(Scripture Reading Exercise.)

MORAL STATUS OF THE CHURCH AFTER CONSTANTINE.

Christianity Before and After Constantine: I think sufficient has been said to justify the belief that the reign of Constantine marks the period when the paganization of Christianity had become complete. I do not mean by this that there is any particular date which one may set down to show that here true Christianity ceases, and there apostate Christianity begins; which is a point frequently insisted upon by those who contend for the unbroken perpetuity of Christianity from the days of Messiah. They demand to know on what night it was that the whole collection of Christians, of different nationalities and languages, went to bed sound in the Christian faith, to awaken the next morning all pagan.^[A] I claim no such sudden revolution brought about the apostasy which I am sure took place. We have seen by what has already been said, that even in the time of the Apostles, there was a tendency on the part of the Christians to depart from the religion of Jesus Christ; that after the days of the Apostles there was a steady increase in the number and influence of false teachers; an insidious introduction of heresies; a multiplication of rites and ceremonies well known in the pagan celebration of religious mysteries, but entirely foreign to the Gospel; and an amalgamation or pagan doctrines with Christian principles. It remains to be shown that there was a steady increase of immorality among the professing Christians; a marked loss of spirituality; a rapid growth of pride and worldliness on the part of Christian bishops and other church leaders; and, at last, an utter departure from the true and living God, and Jesus Christ, whom He had sent, and the establishment of a system in its place as debasing to men as it was dishonorable to God.

[Footnote A: End of Religious Controversy, Milner, Letter 26.]

Taking then the reign of Constantine as the period beyond which the true religion of Christ did not extend, nor the true Church of Christ exist, let us consider Christianity before his reign and after it. Here I shall ask the reader to take into account as part of the consideration of Christianity previous to Constantine what I have already set before him in this treatise concerning the tendency to diversions and heresies which existed in the Church in the days of the Apostles; and also those quotations I have made from eminent Christian authorities, which give evidence of the early corruptions of Christianity, and which too plainly testify that it was in a state of steady decline through the second and third centuries, until it was fit only for such enthronement as a Constantine could give it, when he made it the state religion of a corrupt empire, hastening to its decay. If the reader will do this, it will obviate the necessity of my referring to these matters again.

Decline in Moral and Spiritual Living Among Christians: It will be conceded that the Gospel of Jesus Christ commands a very high order of moral and spiritual living and that the Apostles enjoined this moral law upon the early saints as essential to the favor of God. Others, also, after the days of the Apostles, followed in the same admonition, and, indeed, the sharp contrast that existed between the lives of converts before and after their acceptance of Christianity was a matter of pride not only to St. Paul,^[A] but to Justin Martyr, of the second century, who, in reference to the change produced in the lives of Christian converts, said:

[Footnote A: Cor. vi:9-11.]

Moral Status of Christians of the Second Century: "WE who were once slaves of lust, now have delight only in purity of morals; we, who once practiced arts of magic, have consecrated ourselves to the Eternal and Good God; we, who once prized gain above all things, give even what we have to the common use, and share it with such as are in need; we, who once hated and murdered one another, who on account of differences of customs would have no common hearth with strangers, do now, since the appearance of Christ, live together with them; we pray for our enemies; we seek to convince those that hate us without cause, so that they may order their lives according to Christ's glorious doctrine, and attain to the joyful hope of receiving like blessings with us from God, the Lord of all."^[A]

[Footnote A: Neander Ch. Hist., vol. I, p. 250.]

It was not long, however, before there was a marked departure from this high moral level among the Christians. In tracing that decline I shall use chiefly the History of the Church, by Joseph Milner, published in 1794. My reason for doing so is this, as I have already stated in this writing, he wrote what some regard as his great history of the Church to counteract the influence of Dr. Mosheim's splendid "Institutes of Ecclesiastical History," which is evidently by some regarded as too much a history of the perversions and abuses of religion. Milner plainly informs his readers that he intends to write the history of those only who have been real, not nominal, Christians, irrespective of the external Church to which they belonged, proceeding upon the theory that these good men constitute the Church of Christ. His history, in other words, is a history of piety, not of the Church. It will be his purpose, therefore, to exalt the morality of the Christians of all ages, and I quote his work respecting the moral deterioration of the Christians that I may not be charged with quoting authorities who some think have made too much of Christian shortcomings. Milner says that a gloomy cloud, concerning moral conditions, hung over the close of the first century, and proceeds to argue that the first impressions made by the effusions of the spirit are the strongest; that human depravity overborne for a time arose afresh; particularly in the next generation, and hence the disorders of schisms and heresies in the Church. Neander does not agree with the philosophy of Milner. He says: "Christianity, since it first entered human nature, has operated, wherever it has struck root, with the same divine power for sanctification; and this divine power cannot be weakened by the lapse of ages. In this respect, therefore, the period of the first appearance of Christianity could have no advantage over any of the following ages of the Christian Church."^[A] And he follows this declaration with a. statement that the change which Christianity produced in the lives of those who accepted it appeared so strongly marked, by the contrast it presented with what they had previously been when pagans. The correctness of the philosophy I shall leave these two great Christian authorities to settle between themselves. I am concerned more particularly with the facts in the case.

