A REVIEW OF SUNDAY LEGISLATION IN CENTURY NINETEEN. NO. 15.
DIGRESSION ON THE PRINCIPLES OF ROME (CONTINUED).
THERE is not, and there never was on this earth, a work of human policy so well deserving of examination as the Roman Catholic Church.—Macaulay.
That the fundamental principles and constant practice of Pagan Rome were robbery, oppression, and self-exaltation, has already been demonstrated. Moreover, charges of being possessed of similar traits of character have been preferred against Papal Rome. We now propose to prove them.
Constantine the Great was crowned emperor of the Romans, at the city of York, in Britain, A. D. 306. This coronation, however, only gave him sovereignty of Britain, Gaul, and Spain. He desired to be monarch of the whole empire; but never did a candidate for the PURPLE enter upon the race for political greatness with such stupendous odds against him, as did CONSTANTINE THE GREAT. On the other hand, never did politician play his cards more shrewdly than did this famous prince. Says Kouns:—
To those who take a more rational view of his magnificent but criminal career, and who, looking behind the mask of reverence for paganism which he cast aside at precisely the politic moment, in order to assume a false pretense of reverence for Christianity, discern the cool, deliberate atheist, who was ready to profess any creed and foster any superstition that might best serve to smooth the road to absolute power, and make mankind his slaves; to them the astute politician, the successful warrior, the consummate ruler of men, assumes such colossal proportions that, compared with him, Alexander, Cæsar, and Napoleon seem to sink into the lower grade of butchers and stabbers, only half taught in the science of government, of which Constantine alone was master. For it is no more certain that he despised and pitied paganism while he was solemnly offering sacrifices to Jupiter, and winning the admiration and love of the Roman world for his imperial piety, than it is certain he pitied and despised the church of Christ, even while he was manipulating the faith into a sure and reliable support of the empire; in both courses he only played with the world, giving men any religious toy which the greater part might desire to have in exchange for the liberty of which he robbed them so plausibly and successfully that they scarcely perceived his theft, and enthusiastically caressed the royal thief.
By craft, and intrigue, and bloodshed not a little, he fought his way past all other competitors for the royal seat of the undivided Roman world. "He realized the lifelong ambition309of his soul, the restoration of the unity of the Roman Empire under his own authority; AND DID IT BY THE AID OF THE CHRISTIAN CHURCH, WHICH HE BRIBED, CORRUPTED, AND SECULARIZED, UNTIL IT ACKNOWLEDGED HIM TO BE KING INSTEAD OF JESUS CHRIST."
This was the first alliance that the Christian religion had ever made with the pagan State, and it was an ill-omened day for both. To it "must be referred the commencement of the dark and dismal times which oppressed Europe for a thousand years." The reason why the Christian (?) bishops wanted an alliance with the State was twofold. They desired State support, knowing that their lives would be easier and their burdens lighter than when depending for a living on the voluntary contributions of the faithful, which of late, on account of their extravagant habits, had become too small to keep them. The second reason for which they desired the alliance was because they wished to force their views upon all the world, and to do so by the aid of civil power.
The reason why Constantine desired the alliance with the Christians is told by Draper in a single paragraph:—
The attempt to make an alliance with this great and rapidly growing party was nothing new. Maximin tried, but was distrusted. Licinius, foreseeing the policy that Constantine would certainly pursue, endeavored to neutralize it by reviving the persecution, A.D. 316, thinking thereby to conciliate the pagans. The aspirants for empire at this moment so divided the strength of the State that, had the Christian party been weaker than it actually was, it so held the balance of power as to be able to give a preponderance to the candidate of its choice. Much more, therefore, was it certain to prevail, considering its numbers, its ramifications, its compactness.
Constantine worsted all his civil foes; but if his own words may be believed, the Christian bishops outwitted him. In the year 312 A.D. they sent a deputation into Gaul to confer with him. Constantine ruled in Gaul, Spain, and Britain; Maxentius ruled in Italy and Africa. The bishops represented to Constantine that if he would deliver them from the tyrant Maxentius, and espouse their religious views, they would guarantee him the allegiance and swords of the Christians, who at that time were a numerous, and, according to Gibbon, "powerful party" all over the empire.
When the bishops promised the emperor the allegiance of all the Christians all over the empire, they promised something that they were powerless to fulfill. They stated to him that the Christians were indissolubly united. But that was a lie, and the bishops knew it. The Christians were very much divided, and at enmity with one another, and the bishops knew it.
