§ 103. Summary of Moral Reforms.
§ 103. Summary of Moral Reforms.
Christianity represents the thoughts and purposes of God in history. They shine as so many stars in the darkness of sin and error. They are unceasingly opposed, but make steady progress and are sure of final victory. Heathen ideas and practices with their degrading influences controlled the ethics, politics, literature, and the house and home of emperor and peasant, when the little band of despised and persecuted followers of Jesus of Nazareth began the unequal struggle against overwhelming odds and stubborn habits. It was a struggle of faith against superstition, of love against selfishness, of purity against corruption, of spiritual forces against political and social power.
Under the inspiring influence of the spotless purity of Christ’s teaching and example, and aided here and there by the nobler instincts and tendencies of philosophy, the Christian church from the beginning asserted the individual rights of man, recognized the divine image in every rational being, taught the common creation and common redemption, the destination of all for immortality and glory, raised the humble and the lowly, comforted the prisoner and captive, the stranger and the exile, proclaimed chastity as a fundamental virtue, elevated woman to dignity and equality with man, upheld the sanctity and inviolability of the marriage tie, laid the foundation of a Christian family and happy home, moderated the evils and undermined the foundations of slavery, opposed polygamy and concubinage, emancipated the children from the tyrannical control of parents, denounced the exposure of children as murder, made relentless war upon the bloody games of the arena and the circus, and the shocking indecencies of the theatre, upon cruelty and oppression and every vice infused into a heartless and loveless world the spirit of love and brotherhood, transformed sinners into saints, frail women into heroines, and lit up the darkness of the tomb by the bright ray of unending bliss in heaven.
Christianity reformed society from the bottom, and built upwards until it reached the middle and higher classes, and at last the emperor himself. Then soon after the conversion of Constantine it began to influence legislation, abolished cruel institutions, and enacted laws which breathe the spirit of justice and humanity. We may deplore the evils which followed in the train of the union of church and state, but we must not overlook its many wholesome effects upon the Justinian code which gave Christian ideas an institutional form and educational power for whole generations to this day. From that time on also began the series of charitable institutions for widows and orphans, for the poor and the sick, the blind and the deaf, the intemperate and criminal, and for the care of all unfortunate,—institutions which we seek in vain in any other but Christian countries.
Nor should the excesses of asceticism blind us against the moral heroism of renouncing rights and enjoyments innocent in themselves, but so generally abused and poisoned, that total abstinence seemed to most of the early fathers the only radical and effective cure. So in our days some of the best of men regard total abstinence rather than temperance, the remedy of the fearful evils of intemperance.
Christianity could not prevent the irruption of the Northern barbarians and the collapse of the Roman empire. The process of internal dissolution had gone too far; nations as well as individuals may physically and morally sink so low that they, are beyond the possibility of recovery. Tacitus, the heathen Stoic in the second century, and Salvianus, the Christian presbyter in the fifth, each a Jeremiah of his age, predicted the approaching doom and destruction of Roman society, looked towards the savage races of the North for fresh blood and new vigor. But the Keltic and Germanic conquerors would have turned Southern Europe into a vast solitude (as the Turks have laid waste the fairest portions of Asia), if they had not embraced the principles, laws, and institutions of the Christian church.
Friedländer, III. 369 sqq. (5th ed.), gives much interesting information about the book trade in Rome, which was far more extensive than is generally supposed, and was facilitated by slave-labor. Books were cheap. The first book of Martial (over 700 verses in 118 poems) cost in the best outfit only 5 denarii (80 cts.). Julius Caesar conceived the plan of founding public libraries, but was prevented from carrying it into effect. In the fourth century there were no less than twenty-eight public libraries in Rome. The ease and enjoyment of reading, however, were considerably diminished by the many errors, the absence of division and punctuation. Asinius Pollio introduced the custom of public readings of new works before invited circles.
Gibbon, Decline and Fall, ch. III. Renan expresses the same view.
