Chapter V. the Position of Women.

In the long series of moral revolutions that have been described in the foregoing chapters, I have more than once had occasion to refer to the position that was assigned to woman in the community, and to the virtues and vices that spring directly from the relations of the sexes. I have not, however, as yet discussed these questions with a fulness at all corresponding to their historical importance, and I propose, in consequence, before concluding this volume, to devote a few pages to their examination. Of all the many questions that are treated in this work, there is none which I approach with so much hesitation, for there is probably none which it is so difficult to treat with clearness and impartiality, and at the same time without exciting any scandal or offence. The complexity of the problem, arising from the very large place which exceptional institutions or circumstances, and especially the influence of climate and race, have had on the chastity of nations, I have already noticed, and the extreme delicacy of the matters with which this branch of ethics is connected must be palpable to all. The first duty of an historian, however, is to truth; and it is absolutely impossible to present a true picture of the moral condition of different ages, and to form a true estimate of the moral effects of different religions, without adverting to the department of morals, which has exhibited most change, and has probably exercised most influence.

It is natural that, in the period when men are still perfect barbarians, when their habits of life are still nomadic, and when, war and the chase, being their sole pursuits, the qualities that are required in these form their chief measure of excellence, the inferiority of women to men should be regarded as undoubted, and their position should be extremely degraded. In all those qualities which are then most prized, women are indisputably inferior. The social qualities in which they are especially fitted to excel have no sphere for their display. The ascendancy of beauty is very faint, and, even if it were otherwise, few traces of female beauty could survive the hardships of the savage life. Woman is looked upon merely as the slave of man, and as the minister to his passions. In the first capacity, her life is one of continual, abject, and unrequited toil. In the second capacity, she is exposed to all the violent revulsions of feeling that follow, among rude men, the gratification of the animal passions.

Even in this early stage, however, we may trace some rudiments of those moral sentiments which are destined at a later period to expand. The institution of marriage exists. The value of chastity is commonly in some degree felt, and appears in the indignation which is displayed against the adulterer. The duty of restraining the passions is largely recognised in the female, though the males are only restricted by the prohibition of adultery.

The first two steps which are taken towards the elevation of woman are probably the abandonment of the custom of purchasing wives, and the construction of the family on the basis of monogamy. In the earliest periods of civilisation, the marriage contract was arranged between the bridegroom and the father of the bride, on the condition of a sum of money being paid by the former to the latter. This sum, which is known in the laws of the barbarians as the “mundium,”(552) was in fact a payment to the father for the cession of his daughter, who thus became the bought slave of her husband. It is one of the most remarkable features of the ancient laws of India, that they forbade this gift, on the ground that the parent should not sell his child;(553) but there can be little doubt that this sale was at one time the ordinary type of marriage. In the Jewish writings we find Jacob purchasing Leah and Rachel by certain services to their father; and this custom, which seems to have been at one time general in Judea,(554) appears in the age of Homer to have been general in Greece. At an early period, however, of Greek history, the purchase-money was replaced by the dowry, or sum of money paid by the father of the bride for the use of his daughter;(555) and this, although it passed into the hands of the husband, contributed to elevate the wife, in the first place, by the dignity it gave her, and, in the next place, by special laws, which both in Greece and Rome secured it to her in most cases of separation.(556) The wife thus possessed a guarantee against ill-usage by her husband. She ceased to be his slave, and became in some degree a contracting party. Among the early Germans, a different and very remarkable custom existed. The bride did not bring any dowry to her husband, nor did the bridegroom give anything to the father of the bride; but he gave his gift to the bride herself, on the morning after the first night of marriage, and this, which was called the “Morgengab,” or morning gift, was the origin of the jointure.(557)

Still more important than the foregoing was the institution of monogamy, by which, from its earliest days, the Greek civilisation proclaimed its superiority to the Asiatic civilisations that had preceded it. We may regard monogamy either in the light of our intuitive moral sentiment on the subject of purity, or in the light of the interests of society. In its Oriental or polygamous stage, marriage is regarded almost exclusively, in its lowest aspect, as a gratification of the passions; while in European marriages the mutual attachment and respect of the contracting parties, the formation of a household, and the long train of domestic feelings and duties that accompany it, have all their distinguished place among the motives of the contract, and the lower element has comparatively little prominence. In this way it may be intelligibly said, without any reference to utilitarian considerations, that monogamy is a higher state than polygamy. The utilitarian arguments in its defence are also extremely powerful, and may be summed up in three sentences. Nature, by making the number of males and females nearly equal, indicates it as natural. In no other form of marriage can the government of the family, which is one of the chief ends of marriage, be so happily sustained, and in no other does woman assume the position of the equal of man.

Monogamy was the general system in Greece, though there are said to have been slight and temporary deviations into the earlier system, after some great disasters, when an increase of population was ardently desired.(558) A broad line must, however, be drawn between the legendary or poetical period, as reflected in Homer and perpetuated in the tragedians, and the later historical period. It is one of the most remarkable, and to some writers one of the most perplexing, facts in the moral history of Greece, that in the former and ruder period women had undoubtedly the highest place, and their type exhibited the highest perfection. Moral ideas, in a thousand forms, have been sublimated, enlarged, and changed, by advancing civilisation; but it may be fearlessly asserted that the types of female excellence which are contained in the Greek poems, while they are among the earliest, are also among the most perfect in the literature of mankind. The conjugal tenderness of Hector and Andromache; the unwearied fidelity of Penelope, awaiting through the long revolving years the return of her storm-tossed husband, who looked forward to her as to the crown of all his labours; the heroic love of Alcestis, voluntarily dying that her husband might live; the filial piety of Antigone; the majestic grandeur of the death of Polyxena; the more subdued and saintly resignation of Iphigenia, excusing with her last breath the father who had condemned her; the joyous, modest, and loving Nausicaa, whose figure shines like a perfect idyll among the tragedies of the Odyssey—all these are pictures of perennial beauty, which Rome and Christendom, chivalry and modern civilisation, have neither eclipsed nor transcended. Virgin modesty and conjugal fidelity, the graces as well as the virtues of the most perfect womanhood, have never been more exquisitely pourtrayed. The female figures stand out in the canvas almost as prominently as the male ones, and are surrounded by an almost equal reverence. The whole history of the Siege of Troy is a history of the catastrophes that followed a violation of the nuptial tie. Yet, at the same time, the position of women was in some respects a degraded one. The custom of purchase-money given to the father of the bride was general. The husbands appear to have indulged largely, and with little or no censure, in concubines.(559) Female captives of the highest rank were treated with great harshness. The inferiority of women to men was strongly asserted, and it was illustrated and defended by a very curious physiological notion, that the generative power belonged exclusively to men, women having only a very subordinate part in the production of their children.(560) The woman Pandora was said to have been the author of all human ills.

In the historical age of Greece, the legal position of women had in some respects slightly improved, but their moral condition had undergone a marked deterioration. Virtuous women lived a life of perfect seclusion. The foremost and most dazzling type of Ionic womanhood was the courtesan, while, among the men, the latitude accorded by public opinion was almost unrestricted.

The facts in moral history, which it is at once most important and most difficult to appreciate, are what may be called the facts of feeling. It is much easier to show what men did or taught than to realise the state of mind that rendered possible such actions or teaching; and in the case before us we have to deal with a condition of feeling so extremely remote from that of our own day, that the difficulty is preeminently great. Very sensual, and at the same time very brilliant societies, have indeed repeatedly existed, and the histories of both France and Italy afford many examples of an artistic and intellectual enthusiasm encircling those who were morally most frail; but the peculiarity of Greek sensuality is, that it grew up, for the most part, uncensured, and indeed even encouraged, under the eyes of some of the most illustrious of moralists. If we can imagine Ninon de l’Enclos at a time when the rank and splendour of Parisian society thronged her drawing-rooms, reckoning a Bossuet or a Fénelon among her followers—if we can imagine these prelates publicly advising her about the duties of her profession, and the means of attaching the affections of her lovers—we shall have conceived a relation scarcely more strange than that which existed between Socrates and the courtesan Theodota.

In order to reconstruct, as far as possible, the modes of feeling of the Greek moralists, it will be necessary in the first place to say a few words concerning one of the most delicate, but at the same time most important, problems with which the legislator and the moralist have to deal.

It was a favourite doctrine of the Christian Fathers, that concupiscence, or the sensual passion, was “the original sin” of human nature; and it must be owned that the progress of knowledge, which is usually extremely opposed to the ascetic theory of life, concurs with the theological view, in showing the natural force of this appetite to be far greater than the well-being of man requires. The writings of Malthus have proved, what the Greek moralists appear in a considerable degree to have seen, that its normal and temperate exercise in the form of marriage, would produce, if universal, the utmost calamities to the world, and that, while nature seems in the most unequivocal manner to urge the human race to early marriages, the first condition of an advancing civilisation in populous countries is to restrain or diminish them. In no highly civilised society is marriage general on the first development of the passions, and the continual tendency of increasing knowledge is to render such marriages more rare. It is also an undoubted truth that, however much moralists may enforce the obligation of extra-matrimonial purity, this obligation has never been even approximately regarded; and in all nations, ages, and religions a vast mass of irregular indulgence has appeared, which has probably contributed more than any other single cause to the misery and the degradation of man.

There are two ends which a moralist, in dealing with this question, will especially regard—the natural duty of every man doing something for the support of the child he has called into existence, and the preservation of the domestic circle unassailed and unpolluted. The family is the centre and the archetype of the State, and the happiness and goodness of society are always in a very great degree dependent upon the purity of domestic life. The essentially exclusive nature of marital affection, and the natural desire of every man to be certain of the paternity of the child he supports, render the incursions of irregular passions within the domestic circle a cause of extreme suffering. Yet it would appear as if the excessive force of these passions would render such incursions both frequent and inevitable.

Under these circumstances, there has arisen in society a figure which is certainly the most mournful, and in some respects the most awful, upon which the eye of the moralist can dwell. That unhappy being whose very name is a shame to speak; who counterfeits with a cold heart the transports of affection, and submits herself as the passive instrument of lust; who is scorned and insulted as the vilest of her sex, and doomed, for the most part, to disease and abject wretchedness and an early death, appears in every age as the perpetual symbol of the degradation and the sinfulness of man. Herself the supreme type of vice, she is ultimately the most efficient guardian of virtue. But for her, the unchallenged purity of countless happy homes would be polluted, and not a few who, in the pride of their untempted chastity, think of her with an indignant shudder, would have known the agony of remorse and of despair. On that one degraded and ignoble form are concentrated the passions that might have filled the world with shame. She remains, while creeds and civilisations rise and fall, the eternal priestess of humanity, blasted for the sins of the people.

In dealing with this unhappy being, and with all of her sex who have violated the law of chastity, the public opinion of most Christian countries pronounces a sentence of extreme severity. In the Anglo-Saxon nations especially, a single fault of this kind is sufficient, at least in the upper and middle classes, to affix an indelible brand which no time, no virtues, no penitence can wholly efface. This sentence is probably, in the first instance, simply the expression of the religious feeling on the subject, but it is also sometimes defended by powerful arguments drawn from the interests of society. It is said that the preservation of domestic purity is a matter of such transcendent importance that it is right that the most crushing penalties should be attached to an act which the imagination can easily transfigure, which legal enactments can never efficiently control, and to which the most violent passions may prompt. It is said, too, that an anathema which drives into obscurity all evidences of sensual passions is peculiarly fitted to restrict their operation; for, more than any other passions, they are dependent on the imagination, which is readily fired by the sight of evil. It is added, that the emphasis with which the vice is stigmatised produces a corresponding admiration for the opposite virtue, and that a feeling of the most delicate and scrupulous honour is thus formed among the female population, which not only preserves from gross sin, but also dignifies and ennobles the whole character.

In opposition to these views, several considerations of much weight have been urged. It is argued that, however persistently society may ignore this form of vice, it exists nevertheless, and on the most gigantic scale, and that evil rarely assumes such inveterate and perverting forms as when it is shrouded in obscurity and veiled by an hypocritical appearance of unconsciousness. The existence in England of certainly not less than fifty thousand unhappy women,(561) sunk in the very lowest depths of vice and misery, shows sufficiently what an appalling amount of moral evil is festering uncontrolled, undiscussed, and unalleviated, under the fair surface of a decorous society. In the eyes of every physician, and indeed in the eyes of most continental writers who have adverted to the subject, no other feature of English life appears so infamous as the fact that an epidemic, which is one of the most dreadful now existing among mankind, which communicates itself from the guilty husband to the innocent wife, and even transmits its taint to her offspring, and which the experience of other nations conclusively proves may be vastly diminished, should be suffered to rage unchecked because the Legislature refuses to take official cognisance of its existence, or proper sanitary measures for its repression.(562) If the terrible censure which English public opinion passes upon every instance of female frailty in some degree diminishes the number, it does not prevent such instances from being extremely numerous, and it immeasurably aggravates the suffering they produce. Acts which in other European countries would excite only a slight and transient emotion, spread in England, over a wide circle, all the bitterness of unmitigated anguish. Acts which naturally neither imply nor produce a total subversion of the moral feelings, and which, in other countries, are often followed by happy, virtuous, and affectionate lives, in England almost invariably lead to absolute ruin. Infanticide is greatly multiplied, and a vast proportion of those whose reputations and lives have been blasted by one momentary sin, are hurled into the abyss of habitual prostitution—a condition which, owing to the sentence of public opinion and the neglect of legislators, is in no other European country so hopelessly vicious or so irrevocable.(563)

It is added, too, that the immense multitude who are thus doomed to the extremity of life-long wretchedness are not always, perhaps not generally, of those whose dispositions seem naturally incapable of virtue. The victims of seduction are often led aside quite as much by the ardour of their affections, and by the vivacity of their intelligence, as by any vicious propensities.(564) Even in the lowest grades, the most dispassionate observers have detected remains of higher feelings, which, in a different moral atmosphere, and under different moral husbandry, would have undoubtedly been developed.(565) The statistics of prostitution show that a great proportion of those who have fallen into it have been impelled by the most extreme poverty, in many instances verging upon starvation.(566)

These opposing considerations, which I have very briefly indicated, and which I do not propose to discuss or to estimate, will be sufficient to exhibit the magnitude of the problem. In the Greek civilisation, legislators and moralists endeavoured to meet it by the cordial recognition of two distinct orders of womanhood(567)—the wife, whose first duty was fidelity to her husband; the hetæra, or mistress, who subsisted by her fugitive attachments. The wives of the Greeks lived in almost absolute seclusion. They were usually married when very young. Their occupations were to weave, to spin, to embroider, to superintend the household, to care for their sick slaves. They lived in a special and retired part of the house. The more wealthy seldom went abroad, and never except when accompanied by a female slave; never attended the public spectacles; received no male visitors except in the presence of their husbands, and had not even a seat at their own tables when male guests were there. Their pre-eminent virtue was fidelity, and it is probable that this was very strictly and very generally observed. Their remarkable freedom from temptations, the public opinion which strongly discouraged any attempt to seduce them, and the ample sphere for illicit pleasures that was accorded to the other sex, all contributed to protect it. On the other hand, living, as they did, almost exclusively among their female slaves, being deprived of all the educating influence of male society, and having no place at those public spectacles which were the chief means of Athenian culture, their minds must necessarily have been exceedingly contracted. Thucydides doubtless expressed the prevailing sentiment of his countrymen when he said that the highest merit of woman is not to be spoken of either for good or for evil; and Phidias illustrated the same feeling when he represented the heavenly Aphrodite standing on a tortoise, typifying thereby the secluded life of a virtuous woman.(568)

In their own restricted sphere their lives were probably not unhappy. Education and custom rendered the purely domestic life that was assigned to them a second nature, and it must in most instances have reconciled them to the extra-matrimonial connections in which their husbands too frequently indulged. The prevailing manners were very gentle. Domestic oppression is scarcely ever spoken of; the husband lived chiefly in the public place; causes of jealousy and of dissension could seldom occur; and a feeling of warm affection, though not a feeling of equality, must doubtless have in most cases spontaneously arisen. In the writings of Xenophon we have a charming picture of a husband who had received into his arms his young wife of fifteen, absolutely ignorant of the world and of its ways. He speaks to her with extreme kindness, but in the language that would be used to a little child. Her task, he tells her, is to be like a queen bee, dwelling continually at home and superintending the work of her slaves. She must distribute to each their tasks, must economise the family income, and must take especial care that the house is strictly orderly—the shoes, the pots, and the clothes always in their places. It is also, he tells her, a part of her duty to tend her sick slaves; but here his wife interrupted him, exclaiming, “Nay, but that will indeed be the most agreeable of my offices, if such as I treat with kindness are likely to be grateful, and to love me more than before.” With a very tender and delicate care to avoid everything resembling a reproach, the husband persuades his wife to give up the habits of wearing high-heeled boots, in order to appear tall, and of colouring her face with vermilion and white lead. He promises her that if she faithfully performs her duties he will himself be the first and most devoted of her slaves. He assured Socrates that when any domestic dispute arose he could extricate himself admirably, if he was in the right; but that, whenever he was in the wrong, he found it impossible to convince his wife that it was otherwise.(569)

We have another picture of Greek married life in the writings of Plutarch, but it represents the condition of the Greek mind at a later period than that of Xenophon. In Plutarch the wife is represented not as the mere housekeeper, or as the chief slave of her husband, but as his equal and his companion. He enforces, in the strongest terms, reciprocity of obligations, and desires that the minds of women should be cultivated to the highest point.(570) His precepts of marriage, indeed, fall little if at all below any that have appeared in modern days. His letter of consolation to his wife, on the death of their child, breathes a spirit of the tenderest affection. It is recorded of him that, having had some dispute with the relations of his wife, she feared that it might impair their domestic happiness, and she accordingly persuaded her husband to accompany her on a pilgrimage to Mount Helicon, where they offered up together a sacrifice to Love, and prayed that their affection for one another might never be diminished.

In general, however, the position of the virtuous Greek woman was a very low one. She was under a perpetual tutelage: first of all to her parents, who disposed of her hand, then to her husband, and in her days of widowhood to her sons. In cases of inheritance her male relations were preferred to her. The privilege of divorce, which, in Athens, at least, she possessed as well as her husband, appears to have been practically almost nugatory, on account of the shock which public declarations in the law court gave to the habits which education and public opinion had formed. She brought with her, however, a dowry, and the recognised necessity of endowing daughters was one of the causes of those frequent expositions which were perpetrated with so little blame. The Athenian law was also peculiarly careful and tender in dealing with the interests of female orphans.(571) Plato had argued that women were equal to men; but the habits of the people were totally opposed to this theory. Marriage was regarded chiefly in a civic light, as the means of producing citizens, and in Sparta it was ordered that old or infirm husbands should cede their young wives to stronger men, who could produce vigorous soldiers for the State. The Lacedæmonian treatment of women, which differed in many respects from that which prevailed in the other Greek States, while it was utterly destructive of all delicacy of feeling or action, had undoubtedly the effect of producing a fierce and masculine patriotism; and many fine examples are recorded of Spartan mothers devoting their sons on the altar of their country, rejoicing over their deaths when nobly won, and infusing their own heroic spirit into the armies of the people. For the most part, however, the names of virtuous women seldom appear in Greek history. The simple modesty which was evinced by Phocion’s wife, in the period when her husband occupied the foremost position in Athens,(572) and a few instances of conjugal and filial affection, have been recorded; but in general the only women who attracted the notice of the people were the hetæræ, or courtesans.(573)

In order to understand the position which these last assumed in Greek life, we must transport ourselves in thought into a moral latitude totally different from our own. The Greek conception of excellence was the full and perfect development of humanity in all its organs and functions, and without any tinge of asceticism. Some parts of human nature were recognised as higher than others; and to suffer any of the lower appetites to obscure the mind, restrain the will and engross the energies of life, was acknowledged to be disgraceful; but the systematic repression of a natural appetite was totally foreign to Greek modes of thought. Legislators, moralists, and the general voice of the people, appear to have applied these principles almost unreservedly to intercourse between the sexes, and the most virtuous men habitually and openly entered into relations which would now be almost universally censured.

The experience, however, of many societies has shown that a public opinion may accord, in this respect, almost unlimited licence to one sex, without showing any corresponding indulgence to the other. But, in Greece, a concurrence of causes had conspired to bring a certain section of courtesans into a position they have in no other society attained. The voluptuous worship of Aphrodite gave a kind of religious sanction to their profession. Courtesans were the priestesses in her temples, and those of Corinth were believed by their prayers to have averted calamities from their city. Prostitution is said to have entered into the religious rites of Babylon, Biblis, Cyprus, and Corinth, and these as well as Miletus, Tenedos, Lesbos, and Abydos became famous for their schools of vice, which grew up under the shadow of the temples.(574)

In the next place, the intense æsthetic enthusiasm that prevailed was eminently fitted to raise the most beautiful to honour. In a land and beneath a sky where natural beauty developed to the highest point, there arose a school of matchless artists both in painting and in sculpture, and public games and contests were celebrated, in which supreme physical perfection was crowned by an assembled people. In no other period of the world’s history was the admiration of beauty in all its forms so passionate or so universal. It coloured the whole moral teaching of the time, and led the chief moralists to regard virtue simply as the highest kind of supersensual beauty. It appeared in all literature, where the beauty of form and style was the first of studies. It supplied at once the inspiration and the rule of all Greek art. It led the Greek wife to pray, before all other prayers, for the beauty of her children. It surrounded the most beautiful with an aureole of admiring reverence. The courtesan was often the queen of beauty. She was the model of the statues of Aphrodite, that commanded the admiration of Greece. Praxiteles was accustomed to reproduce the form of Phryne, and her statue, carved in gold, stood in the temple of Apollo at Delphi; and when she was accused of corrupting the youth of Athens, her advocate, Hyperides, procured her acquittal by suddenly unveiling her charms before the dazzled eyes of the assembled judges. Apelles was at once the painter and the lover of Laïs, and Alexander gave him, as the choicest gift, his own favourite concubine, of whom the painter had become enamoured while pourtraying her. The chief flower-painter of antiquity acquired his skill through his love of the flower-girl Glycera, whom he was accustomed to paint among her garlands. Pindar and Simonides sang the praises of courtesans, and grave philosophers made pilgrimages to visit them, and their names were known in every city.(575)

It is not surprising that, in such a state of thought and feeling, many of the more ambitious and accomplished women should have betaken themselves to this career, nor yet that they should have attained the social position which the secluded existence and the enforced ignorance of the Greek wives had left vacant. The courtesan was the one free woman of Athens, and she often availed herself of her freedom to acquire a degree of knowledge which enabled her to add to her other charms an intense intellectual fascination. Gathering around her the most brilliant artists, poets, historians, and philosophers, she flung herself unreservedly into the intellectual and æsthetic enthusiasms of her time, and soon became the centre of a literary society of matchless splendour. Aspasia, who was as famous for her genius as for her beauty, won the passionate love of Pericles. She is said to have instructed him in eloquence, and to have composed some of his most famous orations; she was continually consulted on affairs of state; and Socrates, like other philosophers, attended her assemblies. Socrates himself has owned his deep obligations to the instructions of a courtesan named Diotima. The courtesan Leontium was among the most ardent disciples of Epicurus.(576)

Another cause probably contributed indirectly to the elevation of this class, to which it is extremely difficult to allude in an English book, but which it is impossible altogether to omit, even in the most cursory survey of Greek morals. Irregular female connections were looked upon as ordinary and not disgraceful incidents in the life of a good man, for they were compared with that lower abyss of unnatural love, which was the deepest and strangest taint of Greek civilisation. This vice, which never appears in the writings of Homer and Hesiod, doubtless arose under the influence of the public games, which, accustoming men to the contemplation of absolutely nude figures,(577) awoke an unnatural passion,(578) totally remote from all modern feelings, but which in Greece it was regarded as heroic to resist.(579) The popular religion in this, as in other cases, was made to bend to the new vice. Hebe, the cup-bearer of the gods, was replaced by Ganymede, and the worst vices of earth were transported to Olympus.(580) Artists sought to reflect the passion in their statues of the Hermaphrodite, of Bacchus, and the more effeminate Apollo; moralists were known to praise it as the bond of friendship, and it was spoken of as the inspiring enthusiasm of the heroic Theban legion of Epaminondas.(581) In general, however, it was stigmatised as unquestionably a vice, but it was treated with a levity we can now hardly conceive. We can scarcely have a better illustration of the extent to which moral ideas and feelings have changed, than the fact that the first two Greeks who were considered worthy of statues by their fellow-countrymen are said to have been Harmodius and Aristogeiton, who were united by an impure love, and who were glorified for a political assassination.(582)

It is probable that this cause conspired with the others to dissociate the class of courtesans from the idea of supreme depravity with which they have usually been connected. The great majority, however, were sunk in this, as in all other ages, in abject degradation;(583) comparatively few attained the condition of hetæræ, and even of these it is probable that the greater number exhibited the characteristics which in all ages have attached to their class. Faithlessness, extreme rapacity, and extravagant luxury, were common among them; but yet it is unquestionable that there were many exceptions. The excommunication of society did not press upon or degrade them; and though they were never regarded with the same honour as married women, it seems generally to have been believed that the wife and the courtesan had each her place and her function in the world, and her own peculiar type of excellence. The courtesan Leæna, who was a friend of Harmodius, died in torture rather than reveal the conspiracy of her friend, and the Athenians, in allusion to her name, caused the statue of a tongueless lioness to be erected to commemorate her constancy.(584) The gentle manners and disinterested affection of a courtesan named Bacchis were especially recorded, and a very touching letter paints her character, and describes the regret that followed her to the tomb.(585) In one of the most remarkable of his pictures of Greek life, Xenophon describes how Socrates, having heard of the beauty of the courtesan Theodota, went with his disciples to ascertain for himself whether the report was true; how with a quiet humour he questioned her about the sources of the luxury of her dwelling, and how he proceeded to sketch for her the qualities she should cultivate in order to attach her lovers. She ought, he tells her, to shut the door against the insolent, to watch her lovers in sickness, to rejoice greatly when they succeed in anything honourable, to love tenderly those who love her. Having carried on a cheerful and perfectly unembarrassed conversation with her, with no kind of reproach on his part, either expressed or implied, and with no trace either of the timidity or effrontery of conscious guilt upon hers, the best and wisest of the Greeks left his hostess with a graceful compliment to her beauty.(586)

My task in describing this aspect of Greek life has been an eminently unpleasing one, and I should certainly not have entered upon even the baldest and most guarded disquisition on a subject so difficult, painful, and delicate, had it not been absolutely indispensable to a history of morals to give at least an outline of the progress that has been effected in this sphere. What I have written will sufficiently explain why Greece, which was fertile, beyond all other lands, in great men, was so remarkably barren of great women. It will show, too, that while the Greek moralists recognised, like ourselves, the distinction between the higher and the lower sides of our nature, they differed very widely from modern public opinion in the standard of morals they enforced. The Christian doctrine, that it is criminal to gratify a powerful and a transient physical appetite, except under the condition of a lifelong contract, was altogether unknown. Strict duties were imposed upon Greek wives. Duties were imposed at a later period, though less strictly, upon the husband. Unnatural love was stigmatised, but with a levity of censure which to a modern mind appears inexpressibly revolting. Some slight legal disqualifications rested upon the whole class of hetæræ, and, though more admired, they were less respected than women who had adopted a domestic life; but a combination of circumstances had raised them, in actual worth and in popular estimation, to an unexampled elevation, and an aversion to marriage became very general, and extra-matrimonial connections were formed with the most perfect frankness and publicity.

If we now turn to the Roman civilisation, we shall find that some important advances had been made in the condition of women. The virtue of chastity has, as I have shown, been regarded in two different ways. The utilitarian view, which commonly prevails in countries where a political spirit is more powerful than a religious spirit, regards marriage as the ideal state, and to promote the happiness, sanctity, and security of this state is the main object of all its precepts. The mystical view which rests upon the natural feeling of shame, and which, as history proves, has prevailed especially where political sentiment is very low, and religious sentiment very strong, regards virginity as its supreme type, and marriage as simply the most pardonable declension from ideal purity. It is, I think, a very remarkable fact, that at the head of the religious system of Rome we find two sacerdotal bodies which appear respectively to typify these ideas. The Flamens of Jupiter and the Vestal Virgins were the two most sacred orders in Rome. The ministrations of each were believed to be vitally important to the State. Each could officiate only within the walls of Rome. Each was appointed with the most imposing ceremonies. Each was honoured with the most profound reverence. But in one important respect they differed. The Vestal was the type of virginity, and her purity was guarded by the most terrific penalties. The Flamen, on the other hand, was the representative of Roman marriage in its strictest and holiest form. He was necessarily married. His marriage was celebrated with the most solemn rites. It could only be dissolved by death. If his wife died, he was degraded from his office.(587)

Of these two orders, there can be no question that the Flamen was the most faithful expression of the Roman sentiments. The Roman religion was essentially domestic, and it was a main object of the legislator to surround marriage with every circumstance of dignity and solemnity. Monogamy was, from the earliest times, strictly enjoined; and it was one of the great benefits that have resulted from the expansion of Roman power, that it made this type dominant in Europe. In the legends of early Rome we have ample evidence both of the high moral estimate of women, and of their prominence in Roman life. The tragedies of Lucretia and of Virginia display a delicacy of honour, a sense of the supreme excellence of unsullied purity, which no Christian nation could surpass. The legends of the Sabine women interceding between their parents and their husbands, and thus saving the infant republic, and of the mother of Coriolanus averting by her prayers the ruin impending over her country, entitled women to claim their share in the patriotic glories of Rome. A temple of Venus Calva was associated with the legend of Roman ladies, who, in an hour of danger, cut off their long tresses to make bowstrings for the soldiers.(588) Another temple preserved to all posterity the memory of the filial piety of that Roman woman who, when her mother was condemned to be starved to death, obtained permission to visit her in her prison, and was discovered feeding her from her breast.(589)

The legal position, however, of the Roman wife was for a long period extremely low. The Roman family was constituted on the principle of the uncontrolled authority of its head, both over his wife and over his children, and he could repudiate the former at will. Neither the custom of gifts to the father of the bride, nor the custom of dowries, appears to have existed in the earliest period of Roman history; but the father disposed absolutely of the hand of his daughter, and sometimes even possessed the power of breaking off marriages that had been actually contracted.(590) In the forms of marriage, however, which were usual in the earlier periods of Rome, the absolute power passed into the hands of the husband, and he had the right, in some cases, of putting her to death.(591) Law and public opinion combined in making matrimonial purity most strict. For five hundred and twenty years, it was said, there was no such thing as a divorce in Rome.(592) Manners were so severe, that a senator was censured for indecency because he had kissed his wife in the presence of their daughter.(593) It was considered in a high degree disgraceful for a Roman mother to delegate to a nurse the duty of suckling her child.(594) Sumptuary laws regulated with the most minute severity all the details of domestic economy.(595) The courtesan class, though probably numerous and certainly uncontrolled, were regarded with much contempt. The disgrace of publicly professing themselves members of it was believed to be a sufficient punishment;(596) and an old law, which was probably intended to teach in symbol the duties of married life, enjoined that no such person should touch the altar of Juno.(597) It was related of a certain ædile, that he failed to obtain redress for an assault which had been made upon him, because it had occurred in a house of ill-fame, in which it was disgraceful for a Roman magistrate to be found.(598) The sanctity of female purity was believed to be attested by all nature. The most savage animals became tame before a virgin.(599) When a woman walked naked round a field, caterpillars and all loathsome insects fell dead before her.(600) It was said that drowned men floated on their backs, and drowned women on their faces; and this, in the opinion of Roman naturalists, was due to the superior purity of the latter.(601)

It was a remark of Aristotle, that the superiority of the Greeks to the barbarians was shown, among other things, in the fact that the Greeks did not, like other nations, regard their wives as slaves, but treated them as helpmates and companions. A Roman writer has appealed, on the whole with greater justice, to the treatment of wives by his fellow countrymen, as a proof of the superiority of Roman to Greek civilisation. He has observed that while the Greeks kept their wives in a special quarter in the interior of their houses, and never permitted them to sit at banquets except with their relatives, or to see any male except in the presence of a relative, no Roman ever hesitated to lead his wife with him to the feast, or to place the mother of the family at the head of his table.(602) Whether, in the period when wives were completely subject to the rule of their husbands, much domestic oppression occurred, it is now impossible to say. A temple dedicated to a goddess named Viriplaca, whose mission was to appease husbands, was worshipped by Roman women on the Palatine;(603) and a strange and improbable, if not incredible story, is related by Livy, of the discovery during the Republic, of a vast conspiracy by Roman wives to poison their husbands.(604) On the whole, however, it is probable that the Roman matron was from the earliest period a name of honour;(605) that the beautiful sentence of a jurisconsult of the Empire, who defined marriage as a lifelong fellowship of all divine and human rights,(606) expressed most faithfully the feelings of the people, and that female virtue had in every age a considerable place in Roman biographies.(607)

I have already enumerated the chief causes of that complete dissolution of Roman morals which began shortly after the Punic wars, which contributed very largely to the destruction of the Republic, and which attained its climax under the Cæsars. There are few examples in history of a revolution pervading so completely every sphere of religious, domestic, social, and political life. Philosophical scepticism corroded the ancient religions. An inundation of Eastern luxury and Eastern morals submerged all the old habits of austere simplicity. The civil wars and the Empire degraded the character of the people, and the exaggerated prudery of republican manners only served to make the rebound into vice the more irresistible. In the fierce outburst of ungovernable and almost frantic depravity that marked this evil period, the violations of female virtue were infamously prominent. The vast multiplication of slaves, which is in every age peculiarly fatal to moral purity; the fact that a great proportion of those slaves were chosen from the most voluptuous provinces of the Empire; the games of Flora, in which races of naked courtesans were exhibited; the pantomimes, which derived their charms chiefly from the audacious indecencies of the actors; the influx of the Greek and Asiatic hetæræ who were attracted by the wealth of the metropolis; the licentious paintings which began to adorn every house; the rise of Baiæ, which rivalled the luxury and surpassed the beauty of the chief centres of Asiatic vice, combining with the intoxication of great wealth suddenly acquired, with the disruption, through many causes, of all the ancient habits and beliefs, and with the tendency to pleasure which the closing of the paths of honourable political ambition by the imperial despotism, naturally produced, had all their part in preparing those orgies of vice which the writers of the Empire reveal. Most scholars will, I suppose, retain a vivid recollection of the new insight into the extent and wildness of human guilt which they obtained when they first opened the pages of Suetonius or Lampridius; and the sixth Satire of Juvenal paints with a fierce energy, though probably with the natural exaggeration of a satirist, the extent to which corruption had spread among the women. It was found necessary, under Tiberius, to make a special law prohibiting members of noble houses from enrolling themselves as prostitutes.(608) The extreme coarseness of the Roman disposition prevented sensuality from assuming that æsthetic character which had made it in Greece the parent of Art, and had very profoundly modified its influence, while the passion for gladiatorial shows often allied it somewhat unnaturally with cruelty. There have certainly been many periods in history when virtue was more rare than under the Cæsars; but there has probably never been a period when vice was more extravagant or uncontrolled. Young emperors especially, who were surrounded by swarms of sycophants and panders, and who often lived in continual dread of assassination, plunged with the most reckless and feverish excitement into every variety of abnormal lust. The reticence which has always more or less characterised modern society and modern writers was unknown, and the unblushing, undisguised obscenity of the Epigrams of Martial, of the Romances of Apuleius and Petronius, and of some of the Dialogues of Lucian, reflected but too faithfully the spirit of their time.

There had arisen, too, partly through vicious causes, and partly, I suppose, through the unfavourable influence which the attraction of the public institutions exercised on domestic life, a great and general indisposition towards marriage, which Augustus attempted in vain to arrest by his laws against celibacy, and by conferring many privileges on the fathers of three children.(609) A singularly curious speech is preserved, which is said to have been delivered on this subject, shortly before the close of the Republic, by Metellus Numidicus, in order, if possible, to overcome this indisposition. “If, Romans,” he said, “we could live without wives, we should all keep free from that source of trouble; but since nature has ordained that men can neither live sufficiently agreeably with wives, nor at all without them, let us consider the perpetual endurance of our race rather than our own brief enjoyment.”(610)

In the midst of this torrent of corruption a great change was passing over the legal position of Roman women. They had at first been in a condition of absolute subjection or subordination to their relations. They arrived, during the Empire, at a point of freedom and dignity which they subsequently lost, and have never altogether regained. The Romans recognised two distinct classes of marriages: the stricter, and, in the eyes of the law, more honourable, forms, which placed the woman “in the hand” of her husband and gave him an almost absolute authority over her person and her property; and a less strict form, which left her legal position unchanged. The former, which were general during the Republic, were of three kinds—the “confarreatio,” which was celebrated and could only be dissolved by the most solemn religious ceremonies, and was jealously restricted to patricians; the “coemptio,” which was purely civil, and derived its name from a symbolical sale; and the “usus,” which was effected by the mere cohabitation of a woman with a man without interruption for the space of a year. Under the Empire, however, these kinds of marriage became almost wholly obsolete; a laxer form, resting upon a simple mutual agreement, without any religious or civil ceremony, was general, and it had this very important consequence, that the woman so married remained, in the eyes of the law, in the family of her father, and was under his guardianship, not under the guardianship of her husband. But the old patria potestas had become completely obsolete, and the practical effect of the general adoption of this form of marriage was the absolute legal independence of the wife. With the exception of her dowry, which passed into the hands of her husband, she held her property in her own right; she inherited her share of the wealth of her father, and she retained it altogether independently of her husband. A very considerable portion of Roman wealth thus passed into the uncontrolled possession of women. The private man of business of the wife was a favourite character with the comedians, and the tyranny exercised by rich wives over their husbands—to whom it is said they sometimes lent money at high interest—a continual theme of satirists.(611)

A complete revolution had thus passed over the constitution of the family. Instead of being constructed on the principle of autocracy, it was constructed on the principle of coequal partnership. The legal position of the wife had become one of complete independence, while her social position was one of great dignity. The more conservative spirits were naturally alarmed at the change, and two measures were taken to arrest it. The Oppian law was designed to restrain the luxury of women; but, in spite of the strenuous exertions of Cato, this law was speedily repealed.(612) A more important measure was the Voconian law, which restricted within very narrow limits the property which women might inherit; but public opinion never fully acquiesced in it, and by several legal subterfuges its operation was partially evaded.(613)

Another and a still more important consequence resulted from the changed form of marriage. Being looked upon merely as a civil contract, entered into for the happiness of the contracting parties, its continuance depended upon mutual consent. Either party might dissolve it at will, and the dissolution gave both parties a right to remarry. There can be no question that under this system the obligations of marriage were treated with extreme levity. We find Cicero repudiating his wife Terentia, because he desired a new dowry;(614) Augustus compelling the husband of Livia to repudiate her when she was already pregnant, that he might marry her himself;(615) Cato ceding his wife, with the consent of her father, to his friend Hortensius, and resuming her after his death;(616) Mæcenas continually changing his wife;(617) Sempronius Sophus repudiating his wife, because she had once been to the public games without his knowledge;(618) Paulus Æmilius taking the same step without assigning any reason, and defending himself by saying, “My shoes are new and well made, but no one knows where they pinch me.”(619) Nor did women show less alacrity in repudiating their husbands. Seneca denounced this evil with especial vehemence, declaring that divorce in Rome no longer brought with it any shame, and that there were women who reckoned their years rather by their husbands than by the consuls.(620) Christians and Pagans echoed the same complaint. According to Tertullian, “divorce is the fruit of marriage.”(621) Martial speaks of a woman who had already arrived at her tenth husband;(622) Juvenal, of a woman having eight husbands in five years.(623) But the most extraordinary recorded instance of this kind is related by St. Jerome, who assures us that there existed at Rome a wife who was married to her twenty-third husband, she herself being his twenty-first wife.(624)

These are, no doubt, extreme cases; but it is unquestionable that the stability of married life was very seriously impaired. It would be easy, however, to exaggerate the influence of legal changes in affecting it. In a purer state of public opinion a very wide latitude of divorce might probably have been allowed to both parties, without any serious consequence. The right of repudiation, which the husband had always possessed, was, as we have seen, in the Republic never or very rarely exercised. Of those who scandalised good men by the rapid recurrence of their marriages, probably most, if marriage had been indissoluble, would have refrained from entering into it, and would have contented themselves with many informal connections, or, if they had married, would have gratified their love of change by simple adultery. A vast wave of corruption had flowed in upon Rome, and under any system of law it would have penetrated into domestic life. Laws prohibiting all divorce have never secured the purity of married life in ages of great corruption, nor did the latitude which was accorded in imperial Rome prevent the existence of a very large amount of female virtue.

I have observed, in a former chapter, that the moral contrasts shown in ancient life surpass those of modern societies, in which we very rarely find clusters of heroic or illustrious men arising in nations that are in general very ignorant or very corrupt. I have endeavoured to account for this fact by showing that the moral agencies of antiquity were in general much more fitted to develop virtue than to repress vice, and that they raised noble natures to almost the highest conceivable point of excellence, while they entirely failed to coerce or to attenuate the corruption of the depraved. In the female life of Imperial Rome we find these contrasts vividly displayed. There can be no question that the moral tone of the sex was extremely low—lower, probably, than in France under the Regency, or in England under the Restoration—and it is also certain that frightful excesses of unnatural passion, of which the most corrupt of modern courts present no parallel, were perpetrated with but little concealment on the Palatine. Yet there is probably no period in which examples of conjugal heroism and fidelity appear more frequently than in this very age, in which marriage was most free and in which corruption was so general. Much simplicity of manners continued to co-exist with the excesses of an almost unbridled luxury. Augustus, we are told, used to make his daughters and granddaughters weave and spin, and his wife and sister made most of the clothes he wore.(625) The skill of wives in domestic economy, and especially in spinning, was frequently noticed in their epitaphs.(626) Intellectual culture was much diffused among them,(627) and we meet with several noble specimens, in the sex, of large and accomplished minds united with all the gracefulness of intense womanhood, and all the fidelity of the truest love. Such were Cornelia, the brilliant and devoted wife of Pompey,(628) Marcia, the friend, and Helvia, the mother of Seneca. The Northern Italian cities had in a great degree escaped the contamination of the times, and Padua and Brescia were especially noted for the virtue of their women.(629) In an age of extravagant sensuality a noble lady, named Mallonia, plunged her dagger in her heart rather than yield to the embraces of Tiberius.(630) To the period when the legal bond of marriage was most relaxed must be assigned most of those noble examples of the constancy of Roman wives, which have been for so many generations household tales among mankind. Who has not read with emotion of the tenderness and heroism of Porcia, claiming her right to share in the trouble which clouded her husband’s brow; how, doubting her own courage, she did not venture to ask Brutus to reveal to her his enterprise till she had secretly tried her power of endurance by piercing her thigh with a knife; how once, and but once in his presence, her noble spirit failed, when, as she was about to separate from him for the last time, her eye chanced to fall upon a picture of the parting interview of Hector and Andromache?(631) Paulina, the wife of Seneca, opened her own veins in order to accompany her husband to the grave; when much blood had already flowed, her slaves and freedmen bound her wounds, and thus compelled her to live; but the Romans ever after observed with reverence the sacred pallor of her countenance—the memorial of her act.(632) When Pætus was condemned to die by his own hand, those who knew the love which his wife Arria bore him, and the heroic fervour of her character, predicted that she would not long survive him. Thrasea, who had married her daughter, endeavoured to dissuade her from suicide by saying, “If I am ever called upon to perish, would you wish your daughter to die with me?” She answered, “Yes, if she will have then lived with you as long and as happily as I with Pætus.” Her friends attempted, by carefully watching her, to secure her safety, but she dashed her head against the wall with such force that she fell upon the ground, and then, rising up, she said, “I told you I would find a hard way to death if you refuse me an easy way.” All attempts to restrain her were then abandoned, and her death was perhaps the most majestic in antiquity. Pætus for a moment hesitated to strike the fatal blow; but his wife, taking the dagger, plunged it deeply into her own breast, and then, drawing it out, gave it, all reeking as it was, to her husband, exclaiming, with her dying breath, “My Pætus, it does not pain.”(633)

The form of the elder Arria towers grandly above her fellows, but many other Roman wives in the days of the early Cæsars and of Domitian exhibited a very similar fidelity. Over the dark waters of the Euxine, into those unknown and inhospitable regions from which the Roman imagination recoiled with a peculiar horror, many noble ladies freely followed their husbands, and there were some wives who refused to survive them.(634) The younger Arria was the faithful companion of Thrasea during his heroic life, and when he died she was only persuaded to live that she might bring up their daughters.(635) She spent the closing days of her life with Domitian in exile;(636) while her daughter, who was as remarkable for the gentleness as for the dignity of her character,(637) went twice into exile with her husband Helvidius, and was once banished, after his death, for defending his memory.(638) Incidental notices in historians, and a few inscriptions which have happened to remain, show us that such instances were not uncommon, and in Roman epitaphs no feature is more remarkable than the deep and passionate expressions of conjugal love that continually occur.(639) It would be difficult to find a more touching image of that love, than the medallion which is so common on the Roman sarcophagi, in which husband and wife are represented together, each with an arm thrown fondly over the shoulder of the other, united in death as they had been in life, and meeting it with an aspect of perfect calm, because they were companions in the tomb.

