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CHAPTER I
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JUSTINIAN / / ST. GREGORY // MUHAMMAD
JUSTINIAN
THE Emperor Justinian
(483-565) marks an epoch in the history of the Empire and the Church. He was a
nephew of the Macedonian peasant Justin, who became commander-inchief of the imperial guard and in 518 was placed upon the imperial throne.
The uncle needed the help of his well-educated and capable nephew, and
Justinian really governed in the name of Justin until he succeeded him in 527.
And he ruled so well that he has been fitly called “the last great Roman
emperor”. Constantinople was torn with factions and distressed with religious
schisms, but remained the centre of a unique art and
a far-spreading civilization. Justinian determined to make it the undisputed
heiress of ancient Rome and supreme over the barbarous kingdoms of the West.
His abilities were hardly inferior to his ambitions, and his industry was so
unceasing that a contemporary called him “the Emperor that never sleeps”.
The Empire was beset by
enemies on every side, but with the aid of two singularly capable generals,
Belisarius and Narses, Justinian was able to rehabilitate imperial authority in
the West. In 533 Belisarius crushed the Vandal kingdom in North Africa. Barely
ten years later the south-east of Spain was wrested from the Visigoths, and in
553 Narses broke the resistance of the Ostrogoths in central Italy. The
Mediterranean was nearly a Roman sea once more. Unfortunately these successes
in the West were gained at the expense of grave difficulties in the East. The
power of the Persians became a serious menace under the leadership of King Khusrau (Chosroes) Nushirvan, who
pillaged Antioch in 540, and Justinian had not only to sign truces, but
finally, in 562, had to make a treaty undertaking to pay tribute to the 'Great
King'. On the whole, however, Justinian established his Empire firmly and
proudly in the midst of vassal tribes from Armenia and Thebes to Venice and
Tangiers. He effected the reform and consolidation of Roman law,
infusing into it a more Christian spirit; he reorganized the administration of
justice; and he built roads, aqueducts, and hundreds of fortresses to defend
the frontiers.
With heathenism he dealt
severely. It was now the religion of the 'pagani',
the village folk of the remoter districts, but often cherished in secret by
others, even among the best educated classes. At Athens, in particular,
Platonism still survived, though it was of an eclectic kind, absorbing
Christian morality and popular magic. The Athenian school closed in 529, and
the professors went to breathe a freer atmosphere at the court of Persia. Here
they learned what paganism was when unabashed, and they returned to Europe in
disgust. For the more ignorant heathen people of Asia Minor Justinian found a
most capable missionary in the person of a monk of Amida, John, who won the
title of 'John of Asia'. He founded a monastery in an abandoned pagan temple
near Tralles, and induced thousands of peasants to
break their idols, cut down their sacred trees and receive Christian
baptism. Though a cultivated speaker and writer, he fanatically aided the
Emperor’s policy of suppressing heresy, and he boasted that he had set fire to
Montanist temples and thrown into the flames the bones of the false prophets of
the second century, Montanus, Priscilla, and Maximilla. He was really a
Monophysite, but the Government would not permit any converts to Christianity
to learn anything which contradicted orthodoxy. And in fact to keep the balance
between orthodoxy and Monophysitism was the great
problem which beset the Emperor in his ecclesiastical policy.
STATE OF THE ORIENTAL CHURCH IN THE SIXTH CENTURY
Without some knowledge of
that problem it is as impossible to understand the history of the sixth century
as it is impossible to understand the history of the sixteenth century
without a knowledge of Catholicism, Lutheranism, and Calvinism.
Eastern Christianity in
the time of Justinian was divided into three great sections, the Orthodox
Catholic, the Nestorian, and the Monophysite. All three sections worshipped
Jesus Christ as an essentially divine Person. But they were divided with regard
to His human nature. The Orthodox held that He was perfectly human as well as
perfectly divine. They formed the largest body of the Christians who spoke
Greek, and they had the support of Rome. The Nestorians followed the doctrine
of Nestorius, the Patriarch of Constantinople, who was excommunicated by the
Council of Ephesus in 431. They insisted upon the complete humanity of Christ
in such a way as to threaten the reality of His Deity.
