The Secret Vault presents: The Christian and Pagan Creeds Collated. Rev. Robert Taylor, A. B. & M. R. C. S.
The church approves paganism
35. How the common people were Christianized, we gather from a remarkable passage which Mosheim [LN., Moshiem, Lorenz von. 1693 to 1755, German Lutheran church historian.] has preserved for us, in the life of Gregory, surnamed Thaumaturgus, that is, the wonder-worker: the passage is as follows: [b]
When Gregory perceived that the simple and unskilled multitude persisted in their worship of images, on account of the pleasures and sensual gratifications which they enjoyed at the Pagan festivals, he granted them a permission to indulge themselves in the like pleasures, in celebrating the memory of the holy martyrs, hoping, that in process of time, they would return, of their own accord, to a more virtuous and regular course of life. "The historian remarks, that there is no sort of doubt, that by this permission, Gregory allowed the Christians to dance, sport, and feast at the tombs of the martyrs, upon their respective festivals, and to do everything which the Pagans were accustomed to do in their temples, during the feasts celebrated in honour of their gods." - Mosheim, vol. 1. Cent. 2. p. 202.
[b] Cum animadvertisset Gregorius quod ob corporeas delectationes et voluptates, simplex et imperitum vulgus in simulacrorum cultus errore permaneret - permisit eis, ut in memoriam et recordationem sanctorum martyrum sese oblectarent, et in laetitiam effunderentur, quod successu temporis aliquando futurum esset, ut sua sponte, ad honestiorem et accuratiorem vitae rationem, transirent.]
36. This accommodating and truly Christian spirit was carried to such an extent, that the images of the Pagan deities were in some instances allowed to remain, and continued to receive divine honours, in Christian churches.
The images of the sybills, of which Gallseus has given us prints, were retained in the Christian church of Sienna. [c] - Bell's Pantheon. 2. 237.
[c] The head of the Jupiter Olympius of Phidias, carved in the mahogany transept, officiates c.t this day, as locum tenens for God Almighty, in the chapel of King's College, Cambridge.]
Among the sacred writings which the church has seen fit to deem Apocryphal, there was a book attributed to Christ himself, in which he declares that he was in no way against the heathen gods. - Jones on the Canon, vol. I. p. 11. Origen vindicates, without denying the charge of Celsus, "that the Christian Religion contained nothing but what Christians held in common with heathens: nothing that was new, or truly great." - Bellamy's Translation, chap. 4.
37. Even under the primitive discipline, and before the conversion of Rome, while the church was cautious of admitting into her worship anything that had a relation to the old idolatry: yet even in this period, Gregory Thaumaturgus, is commended by his namesake of Nyssa, for changing the Pagan festivals into Christian holidays, the better to draw the heathens to the religion of Christ.
[Nyssen, in Vita Greg. Thaumat. cit. Middleton, Letter from Rome, 236. The good nature of Gregory is the more commendable, inasmuch as it was a grateful return of the like degree of indulgence as had been shown to himself. He was taken in to the Christian ministry, and consecrated a bishop of Christ, and wrought miracles, even while he continued a Pagan, and was entirely ignorant of the Christian doctrine.]
38. Thus Paulinus, a convert from Paganism, of senatorial rank, celebrated for his parts and learning, and who became Bishop of Nola, apologizes for setting up certain paintings in his episcopal church, dedicated to Felix the Martyr, "that it was done with a design to draw the rude multitude, habituated to the profane rites of Paganism, to a knowledge and good opinion of the Christian doctrine, by learning from these pictures, what they were not capable of learning from books; i.e. the Lives and Acts of Christian Saints." - See Works of Paulinus, B. 9. [LN., Born Pontius Meropius Anicius Paulinus, 354 to 431AD, later Paulinus bishop of Nola in Campania, Italy, credited with introducing bells into Christian worship.]
39. Pope Gregory, called the Great, about two centuries later, makes the same apology for images or pictures, in churches; declaring them to have been introduced for the sake of the Pagans; that those who did not know, and could not read the Scriptures, might learn from those images and pictures what they ought to worship. [Epist. 1. 9, c. 9]
40. Paulinus declares the object of these images and pictures to have been, "to draw the heathens the more easily to the faith of Christ, since by nocking in crowds to gaze at the finery of these paintings, and by explaining to each other the stories there represented, they would gradually acquire a reverence for that religion, which inspired so much virtue and piety into its professors."
