During the first century of the Christian era, the empire, while manifesting more or less hostility to the religious innovations which were imported from the East, did not declare open war against them. The doctrine of a state-religion was not clearly defined or vigorously upheld. At different epochs under the republic, foreign rites had been proscribed, especially those of Sabazius, Isis, and Serapis.[18.1] But those mysterious systems presented such irresistible attractions to the common people, that the proscription proved unavailing.[18.2]

When (A. U. C. 535) the demolition of the temple of Isis and Serapis was decreed, not a workman could be found to commence it, and the consul himself had to set the example by breaking down the doors with an axe.[18.3] It is evident that the Latin creed was no longer satisfying to the masses; and we may suppose with good reason that it was for the purpose of gratifying the popular instincts that the rites of Isis and Serapis were reËstablished by CÆsar.[18.4]

That great man, with the profound and liberal intuition which characterized him, had shown himself favorable to entire freedom of conscience.[18.5] Augustus was more attached to the national religion.[18.6] He had an antipathy to the Oriental creeds,[18.7] and prohibited the spread of even the Egyptian rites in Italy;[18.8] but he allowed every system, and the Jewish in particular, to enjoy freedom and supremacy in its own country.[18.9] He exempted the Jews from all observances conflicting with their conscience, especially from civil duties on the Sabbath.[18.10] Some of his officers manifested a less tolerant spirit, and would willingly have prevailed on him to become a persecutor in the interest of the Latin form of worship;[18.11] but he does not appear to have yielded to their mischievous counsel. Josephus, whom we may, however, suspect of some exaggeration, declares that Augustus even went so far as to present a gift of consecrated vases to the service of the temple at Jerusalem.[18.12]

Tiberius CÆsar was the first of the emperors who definitely adopted the principle of a state-religion, and who enforced strict precautions against the Jewish and Oriental propaganda.[18.13] It must be borne in mind that the emperor was also “Pontifex Maximus,” and that in protecting the ancient Roman worship he was performing an official duty. Caligula revoked the Tiberian edicts,[18.14] but his supervening lunacy prevented any further results. Claudius seems to have carried out the Augustan policy. At Rome he strengthened the Latin ceremonies, showed considerable dislike to the advance of foreign religions,[18.15] enforced rigorous measures against the Jews,[18.16] and implacably persecuted the religious confraternities.[18.17] In Judea, on the contrary, he treated the natives of the country liberally.[18.18] The favor enjoyed at Rome by the family of Agrippa under the two reigns just mentioned, secured to their co-religionists a powerful protection in all cases not coming within the regulations of the Roman police.The emperor Nero troubled himself but little about religion.[18.19] His cruelties towards the Christians were the mere outcrops of his natural ferocity, not the results of legislative policy.[18.20] The instances of persecution cited in the Roman annals of this period emanated rather from the authority of the family than from that of the Government,[18.21] and happened only in some noble houses of Rome, where the ancient traditions of domestic rule had been preserved.[18.22] The provinces were entirely free to adhere to their own rites, on the sole condition of not interfering with those of others.[18.23] Provincials residing at Rome were allowed the same privileges so long as they avoided anything which occasioned public scandal.[18.24] The only two religions against which the empire made war in the first century, were Druidism and Judaism; and each of these was, in truth, a fortress wherein was entrenched a distinct and turbulent nationality. Most men were convinced that the profession of Judaism implied hatred of the civil institutions of the empire and indifference to the welfare of the state.[18.25] When Judaism assumed the condition of a mere individual or private system of religious belief, it was not persecuted.[18.26] The rigorous measures which were put in force against the worship of Serapis, were perhaps suggested by the monotheistic character[18.27] which caused it sometimes to be confounded in public estimation with the Jewish and the Christian religions.[18.28]

It appears, then, that no established legislation prohibited in the apostolic age the profession of monotheistic creeds.[18.29] The sectaries were always under surveillance down to the accession of the Syrian emperors; but it was not until Trajan’s time that they were systematically persecuted, as being intolerant and hostile towards other sects, and as impliedly denying the authority of the state. In a word, the only phase of religious belief against which the Roman empire declared war was theocracy. Its own principle was that of a purely secular organization. It did not admit that religion could have any civil or political connexions or consequences. Above all it would not admit of any association within the state and independent of the state. This point it is essential to remember. It was in truth the root from which sprang all the persecutions. The law concerning the confraternities was in a much greater degree than religious intolerance, the fatal cause of the cruelties which disgraced the reigns of the most liberal emperors.

