of having been written
by clergymen."
Hysterical as all this was, the Upper House was little more
self-contained. Both Tait and Thirlwall, trying to make some headway
against the swelling tide, were for a time beaten back by Wilberforce,
who insisted on the duty of the Church to clear itself publicly from
complicity with men who, as he said, "gave up God's Word, Creation,
redemption, and the work of the Holy Ghost."
The matter was brought to a curious issue by two prosecutions--one
against the Rev. Dr. Williams by the Bishop of Salisbury, the other
against the Rev. Mr. Wilson by one of his clerical brethren. The first
result was that both these authors were sentenced to suspension from
their offices for a year. At this the two condemned clergymen appealed
to the Queen in Council. Upon the judicial committee to try the case in
last resort sat the lord chancellor, the two archbishops, and the Bishop
of London; and one occurrence now brought into especial relief the power
of the older theological reasoning and ecclesiastical zeal to close
the minds of the best of men to the simplest principles of right and
justice. Among the men of his time most deservedly honoured for lofty
character, thorough scholarship, and keen perception of right and
justice was Dr. Pusey. No one doubted then, and no one doubts now, that
he would have gone to the stake sooner than knowingly countenance wrong
or injustice; and yet we find him at this time writing a series of
long and earnest letters to the Bishop of London, who, as a judge, was
hearing this case, which involved the livelihood and even the good name
of the men on trial, pointing out to the bishop the evil consequences
which must follow should the authors of Essays and Reviews be acquitted,
and virtually beseeching the judges, on grounds of expediency, to
convict them. Happily, Bishop Tait was too just a man to be thrown off
his bearings by appeals such as this.
The decision of the court, as finally rendered by the lord chancellor,
virtually declared it to be no part of the duty of the tribunal to
pronounce any opinion upon the book; that the court only had to do with
certain extracts which had been presented. Among these was one adduced
in support of a charge against Mr. Wilson--that he denied the doctrine
of eternal punishment. On this the court decided that it did "not find
in the formularies of the English Church any such distinct declaration
upon the subject as to require it to punish the expression of a hope
by a clergyman that even the ultimate pardon of the wicked who are
condemned in the day of judgment may be consistent with the will of
Almighty God." While the archbishops dissented from this judgment,
Bishop Tait united in it with the lord chancellor and the lay judges.
And now the panic broke out more severely than ever. Confusion became
worse confounded. The earnest-minded insisted that the tribunal had
virtually approved Essays and Reviews; the cynical remarked that it had
"dismissed hell with costs." An alliance was made at once between
the more zealous High and Low Church men, and Oxford became its
headquarters: Dr. Pusey and Archdeacon Denison were among the leaders,
and an impassioned declaration was posted to every clergyman in England
and Ireland, with a letter begging him, "for the love of God," to sign
it. Thus it was that in a very short time eleven thousand signatures
were obtained. Besides this, deputations claiming to represent one
hundred and thirty-seven thousand laymen waited on the archbishops
to thank them for dissenting from the judgment. The Convocation of
Canterbury also plunged into the fray, Bishop Wilberforce being the
champion of the older orthodoxy, and Bishop Tait of the new. Caustic
was the speech made by Bishop Thirlwall, in which he declared that he
considered the eleven thousand names, headed by that of Pusey, attached
to the Oxford declaration "in the light of a row of figures preceded
by a decimal point, so that, however far the series may be advanced, it
never can rise to the value of a single unit."
In spite of all that could be done, the act of condemnation was carried
in Convocation.
The last main echo of this whole struggle against the newer mode of
interpretation was heard when the chancellor, referring to the matter
in the House of Lords, characterized the ecclesiastical act as "simply a
series of well-lubricated terms--a sentence so oily and saponaceous that
no one can grasp it; like an eel, it slips through your fingers, and is
simply nothing."
The word "saponaceous" necessarily elicited a bitter retort from Bishop
Wilberforce; but perhaps the most valuable judgment on the whole
matter was rendered by Bishop Tait, who declared, "These things have
so effectually frightened the clergy that I think there is scarcely a
bishop on the bench, unless it be the Bishop of St. David's (Thirlwall),
that is not useless for the purpose of preventing the widespread
alienation of intelligent men."
During the whole controversy, and for some time afterward, the press was
burdened with replies, ponderous and pithy, lurid and vapid, vitriolic
and unctuous, but in the main bearing the inevitable characteristics of
pleas for inherited opinions stimulated by ample endowments.
The authors of the book seemed for a time likely to be swept out of
the Church. One of the least daring but most eminent, finding himself
apparently forsaken, seemed, though a man of very tough fibre, about to
die of a broken heart; but sturdy English sense at last prevailed. The
storm passed, and afterward came the still, small voice. Really sound
thinkers throughout England, especially those who held no briefs for
conventional orthodoxy, recognised the service rendered by the book. It
was found that, after all, there existed even among churchmen a great
mass of public opinion in favour of giving a full hearing to the
reverent expression of honest thought, and inclined to distrust any
cause which subjected fair play to zeal.
The authors of the work not only remained in the Church of England, but
some of them have since represented the broader views, though not always
with their early courage, in the highest and most influential positions
in the Anglican Church.(481)
(481) For the origin of Essays and Reviews, see Edinburgh Review, April,
1861, p. 463. For the reception of the book, see the Westminster Review,
October, 1860. For the attack on it by Bishop Wilberforce, see his
article in the Quarterly Review, January, 1861; for additional facts,
Edinburgh Review, April, 1861, pp. 461 et seq. For action on the book
by Convocation, see Dublin Review, May, 1861, citing Jelf et al.;
also Davidson's Life of Archbishop Tate, vol. i, chap. xii. For the
Archepiscopal Letter, see Dublin Review, as above; also Life of Bishop
Wilberforce, by his son, London, 1882, vol. iii, pp. 4,5; it is there
stated that Wilberforce drew upon the letter. For curious inside views
of the Essays and Reviews controversy, including the course of Bishop
Hampden, Tait, et al., see Life of Bishop Wilberforce, by his son, as
above, pp. 3-11; also pp. 141-149. For the denunciation of the present
Bishop of London (Temple) as a "leper," etc., see ibid., pp. 319, 320.
For general treatment of Temple, see Fraser's Magazine, December, 1869.
For very interesting correspondence, see Davidson's Life of Archbishop
Tait, as above. For Archdeacon Denison's speeches, see ibid, vol. i,
p. 302. For Dr. Pusey's letter to Bishop Tait, urging conviction of the
Essayists and Reviewers, ibid, p. 314. For the striking letters of
Dr. Temple, ibid., pp. 290 et seq.; also The Life and Letters of Dean
Stanley. For replies, see Charge of the Bishop of Oxford, 1863;
also Replies to Essays and Reviews, Parker, London, with preface by
Wilberforce; also Aids to Faith, edited by the Bishop of Gloucester,
London, 1861; also those by Jelf, Burgon, et al. For the legal
proceedings, see Quarterly Review, April, 1864; also Davidson, as above.
For Bishop Thirlwall's speech, see Chronicle of Convocation, quoted in
Life of Tait, vol. i, p. 320. For Tait's tribute to Thirlwall, see
Life of Tait, vol. i, p. 325. For a remarkable able review, and in most
charming form, of the ideas of Bishop Wilberforce and Lord Chancellor
Westbury, see H. D. Traill, The New Lucian, first dialogue. For the
cynical phrase referred to, see Nash, Life of Lord Westbury, vol. ii, p.
78, where the noted epitaph is given, as follows:
"RICHARD BARON WESTBURY
Lord High Chancellor of England,
He was an eminent Christian,
An energetic and merciful Statesman,
And a still more eminent and merciful Judge.
During his three years' tenure of office
He abolished the ancient method of conveying land,
The time-honoured institution of the Insolvent's Court, And
The Eternity of Punishment.
Toward the close of his early career,
In the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, He dismissed Hell with costs,
And took away from the Orthodox members of the Church of England
Their last hope of everlasting damnation."
IV. THE CLOSING STRUGGLE.
The storm aroused by Essays and Reviews had not yet subsided when a far
more serious tempest burst upon the English theological world.
In 1862 appeared a work entitled The Pentateuch and the Book of Joshua
Critically Examined its author being Colenso, Anglican Bishop of Natal,
in South Africa. He had formerly been highly esteemed as fellow and
tutor at Cambridge, master at Harrow, author of various valuable
text-books in mathematics; and as long as he exercised his powers within
the limits of popular orthodoxy he was evidently in the way to the
highest positions in the Church: but he chose another path. His
treatment of his subject was reverent, but he had gradually come to
those conclusions, then so daring, now so widespread among Christian
scholars, that the Pentateuch, with much valuable historical matter,
contains much that is unhistorical; that a large portion of it was
the work of a comparatively late period in Jewish history; that many
passages in Deuteronomy could only have been written after the Jews
settled in Canaan; that the Mosaic law was not in force before the
captivity; that the books of Chronicles were clearly written as an
afterthought, to enforce the views of the priestly caste; and that in
all the books there is much that is mythical and legendary.
Very justly has a great German scholar recently adduced this work of a
churchman relegated to the most petty of bishoprics in one of the most
remote corners of the world, as a proof "that the problems of biblical
criticism can no longer be suppressed; that they are in the air of our
time, so that theology could not escape them even if it took the wings
of the morning and dwelt in the uttermost parts of the sea."
The bishop's statements, which now seem so moderate, then aroused
horror. Especial wrath was caused by some of his arithmetical arguments,
and among them those which showed that an army of six hundred thousand
men could not have been mobilized in a single night; that three millions
of people, with their flocks and herds, could neither have obtained food
on so small and arid a desert as that over which they were said to have
wandered during forty years, nor water from a single well; and that
the butchery of two hundred thousand Midianites by twelve thousand
Israelites, "exceeding infinitely in atrocity the tragedy at Cawnpore,
had happily only been carried out on paper." There was nothing of the
scoffer in him. While preserving his own independence, he had kept in
touch with the most earnest thought both among European scholars and in
the little flock intrusted to his care. He evidently remembered what had
resulted from the attempt to hold the working classes in the towns of
France, Germany, and Italy to outworn beliefs; he had found even the
Zulus, whom he thought to convert, suspicious of the legendary features
of the Old Testament, and with his clear practical mind he realized the
danger which threatened the English Church and Christianity--the danger
of tying its religion and morality to interpretations and conceptions of
Scripture more and more widely seen and felt to be contrary to facts. He
saw the especial peril of sham explanations, of covering up facts which
must soon be known, and which, when revealed, must inevitably bring
the plain people of England to regard their teachers, even the most
deserving, as "solemnly constituted impostors"--ecclesiastics whose
tenure depends on assertions which they know to be untrue. Therefore it
was that, when his catechumens questioned him regarding some of the Old
Testament legends, the bishop determined to tell the truth. He says: "My
heart answered in the words of the prophet, 'Shall a man speak lies in
the name of the Lord?' I determined not to do so."
But none of these considerations availed in his behalf at first.
The outcry against the work was deafening: churchmen and dissenters
rushed forward to attack it. Archdeacon Denison, chairman of the
committee of Convocation appointed to examine it, uttered a noisy
anathema. Convocation solemnly condemned it; and a zealous colonial
bishop, relying upon a nominal supremacy, deposed and excommunicated
its author, declaring him "given over to Satan." On both sides of
the Atlantic the press groaned with "answers," some of these being
especially injurious to the cause they were intended to serve, and none
more so than sundry efforts by the bishops themselves. One of the points
upon which they attacked him was his assertion that the reference in
Leviticus to the hare chewing its cud contains an error. Upon this
Prof. Hitzig, of Leipsic, one of the best Hebrew scholars of his time,
remarked: "Your bishops are making themselves the laughing-stock of
Europe. Every Hebraist knows that the animal mentioned in Leviticus
is really the hare;... every zoologist knows that it does not chew the
cud."(482)
(482) For the citation referred to, see Pfleiderer, as above, book iv,
chap. ii. For the passages referred to as provoking especial wrath, see
Colenso, Lectures on the Pentateuch and the Moabite Stone, 1876, p. 217.
For the episode regarding the hare chewing the cud, see Cox, Life of
Colenso, vol. i, p. 240. The following epigram went the rounds:
"The bishops all have sworn to shed their blood To prove 'tis true
that the hare doth chew the cud. O bishops, doctors, and divines,
beware--Weak is the faith that hangs upon a HAIR!"
On Colenso's return to Natal, where many of the clergy and laity who
felt grateful for his years of devotion to them received him with signs
of affection, an attempt was made to ruin these clergymen by depriving
them of their little stipends, and to terrify the simple-minded laity by
threatening them with the same "greater excommunication" which had been
inflicted upon their bishop. To make the meaning of this more evident,
the vicar-general of the Bishop of Cape Town met Colenso at the door of
his own cathedral, and solemnly bade him "depart from the house of
God as one who has been handed over to the Evil One." The sentence of
excommunication was read before the assembled faithful, and they were
enjoined to treat their bishop as "a heathen man and a publican." But
these and a long series of other persecutions created a reaction in his
favour.