Either from disgust of life, or because he thought he could not live off the remaining ten million of sesterces, after he had wasted sixty or a hundred million. Seneca, Ad Helv. x. 9. Heliogabalus chose Apicius as his model. These, however, are exceptional cases, and became proverbial. See on this whole subject of Roman luxury the third volume of Friedlaender’s Sittengeschichte, pp. 1-152. He rather modifies the usual view, and thinks that Apicius had more imitators among French epicures under Louis XIV., XV., and XVI. than among the Roman nobles, and that some petty German princes of the eighteenth century, like King August of Saxony (who wasted eighty thousand thalers on a single opera), and Duke Karl of Württemberg, almost equalled the heathen emperors in extravagance and riotous living, at the expense of their poor subjects. The wealth of the old Romans was much surpassed by that of some modern Russian and English noblemen, French bankers, and American merchant princes, but had a much greater purchasing value. The richest Romans were Ca. Lentulus, and Narcissus (a freedman of Nero), and their fortune amounted to four hundred million sesterces (from sixty-five to seventy million marks); while Mazarin left two hundred million francs, Baron James Rothschild (d. 1868) two thousand million francs (l.c. p. 13 sqq.). The architecture of the imperial age surpassed all modern palaces in extravagance and splendor, but in parks and gardens the modem English far surpass the ancient Romans (p. 78 sqq.).
Decline and Fall, ch. III.
Seekers after God, p. 37.
Zeller, l.c. p. 37: "Nearly all the most important Stoics before the Christian era belong by birth to Asia Minor, to Syria, and to the islands of the Eastern Archipelago. Then follow a line of Roman Stoics, among whom the Phrygian Epictetus occupies a prominent place; but Greece proper is exclusively represented by men of third or fourth-rate capacity."
Niebuhr says of Seneca: "He acted on the principle that he could dispense with the laws of morality which he laid down for others." Macaulay: "The business of the philosopher was to declaim in praise of poverty, with two millions sterling at usury; to meditate epigrammatic conceits about the evils of luxury in gardens which moved the envy of sovereigns; to rant about liberty while fawning on the insolent and pampered freedman of a tyrant; to celebrate the divine beauty of virtue with the same pen which had just before written a defense of the murder of a mother by a son." Farrar (l.c. p. 161): "In Seneca’s life, we see as clearly as in those of many professed Christians, that it is impossible to be at once worldly and righteous. His utter failure was due to the vain attempt to combine in his own person two opposite characters—that of a Stoic and that of a courtier .... In him we see some of the most glowing pictures of the nobility of poverty combined with the most questionable avidity in the pursuit of wealth." For a convenient collection of Seneca’s resemblances to Scripture, see Farrar, ch. XV., 174-185. The most striking passages are: "A sacred spirit dwells within us, the observer and guardian of all our evil and our good ... there is no good man without God."Ep. ad Lucil. 41. Comp. 1 Cor. 3:16."Not one of us is without fault ... no man is found who can acquit himself." De Ira I.14; II. 27. Comp. 1 John 1:8. "Riches .... the greatest source of human trouble. "De Tranqu. An. 8. Comp. 1 Tim. 6:10 ."You must live for another, if you wish to live for yourself."Ep. 48. Comp. Rom. 12:10. "Let him who hath conferred a favor hold his tongue." De Benef. II.11 Comp. Matt. 6:3.
Col. 1:7; 4:12, 13.
Disc. III. 22. Comp. 1 Cor. 7:35; but also Eph. 5:28-33. Farrar, l.c., p. 213, thinks that the philosopher and the apostle agree in recommending celibacy as "a counsel of perfection." But this is the Roman Catholic, not the Scripture view.
Discourses, III. 10. Here E. discusses the manner in which we ought to bear sickness.
The only point about which the Stoics were undecided was whether all souls would last until that time as separate souls, or whether, as Chrysippus held, only the souls of the wise would survive."Zeller, l.c., p. 205.