The Monophysites followed
in the steps of the Abbot Eutyches, who was excommunicated at the Council of
Chalcedon in 451, and they taught the antithesis of Nestorianism. Relying upon
some ambiguous words of St. Cyril, the great opponent of Nestorius, they held
that the humanity of Christ was changed by or changed into His Deity, so as to
become in some degree non-human. Nestorianism drew most of its supporters from
the Syrians and Persians, Monophysitism was
popular in Egypt, Syria, and Armenia: It was advocated by two opposing but
singularly dexterous writers, Severus and Julian of Halicarnassus. Severus held
that the flesh of Christ was capable of corruption until the Resurrection.
Julian held that His flesh throughout His life was incorruptible. The opponents
of Julian's view nicknamed it Aphthartodocetism, the
doctrine of an incorruptible illusion. All the above views were held with
passionate conviction, and advocated not only with self-sacrificing zeal, but
also with ingenuity and learning.
Now, Justinian was an
ardent theologian, and he saw, like Constantine, that if the Empire was to be
one, the Church of the Empire must be one. And if his predominance over the
West was to be secure, the religion of the Church must be the orthodox religion
of the Pope. So a reunion was quickly effected between East and West,
and in 519 a schism which had lasted thirty-five years was healed. Pope
Hormisdas sent legates to Constantinople with a carefully prepared formulary in
which Nestorius, Eutyches, and all their partisans were anathematized, and the
apostolic See was declared to have always preserved the faith inviolate. The
patriarch signed the document, and the names of the erring Monophysite
Emperors, Zeno and Anastasius, were erased from the diptychs, or tablets from
which were recited the names of persons to be prayed for in the liturgy.
On becoming Emperor, in
527, Justinian acted as the tutor of the Church. He not only protected it, he
instructed it by edicts sent to the five patriarchs, the Patriarch of Rome
being inevitably brought within the sphere of his influence. In the East the patriarchs,
like modern English bishops, were elected by the Church, but not until they had
been nominated by the Government.
At Rome the Pope was
elected by the Romans, but their choice had to be ratified by the Emperor. And
on the whole the patriarchs were chosen wisely and were often worthy of their
high calling. Under a beneficent Caesaropapism the Church was strengthened within
the Empire and spread beyond it. But the Monophysites were strong, especially
in Egypt, which supplied a large amount of the corn required for the Empire;
and the Monophysites had a friend in the Empress Theodora.
Theodora, like her
husband, was of humble origin. Her father was a bear-keeper in the hippodrome,
and she was an impudent adventuress before she became an irreproachable consort
with a zeal for the good morals of the capital. She encouraged and guided her
husband by her firmness and outwitted him with tactful cunning. Less Roman in
her outlook than Justinian, both her policy and her religion prompted her to
make concessions to the dissenters. The Emperor wished to maintain the position
that the theology of St. Cyril, so much applauded by the Monophysites, was
compatible with the theology of the orthodox Council of Chalcedon. But his
efforts to secure peace on that reasonable basis were consistently thwarted.
The Monophysites were
obstinate and smuggled into the liturgy the statement that God “was
crucified for us”, an ambiguous phrase of heretical origin. After much
discussion Justinian, in 533, sanctioned an orthodox modification of it to the
effect that “one of the Trinity suffered in the flesh”. Having gained
this qualified success Theodora proceeded to secure the patriarchal throne for
the Monophysite bishop Anthemius. He was exposed by Pope Agapetus and soon
deposed. Monophysite books were burnt, and in 543 an imperial edict and the
canons of a synod condemned the teaching and person of the great Alexandrine
theologian Origen (d. 254), some of whose works were interpreted as favoring Monophysitism.
Two Origenist bishops then persuaded Justinian that the easiest way to pacify the
Monophysites would be to censure three other dead theologians, Theodore of Mopsuestia, Theodoret, and Ibas,
who were all regarded as tainted with Nestorianism.
The Emperor fell into the
trap, and in 544 issued an edict which contained three paragraphs, afterwards
known as the Three Chapters, concerning (1) Theodore’s person and doctrine; (2)
certain books of Theodoret; (3) a letter of Ibas to
Maris. These and all who defended them were to be anathematized. On the whole
the East was content to do so, but a strong opposition was manifested in the
West, where such a condemnation was regarded as a reflection on the orthodoxy
of the Council of Chalcedon. Pope Vigilius, though he owed his throne to
Theodora, protested and came in 547 to Constantinople, where he renewed his
protest. Soon, however, he veered round and published his Judicatum condemning the aforesaid writings.
