The Secret Vault presents: The Christian and Pagan Creeds Collated. Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
By the Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
Constantine, 306AD.
The character with whom, next to Origen, it most concerns the Christian inquirer to be acquainted, is the emperor Constantine the Great, under whose reign and auspices, Christianity became the established religion, and but for whom, as far as human probabilities can be calculated, it never would have come down to us.
Constantine, called the Great, son of Flavius Valerius Constantius, surnamed Chlorus, and Helena, was born on the 27th of February, in the year of Christ 272, or as some think, in 273, or as others, in 274, was converted to the Christian religion on the night of the 26th of October, 312, became sole emperor both of the East and West, about the year 324, reigned about thirty-one years from the death of his father, Constantius; and died on Whitsunday, May 22d, 348, [Lardner' Credibility, vol. 2. p. 327.] Felicianus and Tatian being consuls, the second year of the two hundred and seventy-eighth Olympiad, in the seventy-sixth year of his age. [Socrates Scholasticus, bib. 1. c. 26.]
The bearings on the evidences of the Christian religion demand from us - that we should inform ourselves of the character of this great hero of the cause,
(1). As drawn by Christian historians and divines,
(2). As appearing in the incontrovertible evidence of admitted facts,
(3). The ostensible motives of his conversion,
(4.) The evidences of the Christian religion as they appeared to him.
(1). "I do, by no means," says Dr Lardner, "think that Constantine was a man of cruel disposition. - (p. 342.) Though there may have been some transactions in his reign which cannot be easily justified, and others that must be condemned: yet we are not to consider Constantine as a cruel prince or a bad man." [ See my 14th letter from Oakham published in the 1st. and 2d. volumes of the Lion.]
"Constantine was remarkably tall, of a comely and majestic presence, and great bodily strength. ["Whether Helena was the lawful wife of Constantius Chlorus, or only his concubine, is a disputable point." - Lardner, vol. 2. p. 322.] It may be concluded, from the whole tenor of his life, that he was a person of no mean capacity. Indeed, his mind was equal to his fortune, great as it was, his chastity, [What has that to do with it?] together with his valour, justice, and prudence, is commended by a heathen panegyrist; his many acts of bounty to the poor, and his just edicts, are arguments of a merciful disposition and a love of justice. He was, moreover, a sincere believer of the Christian religion, of which he, first of all the Roman emperors, made an open profession.
"In a word, the conversion of Constantine to Christianity was a favour of divine providence, and of great advantage to the Christians, and his reign may be reckoned a blessing to the Roman empire on the whole." Thus far, Dr Lardner. [ Vol. 1. p. 345.]
I find no directly drawn character of Constantine in the Ecclesiastical History of Socrates Scholasticus, except that he tells us, in general terms, that "Constantine the emperor, fixing his whole mind upon such things as set forth the glory of God, behaved himself in all things as becometh a Christian, erecting churches from the ground, and adorning them with goodly and gorgeous consecrated ornaments: moreover, shutting up the temples of the Heathens, and publishing unto the world (in way of derision) the gay images glittering within them." [ Socrates Sch. Eccl. Hist. lib. ii. c. 2.] In his decrees and letters as preserved by this historian, Constantine entitles himself "the puissant, the mighty, and noble emperor," and in the synodical epistle of the Council of Nice, he is called "the most virtuous emperor, the most, godly emperor, Constantine." [Socrates, lib. 1. c. 6.]
The mouldering pages of the historian Evagrius, who had been one of the emperor's lieutenants, are enlivened with a truly evangelical invective against the Ethnic Zosimus, in which no better names than, "O wicked spirit! thou fiend of hell! thou lewd varlet!" &c. Are found, for his having dared to defame the godly and noble emperor, Constantine. [Evagrius, lib. 3. c. 41.] [LN., Evagrius, Scholasticus, 6th century AD, he was a Syrian scholar and intellectual, his only surviving work, 'Ecclesiastical History, comprising six volumes.]
But Eusebius - who would never lie nor falsify, except to promote the glory of God, - the conscientious Eusebius Pamphilus, who has written his life, seems to know no bounds of exaggeration in his praise. "I am amazed" (says this veracious bishop, on whose fidelity all our knowledge of ecclesiastical antiquity must ultimately depend) "I am amazed, when I contemplate such singular piety and goodness. Moreover, when I look up to heaven, and in my mind behold his blessed soul living in God's presence, and there invested (crowned) with a blessed and unfading wreath of immortality; considering this, I am oppressed with silent amazement, and my weakness makes me dumb, resigning his due encomium to Almighty God, who alone can give to Constantine the praise he merits."
"Constantine alone, of all the Roman emperors, was beloved of God, and has left us the idea of his most pious and religious life as an inimitable example for other men to follow, at a humble distance." [The learned reader will find I take some liberties with the text, never departing, however, from its sense - but, "an inimitable example for all men to follow," which is the literality, is Irish rather than English panegyric.]
"Constantine was the first of all the emperors who was regenerated by the new birth of baptism, and signed with the sign of the cross; and being thus regenerated, his mind was so illuminated, and by the raptures of faith so transported, that he admired in himself the wonderful work of God: and when the centurions and captains admitted to his presence, did bewail and mourn for his approaching death, because they should lose so good and gracious a prince, he answered them, 'that he now only began to live, and that he now only began to be sensible of happiness, and therefore, he now only desired to hasten, rather than to slack or stay his passage to God.' [Life of Constantine, lib. 4. c. 63.] [LN., One thing that that is often ignored is that according to the evidences I have read, is that the cross that Constantine paraded on the battlefield was not a + or an X, but what I call the 'Pauline cross' which is like a + but it has a P added to the upright so it has a loop on the top righthand corner making it more like the Egyptian Ankh.]