41. But these compliances, as Bishop Stillingflect observes, were attended with very bad consequences; since Christianity became at last, by that means, to be nothing else but reformed Paganism, as to Us divine worship. [a] See Bishop Stilling fleets, Defence of the charge of Idolatry against the Romanists, vol. 5 of his Works, p. 459, where the reader will find the charge demonstrably proved against the church of Rome.]
The pagan revival
42. The learned Christian advocate, M. Turretin, in describing the state of Christianity in the fourth century, has a well- turned rhetoric, the point of which is, "that it was not so much the empire that was brought over to the faith, as the faith that was brought over to the empire: not the Pagans who were converted to Christianity, but Christianity that was converted to Paganism." [b] "Non imperio ad fidem adducto, sed et imperii pompa eeclesiam inficiente. Non ethnicis ad Christum, conversis, sed et Christi religione ad Ethnieae formam dapravata." - Oral. Aeadom. De Variis Christ. Rel. fatis.]
43. "From this era, then, according to the accounts of all writers, though Christianity became the public and established religion of the government, yet it was forced to sustain a perpetual struggle for many ages, against the obstinate efforts of Paganism, which was openly espoused by some of the emperors; publicly tolerated and privately favoured by others; and connived at in some degree by all." - Middleton's Letters from Rome.
44. Within thirty years after Constantine, the emperor Julian entirely restored Paganism, and abrogated all the laws which had been made against it. Though it is utterly untrue that he was ever guilty of any act of persecution or intolerance towards Christians. [c] The three emperors, who next in order succeeded Julian, i.e. Jovian, Valentinian, Valens; though they were Christians by profession, were yet wholly indifferent and neutral between the two religions; granting an equal indulgence and toleration to them both. So that they may be as fairly claimed to be Pagan as Christian emperors. Nor had even Constantine himself, the first for whom the designation of a Christian emperor has been challenged, accepted the rite of Christian baptism before he was dying, or ever in his life ceased to be, and to officiate, as a priest of the gods.
Gratian, the seventh emperor from him, and fourth after Julian, though a sincere believer, never thought fit to annul what Julian had restored. He was the first however of the emperors who refused the title and habit of the Pontifex Maximus, as incompatible with the Christian character. So that till then, up to the year 384, there was no actual disunion between Christ and Belial; no evidence of miracles or strength of reason had been offered to attest the superiority of the Christian religion, to demonstrate that there was any material distinction between that and Paganism, or to determine the mind of anyone of the Roman emperors, that there was an inconsistency in being a Christian and a Pagan at the same time.
[c] See vindication of his character, in the Lion. vol. l, No. 18. 12th Letter from Oakham.]
Short lived pagan hiccup
45. The affront put by Gratian upon the Pagan priesthood, in refusing to wear their pontifical robe, was so highly resented, that one of them is recorded to have said, since the emperor refuses to be our Pontifex Maximus, we will very shortly take care that our Pontifex shall be Maximus.
46. In the subsequent reign of Theodosius, whose laws were generally severe upon the Pagans, Symmachus, the governor of Rome, presented a memorial in the strongest terms, and in the name of the Senate and people of Rome, for leave to replace the altar of victory in the senate house, whence it had been removed by Gratian. This memorial was answered by St. Ambrose, who in a letter upon it to the emperor, observes, that, "when the petitioners had so many temples and altars of their own, in all the streets of Rome, where they might freely offer their sacrifices, it seemed to be a mere insult on Christianity, to demand still one altar more; and especially in the senate house, where the greater part were then Christians." This petition was rejected by Valentinian, against the advice of all his council, but was granted presently after by the Christian emperor, Eugenius, who murdered and succeeded him.
Hiccups cured
Thus, entering on the fifth century, and further, surely, we need not descend: we have the surest and most unequivocal demonstration, that Christianity, as a religion distinct from the ancient Paganism, up to that time, had gained no extensive footing in the world. After that period, all that there was of religion in the world, merges in the palpable obscure of the dark ages. The pretence to an argument for the Christian religion, from anything either miraculous or extraordinary in its propagation, is therefore, a sheer defiance of all evidence and reason whatever.
47. "Pantaenus, the head of the Alexandrian school, was probably the first who enriched the church with a version of the sacred writings, which has been lost among the ruins of time. - Mosh. vol. I. 186. - Compare with No. 34 in this Chapter.
Changelings
48. "They all, (i.e. all the fathers of the second century) attributed a double sense to the words of Scripture, the one obvious and literal, the other hidden and mysterious, which lay concealed, as it were, under the veil of the outward letter. The former they treated with the utmost neglect," &c. - Ibid. 186.
49. "God also hath made us able ministers of the New Testament, not of the letter but of the spirit: for the letter kills, but the spirit giveth life." -2 Corinth, 3-6.