The West was very angry, and an African council excommunicated him. He changed
again and boldly defied the Emperor. The result was that he had to flee for
refuge, first to the basilica of St. Peter in Hormisda,
and then to a church at Chalcedon.
In the meantime Justinian
made energetic preparation for the Fifth Ecumenical Council, the second of
Constantinople, which met in May 553. Vigilius refused to attend, and
immediately sent to the Emperor a memorandum, Constitutum,
in which he refused to condemn the persons of the erring theologians. The
Council, however, condemned not only their writings but also the person of
Theodore, while to some extent softening this condemnation by confirming the
acts of the Council of Chalcedon. The Pope was apparently exiled for six
months, after which he definitely accepted the decision of the Council. He died
in Sicily on his way home. The result of his surrender was that several
dioceses in the West remained separated from Rome, some of them for more than a
hundred years.
So far from reconciling
the Monophysites, Justinian’s action aggravated the schismatic and separatist
tendencies of Egypt and Syria. And, in spite of this imprudent aggravation, he
himself before his death seems to have adopted the Monophysite theory that the
body of Christ, though de facto corruptible and capable of weakness, because
“He willed it, was de jure incorruptible and impassible”.
Justinian became an Aphthartodocetist, and wrote an
edict in support of his views to the patriarchs. The patriarchs and bishops,
however, showed that their docility was not unlimited and in all directions
voiced their disapproval; but before Justinian could visit them with his full
displeasure he had been summoned to another world.
PLATONISM
Though Platonism was
banned if it was combined with the worship of the gods of Greece, the later
Platonism survived in a Christian form. It was fitted into a logical scheme of
Christian theology and Eastern fantasy by a gifted writer who lived about 500,
and is known by the fictitious name of Dionysius the Areopagite, the disciple
of St. Paul. He taught that to live truly is to be united with God, and that
the purifying life which flows through love from this transcendent, yet
immanent, Being draws God’s manifold creation to himself. Divine love
is an eternal circle, from goodness, through goodness, and to goodness. Between
the Triune God and the world are ranged the three triads of the celestial
hierarchy. Of these the highest consists of Seraphim, Cherubim, and Thrones.
They reflect the brightness of God to the second three, who reflect it to the
third, who more especially minister to mankind. Under this third celestial
hierarchy is the earthly hierarchy of the Church, through which the light comes
to men through the mysteries. All worship is treated as a celebration of
mysteries. What the Triune Deity is to the celestial hierarchy, Christ
incarnate is to the terrestrial. Through Him the union of God and man is effected. This is the most distinctively Christian element
in the system, and it is described in a manner which was acceptable to both the
Orthodox and the Monophysites. The influence of the writings of Dionysius was
profound on East and West, on theology and poetry alike. It can be seen in
Dante and in St. Thomas Aquinas, and many others who have found within their
souls a “light which lights every man that comes into the world”.
What the works of
Dionysius were for mystic theology, the church of St. Sophia was for art and
worship. After a long series of experiments and a gradual assimilation of
Oriental elements from Asia and Egypt, Byzantine art in the time of Justinian
produced buildings which show a wonderful originality and an equally wonderful
mastery of technical difficulties. The finest of these buildings is the
cathedral church of Constantinople, now a mosque. It has been imitated, but
never equaled. The long nave recalls the basilicas of an earlier date. But it
is crowned by a huge dome inserted between a half-dome at the east and another
at the west. The construction of the great dome is such that the four piers
which support it are hardly seen, and, as an ancient writer says, it seems not
so much to rest upon masonry as to be suspended from heaven. Adorned with the
rarest marbles and brilliant mosaics, St. Sophia’s justified the boast of its
imperial founder that he had vanquished Solomon. The architects were Anthemius
of Tralles and Isidore of Miletus.