"For he alone of all the Roman emperors did, with most religious zeal, honour and worship God. He alone, with great liberty of speech, did profess the gospel of Jesus Christ. He alone, did honour his church more than all the rest. He alone, abolished the wicked adoration of idols; and, therefore, he alone, both in his life and after his death, hath been crowned with such honours as no one has obtained, neither among the Grecians nor Barbarians, nor in former times, among the Romans. Since no age has produced anything that might be paralleled or compared to Constantine." [Ibid. lib. iv. c. 75.] So much for his praise!
(2). "Murder, though it hath no tongue, will speak with most miraculous organ."
The adulations of interested sycophants, and the applause of priests and bishops, will not erase the more convincing evidence of those stubborn things, fads, that will not be suppressed, and cannot lie. Even Lardner, who omits entirely the circumstances of aggravation, acknowledges the deeds, which give a very different complexion to Constantine's character, from that, which the honour of Christianity requires that it should wear. The hireling voice of priest-craft would extol him. to the skies. Nor ought we in judging of the worth of a churchman's panegyric, to forget that even the cautious and ingenuous Lardner, who has, without evidence of a single act of wrong against him, branded the amiable and matchlessly virtuous Julian, as a persecutor, has not one ill word to spare for the Christian Constantine, who drowned his unoffending wife, Fausta, in a bath of boiling water, beheaded his eldest son, Crispus, in the very year in which he presided in the Council of Nice, murdered the two husbands of his sisters Constantia, and Anastasia, murdered his own father-in-law, Maximian Herculius, murdered his own nephew, being his sister Constantia's son, a boy only twelve years old, and murdered a few others! [A] which actions, Lardner, with truly Christian moderation, tells us, "seem to cast a reflection upon him." Among those few others, never be it forgotten, was Sopater, the Pagan priest, who fell a victim and a martyr to the sincerity of his attachment to Paganism, and to the honesty of his refusing the consolations of heathenism to the conscience of the royal murderer.
[Note [A] His slaughter bill, methodically arranged, runs thus: - Maximian - His wife's father 310. Bassianus - His sister Anastasia's husband - 314. Licinianus - His nephew, by Constantina 319. Fausta his wife 320. Sopater - His former friend - 321. Licinius - His sister Constantia's husband - 325. Crispus - His own son 326. Religio peperit scelerosa atque impia facta. - Lucret. lib. 1, v. 84.]
"The death of Crispus, (says Dr Lardner) is altogether without any good excuse; so likewise, is the death of the young Licinianus, who could not then be more than a little above eleven years of age and appears not to have been charged with any fault and can hardly be suspected of any." [Lardner, vol. 2, p. 342.] Then why may we not consider Constantine to have been either a cruel prince or a bad man? "Here then, (continues Lardner, whose work is written expressly to promote true piety and virtue,) here lies the general excuse, or alleviation of these faults, (peccadilloes, he means.) Prosperity is a dangerous state, full of temptation, and puts men off their guard, and all these executions happened very near to one another, when Constantine was come as it were to the top of his fortune and was in the greatest prosperity." [Lardner, vol. 2, p. 343.] Reader! imagine thou see his noble son imploring a father's mercy - but in vain. Imagine thou see his innocent wife supplicating for rather any other death at his hands than that most horrible one of that boiling bath - but in vain. Think that thou see the poor unoffending child upon his knees, lifting his innocent hands to beg his life, and his most holy uncle will not regard him. Think that thou nearest the distracted shrieks of the fond doting mother, the beautiful Constantia, with dishevelled hair and heart-broken moans, entreating her brother to spare her son - but in vain. Not a wife's anguish, nor a sister's tears, nor nearest of kindred, nor matchless woman's tenderness, nor guileless youth's innocence, could soften the heart of this evangelical cut-throat, this godly and holy child-killer. Then, contemplate the coin which Eusebius tells us was struck to perpetuate his memory," whereon was engraved the effigies of this blessed man, with a scarf bound about his head, on the one side, and on the other sitting and driving a chariot, and a hand reached down from heaven to receive and take him up. [Eusebius, Life of Constantine, book 4, chap. 73, p. 76, fol.]
When one finds such a writer as Lardner, (to say nothing of the egregious falsifications of Eusebius) thus endeavouring to whitewash Constantine, because he was a Christian emperor, and to affix on those paragons of human virtue, Julian and Marcus Antonius, the guilt of persecution, merely because they were Pagan emperors, not only without evidence against them, but in conflict with the most irrefragable proofs that they were as clear from that guilt, as the sun's disk from darkness; it is not illiberal to find the only excuse we can for these historians, to blame their principles rather than themselves, and to conclude that there is something in the strength and intensity of their religious affection, which suspends in them the faculty of perceiving or communicating truths, so long as that affection is in its paroxysm. [See this deduction illustrated in a succession of the Author's letters from Oakham, in "The Lion," vol. 1.]
