348 THE RIDDLE OF THE UNIVERSE. 



undying beauty. The graceful Gothic cathedrals and 

 Byzantine basilicas, the hundreds of magnificent 

 chapels, the thousands of marble statues of saints 

 and martyrs, the millions of fine pictures of saints, 

 of profoundly conceived representations of Christ and 

 the madonna — all are proofs of the development of a 

 noble art in the Middle Ages, which is unique of its 

 kind. All these splendid monuments of mediaeval art 

 are untouched in their high aesthetic value, whatever 

 we say of their mixture of truth and fane} 7 . Yes ; 

 but what has all that to do with the pure teaching of 

 Christianity — with that religion of sacrifice that 

 turned scornfully away from all earthly parade and 

 glamour, from all material beauty and art ; that made 

 light of the life of the family and the love of woman ; 

 that urged an exclusive concern as to the immaterial 

 goods of eternal life ? The idea of a Christian art is 

 a contradiction in terms — a contradictio in adjecto. 

 The wealthy princes of the Church who fostered it 

 were candidly aiming at very different ideals, and 

 they completely attained them. In directing the 

 whole interest and activity of the human mind in the 

 Middle Ages to the Christian Church and its dis- 

 tinctive art they were diverting it from nature and 

 from the knowledge of the treasures that were hidden 

 in it, and would have conducted to independent science. 

 Moreover, the daily sight of the huge images of the 

 saints and of the scenes of ''sacred history" con- 

 tinually reminded the faithful of the vast collection 

 of myths that the Church had made. The legends 

 themselves were taught and believed to be true 

 narratives, and the stories of miracles to be records 

 of actual events. It cannot be doubted that in this 

 respect Christian art has exercised an immense 