[Footnote A: Neander Ch. Hist., vol. I, p. 259.]

In consequence of the prominence that has been given to the persecutions of the Christians during the first three centuries, the impression very extensively prevails that the early Christian Church was constantly under the hard pressure of continuous and relentless persecution. This, however, is not the case. There were many periods of peace granted to the Christians. Indeed, their periods of persecution were only occasional, and it is a question if these periods of peace were not more detrimental to Christianity than the seasons of persecution. Milner, under the authority of Origen, says that the long peace granted the Church in the third century, during the reigns of the several emperors, from about 260 A. D. to the opening of the fourth century, produced a great degree of lukewarmness and religious indecorum. "Let the reader," he says, "only notice the indifference which Origen here describes and the conduct of the Christians both in the first and second centuries, and he will be affected with the greatness of the declension." Then he quotes Origen: "Several come to church only on solemn festivals, and then not so much for instruction as diversion. Some go out again as soon as they have heard the lecture, without conferring or asking the pastors questions. Others stay not till the lecturers ended, and others hear not so much as a single word, but entertain themselves in a corner of the church."^[A]

[Footnote A: Ibid.]

Coming to the middle of the third century, just previous to that severe persecution inaugurated by the Emperor Decius, and speaking of Cyprian, Bishop of Carthage, Milner exclaims: "A star of the first magnitude, when we consider the time in which he lived! Let us recreate ourselves with the contemplation of it. We are fatigued with hunting for Christian goodness, and we have discovered but little, and that little with much difficulty. We shall find Cyprian to be a character who partook, indeed, of the declensions which we have noticed and lamented, but who was still far superior, I apprehend, in real simplicity and piety, to the Christians of the East."^[A] This same Cyprian, in whom Milner delights speaking of the effects of the long peace upon the Church which preceded the Decian persecution, says:

[Footnote A: Milner's Ch. Hist. vol. I, cent. iii. ch. vi.]

Each had been bent on improving his own patrimony, and had forgotten what believers had done under the Apostles, and what they ought always to do. They were brooding over the arts of amassing wealth; the pastors and the deacons each forgot his duty; works of mercy were neglected, and discipline was at the lowest ebb; luxury and effeminacy prevailed; meretricious arts in dress were cultivated; fraud and deception practiced among brthren Christians would unite themselves in matrimony with unbelievers; could swear, not only without reverence but even without veracity. With haughty asperity they despised their ecclesiastical superiors! They railed against one another with outrageous acrimony, and conducted quarrels with determined malice. Even many bishops, who ought to be guides and patterns to thhe rest, neglected the peculiar duties of their stations, gave themselves up to secular pursuits. They deserted their places of residence and their flocks; they traveled through distant provinces in quest of pleasure and gain; have no assistance to their needy brethren, but were insatiable in their thirst of money. They possessed estates by fraud and multiplied usury. What have we deserved to suffer for such conduct? Even the divine word hath foretold us that we might expect: "If his children forsake my law and walk not in my judgments, I will visit their offenses with the rod and their sins with scourges." These things had ben denounced and foretold, but in vain. Our sins had brought our affairs to that pass, that because we had despised the Lord's directions, we were obliged to undergo a correction of our multiplied evils and a trial of our faith be severe remedies.^[A]

[Footnote A: Ibid.]

Referring to the long reign of peace in the closing decades of the third century, Milner says:

This new [the toleration of Christianity by a pagan government] did not prove favorable to the growth of grave and holiness. In no period since the Apostles was there ever so great a general decay as in this. Not even in particular instances can we discover during this interval much of lively Christianity.^[A]

[Footnote A: Milner's Ch. Hist., vol. I, cent, iii, ch. xvii.]