It is however highly honourable to Lardner, that he has the generosity to speak in terms of less qualified censure of Constantine's intolerance, and to admit that the two prevailing evils of his reign, were avarice and hypocrisy. [Lardner's Credibility, vol. 2, p. 345.] "The laws of Constantine against the heathens," he acknowledges, "are not to be justified. How should Constantine have a right to prohibit all his subjects from sacrificing and worshipping at the temples? Would he have liked this treatment, if some other prince had become a Christian at that time, and he still remained a heathen? What reason had he to think that all men received light and conviction when he did? And if they were not convinced, how could he expect that they should act as he did." [Ibid. p. 344]
Monsieur Le Clerc justly observes, that "they that continued heathens were no doubt extremely shocked at the manner in which the statues of their gods were treated and could not consider the Christians as men of moderation; for in short, those statues were as dear to them, as anything the most sacred could be to the Christians. [Bibl. Univ. t. 15, p. 54.]
In the form and wording of several of Constantine's edicts, we have specimens of that conjunction of holiness and blood-thirstiness, religion and murder, which portrays his character with a precision and fidelity that needs no further illustration.
1. "Constantine the puissant, the mighty and noble emperor,
unto the bishops, pastors, and people wheresoever.
"Moreover, we thought good, that if there can be found extant any work or book compiled by Arius, the same should be burned to ashes, so that not only his damnable doctrine may thereby be wholly rooted out, but also that no relic thereof may remain unto posterity. This also we straight-ly command and charge, that if any man be found to hide or conceal any book made by Arius, and not immediately bring forth the said book, and deliver it up to be burned, that the said offender for so doing shall die the death. For as soon as he is taken, our pleasure is, that his head be stricken off from his shoulders. God keep you in his tuition." Constantine's speech in the council concerning peace and concord. [In Socrates Scholasticus, lib. 1, c. 6, fol. p. 227.]
2. "Having by God's assistance, gotten the victory over mine enemies, I entreat you therefore, beloved ministers of God, and servants of our Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ, to cut off the heads of this hydra of heresy, for so shall ye please both God and me." [Eusebius. Vita Const, lib. 3, c. 12.]
Motives of Constantine's Conversion.
3. As say his friends. "Constantine the Emperor, being certified of the tyrannous government of Maxentius, devised with himself which way possibly he might rid the Romans from under this grievous yoke of servitude, and despatch the tyrant out of life. Deliberating thus with himself, he forecasted also what God, he was best to call upon for aid, to wage battle with the adversary. He remembered how that Diocletian who wholly dedicated himself unto the service of the heathenish Gods, prevailed nothing thereby; also, he persuaded himself for certain, that his father Constantius, who renounced the idolatry of the Gentiles, led a more fortunate life: [Eusebius. Vita Const, lib. 3, c. 12.] musing thus doubtfully with himself, and taking his journey with his soldiers, a certain vision appeared unto him, as it was strange to behold, so indeed incredible to be spoken of. About noon, the day somewhat declining, he saw in the sky, a pillar of light, in the form of a cross, whereon was engraved the inscription, 'In this overcome.' This vision so amazed the emperor, that he, mistrusting his own sight, demanded of them that were present, whether they perceived the vision, which when all with one consent had affirmed, the wavering mind of the Emperor, was settled with that divine and wonderful sight. The night following, Jesus Christ himself appeared to him, in his sleep, saying - 'Frame to thyself the form of a cross after the example of the sign which appeared unto thee, and bear the same against thy enemies as fit banner, or token of victory.' [Socrates Eccl. Hist. lib. l, c. 1. It is to be regretted that these words of Christ have not been received into the canon of the New Testament, as it is certain there are none therein contained, of higher authority.]
But let us hear the account of "that lewd varlet," "that wicked spirit and fiend of hell," [a] as Socrates call's him, the Ethnic Zosimus, who dared to revile Constantine, and rail at Christians. These fiends of hell make none the worse historians, but always contrive to give an air of rational probability to their infernal falsehoods, which divine truth (being written solely to exercise our faith) could never pretend to - "This lewd varlet goes about to defame the godly and noble emperor Constantine, for he saith, that he slew his son Crispus very lamentably; that he despatched his wife Fausta, by shutting her up in a boiling bath; that when he would have had his priest to purge him by sacrifice, of these horrible murders, and could not have his purpose, (for they had answered plainly, it lay not in their power to cleanse him), he lighted at last upon an Egyptian who came out of Iberia, and being persuaded by him that the Christian faith was of force to wipe away every sin, were it never so heinous, he embraced willingly all whatever the Egyptian told him." [Ibid. lib. 3, c. 40. - See also the original text of Zosimus to this effect, given in my "Syntagma," p. 112.] [note. [a] Socrates, lib. 3, c. 40, 41. When we hear language of this sort, we may be sure that somebody has been telling the truth. Consult that holy blackguard, the Reverend Dr J. P. S. and his Rejoinder, for the character of the Author. Billingsgate surrenders the honours of the fish-market, to the transcendent ruffianism of the college.]
Lardner says this is a false and absurd story; and to make it appear to be so, he renders the text of Zosimus, without supplying it as usual at the bottom of his page, as if it had ran, that [b] Constantine being conscious to himself of those bad actions, and also of the breach of oaths! and being told by the priests of his old religion, that there was no kind of purgation sufficient to expiate such enormities, he began to hearken to a Spaniard, named Aegyptius, then at Court, who assured him that the Christian doctrine contained a promise of the pardon of all manner of sin."
I suspect Dr Lardner's copy of Zosimus of a mendacious substitution of the words which he renders "a Spaniard named Aegyptius, then at Court," instead of those acknowledged in the independent and hostile quotation of Socrates, "that" he met an Egyptian coming out of Iberia, in order to keep in the back ground, as much as possible, the startling denouement of historical fact, that Christianity is really not of Jewish, but of Egyptian derivation. [c] As for its absurdity, they should not throw stones who live in houses of glass.