The Greeks had led the way for the Romans, as well in matters relating to private associations as in all other results of thought and refinement. The Greek ??a??? or ??as?? of Athens, Rhodes, and the Islands of the Archipelago were useful societies for mutual assistance in the way of loans, fire assurance, common religious observances, and harmless amusement.[18.30] Each society had its rules carved on a stela, its archives, its common fund, provided by both voluntary contributions and assessments. The members met together to celebrate the festivals and to hold banquets, where cordiality reigned supreme.[18.31] A brother needing money could borrow from the treasury. Women were admitted into these associations, and had a president for themselves. The meetings were held in secret, and under strict rules for the preservation of order. They took place, it seems, in inclosed gardens, surrounded by porticoes or small buildings, and in the centre was erected an altar for the sacrifices.[18.32] Each association had its officers,[18.33] selected by lot for one year, according to the usage of the ancient Greek democracies, and from which the Christian “clergy” may have derived its name.[18.34] The presiding officer only was elected by vote. These officers passed the candidate through a kind of examination, and were required to certify that he was “holy, pious, and good.”[18.35]

There occurred in the two or three centuries which preceded the Christian era, a movement in favor of these little religious clubs, almost as marked as that which in the middle age produced so many religious orders and subdivisions of orders. In the island of Rhodes alone there is record of nineteen, many of which bore the names of their founders, or reformers.[18.36] Some of them, particularly those of Bacchus, inculcated lofty doctrines, and sought in good faith to administer consolation to man.[18.37] If there yet remained in Greek society a little charity, piety, or good morals, it was due to the existence and freedom of these private devotional assemblies. They acted as it were concurrently with the public and official religion, the neglect of which was becoming more and more apparent day by day. At Rome associations of this nature met with more opposition, and found no less favor among the poorer classes.[18.38] The rules of Roman policy in regard to secret confraternities were first promulgated under the republic (B.C. 186) in the case of the Bacchanals. The Romans were by natural taste much inclined to associations,[18.39] and in particular to those of a religious character;[18.40] but these permanent congregations were displeasing to the patrician order, who controlled the municipal power,[18.41] and whose narrow conceptions of life admitted no other social group besides the family and the State. The most minute precautions were taken, such as the requirement of a preliminary authorization, the limiting of the number of members, and the prohibition against having a permanent Magister sacrorum, and a common fund raised by subscription.[18.42] The same anxiety was manifested on several occasions under the empire. The body of public law contained clauses authorizing all kinds of repression;[18.43] but it depended on the administrative power whether they should be enforced or not, and the proscribed religions often reappeared in a very few years after their proscription.[18.44] Foreign immigration, especially from Syria, unceasingly renewed the soil in which flourished the creeds so vainly doomed to extirpation.

It is astonishing to observe to what an extent a subject, seemingly so unimportant, occupied the greatest minds of that age. It was one of the chief tasks of CÆsar and Augustus to prevent the formation of new clubs, and to destroy those already established.[18.45] A decree published under Augustus attempts to define positively the limits of the right of association, and whose limits were extremely narrow. The clubs (collegia) were to be merely for the purpose of celebrating funeral rites. They were permitted to meet no oftener than once a month; they were to attend only to the obsequies of deceased members, and under no pretext could they obtain an extension of their privileges.[18.46] The Empire resolved on performing the impossible. In logical sequence to its exaggerated notion of the state, it attempted to isolate the individual, to destroy every moral bond of fellowship among men, and to combat that legitimate longing of the poor to press closer together in some little refuge, as it were to keep each other warm. In ancient Greece the “city” was tyrannical, but it offered in exchange for its oppression so much amusement, enlightenment, and glory, that none thought of complaining. The citizen submitted quietly to its wildest caprices, and went to death for it with rapture. But the Roman empire was too vast to be one’s country. It offered to every one great material advantages, but it gave no one anything to love. The insupportable melancholy of such a life appeared worse than death.

Accordingly, in spite of the efforts of statesmen, the confraternities multiplied immensely. They were precisely analogous to our confraternities of the middle age, with their patron saint and their common refectory. The great families might centre their pride in their ancient name, their country, and their traditions; but the humble and the poor had nothing but the collegium, and there they fastened all their affections. The text of the law shows us that all these clubs were composed of slaves,[18.47] veterans,[18.48] or obscure persons.[18.49] Within their precincts the free-born man, the freedman, and the slave, were equal.[18.50] They contained also many women.[18.51] At the risk of innumerable taunts and annoyances, and sometimes of severer penalties, men persisted in entering the collegium, where they lived in the bonds of a pleasant brotherhood, where they found mutual succor in time of need, and where they contracted obligations which endured even after death.[18.52]

The place of meeting usually had a tetrastyle (portico with four fronts), where were set up the rules of the club near the altar of its protecting divinity, and where stood a triclinium for the repasts.[18.53] These repasts indeed were looked forward to with impatience; they took place on the day sacred to the patron divinity, or on the birthdays of members who had contributed endowments.[18.54] Every one brought his little portion; one of the brotherhood furnished in turn the accessories of the feast, such as couches, table-furniture, bread, wine, sardines, and hot water.[18.55] A slave, newly emancipated, owed his comrades an amphora of good wine.[18.56] A quiet air of enjoyment animated the repast; it was a positive rule that none of the business of the society should be discussed, in order that nothing might disturb the brief interval of enjoyment and repose which these poor souls were thus providing for themselves.[18.57] Every violent act or rude remark was punished by a fine.[18.58]