Constantine took these pious liars at their word. Afterwards he found that he was sadly deceived, for the united support of all the Christians was not forthcoming. Says Dean Stanley:—
He [Constantine] entered upon his relations to the church as a traveler entered a new country—with high expectations, with hasty conclusions, with bitter disappointments. Of these disappointments none was so severe as that which he felt when he first became acquainted with the fact that the Christian as well as the heathen commonwealth was torn by factions. . . . In the celebrated letter which he addressed to the Alexandrian Church [he says], "But, O divine and glorious Providence, what wound has fallen on my ears—nay, rather, on my heart!" And then with an earnestness which is difficult not to believe sincere . . . he entreats the [Christians (?)] combatants "to abandon these futile and interminable disputes, and to return to the harmony which became their common faith." "GIVE ME BACK MY CALM DAYS, AND MY QUIET NIGHTS; LIGHT AND CHEERFULNESS INSTEAD OF TEARS AND GROANS."
Such was the experience which the most artful politician of century four had with the Christian(?) bishops.
Now all this transpired in the striking of the alliance between the apostate Christian church and the pagan State. But that church was the Papal Church. Therefore it stands as a literal fact that the Papacy EXALTED herself to the supreme place in the Roman world by the means of LIES,—lies told by PROFESSED Christians, desiring supreme exaltation—and they are in principle the worst kind of lies. After describing this disgraceful union between the Church and the State, Draper well says: "Such was the compact that had been established between the Church and the State. As might be expected, the succeeding transactions exhibit an alternate preponderance of one and of the other, and the DEGRADATION OF BOTH IN THE END."
Pagan Rome had ruined and depopulated whole countries; Papal Rome did the same thing. Says Draper, speaking of a later period, after the Papacy had had time to prove its character:—
We have now approached the close of a thousand years from the birth of Christ; the evil union of the Church and State, their rivalries, their intrigues, their quarrels, had produced an inevitable result, doing the same in the West that they had in the East, disorganizing the political system, and ending in a universal social demoralization. The absorption of small properties into large estates steadily increased the number of slaves; where there had been once many free families, there was now found only a rich man. Even of this class the number diminished by the same process of absorption, until there were sparsely scattered here and there abbots and counts with enormous estates worked by herds of SLAVES, whose numbers, since sometimes one man possessed more than twenty thousand of them, might deceive us, if we did not consider the vast surface over which they were spread. Examined in that way, the West of Europe proves to have been covered with forests, here and there dotted with a convent or town. From those countries, once full of the splendid evidences of Roman civilization, mankind was fast disappearing.
It is clear from this, and many more citations might be given would space permit, that the principles of Papal Rome were exactly the same as the principles of Pagan Rome—the ruin of countries, and the oppression of the bodies of men. Bishops of Rome—POPES if you please—even went so far as to engage extensively in the slave trade.
Great was the extravagance of the wealthy Romish laity:—
Clement of Alexandria bitterly inveighs against "the vices of an opulent and luxurious Christian community—splendid dresses, gold and silver vessels, rich banquets, gilded litters and chariots, and private baths. The ladies kept Indian birds, Median peacocks, monkeys, and Maltese dogs, instead of maintaining widows and orphans; the men had multitudes of slaves."
Pagan Rome had oppressed the bodies of men; Papal Rome went farther, she undertook to oppress, not only their bodies, but their minds and souls.
Constantine was united to the lower orders of the pagans and the Christians (?). Both of these classes were illiterate and ignorant. And together they joined in a crusade against learning and philosophy of any and every kind. In this the Papacy has debased the minds of men. Thus Draper again says:—
The course of political affairs had detached the power of the State from the philosophical and polytheistic parties. Joined to the new movement, it was not long before it gave significant proofs of the sincerity of its friendship by commencing an active persecution of the remnant of philosophy. It is to be borne in mind that the direction of the proselytism, which was thus leading to important results, was from below upward through society. As to philosophy, its action had been in the other direction; its depository, in the few enlightened, in the few educated; its course, socially, from above downward. Under these circumstances, it was obvious enough that the prejudices of the ignorant populace would find in the end a full expression; that learning would have no consideration shown to it, or would be denounced as mere magic; that philosophy would be looked upon as a vain and therefore sinful result.
And to this character Papal Rome has ever remained consistent. Thus Pope Innocent III., A.D. 1215, regulated the courses of study in the schools of Paris. He permitted the study of the Dialectics of Aristotle, but prohibited the study of physics and metaphysics.
(To be continued.)