[note. [b]The holy emperor had bound himself by the most solemn oaths to protect Licinius but slew him notwithstanding. He had the example of the man after God's own heart to justify this peccadillo, 1 Kings, 2. 8, 9.]
[note. [c] Compare with Chap. 29, The Sign of the Cross, in this Diegesis, p. 198.]
Sozomen has a whole chapter on purpose to confute such accounts of Constantine's conversion; in which he admits (which one would think were admission enough,) that the emperor made some such application to a Pagan priest of the name of Sopater, who had been his faithful friend; but that Sopater refused to administer spiritual consolation, asserting that the purity of the gods admitted of no compromise with crimes like his. Whereupon, Constantine applied to the bishops of Christianity, "who promised him that by repentance and baptism they could cleanse him from all sin;" taking into the reckoning, we must suppose, the sin (if a sin they held it to be) of murdering poor Sopater, the Pagan priest; whom, upon his conversion to the Christian faith, Constantine took care to have put to death.
It is from the arguments which his best friends and most zealous advocates advance in his favour, and the pitiful chicane with which they feebly attempt to conflict with the facts which his enemies, or rather the impartial documents of history allege against him, that we gather a true knowledge of the character of the first Christian emperor.
Thus, the learned Christian historian Pagi, with equal humanity and orthodoxy, affects to repel every accusation that the tongue of slander might object against this holy emperor: - "As for those few murders, if Eusebius had thought it worth his while to refer to them, he would perhaps, with Baronius himself have said, that the young Licinius (his infant nephew), although the fact might not generally have been known, had most likely been an accomplice in the treason of his father. That as to the murder of his son, the emperor is rather to be considered as unfortunate than as criminal. And with respect to his putting his wife to death, he ought to be pronounced rather a just and righteous judge. As for his numerous friends, whom Eutropius informs us he put to death one after another, we are bound to believe that they most of them deserved it, as they were found out to have abused the emperor's too great credulity, for the gratification of their own inordinate wickedness, and insatiable avarice: and such no doubt was that Sopater the philosopher, who was at last put to death upon the accusation of Adlabius, and that by the righteous dispensation of God, for his having attempted to alienate the mind of Constantine from the true religion." [a] Dr Lardner quotes this important passage in his notes, for the benefit of the learned reader, but gives no rendering into English of the most important clause in it: which I have here supplied. [LN., Sopater of Apamea, around late 3rd and early 4th century, died before 337AD, he was a disciple of Lamblichus, upon whose death he went to Constantinople and became a good friend of Constantine, he is reported to have written several books, one on 'People who have underserved good or bad luck,' but it seems he fell out of favour and was eventually put to death by Constantine of trumped up charges of using magic. Lamblichus, around 245 to 324AD, he was a Syrian Neoplatonist philosopher, biographer of Pythagoras, work, 'on the mysteries of Egyptians, Chaldean and Assyrians.]
We have horrors on horrors in detail of martyrdoms in the cause of Christianity - here was a martyr in the cause of Paganism, of whom, as of millions whom Christians massacred, it was considered a sufficiently fair account either with Lardner to think their cases utterly unworthy of notice, or with Pagi to assume, that they had their throats cut and their property turned over to the faithful, by the just dispensations of God upon them for not being of the emperor's religion. One's heart smarts at the unfeeling exultation of Eusebius over the cold-blooded massacres of Pagans, who, he tells us, "as they formerly reposed an insolent vain hope in their false gods, so now, upon being executed and put to death according to their desert, they truly understood how great and admirable the God of Constantine was." [In Vita Constantine, lib. 2, c. 18] The war against Constantine he throughout assumes to be, and expressly calls "The war against God." [Ibid]
[note. [a] De csedibus autem si rationem in paiticulari reddere voluisset, dixisset forsitan cum ipso Baronio, Licinium juniorem ex sorore Constantia natum, etsi causa vulgo ignoraretur, verosimiliter tamen complicem patri suo fuisse: In Crispo filio, infelicern tnagis quam reum: In Fausta conjuge, etiam justurn judicem appellandum: Numerosos amicos quos successive interfectos scribit Eutropius, lib. 10, credendurri, plerosque id commeritos, quod nimia principis credulitate tandem deprehenderentur abusi ob suam exuberantem malitiam et insatiabilem cupiditatem. Qualis proculdubio fuit Sopater ille philosophus, tandem Adlabio agente, interfectus, idque justa Dei dispensatione quia Constantinum conatus a vera religione abalienare. -Pagi, Ann. 324, n. 12, quoted by Lardner, vol. 4, p. 371. We cannot have this fact stated with too great precision. I therefore copy it as told again in another passage, which Dr Lardner renders thus from Sozomen: "I am not ignorant that the Gentiles are wont to say, that Constantine having put to death some of his relations, and particularly his son Crispus, and being sorry for what he had done, [a] applied to Sopater the philosopher, and he answering that there were no expiations for such offences, the emperor then had recourse to the Christian bishops, who told him that by repentance and baptism he might be cleansed from all sin: with which doctrine he was well pleased, whereupon he became a Christian. - Lardner, vol. 4, p. 400. It was never on the score of being a superior code of morality that Christianity could compete with Paganism. [LN., Sozomen, Salminius Hermais Sozomenus, around 400 to 450AD, he was church historian. [a] in, 'the ecclesiastical history of Sozomen, history of the church 324 to 440AD, first lines of chapter 5.]
The evidences of Christianity as they appeared to Constantine.