Here I drop Milner to take up Eusebius, who was an eyewitness of the moral declension among the Christians previous to the last great pagan persecution under the emperor Diocletian. Referring to the long period of peace which the Church had enjoyed—a period of forty years—he says:

But when, by reason of excessive liberty, we sunk into negligence and sloth, one envying and reviling another in different ways, and we were almost, as it were, upon the point of taking up arms against each other with words as with darts and spears, prelates inveighing against prelates, and people rising up against people, and hypocrisy and dissimulation had risen to the greatest height of malignity, then the divine judgment, which usually proceeds with a lenient hand, whilst the multitude were yet crowding into the Church, with gentle and mild visitations began to afflict the episcopacy; the persecution having begun with those brthren in the army. But as if destitute of all sensibility, we were not prompt in measures to appease and propitiate the Deity; some inded like atheists, regarding our situation as unheeded and unobserved by a Providence, we added one wickedness and misery to another. But some that appeared to be our pastors deserting the law of piety, were inflamed against each other with mutual strifes, only accumulating quarrels and threats, rivalship, hostility and hatred to each other, only anxious to assert the government as a kind of sovereignty for themselves.^[A]

[Footnote A: Eusebius' Eccl. Hist., bk. viii, ch. i.]

Here I shall avail myself of some reflections upon this condition which I have elsewhere expressed:^[A] Let it be remembered that what is said in the foregoing quotation is from a writer contemporary with the events, and who says, in the very chapter following the one from which I have just quoted, that it was not for him to record the dissensions and follies which the shepherds of the people exercised against each other before the persecution. He also adds: "We shall not make mention of those that were shaken by the persecution, nor of those that suffered shipwreck in their salvation, and of their own accord were sunk in the depths of the watery gulf."^[B] Then in his Book of Martyrs, referring to events that occurred between the edicts ordering the persecution, he says: "But the events that occurred in the intermediate times, besides those already related. I have thought proper to pass by; I mean more particularly the circumstances of the different heads of the churches, who from being shepherds of the reasonable flocks of Christ, that did not govern in a lawful and becoming manner, were condemned, by divine justice, as unworthy of such a charge, to be the keepers of the unreasonable camel, an animal deformed in the structure of his body: and condemned further to be the keepers of the imperial horses. * * * * * Moreover, the ambitious aspirings of many to office, and the injudicious and unlawful ordinations that took place, the divisions among the confessors themselves, the great schisms and difficulties industriously fomented by the factions among the new members, against the relics of the Church, devising one innovation after another, and unmercifully thrusting them into the midst of all these calamities, heaping up affliction upon affliction. All this, I say, I have resolved to pass by, judging it foreign to my purpose, wishing, as I said in the beginning, to shun and avoid giving an account of them."^[C] Hence, however bad the condition of the Church is represented to be by ecclesiastical writers, we must know that it was still worse than that; however numerous the schisms, however unholy the ambition of aspiring prelates, however frequent and serious the innovations upon the primitive ordinances of the Gospel; howsoever great the confusion and apostasy in the Church is represented to be, we must know that it is still worse than that, since the Church historians contemporaneous with the events refused to record these things in their fullness, lest it should prove disastrous to the Church; just as some of our modern scholars, professing to write Church history, express their determination to close their eyes to the corruption and abuses which form the greater part of the melancholy story of ecclesiastical history, for fear that relating these things would make it appear that real religion scarcely had any existence.^[D]

[Footnote A: New Witness for God, pp. 75, 76.]

[Footnote B: Eusebius' Eccl. Hist., bk. viii, ch. ii.]

[Footnote c: Book of Martyrs, ch. xii.]

[Footnote D: See Milner's Introduction to his Church Hist., vol. I.]

Constantine's Nicean Plan of Propaganda: I shall say no more upon the matter of moral declensions among Christians, except this. If there was such moral declension among Christians as is represented by the foregoing high authorities on Christian affairs in the centuries preceding Constantine, what moral declension must have prevailed when from a proscribed religion Christianity was exalted to the dignity of the state religion of the empire; and her prelates and clergy were recalled from exile and suffering, poverty and disgrace, and loaded with the wealth and honors that the lord of the Roman world could bestow? Consider, in this connection, the propositions of Constantine at the council of Nicea for the propaganda of Christianity, and pass a candid judgment upon the moral or rather immoral effect they would produce upon the Church. Neander thus states them:

"The heathen would be most easily led to salvation, if the condition of the Christians were made to appear to them in all respects enviable.

"They (the bishops) should consider, that the advantage to be derived from preaching could not belong to all.

"Some, he said, might be drawn to the faith by being seasonably supplied with the means of subsistence.

"Others were accustomed to repair to that quarter where they found protection and intercession (alluding to the intercessions of the bishops).

"Others would be won by an affable reception.

"Others by being honored with presents.

"There were but few who honestly loved the exhibitions of religious doctrine; but few were the friends of truth (therefore but few sincere converts).

"For this reason they should accommodate themselves to the characters of all, and like skillful physicians, give to each man that which might contribute to his cure, so that in every way the saving doctrine might be glorified in all."^[A]

[Footnote A: Neander's Ch. Hist., vol. ii, pp. 29-30.]