There remained to Colenso one bulwark which his enemies found stronger
than they had imagined--the British courts of justice. The greatest
efforts were now made to gain the day before these courts, to humiliate
Colenso, and to reduce to beggary the clergy who remained faithful to
him; and it is worthy of note that one of the leaders in preparing the
legal plea of the com mittee against him was Mr. Gladstone.
But this bulwark proved impregnable: both the Judicial Committee of the
Privy Council and the Rolls Court decided in Colenso's favour. Not only
were his enemies thus forbidden to deprive him of his salary, but their
excommunication of him was made null and void; it became, indeed, a
subject of ridicule, and even a man so nurtured in religious sentiment
as John Keble confessed and lamented that the English people no longer
believed in excommunication. The bitterness of the defeated found vent
in the utterances of the colonial metropolitan who had excommunicated
Colenso--Bishop Gray, "the Lion of Cape Town"--who denounced the
judgment as "awful and profane," and the Privy Council as "a
masterpiece of Satan" and "the great dragon of the English Church." Even
Wilberforce, careful as he was to avoid attacking anything established,
alluded with deep regret to "the devotion of the English people to the
law in matters of this sort."
Their failure in the courts only seemed to increase the violence of the
attacking party. The Anglican communion, both in England and America,
was stirred to its depths against the heretic, and various dissenting
bodies strove to show equal zeal. Great pains were taken to root out
his reputation: it was declared that he had merely stolen the ideas
of rationalists on the Continent by wholesale, and peddled them out in
England at retail; the fact being that, while he used all the sources of
information at his command, and was large-minded enough to put himself
into relations with the best biblical scholarship of the Continent, he
was singularly independent in his judgment, and that his investigations
were of lasting value in modifying Continental thought. Kuenen, the most
distinguished of all his contemporaries in this field, modified, as
he himself declared, one of his own leading theories after reading
Colenso's argument; and other Continental scholars scarcely less
eminent acknowledged their great indebtedness to the English scholar for
original suggestions.(483)
(483) For interesting details of the Colenso persecution, see Davidson's
Life of Tait, chaps. xii and xiv; also the Lives of Bishops Wilberforce
and Gray. For full accounts of the struggle, see Cox, Life of Bishop
Colenso, London, 1888, especially vol. i, chap. v. For the dramatic
performance at Colenso's cathedral, see vol. ii, pp. 14-25. For a very
impartial and appreciative statement regarding Colenso's work, see
Cheyne, Founders of Old Testament Criticism, London, 1893, chap. ix. For
testimony to the originality and value of Colenso's contributions, see
Kuenen, Origin and Composition of the Hexateuch, Introduction, pp. xx,
as follows: "Colenso directed my attention to difficulties which I had
hitherto failed to observe or adequately to reckon with; and as to
the opinion of his labours current in Germany, I need only say that,
inasmuch as Ewald, Bunsen, Bleek, and Knabel were every one of them
logically forced to revise their theories in the light of the English
bishop's research, there was small reason in the cry that his methods
were antiquated and his objections stale." For a very brief but
effective tribute to Colenso as an independent thinker whose merits are
now acknowledged by Continental scholars, see Pfleiderer, Development of
Theory, as above.
But the zeal of the bishop's enemies did not end with calumny. He was
socially ostracized--more completely even than Lyell had been after the
publication of his Principles of Geology thirty years before. Even
old friends left him, among them Frederick Denison Maurice, who, when
himself under the ban of heresy, had been defended by Colenso. Nor was
Maurice the only heretic who turned against him; Matthew Arnold attacked
him, and set up, as a true ideal of the work needed to improve the
English Church and people, of all books in the world, Spinoza's
Tractatus. A large part of the English populace was led to regard him
as an "infidel," a "traitor," an "apostate," and even as "an unclean
being"; servants left his house in horror; "Tray, Blanche, and
Sweetheart were let loose upon him"; and one of the favourite amusements
of the period among men of petty wit and no convictions was the devising
of light ribaldry against him.(484)
(484) One of the nonsense verses in vogue at the time summed up the
controversy as follows:
"A bishop there was of Natal,
Who had a Zulu for his pal;
Said the Zulu, 'My dear,
Don't you think Genesis queer?'
Which coverted my lord of Natal."
But verses quite as good appeared on the other side, one of them being
as follows:
"Is this, then, the great Colenso,
Who all the bishops offends so?
Said Sam of the Soap,
Bring fagots and rope,
For oh! he's got no friends, oh!"
For Matthew Arnold's attack on Colenso, see Macmillan's Magazine,
January, 1863. For Maurice, see the references already given.
In the midst of all this controversy stood three men, each of whom has
connected his name with it permanently.
First of these was Samuel Wilberforce, at that time Bishop of Oxford.
The gifted son of William Wilberforce, who had been honoured throughout
the world for his efforts in the suppression of the slave trade, he
had been rapidly advanced in the English Church, and was at this time
a prelate of wide influence. He was eloquent and diplomatic, witty and
amiable, always sure to be with his fellow-churchmen and polite society
against uncomfortable changes. Whether the struggle was against the
slave power in the United States, or the squirearchy in Great Britain,
or the evolution theory of Darwin, or the new views promulgated by the
Essayists and Reviewers, he was always the suave spokesman of those
who opposed every innovator and "besought him to depart out of their
coasts." Mingling in curious proportions a truly religious feeling with
care for his own advancement, his remarkable power in the pulpit gave
him great strength to carry out his purposes, and his charming facility
in being all things to all men, as well as his skill in evading the
consequences of his many mistakes, gained him the sobriquet of "Soapy
Sam." If such brethren of his in the episcopate as Thirlwall and Selwyn
and Tait might claim to be in the apostolic succession, Wilberforce
was no less surely in the succession from the most gifted and eminently
respectable Sadducees who held high preferment under Pontius Pilate.
By a curious coincidence he had only a few years before preached the
sermon when Colenso was consecrated in Westminster Abbey, and one
passage in it may be cited as showing the preacher's gift of prophecy
both hortatory and predictive. Wilberforce then said to Colenso:
"You need boldness to risk all for God--to stand by the truth and its
supporters against men's threatenings and the devil's wrath;... you need
a patient meekness to bear the galling calumnies and false surmises
with which, if you are faithful, that same Satanic working, which, if it
could, would burn your body, will assuredly assail you daily through the
pens and tongues of deceivers and deceived, who, under a semblance of
a zeal for Christ, will evermore distort your words, misrepresent your
motives, rejoice in your failings, exaggerate your errors, and seek
by every poisoned breath of slander to destroy your powers of
service."(485)
(485) For the social ostracism of Colenso, see works already cited; also
Cox's Life of Colenso. For the passage from Wilberforce's sermon at the
consecration of Colenso, see Rev. Sir G. W. Cox, The Church of England
and the Teaching of Bishop Colenso. For Wilberforce's relations to the
Colenso case in general, see his Life, by his son, vol. iii, especially
pp. 113-126, 229-231. For Keble's avowal that no Englishman believes
in excommunication, ibid., p. 128. For a guarded statement of Dean
Stanley's opinion regarding Wilberforce and Newman, see a letter from
Dean Church to the Warden of Keble, in Life and Letters of Dean Church,
p. 293.
Unfortunately, when Colenso followed this advice his adviser became
the most untiring of his persecutors. While leaving to men like the
Metropolitan of Cape Town and Archdeacon Denison the noisy part of the
onslaught, Wilberforce was among those who were most zealous in devising
more effective measures.
But time, and even short time, has redressed the balance between the two
prelates. Colenso is seen more and more of all men as a righteous leader
in a noble effort to cut the Church loose from fatal entanglements with
an outworn system of interpretation; Wilberforce, as the remembrance
of his eloquence and of his personal charm dies away, and as the
revelations of his indiscreet biographers lay bare his modes of
procedure, is seen to have left, on the whole, the most disappointing
record made by any Anglican prelate during the nineteenth century.
But there was a far brighter page in the history of the Church of
England; for the second of the three who linked their names with that of
Colenso in the struggle was Arthur Penrhyn Stanley, Dean of Westminster.
His action during this whole persecution was an honour not only to the
Anglican Church but to humanity. For his own manhood and the exercise
of his own intellectual freedom he had cheerfully given up the high
preferment in the Church which had been easily within his grasp. To
him truth and justice were more than the decrees of a Convocation of
Canterbury or of a Pan-Anglican Synod; in this as in other matters he
braved the storm, never yielded to theological prejudice, from first to
last held out a brotherly hand to the persecuted bishop, and at the most
critical moment opened to him the pulpit of Westminster Abbey.(486)
(486) For interesting testimony to Stanley's character, from a quarter
from whence it would have been least expected, see a reminiscence of
Lord Shaftesbury in the Life of Frances Power Cobbe, London and New
York, 1894. The late Bishop of Massachusetts, Phillips Brooks, whose
death was a bereavement to his country and to the Church universal, once
gave the present writer a vivid description of a scene witnessed by him
in the Convocation of Canterbury, when Stanley virtually withstood alone
the obstinate traditionalism of the whole body in the matter of the
Athanasian Creed. It is to be hoped that this account may be brought to
light among the letters written by Brooks at that time. See also Dean
Church's Life and Letters, p. 294, for a very important testimony.
The third of the high ecclesiastics of the Church of England whose
names were linked in this contest was Thirlwall. He was undoubtedly
the foremost man in the Church of his time--the greatest ecclesiastical
statesman, the profoundest historical scholar, the theologian of
clearest vision in regard to the relations between the Church and his
epoch. Alone among his brother bishops at this period, he stood "four
square to all the winds that blew," as during all his life he stood
against all storms of clerical or popular unreason. He had his reward.
He was never advanced beyond a poor Welsh bishopric; but, though he
saw men wretchedly inferior constantly promoted beyond him, he never
flinched, never lost heart or hope, but bore steadily on, refusing to
hold a brief for lucrative injustice, and resisting to the last all
reaction and fanaticism, thus preserving not only his own self-respect
but the future respect of the English nation for the Church.
A few other leading churchmen were discreetly kind to Colenso, among
them Tait, who had now been made Archbishop of Canterbury; but, manly as
he was, he was somewhat more cautious in this matter than those who most
revere his memory could now wish.
In spite of these friends the clerical onslaught was for a time
effective; Colenso, so far as England was concerned, was discredited and
virtually driven from his functions. But this enforced leisure simply
gave him more time to struggle for the protection of his native flock
against colonial rapacity and to continue his great work on the Bible.
His work produced its effect. It had much to do with arousing a new
generation of English, Scotch, and American scholars. While very many
of his minor statements have since been modified or rejected, his main
conclusion was seen more and more clearly to be true. Reverently and in
the deepest love for Christianity he had made the unhistorical character
of the Pentateuch clear as noonday. Henceforth the crushing weight of
the old interpretation upon science and morality and religion steadily
and rapidly grew less and less. That a new epoch had come was evident,
and out of many proofs of this we may note two of the most striking.
For many years the Bampton Lectures at Oxford had been considered as
adding steadily and strongly to the bulwarks of the old orthodoxy. If
now and then orthodoxy had appeared in danger from such additions to the
series as those made by Dr. Hampden, these lectures had been, as a rule,
saturated with the older traditions of the Anglican Church. But now
there was an evident change. The departures from the old paths were many
and striking, until at last, in 1893, came the lectures on Inspiration
by the Rev. Dr. Sanday, Ireland Professor of Exegesis in the University
of Oxford. In these, concessions were made to the newer criticism, which
at an earlier time would have driven the lecturer not only out of the
Church but out of any decent position in society; for Prof. Sanday
not only gave up a vast mass of other ideas which the great body
of churchmen had regarded as fundamental, but accepted a number of
conclusions established by the newer criticism. He declared that Kuenen
and Wellhausen had mapped out, on the whole rightly, the main stages of
development in the history of Hebrew literature; he incorporated with
approval the work of other eminent heretics; he acknowledged that very
many statements in the Pentateuch show "the naive ideas and usages of
a primitive age." But, most important of all, he gave up the whole
question in regard to the book of Daniel. Up to a time then very recent,
the early authorship and predictive character of the book of Daniel were
things which no one was allowed for a moment to dispute. Pusey, as we
have seen, had proved to the controlling parties in the English Church
that Christianity must stand or fall with the traditional view of this
book; and now, within a few years of Pusey's death, there came, in his
own university, speaking from the pulpit of St. Mary's whence he had
so often insisted upon the absolute necessity of maintaining the older
view, this professor of biblical criticism, a doctor of divinity,
showing conclusively as regards the book of Daniel that the critical
view had won the day; that the name of Daniel is only assumed; that the
book is in no sense predictive, but was written, mainly at least, after
the events it describes; that "its author lived at the time of the
Maccabean struggle"; that it is very inaccurate even in the simple facts
which it cites; and hence that all the vast fabric erected upon its
predictive character is baseless.