4. Nothing can be more relevant to our great investigation, than a view of the evidences of Christianity as presented to the mind of the royal convert. Without passing any judgment on his character, or casting any reflections on Christianity from a consideration of the motives which were likely to induce such a man to become its convert, we are to remember that Constantine was not a disciple merely, but also a preacher of the Christian religion; and has left us the whole apparatus of argument, upon the strength of which, he not only became a Christian himself, but which he held sufficient to convince the reason, and command the faith of all other persons.
It is not possible that Christianity should ever have possessed evidence of any sort to which Constantine could have been a stranger.
It falls not within the measure of conceivable probabilities, that so clever a man as Constantine unquestionably was, setting himself in an assembly of all the distinguished Christian clergy of his age and empire, to deliver an oration expressly on the evidences of the Christian religion, should therein, have omitted all reference to its greatest and grandest testimonies, and have dwelt only on such as were equivocal or nugatory: neither will conceit itself endure the supposition, that Christianity can, since his day, have acquired any increase of evidence, so that it should be possible for us of later times to have other and better reasons for believing it than our forefathers had, or that that which was less certain at first, should become more certain afterwards.
An attempt to give the substance of so egregious a rhapsody of mystical jargon as his oration to the clergy, would be only less egregious than the rhapsody itself. Let the reader suppose himself to have got through the ten first sections of it; and here begins the eleventh of
Constantine's Oration to the Clergy.
"But I intend to prosecute the eternal decree and purpose of God, concerning the restoration of man's corrupted life, not ignorantly, as many do, neither trusting to opinion or conjecture. For, as the Father is the cause of the Son, so the Son is begotten of that cause, who had existence before all things, as we have demonstrated. But how did he descend to men on earth? This, was out of his own determinate will, because, as the prophets had foretold, he had a general care of all men. For needs must the Workman have a care of his work. But when he came into the world, by assuming a bodily presence, and was to stay and converse some time on earth, for so the work of man's salvation required, he found a way of birth different from the common birth of men, for there was a conception without a marriage, a birth without a; while a virgin was the mother of God. The divine essence, which before was only intelligible, was now become comprehensible: and incorporeal divinity was now united unto a material body. He was like the dove which flew out of Noah's ark, and rested at length on a virgin's bosom. [note. I sincerely admire the dove's taste, and envy him his roost but where did he find the virgin, when everybody was drowned? or where did Constantine find the story?] After his birth, the wonderful wisdom and providence of God protected him even from his cradle. The river Jordan was honoured with his baptism; [Query: Was he baptized to wash away his sins, or for what?] he had the royal unction besides; by his doctrine and divine power he wrought miracles and healed incurable diseases. Chap. 12. We give thee all possible thanks, Christ, our God and Saviour, the wisdom of the Father. Chap. 15. Moreover, we certainly know that the Son of God became a master to instruct the wise in the doctrine of salvation, and to invite all men to virtue, that lie called unto him honest industrious men, and instructed them in modesty of life, and that he taught them faith and justice, which are repugnant to the envy of their adversary the devil, who desires to ensnare and deceive the ignorant. He also forbids lordship and dominion [Compare this with the titles and honours which Constantine himself arrogated at that very time: and see another proof that from first to last, it was never understood that the moral precepts of Christ were so much as intended to be obeyed; nobody sets them so much at defiance as the most zealous believers themselves.] and shows that he came to help the meek and humble. This is heavenly and divine wisdom, that we should rather suffer injury than do any, and when necessary we should rather receive loss than do another any wrong: [Rise!] for, seeing it is a great fault to do any injury, [Rise!] not he that suffers it, but he that doth the injury, shall receive the greatest punishment. [Rise ghosts of Fausta, Crispus and Licinius!] IF, This, in my opinion, is the firm basis of faith."
Chap. 18. "Here we must needs mention a certain testimony of Christ's divinity, fetched from those who were aliens and strangers from the faith. For those who contumeliously detract from him, if they will give credence to their own testimonies, may sufficiently understand thereby that he is both God and the Son of God. For the Erythraean Sibyl, who lived in the sixth age after the flood, being a priestess of Apollo, did yet, by the power of divine inspiration, prophecy of future matters that were to come to pass concerning God; and, by the first letters, which is called an acrostic, declared the history of Jesus. The acrostic is, Jesus Christus, Dei Filius, Senator, Crux. [a] And these things came into the Virgin's mind by inspiration, and by way of prophecy. And therefore, I esteem her happy whom our Saviour did choose to be a prophetess, to divine and foretell of his providence towards us."
The royal preacher proceeds in the next chapter to reprove the incredulity of those who doubt the genuineness of this sublime doggerel.
"But the truth of the matter," he continues, "doth manifestly appear; for our writers have with great study so accurately compared the times, that none can suspect that this poem was made and came forth after Christ's coming; and, therefore, they are convicted of falsehood who blaze abroad, that these verses were not made by the Sibyl.
And then follows Chapter 20, entitled "Other verses of Virgil concerning Christ, in which under certain vails (as poets' use) this knotty mystery is set forth;" and to be sure, the fourth Bucolic of Virgil: commencing
Sicelides musae paulo majora canamus;
(than which, the power of imagination could hardly jump further away from all relation to anything of the kind) is quoted as the ultimate proof and main evidence of the Christian revelation.
[a] It is thus accurately versified into English by the translator Wye Salton Stall:
I n that time, when the great Judge shall come,
E arth shall sweat; the Eternal King from's throne
S hall judge the world, and all that in it be,
U nrighteous men and righteous, shall God see
S eated on high with saints eternall-EE.