ST. GREGORY
St. Gregory the Great
(540-604) admirably represents the Western Christianity which in the sixth
century was clearly conscious of its own distinctive life. Legend threw its
halo round the Pope, whose missionary zeal was kindled when he saw the
angel-faced Angle boys exposed for sale by a Jew in the Roman market-place. It
was said that he invented the solemn and pathetic 'Roman chant', and in the
later Middle Ages artists delighted to paint the 'Mass of St.
Gregory' at which our Lord appears in visible flesh at the altar. He remains a
great man and a real saint without any need of these and other fables.
Born of a very wealthy
and ancient family, he became about 573 prefect of the city of Rome, the
highest layman in the city. Very soon afterwards he exchanged his glittering
silken robes for the rough dress of a monk, and turned into a monastery his
palace on the Caelian Hill. After three or four years as a happy monk he was
ordained 'seventh deacon' of the Roman Church, and in 579 he was sent by Pope
Pelagius II as apocrisiarius or nuncio to Constantinople.
While there he learned no Greek, but he learned that the Eastern Empire, in
spite of Justinian's great ambitions, was unable or unwilling to protect Italy
from her invaders. He consoled himself by composing lectures on the Book of
Job, lectures which blossomed into his Moralia,
a work which remained for centuries a standard textbook of theology.
Gregory, on his return to
Rome in 586, became abbot of his monastery, and in 590 was elected Pope,
greatly to his own sorrow. His high ideal of a bishop's duty is shown to us in
his famous treatise the Book of Pastoral Rule, which gained a position not inferior
to that of the writings of St. Augustine. It is remarkable for the great
emphasis which it lays upon preaching, and the necessity of appealing in
different ways to different classes of hearers. Like St. Basil, he was a man of
very feeble health, his digestion having been impaired by his excessive fasting
and a vegetarian diet. But very few men have been able to bear so heavy a load
of responsibility on their shoulders. In dealing with the Lombards, most
of whom were still Arian, it was Gregory, and not the civil exarch, who represented
Rome and its power of resistance.
Patriot and peacemaker,
he had, as he lay on his death-bed, the satisfaction of trusting that he had
saved the Eternal City from becoming the residence of a barbarous Lombard duke,
and he knew that peace had not been won at the cost of honor. He was a
first-rate landlord of the vast papal estates, building up the temporal as well
as the spiritual power of the Papacy, and was as lavish in his charities as he
was austere in his own manner of life. A monk among monks, he enforced a strict
observance of wholesome discipline in the monasteries under his authority, and
he forbade priests to cohabit with their wives, a prohibition which the Council
of Nicaea had refused to make.
Near the close of 593 he
published his Dialogues, a collection of edifying and even
entertaining stories, showing that God is on the side of His Catholic
worshippers. The miracles which are recorded show that Gregory in all good
faith was ready to believe a good deal that was neither probable nor proved.
But the stories form a very valuable series of illustrations of the social and
religious life of the period. His letters, of which eight hundred and eighty
still remain, testify to his immense activity and influence. He possessed all
the skill of a Roman diplomat, and his praises of the bloodstained tyrant Phocas,
and his flattering correspondence with Brunhild, the great Frankish queen
who abjured Arianism, are difficult to excuse unless they were written in
ignorance. Adulation was one of the faults of the intellectual people of his
age.
But Gregory rose above
his age when he protested against the persecution of the Jews and wrote
“conversions wrought by force are never sincere”. As Pope he engaged in two
notable controversies. The first was with the Emperor Maurice, who in an edict
of 593 forbade any functionary or soldier to enter the clerical or the monastic
order. Gregory was indignant; but, after a discussion which lasted for quite
four years, it was agreed that no official should be received into a monastery
until he was released from all obligations to the State, and no soldier without
inquiry into his previous life and a novitiate of three years’ duration.
Gregory's second
controversy was with the ascetic and ambitious Patriarch of Constantinople,
John the Faster. The patriarch used to describe himself by the title of
Ecumenical or Universal Patriarch, a title which, if it meant anything at all,
might mean that all the Empire was under his spiritual authority, or that he
was the first bishop in it. Orientals appear to have regarded the title as a
mere flower of speech, but Gregory scented danger, and protested with eloquence
and vigor. Like St. Augustine and St. Leo, he used to describe himself as “servus servorum Dei”,
a title which in the ninth century became used exclusively by popes. The
sincerity of his protest is proved by the fact that when the Patriarch of
Alexandria addressed him as 'Universal Pope' and alluded to his 'commands',
Gregory absolutely repudiated the title and said, “In position you are my
brother, in character my father. I gave, therefore, no commands, but only
endeavored to point out what I thought was desirable”.