In appearance these clubs were simply associations for burial of the members.[18.59] But that object alone would have been enough to invest them with a moral character. In the Roman, as in our own time, and as in all ages when the religious sentiment is weakened, reverence for the tomb is nearly all that the masses retain. The poor man loved to believe that his body would not be cast into those horrible common trenches;[18.60] that his club would provide for his decent obsequies; that the brethren who should follow him on foot to the funeral pile would receive each a little honorarium[18.61] (about four cents) in testimony of respect for the departed.[18.62] The slave especially felt the need of an assurance that if his master denied him the privilege of the ordinary rites of sepulture, there would be a little band of friends who would perform “imaginary obsequies.”[18.63] Hardly any was so humble or destitute as not to contribute a penny per month to the common fund to procure after his death a little urn in a Columbarium, with a slab of marble on which his name should be carved. Sepulture among the Romans was of extreme importance, being closely connected with the sacra gentilitia, or family rites. Persons interred together even contracted a sort of intimate fraternity or relationship.[18.64]

These facts show why Christianity for a long time presented itself at Rome as a kind of funeral association, and why the earliest Christian sanctuaries were the tombs of the martyrs.[18.65] If Christianity had been nothing more, it would not have provoked so much hostility. But it was much more. It provided a common treasury;[18.66] it considered itself a complete municipality; it believed in its own assured permanency and continuity. When one enters on a Saturday night one of the Greek churches in Turkey, for example that of St. Photinus at Smyrna, he is struck with the power of those associated religious memberships existing in the midst of a persecuting or hostile community. That irregular collection of buildings (church, presbytery, school, prison); these brethren passing to and fro in their little inclosed city of refuge; these newly-opened tombs, with the lighted lamps within; this odor of dampness, decay, and mould; this murmur of prayer; these appeals for alms—create a deadened and subdued atmosphere which may, to a stranger, appear sufficiently monotonous or repulsive, but which must be full of attraction to the affiliated members.

The societies, when once provided with a special authorization, possessed at Rome all the rights and privileges of civil persons.[18.67] This authorization was, however, granted only with many restrictions whenever the society possessed a treasury and sought to concern itself with anything but sepulture.[18.68] The pretext of religious observances, or the performance of vows in common, was guarded against by law, and formally declared to be one of the circumstances which attached to an assembly the character of crime;[18.69] and the crime was nothing less than high treason, at least as regards the person who called the meeting together.[18.70] Claudius even closed the taverns where the brethren met, and the small eating-houses where the poor were furnished cheaply with hot water and boiled meat.[18.71] Trajan and the more liberal monarchs continued to view all these societies with distrust.[18.72] Low rank was an essential condition without which the privilege of religious assemblage was never accorded, and even then it was granted most sparingly.[18.73] The lawyers who built up the Roman jurisprudence, so eminent in legal science, displayed their ignorance of human nature by opposing in every way, even with the menace of death, and by hedging in with all sorts of odious and puerile restrictions an everlasting need of the soul of man.[18.74] Like the authors of the “Code Civil,” they regarded life with a wintry glance. If man’s life consisted in amusing himself under the orders of his superiors, in munching his crust and tasting his puny pleasures in his rank under the eye of a taskmaster, all this would be well devised. But the retribution awarded to social systems which follow this false and contracted view, is first a melancholy disgust, and next a violent triumph of religious partisans. Never will man consent to breathe that icy air. He needs the little circle, the brotherhood where he may live and die amongst his fellows. Our vast abstract social organizations are not sufficient to supply all the social instincts which exist in man. Let him alone to attach his heart to something, to seek consolation where it may be found, to make brothers to himself, and to draw closer the ties of affection. Let not the cold arm of the state break into this kingdom of the soul, which is also the realm of liberty. True life and happiness will not spring up again in this world until that sad heritage left us by Roman law, our inveterate distrust of the private assembly (collegium), shall have disappeared. Association independent of the state, without injury to the state, is the great question of the future. The laws to be made in regard to associations will determine whether or not modern society will tend to the same destiny as ancient. One example should suffice. The Roman empire bound its own existence to the law relating to unlawful assemblages. Christians and barbarians, accomplishing in this respect the task of human conscience, broke down that law, and the empire having planted itself thereon, went down with it.

The Greek and Roman world, a secular and profane world, which possessed not the true conception of a minister of religion, which had neither divine law nor a revealed word, had here stumbled upon a problem which it was unable to solve. And we may add that if it had possessed a body of consecrated priests, a severe theology, and a strongly organized system of religion, it would not have created the secular state, or inaugurated the idea of a social system founded merely on reason, and on the human wants and natural relations of individuals. The religious inferiority of the Greeks and Romans was the result of their political and intellectual superiority. The religious superiority of the Jews, on the contrary, has proved the cause of their political and philosophical inferiority. Judaism and primitive Christianity comprised the negation of the civil authority, or perhaps we may more accurately say the putting it under guardianship. Like the system of Mahomet, they established social order upon the basis of religion. When human affairs are controlled from that direction, great and universal proselytisms are made, apostles traverse the world from end to end, reforming and converting it; but in that manner are not constructed political institutions, national independence, a dynasty, a code, or a homogeneous people.