218 



CHRISTIANITY 



asceticism of which the Buddhist annihilation is 

 the logical consequence. It is this which for ever 

 distinguishes the Christian metaphysic from alL the 

 Greco-oriental speculations comprised in the system 

 of the Alexandrian Philo. To prevent any con- 

 fusion between Christianity and Hellenism it is 

 sufficient to read these words in the prologue to the 

 fourth gospel : ' The Word became flesh. ' Pre- 

 sented thus according to its primitive type, the 

 religion of Christ appears before us in its trtie 

 character and its incontestable originality ; and 

 herein rests its power. Were we to see in it only a 

 synthesis of all the anterior religions, we should 

 have in Christ only a kind of composite idol 

 enshrined in the last of the pagodas ; and we could 

 not connect it with that primitive Christianity 

 which alone is true, and which remains for all time 

 in the faithful image it has left us of itself in the 

 sacred volume which makes it live anew in its first 

 and authentic manifestation. Thanks to that book 

 we can always trace it back to its source, and 

 mark the point of departure between what it is in 

 itself, and the superfluous accretions which have 

 changed it. 



For it was impossible that Christianity should 

 make no deviations once it had begun to float upon 

 the stream of history. These were rendered im- 

 perative by its being imposed by authority upon 

 successive generations like a dead letter the most 

 serious of all changes to which it could possibly 

 have been subjected, for it is before everything 

 the religion of the spirit and of liberty. The 

 purpose of history after its own modification 

 through the influence of Christianity was pre- 

 cisely to make it penetrate to modern humanity 

 in a free assimilation, but that assimilation involved 

 the possibility of all its stumblings, its failures, and 

 its obscurities ; without, however, the true Christian 

 spirit ever ceasing to struggle against error to 

 bring back the Church to its original type. Let us 

 not forget that the eil'ects of Christianity radiate 

 outwards far beyond the immediately religious 

 sphere ; through an influence direct and indirect 

 by turns it strives to re-establish human society 

 upon the type of justice and love a result which 

 certainly forms it into a part of the kingdom of 

 God. Mere social progress not infrequently ad- 

 vances religious progress, as it binds fewer burdens 

 on the individual conscience, and appears for that 

 reason the more easy. We cannot give more than 

 a rapid sketch of the deviations as well as the 

 victorious struggles of Christianity from its begin- 

 ning to our own day. To explain its deviations it 

 is sufficient for us to recall its leading thought, 

 which is also its great power emancipation, .for 

 these invariably tend to the alienation of the free- 

 dom in which the gospel has made us free. Christ 

 has freed man from all the burdens under which 

 he was bowed down, and first of all from that of 

 sin, by his redeeming work alone. Whenever 

 man turns aside from this, whenever he ceases to 

 believe in a salvation which is the free gift of 

 God, apprehended by faith, he girds on again his 

 ancient chains, he seeks for mediators in a new 

 priesthood, returns from the New Covenant to the 

 Old, and restores anew the theocracy ; in one word, 

 he becomes again a Jew. This is the whole history 

 of the formation of Catholicism, the real cause of 

 all the slavery which it has caused anew to weigh 

 upon the freedmen of Christ. 



On the other hand, the return to Paganism takes 

 effect whenever for the gospel of the redemption we 

 substitute a purely philosophical speculation. The 

 digression to the left is no better than that to the 

 right ; it is even worse, for it ends in a parching 

 rationalism which cannot long rest on the slope 

 downward to pantheistic naturalism. We shall 

 Umit ourselves to characterising the principal 



periods of the history of Christianity, in each of 

 which we find the battle arrayed between its most 

 faithful representatives and the promoters of tend- 

 encies whether towards Judaism or Paganism. 



Already in the apostolic age the struggle had 

 begun, for we know that it needed the apqstolate 

 of Paul to bring down the Church from its high 

 chamber, to cast aside the swaddling clothes of its 

 cradle, and come gradually to the point of renounc- 

 ing Judaic exclusiveness. What a combat the 

 great apostle of the Gentiles had to wage against 

 the survivors of the synagogue who wished at any 

 cost to hinder the grand liberation of souls, and at 

 the close of his life against the first representatives 

 of pagan speculation, the Gnostic heretics of Colosse 

 and Ephesus ! Beyond doubt he was victorious, 

 and when his noble head fell under the axe of 

 Nero's executioner, it might have been said of him 

 that though dead he would speak until the end of 

 time, ever uttering anew his great cry for liberty, 

 for the freedom of the Church from all its bonds 

 through justifying faith. 



The first period of the history of Christianity 

 after the death of the last apostles extends from 

 the 2d century to Constantine. It is an heroic age. 

 The mission of Christ extends over all the empire, 

 and fashions a whole people with their own con- 

 sent. Persecution rages without intermission, but 

 the blood of the martyrs is the seed of the gospel. 

 The struggle goes on also in the world of thought. 

 The Gnostic heresies mark the reaction of the 

 pagan spirit ; they are refuted by a powerful 

 polemic. The apologetic writings of Justin Martyr, 

 of Irenteus, of Clement of Alexandria, and of 

 Origen, breathe the most living and the largest 

 faith. The most important social reforms, as the 

 elevation of woman, the respect due to the man in 

 the slave, are realised at the family hearth. But 

 the gravity of the struggles against heresy, and the 

 questions of discipline arising out of persecution 

 itself for the restoration of such Christians as had 

 wavered, tended to strengthen ecclesiastical autho- 

 rity in an exaggerated degree to the detriment of 

 the primitive liberty. That tendency was aided by 

 a certain weakening of the dogma of justification by 

 faith, despite the struggles of Origen and Tertullian 

 against the innovators. 



The second period extends from Constantine to 

 the establishment of the papacy. Christianity 

 became the religion of the state when the Caesar of 

 By/antium granted it his burdensome protection, 

 but it still retained within it its generous sap. In 

 spite of the authority of St Augustine faith in the 

 free grace of God became more and more obscured. 

 The discussions raised by Arianism more and 

 more gave the foremost place to a Christian 

 theodicy which resulted in a subtle divine meta- 

 physic elaborated by the great councils of Nice, 

 of Constantinople, and Chalcedon. These councils 

 constituted a completed novel central authority 

 within the Church. At the same time the old 

 hierarchy was re-established to govern flocks cast 

 by their birth itself into the fold of the Church, 

 and the crook of the shepherd became the symbol 

 of a despotic authority. The Bishop of Rome 

 acquired a primacy that ever grew greater, until 

 when the floods of barbarian invasion had sub- 

 merged the old Roman government, the papacy 

 became incontestably the chief centralising power. 

 It had a high regard for social progress, and the 

 Christian mission continued its conquests ; but 

 unhappily after its union with the empire the 

 Church began to employ forcible constraint against 

 its enemies both without and within. Spite of 

 many a noble protest Catholicism took the place of 

 the primitive Christianity, and suppressed all its 

 liberties. It was as if the dethroned Jewish 

 theocracy had thus revenged itself for its down- 