In the latter days of the Pagan Empire some measures were taken to repress the profligacy that was so prevalent. Domitian enforced the old Scantinian law against unnatural love.(640) Vespasian moderated the luxury of the court; Macrinus caused those who had committed adultery to be bound together and burnt alive.(641) A practice of men and women bathing together was condemned by Hadrian, and afterwards by Alexander Severus, but was only finally suppressed by Constantine. Alexander Severus and Philip waged an energetic war against panders.(642) The extreme excesses of this, as of most forms of vice, were probably much diminished after the accession of the Antonines; but Rome continued to be a centre of very great corruption till the influence of Christianity, the removal of the court to Constantinople, and the impoverishment that followed the barbarian conquests, in a measure corrected the evil.

Among the moralists, however, some important steps were taken. One of the most important was a very clear assertion of the reciprocity of that obligation to fidelity in marriage which in the early stages of society had been imposed almost exclusively upon wives.(643) The legends of Clytemnestra and of Medea reveal the feelings of fierce resentment which were sometimes produced among Greek wives by the almost unlimited indulgence that was accorded to their husbands;(644) and it is told of Andromache, as the supreme instance of her love of Hector, that she cared for his illegitimate children as much as for her own.(645) In early Rome, the obligations of husbands were never, I imagine, altogether unfelt; but they were rarely or never enforced, nor were they ever regarded as bearing any kind of equality to those imposed upon the wife. The term adultery, and all the legal penalties connected with it, were restricted to the infractions by a wife of the nuptial tie. Among the many instances of magnanimity recorded of Roman wives, few are more touching than that of Tertia Æmilia, the faithful wife of Scipio. She discovered that her husband had become enamoured of one of her slaves; but she bore her pain in silence, and when he died she gave liberty to her captive, for she could not bear that she should remain in servitude whom her dear lord had loved.(646)

Aristotle had clearly asserted the duty of husbands to observe in marriage the same fidelity as they expected from their wives,(647) and at a later period both Plutarch and Seneca enforced this duty in the strongest and most unequivocal manner.(648) The degree to which, in theory at least, it won its way in Roman life is shown by its recognition as a legal maxim by Ulpian,(649) and by its appearance in a formal judgment of Antoninus Pius, who, while issuing, at the request of a husband, a condemnation for adultery against a guilty wife, appended to it this remarkable condition: “Provided always it is established that by your life you gave her an example of fidelity. It would be unjust that a husband should exact a fidelity he does not himself keep.”(650)

Another change, which may be dimly descried in the later Pagan society, was a tendency to regard purity rather in a mystical point of view, as essentially good, than in the utilitarian point of view. This change resulted chiefly from the rise of the Neoplatonic and Pythagorean philosophies, which concurred in regarding the body, with its passions, as essentially evil, and in representing all virtue as a purification from its taint. Its most important consequence was a somewhat stricter view of pre-nuptial unchastity, which in the case of men, and when it was not excessive, and did not take the form of adultery, had previously been uncensured, or was looked upon with a disapprobation so slight as scarcely to amount to censure. The elder Cato had expressly justified it;(651) and Cicero has left us an extremely curious judgment on the subject, which shows at a glance the feelings of the people, and the vast revolution that, under the influence of Christianity, has been effected in, at least, the professions of mankind. “If there be any one,” he says, “who thinks that young men should be altogether restrained from the love of courtesans, he is indeed very severe. I am not prepared to deny his position; but he differs not only from the licence of our age, but also from the customs and allowances of our ancestors. When, indeed, was this not done? When was it blamed? When was it not allowed? When was that which is now lawful not lawful?”(652) Epictetus, who on most subjects was among the most austere of the Stoics, recommends his disciples to abstain, “as far as possible,” from pre-nuptial connections, and at least from those which were adulterous and unlawful, but not to blame those who were less strict.(653) The feeling of the Romans is curiously exemplified in the life of Alexander Severus, who, of all the emperors, was probably the most energetic in legislating against vice. When appointing a provincial governor, he was accustomed to provide him with horses and servants, and, if he was unmarried, with a concubine, “because,” as the historian very gravely observes, “it was impossible that he could exist without one.”(654)

What was written among the Pagans in opposition to these views was not much, but it is worthy of notice, as illustrating the tendency that had arisen. Musonius Rufus distinctly and emphatically asserted that no union of the sexes other than marriage was permissible.(655) Dion Chrysostom desired prostitution to be suppressed by law. The ascetic notion of the impurity even of marriage may be faintly traced. Apollonius of Tyana lived, on this ground, a life of celibacy.(656) Zenobia refused to cohabit with her husband, except so far as was necessary for the production of an heir.(657) Hypatia is said, like many Christian saints, to have maintained the position of a virgin wife.(658) The belief in the impurity of all corporeal things, and in the duty of rising above them, was in the third century strenuously enforced.(659) Marcus Aurelius and Julian were both admirable representatives of the best Pagan spirit of their time. Each of them lost his wife early, each was eulogised by his biographer for the virtue he manifested after her death; but there is a curious and characteristic difference in the forms which that virtue assumed. Marcus Aurelius, we are told, did not wish to bring into his house a stepmother to rule over his children, and accordingly took a concubine.(660) Julian ever after lived in perfect continence.(661)

The foregoing facts, which I have given in the most condensed form, and almost unaccompanied by criticism or by comment, will be sufficient, I hope, to exhibit the state of feeling of the Romans on this subject, and also the direction in which that feeling was being modified. Those who are familiar with this order of studies will readily understand that it is impossible to mark out with precision the chronology of a moral sentiment; but there can be no question that in the latter days of the Roman Empire the perceptions of men on this subject became more subtle and more refined than they had previously been, and it is equally certain that the Oriental philosophies which had superseded Stoicism largely influenced the change. Christianity soon constituted itself the representative of the new tendency. It regarded purity as the most important of all virtues, and it strained to the utmost all the vast agencies it possessed, to enforce it. In the legislation of the first Christian emperors we find many traces of a fiery zeal. Panders were condemned to have molten lead poured down their throats. In the case of rape, not only the ravisher, but even the injured person, if she consented to the act, was put to death.(662) A great service was done to the cause both of purity and of philanthropy, by a law which permitted actresses, on receiving baptism, to abandon their profession, which had been made a form of slavery, and was virtually a slavery to vice.(663) Certain musical girls, who were accustomed to sing or play at the banquets of the rich, and who were regarded with extreme horror by the Fathers, were suppressed, and a very stringent law forbade the revival of the class.(664)

Side by side with the civil legislation, the penitential legislation of the Church was exerted in the same direction. Sins of unchastity probably occupy a larger place than any others in its enactments. The cases of unnatural love, and of mothers who had made their daughters courtesans, were punished by perpetual exclusion from communion, and a crowd of minor offences were severely visited. The ascetic passion increased the prominence of this branch of ethics, and the imaginations of men were soon fascinated by the pure and noble figures of the virgin martyrs of the Church, who on more than one occasion fully equalled the courage of men, while they sometimes mingled with their heroism traits of the most exquisite feminine gentleness. For the patient endurance of excruciating physical suffering, Christianity produced no more sublime figure than Blandina, the poor servant-girl who was martyred at Lyons; and it would be difficult to find in all history a more touching picture of natural purity than is contained in one simple incident of the martyrdom of St. Perpetua. It is related of that saint that she was condemned to be slaughtered by a wild bull, and, as she fell half dead from its horns upon the sand of the arena, it was observed that even in that awful moment her virgin modesty was supreme, and her first instinctive movement was to draw together her dress, which had been torn in the assault.(665)

A crowd of very curious popular legends also arose, which, though they are for the most part without much intrinsic excellence, have their importance in history, as showing the force with which the imaginations of men were turned in this direction, and the manner in which Christianity was regarded as the great enemy of the passions of the flesh. Thus, St. Jerome relates an incredible story of a young Christian, being, in the Diocletian persecution, bound with ribands of silk in the midst of a lovely garden, surrounded by everything that could charm the ear and the eye, while a beautiful courtesan assailed him with her blandishments, against which he protected himself by biting out his tongue and spitting it in her face.(666) Legends are recounted of young Christian men assuming the garb and manners of libertines, that they might obtain access to maidens who had been condemned to vice, exchanging dresses with them, and thus enabling them to escape.(667) St. Agnes was said to have been stripped naked before the people, who all turned away their eyes except one young man, who instantly became blind.(668) The sister of St. Gregory of Nyssa was afflicted with a cancer in her breast, but could not bear that a surgeon should see it, and was rewarded for her modesty by a miraculous cure.(669) To the fabled zone of beauty the Christian saints opposed their zones of chastity, which extinguished the passion of the wearer, or would only meet around the pure.(670) Dæmons were said not unfrequently to have entered into the profligate. The garment of a girl who was possessed was brought to St. Pachomius, and he discovered from it that she had a lover.(671) A courtesan accused St. Gregory Thaumaturgus of having been her lover, and having refused to pay her what he had promised. He paid the required sum, but she was immediately possessed by a daemon.(672) The efforts of the saints to reclaim courtesans from the path of vice created a large class of legends. St. Mary Magdalene, St. Mary of Egypt, St. Afra, St. Pelagia, St. Thais, and St. Theodota, in the early Church, as well as St. Marguerite of Cortona, and Clara of Rimini, in the middle ages, had been courtesans.(673) St. Vitalius, it is said, was accustomed every night to visit the dens of vice in his neighbourhood, to give the inmates money to remain without sin for that night, and to offer up prayers for their conversion.(674) It is related of St. Serapion, that, as he was passing through a village in Egypt, a courtesan beckoned to him. He promised at a certain hour to visit her. He kept his appointment, but declared that there was a duty which his order imposed on him. He fell down on his knees and began repeating the Psalter, concluding every psalm with a prayer for his hostess. The strangeness of the scene, and the solemnity of his tone and manner, overawed and fascinated her. Gradually her tears began to flow. She knelt beside him and began to join in his prayers. He heeded her not, but hour after hour continued in the same stern and solemn voice, without rest and without interruption, to repeat his alternate prayers and psalms, till her repentance rose to a paroxysm of terror, and, as the grey morning streaks began to illumine the horizon, she fell half dead at his feet, imploring him with broken sobs to lead her anywhere where she might expiate the sins of her past.(675)

But the services rendered by the ascetics in imprinting on the minds of men a profound and enduring conviction of the importance of chastity, though extremely great, were seriously counterbalanced by their noxious influence upon marriage. Two or three beautiful descriptions of this institution have been culled out of the immense mass of the patristic writings;(676) but, in general, it would be difficult to conceive anything more coarse or more repulsive than the manner in which they regarded it.(677) The relation which nature has designed for the noble purpose of repairing the ravages of death, and which, as Linnæus has shown, extends even through the world of flowers, was invariably treated as a consequence of the fall of Adam, and marriage was regarded almost exclusively in its lowest aspect. The tender love which it elicits, the holy and beautiful domestic qualities that follow in its train, were almost absolutely omitted from consideration.(678) The object of the ascetic was to attract men to a life of virginity, and, as a necessary consequence, marriage was treated as an inferior state. It was regarded as being necessary, indeed, and therefore justifiable, for the propagation of the species, and to free men from greater evils; but still as a condition of degradation from which all who aspired to real sanctity should fly. To “cut down by the axe of Virginity the wood of Marriage,” was, in the energetic language of St. Jerome, the end of the saint;(679) and if he consented to praise marriage, it was merely because it produced virgins.(680) Even when the bond had been formed, the ascetic passion retained its sting. We have already seen how it embittered other relations of domestic life. Into this, the holiest of all, it infused a tenfold bitterness. Whenever any strong religious fervour fell upon a husband or a wife, its first effect was to make a happy union impossible. The more religious partner immediately desired to live a life of solitary asceticism, or at least, if no ostensible separation took place, an unnatural life of separation in marriage. The immense place this order of ideas occupies in the hortatory writings of the Fathers, and in the legends of the saints, must be familiar to all who have any knowledge of this department of literature. Thus—to give but a very few examples—St. Nilus, when he had already two children, was seized with a longing for the prevailing asceticism, and his wife was persuaded, after many tears, to consent to their separation.(681) St. Ammon, on the night of his marriage, proceeded to greet his bride with an harangue upon the evils of the married state, and they agreed, in consequence, at once to separate.(682) St. Melania laboured long and earnestly to induce her husband to allow her to desert his bed, before he would consent.(683) St. Abraham ran away from his wife on the night of his marriage.(684) St. Alexis, according to a somewhat later legend, took the same step, but many years after returned from Jerusalem to his father’s house, in which his wife was still lamenting her desertion, begged and received a lodging as an act of charity, and lived there unrecognised and unknown till his death.(685) St. Gregory of Nyssa—who was so unfortunate as to be married—wrote a glowing eulogy of virginity, in the course of which he mournfully observed that this privileged state could never be his. He resembled, he assures us, an ox that was ploughing a field, the fruit of which he must never enjoy; or a thirsty man, who was gazing on a stream of which he never can drink; or a poor man, whose poverty seems the more bitter as he contemplates the wealth of his neighbours; and he proceeded to descant in feeling terms upon the troubles of matrimony.(686) Nominal marriages, in which the partners agreed to shun the marriage bed, became not uncommon. The emperor Henry II., Edward the Confessor, of England, and Alphonso II., of Spain, gave examples of it. A very famous and rather picturesque history of this kind is related by Gregory of Tours. A rich young Gaul, named Injuriosus, led to his home a young bride to whom he was passionately attached. That night, she confessed to him, with tears, that she had vowed to keep her virginity, and that she regretted bitterly the marriage into which her love for him had betrayed her. He told her that they should remain united, but that she should still observe her vow; and he fulfilled his promise. When, after several years, she died, her husband, in laying her in the tomb, declared, with great solemnity, that he restored her to God as immaculate as he had received her; and then a smile lit up the face of the dead woman, and she said, “Why do you tell that which no one asked you?” The husband soon afterwards died, and his corpse, which had been laid in a distinct compartment from that of his wife in the tomb, was placed side by side with it by the angels.(687)

The extreme disorders which such teaching produced in domestic life, and also the extravagances which grew up among some heretics, naturally alarmed the more judicious leaders of the Church, and it was ordained that married persons should not enter into an ascetic life, except by mutual consent.(688) The ascetic ideal, however, remained unchanged. To abstain from marriage, or in marriage to abstain from a perfect union, was regarded as a proof of sanctity, and marriage was viewed in its coarsest and most degraded form. The notion of its impurity took many forms, and exercised for some centuries an extremely wide influence over the Church. Thus, it was the custom during the middle ages to abstain from the marriage bed during the night after the ceremony, in honour of the sacrament.(689) It was expressly enjoined that no married persons should participate in any of the great Church festivals if the night before they had lain together, and St. Gregory the Great tells of a young wife who was possessed by a dæmon, because she had taken part in a procession of St. Sebastian, without fulfilling this condition.(690) The extent to which the feeling on the subject was carried is shown by the famous vision of Alberic in the twelfth century, in which a special place of torture, consisting of a lake of mingled lead, pitch, and resin is represented as existing in hell for the punishment of married people who had lain together on Church festivals or fast days.(691)

Two other consequences of this way of regarding marriage were a very strong disapproval of second marriages, and a very strong desire to secure celibacy in the clergy. The first of these notions had existed, though in a very different form, and connected with very different motives, among the early Romans, who were accustomed, we are told, to honour with the crown of modesty those who were content with one marriage, and to regard many marriages as a sign of illegitimate intemperance.(692) This opinion appears to have chiefly grown out of a very delicate and touching feeling which had taken deep root in the Roman mind, that the affection a wife owes her husband is so profound and so pure that it must not cease even with his death; that it should guide and consecrate all her subsequent life, and that it never can be transferred to another object. Virgil, in very beautiful lines, puts this sentiment into the mouth of Dido;(693) and several examples are recorded of Roman wives, sometimes in the prime of youth and beauty, upon the death of their husbands, devoting the remainder of their lives to retirement and to the memory of the dead.(694) Tacitus held up the Germans as in this respect a model to his countrymen,(695) and the epithet “univiræ” inscribed on many Roman tombs shows how this devotion was practised and valued.(696) The family of Camillus was especially honoured for the absence of second marriages among its members.(697) “To love a wife when living,” said one of the latest Roman poets, “is a pleasure; to love her when dead is an act of religion.”(698) In the case of men, the propriety of abstaining from second marriages was probably not felt so strongly as in the case of women, and what feeling on the subject existed was chiefly due to another motive—affection for the children, whose interests, it was thought, might be injured by a stepmother.(699)

The sentiment which thus recoiled from second marriages passed with a vastly increased strength into ascetic Christianity, but it was based upon altogether different grounds. We find, in the first place, that an affectionate remembrance of the husband had altogether vanished from the motives of the abstinence. In the next place, we may remark that the ecclesiastical writers, in perfect conformity with the extreme coarseness of their views about the sexes, almost invariably assumed that the motive to second or third marriages must be simply the force of the animal passions. The Montanists and the Novatians absolutely condemned second marriages.(700) The orthodox pronounced them lawful, on account of the weakness of human nature, but they viewed them with the most emphatic disapproval,(701) partly because they considered them manifest signs of incontinence, and partly because they regarded them as inconsistent with their doctrine that marriage is an emblem of the union of Christ with the Church. The language of the Fathers on this subject appears to a modern mind most extraordinary, and, but for their distinct and reiterated assertion that they considered these marriages permissible,(702) would appear to amount to a peremptory condemnation. Thus—to give but a few samples—digamy, or second marriage, is described by Athenagoras as “a decent adultery.”(703) “Fornication,” according to Clement of Alexandria, “is a lapse from one marriage into many.”(704) “The first Adam,” said St. Jerome, “had one wife; the second Adam had no wife. They who approve of digamy hold forth a third Adam, who was twice married, whom they follow.”(705) “Consider,” he again says, “that she who has been twice married, though she be an old, and decrepit, and poor woman, is not deemed worthy to receive the charity of the Church. But if the bread of charity is taken from her, how much more that bread which descends from heaven!”(706) “Digamists,” according to Origen, “are saved in the name of Christ, but are by no means crowned by him.”(707) “By this text,” said St. Gregory Nazianzen, speaking of St. Paul’s comparison of marriage to the union of Christ with the Church, “second marriages seem to me to be reproved. If there are two Christs there may be two husbands or two wives. If there is but one Christ, one Head of the Church, there is but one flesh—a second is repelled. But if he forbids a second, what is to be said of third marriages? The first is law, the second is pardon and indulgence, the third is iniquity; but he who exceeds this number is manifestly bestial.”(708) Digamists were excluded from the priesthood and from the distributions of Church charity; a period of penance was imposed on them before they were admitted to communion,(709) and two English statutes of the Middle Ages withheld the benefit of clergy from any prisoner who had “married two wives or one widow.”(710) The Council of Illiberis, in the beginning of the fourth century, while in general condemning baptism by laymen, permitted it in case of extreme necessity; but provided that even in that case the officiating layman must not have been twice married.(711) Among the Greeks fourth marriages were at one time deemed absolutely unlawful, and much controversy was excited by the Emperor Leo the Wise, who, having had three wives, had taken a mistress, but afterwards, in defiance of the religious feelings of his people, determined to raise her to the position of a wife.(712)

The subject of the celibacy of the clergy, in which the ecclesiastical feelings about marriage were also shown, is an extremely large one, and I shall not attempt to deal with it, except in a most cursory manner.(713) There are two facts connected with it which every candid student must admit. The first is, that in the earliest period of the Church, the privilege of marriage was accorded to the clergy. The second is, that a notion of the impurity of marriage existed, and that it was felt that the clergy, as pre-eminently the holy class, should have less licence than laymen. The first form this feeling took appears in the strong conviction that a second marriage of a priest, or the marriage of a priest with a widow, was unlawful and criminal.(714) This belief seems to have existed from the earliest period of the Church, and was retained with great tenacity and unanimity through many centuries. In the next place, we find from an extremely early date an opinion, that it was an act of virtue, at a later period that it was an act of duty, for priests after ordination to abstain from cohabiting with their wives. The Council of Nice refrained, by the advice of Paphnutius, who was himself a scrupulous celibate, from imposing this last rule as a matter of necessity;(715) but in the course of the fourth century it was a recognised principle that clerical marriages were criminal. They were celebrated, however, habitually, and usually with the greatest openness. The various attitudes assumed by the ecclesiastical authorities in dealing with this subject form an extremely curious page of the history of morals, and supply the most crushing evidence of the evils which have been produced by the system of celibacy. I can at present, however, only refer to the vast mass of evidence which has been collected on the subject, derived from the writings of Catholic divines and from the decrees of Catholic Councils during the space of many centuries. It is a popular illusion, which is especially common among writers who have little direct knowledge of the middle ages, that the atrocious immorality of monasteries, in the century before the Reformation, was a new fact, and that the ages when the faith of men was undisturbed, were ages of great moral purity. In fact, it appears, from the uniform testimony of the ecclesiastical writers, that ecclesiastical immorality in the eighth and three following centuries was little if at all less outrageous than in any other period, while the Papacy, during almost the whole of the tenth century, was held by men of infamous lives. Simony was nearly universal.(716) Barbarian chieftains married at an early age, and totally incapable of restraint, occupied the leading positions in the Church, and gross irregularities speedily became general. An Italian bishop of the tenth century epigrammatically described the morals of his time, when he declared, that if he were to enforce the canons against unchaste people administering ecclesiastical rites, no one would be left in the Church except the boys; and if he were to observe the canons against bastards, these also must be excluded.(717) The evil acquired such magnitude that a great feudal clergy, bequeathing the ecclesiastical benefices from father to son, appeared more than once likely to arise.(718) A tax called “Culagium,” which was in fact a licence to clergymen to keep concubines, was during several centuries systematically levied by princes.(719) Sometimes the evil, by its very extension, corrected itself. Priestly marriages were looked upon as normal events not implying any guilt, and in the eleventh century several instances are recorded in which they were not regarded as any impediment to the power of working miracles.(720) But this was a rare exception. From the earliest period a long succession of Councils as well as such men as St. Boniface, St. Gregory the Great, St. Peter Damiani, St. Dunstan, St. Anselm, Hildebrand and his successors in the Popedom, denounced priestly marriage or concubinage as an atrocious crime, and the habitual life of the priests was, in theory at least, generally recognised as a life of sin.

It is not surprising that, having once broken their vows and begun to live what they deemed a life of habitual sin, the clergy should soon have sunk far below the level of the laity. We may not lay much stress on such isolated instances of depravity as that of Pope John XXIII., who was condemned among many other crimes for incest, and for adultery;(721) or the abbot-elect of St. Augustine, at Canterbury, who in 1171 was found, on investigation, to have seventeen illegitimate children in a single village;(722) or an abbot of St. Pelayo, in Spain, who in 1130 was proved to have kept no less than seventy concubines;(723) or Henry III., Bishop of Liège, who was deposed in 1274 for having sixty-five illegitimate children;(724) but it is impossible to resist the evidence of a long chain of Councils and ecclesiastical writers, who conspire in depicting far greater evils than simple concubinage. It was observed that when the priests actually took wives the knowledge that these connections were illegal was peculiarly fatal to their fidelity, and bigamy and extreme mobility of attachments were especially common among them. The writers of the middle ages are full of accounts of nunneries that were like brothels, of the vast multitude of infanticides within their walls, and of that inveterate prevalence of incest among the clergy, which rendered it necessary again and again to issue the most stringent enactments that priests should not be permitted to live with their mothers or sisters. Unnatural love, which it had been one of the great services of Christianity almost to eradicate from the world, is more than once spoken of as lingering in the monasteries; and, shortly before the Reformation, complaints became loud and frequent of the employment of the confessional for the purposes of debauchery.(725) The measures taken on the subject were very numerous and severe. At first, the evil chiefly complained of was the clandestine marriage of priests, and especially their intercourse with wives whom they had married previous to their ordination. Several Councils issued their anathemas against priests “who had improper relations with their wives;” and rules were made that priests should always sleep in the presence of a subordinate clerk; and that they should only meet their wives in the open air and before at least two witnesses. Men were, however, by no means unanimous in their way of regarding this matter. Synesius, when elected to a bishopric, at first declined, boldly alleging as one of his reasons, that he had a wife whom he loved dearly, and who, he hoped, would bear him many sons, and that he did not mean to separate from her or visit her secretly as an adulterer.(726) A Bishop of Laon, at a later date, who was married to a niece of St. Rémy, and who remained with his wife till after he had a son and a daughter, quaintly expressed his penitence by naming them respectively Latro and Vulpecula.(727) St. Gregory the Great describes the virtue of a priest, who, through motives of piety, had discarded his wife. As he lay dying, she hastened to him to watch the bed which for forty years she had not been allowed to share, and, bending over what seemed the inanimate form of her husband, she tried to ascertain whether any breath still remained, when the dying saint, collecting his last energies, exclaimed, “Woman, begone; take away the straw; there is fire yet.”(728) The destruction of priestly marriage is chiefly due to Hildebrand, who pursued this object with the most untiring resolution. Finding that his appeals to the ecclesiastical authorities and to the civil rulers were insufficient, he boldly turned to the people, exhorted them, in defiance of all Church traditions, to withdraw their obedience from married priests, and kindled among them a fierce fanaticism of asceticism, which speedily produced a fierce persecution of the offending pastors. Their wives, in immense numbers, were driven forth with hatred and with scorn; and many crimes, and much intolerable suffering, followed the disruption. The priests sometimes strenuously resisted. At Cambrai, in A.D. 1077, they burnt alive as a heretic a zealot who was maintaining the doctrines of Hildebrand. In England, half a century later, they succeeded in surprising a Papal legate in the arms of a courtesan, a few hours after he had delivered a fierce denunciation of clerical unchastity.(729) But Papal resolution supported by popular fanaticism won the victory. Pope Urban II. gave licence to the nobles to reduce to slavery the wives whom priests had obstinately refused to abandon, and after a few more acts of severity priestly marriage became obsolete. The extent, however, of the disorders that still existed, is shown by the mournful confessions of ecclesiastical writers, by the uniform and indignant testimony of the poets and prose satirists who preceded the Reformation, by the atrocious immoralities disclosed in the monasteries at the time of their suppression, and by the significant prudence of many lay Catholics, who were accustomed to insist that their priest should take a concubine for the protection of the families of his parishioners.(730)

It is scarcely possible to conceive a more demoralising influence than a priesthood living such a life as I have described. In Protestant countries, where the marriage of the clergy is fully recognised, it has, indeed, been productive of the greatest and the most unequivocal benefits. Nowhere, it may be confidently asserted, does Christianity assume a more beneficial or a more winning form than in those gentle clerical households which stud our land, constituting, as Coleridge said, “the one idyll of modern life,” the most perfect type of domestic peace, the centre of civilisation in the remotest village. Notwithstanding some class narrowness and professional bigotry, notwithstanding some unworthy, but half unconscious mannerism, which is often most unjustly stigmatised as hypocrisy, it would be difficult to find in any other quarter so much happiness at once diffused and enjoyed, or so much virtue attained with so little tension or struggle. Combining with his sacred calling a warm sympathy with the intellectual, social, and political movements of his time, possessing the enlarged practical knowledge of a father of a family, and entering with a keen zest into the occupations and the amusements of his parishioners, a good clergyman will rarely obtrude his religious convictions into secular spheres, but yet will make them apparent in all. They will be revealed by a higher and deeper moral tone, by a more scrupulous purity in word and action, by an all-pervasive gentleness, which refines, and softens, and mellows, and adds as much to the charm as to the excellence of the character in which it is displayed. In visiting the sick, relieving the poor, instructing the young, and discharging a thousand delicate offices for which a woman’s tact is especially needed, his wife finds a sphere of labour which is at once intensely active and intensely feminine, and her example is not less beneficial than her ministrations.

Among the Catholic priesthood, on the other hand, where the vow of celibacy is faithfully observed, a character of a different type is formed, which with very grave and deadly faults combines some of the noblest excellences to which humanity can attain. Separated from most of the ties and affections of earth, viewing life chiefly through the distorted medium of the casuist or the confessional, and deprived of those relationships which more than any others soften and expand the character, the Catholic priests have been but too often conspicuous for their fierce and sanguinary fanaticism, and for their indifference to all interests except those of their Church; while the narrow range of their sympathies, and the intellectual servitude they have accepted, render them peculiarly unfitted for the office of educating the young, which they so persistently claim, and which, to the great misfortune of the world, they were long permitted to monopolise. But, on the other hand, no other body of men have ever exhibited a more single-minded and unworldly zeal, refracted by no personal interests, sacrificing to duty the dearest of earthly objects, and confronting with undaunted heroism every form of hardship, of suffering, and of death.

That the middle ages, even in their darkest periods, produced many good and great men of the latter type it would be unjust and absurd to deny. It can hardly, however, be questioned that the extreme frequency of illicit connections among the clergy tended during many centuries most actively to lower the moral tone of the laity, and to counteract the great services in the cause of purity which Christian teaching had undoubtedly effected. The priestly connections were rarely so fully recognised as to enable the mistress to fill a position like that which is now occupied by the wife of a clergyman, and the spectacle of the chief teachers and exemplars of morals living habitually in an intercourse which was acknowledged to be ambiguous or wrong, must have acted most injuriously upon every class of the community. Asceticism, proclaiming war upon human nature, produced a revulsion towards its extreme opposite, and even when it was observed it was frequently detrimental to purity of mind. The habit of continually looking upon marriage in its coarsest light, and of regarding the propagation of the species as its one legitimate end, exercised a peculiarly perverting influence upon the imagination. The exuberant piety of wives who desired to live apart from their husbands often drove the latter into serious irregularities.(731) The notion of sin was introduced into the dearest of relationships,(732) and the whole subject was distorted and degraded. It is one of the great benefits of Protestantism that it did much to banish these modes of thought and feeling from the world, and to restore marriage to its simplicity and its dignity. We have a gratifying illustration of the extent to which an old superstition has declined, in the fact that when Goldsmith, in his great romance, desired to depict the harmless eccentricities of his simple-minded and unworldly vicar, he represented him as maintaining that opinion concerning the sinfulness of the second marriage of a clergyman which was for many centuries universal in the Church.

Another injurious consequence, resulting, in a great measure, from asceticism, was a tendency to depreciate extremely the character and the position of women. In this tendency we may detect in part the influence of the earlier Jewish writings, in which an impartial observer may find evident traces of the common Oriental depreciation of women. The custom of purchase-money to the father of the bride was admitted. Polygamy was authorised,(733) and practised by the wisest man on an enormous scale. A woman was regarded as the origin of human ills. A period of purification was appointed after the birth of every child; but, by a very significant provision, it was twice as long in the case of a female as of a male child.(734) “The badness of men,” a Jewish writer emphatically declared, “is better than the goodness of women.”(735) The types of female excellence exhibited in the early period of Jewish history are in general of a low order, and certainly far inferior to those of Roman history or Greek poetry; and the warmest eulogy of a woman in the Old Testament is probably that which was bestowed upon her who, with circumstances of the most aggravated treachery, had murdered the sleeping fugitive who had taken refuge under her roof.

The combined influence of the Jewish writings, and of that ascetic feeling which treated women as the chief source of temptation to man, was shown in those fierce invectives, which form so conspicuous and so grotesque a portion of the writings of the Fathers, and which contrast so curiously with the adulation bestowed upon particular members of the sex. Woman was represented as the door of hell, as the mother of all human ills. She should be ashamed at the very thought that she is a woman. She should live in continual penance, on account of the curses she has brought upon the world. She should be ashamed of her dress, for it is the memorial of her fall. She should be especially ashamed of her beauty, for it is the most potent instrument of the dæmon. Physical beauty was indeed perpetually the theme of ecclesiastical denunciations, though one singular exception seems to have been made; for it has been observed that in the middle ages the personal beauty of bishops was continually noticed upon their tombs.(736) Women were even forbidden by a provincial Council, in the sixth century, on account of their impurity, to receive the Eucharist into their naked hands.(737) Their essentially subordinate position was continually maintained.

It is probable that this teaching had its part in determining the principles of legislation concerning the sex. The Pagan laws during the Empire had been continually repealing the old disabilities of women, and the legislative movement in their favour continued with unabated force from Constantine to Justinian, and appeared also in some of the early laws of the barbarians.(738) But in the whole feudal legislation women were placed in a much lower legal position than in the Pagan Empire.(739) In addition to the personal restrictions which grew necessarily out of the Catholic doctrines concerning divorce, and concerning the subordination of the weaker sex, we find numerous and stringent enactments, which rendered it impossible for women to succeed to any considerable amount of property, and which almost reduced them to the alternative of marriage or a nunnery.(740) The complete inferiority of the sex was continually maintained by the law; and that generous public opinion which in Rome had frequently revolted against the injustice done to girls, in depriving them of the greater part of the inheritance of their fathers, totally disappeared. Wherever the canon law has been the basis of legislation, we find laws of succession sacrificing the interests of daughters and of wives,(741) and a state of public opinion which has been formed and regulated by these laws; nor was any serious attempt made to abolish them till the close of the last century. The French revolutionists, though rejecting the proposal of Siéyès and Condorcet to accord political emancipation to women, established at least an equal succession of sons and daughters, and thus initiated a great reformation of both law and opinion, which sooner or later must traverse the world.

In their efforts to raise the standard of purity, the Christian teachers derived much assistance from the incursions and the conquests of the barbarians. The dissolution of vast retinues of slaves, the suspension of most public games, and the general impoverishment that followed the invasions, were all favourable to female virtue; and in this respect the various tribes of barbarians, however violent and lawless, were far superior to the more civilised community. Tacitus, in a very famous work, had long before pourtrayed in the most flattering colours the purity of the Germans. Adultery, he said, was very rare among them. The adulteress was driven from the house with shaven hair, and beaten ignominiously through the village. Neither youth, nor beauty, nor wealth could enable a woman who was known to have sinned to secure a husband. Polygamy was restricted to the princes, who looked upon a plurality of wives rather as a badge of dignity than as a gratification of the passions. Mothers invariably gave suck to their own children. Infanticide was forbidden. Widows were not allowed to re-marry. The men feared captivity, much more for their wives than for themselves; they believed that a sacred and prophetic gift resided in women; they consulted them as oracles, and followed their counsels.(742)

It is generally believed, and it is not improbable, that Tacitus in this work intended to reprove the dissolute habits of his fellow-countrymen, and considerably over-coloured the virtue of the barbarians. Of the substantial justice, however, of his picture we have much evidence. Salvian, who, about three centuries later, witnessed and described the manners of the barbarians who had triumphed over the Empire, attested in the strongest language the contrast which their chastity presented to the vice of those whom they had subdued.(743) The Scandinavian mythology abounds in legends exhibiting the clear sentiment of the heathen tribes on the subject of purity, and the awful penalties threatened in the next world against the seducers.(744) The barbarian women were accustomed to practise medicine and to interpret dreams, and they also very frequently accompanied their husbands to battle, rallied their broken forces, and even themselves took part in the fight.(745) Augustus had discovered that it was useless to keep barbarian chiefs as hostages, and that the one way of securing the fidelity of traitors was by taking their wives, for these, at least, were never sacrificed. Instances of female heroism are said to have occurred in the conquered nations, which might rival the most splendid in the Roman annals. When Marius had vanquished an army of the Teutons, their wives besought the conqueror to permit them to become the servants of the Vestal Virgins, in order that their honour, at least, might be secure in slavery. Their request was refused, and that night they all perished by their own hands.(746) A powerful noble once solicited the hand of a Galatian lady named Camma, who, faithful to her husband, resisted all his entreaties. Resolved at any hazard to succeed, he caused her husband to be assassinated, and when she took refuge in the temple of Diana, and enrolled herself among the priestesses, he sent noble after noble to induce her to relent. After a time, he ventured himself into her presence. She feigned a willingness to yield, but told him it was first necessary to make a libation to the goddess. She appeared as a priestess before the altar, bearing in her hand a cup of wine, which she had poisoned. She drank half of it herself, handed the remainder to her guilty lover, and when he had drained the cup to the dregs, burst into a fierce thanksgiving, that she had been permitted to avenge, and was soon to rejoin, her murdered husband.(747) Another and still more remarkable instance of conjugal fidelity was furnished by a Gaulish woman named Epponina. Her husband, Julius Sabinus, had rebelled against Vespasian; he was conquered, and might easily have escaped to Germany, but could not bear to abandon his young wife. He retired to a villa of his own, concealed himself in subterranean cellars that were below it, and instructed a freedman to spread the report that he had committed suicide, while, to account for the disappearance of his body, he set fire to the villa. Epponina, hearing of the suicide, for three days lay prostrate on the ground without eating. At length the freedman came to her, and told her that the suicide was feigned. She continued her lamentations by day, but visited her husband by night. She became with child, but owing, it is said, to an ointment, she succeeded in concealing her state from her friends. When the hour of parturition was at hand, she went alone into the cellar, and without any assistance or attendance was delivered of twins, whom she brought up underground. For nine years she fulfilled her task, when Sabinus was discovered, and, to the lasting disgrace of Vespasian, was executed, in spite of the supplications of his wife, who made it her last request that she might be permitted to die with him.(748)

The moral purity of the barbarians was of a kind altogether different from that which the ascetic movement inculcated. It was concentrated exclusively upon marriage. It showed itself in a noble conjugal fidelity; but it was little fitted for a life of celibacy, and did not, as we have seen, prevent excessive disorders among the priesthood. The practice of polygamy among the barbarian kings was also for some centuries unchecked, or at least unsuppressed, by Christianity. The kings Caribert and Chilperic had both many wives at the same time.(749) Clotaire married the sister of his first wife during the lifetime of the latter, who, on the intention of the king being announced, is reported to have said, “Let my lord do what seemeth good in his sight, only let thy servant live in thy favour.”(750) Theodebert, whose general goodness of character is warmly extolled by the episcopal historian, abandoned his first wife on account of an atrocious crime which she had committed; took, during her lifetime, another, to whom he had previously been betrothed; and upon the death of this second wife, and while the first was still living, took a third, whom, however, at a later period he murdered.(751) St. Columbanus was expelled from Gaul chiefly on account of his denunciations of the polygamy of King Thierry.(752) Dagobert had three wives, as well as a multitude of concubines.(753) Charlemagne himself had at the same time two wives, and he indulged largely in concubines.(754) After this period examples of this nature became rare. The Popes and the bishops exercised a strict supervision over domestic morals, and strenuously, and in most cases successfully, opposed the attempts of kings and nobles to repudiate their wives.

But, notwithstanding these startling facts, there can be no doubt that the general purity of the barbarians was from the first superior to that of the later Romans, and it appears in many of their laws. It has been very happily observed,(755) that the high value placed on this virtue is well illustrated by the fact that in the Salic code, while a charge of cowardice falsely brought against a man was only punished by a fine of three solidi, a charge of unchastity falsely brought against a woman was punished by a fine of forty-five. The Teutonic sentiment was shown in a very stern legislation against adultery and rape,(756) and curiously minute precautions were sometimes taken to guard against them. A law of the Spanish Visigoths prohibited surgeons from bleeding any free woman except in the presence of her husband, of her nearest relative, or at least of some properly appointed witness, and a Salic law imposed a fine of fifteen pieces of gold upon any one who improperly pressed her hand.(757)

Under the influence of Christianity, assisted by the barbarians, a vast change passed gradually over the world. The vice we are considering was probably more rare; it certainly assumed less extravagant forms, and it was screened from observation with a new modesty. The theory of morals had become clearer, and the practice was somewhat improved. The extreme grossness of literature had disappeared, and the more glaring violations of marriage were always censured and often repressed. The penitential discipline, and the exhortations of the pulpit, diffused abroad an immeasurably higher sense of the importance of purity than Pagan antiquity had known. St. Gregory the Great, following in the steps of some Pagan philosophers,(758) strenuously urged upon mothers the duty of themselves suckling their children; and many minute and stringent precepts were made against extravagances of dress and manners. The religious institutions of Greece and Asia Minor, which had almost consecrated prostitution, were for ever abolished, and the courtesan sank into a lower stage of degradation.

Besides these changes, the duty of reciprocal fidelity in marriage was enforced with a new earnestness. The contrast between the levity with which the frailty of men has in most ages been regarded, and the extreme severity with which women who have been guilty of the same offence have generally been treated, forms one of the most singular anomalies in moral history, and appears the more remarkable when we remember that the temptation usually springs from the sex which is so readily pardoned; that the sex which is visited with such crushing penalties is proverbially the most weak; and that, in the case of women, but not in the case of men, the vice is very commonly the result of the most abject misery and poverty. For this disparity of censure several reasons have been assigned. The offence can be more surely and easily detected, and therefore more certainly punished, in the case of women than of men; and, as the duty of providing for his children falls upon the father, the introduction into the family of children who are not his own is a special injury to him, while illegitimate children who do not spring from adultery will probably, on account of their father having entered into no compact to support them, ultimately become criminals or paupers, and therefore a burden to society.(759) It may be added, I think, that several causes render the observance of this virtue more difficult for one sex than for the other; that its violation, when every allowance has been made for the moral degradation which is a result of the existing condition of public opinion, is naturally more profoundly prejudicial to the character of women than of men; and also that much of our feeling on these subjects is due to laws and moral systems which were formed by men, and were in the first instance intended for their own protection.

The passages in the Fathers, asserting the equality of the obligation imposed upon both sexes, are exceedingly unequivocal;(760) and although the doctrine itself had been anticipated by Seneca and Plutarch, it had probably never before, and it has never since, been so fully realised as in the early Church. It cannot, however, be said that the conquest has been retained. At the present day, although the standard of morals is far higher than in Pagan Rome, it may be questioned whether the inequality of the censure which is bestowed upon the two sexes is not as great as in the days of Paganism, and that inequality is continually the cause of the most shameful and the most pitiable injustice. In one respect, indeed, a great retrogression resulted from chivalry, and long survived its decay. The character of the seducer, and especially of the passionless seducer who pursues his career simply as a kind of sport, and under the influence of no stronger motive than vanity or a spirit of adventure, has been glorified and idealised in the popular literature of Christendom in a manner to which we can find no parallel in antiquity. When we reflect that the object of such a man is by the coldest and most deliberate treachery to blast the lives of innocent women; when we compare the levity of his motive with the irreparable injury he inflicts; and when we remember that he can only deceive his victim by persuading her to love him, and can only ruin her by persuading her to trust him, it must be owned that it would be difficult to conceive a cruelty more wanton and more heartless, or a character combining more numerous elements of infamy and of dishonour. That such a character should for many centuries have been the popular ideal of a considerable section of literature, and the boast of numbers who most plume themselves upon their honour, is assuredly one of the most mournful facts in history, and it represents a moral deflection certainly not less than was revealed in ancient Greece by the position that was assigned to the courtesan.

The fundamental truth, that the same act can never be at once venial for a man to demand, and infamous for a woman to accord, though nobly enforced by the early Christians, has not passed into the popular sentiment of Christendom. The mystical character, however, which the Church imparted to marriage has been extremely influential. Partly by raising it into a sacrament, and partly by representing it as, in some mysterious and not very definable sense, an image of the union of Christ with His Church, a feeling was fostered that a lifelong union of one man and one woman is, under all circumstances, the single form of intercourse between the sexes which is not illegitimate; and this conviction has acquired the force of a primal moral intuition.

There can, I think, be little doubt that, in the stringency with which it is usually laid down, it rests not upon the law of nature, but upon positive law, although unassisted nature is sufficient to lead men many steps in its direction. Considering the subject simply in the light of unaided reason, two rules comprise the whole duty of man. He must abstain from whatever injures happiness or degrades character. Under the first head, he must include the more remote as well as the immediate consequences of his act. He must consider how his partner will be affected by the union, the light in which society will view the connection, the probable position of the children to be born, the effect of these births, and also the effect of his example upon the well-being of society at large. Some of the elements of this calculation vary in different stages of society. Thus, public opinion in one age will reprobate, and therefore punish, connections which, in another age, are fully sanctioned; and the probable position of the children, as well as the effect of the births upon society, will depend greatly upon particular and national circumstances.

Under the second head is comprised the influence of this intercourse in clouding or developing the moral feelings, lowering or elevating the tone of character, exciting or allaying the aberrations of the imagination, incapacitating men for pure affections or extending their range, making the animal part of our nature more or less predominant. We know, by the intuition of our moral nature, that this predominance is always a degraded, though it is not always an unhappy, condition. We also know that it is a law of our being, that powerful and beautiful affections, which had before been latent, are evoked in some particular forms of union, while other forms of union are peculiarly fitted to deaden the affections and to pervert the character.