C ompassed, which in the last age have been
H ence shall the earth grow desolate again
R egardless statues and gold shall be held vain
I n greedy Haines shall burn earth seas and skies,
S tand up again dead bodies shall, and rise,
T hat they may see all these with their eyes.
C leansing the faithful in twelve fountains, He
R eign shall for ever unto eternitee,
V ery God that he is, and our Saviour too,
X hrist that did suffer for us - and I hope that'll do!
The amount of evidence then, for the Christian religion in the fourth century, as far as evidence influenced the mind of the most illustrious convert it could ever boast, was the Sibylline verses, now on all hands admitted to be a Christian forgery; and a mystical interpretation arbitrarily put on an eclogue of Virgil, which neither the poet himself, nor any rational man on earth, ever dreamed of charging with such an application. There is not one of all the thousand-and-one Arabian Nights' Entertainments, which with an equal licence of application might not be shown to be as relevant and prophetical as this.
Surely, we had a right to expect from Constantine, that if evidence to the historical facts on which the gospel rests its claims, existed, he was the man who should have been acquainted with it; - this was the occasion on which it should have been brought forward. Nor are we to be put off with the old fox's apology - that the grapes are sour, and that Constantine's testimony would have reflected no honour on Christianity. Who, of all the whole human race could better have known the fact, or with greater propriety have given a certificate of it, had it been true that such a person as Jesus Christ had suffered an ignominious death under one of his predecessors in the Roman empery? Who, should have adduced the admission of Josephus, the testimony of Phlegon, the passage of Tacitus, nor these alone, if in his day they had existed, but ten thousand times their evidence, or (what would have been equipollent to that) should have produced the sign manual of Pontius Pilate, or the register itself of persons put to death under his viceroyalty, but Constantine, into whose hands they must have lineally descended? Constantine could not have been ignorant of their existence if any man on earth had known of it, and could not have failed of adducing them, had he known of them himself: and if he had known and adduced them, he would have silenced the objections of millions of infidels: and if infidelity be a damnable sin, would have saved millions from damnation? Surely it was anything rather than such a palpable forgery as the Sibylline verses, or such infatuate irrelevancy as a heathen eclogue, that we should have a right to see assigned as a demonstration of the truth of the Christian religion? We wanted not allegories, nor mystifications, but the plain matter-of-fact evidence, which might have excused a man to himself as a rational being, in believing. Where is that evidence? Where the plausibility, the seeming, the shadow of an historical fact? - in heaven? - in hell? - in Brobdignag! 'Tis nowhere upon earth. Then rail at us, ye consecrated successors of Constantine! Persecute us, ye lawyers! Denounce us, ye hypocrites! Curse us all ye priests! Rail, rant, and roar for it: - but never talk of evidence!
Eusebius, 315AD
There is no name in Ecclesiastical History of equal importance with this: no character with whom it so vitally concerns, every rational man to be thoroughly acquainted, no individual of the whole human race, on whose single responsibility, ever hung so vast a weight of consequence. If Eusebius be to be numbered with wise and good men, the strength of his wisdom and the sincerity of his virtue, are sterling gold to the value of the Evidences of the Christian religion. If he be found wanting, just in so much wanting must be the credibility of so much of the Christian evidence as rests upon his testimony, and that is, all but the all of it. "Without Eusebius," says the learned Tillemont, "we should scarce have had any knowledge of the history of the first ages of Christianity, or of the authors who wrote in that time. All the Greek authors of the fourth century who undertook to write the history of the church, have begun where Eusebius ended, as having nothing considerable to add to his labours."
He was born, as is generally thought, at Caesarea in Palestine, about the year 270. We have no account of his parents, or who were his instructors in early life; nor is there anything certainly known of his family and relations. He is called Pamphilus, only in honour of his very particular friendship for the martyr of that name, who had been a presbyter of the church in which Eusebius succeeded Agassins as bishop, in the year 315. The name Eusebius is one of that order which learned men have generally claimed to themselves, and been allowed to hold, either as expressive of the characters they sustained, or to conceal the meanness and obscurity of their parentage, such as our Pelagius, for Morgan; Calvin, for Chauvin; Melancthon, for Black earth, &c. Eusebius, literally signifies, one who is correctly religious.
There have been several of this name, but none of the same age and character, with whom he is so likely to be confounded, as his contemporary, and brother by courtesy, Eusebius, bishop of Nicomedia, - who calls our Eusebius his Lord. They were entire friends, and so intimate that they were both of the same opinion upon the Arian controversy as agitated in the council of Nice, which was held in the year 325, and in which our Eusebius bore a most distinguished part.
Eusebius Pamphilus was Bishop of Caesarea from the year 315 to the year 340, in which he died, in the 70th year of his age, thus playing his great part in life chiefly under the reigns of Constantine the Great and his son Constantius. He is the great ecclesiastical historian, with whom alone it is our concern to be especially acquainted. Ye little Eusebius's hide your diminished heads!