The Roman patriarchate
included the suburbicarian provinces, that is, roughly, all Italy south
of Ancona, and with it the Italian islands. The bishops of these regions
were ordained at Rome, though elected at home: in other sees the Pope had
nothing to do with the election of new bishops, except at Ravenna, where the
metropolitan was regarded as his suffragan. In the sixth century the great sees
of Milan and Aquileia were for years outside the communion of the Church of
Rome. But Gregory kept his eyes upon the whole Church. He regarded the
'Apostolic See', the See of Rome, as possessing an authority which
extended over the whole of Christendom, an authority which left to every bishop
his own jurisdiction while ensuring that he did not exceed it. He claimed a
real primacy, but it was very far from that claimed by modern popes, who
maintain that every Christian is under their immediate jurisdiction.
St. Gregory’s theological
teaching was based partly upon a careful study of St. Augustine, and partly
upon conceptions of angelology, demonology, and purgatory which hitherto had
been popular but undefined. He was not an original thinker; but he was a great
teacher, who consolidated the Western Catholicism of his time, shaping it by
his own earnest and straightforward spirit.
His missionary zeal was
as fruitful as his doctrine. He made strenuous efforts to uproot paganism in
all directions, to banish Arianism from Spain, Donatism from Africa,
and Manichaeism from Sicily. He wrote to Domitian, Bishop of Melitene and Metropolitan of Lesser Armenia, who had
vainly endeavored to convert the Persian king, Chosroes. He tried to
console that able prelate by suggesting that, in spite of his failure, he would
gain a reward, for “the Ethiopian comes out of the bath as black as he went in,
yet the bathman gets his pay”.
It had been
Gregory’s desire before he became Pope to undertake in person the conversion of
Britain. This was in some degree facilitated by his friendly relations with the
Franks and the fact that Ethelbert, King of Kent, had married a Christian princess.
But Gregory’s elevation to the papal chair made it impossible to carry out his
original plan, and so he chose for the great task his friend, the prior of his
own monastery on the Caelian Hill, Augustine. The slave boys whom he had bought
in the market-place were not yet sufficiently trained to go back to England.
But a group of monks was ready to accompany Augustine in the spring of 596, and
together they left Rome by the Ostian Gate
and started for the island, which the Saxon invaders had reduced to a
wilderness. Arrived in Provence, the monks were terrified at the tales of Saxon
ferocity which were poured into their ears, and they made Augustine return to
Rome in order to procure their recall. Gregory, as might have been expected,
sent Augustine back with a letter of affectionate encouragement to the wavering
missionaries, and a batch of epistles directed to the royal and ecclesiastical
personages who might be expected to help the travelers on their way through
Gaul to Britain.
The beginning of the
conversion of the English must be reckoned as one of the great achievements of
St. Gregory. And to the English people it should be a source of perennial
satisfaction that he was a real leader, teacher, and shepherd of souls.
MUHAMMAD
Great as was the
influence of St. Gregory, it was not so great as that of his younger
contemporary Muhammad. In him the Judaized Christianity, which had
dogged the footsteps of St. Paul and had long appeared to be dormant and almost
dead, became incarnate, and has to this day remained the most potent enemy of
the Gospel. Some of the lesser doctrines of Islam are of Persian origin and
some practices are derived from old Arabian heathenism. But the system as a
whole can be traced to the Jews and to the Ebionite sects which
combined a crude Judaism with the belief that Jesus is the Messiah.
Muhammad praises 'the Gospel'; but it is more than doubtful whether he ever
possessed or read a copy. And Muslims who are confronted with his expressions
of reverence for the Gospel usually say that since his time the Christians have
corrupted their own sacred books.