In these considerations we have ample grounds for maintaining that the lifelong union of one man and of one woman should be the normal or dominant type of intercourse between the sexes. We can prove that it is on the whole most conducive to the happiness, and also to the moral elevation, of all parties. But beyond this point it would, I conceive, be impossible to advance, except by the assistance of a special revelation. It by no means follows that because this should be the dominant type it should be the only one, or that the interests of society demand that all connections should be forced into the same die. Connections, which were confessedly only for a few years, have always subsisted side by side with permanent marriages; and in periods when public opinion, acquiescing in their propriety, inflicts no excommunication on one or both of the partners, when these partners are not living the demoralising and degrading life which accompanies the consciousness of guilt, and when proper provision is made for the children who are born, it would be, I believe, impossible to prove, by the light of simple and unassisted reason, that such connections should be invariably condemned. It is extremely important, both for the happiness and for the moral well-being of men, that lifelong unions should not be effected simply under the imperious prompting of a blind appetite. There are always multitudes who, in the period of their lives when their passions are most strong, are incapable of supporting children in their own social rank, and who would therefore injure society by marrying in it, but are nevertheless perfectly capable of securing an honourable career for their illegitimate children in the lower social sphere to which these would naturally belong. Under the conditions I have mentioned, these connections are not injurious, but beneficial, to the weaker partner; they soften the differences of rank, they stimulate social habits, and they do not produce upon character the degrading effect of promiscuous intercourse, or upon society the injurious effects of imprudent marriages, one or other of which will multiply in their absence. In the immense variety of circumstances and characters, cases will always appear in which, on utilitarian grounds, they might seem advisable.

It is necessary to dwell upon such considerations as these, if we would understand the legislation of the Pagan Empire or the changes that were effected by Christianity. The legislators of the Empire distinctly recognised these connections, and made it a main object to authorise, dignify, and regulate them. The unlimited licence of divorce practically included them under the name of marriage, while that name sheltered them from stigma, and prevented many of the gravest evils of unauthorised unions. The word concubine also, which in the Republic had the same signification as among ourselves, represented in the Empire a strictly legal union—an innovation which was chiefly due to Augustus, and was doubtless intended as part of the legislation against celibacy, and also, it may be, as a corrective of the licentious habits that were general. This union was in essentials merely a form of marriage, for he who, having a concubine, took to himself either a wife or another concubine, was legally guilty of adultery. Like the commonest form of marriage, it was consummated without any ceremony, and was dissoluble at will. Its peculiarities were that it was contracted between men of patrician rank and freedwomen, who were forbidden by law to intermarry; that the concubine, though her position was perfectly recognised and honourable, did not share the rank of her partner, that she brought no dowry, and that her children followed her rank, and were excluded from the rank and the inheritance of their father.(761)

Against these notions Christianity declared a direct and implacable warfare, which was imperfectly reflected in the civil legislation, but appeared unequivocally in the writings of the Fathers, and in most of the decrees of the Councils.(762) It taught, as a religious dogma, invariable, inflexible, and independent of all utilitarian calculations, that all forms of intercourse of the sexes, other than lifelong unions, were criminal. By teaching men to regard this doctrine as axiomatic, and therefore inflicting severe social penalties and deep degradation on transient connections, it has profoundly modified even their utilitarian aspect, and has rendered them in most countries furtive and disguised. There is probably no other branch of ethics which has been so largely determined by special dogmatic theology, and there is none which would be so deeply affected by its decay.

As a part of the same movement, the purely civil marriage of the later Pagan Empire was gradually replaced by religious marriages. There is a manifest propriety in invoking a divine benediction upon an act which forms so important an epoch in life, and the mingling of a religious ceremony impresses a deeper sense of the solemnity of the contract. The essentially religious and even mystical character imparted by Christianity to marriage rendered the consecration peculiarly natural, but it was only very gradually that it came to be looked upon as absolutely necessary. As I have already noticed, it was long dispensed with in the marriage of slaves; and even in the case of freemen, though generally performed, it was not made compulsory till the tenth century.(763) In addition to its primary object of sanctifying marriage, it became in time a powerful instrument in securing the authority of the priesthood, who were able to compel men to submit to the conditions they imposed in the formation of the most important contract of life; and the modern authorisation of civil marriages, by diminishing greatly the power of the Catholic priesthood over domestic life, has been one of the most severe blows ecclesiastical influence has undergone.

The absolute sinfulness of divorce was at the same time strenuously maintained by the Councils, which in this, as in many other points, differed widely from the civil law. Constantine restricted it to three cases of crime on the part of the husband, and three on the part of the wife; but the habits of the people were too strong for his enactments, and, after one or two changes in the law, the full latitude of divorce reappeared in the Justinian Code. The Fathers, on the other hand, though they hesitated a little about the case of a divorce which followed an act of adultery on the part of the wife,(764) had no hesitation whatever in pronouncing all other divorces to be criminal, and periods of penitential discipline were imposed upon Christians who availed themselves of the privileges of the civil law.(765) For many centuries this duality of legislation continued. The barbarian laws restricted divorce by imposing severe fines on those who repudiated their wives. Charlemagne pronounced divorce to be criminal, but did not venture to make it penal, and he practised it himself. On the other hand, the Church threatened with excommunication, and in some cases actually launched its thunders against, those who were guilty of it. It was only in the twelfth century that the victory was definitely achieved, and the civil law, adopting the principle of the canon law, prohibited all divorce.(766)

I do not propose in the present work to examine how far this total prohibition has been for the happiness or the moral well-being of men. I will simply observe that, though it is now often defended, it was not originally imposed in Christian nations, upon utilitarian grounds, but was based upon the sacramental character of marriage, upon the belief that marriage is the special symbol of the perpetual union of Christ with His Church, and upon a well-known passage in the Gospels. The stringency of the Catholic doctrine, which forbids the dissolution of marriage even in the case of adultery, has been considerably relaxed by modern legislation, and there can, I think, be little doubt that further steps will yet be taken in the same direction; but the vast change that was effected in both practice and theory since the unlimited licence of the Pagan Empire must be manifest to all.

It was essential, or at least very important, that a union which was so solemn and so irrevocable should be freely contracted. The sentiment of the Roman patriots towards the close of the Republic was that marriage should be regarded as a means of providing children for the State, and should be entered into as a matter of duty with that view, and the laws of Augustus had imposed many disqualifications on those who abstained from it. Both of these inducements to marriage passed away under the influence of Christianity. The popular sentiment disappeared with the decline of civic virtues. The laws were rescinded under the influence of the ascetic enthusiasm which made men regard the state of celibacy as pre-eminently holy.

There was still one other important condition to be attained by theologians in order to realise their ideal type of marriage. It was to prevent the members of the Church from intermarrying with those whose religious opinions differed from their own. Mixed marriages, it has been truly said, may do more than almost any other influence to assuage the rancour and the asperity of sects, but it must be added that a considerable measure of tolerance must have been already attained before they become possible. In a union in which each partner believes and realises that the other is doomed to an eternity of misery there can be no real happiness, no sympathy, no trust; and a domestic agreement that some of the children should be educated in one religion and some in the other would be impossible when each parent believed it to be an agreement that some children should be doomed to hell.

The domestic unhappiness arising from differences of belief was probably almost or altogether unknown in the world before the introduction of Christianity; for, although differences of opinion may have before existed, the same momentous consequences were not attached to them. It has been the especial bane of periods of great religious change, such as the conversion of the Roman Empire, or the Reformation, or our own day when far more serious questions than those which agitated the sixteenth century are occupying the attention of a large proportion of thinkers and scholars, and when the deep and widening chasm between the religious opinions of most highly educated men, and of the immense majority of women, is painfully apparent. While a multitude of scientific discoveries, critical and historical researches, and educational reforms have brought thinking men face to face with religious problems of extreme importance, women have been almost absolutely excluded from their influence. Their minds are usually by nature less capable than those of men of impartiality and suspense, and the almost complete omission from female education of those studies which most discipline and strengthen the intellect increases the difference, while at the same time it has been usually made a main object to imbue them with a passionate faith in traditional opinions, and to preserve them from all contact with opposing views. But contracted knowledge and imperfect sympathy are not the sole fruits of this education. It has always been the peculiarity of a certain kind of theological teaching that it inverts all the normal principles of judgment, and absolutely destroys intellectual diffidence. On other subjects we find, if not a respect for honest conviction, at least some sense of the amount of knowledge that is requisite to entitle men to express an opinion on grave controversies. A complete ignorance of the subject-matter of a dispute restrains the confidence of dogmatism; and an ignorant person, who is aware that, by much reading and thinking in spheres of which he has himself no knowledge, his educated neighbour has modified or rejected opinions which that ignorant person had been taught, will, at least if he is a man of sense or modesty, abstain from compassionating the benighted condition of his more instructed friend. But on theological questions this has never been so. Unfaltering belief being taught as the first of duties, and all doubt being usually stigmatised as criminal or damnable, a state of mind is formed to which we find no parallel in other fields. Many men and most women, though completely ignorant of the very rudiments of biblical criticism, historical research, or scientific discoveries, though they have never read a single page, or understood a single proposition of the writings of those whom they condemn, and have absolutely no rational knowledge either of the arguments by which their faith is defended, or of those by which it has been impugned, will nevertheless adjudicate with the utmost confidence upon every polemical question; denounce, hate, pity, or pray for the conversion of all who dissent from what they have been taught; assume, as a matter beyond the faintest possibility of doubt, that the opinions they have received without enquiry must be true, and that the opinions which others have arrived at by enquiry must be false, and make it a main object of their lives to assail what they call heresy in every way in their power, except by examining the grounds on which it rests. It is probable that the great majority of voices that swell the clamour against every book which is regarded as heretical are the voices of those who would deem it criminal even to open that book, or to enter into any real, searching, and impartial investigation of the subject to which it relates. Innumerable pulpits support this tone of thought, and represent, with a fervid rhetoric well fitted to excite the nerves and imaginations of women, the deplorable condition of all who deviate from a certain type of opinions or of emotions; a blind propagandism or a secret wretchedness penetrates into countless households, poisoning the peace of families, chilling the mutual confidence of husband and wife, adding immeasurably to the difficulties which every searcher into truth has to encounter, and diffusing far and wide intellectual timidity, disingenuousness, and hypocrisy.

These domestic divisions became very apparent in the period of the conversion of the Roman Empire; and a natural desire to guard intact the orthodoxy and zeal of the converts, and to prevent a continual discordance, stimulated the Fathers in their very vehement denunciations of all mixed marriages. We may also trace in these denunciations the outline of a very singular doctrine, which was afterwards suffered to fall into obscurity, but was revived in the last century in England in a curious and learned work of the nonjuror Dodwell.(767) The union of Christ and His Church had been represented as a marriage; and this image was not regarded as a mere metaphor or comparison, but as intimating a mysterious unity, which, though not susceptible of any very clear definition, was not on that account the less real. Christians were the “limbs of Christ,” and for them to join themselves in marriage with those who were not of the Christian fold was literally, it was said, a species of adultery or fornication. The intermarriage of the Israelites, the chosen seed of the ancient world, with the Gentiles, had been described in the Old Testament as an act of impurity;(768) and in the opinion of some, at least, of the Fathers, the Christian community occupied towards the unbelievers a position analogous to that which the Jews had occupied towards the Gentiles. St. Cyprian denounced the crime of those “who prostitute the limbs of Christ in marriage with the Gentiles.”(769) Tertullian described the intermarriage as fornication;(770) and after the triumph of the Church, the intermarriage of Jews and Christians was made a capital offence, and was stigmatised by the law as adultery.(771) The civil law did not prohibit the orthodox from intermarrying with heretics, but many councils in strong terms denounced such marriages as criminal.

The extreme sanctity attributed to virginity, the absolute condemnation of all forms of sexual connection other than marriage, and the formation and gradual realisation of the Christian conception of marriage as a permanent union of a man and woman of the same religious opinions, consecrated by solemn religious services, carrying with it a deep religious signification, and dissoluble only by death, were the most obvious signs of Christian influence in the sphere of ethics we are examining. Another very important result of the new religion was to raise to a far greater honour than they had previously possessed, the qualities in which women peculiarly excel.

There are few more curious subjects of enquiry than the distinctive differences between the sexes, and the manner in which those differences have affected the ideal types of different ages, nations, philosophies, and religions. Physically, men have the indisputable superiority in strength, and women in beauty. Intellectually, a certain inferiority of the female sex can hardly be denied when we remember how almost exclusively the foremost places in every department of science, literature, and art have been occupied by men, how infinitesimally small is the number of women who have shown in any form the very highest order of genius, how many of the greatest men have achieved their greatness in defiance of the most adverse circumstances, and how completely women have failed in obtaining the first position, even in music or painting, for the cultivation of which their circumstances would appear most propitious. It is as impossible to find a female Raphael, or a female Handel, as a female Shakspeare or Newton. Women are intellectually more desultory and volatile than men; they are more occupied with particular instances than with general principles; they judge rather by intuitive perceptions than by deliberate reasoning or past experience. They are, however, usually superior to men in nimbleness and rapidity of thought, and in the gift of tact or the power of seizing speedily and faithfully the finer inflexions of feeling, and they have therefore often attained very great eminence in conversation, as letter-writers, as actresses, and as novelists.

Morally, the general superiority of women over men, is, I think, unquestionable. If we take the somewhat coarse and inadequate criterion of police statistics, we find that, while the male and female populations are nearly the same in number, the crimes committed by men are usually rather more than five times as numerous as those committed by women;(772) and although it may be justly observed that men, as the stronger sex, and the sex upon whom the burden of supporting the family is thrown, have more temptations than women, it must be remembered, on the other hand, that extreme poverty which verges upon starvation is most common among women, whose means of livelihood are most restricted, and whose earnings are smallest and most precarious. Self-sacrifice is the most conspicuous element of a virtuous and religious character, and it is certainly far less common among men than among women, whose whole lives are usually spent in yielding to the will and consulting the pleasures of another. There are two great departments of virtue: the impulsive, or that which springs spontaneously from the emotions; and the deliberative, or that which is performed in obedience to the sense of duty; and in both of these I imagine women are superior to men. Their sensibility is greater, they are more chaste both in thought and act, more tender to the erring, more compassionate to the suffering, more affectionate to all about them. On the other hand, those who have traced the course of the wives of the poor, and of many who, though in narrow circumstances, can hardly be called poor, will probably admit that in no other class do we so often find entire lives spent in daily persistent self-denial, in the patient endurance of countless trials, in the ceaseless and deliberate sacrifice of their own enjoyments to the well-being or the prospects of others. Women, however, though less prone than men to intemperance and brutality, are in general more addicted to the petty forms of vanity, jealousy, spitefulness, and ambition, and they are also inferior to men in active courage. In the courage of endurance they are commonly superior; but their passive courage is not so much fortitude which bears and defies, as resignation which bears and bends. In the ethics of intellect they are decidedly inferior. To repeat an expression I have already employed, women very rarely love truth, though they love passionately what they call “the truth,” or opinions they have received from others, and hate vehemently those who differ from them. They are little capable of impartiality or of doubt; their thinking is chiefly a mode of feeling; though very generous in their acts, they are rarely generous in their opinions or in their judgments. They persuade rather than convince, and value belief rather as a source of consolation than as a faithful expression of the reality of things. They are less capable than men of perceiving qualifying circumstances, of admitting the existence of elements of good in systems to which they are opposed, of distinguishing the personal character of an opponent from the opinions he maintains. Men lean most to justice and women to mercy. Men excel in energy, self-reliance, perseverance, and magnanimity; women in humility, gentleness, modesty, and endurance. The realising imagination which causes us to pity and to love is more sensitive in women than in men, and it is especially more capable of dwelling on the unseen. Their religious or devotional realisations are incontestably more vivid; and it is probable that, while a father is most moved by the death of a child in his presence, a mother generally feels most the death of a child in some distant land. But, though more intense, the sympathies of women are commonly less wide than those of men. Their imaginations individualise more; their affections are, in consequence, concentrated rather on leaders than on causes; and if they care for a great cause, it is generally because it is represented by a great man, or connected with some one whom they love. In politics, their enthusiasm is more naturally loyalty than patriotism. In history, they are even more inclined than men to dwell exclusively upon biographical incidents or characteristics as distinguished from the march of general causes. In benevolence, they excel in charity, which alleviates individual suffering, rather than in philanthropy, which deals with large masses and is more frequently employed in preventing than in allaying calamity.

It was a remark of Winckelmann that “the supreme beauty of Greek art is rather male than female;” and the justice of this remark has been amply corroborated by the greater knowledge we have of late years attained of the works of the Phidian period, in which art achieved its highest perfection, and in which, at the same time, force and freedom, and masculine grandeur, were its pre-eminent characteristics. A similar observation may be made of the moral ideal of which ancient art was simply the expression. In antiquity the virtues that were most admired were almost exclusively those which are distinctively masculine. Courage, self-assertion, magnanimity, and, above all, patriotism, were the leading features of the ideal type; and chastity, modesty, and charity, the gentler and the domestic virtues, which are especially feminine, were greatly undervalued. With the single exception of conjugal fidelity, none of the virtues that were very highly prized were virtues distinctively or pre-eminently feminine. With this exception, nearly all the most illustrious women of antiquity were illustrious chiefly because they overcame the natural conditions of their sex. It is a characteristic fact that the favourite female ideal of the artists appears to have been the Amazon.(773) We may admire the Spartan mother, and the mother of the Gracchi, repressing every sign of grief when their children were sacrificed upon the altar of their country, we may wonder at the majestic courage of a Porcia and an Arria; but we extol them chiefly because, being women, they emancipated themselves from the frailty of their sex, and displayed an heroic fortitude worthy of the strongest and the bravest of men. We may bestow an equal admiration upon the noble devotion and charity of a St. Elizabeth of Hungary, or of a Mrs. Fry, but we do not admire them because they displayed these virtues, although they were women, for we feel that their virtues were of the kind which the female nature is most fitted to produce. The change from the heroic to the saintly ideal, from the ideal of Paganism to the ideal of Christianity, was a change from a type which was essentially male to one which was essentially feminine. Of all the great schools of philosophy no other reflected so faithfully the Roman conception of moral excellence as Stoicism, and the greatest Roman exponent of Stoicism summed up its character in a single sentence when he pronounced it to be beyond all other sects the most emphatically masculine.(774) On the other hand, an ideal type in which meekness, gentleness, patience, humility, faith, and love are the most prominent features, is not naturally male but female. A reason probably deeper than the historical ones which are commonly alleged, why sculpture has always been peculiarly Pagan and painting peculiarly Christian, may be found in the fact, that sculpture is especially suited to represent male beauty, or the beauty of strength, and painting female beauty, or the beauty of softness; and that Pagan sentiment was chiefly a glorification of the masculine qualities of strength, and courage, and conscious virtue, while Christian sentiment is chiefly a glorification of the feminine qualities of gentleness, humility, and love. The painters whom the religious feeling of Christendom has recognised as the most faithful exponents of Christian sentiment have always been those who infused a large measure of feminine beauty even into their male characters; and we never, or scarcely ever, find that the same artist has been conspicuously successful in delineating both Christian and Pagan types. Michael Angelo, whose genius loved to expatiate on the sublimity of strength and defiance, failed signally in his representations of the Christian ideal; and Perugino was equally unsuccessful when he sought to pourtray the features of the heroes of antiquity.(775) The position that was gradually assigned to the Virgin as the female ideal in the belief and the devotion of Christendom, was a consecration or an expression of the new value that was attached to the feminine virtues.

The general superiority of women to men in the strength of their religious emotions, and their natural attraction to a religion which made personal attachment to its Founder its central duty, and which imparted an unprecedented dignity and afforded an unprecedented scope to their characteristic virtues, account for the very conspicuous position that female influence assumed in the great work of the conversion of the Roman Empire. In no other important movement of thought was it so powerful or so acknowledged. In the ages of persecution female figures occupy many of the foremost places in the ranks of martyrdom, and Pagan and Christian writers alike attest the alacrity with which women flocked to the Church, and the influence they exercised in its favour over the male members of their families. The mothers of St. Augustine, St. Chrysostom, St. Basil, St. Gregory Nazianzen, and Theodoret, had all a leading part in the conversion of their sons. St. Helena, the mother of Constantine, Flacilla, the wife of Theodosius the Great, St. Pulcheria, the sister of Theodosius the Younger, and Placidia, the mother of Valentinian III., were among the most conspicuous defenders of the faith. In the heretical sects the same zeal was manifested, and Arius, Priscillian, and Montanus were all supported by troops of zealous female devotees. In the career of asceticism women took a part little if at all inferior to men, while in the organisation of the great work of charity they were pre-eminent. For no other field of active labour are women so admirably suited as for this; and although we may trace from the earliest period, in many creeds and ages, individual instances of their influence in allaying the sufferings of the distressed,(776) it may be truly said that their instinct and genius of charity had never before the dawn of Christianity obtained full scope for action. Fabiola, Paula, Melania, and a host of other noble ladies devoted their time and fortunes mainly to founding and extending vast institutions of charity, some of them of a kind before unknown in the world. The Empress Flacilla was accustomed to tend with her own hands the sick in the hospitals,(777) and a readiness to discharge such offices was deemed the first duty of a Christian wife.(778) From age to age the impulse thus communicated has been felt. There has been no period, however corrupt, there has been no Church, however superstitious, that has not been adorned by many Christian women devoting their entire lives to assuaging the sufferings of men; and the mission of charity thus instituted has not been more efficacious in diminishing the sum of human wretchedness, than in promoting the moral dignity of those by whom it was conducted.

Among the Collyridian heretics, women were admitted to the priesthood. Among the orthodox, although this honour was not bestowed upon them, they received a religious consecration, and discharged some minor ecclesiastical functions under the name of deaconesses.(779) This order may be traced to the Apostolic period.(780) It consisted of elderly virgins, who were set apart by a formal ordination, and were employed in assisting as catechists and attendants at the baptism of women, in visiting the sick, ministering to martyrs in prison, preserving order in the congregations, and accompanying and presenting women who desired an interview with the bishop. It would appear, from the evidence of some councils, that abuses gradually crept into this institution, and the deaconesses at last faded into simple nuns, but they were still in existence in the East in the twelfth century. Besides these, widows, when they had been but once married, were treated with peculiar honour, and were made the special recipients of the charity of the Church. Women advanced in years, who, either from their single life or from bereavement, have been left without any male protector in the world, have always been peculiarly deserving of commiseration. With less strength, and commonly with less means, and less knowledge of the world than men, they are liable to contract certain peculiarities of mind and manner to which an excessive amount of ridicule has been attached, and age in most cases furnishes them with very little to compensate for the charms of which it has deprived them. The weight and dignity of matured wisdom, which make the old age of one sex so venerable, are more rarely found in that of the other, and even physical beauty is more frequently the characteristic of an old man than of an old woman. The Church laboured steadily to cast a halo of reverence around this period of woman’s life, and its religious exercises have done very much to console and to occupy it.

In accordance with these ideas, the Christian legislators contributed largely to improve the legal position of widows in respect to property,(781) and Justinian gave mothers the guardianship of their children, destroying the Pagan rule that guardianship could only be legally exercised by men.(782) The usual subservience of the sex to ecclesiastical influence, the numerous instances of rich widows devoting their fortunes, and mothers their sons, to the Church, had no doubt some influence in securing the advocacy of the clergy; but these measures had a manifest importance in elevating the position of women who have had, in Christian lands, a great, though not, I think, altogether a beneficial influence, in the early education of their sons.

Independently of all legal enactments, the simple change of the ideal type by bringing specially feminine virtues into the forefront was sufficient to elevate and ennoble the sex. The commanding position of the mediæval abbesses, the great number of female saints, and especially the reverence bestowed upon the Virgin, had a similar effect. It is remarkable that the Jews, who, of the three great nations of antiquity, certainly produced in history and poetry the smallest number of illustrious women, should have furnished the world with its supreme female ideal, and it is also a striking illustration of the qualities which prove most attractive in woman that one of whom we know nothing except her gentleness and her sorrow should have exercised a magnetic power upon the world incomparably greater than was exercised by the most majestic female patriots of Paganism. Whatever may be thought of its theological propriety, there can be little doubt that the Catholic reverence for the Virgin has done much to elevate and purify the ideal of woman, and to soften the manners of men. It has had an influence which the worship of the Pagan goddesses could never possess, for these had been almost destitute of moral beauty, and especially of that kind of moral beauty which is peculiarly feminine. It supplied in a great measure the redeeming and ennobling element in that strange amalgam of religious, licentious, and military feeling which was formed around women in the age of chivalry, and which no succeeding change of habit or belief has wholly destroyed.

It can hardly, I think, be questioned that in the great religious convulsions of the sixteenth century the feminine type followed Catholicism, while Protestantism inclined more to the masculine type. Catholicism alone retained the Virgin worship, which at once reflected and sustained the first. The skill with which it acts upon the emotions by music, and painting, and solemn architecture, and imposing pageantry, its tendency to appeal to the imagination rather than to the reason, and to foster modes of feeling rather than modes of thought, its assertion of absolute and infallible certainty, above all, the manner in which it teaches its votary to throw himself perpetually on authority, all tended in the same direction. It is the part of a woman to lean, it is the part of a man to stand. A religion which prescribes to the distracted mind unreasoning faith in an infallible Church, and to the troubled conscience an implicit trust in an absolving priesthood, has ever had an especial attraction to a feminine mind. A religion which recognises no authority between man and his Creator, which asserts at once the dignity and the duty of private judgment, and which, while deepening immeasurably the sense of individual responsibility, denudes religion of meretricious ornaments, and of most æsthetic aids, is pre-eminently a religion of men. Puritanism is the most masculine form that Christianity has yet assumed. Its most illustrious teachers differed from the Catholic saints as much in the moral type they displayed as in the system of doctrines they held. Catholicism commonly softens, while Protestantism strengthens, the character; but the softness of the first often degenerates into weakness, and the strength of the second into hardness. Sincerely Catholic nations are distinguished for their reverence, for their habitual and vivid perceptions of religious things, for the warmth of their emotions, for a certain amiability of disposition, and a certain natural courtesy and refinement of manner that are inexpressibly winning. Sincerely Protestant nations are distinguished for their love of truth, for their firm sense of duty, for the strength and the dignity of their character. Loyalty and humility, which are especially feminine, flourish chiefly in the first; liberty and self-assertion in the second. The first are most prone to superstition, and the second to fanaticism. Protestantism, by purifying and dignifying marriage, conferred a great benefit upon women; but it must be owned that neither in its ideal type, nor in the general tenor of its doctrines or devotions, is it as congenial to their nature as the religion it superseded.

Its complete suppression of the conventual system was also, I think, very far from a benefit to women or to the world. It would be impossible to conceive any institution more needed than one which would furnish a shelter for the many women who, from poverty, or domestic unhappiness, or other causes, find themselves cast alone and unprotected into the battle of life, which would secure them from the temptations to gross vice, and from the extremities of suffering, and would convert them into agents of active, organised, and intelligent charity. Such an institution would be almost free from the objections that may justly be urged against monasteries, which withdraw strong men from manual labour, and it would largely mitigate the difficulty of providing labour and means of livelihood for single women, which is one of the most pressing, in our own day one of the most appalling, of social problems. Most unhappily for mankind, this noble conception was from the first perverted. Institutions that might have had an incalculable philanthropic value were based upon the principle of asceticism, which makes the sacrifice, not the promotion, of earthly happiness its aim, and binding vows produced much misery and not a little vice. The convent became the perpetual prison of the daughter whom a father was disinclined to endow, or of young girls who, under the impulse of a transient enthusiasm, or of a transient sorrow, took a step which they never could retrace, and useless penances and contemptible superstitions wasted the energies that might have been most beneficially employed. Still it is very doubtful whether, even in the most degraded period, the convents did not prevent more misery than they inflicted, and in the Sisters of Charity the religious orders of Catholicism have produced one of the most perfect of all the types of womanhood. There is, as I conceive, no fact in modern history more deeply to be deplored than that the Reformers, who in matters of doctrinal innovations were often so timid, should have levelled to the dust, instead of attempting to regenerate, the whole conventual system of Catholicism.

The course of these observations has led me to transgress the limits assigned to this history. It has been, however, my object through this entire work to exhibit not only the nature but also the significance of the moral facts I have recorded, by showing how they have affected the subsequent changes of society. I will conclude this chapter, and this work, by observing that of all the departments of ethics the questions concerning the relations of the sexes and the proper position of women are those upon the future of which there rests the greatest uncertainty. History tells us that, as civilisation advances, the charity of men becomes at once warmer and more expansive, their habitual conduct both more gentle and more temperate, and their love of truth more sincere; but it also warns us that in periods of great intellectual enlightenment, and of great social refinement, the relations of the sexes have often been most anarchical. It is impossible to deny that the form which these relations at present assume has been very largely affected by special religious teaching, which, for good or for ill, is rapidly waning in the sphere of government, and also, that certain recent revolutions in economical opinion and industrial enterprise have a most profound bearing upon the subject. The belief that a rapid increase of population is always eminently beneficial, which was long accepted as an axiom by both statesmen and moralists, and was made the basis of a large part of the legislation of the first and of the decisions of the second, has now been replaced by the directly opposite doctrine, that the very highest interest of society is not to stimulate but to restrain multiplication, diminishing the number of marriages and of children. In consequence of this belief, and of the many factitious wants that accompany a luxurious civilisation, a very large and increasing proportion of women are left to make their way in life without any male protector, and the difficulties they have to encounter through physical weakness have been most unnaturally and most fearfully aggravated by laws and customs which, resting on the old assumption that every woman should be a wife, habitually deprive them of the pecuniary and educational advantages of men, exclude them absolutely from very many of the employments in which they might earn a subsistence, encumber their course in others by a heartless ridicule or by a steady disapprobation, and consign, in consequence, many thousands to the most extreme and agonising poverty, and perhaps a still larger number to the paths of vice. At the same time a momentous revolution, the effects of which can as yet be but imperfectly descried, has taken place in the chief spheres of female industry that remain. The progress of machinery has destroyed its domestic character. The distaff has fallen from the hand. The needle is being rapidly superseded, and the work which, from the days of Homer to the present century, was accomplished in the centre of the family, has been transferred to the crowded manufactory.(783)

The probable consequences of these things are among the most important questions that can occupy the moralist or the philanthropist, but they do not fall within the province of the historian. That the pursuits and education of women will be considerably altered, that these alterations will bring with them some modifications of the type of character, and that the prevailing moral notions concerning the relations of the sexes will be subjected in many quarters to a severe and hostile criticism, may safely be predicted. Many wild theories will doubtless be propounded. Some real ethical changes may perhaps be effected, but these, if I mistake not, can only be within definite and narrow limits. He who will seriously reflect upon our clear perceptions of the difference between purity and impurity, upon the laws that govern our affections, and upon the interests of the children who are born, may easily convince himself that in this, as in all other spheres, there are certain eternal moral landmarks which never can be removed.

INDEX.

Abortion, diversities of moral judgment respecting, i. 92. History of the practice of, ii. 20, 24

Abraham the Hermit, St., ii. 110

Acacius, his ransom of Persian slaves, ii. 72

Adultery, laws concerning, ii. 313

Æschylus, his views of human nature, i. 196. His violation of dramatic probabilities, 229

Affections, the, all forms of self-love, according to some Utilitarians, i. 9. Subjugation of the, to the reason, taught by the Stoics, &c., 177, 187. Considered by the Stoics as a disease, 188. Evil consequences of their suppression, 191

Africa, sacrifices of children to Saturn in, ii. 31. Effect of the conquest of Genseric of, 82

Agapæ, or love feasts, of the Christians, how regarded by the pagans, i. 415; ii. 79. Excesses of the, and their suppression, 150

Agnes, St., legend of, ii. 319

Agricultural pursuits, history of the decline of, in Italy, i. 266. Efforts to relieve the agriculturists, 267

Albigenses, their slow suicides, ii. 49

Alexander the Great: effect of his career on Greek cosmopolitanism, i. 229

Alexandria, foundation of, i. 230. Effect of the increasing importance of, on Roman thought, 319. The Decian persecution at, 451. Excesses of the Christian sects of, ii. 196, 197, note

Alexis, St., his legend, ii. 322

Alimentus, Cincius, his work written in Greek, i. 230

Almsgiving, effects of indiscriminate, ii. 90, 91

Amafanius, wrote the first Latin work on philosophy, i. 175, note.

Ambrose, St., his miraculous dream, i. 379. His dissection of the pagan theory of the decline of the Roman empire, 409. His ransom of Italians from the Goths, ii. 72. His commendation of disobedience to parents, 132

American Indians, suicide of the, ii. 54

Ammon, St., his refusal to wash himself, ii. 110. Deserts his wife, 322

Amour, William de St., his denunciation of the mendicant orders, ii. 96

Amphitheatres, history and remains of Roman, i. 273

Anaxagoras, on the death of his son, i. 191. On his true country, 201

Anchorites. See Ascetics; Monasticism

Angelo, Michael, in what he failed, ii. 363

Anglo-Saxon nations, their virtues and vices, i. 153

Animals, lower, Egyptian worship of, i. 166, note. Humanity to animals probably first advocated by Plutarch, 244. Animals employed in the arena at Rome, 280. Instances of kindness to, 288, 307. Legends of the connection of the saints and the animal world, ii. 161. Pagan legends of the intelligence of animals, 161, 162. Legislative protection of them, 162. Views as to the souls of animals, 162. Moral duty of kindness to animals taught by pagans, 166. Legends in the lives of the saints in connection with animals, 168. Progress in modern times of humanity to animals, 172

Antigonus of Socho, his doctrine of virtue, i. 183, note

Antioch, charities of, ii. 80. Its extreme vice and asceticism, 153

Antisthenes, his scepticism, i. 162

Antoninus, the philosopher, his prediction, i. 427

Antoninus the Pious, his death, i. 207. His leniency towards the Christians, 438, 439. Forged letter of, 439, note. His charity, ii. 77

Antony, St., his flight into the desert, ii. 103. His mode of life, 110. His dislike to knowledge, 115. Legend of his visit to Paul the hermit, 157, 158

Aphrodite, the celestial and earthly, i. 106

Apollonius of Tyana, his conversation with an Egyptian priest respecting the Greek and Egyptian modes of worshipping the deity, i. 166, note. Miracles attributed to him, 372. His humanity to animals, ii. 165

Apollonius, the merchant, his dispensary for monks, ii. 81

Apuleius, his condemnation of suicide, i. 213. His disquisition on the doctrine of dæmons, 323. Practical form of his philosophy, 329. Miracles attributed to him, 372. His defence of tooth-powder, ii. 148

Archytas of Tarentum, his speech on the evils of sensuality, i. 200, note

Argos, story of the sons of the priestess of Juno at, i. 206

Arians, their charges against the Catholics, i. 418, note

Aristides, his gentleness, i. 228

Aristotle, his admission of the practice of abortion, i. 92. Emphasis with which he dwelt upon the utility of virtue, 124. His patriotism, 200. His condemnation of suicide, 212. His opinions as to the duties of Greeks to barbarians, 229

Arius, death of, ii. 196

Arnobius, on the miracles of Christ, i. 375

Arrian, his humanity to animals, ii. 164

Arsenius, St., his penances, ii. 107, 114, note. His anxiety to avoid distractions, 125, note

Ascetics, their estimate of the dreadful nature of sin, i. 113. Decline of asceticism and evanescence of the moral notions of which it was the expression, 113. Condition of society to which it belongs, 130. Decline of the ascetic and saintly qualities with civilisation, 130. Causes of the ascetic movement, ii. 102. Its rapid extension, 103-105. Penances attributed to the saints of the desert, 107-109. Miseries and joys of the hermit life, 113 et seq. Dislike of the monks to knowledge, 115. Their hallucinations, 116. Relations of female devotees with the anchorites, 120. Ways in which the ascetic life affected both the ideal type and realised condition of morals, 122, et seq. Extreme animosity of the ascetics to everything pagan, 136, 137. Decline of the civic virtues caused by asceticism, 139. Moral effects of asceticism on self-sacrifice, 154, 155. Moral beauty of some of the legends of the ascetics, 156. Legends of the connection between the saints and the animal world, 161. Practical form of asceticism in the West, 177. Influence of asceticism on chastity, 319, 320. On marriage, 320. On the estimate of women, 337

Asella, story of her asceticism, ii. 133

Asia Minor, destruction of the churches of, ii. 14

Aspasia, the Athenian courtesan, ii. 293

Asses, feast of, ii. 173

Association, Hartley’s doctrine of, i. 22. Partly anticipated by Hutcheson and Gay, 23. Illustrations of the system of association, 26-30. The theory, how far selfish, 30. The essential and characteristic feature of conscience wholly unaccounted for by the association of ideas, 66

Astrology, belief in, rapidly gaining ground in the time of the elder Pliny, i. 171, and note

Atticus, his suicide, i. 215, and note

Augustine, St., on original sin, i. 209. His belief in contemporary miracles, 378. On the decline of the Roman empire, 410. His condemnation of virgin suicides, ii. 47

Augustus, his solemn degradation of the statue of Neptune, i. 169. His mode of discouraging celibacy, 232. Miraculous stories related of him, 258. His superstition, 376. Advice of Mæcenas to him, 399. His consideration for the religious customs of the Jews, 406

Aulus Gellius, his account of the rhetoricians, i. 313. Compared with Helvétius, 313

Aurelius, Marcus, on a future state, i. 184. On posthumous fame, 186. Denied that all vices are the same, 192, note. On the sacred spirit dwelling in man, 198. His submissive gratitude, 199. His practical application of the precepts of the Stoics, 202. His wavering views as to suicide, 213. His charity to the human race, 241. Mild and more religious spirit of his stoicism, 245. His constant practice of self-examination, 249. His life and character, 249-255. Compared and contrasted with Plutarch, 253. His discouragement of the games of the arena, 286. His humanity, 308. His disbelief of exorcism, 384. His law against religious terrorism, 422. His persecution of the Christians, 439, 440. His benevolence, ii. 77. His view of war, 258

Austin, Mr., his view of the foundation of the moral law, i. 17, note. His advocacy of the unselfish view of the love we ought to bear to God, 18, note. Character of his “Lectures on Jurisprudence,” 22, note

Avarice, association of ideas to the passion of, i. 25

Avitus, St., legend of, ii. 159

Babylas, St., miracles performed by his bones, i. 382, and note. His death, ii. 9

Bacchus, suppression of the rites of, at Rome, i. 401

Bacon, Lord, great movement of modern thought caused by, i. 125. His objection to the Stoics’ view of death, 202

Bacon, Roger, his life and works, ii. 210

Bain, Mr., on pleasure, i. 12, note. His definition of conscience, 29, note.

Balbus, Cornelius, his elevation to the consulate, i. 232

Baltus on the exorcists, i. 381, note.

Baptism, Augustinian doctrine of, i. 96

Barbarians, causes of the conversion of the, i. 410

Basil, St., his hospital, ii. 80. His labours for monachism, 106

Bassus, Ventidius, his elevation to the consulate, i. 232

Bathilda, Queen, her charity, ii. 245

Bear-gardens in England, ii. 175, note.

Beauty, analogies between virtue and, i. 77. Their difference, 79. Diversities existing in our judgments of virtue and beauty, 79. Causes of these diversities, 79. Virtues to which we can, and to which we cannot, apply the term beautiful, 82, 83. Pleasure derived from beauty compared with that from the grotesque, or eccentric, 85. The prevailing cast of female beauty in the north, contrasted with the southern type, 144, 145, 152. Admiration of the Greeks for beauty, ii. 292

Bees, regarded by the ancients as emblems or models of chastity, i. 108, note.

Beggars, causes of vast numbers of, ii. 94. Old English laws for the suppression of mendicancy, 96. Enactments against them in various parts of Europe, 98

Benedict, St., his system, 183

Benefices, military use of, ii. 270

Benevolence; Hutcheson’s theory that all virtue is resolved into benevolence, i. 4. Discussions in England, in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, as to the existence of, 20. Various views of the source from which it springs, 22. Association of ideas producing the feeling of, 26. Hartley on benevolence quoted, 27, note. Impossibility of benevolence becoming a pleasure if practised only with a view to that end, 37. Application to benevolence of the theory, that the moral unity of different ages is a unity not of standard but of tendency, 100. Influenced by our imaginations, 132, 133. Imperfectly recognised by the Stoics, 188, 192

Bentham, Jeremy, on the motives of human actions, i. 8, note. On the pleasures and pains of piety quoted, 9, note. On charity, 10, note. On vice, 13, note. On the sanctions of morality, 19, and note, 21. Throws benevolence as much as possible into the background, 21. Makes no use of the doctrine of association, 25, note. His definition of conscience, 29, note. On interest and disinterestedness, 32, note. On the value and purity of a pleasure, 90, note.