His works bear testimony to a character of very great ability, of extraordinary diligence, and of an esprit-du-corps, or High-Church, passion that absorbed every other feeling, and would have induced him, as it did many others, to sacrifice not only life, but truth itself, to the paramount claims of the church's interests. St. Jerome gives a catalogue of his works, which consisted of 15 Books of Evangelical Preparation - as preparative for such as were to learn the doctrine of the gospel. (So far was this great historian from apprehending that there was sufficient historical evidence to command any man's rational conviction, without a preparatory discipline - a breaking-in of the obstinacy of reason and common sense, and "bringing down every high thought to the obedience of faith;") - then followed his 20 books of Evangelical Demonstration, in which he proves and confirms the doctrine of the New Testament with a confutation of the devil; then five books on the Divine Apparition;" [note. Or Theophany, that is, "the shining forth of God;" a conceit, which conceit itself could hardly have dreamed of, as a definition of the life and adventures of the son of a frail girl of Nazareth - the hero of the gimlet, "O, it out- Herod's Herod." All other divines endeavour to subdue our reason, - the asserters of the humanity of Christ insult it.] ten books of Ecclesiastical History, by far the most important and valuable, as it is also the most defective of his writings - a general recital of Chronical Canons with an Epitome of the same; a treatise on the Discrepancy of the Evangelists.
Ten books of Commentary upon the prophet Isaiah.
A Commentary on the 150 Psalms.
Three books on the Life of his friend Pamphilus.
Six books in Defence of Origen.
Thirty books against Porphyry.
Eight books against Hierocles.
Four books of the Life of Constantine.
Books on Martyrology.
On Fatal Destiny.
Three books against Marcellus, who had been bishop of Ancyra in Galatia, and deposed upon suspicion of heresy about 320AD.
One book on Topics, and perhaps others innumerable, which nobody reads, nor would be the wiser for reading.
His style, however, is in general good, and his Greek, very fluent and easy reading.
He has been accused by some of criminal time-serving, and of sacrificing to the gods to sub-serve some temporal purpose of his own, but not, indeed, on any satisfactory evidence of the fact. His Life of Constantine, however, is an incontrovertible demonstration against him; that he never let a regard for truth stand in his way to preferment, that he was a consummate sycophant, and that no man better understood, or more successfully practised, the courtly arts of standing well with the powers that be.
Petavius places Eusebius among Arians, and the learned Cave allows that "there are many unwary and dangerous expressions in his writings. He subscribed the Nicene creed as he would have subscribed any other, though contrary to his convictions: [Like our own Archdeacon Paley, "he could not afford to have a conscience." See his Life prefixed to his Evidences of Christianity.] and to the sense of his writings both before and after that Council." [Like our Archbishop Magee, "he might have believed it in the lump, without believing it in the particular." - See his Evidence before the House of Lords.] On which, Dr Lardner affectedly remarks, that "it is grievous to think, for better had it been that the bishops of that council had never met together than, that they should have tempted and prevailed upon a Christian bishop, or anyone else, to prevaricate and act against conscience."
"This author was a witness of the sufferings of the Christians," says Dr Lardner, "in the early part of his life, and afterwards saw the splendour of the Church, under the first Christian Emperor. Like most other great men, he has met with good report and ill report; his learning, however, has been universally allowed." "It appears, (says Tillemont, [LN., Louis-Sebastien Le Nain de Tillemont, 1637 to 1698, he was a French ecclesiastical historian.]) from his works, that he had read all sorts of Greek authors, whether philosophers, historians, or divines, of Egypt, Phoenicia, Asia, Europe and Africa." "With a very extensive knowledge of literature (continues Dr Lardner), he seems to have had the agreeable accomplishments of a courtier. He was both a bishop and a man of the world; a great author and a fine speaker. We plainly perceive from his writings, that through the whole course of his life, he was studious and diligent, insomuch that it is wonderful how he should have had leisure to write so many large and elaborate works of different kinds, beside the discharge of the duties of his function, and beside his attendance at Court, at Synods, and the solemnities of dedicating churches. He was acquainted with all the great and learned men of his time and had access to the libraries of Jerusalem and Caesarea; which advantage he improved to the utmost.
Some may wish that he had not joined with the Arian leaders in the hard treatment that was given to Eustatius, Bishop of Antioch, Athanasius of Alexandria, and Marcellus of Ancyra. But it should be considered, that Christian bishops in general, after the conversion of Constantine, seem to have thought, that they had a right to depose and banish all ecclesiastics who did not agree with them upon the points of divinity controverted at that time. Finally, though there may be some things exceptionable in his writings and conduct; his zeal for the Christian religion, his affection for the martyrs, his grateful respect for his friend Pamphilus - his diligence in collecting excellent materials, and in composing useful works for the benefit of mankind ; his caution and scrupulousness in not vouching for the truth [a] of Constantine's story of the apparition of the cross, as well as other things, fully satisfy me, notwithstanding what some may say, that he was a good as well as a great man." [Lardner, Vol. 2, p. 363.] [a] But surely this lying by proxy, is but a more sneaking and cowardly way of lying: he knew that the falsehood was asserted and profited by the falsehood he lent his influence to it and subscribed it with the consent of a criminal silence!]
Du Pin says "that Eusebius seems to have been very disinterested, very sincere, a great lover of peace, of truth, and religion. Though he had close alliances with the enemies of Athanasius, he appears not to have been his enemy; nor to have any great share in the quarrels of the bishops of that time. He was present at the councils where unjust things were transacted, but we do not discern that he showed signs of passion himself, or that he was the tool of other men's passions. He was not the author of new creeds - he only aimed to reconcile and reunite parties. He did not abuse the interest he had with the Emperor, to raise himself, nor to ruin his enemies, as did Eusebius of Nicomedia, but he improved it for the benefit of the church. "Such is his character, as drawn by his advocates and friends, a character unfortunately pregnant with admissions of enough, and more than enough, to justify the charges of Baronius [LN., Baronies, Caesar, 1538 to 1607, he was an Italian cardinal, church historian of the Roman Catholic Church.], and others, sincere professors of the Christian faith, who have branded him as the great falsifier of ecclesiastical history, a wily sycophant, a consummate hypocrite, and a time-serving persecutor. Indeed, there is no fair evidence in anything that appears in his writings, or is known of his life, to support our wish, for the honour of human nature, to believe that he himself believed the Christian religion. Had he done so, can we think that he would have deemed it necessary to promote that cause by forgery and imposture, by trickery and falsehood, as he has constantly endeavoured to do?