But another evidence of the coming in of a new epoch was even more
striking.
To uproot every growth of the newer thought, to destroy even every germ
that had been planted by Colenso and men like him, a special movement
was begun, of which the most important part was the establishment,
at the University of Oxford, of a college which should bring the old
opinion with crushing force against the new thought, and should train up
a body of young men by feeding them upon the utterances of the fathers,
of the medieval doctors, and of the apologists of the seventeenth and
eighteenth centuries; and should keep them in happy ignorance of the
reforming spirit of the sixteenth and the scientific spirit of the
nineteenth century.
The new college thus founded bore the name of the poet most widely
beloved among high churchmen; large endowments flowed in upon it; a
showy chapel was erected in accordance throughout with the strictest
rules of medieval ecclesiology. As if to strike the keynote of the
thought to be fostered in the new institution, one of the most beautiful
of pseudo-medieval pictures was given the place of honour in its hall;
and the college, lofty and gaudy, loomed high above the neighbouring
modest abode of Oxford science. Kuenen might be victorious in Holland,
and Wellhausen in Germany, and Robertson Smith in Scotland--even
Professors Driver, Sanday, and Cheyne might succeed Dr. Pusey as
expounders of the Old Testament at Oxford--but Keble College, rejoicing
in the favour of a multitude of leaders in the Church, including Mr.
Gladstone, seemed an inexpugnable fortress of the older thought.
But in 1889 appeared the book of essays entitled Lux Mundi, among whose
leading authors were men closely connected with Keble College and
with the movement which had created it. This work gave up entirely the
tradition that the narrative in Genesis is a historical record, and
admitted that all accounts in the Hebrew Scriptures of events before the
time of Abraham are mythical and legendary; it conceded that the books
ascribed to Moses and Joshua were made up mainly of three documents
representing different periods, and one of them the late period of the
exile; that "there is a considerable idealizing element in Old Testament
history"; that "the books of Chronicles show an idealizing of history"
and "a reading back into past records of a ritual development which
is really later," and that prophecy is not necessarily
predictive--"prophetic inspiration being consistent with erroneous
anticipations." Again a shudder went through the upholders of tradition
in the Church, and here and there threats were heard; but the Essays
and Reviews fiasco and the Colenso catastrophe were still in vivid
remembrance. Good sense prevailed: Benson, Archbishop of Canterbury,
instead of prosecuting the authors, himself asked the famous question,
"May not the Holy Spirit make use of myth and legend?" and the
Government, not long afterward, promoted one of these authors to a
bishopric.(487)
(487) Of Pusey's extreme devotion to his view of the book of Daniel,
there is a curious evidence in a letter to Stanley in the second volume
of the latter's Life and Letters. For the views referred to in Lux
Mundi, see pp. 345-357; also, on the general subject, Bishop Ellicott's
Christus Comprobator.
In the sister university the same tendency was seen. Robertson Smith,
who had been driven out of his high position in the Free Church of
Scotland on account of his work in scriptural research, was welcomed
into a professorship at Cambridge, and other men, no less loyal to the
new truths, were given places of controlling influence in shaping the
thought of the new generation.
Nor did the warfare against biblical science produce any different
results among the dissenters of England. In 1862 Samuel Davidson, a
professor in the Congregational College at Manchester, published his
Introduction to the Old Testament. Independently of the contemporary
writers of Essays and Reviews, he had arrived in a general way at
conclusions much like theirs, and he presented the newer view with
fearless honesty, admitting that the same research must be applied
to these as to other Oriental sacred books, and that such research
establishes the fact that all alike contain legendary and mythical
elements. A storm was at once aroused; certain denominational papers
took up the matter, and Davidson was driven from his professorial chair;
but he laboured bravely on, and others followed to take up his work,
until the ideas which he had advocated were fully considered.
So, too, in Scotland the work of Robertson Smith was continued even
after he had been driven into England; and, as votaries of the older
thought passed away, men of ideas akin to his were gradually elected
into chairs of biblical criticism and interpretation. Wellhausen's great
work, which Smith had introduced in English form, proved a power both in
England and Scotland, and the articles upon various books of Scripture
and scriptural subjects generally, in the ninth edition of the
Encyclopaedia Britannica, having been prepared mainly by himself as
editor or put into the hands of others representing the recent critical
research, this very important work of reference, which had been in
previous editions so timid, was now arrayed on the side of the newer
thought, insuring its due consideration wherever the English language is
spoken.
In France the same tendency was seen, though with striking variations
from the course of events in other countries--variations due to the
very different conditions under which biblical students in France
were obliged to work. Down to the middle of the nineteenth century the
orthodoxy of Bossuet, stiffly opposing the letter of Scripture to
every step in the advance of science, had only yielded in a very slight
degree. But then came an event ushering in a new epoch. At that time
Jules Simon, afterward so eminent as an author, academician, and
statesman, was quietly discharging the duties of a professorship, when
there was brought him the visiting card of a stranger bearing the
name of "Ernest Renan, Student at St. Sulpice." Admitted to M. Simon's
library, Renan told his story. As a theological student he had devoted
himself most earnestly, even before he entered the seminary, to the
study of Hebrew and the Semitic languages, and he was now obliged,
during the lectures on biblical literature at St. Sulpice, to hear the
reverend professor make frequent comments, based on the Vulgate, but
absolutely disproved by Renan's own knowledge of Hebrew. On Renan's
questioning any interpretation of the lecturer, the latter was wont
to rejoin: "Monsieur, do you presume to deny the authority of the
Vulgate--the translation by St. Jerome, sanctioned by the Holy Ghost and
the Church? You will at once go into the chapel and say 'Hail Mary' for
an hour before the image of the Blessed Virgin."
"But," said Renan to Jules Simon, "this has now become very serious; it
happens nearly every day, and, MON DIEU! Monsieur, I can not spend ALL
my time in saying, Hail Mary, before the statue of the Virgin." The
result was a warm personal attachment between Simon and Renan; both were
Bretons, educated in the midst of the most orthodox influences, and both
had unwillingly broken away from them.
Renan was now emancipated, and pursued his studies with such effect that
he was made professor at the College de France. His Life of Jesus, and
other books showing the same spirit, brought a tempest upon him which
drove him from his professorship and brought great hardships upon him
for many years. But his genius carried the day, and, to the honour of
the French Republic, he was restored to the position from which the
Empire had driven him. From his pen finally appeared the Histoire du
Peuple Israel, in which scholarship broad, though at times inaccurate in
minor details, was supplemented by an exquisite acuteness and a poetic
insight which far more than made good any of those lesser errors which a
German student would have avoided. At his death, in October, 1892, this
monumental work had been finished. In clearness and beauty of style it
has never been approached by any other treatise on this or any kindred
subject: it is a work of genius; and its profound insight into all that
is of importance in the great subjects which he treated will doubtless
cause it to hold a permanent place in the literature not only of the
Latin nations but of the world.
An interesting light is thrown over the history of advancing thought at
the end of the nineteenth century by the fact that this most detested of
heresiarchs was summoned to receive the highest of academic honours
at the university which for ages had been regarded as a stronghold of
Presbyterian orthodoxy in Great Britain.
In France the anathemas lavished upon him by Church authorities during
his life, their denial to him of Christian burial, and their refusal
to allow him a grave in the place he most loved, only increased popular
affection for him during his last years and deepened the general
mourning at his death.(488)
(488) For a remarkably just summary of Renan's work, eminently judicial
and at the same time deeply appreciative, see the Rev. Dr. Pfleiderer,
professor at the University of Berlin, Development of Theology in
Germany, pp. 241, 242, note. The facts as to the early relations between
Renan and Jules Simon were told in 1878 by the latter to the present
writer at considerable length and with many interesting details not here
given. The writer was also present at the public funeral of the great
scholar, and can testify of his own knowledge to the deep and hearty
evidences of gratitude and respect then paid to Renan, not merely by
eminent orators and scholars, but by the people at large. As to the
refusal of the place of burial that Renan especially chose, see his own
Souvenirs, in which he laments the inevitable exclusion of his grave
from the site which he most loved. As to calumnies, one masterpiece,
very widely spread, through the zeal of clerical journals, was that
Renan received enormous sums from the Rothschilds for attacking
Christianity.
In spite of all resistance, the desire for more light upon the sacred
books penetrated the older Church from every side.
In Germany, toward the close of the eighteenth century, Jahn, Catholic
professor at Vienna, had ventured, in an Introduction to Old Testament
Study, to class Job, Jonah, and Tobit below other canonical books,
and had only escaped serious difficulties by ample amends in a second
edition.
Early in the nineteenth century, Herbst, Catholic professor at Tubingen,
had endeavoured in a similar Introduction to bring modern research to
bear on the older view; but the Church authorities took care to have all
passages really giving any new light skilfully and speedily edited out
of the book.
Later still, Movers, professor at Breslau, showed remarkable gifts
for Old Testament research, and much was expected of him; but his
ecclesiastical superiors quietly prevented his publishing any extended
work.
During the latter half of the nineteenth century much the same pressure
has continued in Catholic Germany. Strong scholars have very generally
been drawn into the position of "apologists" or "reconcilers," and, when
found intractable, they have been driven out of the Church.
The same general policy had been evident in France and Italy, but toward
the last decade of the century it was seen by the more clear-sighted
supporters of the older Church in those countries that the multifarious
"refutations" and explosive attacks upon Renan and his teachings had
accomplished nothing; that even special services of atonement for his
sin, like the famous "Triduo" at Florence, only drew a few women, and
provoked ridicule among the public at large; that throwing him out of
his professorship and calumniating him had but increased his influence;
and that his brilliant intuitions, added to the careful researches of
German and English scholars, had brought the thinking world beyond
the reach of the old methods of hiding troublesome truths and crushing
persistent truth-tellers.
Therefore it was that about 1890 a body of earnest Roman Catholic
scholars began very cautiously to examine and explain the biblical
text in the light of those results of the newer research which could no
longer be gainsaid.
Among these men were, in Italy, Canon Bartolo, Canon Berta, and Father
Savi, and in France Monseigneur d'Hulst, the Abbe Loisy, professor
at the Roman Catholic University at Paris, and, most eminent of all,
Professor Lenormant, of the French Institute, whose researches
into biblical and other ancient history and literature had won him
distinction throughout the world. These men, while standing up manfully
for the Church, were obliged to allow that some of the conclusions of
modern biblical criticism were well founded. The result came rapidly.
The treatise of Bartolo and the great work of Lenormant were placed on
the Index; Canon Berta was overwhelmed with reproaches and virtually
silenced; the Abbe Loisy was first deprived of his professorship, and
then ignominiously expelled from the university; Monseigneur d'Hulst was
summoned to Rome, and has since kept silence.(489)
(489) For the frustration of attempts to admit light into scriptural
studies in Roman Catholic Germany, see Bleek, Old Testament, London,
1882, vol. i, pp. 19, 20. For the general statement regarding recent
suppression of modern biblical study in France and Italy, see an article
by a Roman Catholic author in the Contemporary Review, September, 1894,
p. 365. For the papal condemnations of Lenormant and Bartolo, see the
Index Librorum Prohibitorum Sanctissimi Domini Nostri, Leonis XIII,
P.M., etc., Rome, 1891; Appendices, July, 1890, and May, 1891. The
ghastly part of the record, as stated in this edition of the Index, is
that both these great scholars were forced to abjure their "errors" and
to acquiesce in the condemnation--Lenorment doing this on his deathbed.
The matter was evidently thought serious in the higher regions of the
Church, for in November, 1893, appeared an encyclical letter by the
reigning Pope, Leo XIII, on The Study of Sacred Scripture.
Much was expected from it, for, since Benedict XIV in the last century,
there had sat on the papal throne no Pope intellectually so competent
to discuss the whole subject. While, then, those devoted to the older
beliefs trusted that the papal thunderbolts would crush the whole brood
of biblical critics, votaries of the newer thought ventured to hope
that the encyclical might, in the language of one of them, prove "a
stupendous bridge spanning the broad abyss that now divides alleged
orthodoxy from established science."(490)
(490) For this statement, see an article in the Contemporary Review,
April, 1894, p. 576.