Besarion, St., his penances, ii. 108

Biography, relative importance of, among Christians and Pagans, i. 174

Blandina, martyrdom of, i. 442

Blesilla, story of her slow suicide, ii. 48

Blondel, his denunciation of the forgeries of the Sibylline books, i. 377

Boadicea, her suicide, ii. 53, note

Bolingbroke’s “Reflections on Exile,” i. 201, note

Bona Dea, story and worship of, i. 94, note. Popularity of her worship among the Romans, 106, 386

Boniface, St., his missionary labours, ii. 247

Bonnet, his philosophy, i. 71

Bossuet, on the nature of the love we should bear to God, i. 18, note

Brephotrophia, in the early church, ii. 32

Brotherhood, effect of Christianity in promoting, ii. 61

Brown, on the motive for the practice of virtue, i. 8, note. On theological Utilitarianism, 16, note

Brunehaut, Queen, her crimes, approved of by the Pope, ii. 236, 237. Her end, 237

Brutus, his extortionate usury, i. 193, 194

Buckle, Thomas, his remarks on morals, i. 74, note. On the difference between mental and physical pleasures, 90, note. His views of the comparative influence of intellectual and moral agencies in civilisation, 103, note

Bull-baiting in England, ii. 175, note

Bulgarians, their conversion to Christianity, ii. 180

Butler, Bishop, maintains the reality of the existence of benevolence in our nature, i. 20, 21, note. On the pleasure derived from virtue, 32, note. His analysis of moral judgments, 76. His definition of conscience, 83

Byzantine Empire, general sketch of the moral condition of the, ii. 13, 14. Moral condition of the empire during the Christian period, 147

Cædmon, story of the origin of his “Creation of the World,” ii. 204

Cæsar, Julius, denies the immortality of the soul, i. 182. His condemnation of suicide, 213. His colonial policy, 233. His multiplication of gladiatorial shows, 273

Caligula, his intoxication with his imperial dignity, i. 259. His superstitious fears, 367

Calvinists: tendency of the Supralapsarian to deny the existence of a moral sense, i. 17, note

Camma, conjugal fidelity of, ii. 341

Capital punishment, aversion to, ii. 39

Carlyle, Thomas, on self-sacrifice, i. 57, note. The influence of conscience on the happiness of men, 62

Carneades, his expulsion from Rome proposed by Cato, i. 399

Carpocrates, licentiousness of the followers of, i. 417

Carthage, effect of the destruction of, on the decadence of Rome, i. 169. The Decian persecution at, 452

Carthaginians, the, amongst the most prominent of Latin writers, i. 235

Cassius, the tyrannicide, his suicide, i. 215

Castellio, his exposure of the forgeries of the Sibylline books, i. 377

Catacombs, the, i. 453, 455

Catholicism, Roman, the system of education adopted by, contrasted with that of the English public schools, i. 114. Conflict of the priests with political economists on the subject of early marriages, 114, 115. The teaching of, on many points the extreme antithesis of that of the pagan philosophers, 208. Its view of death, 208, 210. Little done by it for humanity to animals, ii. 173, 177, 188. Influence on despotism, 186. Its total destruction of religious liberty, 194-199. Causes of the indifference to truth manifested in its literature, 241. Protestantism contrasted with it, 368

Cato, his refusal to consult the oracles, i. 165, note. His stoicism, 185. His inhumanity to his slaves, 193. His study of the “Phædon” the night he committed suicide, 212. His opposition to Greek philosophy, 231. His view of pre-nuptial chastity, ii. 314

Cattle plague, theological notions respecting the, i. 356

Catullus, on the death of a sparrow, ii. 165, note

Cautinus, Bishop, his drunkenness, ii. 236

Celibacy among the ancients, i. 106. The Catholic monastic system, 107. How discouraged by Augustus, 232. Celibacy the primal virtue of the Christians of the fourth and fifth centuries, ii. 122. Effect of this upon moral teaching, 122, 123. History of the celibacy of the clergy, 328, 336

Celsus calls the Christians Sibyllists, i. 376. And jugglers, 384

Celts, Spanish, their worship of death, i. 206, 207. Causes of their passion for suicide, 207, note. Their lamentations on the birth of men, 207, note

Censors, Roman, minute supervision of the, i. 168

Character, influence of, on opinion, i. 172. Governed in a great measure by national circumstances, 172

Chariot races, passion for, at Constantinople, ii. 37

Charity, a form of self-love, according to the Utilitarians, i. 9, and note. Impossibility of charity becoming a pleasure if practised only with a view to that end, 36. Charity of the Stoics, 191. Cicero’s emphatic assertion of the duty, 240. Exertions of the Christians in the cause of charity, ii. 75, 79. Inadequate place given to this movement in history, 84, 85. Christian charity, in what it consists, 73. Laws of the Romans, 73. Pagan examples of charity, 78. Noble enthusiasm of the Christians in the cause of charity, 78, 79. Charity enjoined as a matter of justice, 81. Theological notions of charity, 85, 90, 91. Evils of Catholic charity, 93-94. Legends respecting the virtue, 245, and note

Charlemagne, his law respecting Sunday, ii. 245. Fascination exercised by him over the popular imagination, 271, 272. His polygamy, 343

Charles V., the Emperor, his law against beggars, ii. 97

Charles Martel, his defeat of the Mohammedans, at Poictiers, ii. 273

Charondas, law of, on second marriages, ii. 325, note

Chastity, in Utilitarian systems, i. 12, 49. Sketch of the history of, 103-107. The Catholic monastic system, 107. Modern judgments of, ii. 282, 283. Cato’s views, 314. Mystical views, 315. Services of the ascetics in enforcing the duty of chastity, 318-320

Children, charge of murdering infants, among the early Christians, i. 417. Abortion, ii. 20-24. Infanticide, 24, 26. Exposed children, 32. Institutions of the Romans for the benefit of children, 77

Chilon, his closing hours, i. 207

Cholera, theological notions respecting the, i. 356

Christian and pagan virtues compared, i. 190

Christianity; distinctions between the pagan and Christian conceptions of death, i. 208. The importance of Christianity not recognised by pagan writers, 336. Causes of this, 338. Examination of the theory which ascribes part of the teaching of the later pagan moralists to Christian influence, 340. Theory which attributes the conversion of Rome to evidences of miracles, 346. Opinion of the pagans about the credulity of the Christians, 347. Incapacity of the Christians of the third century for judging historic miracles, 375. And for judging prophecies, 376. Contemporary miracles represented as existing among them, 377. Christian miracles had probably little weight with the pagans, 385. Progress of Christianity to what due, 386, 387. Singular adaptation of it to the wants of the time, 387. Heroism it inspired, 390. Explanation of the conversion of the Roman Empire, 393. Account of the persecutions of the Christians, 395. Reasons why the Christians were more persecuted than the Jews, 403, 406, 407. The first cause of the persecution of the Christians, 406. Charges of immorality brought against them, 414. Due in a great measure to Jews and heretics, 416, 417. The disturbance of domestic life caused by female conversions, 418. Antipathy of the Romans to every system which employed religious terrorism, 421. Christian intolerance of pagan worship, 423. And of diversity of belief, 424-427. History of the persecutions, 429. Nero’s, 429. Domitian’s, 431. Condition of the Christians under the Antonines, 434. Become profoundly obnoxious to the people, 436. Marcus Aurelius, 439, 440. Introduction of Christianity into France, 442, and note. Attitude of the rulers towards it from M. Aurelius to Decius, 451, et seq. Condition of the Church on the eve of the Decian persecution, 448. Gallus, 454. Valerian, 454. Gallienus, 455. Erection of churches in the Empire, 457. Persecutions of Diocletian and Galerius, 458. End of the persecutions, 463. Massacre of Christians in Phrygia, 464. Moral efficacy of the Christian sense of sin, ii. 3. Dark views of human nature not common in the early Church, 5. The penitential system, 6. Empire Christianity attained in eliciting disinterested enthusiasm, 8. Great purity of the early Christians, 10, 11. The promise of the Church for many centuries falsified, 12. The first consequence of Christianity a new sense of the sanctity of human life, 17. Influence in the protection of infant life, 20-32. In the suppression of gladiatorial shows, 34. Its effect upon persecutions, 40, et seq. The penal code not lightened by it, 42. Condemnation of suicide, 43. Second consequence of Christianity Teaches universal brotherhood, 61. Slavery, 61-66. Ransom of captives, 72. Charity, 73. Exertions of the Christians in the cause of charity, 75, 79. Their exertions when the Empire was subverted, 81, 82, 88. Theological notions concerning insanity, 85-90. Almsgiving, 90-92. Beneficial effect of Christianity in supplying pure images to the imagination, 99. Summary of the philanthropic achievements of Christianity, 100. Ways in which the ascetic mode of life affected both the ideal type and realised condition of morals, 122, et seq. History of the relations of Christianity to the civic virtues, 140. Improvements effected by Christianity in the morals of the people, 153. Attitude of Christianity to the barbarians, 178. How it achieved their conversion, 179-181. Tendency of the barbarians to adulterate it, 181. Legends of the conflict between the old gods and the new faith, 181. Fierce hatred of rival sects, and total destruction of religious liberty, 194, 200. Polytheistic and idolatrous form of Christianity in mediæval times, 229. The doctrine of purgatory, 232. Benefits conferred by the monasteries, 243-245. The observance of Sunday, 245. Influence of Christianity upon war, 254, 259. Upon the consecration of secular rank, 260, et seq. Upon the condition of women, 316, et seq. Strong assertion of the equality of obligation in marriage, 345, 346. Relation of Christianity to the female virtues, 358, et seq.

Chrysippus on the immortality of the soul, i. 183

Chrysostom, St., his labours for monachism, ii. 107. His treatment of his mother, 132

Cicero on the evidence of a Divine element within us, i. 56, note. His definition of conscience, 83. His conception of the Deity, 164. His opinion of the popular beliefs, 165. Instance of his love of truth, 176, note. His desire for posthumous reputation, 185, note. His declaration as to virtue concealing itself from the world, 185. His belief in the immortality of the soul, 204. His view of death, 205, 206. His complacency on the approach of death, 207. His conception of suicide, 213. His maintenance of the doctrine of universal brotherhood, 240. How he regarded the games of the arena, 285. His friendship with his freedman Tiro, 323. His remarks on charity, ii. 79. His rules respecting almsgiving, 92

Circumcelliones, atrocities of the, ii. 41. Their custom of provoking martyrdom, 49

Civic virtues, predominance accorded to, in ancient ethics, i. 200

Civilisation, refining influence of, on taste, i. 79. Pleasures of a civilised and semi-civilised society compared, 86. Views of Mill and Buckle on the comparative influence of intellectual and moral agencies in, 102, note. Effect of education in diminishing cruelty, and producing charity, 134. Moral enthusiasm appropriate to different stages of civilisation, 136. Increase of veracity with civilisation, 137. Each stage of civilisation specially appropriate to some virtue, 147

Clarke, on moral judgments, i. 77

Classical literature, preservation of, ii. 199. Manner in which it was regarded by the Church, 200-204

Claudius, his delight in gladiatorial shows, i. 280. His decree as to slaves, 307

Claver, Father, his remark on some persons who had delivered a criminal into the hands of justice, i. 41, note

Cleanthes, his suicide, i. 212

Clemency, Seneca’s distinction between it and pity, i. 189

Clement of Alexandria, on the two sources of all the wisdom of antiquity, i. 344. On the Sibylline books, 376. On wigs, ii. 149

Clemens, Flavius, put to death, i. 433

Cleombrotus, his suicide, i. 212, note

Clergy, corruption of the, from the fourth century, ii. 150, 237. Submission of the Eastern, but independence of the Western, clergy to the civil power, 264-268. History of their celibacy, 328

Climate, effects of, in stimulating or allaying the passions, i. 144

Clotaire, his treatment of Queen Brunehaut, ii. 237

Clotilda, her conversion of her husband, i. 410; ii. 180

Clovis, his conversion, i. 410; ii. 180. Gregory of Tours’ account of his acts, 240, 241

Cock-fighting among the ancients and moderns, ii. 164, and note, 175, note

Cock-throwing, ii. 164, note, 175, note

Coemgenus, St., legend of, ii. 111, note

Coleridge, S. T., his remarks on the practice of virtue as a pleasure, i. 28, note. His admiration for Hartley, 28, note. On the binding ground of the belief of God and a hereafter, i. 55, note

Colman, St., his animal companions, ii. 170. His girdle, 319, note

Colonies, Roman, the cosmopolitan spirit forwarded by the aggrandisement of the, i. 233

Colosseum, the, i. 275. Games at the dedication of the, 280

Columbanus, St., his missionary labours, ii. 246

Comedy, Roman, short period during which it flourished, i. 277

Comet, a temple erected by the Romans in honour of a, i. 367

Commodus, his treatment of the Christians, i. 443

Compassion, theory that it is the cause of our acts of barbarity, i. 71, 72

Concubines, Roman, ii. 350

Concupiscence, doctrine of the Fathers respecting, ii. 281

Condillac, cause of the attractiveness of utilitarianism to, i. 71. Connection with Locke, i. 122, note

Confessors, power of the, in the early Church, i. 390, and note

Congo, Helvétius, on a custom of the people of, i. 102, note

Conquerors, causes of the admiration of, i. 94, 95

Conscience, association of ideas generating, i. 28. Recognised by the disciples of Hartley, 29. Definitions of Hobbes, Locke, Bentham, and Bain, 29, note. The rewards and punishments of conscience, 60-62. Unique position of, in our nature, 83. As defined by Cicero, the Stoics, St. Paul, and Butler, 83

Consequences, remote, weakness of the utilitarian doctrine of, i. 42-44

“Consolations,” literature of, leading topics of, i. 204

Constantine, the Emperor, his foundation of the empire of the East, ii. 12. His humane policy towards children, 29, 30. His sanction of the gladiatorial shows, 35. His laws mitigating the severity of punishments, 42. His treatment of slaves, 64. His law respecting Sunday, 244. Magnificence of his court at Constantinople, 265

Conventual system, effect of the suppression of the, on women, ii. 369

Cordeilla, or Cordelia, her suicide, ii. 53, note

Corinth, effect of the conquest of, on the decadence of Rome, i. 169

Cornelia, a vestal virgin, incident of her execution, ii. 318, note

Cornelius, the bishop, martyrdom of, i. 454

Cornutus, his disbelief in a future state, i. 183

Corporations, moral qualities of, i. 152

Councils of the Church, character of the, ii. 197, note

Courtesans, Greek, ii. 287. Causes of their elevation, 291-294. How regarded by the Romans, 300

Cousin, Victor, his criticism of the Scotch moralists, i. 74, note. His objection against Locke, 75, note

Crantor, originates the literature of “Consolations,” i. 204

Cremutius Cordus, trial of, i. 448, note

Crime, value attached by the monks to pecuniary compensations for, ii. 213. Catalogue of crimes of the seventh century, 237-239

Criminals, causes of our indulgent judgment of, i. 135

Critical spirit, the, destroyed by Neoplatonism, i. 330

Cromaziano, his history of suicide, i. 216, note

Cruelty, origin and varieties of, i. 132, 134. Cruelty to animals, utilitarian doctrine concerning, 46, 47

Crusius, his adherence to the opinion of Ockham as to the foundation of the moral law, i. 17, note

Cudworth, his analysis of moral judgments, i. 76

Culagium, a tax levied on the clergy, ii. 330

Cumberland, Bishop, his unselfish view of virtue, i. 19, note

Cynics, account of the later, i. 309

Cyprian, St., his evasion of persecution by flight, i. 452. His exile and martyrdom, 455

Cyzicus deprived of its freedom, i. 259

Dæmons, Apuleius’ disquisition on the doctrine of, i. 323. The doctrine supersedes the Stoical naturalism, i. 331. The dæmons of the Greeks and Romans, 380. And of the Christians, 382

Dale, Van, his denial of the supernatural character of the oracles, i. 374

Dead, Roman worship of the, i. 168

Death, calmness with which some men of dull and animal natures can meet, i. 89. Frame of mind in which a man should approach death, according to Epictetus, 195. Preparation for death one of the chief ends of the philosophy of the ancients, 202. Bacon’s objection to the Stoics’ view of, 202. The Irish legend of the islands of life and death, 203. The literature of “Consolations,” 204. Death not regarded by the philosophers as penal, 205. Popular terrors of death, 205, 206. Instances of tranquil pagan deaths, 207. Distinctions between the pagan and Christian conceptions of death, 208

Decius, persecution of the Christians under, i. 449, 450

Defoe, Daniel, his tract against beggars, ii. 98, and note

Delphi, oracle of, its description of the best religion, i. 167

Deogratias, his ransom of prisoners, ii. 72

Despotism, Helvétius’ remarks on the moral effects of, i. 129, note

Diagoras, his denial of the existence of the gods, i. 162

Diodorus, the philosopher, his suicide, i. 215

Dion Chrysostom, his denunciation of images of the Deity, i. 166, 167, note. His life and works, 312

Dionysius of Halicarnassus, on the creed of the Romans, i. 167

Disinterestedness, Bentham’s remarks on, quoted, i. 32, note

Disposition, what constitutes, according to the theory of association, i. 30

Divination, a favourite subject of Roman ridicule, i. 166. Belief of the ancients in, 363

Divorce, unbounded liberty of, among the Romans, ii. 306-308. Condemned by the Church, 350, 351

Docetæ, their tenets, ii. 102

Dog-star, legend of the, ii. 162

Dolphin, legends of the, ii. 162, and note

Domestic laws, Roman, changes in, i. 297, 298

Domestic virtues, destruction of the, by the ascetics, ii. 125

Domitian, his law respecting suicide, i. 219. Anecdote of his cruelty, 289. His law as to slaves, 307. His persecution of the Stoics and Christians, 431, 432

Domitilla, banishment of, i. 433

Domnina, her suicide with her daughters, ii. 46

Donatists, their intolerance, ii. 195

Dowry of women, rise of the, ii. 277 and note

Dreams, opinions of the Romans concerning, i. 366, 367, note

Dumont, M., on vengeance quoted, i. 41, note

Duty, theory of morals must explain what is, and the notion of there being such a thing as, i. 5. Paley on the difference between it and prudence, 15, 16, note. Distinction between natural duties and those resting on positive law, 93. Duty a distinct motive, 180

Dwarfs, combats of, in the arena, i. 281

Earthquakes, how regarded by the ancients, i. 369. Cause of persecutions of the Christians, 408

Easter controversy, bitterness of the, ii. 198

Eclectic school of philosophy, rise of the, i. 242. Its influence on the Stoics, 245

Eclipses, opinions of the ancients concerning, i. 366

Education, importance ascribed to, by the theory of the association of ideas, i. 30. Contrast between that adopted by the Catholic priesthood and that of the English public schools, 114. Its influence on the benevolent feelings, 133, 134. Two distinct theories of, 187

Egypt, the cradle of monachism, ii. 105. The Mohammedan conquest of, 143. Triumphs of the Catholics in, 196

Egyptians, their reverence for the vulture, i. 108, note. Their kindness to animals, 289. Contrast of the spirit of their religion with that of the Greeks, 324. Difference between the Stoical and Egyptian pantheism, 325

Elephants, legends of, ii. 161

Emperors, Roman, apotheosis of, i. 170, 257

Endura, the Albigensian practice of, ii. 49

England, national virtues and vices of, i. 153. Ancient amusements of, ii. 174, 175, note

Ephrem, St., his charity, ii. 81

Epictetus, his disbelief in a future state, i. 183. His life and works, 184, and note. On the frame of mind in which a man should approach death, 195. His views of the natural virtue of man, 198. On suicide, 214, note, 220. On universal brotherhood, 254. His stoicism tempered by a milder and more religious spirit, 245, 246. His remarks on national religious beliefs, 405

Epicureans, their faith preserved unchanged at Athens, i. 128, and note. Their scepticism, 162. Roman Epicureans, 162, 163. Epicureanism the expression of a type of character different from Stoicism, 171, 172. But never became a school of virtue in Rome, 175. Destructive nature of its functions, 176. Esteemed pleasure as the ultimate end of our actions, 186. Encouraged physical science, 193. Their doctrine as to suicide, 214, 215, note

Epicurus, the four canons of, i. 14. Vast place occupied by his system in the moral history of man, 171. His character, 175, 176, note. Lucretius’ praise of him, 197. His view of death, 205. Discovery of one of his treatises at Herculaneum, 205, note

Epidemics, theological notions respecting, i. 356

Epiphanius, St., his miraculous stories, i. 378. His charges against the Gnostics, 417. Legend of him and St. Hilarius, ii. 159

Epponina, story of her conjugal fidelity, ii. 342

Error, the notion of the guilt of, ii. 190-193

Essenes, virginity their ideal of sanctity, i. 109, ii. 102

Euhemerus, his explanation of the legends, i. 163

Euphrates the Stoic, his answer to Pliny the Younger, i. 202. Has permission from Hadrian to commit suicide, 218, note

Euphraxia, St., ii. 110

Euripides, beauty of the gentler virtues inculcated in the plays of, i. 228

Eusebius, on the allegorical and mythical interpretations of paganism, i. 163, note. His account of the Christian persecutions, i. 463

Eusebius, St., his penances, ii. 108

Eustathius, condemnation of, by the council of Gangra, ii. 131

Evagrius, his inhumanity to his parents, ii. 125

Evil, views of Hobbes and the Utilitarians of the essence and origin of, i. 8-10

Excellence, supreme, how far it is conducive to happiness, i. 56

Excommunication, penalties of, ii. 7

Executioners, always regarded as unholy, i. 41

Exorcism, among the early Christians, i. 378, 380. Origin of the notions of possession and exorcism, 380. Jews the principal exorcists, 380. Belief of the early Christians in, 382. Contempt of the pagans for it, 384. Ulpian’s law against exorcists, 384. Probable explanation of possession and exorcism, 385. Speedy decline of exorcism, 385. The practice probably had no appreciable influence in provoking persecution of the Christians, 420

Experience, general statement of the doctrine which bases morals upon, i. 5

Fabianus, martyrdom of, i. 446

Fabiola, founded the first public hospital, ii. 80

Fabius, his self-sacrifice, i. 185

Fabius Pictor, his works written in Greek, i. 230

Faculty, moral, the term, i. 75

Fairies, belief in, i. 348, 349

Fatalism, Æschylus the poet of, i. 196

Felicitas, St., her martyrdom, i. 444. In prison, ii. 9

Fénelon, on the unselfish love we should bear to God, i. 18, note

Fetishism, latent, the root of a great part of our opinions, i. 350

Fidenæ, accident at the amphitheatre at, i. 275

Fights, sham, in Italy in the middle ages, ii. 37, 38

Fire, regarded by the ancients as an emblem of virginity, i. 108, note

Fish, symbol of the early Christians, i. 376

Flamens of Jupiter, ii. 298

Flora, games of, i. 276

Forethought, brought into a new position by industrial habits, i. 140

Foundlings, hospitals for, ii. 23, note, 32. In ancient times, 28, 29. Adversaries of, 98, and note

France, condition of, under the Merovingian kings, ii. 236, note

Francis of Assisi, St., story of his death from asceticism, ii. 49. His kindness to animals, 172

Franks, cause of their conversion, i. 410

Frédégonde, Queen, her crimes, ii. 236, 237

Freedmen, influence of, at Rome, i. 233. Condition of the freedmen of the Romans, 236

Frenchmen, the chief national virtues and causes of their influence in Europe, i. 152. Compared with Anglo-Saxon nations, 153

Friendship, Utilitarian view of, i. 10

Galerius, his persecution of the Christians, i. 458, 461. His illness, 462. Relents towards the Christians, 462

Galilæans, their indifference to death, i. 392, note

Gall, St., legend of, ii. 182. His missionary labours, 247

Gallienus, proclaims toleration to the Christians, i. 455, 457

Gallus, the Emperor, persecutions of the Christians under, i. 454

Gambling-table, moral influence of the, i. 148

Gaul, introduction of Christianity into, i. 442. Foundation of the monastic system in, ii. 106. Long continuance of polygamy among the kings of, 343

Gay, his view of the origin of human actions, quoted, i. 8, note. His suggestion of the theory of association, 23, 24

Genseric, effect of his conquest of Africa upon Italy, ii. 82. His capture of Rome, 83

George of Cappadocia, his barbarity, ii. 195

Germanicus, the Emperor, fury of the populace with the gods, in consequence of the death of, i. 169

Germanus, St., his charity, ii. 245

Germany, conversion of, to Christianity, ii. 246. Marriage customs of the early Germans, 278. Their chastity, 340, 341

Gervasius, St., recovery of his remains, i. 379.

Girdles of chastity, ii. 319, note

Gladiatorial shows, influence of Christianity on the suppression of, i. 34. Reasons why the Romans saw nothing criminal in them, 101. History and effect on the Romans of, 271-283. How regarded by moralists and historians, 284. The passion for them not inconsistent with humanity in other spheres, 288.

Gnostics, accusations against the, by the early Fathers, i. 417. Their tenets, ii. 102

God, the Utilitarian view of the goodness of, i. 9, and note. Question of the disinterestedness of the love we should bear to, 18. Our knowledge of Him derived from our own moral nature, 55. Early traces of an all-pervading soul of nature in Greece, 161, 162, 170. Philosophic definitions of the Deity, 162, note. Pantheistic conception of, by the Stoics and Platonists, 163. Recognition of Providence by the Roman moralists, 196. Two aspects under which the Stoics worshipped the Divinity—providence and moral goodness, 198

Gods, the, of the ancients, i. 161, et seq. Euhemerus’ theory of the explanation of the prevailing legends of the gods, 163. Views of Cicero of the popular beliefs, 165. Opinions of the Stoics, of Ovid, and of Horace, 166. Nature of the gods of the Romans, 167. Decline of Roman reverence for the gods, 168, 169

Good, pleasure equivalent to, according to the Utilitarians, i. 8, note, 9

Gracchi, colonial policy of the, i. 233

Grazers, sect of, ii. 109

Greeks, ancient, their callous murder of children, i. 45, 46. Low state of female morality among them. Their enforcement of monogamy, 104. Celibacy of some of their priests and priestesses, 105. Early traces of a religion of nature, 161. Universal providence attributed to Zeus, 161. Scepticism of the philosophers, 161, 162. Importance of biography in the moral teaching of the, i. 74. Difference between the teaching of the Roman moralists and the Greek poets, 195. On death, and future punishment, 205, 206. Greek suicides, 212. Gentleness and humanity of the Greek character, 227. Influence on Roman character, 227, 228. The Greek spirit at first as far removed from cosmopolitanism as that of Rome, 228. Causes of Greek cosmopolitanism, 229. Extent of Greek influence at Rome, 230. Gladiatorial shows among them, 276. Spirit of their religion contrasted with that of the Egyptians, 324. Their intolerance of foreign religions, 406. Condition and fall of their empire of the East, ii. 12-14. Their practice of infanticide, 25-27. Their treatment of animals, 164. Their treatment of prisoners taken in war, 257, 258. Their marriage customs, 277. Women in the poetic age, 278. Peculiarity of Greek feelings on the position of women, 280, 281. Unnatural forms assumed by vice amongst them, 294

Gregory the Great, his contempt for Pagan literature, ii. 201, note. His attitude towards Phocas, 264

Gregory of Nyssa, St., his eulogy of virginity, ii. 322

Gregory of Tours, manner in which he regarded events, ii. 240-242, 261, 277

Grotesque, or eccentric, pleasure derived from the, compared with that from beauty, i. 85

Gundebald, his murders approved of by his bishop, ii. 237

Gunpowder, importance of the invention of, i. 126

Guy, Brother, his society for protection and education of children, ii. 33, and note

Hadrian, the Emperor, his view of suicide, i. 219. Gives Euphrates permission to destroy himself, 218, note. His laws respecting slaves, 307. His leniency towards Christianity, 438. His benevolence, ii. 77

Hair, false, opinions of the Fathers on, ii. 149

Hall, Robert, on theological Utilitarianism, i. 15 note

“Happiness, the greatest, for the greatest number,” theory of the, i. 3. The sole end of human actions, according to the Utilitarians, 8, note. The best man seldom the happiest, 69. Mental compared with physical happiness, 87. Influence of health and temperament on happiness, 88, and note

Hartley, his doctrine of association, i. 22. Coleridge’s admiration for him, 28, note. On animal food, 48, note. His attempt to evade the conclusion to which his view leads, quoted, 67, note. His definition of conscience, 82

Hegesias, the orator of death, i. 215

Heliogabalus, his blasphemous orgies, i. 260

Hell, monkish visions of, ii. 221 and note. Glimpses of the infernal regions furnished by the “Dialogues” of St. Gregory, 221. Modern publications on this subject, 223, note

Helvétius, on the origin of human actions, i. 8, note. On customs of the people of Congo and Siam, 102, note. Compared with Aulus Gellius, 313

Herbert, of Cherbury, Lord, his profession of the doctrine of innate ideas, i. 123

Hercules, meaning of, according to the Stoics, i. 163

Hereford, Nicholas of, his opposition to indiscriminate alms, ii. 96

Heresy, punishment of death for, i. 98; ii. 40

Hermits. See Asceticism; Monasticism

Heroism, the Utilitarian theory unfavourable to, i. 66. War, the school of heroism, 173

Hilarius, St., legend of him and St. Epiphanius, ii. 159

Hildebrand, his destruction of priestly marriage, ii. 322

Hippopotamus, legend of the, ii. 161

Historical literature, scantiness of, after the fall of the Roman empire, ii. 235

Hobbes, Thomas, his opinions concerning the essence and origin of virtue, i. 7, 8, note. His view of the origin of human actions, quoted, 8, note. His remarks on the goodness which we apprehend in God, quoted, 9, note. And on reverence, 9, note. On charity, 9, 10, note. On pity, 10, note. Review of the system of morals of his school, 11. Gives the first great impulse to moral philosophy in England, 19, note. His denial of the reality of pure benevolence, 20, 21. His definition of conscience, 29, note. His theory of compassion, 72, note

Holidays, importance of, to the servile classes, ii. 244

Homer, his views of human nature and man’s will, i. 196

Horace, his ridicule of idols, i. 166. His description of the just man, 197

Hospitality enjoined by the Romans, ii. 79

Hospitals, foundation of the first, ii. 80, 81

Human life, its sanctity recognised by Christianity, ii. 18. Gradual acquirement of this sense, 18

Human nature, false estimate of, by the Stoics, i. 192

Hume, David, his theory of virtue, i. 4. Misrepresented by many writers, 4. His recognition of the reality of benevolence in our nature, 20, and note. His comment on French licentiousness in the eighteenth century, 50, note. His analysis of the moral judgments, 76. Lays the foundation for a union of the schools of Clarke and Shaftesbury, 77

Humility, new value placed upon it by monachism, ii. 185, 187

Hutcheson, Francis, his doctrine of a “moral sense,” i. 4. Establishes the reality of the existence of benevolence in our nature, 20. His analysis of moral judgments, 76

Hypatia, murder of, ii. 196

Iamblichus, his philosophy, i. 330

Ideas, confused association of. Question whether our, are derived exclusively from sensation or whether they spring in part from the mind itself, 122. The latter theory represented by the Platonic doctrine of pre-existence, 122. Doctrine of innate ideas, 122

Idols and idolatry, views of the Roman philosophers of, i. 166. Discussion between Apollonius of Tyana and an Egyptian priest respecting, 166, note. Idols forbidden by Numa, 166, note. Plutarch on the vanity of, 166, note

Ignatius, St., his martyrdom, i. 438

Ignis fatuus, legend of the, ii. 224, note

Imagination, sins of, i. 44. Relation of the benevolent feelings to it, 132, 133. Deficiency of imagination the cause of the great majority of uncharitable judgments, 134-136. Feebleness of the imagination a source of legends and myths, 347. Beneficial effects of Christianity in supplying pure images to the imagination, 299

Imperial system of the Romans, its effect on their morals, i. 257. Apotheosis of the emperors, 257

India, ancient, admiration for the schools of, i. 229

Inductive, ambiguity of the term, as applied to morals, i. 73

Industrial truth, characteristics of, i. 137. Influence of the promotion of industrial life upon morals, 139-140

Infanticide, history of the practice of, ii. 24. Efforts of the Church to suppress it, 29. Roman laws relating to, 31. Causes of, in England, 285

Infants, Augustinian doctrine of the damnation of unbaptised, i. 96. The Sacrament given to, in the early Church, ii. 6

Insanity, alleged increase of, ii. 60. Theological notions concerning, 86. The first lunatic asylums, 88

Insurance societies among the poor of Greece and Rome, ii. 78

Intellectual progress, its relations to moral progress, i. 149-151

Interest, self-, human actions governed exclusively by, according to the Utilitarians, i. 7, 8, note. Summary of the relations of virtue and public and private, 117

Intuition, rival claims of, and utility to be regarded as the supreme regulator of moral distinctions, i. 1, 2. Various names by which the theory of intuition is known, 2, 3. Views of the moralists of the school of, 3. Summary of their objections to the Utilitarian theory, i. 69. The intuitive school, 74, 75. Doctrines of Butler, Adam Smith, and others, 76-77. Analogies of beauty and virtue, 77. Distinction between the higher and lower parts of our nature, 83. Moral judgments, and their alleged diversities, 91. General moral principles alone revealed by intuition, 99. Intuitive morals not unprogressive, 102, 103. Difficulty of both the intuitive and utilitarian schools in finding a fixed frontier line between the lawful and the illicit, 116, 117. The intuitive and utilitarian schools each related to the general condition of society, 122. Their relations to metaphysical schools, 123, 124. And to the Baconian philosophy, 125. Contrasts between ancient and modern civilisations, 126, 127. Practical consequences of the opposition between the two schools, 127

Inventions, the causes which accelerate the progress of society in modern times, i. 126

Ireland, why handed over by the Pope to England, ii. 217

Irenæus, his belief that all Christians had the power of working miracles, i. 378

Irish, characteristics of the, i. 138. Their early marriages and national improvidences, 146. Absence of moral scandals among the priesthood, 146. Their legend of the islands of life and death, 203. Their missionary labours, ii. 246. Their perpendicular burials, 253

Isidore, St., legend of, ii. 205

Isis, worship of, at Rome, i. 387. Suppression of the worship, 402

Italians, characteristics of the, i. 138, 144

Italy, gigantic development of mendicancy in, ii. 98. Introduction of monachism into, 106

James, the Apostle, Eusebius’ account of him, ii. 105

James, St., of Venice, his kindness to animals, ii. 172

Jenyns, Soame, his adherence to the opinion of Ockham, i. 17, note

Jerome, St., on exorcism, i. 382. On the clean and unclean animals in the ark, ii. 104. Legend of, 115. Encouraged inhumanity of ascetics to their relations, 134. His legend of SS. Paul and Antony, 158

Jews, their law regulating marriage and permitting polygamy, i. 103. Their treatment of suicides, 218, note. Influence of their manners and creed at Rome, 235, 337. Became the principal exorcists, 380, 381, note. Spread of their creed in Rome, 386. Reasons why they were persecuted less than the Christians, 402, 407. How regarded by the pagans, and how the Christians were regarded by the Jews, 415. Charges of immorality brought against the Christians by the Jews, 417. Domitian’s taxation of them, 432. Their views of the position of women, ii. 337

Joffre, Juan Gilaberto, his foundation of a lunatic asylum in Valencia, ii. 89

John, St., at Patmos, i. 433

John, St., of Calama, story of, ii. 128

John XXIII., Pope, his crimes, ii. 331

Johnson, Dr., his adherence to the opinion of Ockham, i. 17, note

Julian, the Emperor, his tranquil death, i. 207, and note. Refuses the language of adulation, 259. His attempt to resuscitate paganism, 331. Attitude of the Church towards him, ii. 261. Joy at his death, 262

Julien l’Hospitalier, St., legend of, ii. 84, note

Jupiter Ammon, fountain of, deemed miraculous, i. 366, and note

Justinian, his laws respecting slavery, ii. 65

Justin Martyr, his recognition of the excellence of many parts of the pagan writings, i. 344. On the “seminal logos,” 344. On the Sibylline books, 376. Cause of his conversion to Christianity, 415. His martyrdom, 441

Juvenal, on the natural virtue of man, i. 197

Kames, Lord, on our moral judgments, i. 77. Notices the analogies between our moral and æsthetical judgments, 77

King’s evil, ceremony of touching for the, i. 363, note

Labienus, his works destroyed, i. 448, note

Lactantius, character of his treatise, i. 463

Lætorius, story of, i. 259

Laughing condemned by the monks of the desert, ii. 115, note

Law, Roman, its relation to Stoicism, i. 294, 295. Its golden age not Christian, but pagan, ii. 42

Lawyers, their position in literature, i. 131, note

Legacies forbidden to the clergy, ii. 151. Power of making bequests to the clergy enlarged by Constantine, 215

Leibnitz, on the natural or innate powers of man, i. 121, note

Leo the Isaurian, Pope, his compact with Pepin, ii. 266

Leonardo da Vinci, his kindness to animals, ii. 172, note

Licentiousness, French, Hume’s comments on, i. 50, note.

Locke, John, his view of moral good and moral evil, i. 8, note. His theological utilitarianism, 16, note. His view of the sanctions of morality, 19. His invention of the phrase “association of ideas,” 23. His definition of conscience, 29, note. Cousin’s objections against him, 75, note. His refutation of the doctrine of a natural moral sense, 123, 124. Rise of the sensual school out of his philosophy, 123, note. Famous formulary of his school, 124

Lombard, Peter, character of his “Sentences,” ii. 226. His visions of heaven and hell, 228

Longinus, his suicide, i. 219

Love terms Greek, in vogue with the Romans, i. 231, note

Lucan, failure of his courage under torture, i. 194. His sycophancy, 194. His cosmopolitanism, 240

Lucius, the bishop, martyrdom of, i. 454

Lucretius, his scepticism, i. 162. His disbelief in the immortality of the soul, i. 182, note. His praise of Epicurus, 197. His suicide, 215. On a bereaved cow, ii. 165

Lunatic asylums, the first, ii. 89

Luther’s wife, her remark on the sensuous creed she had left, i. 52

Lyons, persecution of the Christians at, i. 441

Macarius, St., miracle attributed to, ii. 40, note. His penances, 108, 109. Legend of his visit to an enchanted garden, 158. Other legends of him, 158, 159, 170, 220

Macedonia, effect of the conquest of, on the decadence of Rome, i. 169

Mackintosh, Sir James, theory of morals advocated by, i. 4. Fascination of Hartley’s doctrine of association over his mind, 29

Macrianus, persuades the Emperor Valerian to persecute the Christians, i. 455

Macrina Cælia, her benevolence to children, ii. 77

Magdalen asylums, adversaries of, ii. 98, and note

Mallonia, virtue of, ii. 309

Malthus, on charity, ii. 92, note

Mandeville, his “Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue.” His thesis that “private vices are public benefits,” i. 7. His opposition to charity schools, ii. 98

Manicheans, their tenets, ii. 102. Their prohibition of animal food, 167

Manilius, his conception of the Deity, i. 163

Manufactures, influence upon morals, i. 139

Marcellinus, Tullius, his self-destruction, i. 222

Marcia, mistress of Commodus, her influence in behalf of toleration to the Christians, i. 443

Marcian, St., legend of the visit of St. Avitus to him, ii. 159

Marcus, St., story of, and his mother, ii. 128

Marriage, how regarded by the Jews, Greeks, Romans, and Catholics, i. 103, 104. Statius’ picture of the first night of marriage, 107, note. Reason why the ancient Jews attached a certain stigma to virginity, 109. Conflict of views of the Catholic priest and the political economist on the subject of early marriages, 114. Results in some countries of the difficulties with which legislators surround marriage, 144. Early marriages the most conspicuous proofs of Irish improvidence, 144. Influence of asceticism on, ii. 320. Notions of its impurity, 324. Second marriages, 324

Marseilles, law of, respecting suicide, i. 218, note. Epidemic of suicide among the women of, ii. 55

Martial, sycophancy of his epigrams, i. 194

Martin of Tours, St., establishes monachism in Gaul, ii. 106

Martyrdom, glories of, i. 390. Festivals of the Martyrs, 390, note. Passion for, 391. Dissipation of the people at the festivals, ii. 150

Mary, St., of Egypt, ii. 110

Mary, the Virgin, veneration of, ii. 367, 368, 390

Massilians, wine forbidden to women by the, i. 96, note

Maternal affection, strength of, ii. 25, note

Maurice, on the social penalties of conscience, i. 60, note

Mauricus, Junius, his refusal to allow gladiatorial shows at Vienna, i. 286

Maxentius, instance of his tyranny, ii. 46

Maximilianus, his martyrdom, ii. 248

Maximinus, Emperor, his persecution of the Christians, i. 446

Maximus of Tyre, account of him and his discourses, i. 312. His defence of the ancient creeds, 323. Practical form of his philosophy, 329

Medicine, possible progress of, i. 158, 159

Melania, St., her bereavement, ii. 10. Her pilgrimage through the Syrian and Egyptian hermitages, 120

Milesians, wine forbidden by the, to women, i. 94, note

Military honour pre-eminent among the Romans, i. 172, 173. History of the decadence of Roman military virtue, 268

Mill, J., on association, 25, note, et seq.

Mill, J. S., quoted, i. 29, 47, 90, 102

Minerva, meaning of, according to the Stoics, i. 163

Miracles, general incredulity on the subject of, at the present time, i. 346, 348. Miracles not impossible, 347. Established by much evidence, 347. The histories of them always decline with education, 348. Illustration of this in the belief in fairies, 348. Conceptions of savages, 349. Legends, formation and decay of, 350-352. Common errors in reasoning about miracles, 356. Predisposition to the miraculous in some states of society, 362. Belief of the Romans in miracles, 363-367. Incapacity of the Christians of the third century for judging historic miracles, 375. Contemporary miracles believed in by the early Christians, 378. Exorcism, 378. Neither past nor contemporary Christian miracles had much weight upon the pagans, 378

Missionary labours, ii. 246

Mithra, worship of, in Rome, i. 386

Mohammedans, their condemnation of suicide, ii. 53. Their lunatic asylums, 89. Their religion, 251. Effects of their military triumphs on Christianity, 252

Molinos, his opinion on the love we should bear to God, condemned, i. 18, note

Monastic system, results of the Catholic monastic system, i. 107. Suicide of monks, ii. 52. Exertions of the monks in the cause of charity, 84. Causes of the monastic movement, 102. History of the rapid propagation of it in the West, 183. New value placed by it on obedience and humility, 185, 269. Relation of it to the intellectual virtues, 188. The monasteries regarded as the receptacles of learning, 199. Fallacy of attributing to the monasteries the genius that was displayed in theology, 208. Other fallacies concerning the services of the monks, 208-212. Value attached by monks to pecuniary compensations for crime, 213. Causes of their corruption, 217. Benefits conferred by the monasteries, 243

Monica, St., i. 94, note

Monogamy, establishment of, ii. 372

Monophysites, the cause, to some extent, of the Mohammedan conquest of Egypt, ii. 143

Montanists, their tenets, ii. 102

Moral distinctions, rival claims of intuition and utility to be regarded as the supreme regulators of, i. 1

Moral judgments, alleged diversities of, i. 91. Are frequently due to intellectual causes, 92. Instances of this in usury and abortion, 92. Distinction between natural duties and others resting on positive law, 93. Ancient customs canonised by time, 93. Anomalies explained by a confused association of ideas, 94, 95. Moral perceptions overridden by positive religions, 95. Instances of this in transubstantiation and the Augustinian and Calvinistic doctrines of damnation, 96, 97. General moral principles alone revealed by intuition, 99. The moral unity of different ages a unity not of standard but of tendency, 100. Application of this theory to the history of benevolence, 100. Reasons why acts regarded in one age as criminal are innocent in another, 101. Views of Mill and Buckle on the comparative influence of intellectual and moral agencies in civilisation, 102, 103, note. Intuitive morals not unprogressive, 102, 103. Answers to miscellaneous objections against the theory of natural moral perceptions, 109. Effect of the condition of society on the standard, but not the essence, of virtue, 110. Occasional duty of sacrificing higher duties to lower ones, 110, et seq. Summary of the relations of virtue and public and private interest, 117. Two senses of the word natural, 119

Moral law, foundation of the, according to Ockham and his adherents, i. 17, note. Various views of the sanctions of morality, 19. Utilitarian theological sanctions, 53. The reality of the moral nature the one great question of natural theology, 56. Utilitarian secular sanctions, 57. The Utilitarian theory subversive of morality, 66. Plausibility and danger of theories of unification in morals, 72. Our knowledge of the laws of moral progress nothing more than approximate or general, 136

“Moral sense,” Hutcheson’s doctrine of a, i. 4

Moral system, what it should be, to govern society, i. 194

Morals, each of the two schools of, related to the general condition of society, i. 122. Their relations to metaphysical schools, 123, 124. And to the Baconian philosophy, 125. Contrast between ancient and modern civilisations, 125-127. Causes that lead societies to elevate their moral standard, and determine their preference of some particular kind of virtues, 130. The order in which moral feelings are developed, 130. Danger in proposing too absolutely a single character as a model to which all men must conform, 155. Remarks on moral types, 156. Results to be expected from the study of the relations between our physical and moral nature, 158. Little influence of Pagan religions on morals, 161

More, Henry, on the motive of virtue, i. 76

Musonius, his suicide, i. 220

Mutius, history of him and his son, ii. 125

Mysticism of the Romans, causes producing, i. 318

Myths, formation of, i. 351

Naples, mania for suicide at, ii. 55

Napoleon, the Emperor, his order of the day respecting suicide, i. 219, note

Nations, causes of the difficulties of effecting cordial international friendships, i. 156

Natural moral perceptions, objections to the theory of, i. 116. Two senses of the word natural, 118. Reid, Sedgwick, and Leibnitz on the natural or innate powers of man, 121, note. Locke’s refutation of the doctrine of a natural moral sense, 124

Neoplatonism, account of, i. 325. Its destruction of the active duties and critical spirit, 329

Neptune, views of the Stoics of the meaning of the legends of, i. 163. His statue solemnly degraded by Augustus, 169

Nero, his singing and acting, i. 259. His law about slaves, 307. His persecution of the Christians, 429

Newman, Dr., on venial sin, i. 111, and note on pride, ii. 188

Nicodemus, apocryphal gospel of, ii. 221

Nilus, St., deserts his family, ii. 322

Nitria, number of anchorites in the desert of, ii. 105

Nolasco, Peter, his works of mercy, ii. 73. His participation in the Albigensian massacres, 95

Novatians, their tenets, ii. 102

Numa, legend of his prohibition of idols, i. 166, note

Oath, sanctity of an, among the Romans, i. 168

Obedience, new value placed on it by monachism, ii. 185, 186, 269

Obligation, nature of, i. 64, 65

Ockham, his opinion of the foundation of the moral law, i. 17, and note

Odin, his suicide, ii. 53

O’Neale, Shane, his charity, ii. 96

Opinion, influence of character on, i. 171, 172

Oracles, refuted and ridiculed by Cicero, i. 165. Plutarch’s defence of their bad poetry, 165, note. Refusal of Cato and the Stoics to consult them, 165. Ridiculed by the Roman wits, 166. Answer of the oracle of Delphi as to the best religion, 167. Theory of the oracles in the ’De Divinatione’ of Cicero, 368, and note. Van Dale’s denial of their supernatural character, 374. Books of oracles burnt under the republic and empire, 447, and note

Origen, his desire for martyrdom, i. 391

Orphanotrophia, in the early Church, ii. 32

Otho, the Emperor, his suicide, i. 219. Opinion of his contemporaries of his act, 219, note

Ovid, object of his “Metamorphoses,” i. 166. His condemnation of suicide, 213, and note. His humanity to animals, ii. 165

Oxen, laws for the protection of, ii. 162

Oxyrinchus, ascetic life in the city of, ii. 105

Pachomius, St., number of his monks, ii. 105

Pætus and Arria, history of, ii. 310

Pagan religions, their feeble influence on morals, i. 161

Pagan virtues, the, compared with Christian, i. 190

Paiderastia, the, of the Greeks, ii. 294

Pain, equivalent to evil, according to the Utilitarians, i. 8, note

Palestine, foundation of monachism in, ii. 106. Becomes a hot-bed of debauchery, 152

Paley, on the obligation of virtue, i. 14, note. On the difference between an act of prudence and an act of duty, 16, note. On the love we ought to bear to God, 18, note. On the religious sanctions of morality, 19. On the doctrine of association, 25, note. On flesh diet, 49, note. On the influence of health on happiness, 88, note. On the difference in pleasures, 90, note

Pambos, St., story of, ii. 116, note

Pammachus, St., his hospital, ii. 80

Panætius, the founder of the Roman Stoics, his disbelief in the immortality of the soul, i. 183

Pandars, punishment of, ii. 316

Parents, reason why some savages did not regard their murder as criminal, i. 101

Parthenon, the, at Athens, i. 105

Pascal, his advocacy of piety as a matter of prudence, i. 17, note. His adherence to the opinion of Ockham as to the foundation of the moral law, 17, note. His thought on the humiliation created by deriving pleasure from certain amusements, i. 86, note

Patriotism, period when it flourished, i. 136. Peculiar characteristic of the virtue, 177, 178. Causes of the predominance occasionally accorded to civic virtues, 200. Neglect or discredit into which they have fallen among modern teachers, 201. Cicero’s remarks on the duty of every good man, 201. Unfortunate relations of Christianity to patriotism, ii. 140. Repugnance of the theological to the patriotic spirit, 145

Paul, St., his definition of conscience, i. 83

Paul, the hermit, his flight to the desert, ii. 102. Legend of the visit of St. Antony to him, 158

Paul, St. Vincent de, his foundling hospitals, ii. 34

Paula, story of her asceticism and inhumanity, ii. 133, 134

Paulina, her devotion to her husband, ii. 310

Pelagia, St., her suicide, ii. 46. Her flight to the desert, 121, and note

Pelagius, ii. 223

Pelican, legend of the, ii. 161

Penances of the saints of the desert, ii. 107, et seq.