50. "It is here to be attentively observed (says Mosheim, speaking of the church in the second century) that the form used in the exclusion of heinous offenders from the society of Christians, was, at first, extremely simple; but was, however, imperceptibly altered,' enlarged by an addition of a vast multitude of rites, and new-modelled according to the discipline used in the ancient mysteries." - Mosh. vol. I. p. 199.
51. "The profound respect that was paid to the Greek and Roman mysteries, and the extraordinary sanctity that was attributed to them, induced the Christians, (of the second century) to give their religion a mystic air, in order to put it upon an equal footing, in point of dignity, with that of the Pagans. For this purpose, they gave the name of mysteries to the institutions of the gospel, and decorated, particularly the holy sacrament, with that solemn title. They used, in that sacred institution, as also in that of baptism, several of the terms employed in the heathen mysteries, and proceeded so far at length, as even to adopt some of the rites and ceremonies of which those renowned mysteries consisted." - Ibid. 204.
52. "It may be further observed, that the custom of teaching their religious doctrines, by images, actions, signs, and other sensible representations, which prevailed among the Egyptians, and indeed in almost all the eastern nations, was another cause of the increase of external rites in the church." -- Ibid. 204.
53. "Among the human means that contributed to multiply the number of Christians and extend the limits of the church in the third century, we shall find a great variety of causes uniting their influence and contributing jointly to this happy purpose. Among these must be reckoned the zeal and labours of Origen, and the different works which were published by learned and pious men in defence of the gospel. If among the causes of the propagation of Christianity, there is any place due to pious frauds, it is certain that they merit a very small part of the honour of having contributed to this glorious purpose, since they were practised by few, and that very rarely." - Mosheim, vol. I, p. 246. [How must every ingenuous and virtuous sensibility in man's nature, have smarted under the distress of being obliged to use language like this. I know the man who hath preferred the fate of felons, and would rather still, pass only from the prison to the tomb, than he would use the like.]
54. "Origen, invited from Alexandria by an Arabian prince, converted by his assiduous labours a certain tribe of wandering Arabs to the Christian faith. The Goths, a fierce and warlike people, received the knowledge of the gospel by the means of certain Christian doctors, sent thither from Asia. The holy lives of these venerable teachers, and the miraculous powers with which they were endowed, attracted the esteem, even of a people educated to nothing but plunder and devastation, and absolutely uncivilized by letters or science: and their authority and influence became so great, and produced in process of time such remarkable effects, that a great part of this barbarous people professed themselves the disciples of Christ, and put off, in a manner, that ferocity which had been so natural to them." - Vol. I, 247.
55. "Among the superhuman means," which, after all that he has admitted, this writer thinks can alone sufficiently account for the successful propagation of the gospel, "we not only reckon the intrinsic force of celestial truth, and the piety and fortitude of those who declared it to the world, but also that especial and interposing providence, which by dreams and visions, presented to the minds of many, who were either inattentive to the Christian doctrine, or its professed enemies, touched their hearts with a conviction of the truth, and a sense of its importance; and engaged them without delay to profess themselves the disciples of Christ."
56. "To this may also be added, the healing of diseases, and other miracles, which many Christians were yet enabled to perform, by invoking the name of the Divine Saviour. - Mosheim, vol. I, p. 245. On these last four most important admissions; the reader will observe, that it may be enough to remark, that the principle on which this work is conducted, so well expressed in its motto, that philosophy which is agreeable to nature, approve and cherish; but that which pretends to commerce with the deity, avoid! pledges us to view all references to supernatural agency, as being no proof of such agency, but as demonstration absolute of the idiotic stupidity, or arrant knavery of the party, resting any cause whatever on such references. It is not in the former of these predicaments, that such an historian as Mosheim, can be impeached; nor could either the emoluments or dignities of the theological chair at Helm Stadt, or the chancellorship of the University of Gottingen, allay the smarting's of sentiment, and the anguish of conscious meanness, in holding them at so dear a price, as the necessity of making such statements, of thus selling his name to the secret scorn of all whose praise was worth ambition, thus outraging his own convictions, thus conflicting with his own statements; thus bowing down his stupendous strength of talent, to harmonize with the figments of drivelling idiocy, making learning do homage to ignorance and the clarion that should have roused the sleeping world pipe down to concert with the rattle-trap and Jew's-harp of the nursery.