Both these expectations were disappointed; and yet, on the whole, it is
a question whether the world at large may not congratulate itself upon
this papal utterance. The document, if not apostolic, won credit as
"statesmanlike." It took pains, of course, to insist that there can be
no error of any sort in the sacred books; it even defended those parts
which Protestants count apocryphal as thoroughly as the remainder of
Scripture, and declared that the book of Tobit was not compiled of
man, but written by God. His Holiness naturally condemned the higher
criticism, but he dwelt at the same time on the necessity of the
most thorough study of the sacred Scriptures, and especially on the
importance of adjusting scriptural statements to scientific facts. This
utterance was admirably oracular, being susceptible of cogent quotation
by both sides: nothing could be in better form from an orthodox point of
view; but, with that statesmanlike forecast which the present Pope has
shown more than once in steering the bark of St. Peter over the troubled
waves of the nineteenth century, he so far abstained from condemning any
of the greater results of modern critical study that the main English
defender of the encyclical, the Jesuit Father Clarke, did not hesitate
publicly to admit a multitude of such results--results, indeed, which
would shock not only Italian and Spanish Catholics, but many English
and American Protestants. According to this interpreter, the Pope had
no thought of denying the variety of documents in the Pentateuch, or the
plurality of sources of the books of Samuel, or the twofold authorship
of Isaiah, or that all after the ninth verse of the last chapter of St.
Mark's Gospel is spurious; and, as regards the whole encyclical, the
distinguished Jesuit dwelt significantly on the power of the papacy at
any time to define out of existence any previous decisions which may
be found inconvenient. More than that, Father Clarke himself, while
standing as the champion of the most thorough orthodoxy, acknowledged
that, in the Old Testament, "numbers must be expected to be used
Orientally," and that "all these seventies and forties, as, for example,
when Absalom is said to have rebelled against David for forty years, can
not possibly be meant numerically"; and, what must have given a fearful
shock to some Protestant believers in plenary inspiration, he, while
advocating it as a dutiful Son of the Church, wove over it an exquisite
web with the declaration that "there is a human element in the Bible
pre-calculated for by the Divine."(491)
(491) For these admissions of Father Clarke, see his article The Papal
Encyclical on the Bible, in the Contemporary Review for July, 1894.
Considering the difficulties in the case, the world has reason to be
grateful to Pope Leo and Father Clarke for these utterances, which
perhaps, after all, may prove a better bridge between the old and the
new than could have been framed by engineers more learned but less
astute. Evidently Pope Leo XIII is neither a Paul V nor an Urban VIII,
and is too wise to bring the Church into a position from which it can
only be extricated by such ludicrous subterfuges as those by which it
was dragged out of the Galileo scandal, or by such a tortuous policy as
that by which it writhed out of the old doctrine regarding the taking of
interest for money.
In spite, then, of the attempted crushing out of Bartolo and Berta and
Savi and Lenormant and Loisy, during this very epoch in which the Pope
issued this encyclical, there is every reason to hope that the path
has been paved over which the Church may gracefully recede from the old
system of interpretation and quietly accept and appropriate the main
results of the higher criticism. Certainly she has never had a better
opportunity to play at the game of "beggar my neighbour" and to drive
the older Protestant orthodoxy into bankruptcy.
In America the same struggle between the old ideas and the new went on.
In the middle years of the century the first adequate effort in behalf
of the newer conception of the sacred books was made by Theodore
Parker at Boston. A thinker brave and of the widest range,--a scholar
indefatigable and of the deepest sympathies with humanity,--a man called
by one of the most eminent scholars in the English Church "a religious
Titan," and by a distinguished French theologian "a prophet," he had
struggled on from the divinity school until at that time he was one
of the foremost biblical scholars, and preacher to the largest regular
congregation on the American continent. The great hall in Boston could
seat four thousand people, and at his regular discourses every part
of it was filled. In addition to his pastoral work he wielded a vast
influence as a platform speaker, especially in opposition to the
extension of slavery into the Territories of the United States, and as
a lecturer on a wide range of vital topics; and among those whom he most
profoundly influenced, both politically and religiously, was Abraham
Lincoln. During each year at that period he was heard discussing the
most important religious and political questions in all the greater
Northern cities; but his most lasting work was in throwing light upon
our sacred Scriptures, and in this he was one of the forerunners of
the movement now going on not only in the United States but throughout
Christendom. Even before he was fairly out of college his translation of
De Wette's Introduction to the Old Testament made an impression on many
thoughtful men; his sermon in 1841 on The Transient and Permanent in
Christianity marked the beginning of his great individual career;
his speeches, his lectures, and especially his Discourse on Matters
pertaining to Religion, greatly extended his influence. His was a deeply
devotional nature, and his public prayers exercised by their touching
beauty a very strong religious influence upon his audiences. He had his
reward. Beautiful and noble as were his life and his life-work, he was
widely abhorred. On one occasion of public worship in one of the more
orthodox churches, news having been received that he was dangerously
ill, a prayer was openly made by one of the zealous brethren present
that this arch-enemy might be removed from earth. He was even driven out
from the Unitarian body. But he was none the less steadfast and bold,
and the great mass of men and women who thronged his audience room at
Boston and his lecture rooms in other cities spread his ideas. His fate
was pathetic. Full of faith and hope, but broken prematurely by his
labours, he retired to Italy, and died there at the darkest period in
the history of the United States--when slavery in the state and the
older orthodoxy in the Church seemed absolutely and forever triumphant.
The death of Moses within sight of the promised land seems the only
parallel to the death of Parker less than six months before the
publication of Essays and Reviews and the election of Abraham Lincoln to
the presidency, of the United States.(492)
(492) For the appellation "religious Titan" applied to Theodore Parker,
see a letter of Jowett, Master of Balliol, to Frances Power Cobbe, in
her Autobiography, vol. 1, p. 357, and for Reville's statement, ibid.,
p. 9. For a pathetic account of Parker's last hours at Florence, ibid.,
vol. i, pp. 10, 11. As to the influence of Theodore Parker on Lincoln,
see Rhodes's History of the United States, as above, vol. ii, p. 312.
For the statement regarding Parker's audiences and his power over them,
the present writer trusts to his own memory.
But here it must be noted that Parker's effort was powerfully aided by
the conscientious utterances of some of his foremost opponents. Nothing
during the American struggle against the slave system did more to wean
religious and God-fearing men and women from the old interpretation of
Scripture than the use of it to justify slavery. Typical among examples
of this use were the arguments of Hopkins, Bishop of Vermont, a man
whose noble character and beautiful culture gave him very wide influence
in all branches of the American Protestant Church. While avowing his
personal dislike to slavery, he demonstrated that the Bible sanctioned
it. Other theologians, Catholic and Protestant, took the same ground;
and then came that tremendous rejoinder which echoed from heart to heart
throughout the Northern States: "The Bible sanctions slavery? So much
the worse for the Bible." Then was fulfilled that old saying of Bishop
Ulrich of Augsburg: "Press not the breasts of Holy Writ too hard, lest
they yield blood rather than milk."(493)
(493) There is a curious reference to Bishop Hopkins's ideas on slavery
in Archbishop Tait's Life and Letters. For a succinct statement of the
biblical proslavery argument referred to, see Rhodes, as above, vol. i,
pp. 370 et seq.
Yet throughout Christendom a change in the mode of interpreting
Scripture, though absolutely necessary if its proper authority was to
be maintained, still seemed almost hopeless. Even after the foremost
scholars had taken ground in favour of it, and the most conservative
of those whose opinions were entitled to weight had made concessions
showing the old ground to be untenable, there was fanatical opposition
to any change. The Syllabus of Errors put forth by Pius IX in 1864, as
well as certain other documents issued from the Vatican, had increased
the difficulties of this needed transition; and, while the more
able-minded Roman Catholic scholars skilfully explained away the
obstacles thus created, others published works insisting upon the most
extreme views as to the verbal inspiration of the sacred books. In
the Church of England various influential men took the same view. Dr.
Baylee, Principal of St. Aidan's College, declared that in Scripture
"every scientific statement is infallibly accurate; all its histories
and narrations of every kind are without any inaccuracy. Its words
and phrases have a grammatical and philological accuracy, such as is
possessed by no human composition." In 1861 Dean Burgon preached in
Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, as follows: "No, sirs, the Bible is the
very utterance of the Eternal: as much God's own word as if high heaven
were open and we heard God speaking to us with human voice. Every
book is inspired alike, and is inspired entirely. Inspiration is not a
difference of degree, but of kind. The Bible is filled to overflowing
with the Holy Spirit of God; the books of it and the words of it and the
very letters of it."
In 1865 Canon MacNeile declared in Exeter Hall that "we must either
receive the verbal inspiration of the Old Testament or deny the
veracity, the insight, the integrity of our Lord Jesus Christ as a
teacher of divine truth."
As late as 1889 one of the two most eloquent pulpit orators in the
Church of England, Canon Liddon, preaching at St. Paul's Cathedral, used
in his fervour the same dangerous argument: that the authority of Christ
himself, and therefore of Christianity, must rest on the old view of
the Old Testament; that, since the founder of Christianity, in divinely
recorded utterances, alluded to the transformation of Lot's wife into a
pillar of salt, to Noah's ark and the Flood, and to the sojourn of
Jonah in the whale, the biblical account of these must be accepted as
historical, or that Christianity must be given up altogether.
In the light of what was rapidly becoming known regarding the Chaldean
and other sources of the accounts given in Genesis, no argument could be
more fraught with peril to the interest which the gifted preacher sought
to serve.
In France and Germany many similar utterances in opposition to the
newer biblical studies were heard; and from America, especially from the
college at Princeton, came resounding echoes. As an example of many
may be quoted the statement by the eminent Dr. Hodge that the books
of Scripture "are, one and all, in thought and verbal expression, in
substance, and in form, wholly the work of God, conveying with absolute
accuracy and divine authority all that God meant to convey without human
additions and admixtures"; and that "infallibility and authority attach
as much to the verbal expression in which the revelation is made as to
the matter of the revelation itself."
But the newer thought moved steadily on. As already in Protestant
Europe, so now in the Protestant churches of America, it took strong
hold on the foremost minds in many of the churches known as orthodox:
Toy, Briggs, Francis Brown, Evans, Preserved Smith, Moore, Haupt,
Harper, Peters, and Bacon developed it, and, though most of them were
opposed bitterly by synods, councils, and other authorities of
their respective churches, they were manfully supported by the more
intellectual clergy and laity. The greater universities of the country
ranged themselves on the side of these men; persecution but intrenched
them more firmly in the hearts of all intelligent well-wishers of
Christianity. The triumphs won by their opponents in assemblies, synods,
conventions, and conferences were really victories for the nominally
defeated, since they revealed to the world the fact that in each of
these bodies the strong and fruitful thought of the Church, the thought
which alone can have any hold on the future, was with the new race of
thinkers; no theological triumphs more surely fatal to the victors have
been won since the Vatican defeated Copernicus and Galileo.
And here reference must be made to a series of events which, in the
second half of the nineteenth century, have contributed most powerful
aid to the new school of biblical research.
V. VICTORY OF THE SCIENTIFIC AND LITERARY METHODS.
While this struggle for the new truth was going on in various fields,
aid appeared from a quarter whence it was least expected.
The great discoveries by Botta and Layard in Assyria were supplemented
by the researches of Rawlinson, George Smith, Oppert, Sayce, Sarzec,
Pinches, and others, and thus it was revealed more clearly than ever
before that as far back as the time assigned in Genesis to the creation
a great civilization was flourishing in Mesopotamia; that long ages,
probably two thousand years, before the scriptural date assigned to the
migration of Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees, this Chaldean civilization
had bloomed forth in art, science, and literature; that the ancient
inscriptions recovered from the sites of this and kindred civilizations
presented the Hebrew sacred myths and legends in earlier forms--forms
long antedating those given in the Hebrew Scriptures; and that the
accounts of the Creation, the Tree of Life in Eden, the institution and
even the name of the Sabbath, the Deluge, the Tower of Babel, and much
else in the Pentateuch, were simply an evolution out of earlier Chaldean
myths and legends. So perfect was the proof of this that the most
eminent scholars in the foremost seats of Christian learning were
obliged to acknowledge it.(494)
(494) As to the revelations of the vast antiquity of Chaldean
civilization, and especially regarding the Nabonidos inscription, see
Records of the Past, vol. i, new series, first article, and especially
pp. 5, 6, where a translation of that inscription is given; also Hommel,
Geschichte Babyloniens und Assyriens, introduction, in which, on page
12, an engraving of the Sargon cylinder is given; also, on the general
subject, especially pp. 116 et seq., 309 et seq.; also Meyer,
Geschichte des Alterthums, pp. 161-163; also Maspero and Sayce, Dawn of
Civilization, p. 555 and note.
For the earlier Chaldean forms of the Hebrew Creation accounts, Tree
of Life in Eden, Hebrew Sabbath, both the institution and the name, and
various other points of similar interest, see George Smith, Chaldean
Account of Genesis, throughout the work, especially p. 308 and chaps.
xvi, xvii; also Jensen, Die Kosmologie der Babylonier; also Schrader,
The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old Testament; also Lenormant,
Origines de l'Histoire; also Sayce, The Assyrian Story of Creation, in
Records of the Past, new series, vol. i. For a general statement as to
earlier sources of much in the Hebrew sacred origins, see Huxley, Essays
on Controverted Questions, English edition, p. 525.