Muhammad, 'the praised
one', was born about 570, and first appears in history as a prosperous
middle-aged tradesman of Mecca in Arabia. The country was then mainly pagan,
but Jewish sects, both orthodox and unorthodox, were to be found there, and
Christianity was not unknown. The pagans worshipped fetish idols and went on
pilgrimages to the shrine of Allah, the principal deity of Mecca. The
government of the pagans was as a rule of a tribal character. Civilization was
of a very rudimentary character, but writing in the Arabic script had begun
about the time of the prophet’s birth, and Mecca was an important trading centre. With genuine enthusiasm Muhammad set himself the
threefold task of a reform which was theological, social, and moral. His hope
was to exterminate idolatry, to replace the tribal system by an orderly
government which would put an end to wars and assassinations, and to stop
infanticide and, apparently, certain forms of sexual promiscuity. He was
assisted by his wife Khadija, who was fifteen years his senior, and to the
last retained such an influence over him that one of his younger wives said
that she was jealous of no one but “the toothless old woman”.
During the first three
years of his missionary activity he made a few converts, but the Meccans had
no desire to be under an inspired dictator; and as it was against their scruple
to shed human blood in Mecca, they resolved to starve him to death. With
masterly skill Muhammad secured the sympathy of the pagans and the Jews of
Medina, and the Meccans learnt too late that he held in his hands the
city which could kill their commerce. His flight (hijra) to Medina was
on the Jewish Day of Atonement, September the 20th, 622.
Once at Medina he either
converted or crushed the pagans. He failed to convert the Jews, who were fully
aware of his gross ignorance of the Jewish 'Law' which he pretended to honor.
But as the Jewish tribes would not co-operate in opposing him, he dealt with
them separately, and the last tribe he massacred to a man. He then sowed
dissension among the Arab tribes with such success that he was able to enter
Mecca in triumph.
Shortly before this
happened, he became fully convinced that his religious mission should be
extended to the world, and is said to have sent letters to all the monarchs
whose names he knew bidding them to embrace Islam, the religion of 'Surrender'.
These missions were effective in South Arabia, but at Mutah,
in the Byzantine Empire, they led to the first conflict between the Christians
and the Muslims, a conflict which soon cost the Christian Empire a heavy price.
Muhammad died June the
7th, 632, calling God to witness that he had delivered his message. No man was
ever a more complete summary of the good and evil energies of his own nation.
He was no vulgar impostor. He began his career as a reformer, and he was a
genius from first to last. But his character steadily degenerated from the time
when he became the despot of Medina and determined to acquire political power.
His treatment of the Jews was treacherous and cruel, and his lasciviousness led
him to actions which he could only excuse on the ground of special revelations.
But he was a man born to command and to organize, skilful in selecting subordinates, and able to retain their confidence. And he
impressed upon multitudes the belief that God is one God and that all Muslims
are really equal. It is this twofold belief that gives Islam its present power.
The success of Islam was
almost inconceivably rapid. When the prophet died all Arabia had accepted it.
By the middle of the century Syria and Palestine, Egypt and Persia, had
succumbed, and before its close North Africa, the home of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine,
echoed with the creed “There is no God but God and Muhammad is the apostle of
God”.
The doctrine of
Islam, i.e. the religion of surrender to God, is contained in
his book the Koran (Qur'an) which is regarded as the absolutely infallible
words of God, and in the Hadith, narrations, or traditions of the words
and actions of the prophet. Many of these traditions are comparatively late and
some are obviously derived from Christian sources.
God is one in a strictly
Unitarian sense. The doctrine of the Trinity is repudiated; but the Christian
Trinity is supposed to consist of God, Jesus, and Mary. Mary the mother of our
Lord is confused with Miriam the sister of Moses. The Holy Spirit is mentioned,
but is identified with the angel Gabriel.
God has communicated with
man not only by inspired writing but also by warning messengers. At one time
Muhammad believed in seven, of whom three were Arabs, and the remaining four
Noah, Lot, Abraham (sent to Nimrod!), and Moses. Later he adopts the Aramaic
word Nabi, prophet, for such messengers, and includes among them Adam,
David, and Elijah. Greater than all former messengers was Jesus. In
exalting Him, Muhammad was able to exalt himself by representing Jesus as
having prophesied his coming. Jesus was born of a virgin, was sinless, the Word
of God, the Messiah, 'a spirit from God', worked miracles, and was taken up to
heaven. It is passionately denied that He is the Son of God, though the word
which Muhammad uses for 'Son' is quite distinct from the word used in Christian
Arabic, and signifies one physically begotten. His death upon the cross is also
denied. Following the opinion of the Docetic Ebionites, it is taught
that another figure was miraculously substituted for Jesus and crucified in His
stead.