Of the pious frauds, which this historian admits to share only a small part of the honour of contributing to the propagation of the gospel, because they were "practised by so few;" he had not the alleviation to his feelings, of being able to be ignorant that he had falsified that statement in innumerable passages of this and his other writings; and that his whole history of the church, from first to last, contains not so much as a single instance, of one of the fathers of the church, or first preachers of the gospel, who did not practice those pious frauds.
White wolves
57. "The authors who have treated of the innocence and sanctity of the primitive Christians, have fallen into the error of supposing them to have been unspotted models of piety and virtue, and a gross error indeed it is, as the strongest testimonies too evidently prove." - Ibid. p. 120.
58. [a] "Such was the license of inventing, so headlong the readiness of believing, in the first ages, that the credibility of transactions derived from them, must have been hugely doubtful: nor has the world only, but the church of God also, has reasonably to complain of its mystical times." - Bishop Fell, so rendered in the Autlwr's Syntagma, p. 34.
[a] "Tanta fuit primis saeculis fingendi licentia, tam prona in credendo facilitas, ut rerum gestarum fides exinde graviter laboraverat. Neque enim orbis terrarum tantum, sed et Dei ecclesia de temporibus suis mysticis merito quaeratur." - Fell, Bishop of Oxford, quoted by Lardner and Tindal. [LN., Tindal, Matthew, 1657 to 1733, English Deist, major work "Christianity as old as creation."]]
59. "The extravagant notions which obtained among the Christians of the primitive ages, (says Dupin) sprang from the opinions of the Pagan philosophers, and from the mysteries, which crack-brained men put on the history of the Old and New-Testament, according to their imaginations. The more extraordinary these opinions were, the more did they relish, and the better did they like them; and those who invented them, published them gravely, as great mysteries to the simple, who were all disposed to receive them." - Dupin's Short History of the Church, vol. 2. c. 4, as quoted by Tindal, p. 224.
60. "They have but little knowledge of the Jewish nation, and of the primitive Christians, who obstinately refuse to believe that such sort of notions could not proceed from thence; for on the contrary, it was their very character to turn the whole scripture into allegory." - Archbishop Wakens Life of the apostle Barnabas, p. 73.
Of the miraculous powers with which Mosheim [Vol. I, p. 247.] would persuade us that the Christians of the third century were still endowed; we have but to confront him with his own conflicting statement, on the 1 1th page of his second volume: concluding with his own reflection on that admission: - "Thus does it generally happen in human life, that when danger attends the discovery and the profession of the truth, the prudent are silent, the multitude, believe, and impostors triumph."
Summary considerations and questions
Of the dreams and visions, of which he speaks; it is enough to answer him with the intuitive demonstration, that such sort of evidence for Christianity, might be as easily pretended for one religion as another; it is said as none but a desperate cause would appeal to, such as no rational man would respect, and no honest Asian maintain; not only of no nature to afford proof to the claims of a divine revelation, but itself unproved; and not alone unproved; but of its own nature, both morally and physically, incapable of receiving any sort of proof. The heart smarts for the degradation of outraged reason, for the humiliation of torn and lacerated humanity; that a Mosheim should talk of dreams and visions - that if should come to this! Christianity, how great are thy triumphs!
Of the healing of diseases, by the invoking of a name. It is impossible not to see, that this author did not believe his own argument: because it is impossible not to know that no man in his senses could believe it, and impossible not to suspect, that so weak and foolish an argument, was by this author, purposely exhibited as, one of the main pillars of the Christian evidence, in order to betray to future times, how weak that evidence was, and to encourage those who should come to live in some happier day when the housed world might better endure the being undeceived; - to blow it down with their breath. Beausobre, Tillotson, South, Watson, Paley, and some high in the church, yet living, have given more than pregnant innuendoes of their acting on this policy.
Nothing is more obvious, than that persons diseased in body, must labour under a corresponding weakness of mind. There is no delusion of such obvious practicability on a weak mind in a diseased body; as that which should hold out hopes of cure, beyond the promise of nature. A miracle of healing, is therefore of all miracles, in its own nature most suspicious, and least capable of evidence.
A name to conjure with
It was the pretence to these gifts of healing, that gave name to Therapeutce, or Healers; and consequently, supplies us with an infallible clue to lead to the birth-place and cradle of Christianity. The cure being performed by invocation of a name, still lights us on to the germ and nucleus of the whole system. Neither slight nor few are the indications of this magical or supposed charming operation of the Brutum fulmen; the mere name only of the words, Jesus Christ, in the New Testament itself; and consequently neither weak nor inconsecutive are our reasons, for maintaining that it was in the name, and the name only, that the first preachers of Christianity believed; that it was not supposed by them to be the designation of any person who had really existed, but was a vox et praeterea nihil, - a charm more powerful than the Abraxas, more sacred than Abracadabra; in short, those were but the spells that bound the services of inferior demons - this, conjured the assistance of omnipotence, and was indeed, the God's spell. "There is none other name under heaven, (says the Peter of the Acts of the Apostles) given among men, whereby we must be saved." -Chap. 4-12.