The more general conclusions which were thus given to biblical criticism
were all the more impressive from the fact that they had been revealed
by various groups of earnest Christian scholars working on different
lines, by different methods, and in various parts of the world. Very
honourable was the full and frank testimony to these results given
in 1885 by the Rev. Francis Brown, a professor in the Presbyterian
Theological Seminary at New York. In his admirable though brief book on
Assyriology, starting with the declaration that "it is a great pity to
be afraid of facts," he showed how Assyrian research testifies in many
ways to the historical value of the Bible record; but at the same time
he freely allowed to Chaldean history an antiquity fatal to the sacred
chronology of the Hebrews. He also cast aside a mass of doubtful
apologetics, and dealt frankly with the fact that very many of the early
narratives in Genesis belong to the common stock of ancient tradition,
and, mentioning as an example the cuneiform inscriptions which record
a story of the Accadian king Sargon--how "he was born in retirement,
placed by his mother in a basket of rushes, launched on a river, rescued
and brought up by a stranger, after which he became king"--he did not
hesitate to remind his readers that Sargon lived a thousand years and
more before Moses; that this story was told of him several hundred years
before Moses was born; and that it was told of various other important
personages of antiquity. The professor dealt just as honestly with the
inscriptions which show sundry statements in the book of Daniel to be
unhistorical; candidly making admissions which but a short time before
would have filled orthodoxy with horror.
A few years later came another testimony even more striking. Early in
the last decade of the nineteenth century it was noised abroad that
the Rev. Professor Sayce, of Oxford, the most eminent Assyriologist and
Egyptologist of Great Britain, was about to publish a work in which what
is known as the "higher criticism" was to be vigorously and probably
destructively dealt with in the light afforded by recent research among
the monuments of Assyria and Egypt. The book was looked for with eager
expectation by the supporters of the traditional view of Scripture; but,
when it appeared, the exultation of the traditionalists was speedily
changed to dismay. For Prof. Sayce, while showing some severity toward
sundry minor assumptions and assertions of biblical critics, confirmed
all their more important conclusions which properly fell within his
province. While his readers soon realized that these assumptions and
assertions of overzealous critics no more disproved the main results of
biblical criticism than the wild guesses of Kepler disproved the theory
of Copernicus, or the discoveries of Galileo, or even the great laws
which bear Kepler's own name, they found new mines sprung under some
of the most lofty fortresses of the old dogmatic theology. A few of the
statements of this champion of orthodoxy may be noted. He allowed that
the week of seven days and the Sabbath rest are of Babylonian origin;
indeed, that the very word "Sabbath" is Babylonian; that there are two
narratives of Creation on the Babylonian tablets, wonderfully like
the two leading Hebrew narratives in Genesis, and that the latter were
undoubtedly drawn from the former; that the "garden of Eden" and its
mystical tree were known to the inhabitants of Chaldea in pre-Semitic
days; that the beliefs that woman was created out of man, and that
man by sin fell from a state of innocence, are drawn from very ancient
Chaldean-Babylonian texts; that Assyriology confirms the belief that the
book Genesis is a compilation; that portions of it are by no means so
old as the time of Moses; that the expression in our sacred book,
"The Lord smelled a sweet savour" at the sacrifice made by Noah, is
"identical with that of the Babylonian poet"; that "it is impossible to
believe that the language of the latter was not known to the biblical
writer" and that the story of Joseph and Potiphar's wife was drawn in
part from the old Egyptian tale of The Two Brothers. Finally, after a
multitude of other concessions, Prof. Sayce allowed that the book of
Jonah, so far from being the work of the prophet himself, can not have
been written until the Assyrian Empire was a thing of the past; that the
book of Daniel contains serious mistakes; that the so-called historical
chapters of that book so conflict with the monuments that the author
can not have been a contemporary of Nebuchadnezzar and Cyrus; that
"the story of Belshazzar's fall is not historical"; that the Belshazzar
referred to in it as king, and as the son of Nehuchadnezzar, was not the
son of Nebuchadnezzar, and was never king; that "King Darius the Mede,"
who plays so great a part in the story, never existed; that the book
associates persons and events really many years apart, and that it must
have been written at a period far later than the time assigned in it for
its own origin.
As to the book of Ezra, he tells us that we are confronted by a
chronological inconsistency which no amount of ingenuity can explain
away. He also acknowledges that the book of Esther "contains many
exaggerations and improbabilities, and is simply founded upon one of
those same historical tales of which the Persian chronicles seem to have
been full." Great was the dissatisfaction of the traditionalists with
their expected champion; well might they repeat the words of Balak to
Balaam, "I called thee to curse mine enemies, and, behold, thou hast
altogether blessed them."(495)
(495) For Prof. Brown's discussion, see his Assyriology, its Use and
Abuse in Old Testament Study, New York, 1885, passim. For Prof. Sayce's
views, see The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, third edition,
London, 1894, and especially his own curious anticipation, in the first
lines of the preface, that he must fail to satisfy either side. For the
declaration that the "higher critic" with all his offences is no worse
than the orthodox "apologist," see p. 21. For the important admission
that the same criterion must be applied in researches into our own
sacred books as into others, and even into the mediaeval chronicles, see
p. 26. For justification of critical scepticism regarding the history
given in the book of Daniel, see pp. 27, 28, also chap. ix. For very
full and explicit statements, with proofs, that the "Sabbath," both in
name and nature, was derived by the Hebrews from the Chaldeans, see pp.
74 et seq. For a very full and fair acknowledgment of the "Babylonian
element in Genesis," see chap. iii, including the statement regarding
the statement in our sacred book, "The Lord smelled a sweet savour," at
the sacrifice made by Noah, etc., on p. 119. For an excellent summary of
the work, see Dr. Driver's article in the Contemporary Review for March,
1894. For a pungent but well-deserved rebuke of Prof. Sayce's recent
attempts to propitiate pious subscribers to his archaeological fund, see
Prof. A. A. Bevan, in the Contemporary Review for December, 1895. For
the inscription on the Assyrian tablets relating in detail the exposure
of King Sargon in a basket of rushes, his rescue and rule, see George
Smith, Chaldean account of Genesis, Sayce's edition, London, 1880, pp.
319, 320. For the frequent recurrence of the Sargon and Moses legend
in ancient folklore, see Maspero and Sayce, Dawn of History, p. 598 and
note. For various other points of similar interest, see ibid., passim,
especially chaps. xvi and xvii; also Jensen, Die Kosmologie der
Babylonier, and Schrader, The Cuneiform Inscriptions and the Old
Testament; also Lenormant, Origines de l'Histoire.
No less fruitful have been modern researches in Egypt. While, on one
hand, they have revealed a very considerable number of geographical and
archaeological facts proving the good faith of the narratives entering
into the books attributed to Moses, and have thus made our early sacred
literature all the more valuable, they have at the same time revealed
the limitations of the sacred authors and compilers. They have brought
to light facts utterly disproving the sacred Hebrew date of creation and
the main framework of the early biblical chronology; they have shown
the suggestive correspondence between the ten antediluvian patriarchs
in Genesis and the ten early dynasties of the Egyptian gods, and have
placed by the side of these the ten antediluvian kings of Chaldean
tradition, the ten heroes of Armenia, the ten primeval kings of Persian
sacred tradition, the ten "fathers" of Hindu sacred tradition, and
multitudes of other tens, throwing much light on the manner in which the
sacred chronicles of ancient nations were generally developed.
These scholars have also found that the legends of the plagues of Egypt
are in the main but natural exaggerations of what occurs every year; as,
for example, the changing of the water of the Nile into blood--evidently
suggested by the phenomena exhibited every summer, when, as various
eminent scholars, and, most recent of all, Maspero and Sayce, tell us,
"about the middle of July, in eight or ten days the river turns from
grayish blue to dark red, occasionally of so intense a colour as to look
like newly shed blood." These modern researches have also shown that
some of the most important features in the legends can not possibly
be reconciled with the records of the monuments; for example, that the
Pharaoh of the Exodus was certainly not overwhelmed in the Red Sea. As
to the supernatural features of the Hebrew relations with Egypt, even
the most devoted apologists have become discreetly silent.
Egyptologists have also translated for us the old Nile story of The Two
Brothers, and have shown, as we have already seen, that one of the most
striking parts of our sacred Joseph legend was drawn from it; they have
been obliged to admit that the story of the exposure of Moses in the
basket of rushes, his rescue, and his subsequent greatness, had been
previously told, long before Moses's time, not only of King Sargon,
but of various other great personages of the ancient world; they have
published plans of Egyptian temples and copies of the sculptures upon
their walls, revealing the earlier origin of some of the most striking
features of the worship and ceremonial claimed to have been revealed
especially to the Hebrews; they have found in the Egyptian Book of the
Dead, and in various inscriptions of the Nile temples and tombs, earlier
sources of much in the ethics so long claimed to have been revealed
only to the chosen people in the Book of the Covenant, in the ten
commandments, and elsewhere; they have given to the world copies of the
Egyptian texts showing that the theology of the Nile was one of various
fruitful sources of later ideas, statements, and practices regarding
the brazen serpent, the golden calf, trinities, miraculous conceptions,
incarnations, resurrections, ascensions, and the like, and that Egyptian
sacro-scientific ideas contributed to early Jewish and Christian sacred
literature statements, beliefs, and even phrases regarding the Creation,
astronomy, geography, magic, medicine, diabolical influences, with a
multitude of other ideas, which we also find coming into early Judaism
in greater or less degree from Chaldean and Persian sources.
But Egyptology, while thus aiding to sweep away the former conception of
our sacred books, has aided biblical criticism in making them far more
precious; for it has shown them to be a part of that living growth of
sacred literature whose roots are in all the great civilizations of
the past, and through whose trunk and branches are flowing the currents
which are to infuse a higher religious and ethical life into the
civilizations of the future.(496)
(496) For general statements of agreements and disagreements between
biblical accounts and the revelations of the Egyptian monuments, see
Sayce, The Higher Criticism and the Monuments, especially chap. iv. For
discrepancies between the Hebrew sacred accounts of Jewish relations
with Egypt and the revelations of modern Egyptian research, see Sharpe,
History of Egypt; Flinders, Patrie, History of Egypt; and especially
Maspero and Sayce, The Dawn of Civilization in Egypt and Chaldea,
London, published by the Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge,
1894. For the statement regarding the Nile, that about the middle of
July "in eight or ten days it turns from grayish blue to dark red,
occasionally of so intense a colour as to look like newly shed blood,"
see Maspero and Sayce, as above, p. 23. For the relation of the Joseph
legend to the Tale of Two Brothers, see Sharpe and others cited. For
examples of exposure of various great personages of antiquity in their
childhood, see G. Smith, Chaldean Accounts of Genesis, Sayce's edition,
p. 320. For the relation of the Book of the Dead, etc., to Hebrew
ethics, see a striking passage in Huxley's essay on The Evolution of
Theology, also others cited in this chapter. As to trinities in Egypt
and Chaldea, see Maspero and Sayce, especially pp. 104-106, 175, and
659-663. For miraculous conception and birth of sons of Ra, ibid., pp.
388, 389. For ascension of Ra into heaven, ibid., pp. 167, 168; for
resurrections, see ibid., p. 695, also representations in Lepsius,
Prisse d'Avennes, et al.; and for striking resemblance between Egyptian
and Hebrew ritual and worship, and especially the ark, cherubim, ephod,
Urim and Thummim, and wave offerings, see the same, passim. For a very
full exhibition of the whole subject, see Renan, Histoire du Peuple
Israel, vol. i, chap. xi. For Egyptian and Chaldean ideas in astronomy,
out of which Hebrew ideas of "the firmament," "pillars of heaven," etc.,
were developed, see text and engravings in Maspero and Sayce, pp. 17
and 543. For creation of man out of clay by a divine being in Egypt, see
Maspero and Sayce, p. 154; for a similar idea in Chaldea, see ibid.,
p. 545; and for the creation of the universe by a word, ibid., pp. 146,
147. For Egyptian and Chaldean ideas on magic and medicine, dread of
evil spirits, etc., anticipating those of the Hebrew Scriptures, see
Maspero and Sayce, as above, pp. 212-214, 217, 636; and for extension
of these to neighboring nations, pp. 782, 783. For visions and use of
dreams as oracles, ibid., p. 641 and elsewhere. See also, on these and
other resemblances, Lenormant, Origines de l'Histoire, vol. i, passim;
see also George Smith and Sayce, as above, chaps. xvi and xvii, for
resemblances especially striking, combining to show how simple was the
evolution of many Hebrew sacred legends and ideas out of those earlier
civilizations. For an especially interesting presentation of the reasons
why Egyptian ideas of immortality were not seized upon by the Jews, see
the Rev. Barham Zincke's work upon Egypt. For the sacrificial vessels,
temple rites, etc., see the bas-reliefs, figured by Lepsius, Prisse
d'Avennes, Mariette, Maspero, et. al. For a striking summary by a
brilliant scholar and divine of the Anglican Church, see Mahaffy,
Prolegomena to Anc. Hist., cited in Sunderland, The Bible, New York,
1893, p. 21, note.