Disc. IV. 7: "Through madness (uJpo maniva") it is possible for a man to be so disposed towards these things and through habit(uJpo; e[qou"), as the Galileans." By Galileans he no doubt means Christians, and the allusion is rather contemptuous, like the allusion of Marcus Aurelius to the martyrs, with this difference that the emperor attributes to obstinacy what Epictetus attributes to "habit." But Schweighäuser (II. 913 sq.) suspects that the reading uJpo; e[qou" is false, and that Arrian wrote uJpo; ajponoiva" , wJ" oiJ Gal., so that, Epictetus ascribed to the Christians fury and desperation or dementia. To the Greeks the gospel is foolishness, 1 Cor. 1:22.
According to less probable accounts he died of suicide, or of poison administered to him by order of his son, Commodus. See Renan, p. 485.
"Quid me fletis, et non magis de pestilentia et communi morte cogitatis?" Capitolinus, M. Aurelius.
Medit. v. 31.
So Renan, Marc-Aurèle, p. 488, without qualification: "Avec lui, la philosophie a régné. Un moment, grâce à lui, le monde a été gouverné par l’homme le meilleur et le plus grand de son siècle." But elsewhere he puts Antoninus Pius above Aurelius. "Of the two, " he says (Conférences d’Angleterre, translated by Clara Erskine Clement, p. 140 sq.): "I consider Antonine the greatest. His goodness did not lead him into faults: he was not tormented with that internal trouble which disturbed, without ceasing, the heart of his adopted son. This strange malady, this restless study of himself, this demon of scrupulousness, this fever of perfection, are signs of a less strong and distinguished nature. As the finest thoughts are those which are not written, Antonins had in this respect also a superiority over Marcus Aurelius. But let us add, that we should be ignorant of Antonine, if Marcus Aurelius had not transmitted to us that exquisite portrait of his adopted father, in which he seems to have applied himself through humility, to painting the picture of a better man than himself."
Medit. II. 13.
IV. 17.
IV. 26, 27.
III. 5
IX. 4.
. IX. 5.
V. 10.
IV. 23.
IV. 34, 35.
XII. 21.
IX. 2, 3; XI. 3.
The significant title of Renan’s book is Marc-Aurèle et la fin du monde antique.
XI. 3: "What a soul that is which is ready, if at any moment it must be separated from the body, and ready either to be extinguished or dispersed, or continue to exist; but so that this readiness comes from a man’s own judgment, not from mere obstinacy, as with the Christians, but considerately and with dignity, and in a way to persuade another without scenic show (ajtragwvdw")." I have availed myself in these extracts of Long’s excellent translation, but compared them with the Greek original in Gataker’s edition.
At his earnest request the obsequious Senate declared Faustina a goddess; she was represented in her temples with the attributes of Juno, Venus, and Ceres; and it was decreed that on the day of their nuptials the youth of both sexes should pay their vows before the altar of this adulterous woman. See Gibbon, ch. IV. A bas-relief in the museum of the Capitol at Rome represents Faustina borne to heaven by a messenger of the gods, and her husband looking at her with admiration and love. Renan apologizes for his favorite hero on the ground of the marvellous beauty of Faustina, and excuses her, because she naturally grew tired of the dull company of an ascetic philosopher!
Renan thus describes the sudden relapse (p. 490): "Horrible déception pourles gens de bien! Tant de vertu, tant d’amour n’aboutissant qu’à mettre le monde entre les mains d’un équarrisseur de bêtes, d’un gladiateur ! Aprés cette belle apparition d’un monde élyséen sur la terre, retomber dans l’enfer des Césars, qu’on croyaitfermé pour toujours ! La foi dans le bien fut alors perdue. Après Caligula, après Néron, après Domitien, on avait pu espérer encore. Les expériences n’ avaient pas été décisives. Maintenant, c’est après le plus grand effort de rationalisme gouvernemental, oprès quatre-ving quatre ans d’un régime excellent, après Nerva, Trajan, Adrien, Antonin., Marc-Aurèle, que le règne du mal recommence, pire que jamais. Adieu, verta; adieu, raison. Puisque Marc-Aurèle n’a pas pu sauver le monde, qui le sauvera?"