Penitential system, the, of the early church, ii. 6, 7

Pepin, his compact with Pope Leo, ii. 267

Peregrinus the Cynic, his suicide, i. 220

Pericles, his humanity, i. 228

Perpetua, St., her martyrdom, i. 391, 444; ii. 317

Persecutions, Catholic doctrines justifying, i. 98. Why Christianity was not crushed by them, 395. Many causes of persecution, 395-397. Reasons why the Christians were more persecuted than the Jews, 403, 406, 407. Causes of the persecutions, 406, et seq. History of the persecutions, 429. Nero, 429. Domitian, 431. Trajan, 437. Marcus Aurelius, 439, 440. From M. Aurelius to Decius, 442, et seq. Gallus, 454. Valerian, 454. Diocletian and Galerius, 458-463. End of the persecutions, 463. General considerations on their history, 463-468

Petronian law, in favour of slaves, i. 307

Petronius, his scepticism, i. 162. His suicide, 215. His condemnation of the show of the arena, 286

Philip the Arab, his favour to Christianity, i. 445

Philosophers, efforts of some, to restore the moral influence of religion among the Romans, i. 169. The true moral teachers, 171

Philosophical truth, characteristics of, i. 139, 140. Its growth retarded by the opposition of theologians, 140

Philosophy, causes of the practical character of most ancient, i. 202. Its fusion with religion, 352. Opinions of the early Church concerning the pagan writings, 332. Difference between the moral teaching of a philosophy and that of a religion, ii. 1. Its impotency to restrain vice, 4

Phocas, attitude of the Church towards him, ii. 263

Phocion, his gentleness, i. 228

Physical science affects the belief in miracles, i. 354, 355

Piety, utilitarian view of the causes of the pleasures and pains of, i. 9, and note. A matter of prudence, according to theological Utilitarianism, 16

Pilate, Pontius, story of his desire to enrol Christ among the Roman gods, i. 429

Pilgrimages, evils of, ii. 152

Pior, St., story of, ii. 129

Pirates, destruction of, by Pompey, i. 234

Pity, a form of self-love, according to some Utilitarians, i. 9, 10, note. Adam Smith’s theory, 10, note. Seneca’s distinction between it and clemency, 189. Altar to Pity at Athens, 228. History of Marcus Aurelius’ altar to Beneficentia at Rome, 228, note

Plato, his admission of the practice of abortion, i. 92. Basis of his moral system, 105. Cause of the banishment of the poets from his republic, 161, 162. His theory that vice is to virtue what disease is to health, 179, and note. Reason for his advocacy of community of wives, 200. His condemnation of suicide, 212, and note. His remarks on universal brotherhood, 241. His inculcation of the practice of self-examination, 248

Platonic school, its ideal, i. 322

Platonists, their more or less pantheistic conception of the Deity, i. 163. Practical nature of their philosophy, 329. The Platonic ethics ascendant in Rome, 331

Pleasure the only good, according to the Utilitarians, i. 7. Illustrations of the distinction between the higher and lower parts of our nature in our pleasures, 83-85. Pleasures of a civilised compared with those of a semi-civilised society, 86. Comparison of mental and physical pleasures, 87, 88. Distinction in kind of pleasure, and its importance in morals, 89-91. Neglected or denied by Utilitarian writers, 89, note

Pliny, the elder, on the probable happiness of the lower animals, i. 87, note. On the Deity, 164. On astrology, 171, and note, 164, note. His disbelief in the immortality of the soul, 182. His advocacy of suicide, 215. Never mentions Christianity, 336. His opinion of earthquakes, 369. And of comets, 369. His facility of belief, 370. His denunciation of finger rings, ii. 148

Pliny, the younger, his desire for posthumous reputation, i. 185, note. His picture of the ideal of Stoicism, 186. His letter to Trajan respecting the Christians, 437. His benevolence, 242; ii. 77

Plotinus, his condemnation of suicide, i. 214. His philosophy, 330

Plutarch, his defence of the bad poetry of the oracles, 165, note. His mode of moral teaching, 175. Basis of his belief in the immortality of the soul, 204. On superstitious fear of death, 206. His letter on the death of his little daughter, 242. May justly be regarded as the leader of the eclectic school, 243. His philosophy and works compared with those of Seneca, 243. His treatise on “The Signs of Moral Progress,” 249. Compared and contrasted with Marcus Aurelius, 253. How he regarded the games of the arena, 286. His defence of the ancient creeds, 322. Practical nature of his philosophy, 329. Never mentions Christianity, 336. His remarks on the domestic system of the ancients, 419. On kindness to animals, ii. 165, 166. His picture of Greek married life, 289

Pluto, meaning of, according to the Stoics, i. 163

Po, miracle of the subsidence of the waters of the, i. 382, note

Pœmen, St., story of, and of his mother, ii. 129. Legend of him and the lion, 169

Political economy, what it has accomplished respecting almsgiving, ii. 90

Political judgments, moral standard of most men in, lower than in private judgments, i. 151

Political truth, or habit of “fair play,” the characteristic of free communities, i. 139. Highly civilised form of society to which it belongs, 139. Its growth retarded by the opposition of theologians, 140

Polybius, his praise of the devotion and purity of creed of the Romans, i. 167

Polycarp, St., martyrdom of, i. 441

Polygamy, long continuance of, among the kings of Gaul, ii. 343

Pompeii, gladiatorial shows at, i. 276, note

Pompey, his destruction of the pirates, i. 234. His multiplication of gladiatorial shows, 273

Poor-law system, elaboration of the, ii. 96. Its pernicious results, 97, 99, 105

Poppæa, Empress, a Jewish proselyte, i. 386

Porcia, heroism of, ii. 309

Porphyry, his condemnation of suicides, i. 214. His description of philosophy, i. 326. His adoption of Neoplatonism, i. 330

Possevin, his exposure of the Sibylline books, i. 377

Pothinus, martyrdom of, i. 442

Power, origin of the desire of, i. 23, 26

Praise, association of ideas leading to the desire for even posthumous, i. 26

Prayer, reflex influence upon the minds of the worshippers, i. 36

Preachers, Stoic, among the Romans, i. 308, 309

Pride, contrasted with vanity, i. 195. The leading moral agent of Stoicism, i. 195

Prometheus, cause of the admiration bestowed upon, i. 35

Prophecies, incapacity of the Christians of the third century for judging prophecies, i. 376

Prophecy, gift of, attributed to the vestal virgins of Rome, i. 107. And in India to virgins, 107, note

Prosperity, some crimes conducive to national, i. 58

Prostitution, ii. 282-286. How regarded by the Romans, 314

Protagoras, his scepticism, i. 162

Protasius, St., miraculous discovery of his remains, i. 379

Prudentius, on the vestal virgins at the gladiatorial shows, i. 291

Purgatory, doctrine of, ii. 232-235

Pythagoras, sayings of, i. 53. Chastity the leading virtue of his school, 106. On the fables of Hesiod and Homer, 161. His belief in an all-pervading soul of nature, 162. His condemnation of suicide, 212. Tradition of his journey to India, 229, note. His inculcation of the practice of self-examination, 248. His opinion of earthquakes, 369. His doctrine of kindness to animals, ii. 165

Quakers, compared with the early Christians, ii. 12, and note

Quintilian, his conception of the Deity, i. 164

Rank, secular, consecration of, ii. 260, et seq

Rape, punishment for, ii. 316

Redbreast, legend of the, ii. 224, note

Regulus, the story of, i. 212

Reid, basis of his ethics, i. 76. His distinction between innate faculties evolved by experience and innate ideas independent of experience, 121, note

Religion, theological utilitarianism subverts natural, i. 54-56. Answer of the oracle of Delphi as to the best, 167. Difference between the moral teaching of a philosophy and that of a religion, ii. 1. Relations between positive religion and moral enthusiasm, 141

Religions, pagan, their small influence on morals, i. 161. Oriental, passion for, among the Romans, 318

Religious liberty totally destroyed by the Catholics, ii. 194-199

Repentance for past sin, no place for, in the writings of the ancients, i. 195

Reputation, how valued among the Romans, i. 185, 186

Resurrection of souls, belief of the Stoics in the, i. 164

Revenge, Utilitarian notions as to the feeling of, i. 41, and note. Circumstances under which private vengeance is not regarded as criminal, i. 101

Reverence, Utilitarian views of, i. 9, and note. Causes of the diminution of the spirit of, among mankind, 141, 142

Rhetoricians, Stoical, account of the, of Rome, i. 310

Ricci, his work on Mendicancy, ii. 98

Rochefoucauld La, on pity, quoted, i. 10, note. And on friendship, 10, 11, note

Rogantianus, his passive life, i. 330

Roman law, its golden age not Christian, but pagan, ii. 42

Romans, abortion how regarded by the, i. 92. Their law forbidding women to taste wine, 93, 94, note. Reasons why they did not regard the gladiatorial shows as criminal, 101. Their law of marriage and ideal of female morality, 104. Their religious reverence for domesticity, 106. Sanctity of, and gifts attributed to, their vestal virgins, 106. Character of their cruelty, 134. Compared with the modern Italian character in this respect, 134. Scepticism of their philosophers, 162-167. The religion of the Romans never a source of moral enthusiasm, 167. Its characteristics, 168. Causes of the disappearance of the religious reverence of the people, 169. Efforts of some philosophers and emperors to restore the moral influence of religion, 169. Consummation of Roman degradation, 170. Belief in astrological fatalism, 170, 171. The stoical type of military and patriotic enthusiasm pre-eminently Roman, 172-174, 178. Importance of biography in their moral teaching, 178. Epicureanism never became a school of virtue among them, 175. Unselfish love of country of the Romans, 178. Character of Stoicism in the worst period of the Roman Empire, 181. Main features of their philosophy, 185, et seq. Difference between the Roman moralists and the Greek poets, 195. The doctrine of suicide the culminating point of Roman Stoicism, 222. The type of excellence of the Roman people, 224, 225. Contrast between the activity of Stoicism and the luxury of Roman society, 225, 226. Growth of a gentler and more cosmopolitan spirit in Rome, 227. Causes of this change, 228, et seq. Extent of Greek influence at Rome, 228. The cosmopolitan spirit strengthened by the destruction of the power of the aristocracy, 231, 232. History of the influence of freedmen in the state, 233. Effect of the aggrandisement of the colonies, the attraction of many foreigners to Rome, and the increased facilities for travelling, on the cosmopolitan spirit, 233, et seq. Foreigners among the most prominent of Latin writers, 235. Results of the multitudes of emancipated slaves, 235, 236. Endeavours of Roman statesmen to consolidate the empire by admitting the conquered to the privileges of the conquerors, 238. The Stoical philosophy quite capable of representing the cosmopolitan spirit, 239. Influence of eclectic philosophy on the Roman Stoics, 244. Life and character of Marcus Aurelius, 249-255. Corruption of the Roman people, 255. Causes of their depravity, 256. Decadence of all the conditions of republican virtue, 256. Effects of the Imperial system on morals, 257-261. Apotheosis of the emperors, 257. Moral consequences of slavery, 262. Increase of idleness and demoralising employments, 262. Increase also of sensuality, 263. Destruction of all public spirit, 264. The interaction of many states which in new nations sustains national life prevented by universal empire, 264. The decline of agricultural pursuits, 265. And of the military virtues, 268. History and effects of the gladiatorial shows, 271. Other Roman amusements, 276. Effects of the arena upon the theatre, 277. Nobles in the arena, 283. Effects of Stoicism on the corruption of society, 291. Roman law greatly extended by it, 294. Change in the relation of Romans to provincials, 297. Changes in domestic legislation, 297. Roman slavery, 300-308. The Stoics as consolers, advisers, and preachers, 308. The Cynics and rhetoricians, 309, 310. Decadence of Stoicism in the empire, 317. Causes of the passion for Oriental religions, 318-320. Neoplatonism, 325. Review of the history of Roman philosophy, 332-335. History of the conversion of Rome to Christianity, 336. State of Roman opinion on the subject of miracles, 365. Progress of the Jewish and Oriental religions in Rome, 386, 387. The conversion of the Roman empire easily explicable, 393. Review of the religious policy of Rome, 397. Its division of religion into three parts, according to Eusebius, 403. Persecutions of the Christians, 406, et seq. Antipathy of the Romans to every religious system which employed religious terrorism, 420. History of the persecutions, 429. General sketch of the moral condition of the Western Empire, ii. 14. Rise and progress of the government of the Church of Rome, 14, 15. Roman practice of infanticide, 27. Relief of the indigent, 73. Distribution of corn, 74. Exertions of the Christians on the subversion of the empire, 82. Inadequate place given to this movement, 85. Horrors caused by the barbarian invasions prevented to some extent by Christian charity, 81-84. Influence of Christianity in hastening the fall of the empire, 140, 141. Roman treatment of prisoners of war, 256-258. Despotism of the pagan empire, 260. Condition of women under the Romans, 297. Their concubines, 350

Rome, an illustration of crimes conducive to national prosperity, i. 58, note. Conversion of, 336. Three popular errors concerning its conversion, 339. Capture of the city by the barbarians, ii. 82

Romuald, St., his treatment of his father, ii. 135

Rope-dancing of the Romans, i. 291

Sabinus, Saint, his penances, ii. 108

Sacrament, administration of the, in the early Church, ii. 6

Salamis, Brutus’ treatment of the citizens of, i. 194

Sallust, his stoicism and rapacity, i. 194

Sanctuary, right of, accorded to Christian churches, ii. 40

Savage, errors into which the deceptive appearances of nature doom him, i. 54. First conceptions formed of the universe, 349. The ethics of savages, 120, 121

Scepticism of the Greek and Roman philosophers, i. 162-166. Influence of, on intellectual progress, ii. 193

Scholastica, St., the legend of, ii. 136, note

Scifi, Clara, the first Franciscan nun, ii. 135

Sectarian animosity, chief cause of, i. 134

Sedgwick, Professor, on the expansion of the natural or innate powers of men, i. 121, note

Sejanus, treatment of his daughter by the senate, i. 107, note

Self-denial, the Utilitarian theory unfavourable to, i. 66

Self-examination, history of the practice of, i. 247-249

Self-sacrifice, asceticism the great school of, ii. 155

Seneca, his conception of the Deity, i. 163, note, 164. His distinction between the affections and diseases, 189, note. And between clemency and pity, 189. His virtues and vices, i. 194. On the natural virtue of man and power of his will, 197. On the Sacred Spirit dwelling in man, 198. On death, 205. His tranquil end, 207. Advocates suicide, 213, 220. His description of the self-destruction of a friend, 222. His remarks on universal brotherhood, 241. His stoical hardness tempered by new doctrines, 244. His practice of self-examination, 248. His philosophy and works compared with those of Plutarch, 243, 244. How he regarded the games of the arena, 286. His exhortations on the treatment of slaves, 306. Never mentions Christianity, 336. Regarded in the middle ages as a Christian, 340. On religious beliefs, 405

Sensuality, why the Mohammedans people Paradise with images of, i. 108. Why some pagans deified it, 108. Fallacy of judging the sensuality of a nation by the statistics of its illegitimate births, 144. Influence of climate upon public morals, 144. Of large towns, 145. And of early marriages, 146. Absence of moral scandals among the Irish priesthood, 146, 147. Speech of Archytas of Tarentum on the evils of, 200, note. Increase of sensuality in Rome, 263. Abated by Christianity, ii. 153. The doctrine of the Fathers respecting concupiscence, 281.

Serapion, the anthropomorphite, i. 52. Number of his monks, ii. 105. His interview with the courtesan, 320

Sertorius, his forgery of auspicious omens, i. 166.

Severus, Alexander, refuses the language of adulation, i. 259. His efforts to restore agricultural pursuits, 267. Murder of, 444. His leniency towards Christianity, 444. His benevolence, ii. 77

Severus, Cassius, exile of, i. 448, note

Severus, Septimus, his treatment of the Christians, i. 443

Sextius, his practice of self-examination, i. 248

Shaftesbury, maintains the reality of the existence of benevolence in our nature, i. 20. On virtue, 76, 77

Sibylline books, forged by the early Christians, i. 376, 377

Silius Italicus, his lines commemorating the passion of the Spanish Celts for suicide, i. 207, note. His self-destruction, 221

Silvia, her filthiness, ii. 110

Simeon, Bishop of Jerusalem, his martyrdom, i. 438

Simeon Stylites, St., his penance, ii. 111. His inhumanity to his parents, ii. 130

Sin, the theological doctrine on the subject, i. 111, 112. Conception of sin by the ancients, 195. Original, taught by the Catholic Church, 209, 210. Examination of the Utilitarian doctrine of the remote consequences of secret sins, 43, 44

Sisoes, the abbot, stories of, ii. 126, 127

Sixtus, Bishop of Rome, his martyrdom, i. 455

Sixtus V., Pope, his efforts to suppress mendicancy, ii. 97

Slavery, circumstances under which it has been justified, i. 101. Origin of the word servus, 102, note. Crusade of England against, 153. Character of that of the Romans, 235. Moral consequence of slavery, 262. Three stages of slavery at Rome, 300. Review of the condition of slaves, 300-306. Opinion of philosophers as to slavery, 306. Laws enacted in favour of slaves, 306. Effects of Christianity upon the institution of slavery, ii. 61. Consecration of the servile virtue, 68. Impulse given to manumission, 70. Serfdom in Europe, 70, 71, note. Extinction of slavery in Europe, 71. Ransom of captives, 72

Smith, Adam, his theory of pity, quoted, i. 10, note. His recognition of the reality of benevolence in our nature, 20. His analysis of moral judgment, 76

Smyrna, persecution of the Christians at, i. 441

Socrates, his view of death, i. 205. His closing hours, 207. His advice to a courtesan, ii. 296

Soul, the immortality of the, resolutely excluded from the teaching of the Stoics, i. 181. Character of their first notions on the subject, 182. The belief in the reabsorption of the soul in the parent Spirit, 183. Belief of Cicero and Plutarch in the immortality of the, 204. But never adopted as a motive by the Stoics, 204. Increasing belief in the, 331. Vague belief of the Romans in the, 168

Sospitra, story of, i. 373

Spain, persecution of the Christians in, i. 461. Almost complete absence of infanticide in, ii. 25, note. The first lunatic asylums in Europe established in, 89, 90

Spaniards, among the most prominent of Latin writers, i. 235. Their suicides, ii. 54

Spartans, their intense patriotism, i. 178. Their legislature continually extolled as a model, 201. Condition of their women, ii. 290

Spinoza, his remark on death, i. 203 Anecdote of him, 289

Staël, Madame de, on suicide, ii. 59

Statius, on the first night of marriage, i. 107, note

Stewart, Dugald, on the pleasures of virtue, i. 32, note

Stilpo, his scepticism and banishment, i. 162. His remark on his ruin, 191.

Stoics, their definition of conscience, i. 83. Their view of the animation of the human fœtus, 92. Their system of ethics favourable to the heroic qualities, 128. Historical fact in favour of the system, 128. Their belief in an all-pervading soul of nature, 162. Their pantheistic conception of the Deity, 163. Their conception and explanation of the prevailing legends of the gods, 163. Their opinion as to the final destruction of the universe by fire, and the resuscitation of souls, 164. Their refusal to consult the oracles, 165. Stoicism the expression of a type of character different from Epicureanism, 172. Rome pre-eminently the home of Stoicism, 172. Account of the philosophy of the Stoics, 177. Its two essentials—the unselfish ideal and the subjugation of the affections to the reason, 177. The best example of the perfect severance of virtue and interest, 181. Their views concerning the immortality of the soul, 182-184. Taught men to sacrifice reputation, and do good in secret, 186. And distinguished the obligation from the attraction of virtue, 186. Taught also that the affections must be subordinate to the reason, 187-191. Their false estimate of human nature, 192. Their love of paradox, 192. Imperfect lives of many eminent Stoics, 193. Their retrospective tendencies, 193. Their system unfitted for the majority of mankind, 194. Compared with the religious principle, 195. The central composition of this philosophy, the dignity of man, 195. High sense of the Stoics of the natural virtue of man, and of the power of his will, 195, 196. Their recognition of Providence, 196. The two aspects under which they worshipped God, 198. The Stoics secured from quietism by their habits of public life, 199-201. Their view of humanity, 202. Their preparations for, and view of, death, 202. Their teaching as to suicide, 212, 213, et seq. Contrast between Stoicism and Roman luxury, 225, 226. The Stoical philosophy quite capable of representing the cosmopolitan spirit, 239, 240. Stoicism not capable of representing the softening movement of civilisation, 241. Influence of the eclectic spirit on it, 244. Stoicism becomes more essentially religious, 245. Increasingly introspective character of later Stoicism, 247. Marcus Aurelius the best example of later Stoicism, 249-255. Effects of Stoicism on the corruption of Roman Society, 291, 292. It raised up many good Emperors, 292. It produced a noble opposition under the worst Emperors, 293. It greatly extended Roman law, 294. The Stoics considered as the consolers of the suffering, advisers of the young, and as popular preachers, 308. Rapid decadence of Stoicism, 317, 318. Difference between the Stoical and Egyptian pantheism, 324. Stoical naturalism superseded by the theory of dæmons, 331. Theory that the writings of the Stoics were influenced by Christianity examined, 332. Domitian’s persecution of them, 432

Strozzi, Philip, his suicide, ii. 56

Suffering, a courageous endurance of, probably the first form of virtue in savage life, i. 130

Suicide, attitude adopted by Pagan philosophy and Catholicism towards, i. 211, et seq. Eminent suicides, 215. Epidemic of suicides at Alexandria, 216. And of girls at Miletus, 216, note. Grandeur of the Stoical ideal of suicide, 216. Influences conspiring towards suicide, 217. Seneca on self-destruction, 217, 218, 220. Laws respecting it, 218, note. Eminent instances of self-destruction, 219, 221. The conception of, as an euthanasia, 221. Neoplatonist doctrine concerning, 331. Effect of the Christian condemnation of the practice of, ii. 43-61. Theological doctrine on, 45, note. The only form of, permitted in the early Church, 47. Slow suicides, 48. The Circumcelliones, 49. The Albigenses, 49. Suicides of the Jews, 50. Treatment of corpses of suicides, 50. Authorities for the history of suicides, 50, note. Reaction against the mediæval laws on the subject, 51. Later phases of its history, 54. Self-destruction of witches, 54. Epidemics of insane suicide, 55. Cases of legitimate suicide, 55. Suicide in England and France, 58

Sunday, importance of the sanctity of the, ii. 244. Laws respecting it, 245

Superstition, possibility of adding to the happiness of man by the diffusion of, i. 50-53. Natural causes which impel savages to superstition, i. 55. Signification of the Greek word for, 205

Swan, the, consecrated to Apollo, i. 206

Sweden, cause of the great number of illegitimate births in, i. 144

Swinburne, Mr., on annihilation, i. 182, note

Symmachus, his Saxon prisoners, i. 287

Synesius, legend of him and Evagrius, ii. 214. Refuses to give up his wife, 332

Syracuse, gladiatorial shows at, i. 275

Tacitus, his doubts about the existence of Providence, i. 171, note

Telemachus, the monk, his death in the arena, ii. 37

Telesphorus, martyrdom of, i. 446, note

Tertia Æmilia, story of, ii. 313

Tertullian, his belief in dæmons, i. 382. And challenge to the Pagans, 383

Testament, Old, supposed to have been the source of pagan writings, i. 344

Thalasius, his hospital for blind beggars, ii. 81

Theatre, scepticism of the Romans extended by the, i. 170. Effects of the gladiatorial shows upon the, 277

Theft, reasons why some savages do not regard it as criminal, i. 102. Spartan law legalising it, 102

Theodebert, his polygamy, ii. 343

Theodoric, his court at Ravenna, ii. 201, 202, note

Theodorus, his denial of the existence of the gods, i. 162

Theodorus, St., his inhumanity to his mother, ii. 128

Theodosius the Emperor, his edict forbidding gladiatorial shows, ii. 36. Denounced by the Ascetics, 139. His law respecting Sunday, 245

Theological utilitarianism, theories of, i. 14-17

Theology, sphere of inductive reasoning in, 357

Theon, St., legend of, and the wild beasts, ii. 168

Theurgy rejected by Plotinus, i. 330. All moral discipline resolved into, by Iamblichus, 330

Thrace, celibacy of societies of men in, i. 106

Thrasea, mildness of his Stoicism, i. 245

Thrasea and Aria, history of, ii. 311

Thriftiness created by the industrial spirit, i. 140

Tiberius the Emperor, his images invested with a sacred character, i. 260. His superstitions, 367, and note

Timagenes, exiled from the palace by Tiberius, i. 448, note

Titus, the Emperor, his tranquil end, i. 207. Instance of his amiability, 287

Tooth-powder, Apuleius’ defence of, ii. 148

Torments, future, the doctrine of, made by the monks a means of extorting money, ii. 216. Monastic legends of, 220

Tragedy, effects of the gladiatorial shows upon, among the Romans, i. 277

Trajan, the Emperor, his gladiatorial shows, i. 287. Letter of Pliny to, respecting the Christians, 437. Trajan’s answer, 437. His benevolence to children, ii. 77. Legend of St. Gregory and the Emperor, 223

Transmigration of souls, doctrine of, of the ancients, ii. 166

Travelling, increased facilities for, of the Romans, i. 234

Trinitarian monks, their works of mercy, ii. 73

Troubadours, one of their services to mankind, ii. 232

’Truce of God,’ importance of the, ii. 254

Truth, possibility of adding to the happiness of men by diffusing abroad, or sustaining, pleasing falsehoods, i. 52. Saying of Pythagoras, 53. Growth of, with civilisation, 137. Industrial, political, and philosophical, 137-140. Relation of monachism to the abstract love of truth, ii. 189. Causes of the mediæval decline of the love of truth, 212

Tucker, his adoption of the doctrine of the association of ideas, i. 25, note

Turks, their kindness to animals, i. 289

Types, moral, i. 156. All characters cannot be moulded in one type, 158

Ulpian on suicide, i. 218, note Unselfishness of the Stoics, i. 177

Usury, diversities of moral judgment respecting, i. 92

Utilitarian school. See Morals; Virtue; Vice

Utility, rival claims of, and intuition to be regarded as the supreme regulators of moral distinctions, i. 1, 2. Various names by which the theory of utility is known, 3. Views of the moralists of the school of, 3, et seq.

Valerian, his persecutions of the Christians, i. 454

Valerius Maximus, his mode of moral teaching, i. 174

Vandals, their conquest of Africa, ii. 150

Varro, his conception of the Deity, i. 163. On popular religious beliefs, 167

Venus, effect of the Greek worship of, on the condition of women, ii. 291, note

Vespasian, his dying jest, i. 259. Effect of his frugality on the habits of the Romans, 292. Miracle attributed to him, 347. His treatment of philosophers, 448, note

Vice, Mandeville’s theory of the origin of, i. 7. And that “private vices were public benefits,” 7. Views of the Utilitarians as to, 12. The degrees of virtue and vice do not correspond to the degrees of utility, or the reverse, 40-42. The suffering caused by vice not proportioned to its criminality, 57-59. Plato’s ethical theory of virtue and vice, 179. Grote’s summary of this theory, 179, note. Conception of the ancients of sin, 195. Moral efficacy of the Christian sense of sin, ii. 3, 4

Virgil, his conception of the Deity, i. 163. His epicurean sentiment, 193, note. On suicide, 213. His interest in animal life, ii. 165

Virginity, how regarded by the Greeks, i. 105. Æschylus’ prayer to Athene, 105. Bees and fire emblems of virginity, 108, note. Reason why the ancient Jews attached a certain stigma to virginity, 109. Views of Essenes, 109

Virgins, Vestal, sanctity and gifts attributed to the, i. 106, 107, and note. Executions of, 407, and note. Reasons for burying them alive, ii. 41. How regarded by the Romans, 297

Virtue, Hume’s theory of the criterion, essential element, and object of, i. 4. Motive to virtue according to the doctrine which bases morals upon experience, 6. Mandeville’s the lowest and most repulsive form of this theory, 6, 7. Views of the essence and origin of virtue adopted by the school of Utilitarians, 7-9. Views of the Utilitarians of, 12. Association of ideas in which virtue becomes the supreme object of our affections, 27. Impossibility of virtue bringing pleasure if practised only with that end, 35, 36. The utility of virtue not denied by intuitive moralists, 39. The degrees of virtue and vice do not correspond to the degrees of utility, or the reverse, 53. The rewards and punishments of conscience, 59, 60. The self-complacency of virtuous men, 64, 65, and note. The motive to virtue, according to Shaftesbury and Henry More, 76. Analogies of beauty and virtue, 77. Their difference, 78. Diversities existing in our judgments of virtue and beauty, 79, 80. Virtues to which we can and cannot apply the term beautiful, 82. The standard, though not the essence, of virtue, determined by the condition of society, 109. Summary of the relations of virtue to public and private interest, 117. Emphasis with which the utility of virtue was dwelt upon by Aristotle, 124. Growth of the gentler virtues, 132. Forms of the virtue of truth, industrial, political, and philosophical, 137. Each stage of civilisation is specially appropriate to some virtue, 147. National virtues, 151. Virtues, naturally grouped together according to principles of affinity or congruity, 153. Distinctive beauty of a moral type, 154. Rudimentary virtues differing in different ages, nations, and classes, 154, 155. Four distinct motives leading men to virtue, 178-180. Plato’s fundamental proposition that vice is to virtue what disease is to health, 179. Stoicism the best example of the perfect severance of virtue and self-interest, 181. Teachings of the Stoics that virtue should conceal itself from the world, 186. And that the obligation should be distinguished from the attraction of virtue, 186. The eminent characteristics of pagan goodness, 190. All virtues are the same, according to the Stoics, 192. Horace’s description of a just man, 197. Interested and disinterested motives of Christianity to virtue, ii. 3. Decline of the civic virtues caused by asceticism, 139. Influence of this change on moral philosophy, 146. The importance of the civic virtues exaggerated by historians, 147. Intellectual virtues, 188. Relation of monachism to these virtues, 189, et seq.

Vitalius, St., legend of, and the courtesan, ii. 320

Vivisection, ii. 176. Approved by Bacon, 176, note

Volcanoes, how regarded by the early monks, ii. 221

Vultures, why made an emblem of nature by the Egyptians, i. 108, note

War, its moral grandeur, i. 95. The school of the heroic virtues, 173. Difference between foreign and civil wars, 232. Antipathy of the early Christians to a military life, ii. 248. Belief in battle being the special sphere of Providential interposition, 249. Effects of the military triumphs of the Mohammedans, 251. Influences of Christianity upon war considered, 254. Improved condition of captives taken in war, 256

Warburton, on morals, i. 15, note, 17, note

Waterland, on the motives to virtue and cause of our love of God, quoted, i. 9, note, 15, note

Wealth, origin of the desire to possess, i. 23. Associations leading to the desire for, for its own sake, 25

Western Empire, general sketch of the moral condition of the, ii. 14

Widows, care of the early Church for, ii. 366

Will, freedom of the human, sustained and deepened by the ascetic life, ii. 123

Wine, forbidden to women, i. 93, 94, note

Witchcraft, belief in the reality of, i. 363. Suicide common among witches, ii. 54

Wollaston, his analysis of moral judgments, i. 76

Women, law of the Romans forbidding women to taste wine, i. 93, 94, note. Standards of female morality of the Jews, Greeks, and Romans, 103, 104. Virtues and vices growing out of the relations of the sexes, 143. Female virtue, 143. Effects of climate on this virtue, 144. Of large towns, 146. And of early marriages, 145. Reason for Plato’s advocacy of community of wives, 200. Plutarch’s high sense of female excellence, 244. Female gladiators at Rome, 281, and note. Relations of female devotees with the anchorites, ii. 120, 128, 150. Their condition in savage life, 276. Cessation of the sale of wives, 276. Rise of the dowry, 277. Establishment of monogamy, 278. Doctrine of the Fathers as to concupiscence, 281. Nature of the problem of the relations of the sexes, 282. Prostitution, 282-284. Recognition in Greece of two distinct orders of womanhood—the wife and the hetæra, 287. Condition of Roman women, 297, et seq. Legal emancipation of women in Rome, 304. Unbounded liberty of divorce, 306. Amount of female virtue in Imperial Rome, 308-312. Legislative measures to repress sensuality, 312. To enforce the reciprocity of obligation in marriage, 312. And to censure prostitution, 315. Influence of Christianity on the position of women, 316, et seq. Marriages, 320. Second marriages, 324. Low opinion of women, produced by asceticism, 338. The canon law unfavourable to their proprietary rights, 338, 339. Barbarian heroines and laws, 341-344. Doctrine of equality of obligation in marriage, 346. The duty of man towards woman, 347. Condemnation of transitory connections, 350. Roman concubines, 351. The sinfulness of divorce maintained by the Church, 350-353. Abolition of compulsory marriages, 353. Condemnation of mixed marriages, 353, 354. Education of women, 355. Relation of Christianity to the female virtues, 358. Comparison of male and female characteristics, 358. The Pagan and Christian ideal of woman contrasted, 361-363. Conspicuous part of woman in the early Church, 363-365. Care of widows, 367. Worship of the Virgin, 368, 369. Effect of the suppression of the conventual system on women, 369. Revolution going on in the employments of women, 373

Xenocrates, his tenderness, ii. 163

Xenophanes, his scepticism, i. 162

Xenophon, his picture of Greek married life, ii. 288

Zadok, the founder of the Sadducees, i. 183, note

Zeno, vast place occupied by his system in the moral history of man, i. 171. His suicide, 212. His inculcation of the practice of self-examination, 248

Zeus, universal providence attributed by the Greeks to, i. 161

FOOTNOTES

1 There is a remarkable passage of Celsus, on the impossibility of restoring a nature once thoroughly depraved, quoted by Origen in his answer to him.

2 This is well shown by Pressensé in his Hist. des Trois premiers Siècles.

3 See a great deal of information on this subject in Bingham’s Antiquities of the Christian Church (Oxford, 1853), vol. v. pp. 370-378. It is curious that those very noisy contemporary divines who profess to resuscitate the manners of the primitive Church, and who lay so much stress on the minutest ceremonial observances, have left unpractised what was undoubtedly one of the most universal, and was believed to be one of the most important, of the institutions of early Christianity. Bingham shows that the administration of the Eucharist to infants continued in France till the twelfth century.

4 See Cave’s Primitive Christianity, part i. ch. xi. At first the Sacrament was usually received every day; but this custom soon declined in the Eastern Church, and at last passed away in the West.

5 Plin. Ep. x. 97.

6 The whole subject of the penitential discipline is treated minutely in Marshall’s Penitential Discipline of the Primitive Church (first published in 1714, and reprinted in the library of Anglo-Catholic Theology), and also in Bingham, vol. vii. Tertullian gives a graphic description of the public penances, De Pudicit. v. 13.

7 Eusebius, H. E. viii, 7.

8 St. Chrysostom tells this of St. Babylas. See Tillemont, Mém. pour servir à l’Hist. eccl. tome iii. p. 403.

9 In the preface to a very ancient Milanese missal it is said of St. Agatha that as she lay in the prison cell, torn by the instruments of torture, St. Peter came to her in the form of a Christian physician, and offered to dress her wounds; but she refused, saying that she wished for no physician but Christ. St. Peter, in the name of that Celestial Physician, commanded her wounds to close, and her body became whole as before. (Tillemont, tome iii. p. 412.)

10 See her acts in Ruinart.

11 St. Jerome, Ep. xxxix.

12 “Definitio brevis et vera virtutis: ordo est amoris.”—De Civ. Dei, xv. 22.

13 Besides the obvious points of resemblance in the common, though not universal, belief that Christians should abstain from all weapons and from all oaths, the whole teaching of the early Christians about the duty of simplicity, and the wickedness of ornaments in dress (see especially the writings of Tertullian, Clemens Alexandrinus, and Chrysostom, on this subject), is exceedingly like that of the Quakers. The scruple of Tertullian (De Coronâ) about Christians wearing laurel wreaths in the festivals, because laurel was called after Daphne, the lover of Apollo, was much of the same kind as that which led the Quakers to refuse to speak of Tuesday or Wednesday, lest they should recognise the gods Tuesco or Woden. On the other hand, the ecclesiastical aspects and the sacramental doctrines of the Church were the extreme opposites of Quakerism.

14 See the masterly description of the relations of the English to the Irish in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, in Froude’s History of England, ch. xxiv.; and also Lord Macaulay’s description of the feelings of the Master of Stair towards the Highlanders. (History of England, ch. xviii.)

15 See on the views of Aristotle, Labourt, Recherches historiques sur les Enfanstrouvés (Paris, 1848), p. 9.

16 See Gravina, De Ortu et Progressu Juris Civilis, lib. i. 44.

17 “Nunc uterum vitiat quæ vult formosa videci, Raraque in hoc ævo est, quæ velit esse parens.”

Ovid, De Nuce, 22-23.

The same writer has devoted one of his elegies (ii. 14) to reproaching his mistress Corinna with having been guilty of this act. It was not without danger, and Ovid says,

“Sæpe suos utero quæ necit ipsa perit.”

A niece of Domitian is said to have died in consequence of having, at the command of the emperor, practised it (Sueton. Domit. xxii.). Plutarch notices the custom (De Sanitate tuenda), and Seneca eulogises Helvia (Ad Helv. xvi.) for being exempt from vanity and having never destroyed her unborn offspring. Favorinus, in a remarkable passage (Aulus Gellius, Noct. Att. xii. 1), speaks of the act as “publica detestatione communique odio dignum,” and proceeds to argue that it is only a degree less criminal for mothers to put out their children to nurse. Juvenal has some well-known and emphatic lines on the subject:—

“Sed jacet aurato vix ulla puerpera lecto; Tantum artes hujus, tantum medicamina possunt, Quæ steriles facit, atque homines in ventre necandos Conducit.”

Sat. vi. 592-595.

There are also many allusions to it in the Christian writers. Thus Minucius Felix (Octavius, xxx.): “Vos enim video procreatos filios nunc feris et avibus exponere, nunc adstrangulatos misero mortis genere elidere. Sunt quæ in ipsis visceribus, medicaminibus epotis, originem futuri hominis extinguant, et parricidium faciant antequam pariant.”

18 See Labourt, Recherches sur les Enfans trouvés, p. 25.

19 Among the barbarian laws there is a very curious one about a daily compensation for children who had been killed in the womb on account of the daily suffering of those children in hell. “Propterea diuturnam judicaverunt antecessores nostri compositionem et judices postquam religio Christianitatis inolevit in mundo. Quia diuturnam postquam incarnationem suscepit anima, quamvis ad nativitatis lucem minima pervenisset, patitur pœnam, quia sine sacramento regenerationis abortivo modo tradita est ad inferos.”—Leges Bajuvariorum, tit. vii. cap. xx. in Canciani, Leges Barbar. vol. ii. p. 374. The first foundling hospital of which we have undoubted record is that founded at Milan, by a man named Datheus, in A.D. 789. Muratori has preserved (Antich. Ital. Diss. xxxvii.) the charter embodying the motives of the founder, in which the following sentences occur: “Quia frequenter per luxuriam hominum genus decipitur, et exinde malum homicidii generatur, dum concipientes ex adulterio, ne prodantur in publico, fetos teneros necant, et absque baptismatis lavacro parvulos ad Tartara mittunt, quia nullum reperiunt locum, quo servare vivos valeant,” &c. Henry II. of France, 1556, made a long law against women who, “advenant le temps de leur part et délivrance de leur enfant, occultement s’en délivrent, puis le suffoquent et autrement suppriment sans leur avoir fait empartir le Saint Sacrement du Baptême.”—Labourt, Recherches sur les Enfans trouvés, p. 47. There is a story told of a Queen of Portugal (sister to Henry V. of England, and mother of St. Ferdinand) that, being in childbirth, her life was despaired of unless she took a medicine which would accelerate the birth but probably sacrifice the life of the child. She answered that “she would not purchase her temporal life by sacrificing the eternal salvation of her son.”—Bollandists, Act. Sanctor., June 5th.

20 Tillemont, Mémoires pour servir à l’Histoire ecclésiastique (Paris, 1701), tome x. p. 41. St. Clem. Alexand. says that infants in the womb and exposed infants have guardian angels to watch over them. (Strom. v.)

21 There is an extremely large literature devoted to the subject of infanticide, exposition, foundlings, &c. The books I have chiefly followed are Terme et Monfalcon, Histoire des Enfans trouvés (Paris, 1840); Remacle, Des Hospices d’Enfans trouvés (1838); Labourt, Recherches historiques sur les Enfans trouvés (Paris, 1848); Kœnigswarter, Essai sur la Législation des Peuples anciens et modernes relative aux Enfans nés hors Mariage (Paris, 1842). There are also many details on the subject in Godefroy’s Commentary to the laws about children in the Theodosian Code, in Malthus, On Population, in Edward’s tract On the State of Slavery in the Early and Middle Ages of Christianity, and in most ecclesiastical histories.

22 It must not; however, be inferred from this that infanticide increases in direct proportion to the unchastity of a nation. Probably the condition of civilised society in which it is most common, is where a large amount of actual unchastity coexists with very strong social condemnation of the sinner, and where, in consequence, there is an intense anxiety to conceal the fall. A recent writer on Spain has noticed the almost complete absence of infanticide in that country, and has ascribed it to the great leniency of public opinion towards female frailty. Foundling hospitals, also, greatly influence the history of infanticide; but the mortality in them was long so great that it may be questioned whether they have diminished the number of the deaths, though they have, as I believe, greatly diminished the number of the murders of children. Lord Kames, writing in the last half of the eighteenth century, says: “In Wales, even at present, and in the Highlands of Scotland, it is scarce a disgrace for a young woman to have a bastard. In the country last mentioned, the first instance known of a bastard child being destroyed by its mother through shame is a late one. The virtue of chastity appears to be thus gaining ground, as the only temptation a woman can have to destroy her child is to conceal her frailty.”—Sketches of the History of Man—On the Progress of the Female Sex. The last clause is clearly inaccurate, but there seems reason for believing that maternal affection is generally stronger than want, but weaker than shame.

23 See Warburton’s Divine Legation, vii. 2.

24 Ælian, Varia Hist. ii. 7. Passages from the Greek imaginative writers, representing exposition as the avowed and habitual practice of poor parents, are collected by Terme et Monfalcon, Hist. des Enfans trouvés, pp. 39-45. Tacitus notices with praise (Germania, xix.) that the Germans did not allow infanticide. He also notices (Hist. v. 5) the prohibition of infanticide among the Jews, and ascribes it to their desire to increase the population.

25 Dion. Halic. ii.

26 Ad Nat. i. 15.

27 The well-known jurisconsult Paulus had laid down the proposition, “Necare videtur non tantum is qui partum perfocat sed et is qui abjicit et qui alimonia denegat et qui publicis locis misericordiæ causa exponit quam ipse non habet.” (Dig. lib. xxv. tit. iii. 1. 4.) These words have given rise to a famous controversy between two Dutch professors, named Noodt and Bynkershoek, conducted on both sides with great learning, and on the side of Noodt with great passion. Noodt maintained that these words are simply the expression of a moral truth, not a judicial decision, and that exposition was never illegal in Rome till some time after the establishment of Christianity. His opponent argued that exposition was legally identical with infanticide, and became, therefore, illegal when the power of life and death was withdrawn from the father. (See the works of Noodt (Cologne, 1763) and of Bynkershoek (Cologne, 1761)). It was at least certain that exposition was notorious and avowed, and the law against it, if it existed, inoperative. Gibbon (Decline and Fall, ch. xliv.) thinks the law censured but did not punish exposition. See, too, Troplong, Influence du Christianisme sur le Droit, p. 271.