"He had a great zeal for the Christian religion," says Dr Lardner, and so far, undoubtedly, he was in the right,
Nevertheless, he should not have attempted to support it by weak and false arguments. "It is wonderful," he adds, "that Eusebius should think Philo's Therapeutae were Christians, and that their ancient writings, should be our gospels and epistles."
"Agbarus's letter to our Saviour, and our Saviour's letter to Agbarus, copied at length in our author's Ecclesiastical History, are much suspected by many learned men not to be genuine.
"If the testimony to Jesus as the Christ, had been from the beginning in Josephus's works, it is strange it should never have been quoted by ancient apologists for Christianity, and now in the beginning of the fourth century be thought so important as to be quoted by our author in two of his works still remaining." That is to say, surely Eusebius forged it himself? for the purpose of quoting his own forgery. There was never an advocate of the Christian evidences yet, whose conscience would have opposed any hesitation to such services, in so good a cause.
"There is a work ascribed to Porphyry, quoted by Eusebius in his Preparation and Demonstration, if that work is not genuine (and I think it is not) it was a forgery of his own time, and the quoting it as he does, will be reckoned an instance of want of care or skill, or of candour and impartiality."
"Where Josephus says that Agrippa, casting his eyes upwards, saw an owl sitting upon a cord over his head; our ecclesiastical historian says, he saw an angel. I know not what good apology can be made for this." [LN., Josephus, Titus Flavius, around 37 to 100AD, he was a Jewish-Romano historian, scholar and hagiographer, he was favoured by three Emperors.] [LN., owls were anciently seen as bad omens, as they were night creatures and were companions of Venus, who rises in Scorpio, as can be seen on many Sumerian, Akkadian, Babylonian cylinder seals.]
So delicately does Dr Lardner glance at the peccadilloes of the great Christian historian: to say nothing of his entirely passing over the altogether Popish character of the religion he professed; the masses said for the soul of Constantine, his own fulsome panegyric on that great monster of iniquity, and the innumerable instances of deceit and cunning which will be found by every shrewd student of his writings.
Eusebius held that Jesus Christ created the substance of the Holy Ghost, and ridiculously, or rather perhaps sarcastically, hints that miracles were still in vogue, even in his own time, only they were little ones. [LN., Eusebius of Caesarea, somewhere between 260-5 to 339-40BC. Was a historian of Christianity, exegete ("to lead out" and generally consists of a critical analysis of a religious text), and Christian polemicist. A polemicist is one uses contentious rhetoric that is intended to support a specific position by aggressive claims and undermining of the opposing position. A person who often writes polemics, or who speaks polemically, is called a polemicist. The word is derived from Greek polemikos, meaning 'warlike, hostile', polemos, meaning 'war'.]
His adducing, however, of the authority of the elders of the churches of Lyons and Vienne, without directly pledging his own authority, to obtain belief from whoever would believe the stories of the martyrdoms of the saints of those churches, and of some whose bodies were actually found alive and uninjured in the stomachs of the wild beasts who had devoured them, [Lardner's Credibility, Vol. 4, p. 91.] is proof enough of his art in supplying miracles adapted to the meanest capacity, and a grand specimen of that peculiarly ecclesiastical finesse, in which Dr Lardner himself is an exquisite proficient; the contriving to reap the effect of falsehood, without incurring its responsibilities, lying by proxy, and pushing what they never believed themselves into credence, as far as credence would follow, without committing themselves in any sufficiently honest expression to enable a man to lay the blame of it directly at their own door. Thus also, the grave and solemn Tertullian assures us of a fact which he and all the orthodox of his time credited, that the body of a Christian which had been some time buried, moved itself to one side of the grave to make room for another corpse which was going to be laid by it. [Tertullian De An. c. 51, quoted by Evanson, p. 15.] We have no less credible accounts of a holy dog, who used to slide along on his haunches to receive the sacrament, and to watch over the church-yard like a guardian angel, and when he saw any other dogs about to ease themselves upon the graves of the saints, he would instantly set on them, and teach them to go farther. He was actually canonized by the Bishop of Rome, and many splendid and glorious miracles were wrought at the shrine of the Holy Dog, St. Towzer. [The relics of this truly Christian Dog are preserved in the parish church of San Andres, near Valladolid, to this day. His soul is with Jesus. We may laugh at this in England; but he would be a brave man who laughed at it in Spain See Catholic Miracles, p. 43.]
Saint Angustin, in like manner, preached the Gospel to whole nations of men and women, who he assures us had no heads. - Query, could he mean anything else than that, in believing the gospel, men and women have no need of heads. In a word,
Eusebius, like many other great men was drawn into the frightful vortex of superstition and had no alternative but to whirl round in it, or sink. Like thousands of his order at this day, he both preached and wrote what he never believed himself, nor could believe. It is only when Religion shall be no more, that Hypocrisy shall be no more: as it is, there is but one rule in theological arithmetic - i.e. the greater saint, the greater liar!
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next Chapter 44. Testimony of Heretics