So Trench calls him, l.c. p. 112. The best account of his philosophy is given by Zeller in his Philosophie der Griechen, Part III., 141-182; and more briefly by Ueberweg, Hist. of Phil. (Eng. Ver.) I. 234-236.
Introduction to Goodwin’s ed. p. xi.
Adv. Colotem (an Epicurean), c. 31 (Moralia, ed. Tauchnitz, VI. 265).
· De Sera Numinis Vindicta. in Goodwin’s ed. vol. IV. 140-188.
Poikivlon ti kai; polupaqe;" kakw'n tamei'on qhsauvrisma, wJ" fhsi Dhmovkrito". Animi ne an corporis affectiones sint pejores, c. 2 (in Wyttenbach’s ed. Tom. III. p. 17).
See § 2, p. 9. sq.
Octavius, cap. 35.
Sacramentum militiae Christianae
Symbolum, or,tessera militaris.
Character militaris, stigma militare,
. Octavius, cap. 37
Friedlaender, II. 391: "Neben den gewaltigen Aufregungen, die Circus und Arena boten, konnte die Bühne ihre Anziehungskraft, für die Massen nur durch unedle Mittel behaupten durch rohe Belustigung und raffinirten Sinnenkitzel: und so hat sie, statt dem verderblichen Einfluss jener anderen Schauspiele die Wage zu halten, zur Corruption und Verwilderung Roms nicht am wenigsten beigetragcn."
De Spectac. c. 10. Comp. Minut. Felix, Octav. c. 37.
Gibbon, ch. XXXI. (vol. III. 384, ed. Smith).
Gibbon, ch. XII. (I. 646).
See the long list of amphitheatres in Friedlaender, II. 502-566.
Friedlaender, II. 370: "In der ganzen römischen Literatur begegnen wir kaum einer Aeusserung des Abscheus, den die heutige Welt gegen diese unmenschlichen Lustbarkeiten empfindet. In der Regel werden die Fechterspiele mit der grössten Gleichgiltigkeit erwähnt. Die Kinder spielen Gladiatoren wie jetzt in Andalusien Stier und Matador."
De Habitu Muliebri, and De Cultu Feminarum.
On the action of his successors, see vol. III. 122 sq.
Lecky, Hist. of Europ. Morals, II. 36 sq.
1 Cor. 7:20.
Apol. c. 42.
Exules vitae.
"Militamus," which proves that many Christians served in the army.
Apol. c. 38: "Nec ulla res aliena magis quam publica."
See the prayer for rulers in the newly discovered portions of the Epistle of Clement of Rome, quoted in § 66,above.
Gibbon, ch. 36, admits this in part. "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." Milman says of the Church: "If treacherous(?) to the interests of the Roman empire, it was true to those of mankind" (III. 48). Lecky (II. 153) says: "It is impossible to deny that the Christian priesthood contributed materially both by their charity and by their arbitration, to mitigate the calamities that accompanied the dissolution of the empire; and it is equally impossible to doubt that their political attitude greatly increased their power for good. Standing between the conflicting form, almost indifferent to the issue, and notoriously exempt from the passions of the combat, they obtained with the conqueror, and used for the benefit of the conquered, a degree of influence they would never have possessed had they been regarded as Roman patriots."
De Civ. Dei. l.c. 1.
"Facies, quae ad similitudinen pulchritudinis est coelestis figurata." Cod. Just. IX 17. 17.
Totidem esse hostes, quot servos." Seneca, Ep. 47. From the time of the Servile Wars the Romans lived in constant fear of slave conspiracies and insurrections. The slaves formed nearly one half of the population, and in some agricultural districts, as in Sicily and Calabria, they were largely in the majority.
Lib. v. c. 15 (ed. Fritsche. Lips. 1842, p. 257).
Inst. v. 14 (p. 257): "Deus enim, qui homines general et inspirat, omnes aequos, id est pares esse voluit; eandem conditionem vivendi onnibus posuit; omnes ad sapientiam genuit; omnibus immortalitatem spopondit, nemo a beneficiis coelestibus segregatur .... Nemo apud cum servus est, nemo dominus; si enim cunctis idem Pater est, aequo jure omnes liberi sumus.