28 Quintilian speaks in a tone of apology, if not justification, of the exposition of the children of destitute parents (Decl. cccvi.), and even Plutarch speaks of it without censure. (De Amor. Prolis.) There are several curious illustrations in Latin literature of the different feelings of fathers and mothers on this matter. Terence (Heauton. Act. iii. Scene 5) represents Chremes as having, as a matter of course, charged his pregnant wife to have her child killed provided it was a girl. The mother, overcome by pity, shrank from doing so, and secretly gave it to an old woman to expose it, in hopes that it might be preserved. Chremes, on hearing what had been done, reproached his wife for her womanly pity, and told her she had been not only disobedient but irrational, for she was only consigning her daughter to the life of a prostitute. In Apuleius (Metam. lib. x.) we have a similar picture of a father starting for a journey, leaving his wife in childbirth, and giving her his parting command to kill her child if it should be a girl, which she could not bring herself to do. The girl was brought up secretly. In the case of weak or deformed infants infanticide seems to have been habitual. “Portentosos fœtus extinguimus, liberos quoque, si debiles monstrosique editi sunt, mergimus. Non ira, sed ratio est, a sanis inutilia secernere.”—Seneca, De Ira, i. 15. Terence has introduced a picture of the exposition of an infant into his Andria, Act. iv. Scene 5. See, too, Suet. August. lxv. According to Suetonius (Calig. v.), on the death of Germanicus, women exposed their new-born children in sign of grief. Ovid had dwelt with much feeling on the barbarity of these practices. It is a very curious fact, which has been noticed by Warburton, that Chremes, whose sentiments about infants we have just seen, is the very personage into whose mouth Terence has put the famous sentiment, “Homo sum, humani nihil a me alienum puto.”

29 That these were the usual fates of exposed infants is noticed by several writers. Some, too, both Pagan and Christian (Quintilian, Decl. cccvi.; Lactantius, Div. Inst. vi. 20, &c.), speak of the liability to incestuous marriages resulting from frequent exposition. In the Greek poets there are several allusions to rich childless men adopting foundlings, and Juvenal says it was common for Roman wives to palm off foundlings on their husbands for their sons. (Sat. vi. 603.) There is an extremely horrible declamation in Seneca the Rhetorician (Controvers. lib. v. 33) about exposed children who were said to have been maimed and mutilated, either to prevent their recognition by their parents, or that they might gain money as beggars for their masters.

30 See passages on this point cited by Godefroy in his Commentary to the Law “De Expositis,” Codex Theod. lib. v. tit. 7.

31 Codex Theod. lib. xi. tit. 27.

32 Codex Theod. lib. v. tit. 7, lex. 1.

33 Ibid. lib. v. tit. 8, lex 1.

34 See Godefroy’s Commentary to the Law.

35 In a letter to the younger Pliny. (Ep. x. 72.)

36 See on this point Muratori, Antich. Ital. Diss. xxxvii.

37 See on these laws, Wallon, Hist. de l’Esclavage, tome iii. pp. 52, 53.

38 See Cod. Theod. lib. iii. tit. 3, lex 1, and the Commentary.

39 On the very persistent denunciation of this practice by the Fathers, see many examples in Terme et Monfalcon.

40 This is a mere question of definition, upon which lawyers have expended much learning and discussion. Cujas thought the Romans considered infanticide a crime, but a crime generically different from homicide. Godefroy maintains that it was classified as homicide, but that, being esteemed less heinous than the other forms of homicide, it was only punished by exile. See the Commentary to Cod. Theod. lib. ix. tit. 14, l. 1.

41 Cod. Theod. lib. ix. tit. 15.

42 Ibid. lib. ix. tit. 14, lex 1.

43 Corp. Juris, lib. viii. tit. 52, lex 2.

44 Leges Wisigothorum (lib. vi. tit. 3, lex 7) and other laws (lib. iv. tit. 4) condemned exposition.

45 “Si quis infantem necaverit ut homicida teneatur.”—Capit. vii. 168.

46 It appears, from a passage of St. Augustine, that Christian virgins were accustomed to collect exposed children and to have them brought into the church. See Terme et Monfalcon, Hist. des Enfans trouvés, p. 74.

47 Compare Labourt, Rech. sur les Enfans trouvés, pp. 32, 33; Muratori, Antichità Italiane, Dissert. xxxvii. Muratori has also briefly noticed the history of these charities in his Carità Christiana, cap. xxvii.

48 The first seems to have been the hospital of Sta. Maria in Sassia, which had existed with various changes from the eighth century, but was made a foundling hospital and confided to the care of Guy of Montpellier in A.D. 1204. According to one tradition, Pope Innocent III. had been shocked at hearing of infants drawn in the nets of fishermen from the Tiber. According to another, he was inspired by an angel. Compare Remacle, Hospices d’Enfans trouvés, pp. 36-37, and Amydemus, Pietas Romana (a book written A.D. 1624, and translated in part into English in A.D. 1687), Eng. trans, pp. 2, 3.

49 For the little that is known about this missionary of charity, compare Remacle, Hospices d’Enfans trouvés, pp. 34-44; and Labourt, Recherches historiques sur les Enfans trouvés, pp. 38-41.

50 E.g. the amphitheatre of Verona was only built under Diocletian.

51 “Quid hoc triumpho pulchrius?... Tantam captivorum multitudinem bestiis objicit ut ingrati et perfidi non minus doloris ex ludibrio sui quam ex ipsa morte patiantur.”—Incerti, Panegyricus Constant. “Puberes qui in manus venerunt, quorum nec perfidia erat apta militiæ nec ferocia servituti ad pœnas spectaculo dati sævientes bestias multitudine sua fatigarunt.”—Eumenius, Paneg. Constant. xi.

52 Cod. Theod. lib. xv. tit. 12, lex 1. Sozomen, i. 8.

53 This, at least, is the opinion of Godefroy, who has discussed the subject very fully. (Cod. Theod. lib. xv. tit. 12.)

54 Libanius, De Vita Sua, 3.

55 Cod. Theod. lib. xv. tit. 12, l. 2.

56 Ibid. lib. ix. tit. 40, l. 8.

57 Ibid. lib. ix. tit. 40, l. 11.

58 Ibid. lib. xv. tit. 12, l. 3.

59 Symmach. Ex. x. 61.

60 M. Wallon has traced these last shows with much learning. (Hist. de l’Esclavage, tome iii. pp. 421-429.)

61 He wavered, however, on the subject, and on one occasion condemned them. See Wallon, tome iii. p. 423.

62 Theodoret, v. 26.

63 Muller, De Genio Ævi Theodosiani (1797), vol. ii. p. 88; Milman, Hist. of Early Christianity, vol. iii. pp. 343-347.

64 See on these fights Ozanam’s Civilisation in the Fifth Century (Eng. trans.), vol. i. p. 130.

65 Nieupoort, De Ritibus Romanorum, p. 169.

66 See a very unequivocal passage, Inst. Div. vi. 20. Several earlier testimonies on the subject are given by Barbeyrac, Morale des Pères, and in many other books.

67 See two laws enacted in A.D. 380 (Cod. Theod. ix. tit. 35, l. 4) and A.D. 389 (Cod. Theod. ix. tit. 35, l. 5). Theodosius the Younger made a law (ix. tit. 35, l. 7) excepting the Isaurian robbers from the privileges of these laws.

68 There are, of course, innumerable miracles punishing guilty men, but I know none assisting the civil power in doing so. As an example of the miracles in defence of the innocent, I may cite one by St. Macarius. An innocent man, accused of a murder, fled to him. He brought both the accused and accusers to the tomb of the murdered man, and asked him whether the prisoner was the murderer. The corpse answered in the negative; the bystanders implored St. Macarius to ask it to reveal the real culprit; but St. Macarius refused to do so. (Vitæ Patrum, lib. ii. cap. xxviii.)

69 “Ut quam clementissime et ultra sanguinis effusionem puniretur.”

70 Quæstœ. Romanæ, xcvi.

71 Tillemont, Mém. d’Hist. ecclés. tome vi. pp. 88-98. The Donatists after a time, however, are said to have overcome their scruples, and used swords.

72 Under the Christian kings, the barbarians multiplied the number of capital offences, but this has usually been regarded as an improvement. The Abbé Mably says: “Quoiqu’il nous reste peu d’ordonnances faites sous les premiers Mérovingiens, nous voyons qu’avant la fin du sixième siècle, les François avoient déjà adopté la doctrine salutaire des Romains au sujet de la prescription; et que renonçant à cette humanité cruelle qui les enhardissoit au mal, ils infligèrent peine de mort contre l’inceste, le vol et le meurtre qui jusques-là n’avoient été punis que par l’exil, ou dont on se rachetoit par une composition. Les François, en réformant quelques-unes de leurs lois civiles, portèrent la sévérité aussi loin que leurs pères avoient poussé l’indulgence.”—Mably, Observ. sur l’Hist. des François, liv. i. ch. iii. See, too, Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, ch. xxxviii.

73 The whole of the sixth volume of Godefroy’s edition (folio) of the Theodosian code is taken up with laws of these kinds.

74 Mme. de Staël, Réflexions sur le Suicide.

75 The following became the theological doctrine on the subject: “Est vere homicida et reus homicidii qui se interficiendo innocentum hominem interfecerit.”—Lisle, Du Suicide, p. 400. St. Augustine has much in this strain. Lucretia, he says, either consented to the act of Sextius, or she did not. In the first case she was an adulteress, and should therefore not be admired. In the second case she was a murderess, because in killing herself she killed an innocent and virtuous woman. (De Civ. Dei, i. 19.)

76 Justin Martyr, Tertullian, and Cyprian are especially ardent in this respect; but their language is, I think, in their circumstances, extremely excusable. Compare Barbeyrac, Morale des Pères, ch. ii. § 8; ch. viii. §§ 34-39. Donne’s Biathanatos (ed. 1644), pp. 58-67. Cromaziano, Istoria critica e filosofica del Suicidio ragionato (Venezia, 1788), pp. 135-140.

77 Ambrose, De Virginibus, iii. 7.

78 Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. viii. 12.

79 Eusebius, Eccles. Hist. viii. 14. Bayle, in his article upon Sophronia, appears to be greatly scandalised at this act, and it seems that among the Catholics it is not considered right to admire this poor lady as much as her sister suicides. Tillemont remarks: “Comme on ne voit pas que l’église romaine l’ait jamais honorée, nous n’avons pas le mesme droit de justifier son action.”—Hist. ecclés. tome v. pp. 404, 405.

80 Especially Barbeyrac in his Morale des Pères. He was answered by Ceillier, Cromaziano, and others. Matthew of Westminster relates of Ebba, the abbess of a Yorkshire convent which was besieged by the Danes, that she and all the other nuns, to save their chastity, deformed themselves by cutting off their noses and upper lips. (A.D. 870.)

81 De Civ. Dei, i. 22-7.

82 This had been suggested by St. Augustine. In the case of Pelagia, Tillemont finds a strong argument in support of this view in the astounding, if not miraculous, fact that, having thrown herself from the top of the house, she was actually killed by the fall! “Estant montée tout au haut de sa maison, fortifiée par le mouvement que J.-C. formoit dans son cœur et par le courage qu’il luy inspiroit, elle se précipita de là du haut en bas, et échapa ainsi à tous les piéges de ses ennemis. Son corps en tombant à terre frapa, dit S. Chrysostome, les yeux du démon plus vivement qu’un éclair.... Ce qui marque encore que Dieu agissoit en tout ceci c’est qu’au lieu que ces chutes ne sont pas toujours mortelles, ou que souvent ne brisant que quelques membres, elles n’ostent la vie que longtemps après, ni l’un ni l’autre n’arriva en cette rencontre; mais Dieu retira aussitost l’âme de la sainte, en sorte que sa mort parut autant l’effet de la volonté divine que de sa chute.”—Hist. ecclés. tome v. pp. 401-402.

83 “Et virginitatis coronam et nuptiarum perdidit voluptatem.”—Ep. xxii.

84 “Quis enim siccis oculis recordetur viginti annorum adolescentulam tam ardenti fide crucis levasse vexillum ut magis amissam virginitatem quam mariti doleret interitum?”—Ep. xxxix.

85 For a description of these penances, see Ep. xxxviii.

86 Ep. xxxix.

87 St. Jerome gave some sensible advice on this point to one of his admirers. (Ep. cxxv.)

88 Hase, St. François d’Assise, pp. 137-138. St. Palæmon is said to have died of his austerities. (Vit. S. Pachomii.)

89 St. Augustine and St. Optatus have given accounts of these suicides in their works against the Donatists.

90 See Todd’s Life of St. Patrick, p. 462.

91 The whole history of suicide in the dark ages has been most minutely and carefully examined by M. Bourquelot, in a very interesting series of memoirs in the third and fourth volumes of the Bibliothèque de l’École des Chartes. I am much indebted to these memoirs in the following pages. See, too, Lisle, Du Suicide, Statistique, Médecine, Histoire, et Législation. (Paris, 1856.) The ferocious laws here recounted contrast remarkably with a law in the Capitularies (lib. vi. lex 70), which provides that though mass may not be celebrated for a suicide, any private person may, through charity, cause prayers to be offered up for his soul. “Quia incomprehensibilia sunt judicia Dei, et profunditatem consilii ejus nemo potest investigare.”

92 See the very interesting work of the Abbé Bourret, l’École chrétienne de Séville sous la monarchie des Visigoths (Paris, 1855), p. 196.

93 Roger of Wendover, A.D. 665.

94 Esquirol, Maladies mentales, tome i. p. 591.

95 Lea’s History of Sacerdotal Celibacy (Philadelphia, 1867), p. 248.

96 “Per lo corso di molti secoli abbiamo questo solo suicidio donnesco, e buona cosa è non averne più d’uno; perchè io non credo che la impudicizia istessa sia peggiore di questa disperata castità.”—Cromaziano, Ist. del. Suicidio, p. 126. Mariana, who, under the frock of a Jesuit, bore the heart of an ancient Roman, treats the case in a very different manner. “Ejus uxor Maria Coronelia cum mariti absentiam non ferret, ne pravis cupiditatibus cederet, vitam posuit, ardentem forte libidinem igne extinguens adacto per muliebria titione; dignam meliori seculo fœminam, insigne studium castitatis.”—De Rebus Hispan. xvi. 17.

97 A number of passages are cited by Bourquelot.

98 This is noticed by St. Gregory Nazianzen in a little poem which is given in Migne’s edition of The Greek Fathers, tome xxxvii. p. 1459. St. Nilus and the biographer of St. Pachomius speak of these suicides, and St. Chrysostom wrote a letter of consolation to a young monk, named Stagirius, which is still extant, encouraging him to resist the temptation. See Neander, Ecclesiastical Hist. vol. iii. pp. 319, 320.

99 Bourquelot. Pinel notices (Traité médico-philosophique sur l’Aliénation mentale (2nd ed.), pp. 44-46) the numerous cases of insanity still produced by strong religious feeling; and the history of the movements called “revivals,” in the present century, supplies much evidence to the same effect. Pinel says, religious insanity tends peculiarly to suicide (p. 265).

100 Orosius notices (Hist. v. 14) that of all the Gauls conquered by Q. Marcius, there were none who did not prefer death to slavery. The Spaniards were famous for their suicides, to avoid old age as well as slavery. Odin, who, under different names, was the supreme divinity of most of the Northern tribes, is said to have ended his earthly life by suicide. Boadicea, the grandest figure of early British history, and Cordeilla, or Cordelia, the most pathetic figure of early British romance, were both suicides. (See on the first, Tacitus, Ann. xiv. 35-37, and on the second Geoffrey of Monmouth, ii. 15—a version from which Shakspeare has considerably diverged, but which is faithfully followed by Spenser. (Faëry Queen, book ii. canto 10.))

101 “In our age, when the Spaniards extended that law which was made only against the cannibals, that they who would not accept the Christian religion should incur bondage, the Indians in infinite numbers escaped this by killing themselves, and never ceased till the Spaniards, by some counterfeitings, made them think that they also would kill themselves, and follow them with the same severity into the next life.”—Donne’s Biathanatos, p. 56 (ed. 1644). On the evidence of the early travellers on this point, see the essay on “England’s Forgotten Worthies,” in Mr. Froude’s Short Studies.

102 Lisle, pp. 427-434. Sprenger has noticed the same tendency among the witches he tried. See Calmeil, De la Folie (Paris, 1845), tome i. pp. 161, 303-305.

103 On modern suicides the reader may consult Winslow’s Anatomy of Suicide; as well as the work of M. Lisle, and also Esquirol, Maladies mentales (Paris, 1838), tome i. pp. 526-676.

104 Hecker’s Epidemics of the Middle Ages (London, 1844), p. 121. Hecker in his very curious essay on this mania, has preserved a verse of their song:—

“Allu mari mi portati Se voleti che mi sanati, Allu mari, alla via, Così m’ama la donna mia, Allu mari, allu mari, Mentre campo, t’aggio amari.”

105 Cromaziano, Ist. del Suicidio caps. viii, ix.

106 Cromaziano, pp. 92-93.

107 Montesquieu, and many Continental writers, have noticed this, and most English writers of the eighteenth century seem to admit the charge. There do not appear, however, to have been any accurate statistics, and the general statements are very untrustworthy. Suicides were supposed to be especially numerous under the depressing influence of English winter fogs. The statistics made in the present century prove beyond question that they are most numerous in summer.

108 Utopia, book ii. ch. vi.

109 A sketch of his life, which was rather curious, is given by Cromaziano, pp. 148-151. There is a long note on the early literature in defence of suicide, in Dumas, Traité du Suicide (Amsterdam, 1723), pp. 148-149. Dumas was a Protestant minister who wrote against suicide. Among the English apologists for suicide (which he himself committed) was Blount, the translator of the Life of Apollonius of Tyana, and Creech, an editor of Lucretius. Concerning the former there is a note in Bayle’s Dict. art. “Apollonius.” The latter is noticed by Voltaire in his Lettres Philos. He wrote as a memorandum on the margin of his “Lucretius,” “N.B. When I have finished my Commentary I must kill myself;” which he accordingly did—Voltaire says to imitate his favourite author. (Voltaire, Dict. phil. art. “Caton.”)

110 Essais, liv. ii. ch. xiii.

111 Lettres persanes, lxxvi.

112 Nouvelle Héloïse, partie iii. let. 21-22. Esquirol gives a curious illustration of the way the influence of Rousseau penetrated through all classes. A little child of thirteen committed suicide, leaving a writing beginning: “Je lègue mon âme a Rousseau, mon corps à la terre.”—Maladies mentales, tome i. p. 588.

113 In general, however, Voltaire was extremely opposed to the philosophy of despair, but he certainly approved of some forms of suicide. See the articles “Caton” and “Suicide,” in his Dict. philos.

114 Lisle, Du Suicide, pp. 411, 412.

115 “Le monde est vide depuis les Romains.”—St.-Just, Procés de Danton.

116 This fact has been often noticed. The reader may find many statistics on the subject in Lisle, Du Suicide, and Winslow’s Anatomy of Suicide.

117 “There seems good reason to believe, that with the progress of mental development through the ages, there is, as in the case with other forms of organic development, a correlative degeneration going on, and that an increase of insanity is a penalty which an increase of our present civilisation necessarily pays.”—Maudsley’s Physiology of Mind, p. 201.

118 Cod. Theod. lib. ix. tit. 12.

119 Some commentators imagine (see Muratori, Antich. Ital. Diss. xiv.) that among the Pagans the murder of a man’s own slave was only assimilated to the crime of murdering the slave of another man, while in the Christian law it was defined as homicide, equivalent to the murder of a freeman. I confess, however, this point does not appear to me at all clear.

120 See Godefroy’s Commentary on these laws.

121 Exodus xxi. 21

122 “Quas vilitates vitæ dignas legum observatione non credidit.”—Cod. Theod. lib. ix. tit. 7. See on this law, Wallon, tome iii. pp. 417, 418.

Dean Milman observes, “In the old Roman society in the Eastern Empire this distinction between the marriage of the freeman and the concubinage of the slave was long recognised by Christianity itself. These unions were not blessed, as the marriages of their superiors had soon begun to be, by the Church. Basil the Macedonian (A.D. 867-886) first enacted that the priestly benediction should hallow the marriage of the slave; but the authority of the emperor was counteracted by the deep-rooted prejudices of centuries.”—Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 15.

123 Cod. Theod. lib. ii. tit. 25.

124 Ibid. lib. iv. tit. 7.

125 Ibid. lib. ix. tit. 9.

126 Corpus Juris, vi. 1.

127 Cod. Theod. lib. vi. tit. 2.

128 See on all this legislation, Wallon, tome iii.; Champagny, Charité chrétienne, pp. 214-224.

129 It is worthy of notice, too, that the justice of slavery was frequently based by the Fathers, as by modern defenders of slavery, on the curse of Ham. See a number of passages noticed by Moehler, Le Christianisme et l’Esclavage (trad. franç.), pp. 151-152.

130 The penalty, however, appears to have been reduced to two years’ exclusion from communion. Muratori says: “In più consili si truova decretato, ‘excommunicatione vel pœnitentiæ biennii esse subjiciendum qui servum proprium sine conscientia judicis occiderit.’ ”—Antich. Ital. Diss. xiv.

Besides the works which treat generally of the penitential discipline, the reader may consult with fruit Wright’s letter On the Political Condition of the English Peasantry, and Moehler, p. 186.

131 On the great multitude of emancipated slaves who entered, and at one time almost monopolised, the ecclesiastical offices, compare Moehler, Le Christianisme et l’Esclavage, pp. 177-178. Leo the Great tried to prevent slaves being raised to the priestly office, because it would degrade the latter.

132 See a most admirable dissertation on this subject in Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, tome ii. pp. 284-299; Gibbon’s Decline and Fall, ch. xxxviii.

133 Champagny, Charité chrétienne, p. 210. These numbers are, no doubt, exaggerated; see Wallon, Hist. de l’Esclavage, tome iii. p. 38.

134 See Schmidt, La Société civile dans le Monde romain, pp. 246-248.

135 Muratori has devoted two valuable dissertations (Antich. Ital. xiv. xv.) to mediæval slavery.

136 Ozanam’s Hist. of Civilisation in the Fifth Century (Eng. trans.), vol. ii. p. 43. St. Adelbert, Archbishop of Prague at the end of the tenth century, was especially famous for his opposition to the slave trade. In Sweden, the abolition of slavery in the thirteenth century was avowedly accomplished in obedience to Christian principles. (Moehler, Le Christianisme et l’Esclavage, pp. 194-196; Ryan’s History of the Effects of Religion upon Mankind, pp. 142, 143.)

137 Salvian, in a famous passage (De Gubernatione Dei, lib. v.), notices the multitudes of poor who voluntarily became “coloni” for the sake of protection and a livelihood. The coloni, who were attached to the soil, were much the same as the mediæval serfs. We have already noticed them coming into being, apparently when the Roman emperors settled barbarian prisoners to cultivate the desert lands of Italy; and before the barbarian invasions their numbers seem to have much increased. M. Guizot has devoted two chapters to this subject. (Hist. de la Civilisation en France, vii. viii.)

138 See Finlay’s Hist. of Greece, vol. i. p. 241.

139 Moehler, p. 181.

140 “Non v’era anticamente signor secolare, vescovo, abbate, capitolo di canonici e monistero che non avesse al suo servigio molti servi. Molto frequentemente solevano i secolari manometterli. Non cosi le chiese, e i monisteri, non per altra cagione, a mio credere, se non perchè la manumissione è una spezie di alienazione, ed era dai canoni proibito l’alienare i beni delle chiese.”—Muratori, Dissert. xv. Some Councils, however, recognised the right of bishops to emancipate Church slaves. Moehler, Le Christianisme et l’Esclavage, p. 187. Many peasants placed themselves under the dominion of the monks, as being the best masters, and also to obtain the benefit of their prayers.

141 Muratori; Hallam’s Middle Ages, ch. ii. part ii.

142 See on this subject, Ryan, pp. 151-152; Cibrario, Economica politica del Medio Evo, lib. iii. cap. ii., and especially Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, tome ii. pp. 284-299.

143 About 5/6ths of a bushel. See Hume’s Essay on the Populousness of Ancient Nations.

144 The history of these distributions is traced with admirable learning by M. Naudet in his Mémoire sur les Secours publics dans l’Antiquité (Mém. de l’Académie des Inscrip. et Belles-lettres, tome xiii.), an essay to which I am much indebted. See, too, Monnier, Hist. de l’Assistance publique; B. Dumas, Des Secours publics chez les Anciens; and Schmidt, Essai sur la Société civile dans le Monde romain et sur sa Transformation par le Christianisme.

145 Livy, ii. 9; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxi. 41.

146 Dion Cassius, xxxviii. 1-7.

147 Xiphilin, lxviii. 2; Pliny, Ep. vii. 31.

148 Spartian. Sept. Severus.

149 Suet. August. 41; Dion Cassius, li, 1.

150 “Afflictos civitatis relevavit; puellas puerosque natos parentibus egestosis sumptu publico per Italiæ oppida ali jussit.”—Sext. Aurelius Victor, Epitome, “Nerva.” This measure of Nerva, though not mentioned by any other writer, is confirmed by the evidence of medals. (Naudet, p. 75.)

151 Plin. Panegyr. xxvi. xxviii.

152 We know of this charity from an extant bronze tablet. See Schmidt, Essai historique sur la Société romaine, p. 428.

153 Plin. Ep. i. 8; iv. 13.

154 Schmidt, p. 428.

155 Spartianus, Hadrian.

156 Capitolinus, Antoninus.

157 Capitolinus, Anton., Marc. Aurel.

158 Lampridius, A. Severus.

159 See Friedlænder, Hist. des Mœurs romaines, iii. p. 157.

160 Seneca (De Ira, lib. i. cap. 16) speaks of institutions called valetudinaria, which most writers think were private infirmaries in rich men’s houses. The opinion that the Romans had public hospitals is maintained in a very learned and valuable, but little-known work, called Collections relative to the Systematic Relief of the Poor. (London, 1815.)

161 See Tacit. Annal. xii. 58; Pliny, v. 7; x. 79.

162 Cornelius Nepos, Epaminondas, cap. iii.

163 Plutarch, Cimon.

164 Diog. Laërt. Bias.

165 Tac. Annal. iv. 63.

166 See Pliny, Ep. x. 94, and the remarks of Naudet, pp. 38, 39.

167 De Offic. i. 14, 15.

168 Lucian describes this in his famous picture of Peregrinus; and Julian, much later, accused the Christians of drawing men into the Church by their charities. Socrates (Hist. Eccl. vii. 17) tells a story of a Jew who, pretending to be a convert to Christianity, had been often baptised in different sects, and had amassed a considerable fortune by the gifts he received on those occasions. He was at last miraculously detected by the Novatian bishop Paul. There are several instances in the Lives of the Saints of judgments falling on those who duped benevolent Christians.

169 See on this subject Chastel, Études historiques sur la Charité (Paris, 1853); Martin Doisy, Hist. de la Charité pendant les quatre premiers Siècles (Paris, 1848); Champagny, Charité chrétienne; Tollemer, Origines de la Charité catholique (Paris, 1863); Ryan, History of the Effects of Religion upon Mankind (Dublin, 1820); and the works of Bingham and of Cave. I am also indebted, in this part of my subject, to Dean Milman’s histories, Neander’s Ecclesiastical History, and Private Life of the Early Christians, and to Migne’s Encyclopédie.

170 See the famous epistle of Julian to Arsacius, where he declares that it is shameful that “the Galileans” should support not only their own, but also the heathen poor; and also the comments of Sozomen, Hist. eccl. v. 16.

171 The conduct of the Christians, on the first of these occasions, is described by Pontius, Vit. Cypriani, ix. 19. St. Cyprian organised their efforts. On the Alexandrian famines and pestilences, see Eusebius, H. E. vii. 22; ix. 8.

172 The effects of this conquest have been well described by Sismondi, Hist. de la Chute de l’Empire Romain, tome i. pp. 258-260. Theodoric afterwards made some efforts to re-establish the distribution, but it never regained its former proportions. The pictures of the starvation and depopulation of Italy at this time are appalling. Some fearful facts on the subject are collected by Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxxvi.; Chateaubriand, vime Disc. 2de partie.

173 Cod. Theod. ix. xl. 15-16. The first of these laws was made by Theodosius, A.D. 392; the second by Honorius, A.D. 398.

174 Cibrario, Economica politica del Medio Evo, lib. ii. cap. iii. The most remarkable of these saints was St. Julien l’Hospitalier, who having under a mistake killed his father and mother, as a penance became a ferryman of a great river, and having embarked on a very stormy and dangerous night at the voice of a traveller in distress, received Christ into his boat. His story is painted on a window of the thirteenth century, in Rouen Cathedral. See Langlois, Essai historique sur la Peinture sur verre, pp. 32-37.

175 The fact of leprosy being taken as the image of sin gave rise to some curious notions of its supernatural character, and to many legends of saints curing leprosy by baptism. See Maury, Légendes pieuses du Moyen-Age, pp. 64-65.

176 See on these hospitals Cibrario, Econ. Politica del Medio Evo, lib. iii. cap. ii.

177 Calmeil observes: “On a souvent constaté depuis un demi-siècle que la folie est sujette à prendre la teinte des croyances religieuses, des idées philosophiques ou superstitieuses, des préjugés sociaux qui ont cours, qui sont actuellement en vogue parmi les peuples ou les nations; que cette teinte varie dans un même pays suivant le caractère des événements relatifs à la politique extérieure, le caractère des événements civils, la nature des productions littéraires, des représentations théâtrales, suivant la tournure, la direction, le genre d’élan qu’y prennent l’industrie, les arts et les sciences.”—De la Folie, tome i. pp. 122-123.

178 Milman’s History of Latin Christianity, vol. vii. pp. 353, 354.

“Venit de Anglia virgo decora valde, pariterque facunda, dicens, Spiritum Sanctum incarnatum in redemptionem mulierum, et baptizavit mulieres in nomine Patris, Filii et sui. Quæ mortua ducta fuit in Mediolanum, ibi et cremata.”—Annales Dominicanorum Colmariensium (in the “Rerum Germanic. Scriptores”).

179 “Martin Gonçalez, du diocèse de Cuenca, disoit qu’il etoit frère de l’archange S. Michel, la première vérité et l’échelle du ciel; que c’étoit pour lui que Dieu réservoit la place que Lucifer avoit perdue; que tous les jours il s’élevoit au plus haut de l’Empirée et descendoit ensuite au plus profond des enfers; qu’a la fin du monde, qui étoit proche, il iroit au devant de l’Antichrist et qu’il le terrasseroit, ayant á sa main la croix de Jésus-Christ et sa couronne d’épines. L’archevêque de Tolède, n’ayant pu convertir ce fanatique obstiné, ni l’empêcher de dogmatiser, l’avoit enfin livré au bras séculier.”—Touron, Hist. des Hommes illustres de l’ordre de St. Dominique, Paris, 1745 (Vie d’Eyméricus), tome ii. p. 635.

180 Calmeil, De la Folie, tome i. p. 134.

181 Ibid. tome i. pp. 242-247.

182 Calmeil, tome i. p. 247.

183 See Esquirol, Maladies mentales.

184 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxxvii.

185 Purchas’s Pilgrims, ii. 1452.

186 Desmaisons’ Asiles d’Aliénés en Espagne, p. 53.

187 Leo Africanus, Description of Africa, book iii.

188 I have taken these facts from a very interesting little work, Desmaisons, Des Asiles d’Aliénés en Espagne; Recherches historiques et médicales (Paris, 1859). Dr. Desmaisons conjectures that the Spaniards took their asylums from the Mohammedans; but, as it seems to me, he altogether fails to prove his point. His work, however, contains some curious information on the history of lunatic asylums.

189 Amydemus, Pietas Romana (Oxford, 1687), p. 21; Desmaisons, p. 108.

190 Pinel, Traité médico-philosophique, pp. 241, 242.

191 See the dreadful description in Pinel, pp. 200-202.

192 Malthus, who is sometimes, though most unjustly, described as an enemy to all charity, has devoted an admirable chapter (On Population, book iv. ch. ix.) to the “direction of our charity;” but the fullest examination of this subject with which I am acquainted is the very interesting work of Duchâtel, Sur la Charité.

193 This is very tersely expressed by a great Protestant writer: “I give no alms to satisfy the hunger of my brother, but to fulfil and accomplish the will and command of my God.”—Sir T. Brown, Religio Medici, part ii. § 2. A saying almost exactly similar is, if I remember right, ascribed to St. Elizabeth of Hungary.

194 See Butler’s Lives of the Saints.

195 Campion’s Historie of Ireland, book ii. chap. x.

196 He wrote his Perils of the Last Times in the interest of the University of Paris, of which he was a Professor, and which was at war with the mendicant orders. See Milman’s Latin Christianity, vol. vi. pp. 348-356; Fleury, Eccl. Hist. lxxxiv. 57.

197 Henry de Knyghton, De Eventibus Angliæ.

198 There was some severe legislation in England on the subject after the Black Death. Eden’s History of the Working Classes, vol. i. p. 34. In France, too, a royal ordinance of 1350 ordered men who had been convicted of begging three times to be branded with a hot iron. Monteil, Hist. des Français, tome i. p. 434.

199 Eden, vol. i. pp. 83-87.

200 Ibid. pp. 101-103.

201 Ibid. pp. 127-130.

202 Morighini, Institutions pieuses de Rome.

203 Eden, History of the Labouring Classes, i. 83.

204 Locke discussed the great increase of poverty, and a bill was brought in suggesting some remedies, but did not pass. (Eden, vol. i. pp. 243-248.)

205 In a very forcible letter addressed to the Irish Catholic clergy.

206 This tract, which is extremely valuable for the light it throws upon the social condition of England at the time, was written in opposition to a bill providing that the poor in the poor-houses should do wool, hemp, iron, and other works. Defoe says that wages in England were higher than anywhere on the Continent, though the amount of mendicancy was enormous. “The reason why so many pretend to want work is, that they can live so well with the pretence of wanting work.... I affirm of my own knowledge, when I have wanted a man for labouring work, and offered nine shillings per week to strolling fellows at my door, they have frequently told me to my face they could get more a-begging.”

207 Reforma degl’ Instituti pii di Modena (published first anonymously at Modena). It has been reprinted in the library of the Italian economists.

208 Essay on Charity Schools.

209 Magdalen asylums have been very vehemently assailed by M. Charles Comte, in his Traité de Législation. On the subject of Foundling Hospitals there is a whole literature. They were violently attacked by, I believe, Lord Brougham, in the Edinburgh Review, in the early part of this century. Writers of this stamp, and indeed most political economists, greatly exaggerate the forethought of men and women, especially in matters where the passions are concerned. It may be questioned whether one woman in a hundred, who plunges into a career of vice, is in the smallest degree influenced by a consideration of whether or not charitable institutions are provided for the support of aged penitents.

210 Apol. ch. xlii.

211 On these penances, see Bingham, Antiq. book vii. Bingham, I think, justly divides the history of asceticism into three periods. During the first, which extends from the foundation of the Church to A.D. 250, there were men and women who, with a view to spiritual perfection, abstained from marriage, relinquished amusements, accustomed themselves to severe fasts, and gave up their property to works of charity; but did this in the middle of society and without leading the life of either a hermit or a monk. During the second period, which extended from the Decian persecution, anchorites were numerous, but the custom of a common or cœnobitic life was unknown. It was originated in the time of Constantine by Pachomius.

212 This is expressly stated by St. Jerome (Vit. Pauli).

213 See on this subject some curious evidence in Neander’s Life of Chrysostom. St. Chrysostom wrote a long work to console fathers whose sons were thus seduced to the desert.

214 On this tradition see Champagny, Les Antonins, tome i. p. 193.

215 Ep. cxxiii.

216 Euseb. Eccl. Hist. ii. 23.

217 Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xxxvii.; a brief but masterly sketch of the progress of the movement.

218 Palladius, Hist. Laus. xxxviii.

219 Jerome, Preface to the Rule of St. Pachomius, § 7.

220 Cassian, De Cœnob. Inst. iv. 1.

221 Rufinus, Hist. Monach. ch. v. Rufinus visited it himself.

222 Palladius, Hist. Laus. lxxvi.

223 Rufinus, Hist. Mon. vii.

224 There is a good deal of doubt and controversy about this. See a note in Mosheim’s Eccl. Hist. (Soame’s edition), vol. i. p. 354.

225 Most of the passages remaining on the subject of the foundation of monachism are given by Thomassin, Discipline de l’Église, part i. livre iii. ch. xii. This work contains also much general information about monachism. A curious collection of statistics of the numbers of the monks in different localities, additional to those I have given and gleaned from the Lives of the Saints, may be found in Pitra (Vie de St. Léger, Introd. p. lix.); 2,100, or, according to another account, 3,000 monks, lived in the monastery of Banchor.

226 The three principal are the Historia Monachorum of Rufinus, who visited Egypt A.D. 373, about seventeen years after the death of St. Antony; the Institutiones of Cassian, who, having visited the Eastern monks about A.D. 394, founded vast monasteries containing, it is said, 5,000 monks, at Marseilles, and died at a great age about A.D. 448; and the Historia Lausiaca (so called from Lausus, Governor of Cappadocia) of Palladius, who was himself a hermit on Mount Nitria, in A.D. 388. The first and last, as well as many minor works of the same period, are given in Rosweyde’s invaluable collection of the lives of the Fathers, one of the most fascinating volumes in the whole range of literature.

The hospitality of the monks was not without drawbacks. In a church on Mount Nitria three whips were hung on a palm-tree—one for chastising monks, another for chastising thieves, and a third for chastising guests. (Palladius, Hist. Laus. vii.)

227 Vita Pauli. St. Jerome adds, that some will not believe this, because they have no faith, but that all things are possible for those that believe.

228 Vita St. Hilarion.

229 See a long list of these penances in Tillemont, Mém. pour servir à l’Hist. ecclés. tome viii.

230 Vitæ Patrum (Pachomius). He used to lean against a wall when overcome by drowsiness.

231 Vitæ Patrum, ix. 3.

232 Sozomen, vi. 29.

233 E.g. St. Antony, according to his biographer St. Athanasius.

234 “Il y eut dans le désert de Scété des solitaires d’une éminente perfection.... On prétend que pour l’ordinaire ils passoient des semaines entières sans manger, mais apparemment cela ne se faisoit que dans des occasions particulières.”—Tillemont, Mém. pour servir à l’Hist. eccl. tome viii. p. 580. Even this, however, was admirable!

235 Palladius, Hist. Laus. cap. xx.

236 “Primum cum accessisset ad eremum tribus continuis annis sub cujusdam saxi rupe stans, semper oravit, ita ut nunquam omnino resederit neque Jacuerit. Somni autem tantum caperet, quantum stans capere potuit; cibum vero nunquam sumpserat nisi die Dominica. Presbyter enim tunc veniebat ad eum et offerebat pro eo sacrificium idque ei solum sacramentum erat et victus.”—Rufinus, Hist. Monach. cap. xv.

237 Thus St. Antony used to live in a tomb, where he was beaten by the devil. (St. Athanasius, Life of Antony.)

238 βοσκοί. See on these monks Sozomen, vi. 33; Evagrius, i. 21. It is mentioned of a certain St. Marc of Athens, that, having lived for thirty years naked in the desert, his body was covered with hair like that of a wild beast. (Bollandists, March 29.) St. Mary of Egypt, during part of her period of penance, lived upon grass. (Vitæ Patrum.)

239 Life of Antony.

240 “II ne faisoit pas aussi difficulté dans sa vieillesse de se laver quelquefois les piez. Et comme on témoignoit s’en étonner et trouver que cela ne répondoit pas à la vie austère des anciens, il se justifioit par ces paroles: Nous avons appris à tuer, non pas notre corps mais nos passions.”—Tillemont, Mém. Hist. eccl. tome xv. p. 148. This saint was so very virtuous, that he sometimes remained without eating for whole weeks.

241 “Non appropinquavit oleum corpusculo ejus. Facies vel etiam pedes a die conversionis suæ nunquam diluti sunt.”—Vitæ Patrum, c. xvii.

242 “In facie ejus puritas animi noscebatur.”—Ibid. c. xviii.

243 Socrates, iv. 23.

244 Heraclidis Paradisus (Rosweyde), c. xlii.

245 “Nulla earum pedes suos abluebat; aliquantæ vero audientes de balneo loqui, irridentes, confusionem et magnam abominationem se audire judicabant, quæ neque audi tum suum hoc audire patiebantur.”—Vit. S. Euphrax. c. vi. (Rosweyde.)

246 See her acts, Bollandists, April 2, and in the Vitæ Patrum.

247 “Patres nostri nunquam facies suas lavabant, nos autem lavacra publica balneaque frequentamus.”—Moschus, Pratum Spirituale, clxviii.

248 Pratum Spirituale, lxxx.

An Irish saint, named Coemgenus, is said to have shown his devotion in a way which was directly opposite to that of the other saints I have mentioned—by his special use of cold water—but the principle in each case was the same—to mortify nature. St. Coemgenus was accustomed to pray for an hour every night in a pool of cold water, while the devil sent a horrible beast to swim round him. An angel, however, was sent to him for three purposes. “Tribus de causis à Domino missus est angelus ibi ad S. Coemgenum. Prima ut a diversis suis gravibus laboribus levius viveret paulisper; secunda ut horridam bestiam sancto infestam repelleret; tertia ut frigiditatem aquæ calefaceret.”—Bollandists, June 3. The editors say these acts are of doubtful authenticity.

249 See his Life by his disciple Antony, in the Vitæ Patrum, Evagrius, i. 13, 14. Theodoret, Philotheos, cap. xxvi.

250 Palladius, Hist. Laus. lxxvi.

251 Rufinus, Hist. Monach. xxxiii.

252 We have a striking illustration of this in St. Arsenius. His eyelashes are said to have fallen off through continual weeping, and he had always, when at work, to put a cloth on his breast to receive his tears. As he felt his death approaching, his terror rose to the point of agony. The monks who were about him said, “ ‘Quid fles, pater? numquid et tu times?’ Ille respondit, ‘In veritate timeo et iste timor qui nunc mecum est, semper in me fuit, ex quo factus sum monachus.’ ”—Verba Seniorum, Prol. § 163. It was said of St. Abraham that no day passed after his conversion without his shedding tears. (Vit. Patrum.) St. John the dwarf once saw a monk laughing immoderately at dinner, and was so horrified that he at once began to cry. (Tillemont, Mém. de l’Hist. ecclés. tome x. p. 430.) St. Basil (Regulæ, interrog. xvii.) gives a remarkable disquisition on the wickedness of laughing, and he observes that this was the one bodily affection which Christ does not seem to have known. Mr. Buckle has collected a series of passages to precisely the same effect from the writings of the Scotch divines. (Hist. of Civilisation, vol. ii. pp. 385-386.)

253 “Monachus autem non doctoris habet sed plangentis officium.”—Contr. Vigilant. xv.

254 As Tillemont puts it: “Il se trouva très-peu de saints en qui Dieu ait joint les talens extérieurs de l’éloquence et de la science avec la grâce de la prophétie et des miracles. Ce sont des dons que sa Providence a presque toujours séparés.”—Mém. Hist. ecclés. tome iv. p. 315.

255 St. Athanasius, Vit. Anton.

256 Ep. xxii. He says his shoulders were bruised when he awoke.

257 Ep. lxx.; Adv. Rufinum, lib. i. ch. xxx. He there speaks of his vision as a mere dream, not binding. He elsewhere (Ep. cxxv.) speaks very sensibly of the advantage of hermits occupying themselves, and says he learnt Hebrew to keep away unholy thoughts.

258 Sozomen, vi. 28; Rufinus, Hist. Monach. ch. vi. Socrates tells rather a touching story of one of these illiterate saints, named Pambos. Being unable to read, he came to some one to be taught a psalm. Having learnt the single verse, “I said I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not with my tongue,” he went away, saying that was enough if it were practically acquired. When asked, six months, and again many years, after, why he did not come to learn another verse, he answered that he had never been able truly to master this. (H. E. iv. 23.)

259 Tillemont, x. p. 61.

260 Ibid. viii. 490; Socrates, H. E. iv. 23.

261 I have combined in this passage incidents from three distinct lives. St. Jerome, in a very famous and very beautiful passage of his letter to Eustochium (Ep. xxii.) describes the manner in which the forms of dancing-girls appeared to surround him as he knelt upon the desert sands. St. Mary of Egypt (Vitæ Patrum, ch. xix.) was especially tortured by the recollection of the songs she had sung when young, which continually haunted her mind. St. Hilarion (see his Life by St. Jerome) thought he saw a gladiatorial show while he was repeating the psalms. The manner in which the different visions faded into one another like dissolving views is repeatedly described in the biographies.