But while archaeologists thus influenced enlightened opinion, another
body of scholars rendered services of a different sort--the centre of
their enterprise being the University of Oxford. By their efforts was
presented to the English-speaking world a series of translations of the
sacred books of the East, which showed the relations of the more Eastern
sacred literature to our own, and proved that in the religions of the
world the ideas which have come as the greatest blessings to mankind
are not of sudden revelation or creation, but of slow evolution out of a
remote past.
The facts thus shown did not at first elicit much gratitude from
supporters of traditional theology, and perhaps few things brought more
obloquy on Renan, for a time, than his statement that "the influence of
Persia is the most powerful to which Israel was submitted." Whether this
was an overstatement or not, it was soon seen to contain much truth. Not
only was it made clear by study of the Zend Avesta that the Old and New
Testament ideas regarding Satanic and demoniacal modes of action were
largely due to Persian sources, but it was also shown that the idea of
immortality was mainly developed in the Hebrew mind during the close
relations of the Jews with the Persians. Nor was this all. In the
Zend Avesta were found in earlier form sundry myths and legends
which, judging from their frequent appearance in early religions, grow
naturally about the history of the adored teachers of our race. Typical
among these was the Temptation of Zoroaster.
It is a fact very significant and full of promise that the first large,
frank, and explicit revelation regarding this whole subject in
form available for the general thinking public was given to the
English-speaking world by an eminent Christian divine and scholar, the
Rev. Dr. Mills. Having already shown himself by his translations a most
competent authority on the subject, he in 1894 called attention, in a
review widely read, to "the now undoubted and long since suspected
fact that it pleased the Divine Power to reveal some of the important
articles of our Catholic creed first to the Zoroastrians, and through
their literature to the Jews and ourselves." Among these beliefs Dr.
Mills traced out very conclusively many Jewish doctrines regarding
the attributes of God, and all, virtually, regarding the attributes of
Satan.
There, too, he found accounts of the Miraculous Conception, Virgin
Birth, and Temptation of Zoroaster, As to the last, Dr. Mills presented
a series of striking coincidences with our own later account. As to
its main features, he showed that there had been developed among the
Persians, many centuries before the Christian era, the legend of a vain
effort of the arch-demon, one seat of whose power was the summit of
Mount Arezura, to tempt Zoroaster to worship him,--of an argument
between tempter and tempted,--and of Zoroaster's refusal; and the doctor
continued: "No Persian subject in the streets of Jerusalem, soon after
or long after the Return, could have failed to know this striking myth."
Dr. Mills then went on to show that, among the Jews, "the doctrine of
immortality was scarcely mooted before the later Isaiah--that is,
before the captivity--while the Zoroastrian scriptures are one mass of
spiritualism, referring all results to the heavenly or to the infernal
worlds." He concludes by saying that, as regards the Old and New
Testaments, "the humble, and to a certain extent prior, religion of the
Mazda worshippers was useful in giving point and beauty to many loose
conceptions among the Jewish religious teachers, and in introducing many
ideas which were entirely new, while as to the doctrines of immortality
and resurrection--the most important of all--it positively determined
belief."(498)
(498) For the passages in the Vendidad of special importance as regards
the Temptation myth, see Fargard, xix, 18, 20, 26, also 140, 147. Very
striking is the account of the Temptation in the Pelhavi version of the
Vendidad. The devil is represented as saying to Zaratusht (Zoroaster):
"I had the worship of thy ancestors; do thou also worship me." I am
indebted to Prof. E. P. Evans, formerly of the University of Michigan,
but now of Munich, for a translation of the original text from Spiegel's
edition. For a good account, see also Haug, Essays on the Sacred
Language, etc., of the Parsees, edited by West, London, 1884, pp. 252
et seq.; see also Mills's and Darmesteter's work in Sacred Books of the
East. For Dr. Mills's article referred to, see his Zoroaster and the
Bible, in The Nineteenth Century, January, 1894. For the citation from
Renan, see his Histoire du Peuple Israel, tome xiv, chap. iv; see also,
for Persian ideas of heaven, hell and resurrection, Haug, as above, p.
310 et seq. For an interesting resume of Zoroastrianism, see Laing, A
Modern Zoroastrian, chap. xii, London, eighth edition, 1893. For
the Buddhist version of the judgment of Solomon, etc., see Fausboll,
Buddhist Birth Stories, translated by Rhys Davids, London, 1880, vol. 1,
p. 14 and following. For very full statements regarding the influence of
Persian ideas upon the Jews during the captivity, see Kahut, Ueber
die judische Angelologie und Daemonologie in ihren Abhangigkeit vom
Parsismus, Leipzig, 1866.
Even more extensive were the revelations made by scientific criticism
applied to the sacred literature of southern and eastern Asia. The
resemblances of sundry fundamental narratives and ideas in our own
sacred books with those of Buddhism were especially suggestive.
Here, too, had been a long preparatory history. The discoveries in
Sanscrit philology made in the latter half of the eighteenth century and
the first half of the nineteenth, by Sir William Jones, Carey, Wilkins,
Foster, Colebrooke, and others, had met at first with some opposition
from theologians. The declaration by Dugald Stewart that the discovery
of Sanscrit was fraudulent, and its vocabulary and grammar patched
together out of Greek and Latin, showed the feeling of the older race of
biblical students.
But researches went on. Bopp, Burnouf, Lassen, Weber, Whitney, Max
Muller, and others continued the work during the nineteenth century.
More and more evident became the sources from which many ideas and
narratives in our own sacred books had been developed. Studies in the
sacred books of Brahmanism, and in the institutions of Buddhism, the
most widespread of all religions, its devotees outnumbering those of all
branches of the Christian Church together, proved especially fruitful in
facts relating to general sacred literature and early European religious
ideas.
Noteworthy in the progress of this knowledge was the work of Fathers Huc
and Gabet. In 1839 the former of these, a French Lazarist priest, set
out on a mission to China. Having prepared himself at Macao by eighteen
months of hard study, and having arrayed himself like a native, even to
the wearing of the queue and the staining of his skin, he visited Peking
and penetrated Mongolia. Five years later, taking Gabet with him, both
disguised as Lamas, he began his long and toilsome journey to the chief
seats of Buddhism in Thibet, and, after two years of fearful dangers
and sufferings, accomplished it. Driven out finally by the Chinese,
Huc returned to Europe in 1852, having made one of the most heroic,
self-denying, and, as it turned out, one of the most valuable efforts
in all the noble annals of Christian missions. His accounts of these
journevs, written in a style simple, clear, and interesting, at once
attracted attention throughout the world. But far more important than
any services he had rendered to the Church he served was the influence
of his book upon the general opinions of thinking men; for he completed
a series of revelations made by earlier, less gifted, and less
devoted travellers, and brought to the notice of the world the amazing
similarity of the ideas, institutions, observances, ceremonies, and
ritual, and even the ecclesiastical costumes of the Buddhists to those
of his own Church.
Buddhism was thus shown with its hierarchy, in which the Grand Lama, an
infallible representative of the Most High, is surrounded by its
minor Lamas, much like cardinals; with its bishops wearing mitres, its
celibate priests with shaven crown, cope, dalmatic, and censer; its
cathedrals with clergy gathered in the choir; its vast monasteries
filled with monks and nuns vowed to poverty, chastity, and obedience;
its church arrangements, with shrines of saints and angels; its use of
images, pictures, and illuminated missals; its service, with a striking
general resemblance to the Mass; antiphonal choirs; intoning of prayers;
recital of creeds; repetition of litanies; processions; mystic rites and
incense; the offering and adoration of bread upon an altar lighted
by candles; the drinking from a chalice by the priest; prayers and
offerings for the dead; benediction with outstretched hands; fasts,
confessions, and doctrine of purgatory--all this and more was now
clearly revealed. The good father was evidently staggered by these
amazing facts; but his robust faith soon gave him an explanation: he
suggested that Satan, in anticipation of Christianity, had revealed
to Buddhism this divinely constituted order of things. This naive
explanation did not commend itself to his superiors in the Roman Church.
In the days of St. Augustine or of St. Thomas Aquinas it would doubtless
have been received much more kindly; but in the days of Cardinal
Antonelli this was hardly to be expected: the Roman authorities, seeing
the danger of such plain revelations in the nineteenth century, even
when coupled with such devout explanations, put the book under the ban,
though not before it had been spread throughout the world in various
translations. Father Huc was sent on no more missions.
Yet there came even more significant discoveries, especially bearing
upon the claims of that great branch of the Church which supposes itself
to possess a divine safeguard against error in belief. For now was
brought to light by literary research the irrefragable evidence that the
great Buddha--Sakya Muni himself--had been canonized and enrolled among
the Christian saints whose intercession may be invoked, and in whose
honour images, altars, and chapels may be erected; and this, not only
by the usage of the medieval Church, Greek and Roman, but by the special
and infallible sanction of a long series of popes, from the end of the
sixteenth century to the end of the nineteenth--a sanction granted under
one of the most curious errors in human history. The story enables us to
understand the way in which many of the beliefs of Christendom have been
developed, especially how they have been influenced from the seats
of older religions; and it throws much light into the character and
exercise of papal infallibility.
Early in the seventh century there was composed, as is now believed, at
the Convent of St. Saba near Jerusalem, a pious romance entitled
Barlaam and Josaphat--the latter personage, the hero of the story, being
represented as a Hindu prince converted to Christianity by the former.
This story, having been attributed to St. John of Damascus in the
following century became amazingly popular, and was soon accepted as
true: it was translated from the Greek original not only into Latin,
Hebrew, Arabic, and Ethiopic, but into every important European
language, including even Polish, Bohemian, and Icelandic. Thence it came
into the pious historical encyclopaedia of Vincent of Beauvais, and,
most important of all, into the Lives of the Saints.
Hence the name of its pious hero found its way into the list of saints
whose intercession is to be prayed for, and it passed without challenge
until about 1590, when, the general subject of canonization having been
brought up at Rome, Pope Sixtus V, by virtue of his infallibility and
immunity against error in everything relating to faith and morals,
sanctioned a revised list of saints, authorizing and directing it to
be accepted by the Church; and among those on whom he thus forever
infallibly set the seal of Heaven was included "The Holy Saint Josaphat
of India, whose wonderful acts St. John of Damascus has related." The
27th of November was appointed as the day set apart in honour of this
saint, and the decree, having been enforced by successive popes for over
two hundred and fifty years, was again officially approved by Pius IX
in 1873. This decree was duly accepted as infallible, and in one of the
largest cities of Italy may to-day be seen a Christian church dedicated
to this saint. On its front are the initials of his Italianized name;
over its main entrance is the inscription "Divo Josafat"; and within it
is an altar dedicated to the saint--above this being a pedestal bearing
his name and supporting a large statue which represents him as a
youthful prince wearing a crown and contemplating a crucifix.
Moreover, relics of this saint were found; bones alleged to be parts
of his skeleton, having been presented by a Doge of Venice to a King of
Portugal, are now treasured at Antwerp.
But even as early as the sixteenth century a pregnant fact regarding
this whole legend was noted: for the Portuguese historian Diego Conto
showed that it was identical with the legend of Buddha. Fortunately for
the historian, his faith was so robust that he saw in this resemblance
only a trick of Satan; the life of Buddha being, in his opinion, merely
a diabolic counterfeit of the life of Josaphat centuries before the
latter was lived or written--just as good Abbe Huc saw in the ceremonies
of Buddhism a similar anticipatory counterfeit of Christian ritual.
There the whole matter virtually rested for about three hundred
years--various scholars calling attention to the legend as a curiosity,
but none really showing its true bearings--until, in 1859, Laboulaye in
France, Liebrecht in Germany, and others following them, demonstrated
that this Christian work was drawn almost literally from an early
biography of Buddha, being conformed to it in the most minute details,
not only of events but of phraseology; the only important changes being
that, at the end of the various experiences showing the wretchedness of
the world, identical with those ascribed in the original to the young
Prince Buddha, the hero, instead of becoming a hermit, becomes a
Christian, and that for the appellation of Buddha--"Bodisat"--is
substituted the more scriptural name Josaphat.
Thus it was that, by virtue of the infallibility vouchsafed to the
papacy in matters of faith and morals, Buddha became a Christian saint.