61. Origen, ever the main strength and sheet-anchor of the advocates of Christianity, expressly maintains, that "the miraculous powers which the Christians possessed, were not in the least owing to enchantments, (which he makes Celsus seem to have objected,) but to their pronouncing the name I. E. S. U. S, [a] and making mention of some remarkable occurrences of his life. Nay, the name of I. E. S. U. S, has had such power over demons, that it has sometimes proved effectual, though pronounced by- very wicked persons." - Answer to Celsus, chap. 6.
[a] See similar mystical senses of the epithets, Christ and Chrest, under the articles Serapis, and Adrian's Letter.]
62. "And the name of I. E. S. U. S, at this very day, composes the ruffled minds of men, dispossesses demons, cures diseases; and works a meek, gentle, and amiable temper in all those persons, who make profession of Christianity, from a higher end than their worldly interests." - Ibid. 57. So, says Origen. No Christian will for a moment think that there is any salving of the matter in such a statement. Friar's balsam was found in every case without fail; to heal the wound, even after a man's head was clean cut off, provided his head were set on again the right way.
Miracles or fables
63. "When men pretend to work miracles, and talk of immediate revelations, of knowing the truth by revelation, and of more than ordinary illumination; we ought not to be frightened by those big words, from looking what is under them; nor to be afraid of calling those things into question, which we see set off with such high-flown pretences. It is somewhat strange that we should believe men the more, for that very reason, upon which we should believe them the less." - Clagit's Persuasive to an Ingenuous Trial of Opinions, p. 19, as quoted by Tindal, p. 217.
64. St. Chrysostom declares, "that miracles are only proper to excite sluggish and vulgar minds, that men of sense have no occasion for them, and that they frequently carry some untoward suspicion along with them." - Quoted in Middletori's Prefatory Discourse to his Letter from Rome, p. 104. In this sentiment it must be owned, that the Christian saint strikingly coincides with the Pagan philosopher Polybius, who considered all miracles as fables, invented to preserve in the vulgar a due sense of respect for the deity." - Reimmann, Hist. Ath. p. 233.
65. The great theologian, Beausobre, in his immense Histoire de Manichee, tom. 2, p. 568, says, [a] "We see in the history which I have related, a sort of hypocrisy, that has been perhaps, but too common at all times: that churchmen not only do not say what they think, but they do say, the direct contrary of what they think. Philosophers in their cabinets; out of them, they are content with fables, though they well know that they are fables. Nay more: they deliver honest men to the executioner or having uttered what they themselves know to be true. How many Atheists and Pagans have burned holy men under the pretext of heresy? Every day do hypocrites consecrate, and make people adore the host, though as well convinced as I am, that it is nothing but a bit of bread."
[a] "On voit dans l'histoire que j'ai rapportee, une sorte d'hypocrisie, qui n'a peut-etre ete que trop commune dans tous les tems. C'est que des ecclesiastiques, non seulement ne dbent pas ce qu'ils pensent, mais disent tout le contraire de ce qu'ils pensent. Philosophes dans leur cabinet, hors dela, ils content des fables, quoiqu'ils sachont bien que ce sont des fables, lis font plus; ils livrent au bourreau des gens de biens pour 1'avoir dit. Combiens d'athees et de prophanes ont fait bruler de saints personnages, sous pretexte d'heresie! Tous les jours des hypocrites, consacrent etfont adorer l'hostie, bien qu'ils soient aussi convaincus que moi, que ce n'est qu'un morceau de pain." - Ibid.]
conclusion
The history which I have related, a sort of hypocrisy, that has been perhaps, but too common at all times: that churchmen not only do not say what they think, but they do say, the direct contrary of what they think. Philosophers in their cabinets; out of them, they are content with fables, though they well know that they are fables. Nay more: they deliver honest men to the executioner, for having- uttered what they themselves know to be true. How many Atheists and Pagans have burned holy men under the pretext of heresy? Every day do hypocrites consecrate, and make people adore the host, though as well convinced as I am, that it is nothing but a bit of bread.
66. The learned Grotius has a similar avowal:
"He that reads ecclesiastical history, reads nothing
but the roguery and folly of bishops and churchmen."
- Grotii Epist. 22. No man could quote higher authorities.
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Next chapter VII.