Bulletino for 1866, p. 24. V. Schultze (Die Katakomben, P. 258) infers from the monuments that in the early Christian congregations slavery was reduced to a minimum.
Acta Sanct. Boll. Maj. tom. i. p. 371
Acta Sanct. Ian. tom. iii. 275.
Acta Sanct. Maj. tom. vi. 777.
Champagny, Charité chrét. p. 210 (as quoted by Lecky, II. 74).
Koinwniva tw'n ejleuqevrwn.
Their name eJtai'rai was an Attic euphonism for povrnai. In the temple of Aphrodite at Corinth more than a thousand hetaerae were employed as hierodulae and were the ruin of foreigners (Strabo, VIII. 6, 20). Korinqiva kovrh was a synonym for hetaera, and expressive of the acme of voluptuousness. A full account of these hetaerae and of the whole domestic life of the ancient Greeks may be found in Becker’s Charicles, translated by Metcalf, third ed. London, 1866. Becker says (p. 242), that in the period of the greatest refinement of classical Greece, "sensuality, if not the mother, was at all events the nurse of the Greek perception of the beautiful." Plato himself, even in his ideal state, despaired of restricting his citizens to the lawful intercourse of marriage.
Aspasia bewitched Pericles by her beauty and genius; and Socrates acknowledged his deep obligation to the instructions of a courtesan named Diotima.
Lecky (II. 311) derives this unnatural vice of Greece from the influence of the public games, which accustomed men to the contemplation of absolute nudity, and awoke unnatural passions. See the thirteenth book of Athenaeus, Grote on the Symposium of Plato, and the full account in Döllinger’s Heidenthum und Judenthum, 1857, p. 684 sqq. He says: "Bei den Griechen tritt das Laster der Paederastie mit allen symptomen einer grossen nationalen Krankheit, gleichsam eines ethischen Miasma auf; es zeigt. sich als ein Gefühl, das stärker and heftiger wirkte, als die Weiberliebe bei andern Völkern, massloser, leidenschaftlicher in seinem Ausbrüchen war ... In der ganzen Literatur der vorchristlichen Periode ist kaum ein Schriftsteller zu finden, der sich entschieden dagegen erklärt hätte. Vielmehr war die ganze Gesellschaft davon angesteckt, und man athmete das Miama, so zu sagen, mit der Luft ein." Even Socrates and Plato gave this morbid vice the sanction of their great authority, if not in practice, at least in theory. Comp. Xenophon’s Mem. VIII. 2, Plato’s Charmides, and his descriptions of Eros, and Döllinger, l.c. p. 686 sq. Zeno, the founder of the austere sect of Stoics, was praised for the moderation with which he practiced this vice.
Chapter XLIV., where he discusses at length the Roman code of laws.
Lecky, II. 321.
Gibbon (ch. XLIV.) confirms the statement by several examples, to which more might be added. Maecenas, "qui uxores millies duxit" (Seneca, Ep. 114) was as notorious for his levity in forming and dissolving the nuptial tie, as famous for his patronage of literature and art. Martial (Epigr. VI. 7), though in evident poetical exaggeration, speaks of ten husbands in one month. Juvenal (Satir. VI. 229) exposes a matron, who in five years submitted to the embraces of eight husbands. Jerome (Ad Gerontiam) "saw at Rome a triumphant husband bury his twenty-first wife, who had interred twenty-two of his less sturdy predecessors." These are extreme cases, and hardly furnish a sufficient basis for a general judgment of the state of society in Rome, much less in the provinces. We should not forget the noble and faithful Roman women even in the days of imperial corruption, as Mallonia, who preferred suicide to the embraces of Tiberius; Helvia, the mother of Seneca, and Paulina his wife, who opened her vein to accompany him to the grave; the elder Arria who, when her husband Paetus was condemned to death under Claudius (42), and hesitated to commit suicide, plunged the dagger in her breast, and, drawing it out, said to him with her dying breath: "My Paetus, it does not pain" (Paete, non dolet); and her worthy daughter, Caecinia Arria, the wife of Thrasea, who was condemned to death (66), and her granddaughter Fannia, who accompanied her husband Helvidius Priscus twice into banishment, and suffered a third for his sake after his execution (93). See Pliny, Epist. III.16; Tacitus, Ann. XVI. 30-34; Friedlaender, I. 459 sqq. . Nor should we overlook the monumental evidences of conjugal devotion and happiness in numerous Roman epitaphs. See Friedlaender, I. 463. Yet sexual immorality reached perhaps its lowest depths in imperial Rome, far lower than in the worst periods of the dark ages, or in England under Charles II., or in France under Louis XIV. and XV. And it is also certain, as Lecky says (II. 326), "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." Prenuptial unchastity of men was all but universal among the Romans, according to Cicero’s testimony. Even Epictetus, the severest among the Stoic moralists, enjoins only moderation, not entire abstinence, from this form of vice. Lampridius relates of Alexander Severus, who otherwise legislated against vice, that he provided his unmarried provincial governors with a concubine as a part of their outfit, because "they could not exist without one" (quod sine concubinis esse non possent)."