Yet these were by no means the most pregnant revelations. As the
Buddhist scriptures were more fully examined, there were disclosed
interesting anticipations of statements in later sacred books. The
miraculous conception of Buddha and his virgin birth, like that of
Horus in Egypt and of Krishna in India; the previous annunciation to his
mother Maja; his birth during a journey by her; the star appearing
in the east, and the angels chanting in the heavens at his birth; his
temptation--all these and a multitude of other statements were full
of suggestions to larger thought regarding the development of sacred
literature in general. Even the eminent Roman Catholic missionary Bishop
Bigandet was obliged to confess, in his scholarly life of Buddha, these
striking similarities between the Buddhist scriptures and those which
it was his mission to expound, though by this honest statement his own
further promotion was rendered impossible. Fausboll also found the story
of the judgment of Solomon imbedded in Buddhist folklore; and Sir Edwin
Arnold, by his poem, The Light of Asia, spread far and wide a knowledge
of the anticipation in Buddhism of some ideas which down to a recent
period were considered distinctively Christian. Imperfect as
the revelations thus made of an evolution of religious beliefs,
institutions, and literature still are, they have not been without an
important bearing upon the newer conception of our own sacred books:
more and more manifest has become the interdependence of all human
development; more and more clear the truth that Christianity, as a great
fact in man's history, is not dependent for its life upon any parasitic
growths of myth and legend, no matter how beautiful they may be.(498)
(498) For Huc and Gabet, see Souvenirs d'un Voyage dans la Tartarie, le
Thibet, et la Chine, English translation by Hazlitt, London, 1851; also
supplementary work by Huc. For Bishop Bigandet, see his Life of Buddha,
passim. As for authority for the fact that his book was condemned
at Rome and his own promotion prevented, the present writer has the
bishop's own statement. For notices of similarities between Buddhist
and Christian institutions, rituals, etc., see Rhys David's Buddhism,
London, 1894, passim; also Lillie, Buddhism and Christianity, especially
chaps. ii and xi. It is somewhat difficult to understand how a scholar
so eminent as Mr. Rhys Davids should have allowed the Society for the
Promotion of Christian Knowledge, which published his book, to eliminate
all the interesting details regarding the birth of Buddha, and to give
so fully everything that seemed to tell against the Roman Catholic
Church; cf. p. 27 with p. 246 et seq. For more thorough presentation of
the development of features in Buddhism and Brahmanism which anticipate
those of Christianity, see Schroeder, Indiens Literatur und Cultur,
Leipsic, 1887, especially Vorlesung XXVIII and following. For full
details of the canonization of Buddha under the name of St. Josaphat,
see Fausboll, Buddhist Birth Stories, translated by Rhys Davids, London,
1880, pp. xxxvi and following; also Prof. Max Muller in the Contemporary
Review for July, 1890; also the article Barlaam and Josaphat, in the
ninth edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica. For the more recent
and full accounts, correcting some minor details in the foregoing
authorities, see Kuhn, Barlaam und Joasaph, Munich, 1893, especially
pages 82, 83. For a very thorough discussion of the whole subject,
see Zotenberg, Notice sur le livre de Barlaam et Joasaph, Paris, 1886;
especially for arguments fixing date of the work, see parts i to
iii; also Gaston Paris in the Revue de Paris for June, 1895. For the
transliteration between the appellation of Buddha and the name of the
saint, see Fausboll and Sayce, as above, p. xxxvii, note; and for the
multitude of translations of the work ascribed to St. John of Damascus,
see Table III, on p. xcv. The reader who is curious to trace up a
multitude of the myths and legends of early Hebrew and Christian
mythology to their more eastern and southern sources can do so in Bible
Myths, New York, 1883. The present writer gladly avails himself of the
opportunity to thank the learned Director of the National Library at
Palermo, Monsignor Marzo, for his kindness in showing him the very
interesting church of San Giosafat in that city; and to the custodians
of the church for their readiness to allow photographs of the saint to
be taken. The writer's visit was made in April, 1895, and copies of the
photographs may be seen in the library of Cornell University. As to
the more rare editions of Barlaam and Josaphat, a copy of the Icelandic
translation is to be seen in the remarkable collection of Prof. Willard
Fiske, at Florence. As to the influence of these translations, it may
be noted that when young John Kuncewicz, afterward a Polish archbishop,
became a monk, he took the name of the sainted Prince Josafat; and,
having fallen a victim to one of the innumerable murderous affrays of
the seventeenth century between different sorts of fanatics--Greek,
Catholic, and Protestant--in Poland, he also was finally canonized under
that name, evidently as a means of annoying the Russian Government. (See
Contieri, Vita di S. Giosafat, Arcivesco e Martira Rutena, Roma, 1867.)
No less important was the closer research into the New Testament during
the latter part of the nineteenth century. To go into the subject in
detail would be beyond the scope of this work, but a few of the main
truths which it brought before the world may be here summarized.(499)
(499) For a brief but thorough statement of the work of Strauss,
Baur, and the earlier cruder efforts in New Testament exegesis, see
Pfleiderer, as already cited, book ii, chap. i; and for the later work
on Supernatural Religion and Lightfoot's answer, ibid., book iv. chap.
ii.
By the new race of Christian scholars it has been clearly shown that the
first three Gospels, which, down to the close of the last century, were
so constantly declared to be three independent testimonies agreeing as
to the events recorded, are neither independent of each other nor
in that sort of agreement which was formerly asserted. All biblical
scholars of any standing, even the most conservative, have come to admit
that all three took their rise in the same original sources, growing by
the accretions sure to come as time went on--accretions sometimes useful
and often beautiful, but in no inconsiderable degree ideas and even
narratives inherited from older religions: it is also fully acknowledged
that to this growth process are due certain contradictions which can not
otherwise be explained. As to the fourth Gospel, exquisitely beautiful
as large portions of it are, there has been growing steadily and
irresistibly the conviction, even among the most devout scholars, that
it has no right to the name, and does not really give the ideas of St.
John, but that it represents a mixture of Greek philosophy with Jewish
theology, and that its final form, which one of the most eminent among
recent Christian scholars has characterized as "an unhistorical product
of abstract reflection," is mainly due to some gifted representative or
representatives of the Alexandrian school. Bitter as the resistance
to this view has been, it has during the last years of the nineteenth
century won its way more and more to acknowledgment. A careful
examination made in 1893 by a competent Christian scholar showed facts
which are best given in his own words, as follows: "In the period of
thirty years ending in 1860, of the fifty great authorities in this
line, FOUR TO ONE were in favour of the Johannine authorship. Of
those who in that period had advocated this traditional position, one
quarter--and certainly the very greatest--finally changed their position
to the side of a late date and non-Johannine authorship."
Of those who have come into this field of scholarship since about 1860,
some forty men of the first class, two thirds reject the traditional
theory wholly or very largely. Of those who have contributed important
articles to the discussion from about 1880 to 1890, about TWO TO ONE
reject the Johannine authorship of the Gospel in its present shape--that
is to say, while forty years ago great scholars were FOUR TO ONE IN
FAVOUR OF, they are now TWO TO ONE AGAINST, the claim that the apostle
John wrote this Gospel as we have it. Again, one half of those on the
conservative side to-day--scholars like Weiss, Beyschlag, Sanday, and
Reynolds--admit the existence of a dogmatic intent and an ideal element
in this Gospel, so that we do not have Jesus's thought in his exact
words, but only in substance."(500)
(500) For the citations given regarding the development of thought in
relation to the fourth gospel, see Crooker, The New Bible and its Uses,
Boston, 1893, pp. 29, 30. For the characterization of St. John's Gospel
above referred to, see Robertson Smith in the Encyc. Brit., 9th edit.,
art. Bible, p. 642. For a very careful and candid summary of the reasons
which are gradually leading the more eminent among the newer scholars to
give up the Johannine authorship ot the fourth Gospel, see Schurer, in
the Contemporary Review for September, 1891. American readers, regarding
this and the whole series of subjects of which this forms a part, may
most profitably study the Rev. Dr. Cone's Gospel Criticism and Historic
Christianity, one of the most lucid and judicial of recent works in this
field.
In 1881 came an event of great importance as regards the development of
a more frank and open dealing with scriptural criticism. In that year
appeared the Revised Version of the New Testament. It was exceedingly
cautious and conservative; but it had the vast merit of being absolutely
conscientious. One thing showed, in a striking way, ethical progress
in theological methods. Although all but one of the English revisers
represented Trinitarian bodies, they rejected the two great proof texts
which had so long been accounted essential bulwarks of Trinitarian
doctrine. Thus disappeared at last from the Epistle of St. John the text
of the Three Witnesses, which had for centuries held its place in spite
of its absence from all the earlier important manuscripts, and of its
rejection in later times by Erasmus, Luther, Isaac Newton, Porson, and
a long line of the greatest biblical scholars. And with this was thrown
out the other like unto it in spurious origin and zealous intent, that
interpolation of the word "God" in the sixteenth verse of the third
chapter of the First Epistle to Timothy, which had for ages served as a
warrant for condemning some of the noblest of Christians, even such men
as Newton and Milton and Locke and Priestley and Channing.
Indeed, so honest were the revisers that they substituted the correct
reading of Luke ii, 33, in place of the time-honoured corruption in the
King James version which had been thought necessary to safeguard the
dogma of the virgin birth of Jesus of Nazareth. Thus came the true
reading, "His FATHER and his mother" instead of the old piously
fraudulent words "JOSEPH and his mother."
An even more important service to the new and better growth of
Christianity was the virtual setting aside of the last twelve verses of
the Gospel according to St. Mark; for among these stood that sentence
which has cost the world more innocent blood than any other--the words
"He that believeth not shall be damned." From this source had logically
grown the idea that the intellectual rejection of this or that dogma
which dominant theology had happened at any given time to pronounce
essential, since such rejection must bring punishment infinite in agony
and duration, is a crime to be prevented at any cost of finite cruelty.
Still another service rendered to humanity by the revisers was in
substituting a new and correct rendering for the old reading of the
famous text regarding the inspiration of Scripture, which had for ages
done so much to make our sacred books a fetich. By this more correct
reading the revisers gave a new charter to liberty in biblical
research.(501)
(501) The texts referred to as most beneficially changed by the revisers
are I John v, 7 and I Timothy iii, 16. Mention may also be made of
the fact that the American revision gave up the Trinitarian version of
Romans ix, 5, and that even their more conservative British brethren,
while leaving it in the text, discredited it in the margin.
Though revisers thought it better not to suppress altogether the last
twelve verses of St. Mark's Gospel, they softened the word "damned"
to "condemned," and separated them from the main Gospel, adding a
note stating that "the two oldest Greek manuscripts, and some other
authorities, omit from verse nine to the end"; and that "some other
authorities have a different ending to this Gospel."
The resistance of staunch high churchmen of the older type even to so
mild a reform as the first change above noted may be exemplified by
a story told of Philpotts, Bishop of Exeter, about the middle of the
nineteenth century. A kindly clergyman reading an invitation to the holy
communion, and thinking that so an affectionate a call was disfigured by
the harsh phrase "eateth and drinketh to his own damnation," ventured
timidly to substitute the word "condemnation." Thereupon the bishop, who
was kneeling with the rest of the congregation, threw up his head
and roared "DAMNATION!" The story is given in T. A. Trollope's What I
Remember, vol. i, p. 444. American churchmen may well rejoice that the
fathers of the American branch of the Anglican Church were wise enough
and Christian enough to omit from their Prayer Book this damnatory
clause, as well as the Commination Service and the Athanasian Creed.
Most valuable, too, have been studies during the latter part of the
nineteenth century upon the formation of the canon of Scripture. The
result of these has been to substitute something far better for that
conception of our biblical literature, as forming one book handed out
of the clouds by the Almighty, which had been so long practically
the accepted view among probably the majority of Christians. Reverent
scholars have demonstrated our sacred literature to be a growth in
obedience to simple laws natural and historical; they have shown how
some books of the Old Testament were accepted as sacred, centuries
before our era, and how others gradually gained sanctity, in some cases
only fully acquiring it long after the establishment of the Christian
Church. The same slow growth has also been shown in the New Testament
canon. It has been demonstrated that the selection of the books
composing it, and their separation from the vast mass of spurious
gospels, epistles, and apocalyptic literature was a gradual process, and,
indeed, that the rejection of some books and the acceptance of others
was accidental, if anything is accidental.
So, too, scientific biblical research has, as we have seen, been obliged
to admit the existence of much mythical and legendary matter, as a
setting for the great truths not only of the Old Testament but of the
New. It has also shown, by the comparative study of literatures, the
process by which some books were compiled and recompiled, adorned
with beautiful utterances, strengthened or weakened by alterations and
interpolations expressing the views of the possessors or transcribers,
and attributed to personages who could not possibly have written them.
