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.