52 THE GREATEST ILLUSION 



spread over the broad face of history, lies In the record of 

 applied Christianity. Here again, however, the evidence, as 

 usually presented, suffers from the assumption that Chris- 

 tianity is necessarily perfect. Christian advocates treat it as 

 the compiler of German official reports has treated the facts of 

 the campaign studiously ignoring or slurring over all un- 

 pleasant truths, and giving an air of verisimilitude to an 

 imaginative account by inserting one or two minor facts too 

 patent to be omitted. History has to be read anew, and in a 

 spirit of scientific detachment, before one realizes the volume 

 and weight of suffering imposed upon humanity in the name 

 of Christ. We stand appalled before the " unprecedented " 

 bloodshed and misery of the Great War ; but if we sum up the 

 victims and the agony of religious wars and persecutions 

 throughout the Christian era, we are presented with a new 

 standard of comparison. 



The early Christians were persecuted, but the period of 

 their suffering was brief; and their successors, once they had 

 gained power and wealth, took an ample revenge century 

 after century. They took it, not only against the Jews and 

 other non-Christian heretics, but against each other. Per- 

 secution, war, and massacre distinguished the early con- 

 troversies of the Church; in the words of Gregory of 

 Nazianzus, the kingdom of heaven was rather the image of 

 hell itself. The great councils of the Church and the rivalries 

 of the Popes were marked with all the features of savagery. 

 Even the great Augustine, so deeply revered to the present 

 day, added a new beatitude, " Blessed are they who inflict 

 persecution for righteousness' sake," and proclaimed that 

 persecution was inflicted out of compassion for the souls of 

 the guilty. Justinian, the codifier of the Roman law on which 

 our own legal system is based, carried these principles into 

 effect at the cost of thousands of lives. The conversion of the 

 Franks, Goths, Germans, and other barbarian tribes to 

 Christianity was not effected by preaching and epistles, but 

 by the more convincing argument of the sword. Meanwhile 

 ignorance, poverty, and periodic plagues were the lot of the 

 people of Europe. 



These things happened during the infancy of Christianity, 

 before it had risen to the vigour which it enjoyed throughout 

 the Middle Ages. Those were the times when Popes went 

 into battle to assert temporal as well as spiritual power, and 

 when the Crusaders were organized for the glory of God. The 

 glamour of romance still veils the bloody reality of the 