Ch. XLIV. See a good chapter on the exposure of children in Brace, Gesta Christi, p. 72-83.
Among the converted courtesans of the ancient church in the Roman calendar are St. Mary Magdalene, St. Mary of Egypt, St. Afra, St. Pelagia, St. Thais, and St. Theodota. See Charles de Bussy Les Courtisanes saintes. St. Vitalius, it is said, visited dens of vice every night, gave money to the inmates to keep them from sin, and offered up prayers for their conversion. A curious story is told of St. Serapion, who went to such a place by appointment, and prayed and prayed and prayed till the unfortunate courtesan was converted and fell half dead at his feet. See Lecky, II. 338.
This beautiful idea (often attributed to Matthew Henry, the commentator) was first suggested by Augustin. De Genesi ad Literam, l. IX. c. 13 (in Migne’s ed. of Opera, III.col. 402), and fully stated by Peter the Lombard, Sentent. l. II. Dist. XVIII. (de formatione mulieris): "Mulier de viro, non de qualibet parte corporis viri, sed de latere eius formata est, ut ostenderetur quia in consortium creabatur dilectionis, ne forte, si fuisset de capite facta, viro ad dominationem videretur preferenda, aut si de pedibus, ad servitutem subjicienda. Quia igitur viro nec domina, nec ancilla parabatur, sed socia, nec capite, nec de pedibus, sed de latere fuerat producenda, ut juxta se ponendam cognosceret quam de suo latere sumptam didicisset." And again by Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theol. Pars. I. Quaest. XCII. Art. III. (in Migne’s ed. l.col. 1231).
Eph. 5:28–32. The Vulgate translates to; musthvrion in ver. 32 by sacramentum, and thus furnished a quasi-exegetical foundation to the Catholic doctrine of the sacrament of marriage. The passage is so used by the Council of Trent and in the Roman Catechism. Ellicott (in loc.) judges that "the words cannot possibly be urged in favor of the sacramental nature of marriage, but that the very fact of the comparison does place marriage on a far holier and higher basis than modern theories are disposed to admit." Bengel refers "the mystery " not to marriage, but to the union of Christ with the church ("non matrimonium humanum sed ipsa conjunctio Christi et ecclesiae "). Meyer refers it to the preceding quotation from Genesis; Estius and Ellicott to the intimate conjugal relationship.
Eujch; kai; ajnavgnwsi".
Paedag. III. 250
Ad Uxorem, l II.c. 8.
Ad Polyc. c. 5. In the Syr. version, c. 2.
Tert. Ad Uxor. II. 8; Comp. De Monog. c. 11; De Pudic. c. 4.
Vivatis in Deo. See the picture in Northcote and Brownlow, II. 303. In other and later pictures the ceremony is presided over by Christ, who either crowns the married couple, or is represented by his monogram. Ibid. p. 302.
According to 1 Cor. 7:12, 16.