The effect of adopting such methods for the more rapid propagation of Christianity, as is here proposed by the emperor to the bishops assembled at the council at Nicea, must be apparent to all, and is quite universally lamented by Christian writers of later ages. "A course of proceeding upon such principles," remarks Neander himself, "must entirely have thrown open a wide door for all manner of hypocrisy. Even Eusebius, the panegyrist of Constantine, blinded as he was by the splendor which the latter had outwardly cast over the Church—even he is obliged to reckon among the grievous evils of this period, of which he was an eye witness, the indescribable hypocrisy of those who gave themselves out as Christians merely for temporal advantage, and who, by their outward show of zeal for the faith, contrived to win the confidence of the emperor, which he suffered them to abuse." ^[A] "The piercing eye of ambition and avarice," says Gibbon, "soon discovered that the profession of Christianity might contribute to the interest of the present as well as of a future life. The hopes of wealth and honors, the example of an emperor, his exportations, his irresistible smiles, diffused conviction among the venal and obsequious crowds which usually fill the apartments of a palace. The cities, which signalized a forward zeal by the voluntary destruction of their temples, were distinguished by municipal privileges and rewarded with popular donatives. * * * * As the lower ranks of society are governed by imitation, the conversion of those who possessed any eminence of birth, of power, or of riches, was soon followed by dependent multitudes. The salvation of the common people was purchased at an easy rate, if it be true that in one year twelve thousand men were baptized at Rome, besides a proportionable number of women and children; and that a white garment, with twenty pieces of gold had been promised by the emperor to every convert."^[B]

[Footnote A: Neander's Ch. His., vol. ii, p. 30.]

[Footnote B: Decline and Fall, ch. xx.]

Under all these circumstances it is small wonder if men exclaimed as Augustine did somewhat later in his commentary on St. John—"How many seek Jesus only that He may benefit them in earthly matters! One man has a law suit, so he seeks the intercession of the clergy; another is oppressed by his superior, so he takes refuge in the Church. Others are seeking, one in this way and another in that, to be interceded for in some quarter where they have but little influence themselves. The Church is daily full of such persons. Seldom is Jesus sought for Jesus' sake!"^[A] After nicely balancing the possibility and probability of those who came into the Church for present worldly advantage being converted in time to a true faith in the Christian religion, Neander says: "Beyond all doubt the number was far greater of those who grew hardened in that worldly sense by which from the first they had profaned a holy profession, and who were thus the means of introducing into the Church a great mass of corruption."

[Footnote A: Augustine on St. John, tract 25, ch. 10.]

"Unhappily," he adds, "there were bishops whose only wish was to make the conversion to Christianity a right easy thing for the pagans. * * * * * Hence they baptized even those who lived in open sin, and who plainly enough manifested that it was not their purpose to forsake it. They imagined that when these were only baptized and introduced into the fellowship of the Church, it was then time enough to admonish them against sin."^[A]

[Footnote A: Neander's Ch. Hist., vol. ii, p. 120.]

The Evil Effects of the Nicean Program: Surely it was not difficult among such a mass of unconverted members thus brought into the Church to find elements that would foster the errors, both in ethics and in doctrine, which about this time arose in the Church. It is small wonder that it was well nigh publicly adopted in this age—as we are informed by Mosheim—"That to deceive and lie is a virtue when religion can be promoted by it, and that error in religion ought to be visited with penalties and punishments." The first of these evils resulted in the accumulation of that mass of myth and fable that burdens the annals of the dark ages; the second established the "holy inquisition," alike the shame of the Roman Catholic church and the so-called Christian civilization she has influenced. "It is almost incredible," continues Mosheim, speaking of the first evil referred to, "what a mass of the most insipid fables, and what a host of pious falsehoods have, through all the centuries, grown out of it, to the great detriment of true religion. If some inquisitive person were to examine the conduct and the writings of the great and most pious teachers of this century, I fear he would find about all of them infected with this leprosy." "Those idle fictions," he adds, "which a regard for the Platonic philosophy, and for the prevailing opinions of the day had induced most theologians to embrace, even before the time of Constantine, were now in various ways confirmed, extended and embellished. Hence it is that we see, on every side, evident traces of excessive veneration for departed saints; of a purifying fire for the soul when separated from the body; of the celibacy of the clergy; of the worship of images and relics, and of many other opinions, which in process of time almost banished the true religion, or"—and here the Doctor perhaps remembered that he was a Protestant and that his position as such would not admit of conceding the utter subversion of the Christian religion, and hence added—"or at least very much obscured and corrupted it." Genuine piety was supplanted by a long train of superstitious observances, which originated partly from opinions inconsiderately embraced, partly from a preposterous disposition to adopt profane rites and combine them with Christian worship, and partly from the natural predilection of mankind in general for a splendid and ostentatious religion.