262 Rufinus, Hist. Monach., ch. xi. This saint was St. Helenus.

263 Life of St. Pachomius (Vit. Patrum), cap. ix.

264 Rufinus, Hist. Monach. cap. i. This story was told to Rufinus by St. John the hermit. The same saint described his own visions very graphically. “Denique etiam me frequenter dæmones noctibus seduxerunt, et neque orare neque requiescere permiserunt, phantasias quasdam per noctem totam sensibus meis et cogitationes suggerentes. Mane vero velut cum quadam illusione prosternebant se ante me dicentes, Indulge nobis, abbas, quia laborem tibi incussimus tota nocte.”—Ibid. St. Benedict in the desert is said to have been tortured by the recollection of a beautiful girl he had once seen, and only regained his composure by rolling in thorns. (St. Greg. Dial. ii. 2.)

265 She lived also for some time in a convent at Jerusalem, which she had founded. Melania (who was one of St. Jerome’s friends) was a lady of rank and fortune, who devoted her property to the monks. See her journey in Rosweyde, lib. ii.

266 See his Life in Tillemont.

267 Ibid. x. p. 14. A certain Didymus lived entirely alone till his death, which took place when he was ninety. (Socrates, H. E. iv. 23.)

268 Rufinus, Hist. Monachorum, cap. i.

269 Verba Seniorum, § 65.

270 Pelagia was very pretty, and, according to her own account, “her sins were heavier than the sand.” The people of Antioch, who were very fond of her, called her Margarita, or the pearl. “Il arriva un jour que divers évesques, appelez par celui d’Antioche pour quelques affaires, estant ensemble à la porte de l’eglise de S.-Julien, Pélagie passa devant eux dans tout l’éclat des pompes du diable, n’ayant pas seulement une coeffe sur sa teste ni un mouchoir sur ses épaules, ce qu’on remarqua comme le comble de son impudence. Tous les évesques baissèrent les yeux en gémissant pour ne pas voir ce dangereux objet de péché, hors Nonne, très-saint évesque d’Héliople, qui la regarda avec une attention qui fit peine aux autres.” However, this bishop immediately began crying a great deal, and reassured his brethren, and a sermon which he preached led to the conversion of the actress. (Tillemont, Mém. d’Hist. ecclés. tome xii. pp. 378-380. See, too, on women, “under pretence of religion, attiring themselves as men,” Sozomen, iii. 14.)

271 Tillemont, tome x. pp. 376, 377. Apart from family affections, there are some curious instances recorded of the anxiety of the saints to avoid distractions. One monk used to cover his face when he went into his garden, lest the sight of the trees should disturb his mind. (Verb. Seniorum.) St. Arsenius could not bear the rustling of the reeds (ibid.); and a saint named Boniface struck dead a man who went about with an ape and a cymbal, because he had (apparently quite unintentionally) disturbed him at his prayers. (St. Greg. Dial. i. 9.)

272 “Quemadmodum se jam divitem non esse sciebat, ita etiam patrem se esse nesciret.”—Cassian, De Cœnobiorum Institutis, iv. 27.

273 “Cumque taliter infans sub oculis ejus per dies singulos ageretur, pro amore nihilominus Christi et obedientiæ virtute, rigida semper atque immobilia patris viscera permanserunt ... parum cogitans de lacrymis ejus, sed de propria humilitate ac perfectione sollicitus.”—Ibid.

274 Ibid.

275 Bollandists, July 6; Verba Seniorum, xiv.

276 Verba Seniorum, xiv.

277 TARTUFFE (tirant un mouchoir de sa poche).

“Ah, mon Dieu, je vous prie, Avant que de parler, prenez-moi ce mouchoir.

DORINE.

Comment!

TARTUFFE.

Couvrez ce sein que je ne saurois voir; Par de pareils objets des âmes sont blessées, Et cela fait venir de coupables pensées.”

Tartuffe, Acte iii. scène 2.

278 Bollandists, July 6.

279 Verba Seniorum, iv. The poor woman, being startled and perplexed at the proceedings of her son, said, “Quid sic operuisti manus tuas, fili? Ille autem dixit: Quia corpus mulieris ignis est, et ex eo ipso quo te contingebam veniebat mihi commemoratio aliarum feminarum in animo.”

280 Tillemont, Mém. de l’Hist. ecclés. tome x. pp. 444, 445.

281 Vit. S. Pachomius, ch. xxxi.; Verba Seniorum.

282 Verba Senorium, xiv.

283 Palladius, Hist. Laus. cap. lxxxvii.

284 Bollandists, June 6. I avail myself again of the version of Tillemont. “Lorsque S. Pemen demeuroit en Egypte avec ses frères, leur mère, qui avoit un extrême désir de les voir, venoit souvent au lieu où ils estoient, sans pouvoir jamais avoir cette satisfaction. Une fois enfin elle prit si bien son temps qu’elle les rencontra qui alloient à l’église, mais dès qu’ils la virent ils s’en retournèrent en haste dans leur cellule et fermèrent la porte sur eux. Elle les suivit, et trouvant la porte, elle les appeloit avec des larmes et des cris capables de les toucher de compassion.... Pemen s’y leva et s’y en alla, et l’entendant pleurer il luy dit, tenant toujours la porte fermée, ‘Pourquoi vous lassez-vous inutilement à pleurer et crier? N’êtes-vous pas déjà assez abattue par la vieillesse?’ Elle reconnut la voix de Pemen, et s’efforçant encore davantage, elle s’écria, ‘Hé, mes enfans, c’est que je voudrais bien vous voir: et quel mal y a-t-il que je vous voie? Ne suis-je pas votre mère, et ne vous ai-je pas nourri du lait de mes mammelles? Je suis déjà toute pleine de rides, et lorsque je vous ay entendu, l’extrême envie que j’ay de vous voir m’a tellement émue que je suis presque tombée en défaillance.’ ”—Mémoires de l’Hist. ecclès. tome xv. pp. 157, 158.

285 The original is much more eloquent than my translation. “Fili, quare hoc fecisti? Pro utero quo te portavi, satiasti me luctu, pro lactatione qua te lactavi dedisti mihi lacrymas, pro osculo quo te osculata sum, dedisti mihi amaras cordis angustias; pro dolore et labore quem passa sum, imposuisti mihi sævissimas plagas.”—Vita Simeonis (in Rosweyde).

286 Bingham, Antiquities, book vii. ch. iii.

287 Ibid.

288 Bingham, Antiquities, book vii. chap. 3.

289 Milman’s Early Christianity (ed. 1867), vol. iii. p. 122.

290 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 153.

291 Ibid. vol. iii. p. 120.

292 De Virginibus, i. 11.

293 See Milman’s Early Christianity, vol. iii. p. 121.

294 De Virginibus, i. 11.

295 Epist. xxiv.

296 St. Jerome describes the scene at her departure with admiring eloquence. “Descendit ad portum fratre, cognatis, affinibus et quod majus est liberis prosequentibus, et elementissimam matrem pietate vincere cupientibus. Jam carbasa tendebantur, et remorum ductu navis in altum protrahebatur. Parvus Toxotius supplices manus tendebat in littore, Ruffina jam nubilis ut suas expectaret nuptias tacens fletibus obsecrabat. Et tamen illa siccos tendebat ad cælum oculos, pietatem in filios pietate in Deum superans. Nesciebat se matrem ut Christi probaret ancillam.”—Ep. cviii. In another place he says of her: “Testis est Jesus, ne unum quidem nummum ab ea filiæ derelictum sed, ut ante jam dixi, derelictum magnum æs alienum.”—Ibid. And again: “Vis, lector, ejus breviter scire virtutes? Omnes suos pauperes, pauperior ipsa dimisit.”—Ibid.

297 See Chastel, Etudes historiques sur la Charité, p. 231. The parents of St. Gregory Nazianzen had made this request, which was faithfully observed.

298 Chastel, p. 232.

299 See a characteristic passage from the Life of St. Fulgentius, quoted by Dean Milman. “Facile potest juvenis tolerare quemcunque imposuerit laborem qui poterit maternum jam despicere dolorem.”—Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 82.

300 Ep. xiv. (Ad Heliodorum).

301 St. Greg. Dial. ii. 24.

302 Bollandists, May 3 (vol. vii. p. 561).

303 “Hospitibus omni loco ac tempore liberalissimus fuit.... Solis consanguineis durus erat et inhumanus, tamquam ignotos illos respiciens.”—Bollandists, May 29.

304 See Helyot, Dict. des Ordres religieux, art. “Camaldules.”

305 See the charming sketch in the Life of St. Francis, by Hase.

306 The legend of St. Scholastica, the sister of St. Benedict, has been often quoted. He had visited her, and was about to leave in the evening, when she implored him to stay. He refused, and she then prayed to God, who sent so violent a tempest that the saint was unable to depart. (St. Greg. Dial. ii. 33.) Cassian speaks of a monk who thought it his duty never to see his mother, but who laboured for a whole year to pay off a debt she had incurred. (Cœnob. Inst. v. 38.) St. Jerome mentions the strong natural affection of Paula, though she considered it a virtue to mortify it. (Ep. cviii.)

307 Life of Antony. See, too, the sentiments of St. Pachomius, Vit. cap. xxvii.

308 “Nec ulla res aliena magis quam publica.”—Tertullian, Apol. ch. xxxviii.

309 “Quid interest sub cujus imperio vivat homo moriturus, si illi qui imperant, ad impia et iniqua non cogant.”—St. Aug. De Civ. Dei, v. 17.

310 St. Jerome declares that “Monachum in patria sua perfectum esse non posse, perfectum autem esse nolle delinquere est.”—Ep. xiv. Dean Milman well says of a later period: “According to the monastic view of Christianity, the total abandonment of the world, with all its ties and duties, as well as its treasures, its enjoyments, and objects of ambition, advanced rather than diminished the hopes of salvation. Why should they fight for a perishing world, from which it was better to be estranged?... It is singular, indeed, that while we have seen the Eastern monks turned into fierce undisciplined soldiers, perilling their own lives and shedding the blood of others without remorse, in assertion of some shadowy shade of orthodox expression, hardly anywhere do we find them asserting their liberties or their religion with intrepid resistance. Hatred of heresy was a more stirring motive than the dread or the danger of Islamism. After the first defeats the Christian mind was still further prostrated by the common notion that the invasion was a just and heaven-commissioned visitation; ... resistance a vain, almost an impious struggle to avert inevitable punishment.”—Milman’s Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 206. Compare Massillon’s famous Discours au Régiment de Catinat:—“Ce qu’il y a ici de plus déplorable, c’est que dans une vie rude et pénible, dans des emplois dont les devoirs passent quelquefois la rigueur des cloîtres les plus austères, vous souffrez toujours en vain pour l’autre vie.... Dix ans de services ont plus usé votre corps qu’une vie entière de pénitence ... un seul jour de ces souffrances, consacré au Seigneur, vous aurait peut-être valu un bonheur éternel.”

311 See a very striking passage in Salvian, De Gubern. Div. lib. vi.

312 Chateaubriand very truly says, “qu’Orose et saint Augustin étoient plus occupés du schisme de Pélage que de la désolation de l’Afrique et des Gaules.”—Études histor. vime discours, 2de partie. The remark might certainly be extended much further.

313 Zosimus, Hist. v. 41. This was on the first occasion when Rome was menaced by Alaric.

314 See Merivale’s Conversion of the Northern Nations, pp. 207-210.

315 See Sismondi, Hist. de la Chute de l’Empire romain, tome i. p. 230.

316 Eunapius. There is no other authority for the story of the treachery, which is not believed by Gibbon.

317 Sismondi, Hist. de la Chute de l’Empire romain, tome ii. pp. 52-54; Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 213. The Monophysites were greatly afflicted because, after the conquest, the Mohammedans tolerated the orthodox believers as well as themselves, and were unable to appreciate the distinction between them. In Gaul, the orthodox clergy favoured the invasions of the Franks, who, alone of the barbarian conquerors of Gaul, were Catholics, and St. Aprunculus was obliged to fly, the Burgundians desiring to kill him on account of his suspected connivance with the invaders. (Greg. Tur. ii. 23.)

318 Dean Milman says of the Church, “if treacherous to the interests of the Roman Empire, it was true to those of mankind.”—Hist. of Christianity, vol. iii. p. 48. So Gibbon: “If the decline of the Roman Empire was hastened by the conversion of Constantine, the victorious religion broke the violence of the fall and mollified the ferocious temper of the conquerors.”—Ch. xxxviii.

319 Observe with what a fine perception St. Augustine notices the essentially unchristian character of the moral dispositions to which the greatness of Rome was due. He quotes the sentence of Sallust: “Civitas, incredibile memoratu est, adeptâ libertate quantum brevi creverit, tanta cupido gloriæ incesserat;” and adds: “Ista ergo laudis aviditas et cupido gloriæ multa illa miranda fecit, laudabilia scilicet atque gloriosa secundum hominum existimationem ... causa honoris, laudis et gloriæ consuluerunt patriæ, in qua ipsam gloriam requirebant, salutemque ejus saluti suæ præponere non dubitaverunt, pro isto uno vitio, id est, amore laudis, pecuniæ cupiditatem et multa alia vitia comprimentes.... Quid aliud amarent quam gloriam, qua volebant etiam post mortem tanquam vivere in ore laudantium?”—De Civ. Dei, v. 12-13.

320 “Præter majorum cineres atque ossa, volucri Carpento rapitur pinguis Damasippus et ipse, Ipse rotam stringit multo sufflamine consul; Nocte quidem; sed luna videt, sed sidera testes Intendunt oculos. Finitum tempus honoris Quum fuerit, clara Damasippus luce flagellum Sumet.”—Juvenal, Sat. viii. 146.

321 Nat. Quæst. iv. 13. Ep. 78.

322 “Pessimum vitæ scelus fecit, qui id [aurum] primus induit digitis ... quisquis primus instituit cunctanter id fecit, lævisque manibus, latentibusque induit.”—Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiii. 4.

323 See a curious passage in his Apologia. It should be said that we have only his own account of the charges brought against him.

324 The history of false hair has been written with much learning by M. Guerle in his Éloge des Perruques.

325 The fullest view of this age is given in a very learned little work by Peter Erasmus Müller (1797), De Genio Ævi Theodosiani. Montfaucon has also devoted two essays to the moral condition of the Eastern world, one of which is given in Jortin’s Remarks on Ecclesiastical History.

326 See on these abuses Mosheim, Eccl. Hist. (Soame’s ed.), vol. i. p. 463; Cave’s Primitive Christianity, part i. ch. xi.

327 Cave’s Primitive Christianity, part i. ch. vii.

328 Ep. lxi.

329 Evagrius describes with much admiration how certain monks of Palestine, by “a life wholly excellent and divine,” had so overcome their passions that they were accustomed to bathe with women; for “neither sight nor touch, nor a woman’s embrace, could make them relapse into their natural condition. Among men they desired to be men, and among women, women.” (H. E. i. 21.)

330 These “mulieres subintroductæ,” as they were called, are continually noticed by Cyprian, Jerome, and Chrysostom. See Müller, De Genio Ævi Theodosiani, and also the Codex Theod. xvi. tit. ii. lex 44, with the Comments. Dr. Todd, in his learned Life of St. Patrick (p. 91), quotes (I shall not venture to do so) from the Lives of the Irish Saints an extremely curious legend of a kind of contest of sanctity between St. Scuthinus and St. Brendan, in which it was clearly proved that the former had mastered his passions more completely than the latter. An enthusiast named Robert d’Arbrisselles is said in the twelfth century to have revived the custom. (Jortin’s Remarks, A.D. 1106.)

331 St. Jerome gives (Ep. lii.) an extremely curious picture of these clerical flatterers, and several examples of the terms of endearment they were accustomed to employ. The tone of flattery which St. Jerome himself, though doubtless with the purest motives, employs in his copious correspondence with his female admirers, is to a modern layman peculiarly repulsive, and sometimes verges upon blasphemy. In his letter to Eustochium, whose daughter as a nun had become the “bride of Christ,” he calls the mother “Socrus Dei,” the mother-in-law of God. See, too, the extravagant flatteries of Chrysostom in his correspondence with Olympias.

332 “Pudet dicere sacerdotes idolorum, mimi et aurigæ et scorta hæreditates capiunt; solis clericis et monachis hoc lege prohibetur, et prohibetur non a persecutoribus, sed a principibus Christianis. Nec de lege conqueror sed doleo cur meruerimus hanc legem.” Ep. lii.

333 See Milman’s Hist. of Early Christianity, vol. ii. p. 314.

334 This was one cause of the disputes between St. Gregory the Great and the Emperor Eustace. St. Chrysostom frequently notices the opposition of the military and the monastic spirits.

335 Hieron. Ep. cxxviii.

336 St. Greg. Nyss. Ad eund. Hieros. Some Catholic writers have attempted to throw doubt upon the genuineness of this epistle, but, Dean Milman thinks, with no sufficient reason. Its account of Jerusalem is to some extent corroborated by St. Jerome. (Ad Paulinum, Ep. xxix.)

337 “Præterea non taceo charitati vestræ, quia omnibus servis Dei qui hic vel in Scriptura vel in timore Dei probatissimi esse videntur, displicet quod bonum et honestas et pudicitia vestræ ecclesiæ illuditur; et aliquod levamentum turpitudinis esset, si prohiberet synodus et principes vestri mulieribus et velatis feminis illud iter et frequentiam, quam ad Romanam civitatem veniendo et redeundo faciunt, quia magna ex parte pereunt, paucis remeantibus integris. Perpaucæ enim sunt civitates in Longobardia vel in Francia aut in Gallia in qua non sit adultera vel meretrix generis Anglorum, quod scandalum est et turpitudo totius ecclesiæ vestræ.”—(A.D. 745) Ep. lxiii.

338 See Milman’s Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 8.

339 Tillemont, Hist. eccl. tome xi. p. 547.

340 This was enjoined in the rule of St. Paphnutius. See Tillemont, tome x. p. 45.

341 “Omnimodis monachum fugere debere mulieres et episcopos.”—Cassian, De Cœnob. Inst. xi. 17.

342 We also find now and then, though I think very rarely, intellectual flashes of some brilliancy. Two of them strike me as especially noteworthy. St. Arsenius refused to separate young criminals from communion though he had no hesitation about old men; for he had observed that young men speedily get accustomed and indifferent to the state of excommunication, while old men feel continually, and acutely, the separation. (Socrates, iv. 23.) St. Apollonius explained the Egyptian idolatry with the most intelligent rationalism. The ox, he thought, was in the first instance worshipped for its domestic uses; the Nile, because it was the chief cause of the fertility of the soil &c. (Rufinus, Hist. Mon. cap. vii.)

343 Palladius, Hist. Laus. cap. xix.

344 Rufinus, Hist. Monach. cap. xxix.

345 Tillemont, Hist. eccl. tome viii. pp. 583, 584.

346 Ibid. p. 589.

347 Theodoret, Philoth. cap. iii.

348 Verba Seniorum.

349 Theodoret, Philoth. cap. ii.

350 Tillemont, tome viii. pp. 594-595.

351 Pliny, Hist. Nat. viii. 1. Many anecdotes of elephants are collected viii. 1-12. See, too, Dion Cassius, xxxix. 38.

352 Pliny, viii. 40.

353 Donne’s Biathanatos. p. 22. This habit of bees is mentioned by St. Ambrose. The pelican, as is well known, afterwards became an emblem of Christ.

354 Plin. Hist. Nat. x. 6.

355 A long list of legends about dogs is given by Legendre, in the very curious chapter on animals, in his Traité de l’Opinion, tome i. pp. 308-327.

356 Pliny tells some extremely pretty stories of this kind. (Hist. Nat. ix. 8-9.) See, too, Aulus Gellius, xvi. 19. The dolphin, on account of its love for its young, became a common symbol of Christ among the early Christians.

357 A very full account of the opinions, both of ancient and modern philosophers, concerning the souls of animals, is given by Bayle, Dict. arts. “Pereira E,” “Rorarius K.”

358 The Jewish law did not confine its care to oxen. The reader will remember the touching provision, “Thou shalt not seethe a kid in his mother’s milk” (Deut. xiv. 21); and the law forbidding men to take a parent bird that was sitting on its young or on its eggs. (Deut. xxii. 6, 7.)

359 “Cujus tanta fuit apud antiquos veneratio, ut tam capital esset bovem necuisse quam civem.”—Columella, lib. vi. in proœm. “Hic socius hominum in rustico opere et Cereris minister. Ab hoc antiqui manus ita abstinere voluerunt ut capite sanxerint si quis occidisset.”—Varro, De Re Rustic. lib. ii. cap. v.

360 See Legendre, tome ii. p. 338. The sword with which the priest sacrificed the ox was afterwards pronounced accursed. (Ælian, Hist. Var. lib. viii. cap. iii.)

361 Diog. Laërt. Xenocrates.

362 There is a story told by Herodotus (i. 157-159) of an ambassador who was sent by his fellow-countrymen to consult an oracle at Miletus about a suppliant who had taken refuge with the Cymæans and was demanded with menace by his enemies. The oracle, being bribed, enjoined the surrender. The ambassador on leaving, with seeming carelessness disturbed the sparrows under the portico of the temple, when the voice from behind the altar denounced his impiety for disturbing the guests of the gods. The ambassador replied with an obvious and withering retort. Ælian says (Hist. Var.) that the Athenians condemned to death a boy for killing a sparrow that had taken refuge in the temple of Æsculapius.

363 Quintilian, Inst. v. 9.

364 In the same way we find several chapters in the Zendavesta about the criminality of injuring dogs; which is explained by the great importance of shepherd’s dogs to a pastoral people.

365 On the origin of Greek cock-fighting, see Ælian, Hist. Var. ii. 28. Many particulars about it are given by Athenæus. Chrysippus maintained that cock-fighting was the final cause of cocks, these birds being made by Providence in order to inspire us by the example of their courage. (Plutarch, De Repug. Stoic.) The Greeks do not, however, appear to have known “cock-throwing,” the favourite English game of throwing a stick called a “cock-stick” at cocks. It was a very ancient and very popular amusement, and was practised especially on Shrove Tuesday, and by school-boys. Sir Thomas More had been famous for his skill in it. (Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes, p. 283.) Three origins of it have been given:—1st, that in the Danish wars the Saxons failed to surprise a certain city in consequence of the crowing of cocks, and had in consequence a great hatred of that bird; 2nd, that the cocks (galli) were special representatives of Frenchmen, with whom the English were constantly at war; and 3rd, that they were connected with the denial of St. Peter. As Sir Charles Sedley said:—

“Mayst thou be punished for St. Peter’s crime, And on Shrove Tuesday perish in thy prime.”

Knight’s Old England, vol. ii. p. 126.

366 De Natura Rerum, lib. ii.

367 Life of Marc. Cato.

368 “Quid meruere boves, animal sine fraude dolisque, Innocuum, simplex, natum tolerare labores? Immemor est demum nec frugum munere dignus. Qui potuit curvi dempto modo pondere aratri Ruricolam mactare suum.”—

Metamorph. xv. 120-124.

369 “Cujus Turbavit nitidos extinctus passer ocellos.”

Juvenal, Sat. vi. 7-8.

There is a little poem in Catullus (iii.) to console his mistress upon the death of her favourite sparrow; and Martial more than once alludes to the pets of the Roman ladies.

Compare the charming description of the Prioress, in Chaucer:—

“She was so charitable and so pitous, She wolde wepe if that she saw a mous Caught in a trappe, if it were ded or bledde. Of smale houndes had she that she fedde With rosted flesh and milke and wastel brede, But sore wept she if one of them were dede, Or if men smote it with a yerde smert: And all was conscience and tendre herte.”

Prologue to the “Canterbury Tales.”

370 Philost. Apol. i. 38.

371 See the curious chapter in his Κυνηγετικός, xvi. and compare it with No. 116 in the Spectator.

372 In his De Abstinentia Carnis. The controversy between Origen and Celsus furnishes us with a very curious illustration of the extravagances into which some Pagans of the third century fell about animals. Celsus objected to the Christian doctrine about the position of men in the universe, that many of the animals were at least the equals of men both in reason, religious feeling, and knowledge. (Orig. Cont. Cels. lib. iv.)

373 These views are chiefly defended in his two tracts on eating flesh. Plutarch has also recurred to the subject, incidentally, in several other works, especially in a very beautiful passage in his Life of Marcus Cato.

374 See, for example, a striking passage in Clem. Alex. Strom. lib. ii. St. Clement imagines Pythagoras had borrowed his sentiments on this subject from Moses.

375 There is, I believe, no record of any wild beast combats existing among the Jews, and the rabbinical writers have been remarkable for the great emphasis with which they inculcated the duty of kindness to animals. See some passages from them, cited in Wollaston, Religion of Nature, sec. ii., note. Maimonides believed in a future life for animals, to recompense them for their sufferings here. (Bayle, Dict. art, “Rorarius D.”) There is a curious collection of the opinions of different writers on this last point in a little book called the Rights of Animals, by William Drummond (London, 1838), pp. 197-205.

376 Thus St. Paul (1 Cor. ix. 9) turned aside the precept, “Thou shalt not muzzle the mouth of the ox that treadeth out the corn,” from its natural meaning, with the contemptuous question, “Doth God take care for oxen?”

377 I have taken these illustrations from the collection of hermit literature in Rosweyde, from different volumes of the Bollandists, from the Dialogues of Sulpicius Severus, and from what is perhaps the most interesting of all collections of saintly legends, Colgan’s Acta Sanctorum Hiberniæ. M. Alfred Maury, in his most valuable work, Légendes pieuses du Moyen Age, has examined minutely the part played by animals in symbolising virtues and vices, and has shown the way in which the same incidents were repeated, with slight variations, in different legends. M. de Montalembert has devoted what is probably the most beautiful chapter of his Moines d’Occident (“Les Moines et la Nature”) to the relations of monks to the animal world; but the numerous legends he cites are all, with one or two exceptions, different from those I have given.

378 Chateaubriand speaks, however (Études historiques, étude vime, 1re partie), of an old Gallic law, forbidding to throw a stone at an ox attached to the plough, or to make its yoke too tight.

379 Bollandists, May 31. Leonardo da Vinci is said to have had the same fondness for buying and releasing caged birds, and (to go back a long way) Pythagoras to have purchased one day, near Metapontus, from some fishermen all the fish in their net, that he might have the pleasure of releasing them. (Apuleius, Apologia.)

380 See these legends collected by Hase (St Francis. Assisi). It is said of Cardinal Bellarmine that he used to allow vermin to bite him, saying, “We shall have heaven to reward us for our sufferings, but these poor creatures have nothing but the enjoyment of this present life.” (Bayle, Dict. philos. art. “Bellarmine.”)

381 I have noticed, in my History of Rationalism, that, although some Popes did undoubtedly try to suppress Spanish bull-fights, this was solely on account of the destruction of human life they caused. Full details on this subject will be found in Concina, De Spectaculis (Romæ, 1752). Bayle says, “Il n’y a point de casuiste qui croie qu’on pèche en faisant combattre des taureaux contre des dogues,” &c. (Dict. philos. “Rorarius, C.”)

382 On the ancient amusements of England the reader may consult Seymour’s Survey of London (1734), vol. i. pp. 227-235; Strutt’s Sports and Pastimes of the English People. Cock-fighting was a favourite children’s amusement in England as early as the twelfth century. (Hampson’s Medii Ævi Kalendarii, vol. i. p. 160.) It was, with foot-ball and several other amusements, for a time suppressed by Edward III., on the ground that they were diverting the people from archery, which was necessary to the military greatness of England.

383 The decline of these amusements in England began with the great development of the theatre under Elizabeth. An order of the Privy Council in July, 1591, prohibits the exhibition of plays on Thursday, because on Thursdays bear-baiting and suchlike pastimes had been usually practised, and an injunction to the same effect was sent to the Lord Mayor, wherein it was stated that, “in divers places the players do use to recite their plays, to the great hurt and destruction of the game of bear-baiting and like pastimes, which are maintained for Her Majesty’s pleasure.”—Nichols, Progresses of Queen Elizabeth (ed. 1823), vol. i. p. 438. The reader will remember the picture in Kenilworth of the Earl of Sussex petitioning Elizabeth against Shakespeare, on the ground of his plays distracting men from bear-baiting. Elizabeth (see Nichols) was extremely fond of bear-baiting. James I. especially delighted in cock-fighting, and in 1610 was present at a great fight between a lion and a bear. (Hone, Every Day Book, vol. i. pp. 255-299.) The theatres, however, rapidly multiplied, and a writer who lived about 1629 said, “that no less than seventeen playhouses had been built in or about London within threescore years.” (Seymour’s Survey, vol. i. p. 229.) The Rebellion suppressed all public amusements, and when they were re-established after the Restoration, it was found that the tastes of the better classes no longer sympathised with the bear-garden. Pepys (Diary, August 14, 1666) speaks of bull-baiting as “a very rude and nasty pleasure,” and says he had not been in the bear-garden for many years. Evelyn (Diary, June 16, 1670), having been present at these shows, describes them as “butcherly sports, or rather barbarous cruelties,” and says he had not visited them before for twenty years. A paper in the Spectator (No. 141, written in 1711) talks of those who “seek their diversion at the bear-garden, ... where reason and good manners have no right to disturb them.” In 1751, however, Lord Kames was able to say, “The bear garden, which is one of the chief entertainments of the English, is held in abhorrence by the French and other polite nations.”—Essay on Morals (1st ed.), p. 7; and he warmly defends (p. 30) the English taste. During the latter half of the last century there was constant controversy on the subject (which may be traced in the pages of the Annual Register), and several forgotten clergymen published sermons upon it, and the frequent riots resulting from the fact that the bear-gardens had become the resort of the worst classes assisted the movement. The London magistrates took measures to suppress cock-throwing in 1769 (Hampson’s Med. Æv. Kalend. p. 160); but bull-baiting continued far into the present century. Windham and Canning strongly defended it; Dr. Parr is said to have been fond of it (Southey’s Commonplace Book, vol. iv. p. 585); and as late as 1824, Sir Robert (then Mr) Peel argued strongly against its prohibition. (Parliamentary Debates, vol. x. pp. 132-133, 491-495.)

384 Bacon, in an account of the deficiencies of medicine, recommends vivisection in terms that seem to imply that it was not practised in his time. “As for the passages and pores, it is true, which was anciently noted, that the more subtle of them appear not in anatomies, because they are shut and latent in dead bodies, though they be open and manifest in live; which being supposed, though the inhumanity of anatomia vivorum was by Celsus justly reproved, yet, in regard of the great use of this observation, the enquiry needed not by him so slightly to have been relinquished altogether, or referred to the casual practices of surgery; but might have been well diverted upon the dissection of beasts alive, which, notwithstanding the dissimilitude of their parts, may sufficiently satisfy this enquiry.”—Advancement of Learning, x. 4. Harvey speaks of vivisections as having contributed to lead him to the discovery of the circulation of the blood. (Acland’s Harveian Oration (1865), p. 55.) Bayle, describing the treatment of animals by men, says, “Nous fouillons dans leurs entrailles pendant leur vie afin de satisfaire notre curiosité.”—Dict. philos. art. “Rorarius, C.” Public opinion in England was very strongly directed to the subject in the present century, by the atrocious cruelties perpetrated by Majendie at his lectures. See a most frightful account of them in a speech by Mr. Martin (an eccentric Irish member, who was generally ridiculed during his life, and has been almost forgotten since his death, but to whose untiring exertions the legislative protection of animals in England is due).—Parliament. Hist. vol. xii. p. 652. Mandeville, in his day, was a very strong advocate of kindness to animals.—Commentary on the Fable of the Bees.

385 See his Life by Sulpicius Severus.

386 Milman.

387 Greg. Turon. ii. 29.

388 This was the first step towards the conversion of the Bulgarians.—Milman’s Latin Christianity, vol. iii. p. 249.

389 A remarkable collection of instances of this kind is given by Ozanam, Civilisation in the Fifth Century (Eng. trans.), vol. i. pp. 124-127.

390 St. Gregory, Dial. iii. 7. The particular temptation the Jew heard discussed was that of the bishop of the diocese, who, under the instigation of one of the dæmons, was rapidly falling in love with a nun, and had proceeded so far as jocosely to stroke her on the back. The Jew, having related the vision to the bishop, the latter reformed his manners, the Jew became a Christian, and the temple was turned into a church.

391 William of Malmesbury, ii. 13.

392 See Milman’s Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 293.

393 Cassian. Cœnob. Instit. v. 4. See, too, some striking instances of this in the life of St. Antony.

394 This spiritual pride is well noticed by Neander, Ecclesiastical History (Bohn’s ed.), vol. iii. pp. 321-323. It appears in many traits scattered through the lives of these saints. I have already cited the visions telling St. Antony and St. Macarius that they were not the best of living people; and also the case of the hermit, who was deceived by a devil in the form of a woman, because he had been exalted by pride. Another hermit, being very holy, received pure white bread every day from heaven, but, being extravagantly elated, the bread got worse and worse till it became perfectly black. (Tillemont, tome x. pp. 27-28.) A certain Isidore affirmed that he had not been conscious of sin, even in thought, for forty years. (Socrates, iv. 23.) It was a saying of St. Antony, that a solitary man in the desert is free from three wars—of sight, speech, and hearing: he has to combat only fornication. (Apothegmata Patrum.)

395 “Pride, under such training [that of modern rationalistic philosophy], instead of running to waste, is turned to account. It gets a new name; it is called self-respect.... It is directed into the channel of industry, frugality, honesty, and obedience, and it becomes the very staple of the religion and morality held in honour in a day like our own. It becomes the safeguard of chastity, the guarantee of veracity, in high and low; it is the very household god of the Protestant, inspiring neatness and decency in the servant-girl, propriety of carriage and refined manners in her mistress, uprightness, manliness, and generosity in the head of the family.... It is the stimulating principle of providence on the one hand, and of free expenditure on the other; of an honourable ambition and of elegant enjoyment.”—Newman, On University Education, Discourse ix. In the same lecture (which is, perhaps, the most beautiful of the many beautiful productions of its illustrious author), Dr. Newman describes, with admirable eloquence, the manner in which modesty has supplanted humility in the modern type of excellence. It is scarcely necessary to say that the lecturer strongly disapproves of the movement he describes.

396 Thus “indagatio veri” was reckoned among the leading virtues, and the high place given to σοφία and “prudentia” in ethical writings preserved the notion of the moral duties connected with the discipline of the intellect.

397 St. Augustine reckoned eighty-eight sects as existing in his time.

398 See a full account of these persecutions in Tillemont, Mém. d’Histoire ecclés. tome vi.

399 Socrates, H. E., iv. 16. This anecdote is much doubted by modern historians.

400 Milman’s Hist. of Christianity (ed. 1867), vol. ii. p. 422.

401 St. Athanasius, Historical Treatises (Library of the Fathers), pp. 192, 284.

402 Milman, Hist. of Christianity, ii. pp. 436-437.

403 The death of Arius, as is well known, took place suddenly (his bowels, it is said, coming out) when he was just about to make his triumphal entry into the Cathedral of Constantinople. The death (though possibly natural) never seems to have been regarded as such, but it was a matter of controversy whether it was a miracle or a murder.

404 Socrates, H. E., vii. 13-15.

405 Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. i. pp. 214-215.

406 Milman, Hist. of Christianity, vol. iii. p. 145.

407 Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. i. pp. 290-291.

408 Ibid. vol. i. pp. 310-311.

409 Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. i. pp. 314-318. Dean Milman thus sums up the history: “Monks in Alexandria, monks in Antioch, monks in Jerusalem, monks in Constantinople, decide peremptorily on orthodoxy and heterodoxy. The bishops themselves cower before them. Macedonius in Constantinople, Flavianus in Antioch, Elias in Jerusalem, condemn themselves and abdicate, or are driven from their sees. Persecution is universal—persecution by every means of violence and cruelty; the only question is, in whose hands is the power to persecute.... Bloodshed, murder, treachery, assassination, even during the public worship of God—these are the frightful means by which each party strives to maintain its opinions and to defeat its adversary.”

410 See a striking passage from Julianus of Eclana, cited by Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 164.

411 “Nowhere is Christianity less attractive than in the Councils of the Church.... Intrigue, injustice, violence, decisions on authority alone, and that the authority of a turbulent majority, ... detract from the reverence and impugn the judgments of at least the later Councils. The close is almost invariably a terrible anathema, in which it is impossible not to discern the tones of human hatred, of arrogant triumph, of rejoicing at the damnation imprecated against the humiliated adversary.”—Ibid. vol. i. p. 202.

412 See the account of this scene in Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. xlvii.; Milman, Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 263. There is a conflict of authorities as to whether the Bishop of Alexandria himself kicked his adversary, or, to speak more correctly, the act which is charged against him by some contemporary writers is not charged against him by others. The violence was certainly done by his followers and in his presence.

413 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxvii. 3.

414 Cyprian, Ep. lxi.

415 Milman, Hist. of Christianity, vol. ii. p. 306.

416 Ibid. iii. 10.

417 “By this time the Old Testament language and sentiment with regard to idolatry were completely incorporated with the Christian feeling; and when Ambrose enforced on a Christian Emperor the sacred duty of intolerance against opinions and practices which scarcely a century before had been the established religion of the Empire, his zeal was supported by almost the unanimous applause of the Christian world.”—Milman’s Hist. of Christianity, vol. iii. p. 159.

418 See the Theodosian laws of Paganism.

419 This appears from the whole history of the controversy; but the prevailing feeling is, I think, expressed with peculiar vividness in the following passage:—“Eadmer says (following the words of Bede) in Colman’s times there was a sharp controversy about the observing of Easter, and other rules of life for churchmen; therefore, this question deservedly excited the minds and feeling of many people, fearing lest, perhaps, after having received the name of Christians, they should run, or had run in vain.”—King’s Hist. of the Church of Ireland, book ii. ch. vi.

420 Gibbon, chap. lxiii.

421 An interesting sketch of this very interesting prelate has lately been written by M. Druon, Étude sur la Vie et les Œuvres de Synésius (Paris, 1859).

422 Tradition has pronounced Gregory the Great to have been the destroyer of the Palatine library, and to have been especially zealous in burning the writings of Livy, because they described the achievements of the Pagan gods. For these charges, however (which I am sorry to find repeated by so eminent a writer as Dr. Draper), there is no real evidence, for they are not found in any writer earlier than the twelfth century. (See Bayle, Dict. art. “Greg.”) The extreme contempt of Gregory for Pagan literature is, however, sufficiently manifested in his famous and very curious letter to Desiderius, Bishop of Vienne, rebuking him for having taught certain persons Pagan literature, and thus mingled “the praises of Jupiter with the praises of Christ;” doing what would be impious even for a religious layman, “polluting the mind with the blasphemous praises of the wicked.” Some curious evidence of the feelings of the Christians of the fourth, fifth, and sixth centuries, about Pagan literature, is given in Guinguené, Hist. littéraire de l’Italie, tome i. p. 29-31, and some legends of a later period are candidly related by one of the most enthusiastic English advocates of the Middle Ages. (Maitland, Dark Ages.)

423 Probably the best account of the intellectual history of these times is still to be found in the admirable introductory chapters with which the Benedictines prefaced each century of their Hist. littéraire de la France. The Benedictines think (with Hallam) that the eighth century was, on the whole, the darkest on the continent, though England attained its lowest point somewhat later. Of the great protectors of learning Theodoric was unable to write (see Guinguené, tome i. p. 31), and Charlemagne (Eginhard) only began to learn when advanced in life, and was never quite able to master the accomplishment. Alfred, however, was distinguished in literature.

424 The belief that the world was just about to end was, as is well known, very general among the early Christians, and greatly affected their lives. It appears in the New Testament, and very clearly in the epistle ascribed to Barnabas in the first century. The persecutions of the second and third centuries revived it, and both Tertullian and Cyprian (in Demetrianum) strongly assert it. With the triumph of Christianity the apprehension for a time subsided; but it reappeared with great force when the dissolution of the Empire was manifestly impending, when it was accomplished, and in the prolonged anarchy and suffering that ensued. Gregory of Tours, writing in the latter part of the sixth century, speaks of it as very prevalent (Prologue to the First Book); and St. Gregory the Great, about the same time, constantly expresses it. The panic that filled Europe at the end of the tenth century has been often described.

425 Maitland’s Dark Ages, p. 403.

426 This passion for scraping MSS. became common, according to Montfaucon, after the twelfth century. (Maitland, p. 40.) According to Hallam, however (Middle Ages, ch. ix. part i.), it must have begun earlier, being chiefly caused by the cessation or great diminution of the supply of Egyptian papyrus, in consequence of the capture of Alexandria by the Saracens, early in the seventh century.

427 Bede, H. E. iv. 24.

428 Mariana, De Rebus Hispaniæ, vi. 7. Mariana says the stone was in his time preserved as a relic.

429 Odericus Vitalis, quoted by Maitland (Dark Ages, pp. 268-269). The monk was restored to life that he might have an opportunity of reformation. The escape was a narrow one, for there was only one letter against which no sin could be adduced—a remarkable instance of the advantages of a diffuse style.

430 Digby, Mores Catholici, book x. p. 246. Matthew of Westminster tells of a certain king who was very charitable, and whose right hand (which had assuaged many sorrows) remained undecayed after death (A.D. 644).

431 See Hauréau, Hist. de la Philosophie scolastique, tome i. pp. 24-25.

432 On the progress of Roman civilisation in Britain, see Tacitus, Agricola, xxi.

433 See the Benedictine Hist. littér. de la France, tome i. part ii. p. 9.

434 A biographer of St. Thomas Aquinas modestly observes:—“L’opinion généralement répandue parmi les théologiens c’est que la Somme de Théologie de St. Thomas est non-seulement son chef-d’œuvre mais aussi celui de l’esprit humain.” (!!)—Carle, Hist. de St.-Thomas d’Aquin, p. 140.

435 See Viardot, Hist. des Arabes en Espagne, ii. 142-166. Prescott’s Ferdinand and Isabella, ch. viii. Viardot contends that the compass—which appears to have been long known in China—was first introduced into Europe by the Mohammedans; but the evidence of this appears inconclusive.

436 Herder.

437 “Impius ne audeto placare donis iram Deorum.”—Cicero, De Leg. ii. 9. See, too, Philost. Apoll. Tyan. i. 11.

438 There are three or four instances of this related by Porphyry, De Abstin. Carnis, lib. ii.

439 Muratori, Antich. Italiane, diss. lxvii.

440 See, on the causes of the wealth of the monasteries, two admirable dissertations by Muratori, Antich. Italiane, lxvii., lxviii.; Hallam’s Middle Ages, ch. vii. part i.

441 “Lors de l’établissement du christianisme la religion avoit essentiellement consisté dans l’enseignement moral; elle avoit exercé les cœurs et les âmes par la recherche de ce qui étoit vraiment beau, vraiment honnête. Au cinquième siècle on l’avoit surtout attachée à l’orthodoxie, au septième on l’avoit réduite à la bienfaisance envers les couvens.”—Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tome ii. p. 50.

442 Mr. Hallam, speaking of the legends of the miracles of saints, says: “It must not be supposed that these absurdities were produced as well as nourished by ignorance. In most cases they were the work of deliberate imposture. Every cathedral or monastery had its tutelar saint, and every saint his legend, fabricated in order to enrich the churches under his protection, by exaggerating his virtues, his miracles, and consequently his power of serving those who paid liberally for his patronage.”—Middle Ages, ch. ix. part i. I do not think this passage makes sufficient allowance for the unconscious formation of many saintly myths, but no impartial person can doubt its substantial truth.

443 Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tome ii. pp. 54, 62-63.

444 Milman’s Hist. of Latin Christianity, vol. ii. p. 257.

445 Durandus, a French bishop of the thirteenth century, tells how, “when a certain bishop was consecrating a church built out of the fruits of usury and pillage, he saw behind the altar the devil in a pontifical vestment, standing at the bishop’s throne, who said unto the bishop, ‘Cease from consecrating the church; for it pertaineth to my jurisdiction, since it is built from the fruits of usuries and robberies.’ Then the bishop and the clergy having fled thence in fear, immediately the devil destroyed that church with a great noise.”—Rationale Divinorum, i. 6 (translated for the Camden Society).

A certain St. Launomar is said to have refused a gift for his monastery from a rapacious noble, because he was sure it was derived from pillage. (Montalembert’s Moines d’Occident, tome ii. pp. 350-351.) When prostitutes were converted in the early Church, it was the rule that the money of which they had become possessed should never be applied to ecclesiastical purposes, but should be distributed among the poor.

446 Verba Seniorum, Prol. § 172.

447 This vision is not related by St. Gregory himself, and some Catholics are perplexed about it, on account of the vision of another saint, who afterwards asked whether Trajan was saved, and received for answer, “I wish men to rest in ignorance of this subject, that the Catholics may become stronger. For this emperor, though he had great virtues, was an unbaptised infidel.” The whole subject of the vision of St. Gregory is discussed by Champagny, Les Antonins, tome i. pp. 372-373. This devout writer says, “Cette légende fut acceptée par tout le moyen-âge, indulgent pour les païens illustres et tout disposé à les supposer chrétiens et sauvés.”

448 See the solemn asseveration of the care which he took in going only to the most credible and authorised sources for his materials, in the Preface to the First Book of Dialogues.