Legat. 33: JO deuvtero" gavmo" eujprephv" ejsti moiseiva. According to Origen, bigamists may be saved, but will not be crowned by Christ (Hom. XVII. in Luc.). Theophilus Ad Autol. III. 15, says that with the Christians ejgkravteia ajskei'tai, monogamiva threi'tai. Perhaps even Irenaeus held a similar view, to judge from the manner in which he speaks of the woman of Samaria (John 4:7), "quae in uno viro non mansit, sed fornicata est in multis nuptiis." Adv. Haer. III. 17, § 2
Comp. Hauber: Tertullian’s Kampf gegen die zweite Ehe, in the "Studien und Kritiken" for 1845, p. 607 sqq.
De Monog. 1: "Haeretici nuptias auferunt, psychici ingerunt; illi nec semel, isti non semel nubunt."
De Exhort Cast. c. 11: "Duplex rubor est, quia in secundo matramonio duae uxores eundem circumstant maritum, una spiritu, alia in carne. Nequeenim pristinam poteris odisse, cui etiam religiosiorem reservas affectionem ut jam receptae apud Dominum, pro cujus spiritu postulas, pro qua oblationes annuas reddis. Stabis ergo ad Dominum cum tot uxoribus quot in oratione commemoras, et offeres pro duabus," etc.
De Exhort Cast. c. 9:Leges videntur matrimonii et stupri differentiam facere, per diversitatem illiciti, non per conditionem rei ipsius .... Nuptiae ipsae ex eo constant quod est stuprum."
"Non prohibemus secundas nuptias, " says Ambrose, "sed non suademus." None of the fathers recommends remarriage or even approves of it. Jerome represented the prevailing view of the Nicene age. He took the lowest view of marriage as a mere safeguard against fornication and adultery, and could conceive of no other motive for second or third marriage but animal passion. "The first Adam, " he says, "had one wife; the second Adam had no wife. Those who approve of digamy hold forth a third Adam, who was twice married, whom they follow" (Contra Jovin. 1). Gregory of Nazianzum infers from the analogy of marriage to the union of Christ with his church that second marriage is to be reproved, as there is but one Christ and one church (Orat. XXXI).
Apol. I. 27 and 29.
Apol. c. 35
Inst. Div. vi. 20 (p. 48 ed. Lips): "Let no one imagine that even this is allowed, to strangle newly-born children, which is the greatest impiety; for God breathes into their souls for life, and not for death. But men (that there may be no crime with which they may not pollute their hands) deprive souls as yet innocent and simple of the light which they themselves have not given. Can they be considered innocent who expose their own offspring as a prey to dogs, and as far as it depends upon themselves, kill them in a more cruel manner than if they had strangled them? Who can doubt that he is impious who gives occasion for the pity of others? For, although that which he has wished should befall the child—namely, that it should be brought up—he has certainly consigned his own offspring either to servitude or to the brothel? But who does not understand, who is ignorant what things may happen, or are accustomed to happen, in the case of each sex, even through error? For this is shown by the example of OEdipus alone, confused with twofold guilt. It is therefore as wicked to expose as it is to kill. But truly parricides complain of the scantiness of their means, and allege that they have not enough for bringing up more children; as though, in truth, their means were in the power of these who possess them, or God did not daily make the rich poor, and the poor rich. Wherefore, if any one on account of poverty shall be unable to bring up children, it is better to abstain from marriage than with wicked hands to mar the work of God."
For further details see Brace, l.c. 79 sqq., and Terme et Monfalcon, Hist. des enfants trouvés. Paris, 1840.
Pro Archia poeta, c. 11: "Trahimur omnes laudis studio, et optimus quisque maxime gloria ducitur."
Tapeinov". tapeinovfrwn,tapeinovth", tapeinofrosuvnh.
Matt. 5:23, 24, 44; 6:12; 18:21. Rom. 12:17, 19, 20. 1 Cor. 13:7. I Thess. 5:15. 1 Pet. 3:9.