There will be a last
judgment; heaven and hell await mankind. Heaven is a place of sensual pleasure,
and little or nothing in Muhammad's own description of it indicates anything
else. A nobler view was taught by some later Muslim theologians, while some of
the traditions develop the baser features of Muhammad's paradise.
A Muslim may have only
four wives, though the prophet himself was permitted by special 'revelations'
to marry more. The number of lawful concubines has no limit. This degrading
view of womanhood and Muhammad's gross example have proved the running sore of
Islam, and done far more evil than the good effected in hot countries by the
prohibition of pork and wine. Circumcision is maintained, as it was by
the Ebionites.
Great importance is
attached to almsgiving, and every Muslim must pray five times a day towards
Mecca. Originally prayers were made towards Jerusalem, the Sabbath was kept,
and a fast day similar to the Jewish Day of Atonement. But when the prophet
definitely separated from the Jews, he directed that his followers should pray
towards Mecca and keep Friday as the day of meeting for worship. In imitation
of the Christian Lent, he appointed that the thirty days of the month Ramadan
should be kept as fast days. The Muslim may neither eat nor drink between
sunrise and sunset in that month, but after sunset he may feast. The result is
that the poor working classes suffer, while the rich can rest by day and revel
by night. To fight against non-Muslims when called upon to do so by the proper
authority is regarded as a peculiarly meritorious action.
A pilgrimage to Mecca is
incumbent upon all who have the means to undertake it, and it is an institution
which has a great effect in consolidating the different Muslim races. The
important Shiah sect has substituted pilgrimages to the shrines of
saints for pilgrimages to Mecca. And as early as AD 691
the Khalif Abd al-Malik built at Jerusalem the splendid
mosque known as the Dome of the Rock, hoping for political reasons that
pilgrims would be satisfied with visiting it instead of going to Mecca. He also
intended that it should surpass in beauty the church of the Resurrection over
the grave of Christ, a church which the followers of Muhammad, in their hatred
of the Christian faith, nicknamed 'the Church of the Dunghill'.
Western Christendom was
gradually able to subdue the Germanic invaders and lead them to Christ. But
Eastern Christendom, distracted by controversies, could not stem the great tide
of Arab fanaticism and ferocity.
ST. GREGORY
St. Gregory the Great (540-604) admirably represents the Western
Christianity which in the sixth century was clearly conscious of its own
distinctive life. Legend threw its halo round the Pope, whose missionary zeal
was kindled when he saw the angel-faced Angle boys exposed for sale by a Jew in
the Roman market-place. It was said that he invented the solemn and pathetic
'Roman chant', and in the later Middle Ages artists
delighted to paint the 'Mass of St. Gregory' at which our Lord appears in
visible flesh at the altar. He remains a great man and a real saint without any
need of these and other fables.
Born of a very wealthy and ancient family, he became about 573 prefect
of the city of Rome, the highest layman in the city. Very soon afterwards he
exchanged his glittering silken robes for the rough dress of a monk, and turned
into a monastery his palace on the Caelian Hill. After three or four years as a
happy monk he was ordained 'seventh deacon' of the Roman Church, and in 579 he
was sent by Pope Pelagius II as apocrisiarius or nuncio to Constantinople. While there he
learned no Greek, but he learned that the Eastern Empire, in spite of
Justinian's great ambitions, was unable or unwilling to protect Italy from her
invaders. He consoled himself by composing lectures on the Book of Job,
lectures which blossomed into his Moralia, a work which remained for centuries a standard
textbook of theology.
Gregory, on his return to Rome in 586, became abbot of his monastery,
and in 590 was elected Pope, greatly to his own sorrow. His high ideal of a
bishop's duty is shown to us in his famous treatise the Book of Pastoral Rule,
which gained a position not inferior to that of the writings of St. Augustine.