The presentation of these things has greatly weakened that sway of mere
dogma which has so obscured the simple teachings of Christ himself; for
it has shown that the more we know of our sacred books, the less certain
we become as to the authenticity of "proof texts," and it has disengaged
more and more, as the only valuable residuum, like the mass of gold
at the bottom of the crucible, the personality, spirit, teaching, and
ideals of the blessed Founder of Christianity. More and more, too, the
new scholarship has developed the conception of the New Testament as,
like the Old, the growth of literature in obedience to law--a conception
which in al probability will give it its strongest hold on the coming
centuries. In making this revelation Christian scholarship has by no
means done work mainly destructive. It has, indeed, swept away a mass
of noxious growths, but it has at the same time cleared the ground for
a better growth of Christianity--a growth through which already pulsates
the current of a nobler life. It has forever destroyed the contention of
scholars like those of the eighteenth century who saw, in the multitude
of irreconcilable discrepancies between various biblical statements,
merely evidences of priestcraft and intentional fraud. The new
scholarship has shown that even such absolute contradictions as those
between the accounts of the early life of Jesus by Matthew and Luke, and
between the date of the crucifixion and details of the resurrection
in the first three Gospels and in the fourth, and other discrepancies
hardly less serious, do not destroy the historical character of the
narrative. Even the hopelessly conflicting genealogies of the Saviour
and the evidently mythical accretions about the simple facts of his
birth and life are thus full of interest when taken as a natural
literary development in obedience to the deepest religious feeling.(502)
(502) Among the newer English works of the canon of Scripture,
especially as regards the Old Testament, see Ryle in work cited. As to
the evidences of frequent mutilations of the New Testament text, as well
as of frequent charge of changing texts made against each other by early
Christian writers, see Reuss, History of the New Testament, vol. ii, S
362. For a reverent and honest treatment of some of the discrepancies
and contradictions which are absolutely irreconcilable, see Crooker, as
above, appendix; also Cone, Gospel Criticism and Historic Christianity,
especially chap. ii; also Matthew Arnold, Literature and Dogma, and God
and the Bible, especially chap. vi; and for a brief but full showing of
them in a judicial and kindly spirit, see Laing, Problems of the Future,
chap. ix, on The Historical Element in the Gospels.
Among those who have wrought most effectively to bring the leaders
of thought in the English-speaking nations to this higher conception,
Matthew Arnold should not be forgotten. By poetic insight, broad
scholarship, pungent statement, pithy argument, and an exquisitely lucid
style, he aided effectually during the latter half of the nineteenth
century in bringing the work of specialists to bear upon the development
of a broader and deeper view. In the light of his genius a conception
of our sacred books at the same time more literary as well as more
scientific has grown widely and vigorously, while the older view which
made of them a fetich and a support for unchristian dogmas has been more
and more thrown into the background. The contributions to these results
by the most eminent professors at the great Christian universities of
the English-speaking world, Oxford and Cambridge taking the lead, are
most hopeful signs of a new epoch.
Very significant also is a change in the style of argument against the
scientific view. Leading supporters of the older opinions see more and
more clearly the worthlessness of rhetoric against ascertained fact:
mere dogged resistance to cogent argument evidently avails less and
less; and the readiness of the more prominent representatives of the
older thought to consider opposing arguments, and to acknowledge any
force they may have, is certainly of good omen. The concessions made
in Lux Mundi regarding scriptural myths and legends have been already
mentioned.
Significant also has been the increasing reprobation in the Church
itself of the profound though doubtless unwitting immoralities of
RECONCILERS. The castigation which followed the exploits of the
greatest of these in our own time--Mr. Gladstone, at the hands of Prof.
Huxley--did much to complete a work in which such eminent churchmen as
Stanley, Farrar, Sanday, Cheyne, Driver, and Sayce had rendered good
service.
Typical among these evidences of a better spirit in controversy has been
the treatment of the question regarding mistaken quotations from the
Old Testament in the New, and especially regarding quotations by Christ
himself. For a time this was apparently the most difficult of all
matters dividing the two forces; but though here and there appear
champions of tradition, like the Bishop of Gloucester, effectual
resistance to the new view has virtually ceased; in one way or another
the most conservative authorities have accepted the undoubted truth
revealed by a simple scientific method. Their arguments have indeed
been varied. While some have fallen back upon Le Clerc's contention that
"Christ did not come to teach criticism to the Jews," and others upon
Paley's argument that the Master shaped his statements in accordance
with the ideas of his time, others have taken refuge in scholastic
statements--among them that of Irenaeus regarding "a quiescence of the
divine word," or the somewhat startling explanation by sundry recent
theologians that "our Lord emptied himself of his Godhead."(504)
(504) For Matthew Arnold, see, besides his Literature and Dogma, his St.
Paul and Protestantism. As to the quotations in the New Testament from
the Old, see Toy, Quotations in the New Testament, 1889, p. 72; also
Kuenen, The Prophets and Prophecy in Israel. For Le Clerc's method of
dealing with the argument regarding quotations from the Old Testament in
the New, see earlier parts of the present chapter. For Paley's mode,
see his Evidences, part iii, chapter iii. For the more scholastic
expressions from Irenaeus and others, see Gore, Bampton Lectures, 1891,
especially note on p. 267. For a striking passage on the general subject
see B. W. Bacon, Genesis of Genesis, p. 33, ending with the words, "We
must decline to stake the authority of Jesus Christ on a question of
literary criticism."
Nor should there be omitted a tribute to the increasing courtesy shown
in late years by leading supporters of the older view. During the last
two decades of the present century there has been a most happy departure
from the older method of resistance, first by plausibilities, next by
epithets, and finally by persecution. To the bitterness of the attacks
upon Darwin, the Essayists and Reviewers, and Bishop Colenso, have
succeeded, among really eminent leaders, a far better method and
tone. While Matthew Arnold no doubt did much in commending "sweet
reasonableness" to theological controversialists, Mr. Gladstone, by
his perfect courtesy to his opponents, even when smarting under their
heaviest blows, has set a most valuable example. Nor should the spirit
shown by Bishop Ellicott, leading a forlorn hope for the traditional
view, pass without a tribute of respect. Truly pathetic is it to
see this venerable and learned prelate, one of the most eminent
representatives of the older biblical research, even when giving solemn
warnings against the newer criticisms, and under all the temptations
of ex cathedra utterance, remaining mild and gentle and just in the
treatment of adversaries whose ideas he evidently abhors. Happily, he
is comforted by the faith that Christianity will survive; and this faith
his opponents fully share.(505)
(505) As an example of courtesy between theologic opponents may be cited
the controversy between Mr. Gladstone and Prof. Huxley, Principal Gore's
Bampton Lectures for 1891, and Bishop Ellicott's Charges, published in
1893.
To the fact that the suppression of personal convictions among "the
enlightened" did not cease with the Medicean popes there are many
testimonies. One especially curious was mentioned to the present writer
by a most honoured diplomatist and scholar at Rome. While this gentleman
was looking over the books of an eminent cardinal, recently deceased,
he noticed a series of octavos bearing on their backs the title "Acta
Apostolorum." Surprised at such an extension of the Acts of Apostles, he
opened a volume and found the series to be the works of Voltaire. As to
a similar condition of things in the Church of England may be cited
the following from Froude's Erasmus: "I knew various persons of high
reputation a few years ago who thought at the bottom very much as Bishop
Colenso thought, who nevertheless turned and rent him to clear their own
reputations--which they did not succeed in doing." See work cited, close
of Lecture XI.
VI. RECONSTRUCTIVE FORCE OF SCIENTIFIC CRITICISM.
For all this dissolving away of traditional opinions regarding our
sacred literature, there has been a cause far more general and powerful
than any which has been given, for it is a cause surrounding and
permeating all. This is simply the atmosphere of thought engendered by
the development of all sciences during the last three centuries.
Vast masses of myth, legend, marvel, and dogmatic assertion, coming into
this atmosphere, have been dissolved and are now dissolving quietly away
like icebergs drifted into the Gulf Stream. In earlier days, when some
critic in advance of his time insisted that Moses could not have
written an account embracing the circumstances of his own death, it was
sufficient to answer that Moses was a prophet; if attention was called
to the fact that the great early prophets, by all which they did and
did not do, showed that there could not have existed in their time
any "Levitical code," a sufficient answer was "mystery"; and if the
discrepancy was noted between the two accounts of creation in Genesis,
or between the genealogies or the dates of the crucifixion in the
Gospels, the cogent reply was "infidelity." But the thinking world has
at last been borne by the general development of a scientific atmosphere
beyond that kind of refutation.
If, in the atmosphere generated by the earlier developed sciences, the
older growths of biblical interpretation have drooped and withered and
are evidently perishing, new and better growths have arisen with roots
running down into the newer sciences. Comparative Anthropology in
general, by showing that various early stages of belief and observance,
once supposed to be derived from direct revelation from heaven to the
Hebrews, are still found as arrested developments among various savage
and barbarous tribes; Comparative Mythology and Folklore, by showing
that ideas and beliefs regarding the Supreme Power in the universe are
progressive, and not less in Judea than in other parts of the world;
Comparative Religion and Literature, by searching out and laying side by
side those main facts in the upward struggle of humanity which show that
the Israelites, like other gifted peoples, rose gradually, through ghost
worship, fetichism, and polytheism, to higher theological levels; and
that, as they thus rose, their conceptions and statements regarding the
God they worshipped became nobler and better--all these sciences are
giving a new solution to those problems which dogmatic theology has so
long laboured in vain to solve. While researches in these sciences
have established the fact that accounts formerly supposed to be special
revelations to Jews and Christians are but repetitions of widespread
legends dating from far earlier civilizations, and that beliefs formerly
thought fundamental to Judaism and Christianity are simply based on
ancient myths, they have also begun to impress upon the intellect and
conscience of the thinking world the fact that the religious and moral
truths thus disengaged from the old masses of myth and legend are
all the more venerable and authoritative, and that all individual or
national life of any value must be vitalized by them.(506)
(506) For plaintive lamentations over the influence of this atmosphere
of scientific thought upon the most eminent contemporary Christian
scholars, see the Christus Comprobator, by the Bishop of Gloucester and
Bristol, London, 1893, and the article in the Contemporary Review for
May, 1892, by the Bishop of Colchester, passim. For some less
known examples of sacred myths and legends inherited from ancient
civilizations, see Lenormant, Les Origines de l'Histoire, passim, but
especially chaps. ii, iv, v, vi; see also Goldziher.
If, then, modern science in general has acted powerfully to dissolve
away the theories and dogmas of the older theologic interpretation, it
has also been active in a reconstruction and recrystallization of
truth; and very powerful in this reconstruction have been the evolution
doctrines which have grown out of the thought and work of men like
Darwin and Spencer.
In the light thus obtained the sacred text has been transformed: out
of the old chaos has come order; out of the old welter of hopelessly
conflicting statements in religion and morals has come, in obedience
to this new conception of development, the idea of a sacred literature
which mirrors the most striking evolution of morals and religion in the
history of our race. Of all the sacred writings of the world, it shows
us our own as the most beautiful and the most precious; exhibiting to us
the most complete religious development to which humanity has attained,
and holding before us the loftiest ideals which our race has known.
Thus it is that, with the keys furnished by this new race of biblical
scholars, the way has been opened to treasures of thought which have
been inaccessible to theologians for two thousand years.
As to the Divine Power in the universe: these interpreters have shown
how, beginning with the tribal god of the Hebrews--one among many
jealous, fitful, unseen, local sovereigns of Asia Minor--the higher
races have been borne on to the idea of the just Ruler of the whole
earth, as revealed by the later and greater prophets of Israel, and
finally to the belief in the Universal Father, as best revealed in
the New Testament. As to man: beginning with men after Jehovah's own
heart--cruel, treacherous, revengeful--we are borne on to an ideal of
men who do right for right's sake; who search and speak the truth for
truth's sake; who love others as themselves. As to the world at large:
the races dominant in religion and morals have been lifted from the idea
of a "chosen people" stimulated and abetted by their tribal god in every
sort of cruelty and injustice, to the conception of a vast community in
which the fatherhood of God overarches all, and the brotherhood of man
permeates all.
Thus, at last, out of the old conception of our Bible as a collection
of oracles--a mass of entangling utterances, fruitful in wrangling
interpretations, which have given to the world long and weary ages of
"hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness"; of fetichism, subtlety,
and pomp; of tyranny bloodshed, and solemnly constituted imposture; of
everything which the Lord Jesus Christ most abhorred--has been gradually
developed through the centuries, by the labours, sacrifices, and even
the martyrdom of a long succession of men of God, the conception of it
as a sacred literature--a growth only possible under that divine light
which the various orbs of science have done so much to bring into the
mind and heart and soul of man--a revelation, not of the Fall of Man,
but of the Ascent of Man--an exposition, not of temporary dogmas and
observances, but of the Eternal Law of Righteousness--the one upward
path for individuals and for nations. No longer an oracle, good for
the "lower orders" to accept, but to be quietly sneered at by "the
enlightened"--no longer a fetich, whose defenders must be persecutors,
or reconcilers, or "apologists"; but a most fruitful fact, which
religion and science may accept as a source of strength to both.
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