449 Dial. iv. 36.

450 Ibid. iv. 30.

451 Ibid. iv. 35.

452 The fullest collection of these visions with which I am acquainted is that made for the Philobiblion Society (vol. ix.), by M. Delepierre, called L’Enfer décrit par ceux qui l’ont vu, of which I have largely availed myself. See, too, Rusca De Inferno, Wright’s Purgatory of St. Patrick, and an interesting collection of visions given by Mr. Longfellow, in his translation of Dante. The Irish saints were, I am sorry to say, prominent in producing this branch of literature. St. Fursey, whose vision is one of the earliest, and Tondale, or Tundale, whose vision is one of the most detailed, were both Irish. The English historians contain several of these visions. Bede relates two or three—William of Malmesbury that of Charles the Fat; Matthew Paris three visions of purgatory.

453 The narrow bridge over hell (in some visions covered with spikes), which is a conspicuous feature in the Mohammedan pictures of the future world, appears very often in Catholic visions. See Greg. Tur. iv. 33; St. Greg. Dial. iv. 36; and the vision of Tundale, in Delepierre.

454 Few Englishmen, I imagine, are aware of the infamous publications written with this object, that are circulated by the Catholic priests among the poor. I have before me a tract “for children and young persons,” called The Sight of Hell, by the Rev. J. Furniss, C.S.S.R., published “permissu superiorum,” by Duffy (Dublin and London). It is a detailed description of the dungeons of hell, and a few sentences may serve as a sample. “See! on the middle of that red-hot floor stands a girl; she looks about sixteen years old. Her feet are bare. She has neither shoes nor stockings.... Listen! she speaks. She says, I have been standing on this red-hot floor for years. Day and night my only standing-place has been this red-hot floor.... Look at my burnt and bleeding feet. Let me go off this burning floor for one moment, only for one single short moment.... The fourth dungeon is the boiling kettle ... in the middle of it there is a boy.... His eyes are burning like two burning coals. Two long flames come out of his ears.... Sometimes he opens his mouth, and blazing fire rolls out. But listen! there is a sound like a kettle boiling.... The blood is boiling in the scalded veins of that boy. The brain is boiling and bubbling in his head. The marrow is boiling in his bones.... The fifth dungeon is the red-hot oven.... The little child is in this red-hot oven. Hear how it screams to come out. See how it turns and twists itself about in the fire. It beats its head against the roof of the oven. It stamps its little feet on the floor.... God was very good to this child. Very likely God saw it would get worse and worse, and would never repent, and so it would have to be punished much more in hell. So God in His mercy called it out of the world in its early childhood.” If the reader desires to follow this subject further, he may glance over a companion tract by the same reverend gentleman, called A Terrible Judgment on a Little Child; and also a book on Hell, translated from the Italian of Pinamonti, and with illustrations depicting the various tortures.

455 St. Greg. Dial. iv. 38.

456 Ibid. iv. 18.

457 Alger’s History of the Doctrine of a Future Life (New York, 1866), p. 414. The ignis fatuus was sometimes supposed to be the soul of an unbaptised child. There is, I believe, another Catholic legend about the redbreast, of a very different kind—that its breast was stained with blood when it was trying to pull out the thorns from the crown of Christ.

458 Wright’s Purgatory of St. Patrick, p. 26. M. Delepierre quotes a curious theory of Father Hardouin (who is chiefly known for his suggestion that the classics were composed by the mediæval monks) that the rotation of the earth is caused by the lost souls trying to escape from the fire that is at the centre of the globe, climbing, in consequence, on the inner crust of the earth, which is the wall of hell, and thus making the whole revolve, as the squirrel by climbing turns its cage! (L’Enfer décrit par ceux qui l’ont vu, p. 151.)

459 Delepierre, p. 70.

460 Thus, in a book which was attributed (it is said erroneously) to Jeremy Taylor, we find two singularly unrhetorical and unimpassioned chapters, deliberately enumerating the most atrocious acts of cruelty in human history, and maintaining that they are surpassed by the tortures inflicted by the Deity. A few instances will suffice. Certain persons “put rings of iron, stuck full of sharp points of needles, about their arms and feet, in such a manner as the prisoners could not move without wounding themselves; then they compassed them about with fire, to the end that, standing still, they might be burnt alive, and if they stirred the sharp points pierced their flesh.... What, then, shall be the torment of the damned where they shall burn eternally without dying, and without possibility of removing?... Alexander, the son of Hyrcanus, caused eight hundred to be crucified, and whilst they were yet alive caused their wives and children to be murdered before their eyes, that so they might not die once, but many deaths. This rigour shall not be wanting in hell.... Mezentius tied a living body to a dead until the putrefied exhalations of the dead had killed the living.... What is this in respect of hell, when each body of the damned is more loathsome and unsavoury than a million of dead dogs?... Bonaventure says, if one of the damned were brought into this world it were sufficient to infect the whole earth.... We are amazed to think of the inhumanity of Phalaris, who roasted men alive in his brazen bull. That was a joy in respect of that fire of hell.... This torment ... comprises as many torments as the body of man has joints, sinews, arteries, &c., being caused by that penetrating and real fire, of which this temporal fire is but a painted fire.... What comparison will there be between burning for a hundred years’ space, and to be burning without interruption as long as God is God?”—Contemplations on the State of Man, book ii. ch. 6-7, in Heber’s Edition of the works of Taylor.

461 Perrone, Historiæ Theologiæ cum Philosophia comparata Synopsis, p. 29. Peter Lombard’s work was published in A.D. 1160.

462 “Postremo quæritur, An pœna reproborum visa decoloret gloriam beatorum? an eorum beatitudini proficiat? De hoc ita Gregorius ait, Apud animum justorum non obfuscat beatitudinem aspecta pœna reproborum; quia ubi jam compassio miseriæ non erit, minuere beatorum lætitiam non valebit. Et licet justis sua gaudia sufficiant, ad majorem gloriam vident pœnas malorum quas per gratiam evaserunt.... Egredientur ergo electi, non loco, sed intelligentia vel visione manifesta ad videndum impiorum cruciatus; quos videntes non dolore afficientur sed lætitia satiabuntur, agentes gratias de sua liberatione visa impiorum ineffabili calamitate. Unde Esaias impiorum tormenta describens et ex eorum visione lætitiam bonorum exprimens, ait, Egredientur electi scilicet et videbunt cadavera virorum qui prævaricati sunt in me. Vermis eorum non morietur et ignis non extinguetur, et erunt usque ad satietatem visionis omni carni, id est electis. Lætabitur justus cum viderit vindictam.”—Peter Lombard, Senten. lib. iv. finis. These amiable views have often been expressed both by Catholic and by Puritan divines. See Alger’s Doctrine of a Future Life, p. 541.

463 Legenda Aurea. There is a curious fresco representing this transaction, on the portal of the church of St. Lorenzo, near Rome.

464 Aimoni, De Gestis Francorum Hist. iv. 34.

465 Turpin’s Chronicle, ch. 32. In the vision of Watlin, however (A.D. 824), Charlemagne was seen tortured in purgatory on account of his excessive love of women. (Delepierre, L’Enfer décrit par ceux qui l’ont vu, pp. 27-28.)

466 As the Abbé Mably observes: “On croyoit en quelque sorte dans ces siècles grossiers que l’avarice étoit le premier attribut de Dieu, et que les saints faisoient un commerce de leur crédit et de leur protection. De-là les richesses immenses données aux églises par des hommes dont les mœurs déshonoroient la religion.”—Observations sur l’Hist. de France, i. 4.

467 Many curious examples of the way in which the Troubadours burlesqued the monkish visions of hell are given by Delepierre, p. 144.—Wright’s Purgatory of St. Patrick, pp. 47-52.

468 Comte, Philosophie positive, tome v. p. 269.

469 “Saint-Bernard, dans son sermon De obitu Humberti, affirme que tous les tourments de cette vie sont joies si on les compare à une seconde des peines du purgatoire. ‘Imaginez-vous donc, délicates dames,’ dit le père Valladier (1613) dans son sermon du 3me dimanche de l’Avent, ‘d’estre au travers de vos chenets, sur vostre petit feu pour une centaine d’ans: ce n’est rien au respect d’un moment de purgatoire. Mais si vous vistes jamais tirer quelqu’un à quatre chevaux, quelqu’un brusler à petit feu, enrager de faim ou de soif, une heure de purgatoire est pire que tout cela.’ ”—Meray, Les Libres Prêcheurs (Paris, 1860), pp. 130-131 (an extremely curious and suggestive book). I now take up the first contemporary book of popular Catholic devotion on this subject which is at hand, and read: “Compared with the pains of purgatory, then, all those wounds and dark prisons, all those wild beasts, hooks of iron, red-hot plates, &c., which the holy martyrs suffered, are nothing.” “They (souls in purgatory) are in a real, though miraculous manner, tortured by fire, which is of the same kind (says Bellarmine) as our element fire.” “The Angelic Doctor affirms ‘that the fire which torments the damned is like the fire which purges the elect.’ ” “What agony will not those holy souls suffer when tied and bound with the most tormenting chains of a living fire like to that of hell! and we, while able to make them free and happy, shall we stand like uninterested spectators?” “St. Austin is of opinion that the pains of a soul in purgatory during the time required to open and shut one’s eye is more severe than what St. Lawrence suffered on the gridiron;” and much more to the same effect. (Purgatory opened to the Piety of the Faithful. Richardson, London.)

470 See Delepierre, Wright, and Alger.

471 This appears from the vision of Thurcill. (Wright’s Purgatory of St. Patrick, p. 42.) Brompton (Chronicon) tells of an English landlord who had refused to pay tithes. St. Augustine, having vainly reasoned with him, at last convinced him by a miracle. Before celebrating mass he ordered all excommunicated persons to leave the church, whereupon a corpse got out of a grave and walked away. The corpse, on being questioned, said it was the body of an ancient Briton who refused to pay tithes, and had in consequence been excommunicated and damned.

472 Greg. Dial. iv. 40.

473 As Sismondi says: “Pendant quatre-vingts ans, tout au moins, il n’y eut pas un Franc qui songeât à transmettre à la postérité la mémoire des événements contemporains, et pendant le même espace de temps il n’y eut pas un personnage puissant qui ne bâtit des temples pour la postérité la plus reculée.”—Hist. des Français, tome ii. p. 46.

474 Gibbon says of the period during which the Merovingian dynasty reigned, that “it would be difficult to find anywhere more vice or less virtue.” Hallam reproduces this observation, and adds: “The facts of these times are of little other importance than as they impress on the mind a thorough notion of the extreme wickedness of almost every person concerned in them, and consequently of the state to which society was reduced.”—Hist. of the Middle Ages, ch. i. Dean Milman is equally unfavourable and emphatic in his judgment. “It is difficult to conceive a more dark and odious state of society than that of France under her Merovingian kings, the descendants of Clovis, as described by Gregory of Tours. In the conflict of barbarism with Roman Christianity, barbarism has introduced into Christianity all its ferocity with none of its generosity and magnanimity; its energy shows itself in atrocity of cruelty, and even of sensuality. Christianity has given to barbarism hardly more than its superstition and its hatred of heretics and unbelievers. Throughout, assassinations, parricides, and fratricides intermingle with adulteries and rapes.”—History of Latin Christianity, vol. i. p. 365.

475 Greg. Tur. iv. 12. Gregory mentions (v. 41) another bishop who used to become so intoxicated as to be unable to stand; and St. Boniface, after describing the extreme sensuality of the clergy of his time, adds that there are some bishops “qui licet dicant se fornicarios vel adulteros non esse, sed sunt ebriosi et injuriosi,” &c.—Ep. xlix.

476 Greg. Tur. iv. 12.

477 Ibid. viii. 29. She gave them knives with hollow grooves, filled with poison, in the blades.

478 Ibid. vii. 20.

479 Ibid. viii. 31-41.

480 Ibid. v. 19.

481 See his very curious correspondence with her.—Ep. vi. 5, 50, 59; ix. 11, 117; xi. 62-63.

482 Avitus, Ep. v. He adds: “Minuebat regni felicitas numerum regalium personarum.”

483 See the emphatic testimony of St. Boniface in the eighth century. “Modo autem maxima ex parte per civitates episcopales sedes traditæ sunt laicis cupidis ad possidendum, vel adulteratis clericis, scortatoribus et publicanis sæculariter ad perfruendum.”—Epist. xlix. “ad Zachariam.” The whole epistle contains an appalling picture of the clerical vices of the times.

484 More than one Council made decrees about this. See the Vie de St. Léger, by Dom Pitra, pp. 172-177.

485 Greg. Tur. iv. 43. St. Boniface, at a much later period (A.D. 742), talks of bishops “Qui pugnant in exercitu armati et effundunt propria manu sanguinem hominum.”—Ep. xlix.

486 Greg. Tur. iv. 26.

487 Ibid. iv. 20.

488 Ibid. iii. 26.

489 Ibid. ix. 34.

490 Ibid. viii. 19. Gregory says this story should warn clergymen not to meddle with the wives of other people, but “content themselves with those that they may possess without crime.” The abbot had previously tried to seduce the husband within the precincts of the monastery, that he might murder him.

491 Ibid. v. 3.

492 Ibid. viii. 39. She was guilty of many other crimes, which the historian says “it is better to pass in silence.” The bishop himself had been guilty of outrageous and violent tyranny. The marriage of ecclesiastics appears at this time to have been common in Gaul, though the best men commonly deserted their wives when they were ordained. Another bishop’s wife (iv. 36) was notorious for her tyranny.

493 Fredigarius, xlii. The historian describes Clotaire as a perfect paragon of Christian graces.

494 “Au sixième siècle on compte 214 établissements religieux des Pyrénées à la Loire et des bouches du Rhône aux Vosges.”—Ozanam, Études germaniques, tome ii. p. 93. In the two following centuries the ecclesiastical wealth was enormously increased.

495 Matthew of Westminster (A.D. 757) speaks of no less than eight Saxon kings having done this.

496 “Le septième siècle est celui peut-être qui a donné le plus de saints au calendrier.”—Sismondi, Hist. de France, tome ii. p. 50. “Le plus beau titre du septième siècle à une réhabilitation c’est le nombre considérable de saints qu’il a produits.... Aucun siècle n’a été ainsi glorifié sauf l’âge des martyrs dont Dieu s’est réservé de compter le nombre. Chaque année fournit sa moisson, chaque jour a sa gerbe.... Si donc il plaît à Dieu et au Christ de répandre à pleines mains sur un siècle les splendeurs des saints, qu’importe que l’histoire et la gloire humaine en tiennent peu compte?”—Pitra, Vie de St. Léger, Introd. p. x.-xi. This learned and very credulous writer (who is now a cardinal) afterwards says that we have the record of more than eight hundred saints of the seventh century. (Introd. p. lxxx.)

497 See, e.g., the very touching passage about the death of his children, v. 35.

498 Lib. ii. Prologue.

499 Greg. Tur. ii. 27-43.

500 He observes how impossible it was that he could be guilty of shedding the blood of a relation: “Sed in his ego nequaquam conscius sum. Nec enim possum sanguinem parentum meorum effundere.”—Greg. Tur. ii. 40.

501 “Prosternebat enim quotidie Deus hostes ejus sub manu ipsius, et augebat regnum ejus eo quod ambularet recto corde coram eo, et faceret quæ placita erant in oculis ejus.”—Greg. Tur. ii. 40.

502 Lib. iii. Prologue. St. Avitus enumerates in glowing terms the Christian virtues of Clovis (Ep. xli.), but, as this was in a letter addressed to the king himself, the eulogy may easily be explained.

503 Thus Hallam says: “There are continual proofs of immorality in the monkish historians. In the history of Rumsey Abbey, one of our best documents for Anglo-Saxon times, we have an anecdote of a bishop who made a Danish nobleman drunk, that he might cheat him out of an estate, which is told with much approbation. Walter de Hemingford records, with excessive delight, the well-known story of the Jews who were persuaded by the captain of their vessel to walk on the sands at low water till the rising tide drowned them.”—Hallam’s Middle Ages (12th ed.), iii. p. 306.

504 Canciani, Leges Barbarorum, vol. iii. p. 64. Canciani notices, that among the Poles the teeth of the offending persons were pulled out. The following passage, from Bodin, is, I think, very remarkable: “Les loix et canons veulent qu’on pardonne aux hérétiques repentis (combien que les magistrats en quelques lieux par cy-devant, y ont eu tel esgard, que celui qui avoit mangé de la chair au Vendredy estoit bruslé tout vif, comme il fut faict en la ville d’Angers l’an mil cinq cens trente-neuf, s’il ne s’en repentoit: et jaçoit qu’il se repentist si estoit-il pendu par compassion).”—Démonomanie des Sorciers, p. 216.

505 A long list of examples of extreme maceration, from lives of the saints of the seventh and eighth centuries is given by Pitra, Vie de St. Léger, Introd. pp. cv.-cvii.

506 This was related of St. Equitius.—Greg. Dialog. i. 4.

507 Ibid. i. 5. This saint was named Constantius.

508 A vast number of miracles of this kind are recorded. See, e.g., Greg. Tur. De Miraculis, i. 61-66; Hist. iv. 49. Perhaps the most singular instance of the violation of the sanctity of the church was that by the nuns of a convent founded by St. Radegunda. They, having broken into rebellion, four bishops, with their attendant clergy, went to compose the dispute, and having failed, excommunicated the rebels, whereupon the nuns almost beat them to death in the church.—Greg. Tur. ix. 41.

509 See Canciani, Leges Barbarorum, vol. iii. pp. 19, 151.

510 Much information about these measures is given by Dr. Hessey, in his Bampton Lectures on Sunday. See especially, lect. 3. See, too, Moehler, Le Christianisme et l’Esclavage, pp. 186-187.

511 Gregory of Tours enumerates some instances of this in his extravagant book De Miraculis, ii. 11; iv. 57; v. 7. One of these cases, however, was for having worked on the day of St. John the Baptist. Some other miracles of the same nature, taken, I believe, from English sources, are given in Hessey’s Sunday (3rd edition), p. 321.

512 Compare Pitra, Vie de St.-Léger, p. 137. Sismondi, Hist. des Français, tome ii. pp. 62-63.

513 See a remarkable passage from his life, cited by Guizot, Hist. de la Civilisation en France, xviime leçon. The English historians contain several instances of the activity of charity in the darkest period. Alfred and Edward the Confessor were conspicuous for it. Ethelwolf is said to have provided, “for the good of his soul,” that, till the day of judgment, one poor man in ten should be provided with meat, drink, and clothing. (Asser’s Life of Alfred.) There was a popular legend that a poor man having in vain asked alms of some sailors, all the bread in their vessel was turned into stone. (Roger of Wendover, A.D. 606.) See, too, another legend of charity in Matthew of Westminster, A.D. 611.

514 Greg. Tur. Hist. v. 8.

515 M. Guizot has given several specimens of this (Hist. de la Civilis. xviime leçon).

516 This portion of mediæval history has lately been well traced by Mr. Maclear, in his History of Christian Missions in the Middle Ages (1863). See, too, Montalembert’s Moines d’Occident; Ozanam’s Études germaniques. The original materials are to be found in Bede, and in the Lives of the Saints—especially that of St. Columba, by Adamnan. On the French missionaries, see the Benedictine Hist. lit. de la France, tome iv. p. 5; and on the English missionaries, Sharon Turner’s Hist. of England, book x. ch. ii.

517 Dion Chrysostom, Or. ii. (De Regno).

518 Gibbon, ch. xvi.

519 Origen, Cels. lib. viii.

520 “Navigamus et nos vobiscum et militamus.”—Tert. Apol. xlii. See, too, Grotius De Jure, i. cap. ii.

521 See an admirable dissertation on the opinions of the early Christians about military service, in Le Blant, Inscriptions chrétiennes de la Gaule, tome i. pp. 81-87. The subject is frequently referred to by Barbeyrac, Morale des Pères, and Grotius, De Jure, lib. i. cap. ii.

522 Philostorgius, ii. 5.

523 See some excellent remarks on this change, in Milman’s History of Christianity, vol. ii. pp. 287-288.

524 Mably, Observations sur l’Histoire de France, i. 6; Hallam’s Middle Ages, ch. ii. part ii.

525 Wakeman’s Archæologia Hibernica, p. 21. However, Giraldus Cambrensis observes that the Irish saints were peculiarly vindictive, and St. Columba and St. Comgall are said to have been leaders in a sanguinary conflict about a church near Coleraine. See Reeve’s edition of Adamnan’s Life of St. Columba, pp. lxxvii. 253.

526 Campion’s Historie of Ireland (1571), book i. ch. vi.

527 It seems curious to find in so calm and unfanatical a writer as Justus Lipsius the following passage: “Jam et invasio quædam legitima videtur etiam sine injuria, ut in barbaros et moribus aut religione prorsum a nobis abhorrentes.”—Politicorum sive Civilis Doctrinæ libri (Paris, 1594), lib. iv. ch. ii. cap. iv.

528 “Con l’occasione di queste cose Plutarco nel Teseo dice che gli eroi si recavano a grande onore e si reputavano in pregio d’armi con l’esser chiamati ladroni; siccome a’ tempi barbari ritornati quello di Corsale era titolo riputato di signoria; d’intorno a’ quali tempi venuto Solone, si dice aver permesso nelle sue leggi le società per cagion di prede; tanto Solone ben intese questa nostra compiuta Umanità, nella quale costoro non godono del diritto natural delle genti! Ma quel che fa più maraviglia è che Platone ed Aristotile posero il ladroneccio fralle spezie della caccia e con tali e tanti filosofi d’una gente umanissima convengono con la loro barbarie i Germani antichi; appo i quali al referire di Cesare ì ladronecci non solo non eran infami, ma si tenevano tra gli esercizi della virtù siccome tra quelli che per costume non applicando ad arte alcuna così fuggivano l’ozio.”—Vico, Scienza Nuova, ii. 6. See, too, Whewell’s Elements of Morality, book vi. ch. ii.

529 The ancient right of war is fully discussed by Grotius, De Jure, lib. iii. See, especially, the horrible catalogue of tragedies in cap. 4. The military feeling that regards capture as disgraceful, had probably some, though only a very subordinate, influence in producing cruelty to the prisoners.

530 “Le jour où Athènes décréta que tous les Mityléniens, sans distinction de sexe ni d’âge, seraient exterminés, elle ne croyait pas dépasser son droit; quand le lendemain elle revint sur son décret et se contenta de mettre à mort mille citoyens et de confisquer toutes les terres, elle se crut humaine et indulgente. Après la prise de Platée les hommes furent égorgés, les femmes vendues, et personne n’accusa les vainqueurs d’avoir violé le droit.... C’est en vertu de ce droit de la guerre que Rome a étendu la solitude autour d’elle; du territoire où les Volsques avaient vingt-trois cités elle a fait les marais pontins; les cinquante-trois villes du Latium ont disparu; dans le Samnium on put longtemps reconnaître les lieux où les armées romaines avaient passé, moins aux vestiges de leurs camps qu’à la solitude qui règnait aux environs.”—Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité antique, pp. 263-264.

531 Plato, Republic, lib. v.; Bodin, République, liv. i. cap. 5.

532 Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. viii. p. 224. Agesilaus was also very humane to captives.—Ibid. pp. 365-6.

533 This appears continually in Livy, but most of all, I think, in the Gaulish historian, Florus.

534 Scipio and Trajan.

535 See some very remarkable passages in Grotius, De Jure Bell. lib. iii. cap. 4, § 19.

536 These mitigations are fully enumerated by Ayala, De Jure et Officiis Bellicis (Antwerp, 1597), Grotius, De Jure. It is remarkable that both Ayala and Grotius base their attempts to mitigate the severity of war chiefly upon the writings and examples of the Pagans. The limits of the right of conquerors and the just causes of war are discussed by Cicero, De Offic. lib. i.

537 In England the change seems to have immediately followed conversion. “The evangelical precepts of peace and love,” says a very learned historian, “did not put an end to war, they did not put an end to aggressive conquests, but they distinctly humanised the way in which war was carried on. From this time forth the never-ending wars with the Welsh cease to be wars of extermination. The heathen English had been satisfied with nothing short of the destruction and expulsion of their enemies; the Christian English thought it enough to reduce them to political subjection.... The Christian Welsh could now sit down as subjects of the Christian Saxon. The Welshman was acknowledged as a man and a citizen, and was put under the protection of the law.”—Freeman’s Hist. of the Norman Conquest, vol. i. pp. 33-34. Christians who assisted infidels in wars were ipso facto excommunicated, and might therefore be enslaved, but all others were free from slavery. “Et quidem inter Christianos laudabili et antiqua consuetudine introductum est, ut capti hinc inde, utcunque justo bello, non fierent servi, sed liberi servarentur donec solvant precium redemptionis.”—Ayala, lib. i. cap. 5. “This rule, at least,” says Grotius, “(though but a small matter) the reverence for the Christian law has enforced, which Socrates vainly sought to have established among the Greeks.” The Mohammedans also made it a rule not to enslave their co-religionists.—Grotius, De Jure, iii. 7, § 9. Pagan and barbarian prisoners were, however, sold as slaves (especially by the Spaniards) till very recently.

538 The character of Constantine, and the estimate of it in Eusebius, are well treated by Dean Stanley, Lectures on the Eastern Church (Lect. vi.).

539 Theodoret, iii. 28.

540 They are collected by Chateaubriand, Études hist. 2me disc. 2me partie.

541 See St. Gregory’s oration on Cesarius.

542 Sozomen, vi. 2.

543 Ep. xiii. 31-39. In the second of these letters (which is addressed to Leontia), he says: “Rogare forsitan debui ut ecclesiam beati Petri apostoli quæ nunc usque gravibus insidiis laboravit, haberet Vestra Tranquillitas specialiter commendatam. Sed qui scio quia omnipotentem Deum diligitis, non debeo petere quod sponte ex benignitate vestræ pietatis exhibetis.”

544 See the graphic description in Gibbon, ch. liii.

545 Baronius.

546 Mably, ii. 1; Gibbon, ch. xlix.

547 There are some good remarks upon the way in which, among the free Franks, the bishops taught the duty of passive obedience, in Mably, Obs. sur l’Histoire de France, livre i. ch. iii. Gregory of Tours, in his address to Chilperic, had said: “If any of us, O king, transgress the boundaries of justice, thou art at hand to correct us; but if thou shouldest exceed them, who is to condemn thee? We address thee, and if it please thee thou listenest to us; but if it please thee not, who is to condemn thee save He who has proclaimed Himself Justice.”—Greg. Tur. v. 19. On the other hand, Hincmar, Archbishop of Rheims, strongly asserted the obligation of kings to observe the law, and denounced as diabolical the doctrine that they are subject to none but God. (Allen, On the Royal Prerogative (1849), pp. 171-172.)

548 The exact degree of the authority of the barbarian kings, and the different stages by which their power was increased, are matters of great controversy. The reader may consult Thierry’s Lettres sur l’Hist. de France (let. 9); Guizot’s Hist. de la Civilisation; Mably, Observ. sur l’Hist. de France; Freeman’s Hist. of the Norman Conquest, vol. i.

549 Fauriel, Hist. de la Poésie provençale, tome ii. p. 252.

550 Ibid, p. 258.

551 Le Grand D’Aussy, Fabliaux, préf. p. xxiv. These romances were accounts of his expeditions to Spain, to Languedoc, and to Palestine.

552 The ἕδνα of the Greeks.

553 Legouvé, Histoire morale des Femmes, pp. 95-96.

554 Gen. xxix., xxxiv. 12; Deut. xxii. 29; 1 Sam. xviii. 25.

555 The history of dowries is briefly noticed by Grote, Hist. of Greece, vol. ii. pp. 112-113; and more fully by Lord Kames, in the admirable chapter “On the Progress of the Female Sex,” in his Sketches of the History of Man, a book less read than it deserves to be. M. Legouvé has also devoted a chapter to it in his Hist. morale des Femmes. See, too, Legendre, Traité de l’Opinion, tome ii. pp. 329-330. We find traces of the dowry, as well as of the ἕδνα, in Homer. Penelope had received a dowry from Icarus, her father. M. Michelet, in one of those fanciful books which he has recently published, maintains a view of the object of the ἕδνα which I do not remember to have seen elsewhere, and which I do not believe. He says: “Ce prix n’est point un achat de la femme, mais une indemnité qui dédommage la famille du père pour les enfants futurs, qui ne profiteront pas à cette famille mais à celle où la femme va entrer.”—La Femme, p. 166.

556 In Rome, when the separation was due to the misconduct of the wife, the dowry belonged to her husband.

557 “Dotem non uxor marito sed uxori maritus offert.”—Tac. Germ. xviii. On the Morgengab, see Canciani, Leges Barbarorum (Venetiis, 1781), vol. i. pp. 102-104; ii. pp. 230-231. Muratori, Antich. Ital. diss. xx. Luitprand enacted that no Longobard should give more than one-fourth of his substance as a Morgengab. In Gregory of Tours (ix. 20) we have an example of the gift of some cities as a Morgengab.

558 See, on this point, Aul. Gellius, Noct. Att. xv. 20. Euripides is said to have had two wives.

559 Aristotle said that Homer never gives a concubine to Menelaus, in order to intimate his respect for Helen—though false. (Athenæus, xiii. 3.)

560 Æschylus has put this curious notion into the mouth of Apollo, in a speech in the Eumenides. It has, however, been very widely diffused, and may be found in Indian, Greek, Roman, and even Christian writers. M. Legouvé, who has devoted a very curious chapter to the subject, quotes a passage from St. Thomas Aquinas, accepting it, and arguing from it, that a father should be more loved than a mother. M. Legouvé says that when the male of one animal and the female of another are crossed, the type of the female usually predominates in the offspring. See Legouvé, Hist. morale des Femmes, pp. 216-228; Fustel de Coulanges, La Cité antique, pp. 39-40; and also a curious note by Boswell, in Croker’s edition of Boswell’s Life of Johnson (1847), p. 472.

561 Dr. Vintras, in a remarkable pamphlet (London, 1867) On the Repression of Prostitution, shows from the police statistics that the number of prostitutes known to the police in England and Wales, in 1864, was 49,370; and this is certainly much below the entire number. These, it will be observed, comprise only the habitual, professional prostitutes.

562 Some measures have recently been taken in a few garrison towns. The moral sentiment of the community, it appears, would be shocked if Liverpool were treated on the same principles as Portsmouth. This very painful and revolting, but most important, subject has been treated with great knowledge, impartiality, and ability, by Parent-Duchâtelet, in his famous work, La Prostitution dans la ville de Paris. The third edition contains very copious supplementary accounts, furnished by different doctors in different countries.

563 Parent-Duchâtelet has given many statistics, showing the very large extent to which the French system of supervision deters those who were about to enter into prostitution, and reclaims those who had entered into it. He and Dr. Vintras concur in representing English prostitution as about the most degraded, and at the same time the most irrevocable.

564 Miss Mulock, in her amiable but rather feeble book, called A Woman’s Thoughts about Women, has some good remarks on this point (pp. 291-293), which are all the more valuable, as the authoress has not the faintest sympathy with any opinions concerning the character and position of women which are not strictly conventional. She notices the experience of Sunday school mistresses, that, of their pupils who are seduced, an extremely large proportion are “of the very best, refined, intelligent, truthful, and affectionate.”

565 See the very singular and painful chapter in Parent-Duchâtelet, called “Mœurs et Habitudes des Prostituées.” He observes that they are remarkable for their kindness to one another in sickness or in distress; that they are not unfrequently charitable to poor people who do not belong to their class; that when one of them has a child, it becomes the object of very general interest and affection; that most of them have lovers, to whom they are sincerely attached; that they rarely fail to show in the hospitals a very real sense of shame; and that many of them entered into their mode of life for the purpose of supporting aged parents. One anecdote is worth giving in the words of the author: “Un médecin n’entrant jamais dans leurs salles sans ôter légèrement son chapeau, par cette seule politesse il sut tellement conquérir leur confiance qu’il leur faisait faire tout ce qu’il voulait.” This writer, I may observe, is not a romance writer or a theorist of any description. He is simply a physician who describes the results of a very large official experience.

566 “Parent-Duchâtelet atteste que sur trois mille créatures perdues trente cinq seulement avaient un état qui pouvait les nourrir, et que quatorze cents avaient été précipitées dans cette horrible vie par la misère. Une d’elles, quand elle s’y résolut, n’avait pas mangé depuis trois jours.”—Legouvé, Hist. morale des Femmes, pp. 322-323.

567 Concerning the position and character of Greek women, the reader may obtain ample information by consulting Becker’s Charicles (translated by Metcalfe, 1845); Rainneville, La Femme dans l’Antiquité (Paris, 1865); and an article “On Female Society in Greece,” in the twenty-second volume of the Quarterly Review.

568 Plutarch, Conj. Præc.

569 Xenophon, Econ. ii.

570 Plut. Conj. Præc. There is also an extremely beautiful picture of the character of a good wife in Aristotle. (Economics, book i. cap. vii.)

571 See Alexander’s History of Women (London, 1783), vol. i. p. 201.

572 Plutarch, Phocion.

573 Our information concerning the Greek courtesans is chiefly derived from the thirteenth book of the Deipnosophists of Athenæus, from the Letters of Alciphron, from the Dialogues of Lucian on courtesans, and from the oration of Demosthenes against Neæra. See, too, Xenophon, Memorabilia, iii. 11; and among modern books, Becker’s Charicles. Athenæus was an Egyptian, whose exact date is unknown but who appears to have survived Ulpian, who died in A.D. 228. He had access to, and gave extracts from, many works on this subject, which have now perished. Alciphron is believed to have lived near the time of Lucian.

574 According to some writers the word “venerari” comes from “Venerem exercere,” on account of the devotions in the temple of Venus. See Vossius, Etymologicon Linguæ Latinæ, “veneror;” also La Mothe le Vayer, Lettre xc.

575 On the connection of the courtesans with the artistic enthusiasm, see Raoul Rochette, Cours d’Archéologie, pp. 278-279. See, too, Athenæus, xiii. 59; Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxv. 40.

576 See the very curious little work of Ménage, Historia Mulierum Philosopharum (Lugduni, MDXC.); also Rainneville, La Femme dans l’Antiquite, p. 244. At a much later date Lucian described the beauty, accomplishments, generosity, and even modesty, of Panthea of Smyrna, the favourite mistress of Lucius Verus.

577 The ζῶμα, which was at first in use, was discarded by the Lacedæmonians, and afterwards by the other Greeks. There are three curious memoirs tracing the history of the change, by M. Burette, in the Hist. de l’Académie royale des Inscriptions, tome i.

578 On the causes of paiderastia in Greece, see the remarks of Mr. Grote in the review of the Symposium, in his great work on Plato. The whole subject is very ably treated by M. Maury, Hist. des Religions de la Gréce antique, tome iii. pp. 35-39. Many facts connected with it are collected by Döllinger, in his Jew and Gentile, and by Chateaubriand, in his Études historiques. The chief original authority is the thirteenth book of Athenæus, a book of very painful interest in the history of morals.

579 Plutarch, in his Life of Agesilaus, dwells on the intense self-control manifested by that great man, in refraining from gratifying a passion he had conceived for a boy named Megabetes, and Maximus Tyrius says it deserved greater praise than the heroism of Leonidas. (Diss. xxv.) Diogenes Laërtius, in his Life of Zeno, the founder of Stoicism, the most austere of all ancient sects, praises that philosopher for being but little addicted to this vice. Sophocles is said to have been much addicted to it.

580 Some examples of the ascription of this vice to the divinities are given by Clem. Alex. Admonitio ad Gentes. Socrates is said to have maintained that Jupiter loved Ganymede for his wisdom, as his name is derived from γάνυμαι and μῆδος, to be delighted with prudence. (Xenophon, Banquet.) The disaster of Cannæ was ascribed to the jealousy of Juno because a beautiful boy was introduced into the temple of Jupiter. (Lactantius, Inst. Div. ii. 17.)

581 Athenæus, xiii. 78. See, too, the very revolting book on different kinds of love, ascribed (it is said falsely) to Lucian.

582 Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 9.

583 There is ample evidence of this in Athenæus, and in the Dialogues of Lucian on the courtesans. See, too, Terence, The Eunuch, act v. scene 4, which is copied from the Greek. The majority of the class were not called hetæræ, but πόρναι.

584 Plutarch, De Garrulitate; Plin. Hist. Nat. xxxiv. 19. The feat of biting out their tongues rather than reveal secrets, or yield to passion, is ascribed to a suspiciously large number of persons. Ménage cites five besides Leæna. (Hist. Mulier. Philos. pp. 104-108.)

585 See, upon Bacchis, several of the letters of Alciphron, especially the very touching letter (x.) on her death, describing her kindness and disinterestedness. Athenæus (xiii. 66) relates a curious anecdote illustrating these aspects of her character.

586 Xenophon, Memorab. iii. 11.

587 On the Flamens, see Aulus Gell. Noct. x. 15.

588 Capitolinus, Maximinus Junior.

589 Pliny, Hist. Nat. vii. 36. There is (as is well known) a similar legend of a daughter thus feeding her father. Val. Max. Lib. v. cap. 4.

590 This appears from the first act of the Stichus of Plautus. The power appears to have become quite obsolete during the Empire but the first legal act (which was rather of the nature of an exhortation than of a command) against it was issued by Antoninus Pius, and it was only definitely abolished under Diocletian. (Laboulaye, Recherches sur la condition civile et politique des femmes, pp. 16-17.)

591 Aul. Gell. Noct. x. 23.

592 Val. Maximus, ii. 1, § 4; Aul. Gellius, Noct. iv. 3.

593 Ammianus Marcellinus, xxviii. 4.

594 Tacitus, De Oratoribus, xxviii.

595 See Aulus Gellius, Noct. ii. 24.

596 “More inter veteres recepto, qui satis pœnarum adversum impudicas in ipsa professione flagitii credebant.”—Tacitus, Annal. ii. 85.

597 Aul. Gell. iv. 3. Juno was the goddess of marriage.

598 Ibid. iv. 14.

599 The well-known superstition about the lion, &c., becoming docile before a virgin is, I believe, as old as Roman times. St. Isidore mentions that rhinoceroses were said to be captured by young girls being put in their way to fascinate them. (Legendre, Traité de l’Opinion, tome ii. p. 35.)

600 Pliny, Hist. Nat. xxviii. 23.

601 Ibid. vii. 18.

602 “Quem enim Romanorum pudet uxorem ducere in convivium? aut cujus materfamilias non primum locum tenet ædium, atque in celebritate versatur? quod multo fit aliter in Græcia. Nam neque in convivium adhibetur, nisi propinquorum, neque sedet nisi in interiore parte ædium quæ gynæcontis appellatur, quo nemo accedit, nisi propinqua cognatione conjunctus.”—Corn. Nepos. præfat.

603 Val. Max. ii. 1, § 6.

604 Liv. viii. 18.

605 See Val. Max. ii. 1.

606 “Nuptiæ sunt conjunctio maris et feminæ, et consortium omnis vitæ, divini et humani juris communicatio.”—Modestinus.

607 Livy, xxxiv. 5. There is a fine collection of legends or histories of heroic women (but chiefly Greek) in Clem. Alexand. Strom. iv. 19.

608 Tacitus, Annal. ii. 85. This decree was on account of a patrician lady named Vistilia having so enrolled herself.

609 Dion Cassius, liv. 16, lvi. 10.

610 “Si sine uxore possemus, Quirites, esse, omnes ea molestia careremus; sed quoniam ita natura tradidit, ut nec cum illis satis commode nec sine illis ullo modo vivi possit, saluti perpetuæ potius quam brevi voluptati consulendum.”—Aulus Gellius, Noct. i. 6. Some of the audience, we are told, thought that, in exhorting to matrimony, the speaker should have concealed its undoubted evils. It was decided, however, that it was more honourable to tell the whole truth. Stobæus (Sententiæ) has preserved a number of harsh and often heartless sayings about wives, that were popular among the Greeks. It was a saying of a Greek poet, that “marriage brings only two happy days—the day when the husband first clasps his wife to his breast, and the day when he lays her in the tomb;” and in Rome it became a proverbial saying, that a wife was only good “in thalamo vel in tumulo.”

611 Friedländer, Hist. des Mœurs romaines, tome i. pp. 360-364. On the great influence exercised by Roman ladies on political affairs some remarkable passages are collected in Denis, Hist. des Idées Morales, tome ii. pp. 98-99. This author is particularly valuable in all that relates to the history of domestic morals. The Asinaria of Plautus, and some of the epigrams of Martial, throw much light upon this subject.

612 See the very remarkable discussion about this repeal in Livy, lib. xxxiv. cap. 1-8.

613 Legouvé, Hist. Morale des Femmes, pp. 23-26. St. Augustine denounced this law as the most unjust that could be mentioned or even conceived. “Qua lege quid iniquius dici aut cogitari possit, ignoro.”—St. Aug. De Civ. Dei, iii. 21—a curious illustration of the difference between the habits of thought of his time and those of the middle ages, when daughters were habitually sacrificed, without a protest, by the feudal laws.

614 Plutarch, Cicero.

615 Tacit. Ann. i. 10.

616 Plutarch, Cato; Lucan, Pharsal. ii.

617 Senec. Ep. cxiv.

618 Val. Max. vi. 3.

619 Plutarch, Paul. Æmil. It is not quite clear whether this remark was made by Paulus himself.

620 Sen. De Benef. iii. 16. See, too, Ep. xcv. Ad Helv. xvi.

621 Apol. 6.

622 Epig. vi. 7.

623 Juv. Sat. vi. 230.

624 Ep. 2.

625 Sueton. Aug. Charlemagne, in like manner, made his daughters work in wool. (Eginhardus, Vit. Car. Mag. xix.)

626 Friedländer, Mœurs romaines du règne d’Auguste à la fin des Antonins (trad. franç.), tome i. p. 414.

627 Much evidence of this is collected by Friedländer, tome i. pp. 387-395.

628 Plutarch, Pompeius.

629 Martial, xi. 16. Pliny, Ep. i. 14.

630 Suet. Tiberius, xlv.

631 Plutarch, Brutus.

632 Tacit. Annal. xv. 63, 64.

633 “Pæte, non dolet.”—Plin. Ep. iii. 16; Martial, Ep. i. 14.

634 Tacit. Annal. xvi. 10-11; Hist. i. 3. See, too, Friedländer, tome i. p. 406.

635 Tacit. Ann. xvi. 34.

636 Pliny mentions her return after the death of the tyrant (Ep. iii. 11).

637 “Quod paucis datum est, non minus amabilis quam veneranda.”—Plin. Ep. vii. 19.

638 See Plin. Ep. vii. 19. Dion Cassius and Tacitus relate the exiles of Helvidius, who appears to have been rather intemperate and unreasonable.

639 Friedländer gives many and most touching examples, tome i. pp. 410-414.

640 Suet. Dom. viii.

641 Capitolinus, Macrinus.

642 Lampridius, A. Severus.

643 In the oration against Neæra, which is ascribed to Demosthenes, but is of doubtful genuineness, the licence accorded to husbands is spoken of as a matter of course: “We keep mistresses for our pleasures, concubines for constant attendance, and wives to bear us legitimate children, and to be our faithful housekeepers.”

644 There is a remarkable passage on the feelings of wives, in different nations, upon this point, in Athenæus, xiii. 3. See, too, Plutarch, Conj. Præc.

645 Euripid. Andromache.

646 Valer. Max. vi. 7, § 1. Some very scandalous instances of cynicism on the part of Roman husbands are recorded. Thus, Augustus had many mistresses, “Quæ [virgines] sibi undique etiam ab uxore conquirerentur.”—Sueton. Aug. lxxi. When the wife of Verus, the colleague of Marcus Aurelius, complained of the tastes of her husband, he answered, “Uxor enim dignitatis nomen est, non voluptatis.”—Spartian. Verus.

647 Aristotle, Econom. i. 4-8-9.

648 Plutarch enforces the duty at length, in his very beautiful work on marriage. In case husbands are guilty of infidelity, he recommends their wives to preserve a prudent blindness, reflecting that it is out of respect for them that they choose another woman as the companion of their intemperance. Seneca touches briefly, but unequivocally, on the subject: “Scis improbum esse qui ab uxore pudicitiam exigit, ipse alienarum corruptor uxorum. Scis ut illi nil cum adultero, sic nihil tibi esse debere cum pellice.”—Ep. xciv. “Sciet in uxorem gravissimum esse genus injuriæ, habere pellicem.”—Ep. xcv.

649 “Periniquum enim videtur esse, ut pudicitiam vir ab uxore exigat, quam ipse non exhibeat.”—Cod. Just. Dig. xlviii. 5-13.

650 Quoted by St. Augustine, De Conj. Adult. ii. 19. Plautus, long before, had made one of his characters complain of the injustice of the laws which punished unchaste wives but not unchaste husbands, and ask why, since every honest woman is contented with one husband, every honest man should not be contented with one wife? (Mercator,