Prom. Vinct. v. 1005, Comp. 1040. Many passages of similar import from Homer, Hesiod, Sophocles, Euripedes, etc., see quoted on p. 81 sqq. of the article of Schaubach referred to above.
De Offic. I. 25: "Nihil enim laudabilius, nihil magno et praeclaro viro dignius placabilitate et clementia."
Comp. Seneca, De ira II. 32: "Magni animi est injurias despicere. Illemagnus et nobilis est, qui more magnae ferae latratus minutorum canum securus exaudit."
Cristofovroi, qeofovroi
Gravmmata tetupwmevna or koinwnikav: epistolae or literae formatae; so called, because composed after a certain tuvpo" or forma, to guard against frequent forgeries.
Comp. James 1:27; Hebr. 13:1-3, 16.
Comelius, in Euseb. H. E. VI. 43.
De Morte Peregr. c. 13.
Dionysius of Corinth, in Eus. IV. 23.
Ad Scapulam, c. 1: Ita enim disciplina jubemur diligere inimicos quoque,et orare pro iis qui nos persequuntur, ut haec sit perfecta et propria bonitas nostra, non communis. Amicos enim diligere omnium est, inimicos autem solorum Christianorum."
Nosocomia, Ptochotrophia, Xenodochia, Cherotrophia, Orphanotrophia, Brephotrophia, Gerontocomia (for old men).
See Uhlhorn, Book III.ch. 4 (p. 319 sqq.).
De Orat. Domin. 33: "Cito orationes ad Deum adscendunt, quas ad Deum merita operis nostri imponunt."De Lapsis 17:"Dominus orandus est, Dominus nostra satisfactione placandus est."Epist. xl. 2: "Preces et orationes, quibus Dominus longa et continua satisfactione placandus est."
Comp. Acts 13:2; 14:23; 2 Cor. 6:5
Semijejunium, abstinentia.
Matt. 9:15.
Luke 6:12. Acts 16:25.
From quatuor tempora.
Comp. Matt. 9:15; Gal. 4:9; 5:1.
Xhrofagivai, aridus victus. See Tertullian, De Jejuu, 15; Hippolytus. Philos. VIII. 19.
And it occurs occasionally even among Christian nations. The corpse of the richest merchant prince of New York, Alexander T. Stewart (d. 1876), was stolen from St. Mark’s grave-yard, and his splendid mausoleum in Garden City on Long Island is empty.
Iliad XXIII. 81-88, in Bryant’s translation (IT. 284)-
Epist, XLIX. ad Arsacium, the pagan high-priest in Galatia.
Eus. IX. 8.
Eusebius, H. E. V. I.
Instit. Div. Vl.c. 12
Testim. l. III.c. 58
Comp. 1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16. Burial was the prevailing Oriental and even the earlier Roman custom before the empire, and was afterwards restored, no doubt under the influence of Christianity Minucius Felix says (Octav. c. 34): "Veterem et meliorem consuetudinem humandi frequentamus." Comp. Cicero, De Leg. II. 22; Pliny, Hist. Nat. VII. 54; Augustin, De Civ Dei I. 12, 13. Sometimes dead Christians were burned during the persecution by the heathen to ridicule their hope of a resurrection.
Comp. Gen. 23:19; Matt. 27:60; John 11:17; Acts 5:6; 8:2.
Acts 9:37.
Matt. 27:59; Luke 23:53; John 11:44.
John 19:39 sq.; 12:7.
We have the funeral orations of Eusebius at the death of Constantine, of Gregory of Nazianzum on his father, brother, and sister, of Ambrose on Theodosius.
"Pro anima ejus orat!" Compare, however, the prevailing cheerful tone of the epigraphs in the catacombs, p. 301-303.
Koimhthvria, cimeteria, dormitoria, areae.
From his Iam maesta quiesce querela, the concluding part of his tenth Cathemerinon, Opera, ed. Obbarius (1845), p. 41; Schaff, Christ in Song, p. 506 (London ed.). Another version by E. Cagwall: "Cease, ye tearful mourners, Thus your hearts to rend: Death is life’s beginning Rather than its end."