It is remarkable for the great emphasis which it lays upon preaching, and the
necessity of appealing in different ways to different classes of hearers. Like
St. Basil, he was a man of very feeble health, his digestion having been
impaired by his excessive fasting and a vegetarian diet. But very few men have
been able to bear so heavy a load of responsibility on their shoulders. In
dealing with the Lombards, most of whom were still
Arian, it was Gregory, and not the civil exarch, who represented Rome and its power of resistance.
Patriot and peacemaker, he had, as he lay on his death-bed, the
satisfaction of trusting that he had saved the Eternal City from becoming the
residence of a barbarous Lombard duke, and he knew that peace had not been won
at the cost of honor. He was a first-rate landlord of the vast papal estates,
building up the temporal as well as the spiritual power of the Papacy, and was
as lavish in his charities as he was austere in his own manner of life. A monk
among monks, he enforced a strict observance of wholesome discipline in the
monasteries under his authority, and he forbade priests to cohabit with their wives,
a prohibition which the Council of Nicaea had refused to make.
Near the close of 593 he published his Dialogues, a collection of edifying and even entertaining stories,
showing that God is on the side of His Catholic worshippers. The miracles which
are recorded show that Gregory in all good faith was ready to believe a good
deal that was neither probable nor proved. But the stories form a very valuable
series of illustrations of the social and religious life of the period. His
letters, of which eight hundred and eighty still remain, testify to his immense
activity and influence. He possessed all the skill of a Roman diplomat, and his
praises of the bloodstained tyrant Phocas, and his
flattering correspondence with Brunhild, the great
Frankish queen who abjured Arianism, are difficult to excuse unless they were
written in ignorance. Adulation was one of the faults of the intellectual
people of his age.
But Gregory rose above his age when he protested against the persecution
of the Jews and wrote “conversions wrought by force are never sincere”. As Pope
he engaged in two notable controversies. The first was with the Emperor
Maurice, who in an edict of 593 forbade any functionary or soldier to enter the
clerical or the monastic order. Gregory was indignant; but, after a discussion
which lasted for quite four years, it was agreed that no official should be
received into a monastery until he was released from all obligations to the
State, and no soldier without inquiry into his previous life and a novitiate of
three years’ duration.
Gregory's second controversy was with the ascetic and ambitious
Patriarch of Constantinople, John the Faster. The patriarch used to describe
himself by the title of Ecumenical or Universal Patriarch, a title which, if it
meant anything at all, might mean that all the Empire was under his spiritual
authority, or that he was the first bishop in it. Orientals appear to have
regarded the title as a mere flower of speech, but Gregory scented danger, and
protested with eloquence and vigor. Like St. Augustine and St. Leo, he used to
describe himself as “servus servorum Dei”,
a title which in the ninth century became used exclusively by popes. The
sincerity of his protest is proved by the fact that when the Patriarch of
Alexandria addressed him as 'Universal Pope' and alluded to his 'commands',
Gregory absolutely repudiated the title and said, “In position you are my
brother, in character my father. I gave, therefore, no commands, but only
endeavored to point out what I thought was desirable”.
The Roman patriarchate included the suburbicarian provinces, that is,
roughly, all Italy south of Ancona, and with it the
Italian islands. The bishops of these regions were ordained at Rome, though
elected at home: in other sees the Pope had nothing to do with the election of
new bishops, except at Ravenna, where the metropolitan was regarded as his
suffragan. In the sixth century the great sees of Milan and Aquileia were for
years outside the communion of the Church of Rome. But Gregory kept his eyes upon
the whole Church. He regarded the 'Apostolic See', the See of Rome, as possessing an authority which extended over the whole of
Christendom, an authority which left to every bishop his own jurisdiction while
ensuring that he did not exceed it. He claimed a real primacy, but it was very
far from that claimed by modern popes, who maintain that every Christian is
under their immediate jurisdiction.
St. Gregory’s theological teaching was based partly upon a careful study
of St. Augustine, and partly upon conceptions of angelology, demonology, and
purgatory which hitherto had been popular but undefined. He was not an original
thinker; but he was a great teacher, who consolidated the Western Catholicism
of his time, shaping it by his own earnest and straightforward spirit.
His missionary zeal was as fruitful as his doctrine. He made strenuous
efforts to uproot paganism in all directions, to banish Arianism from Spain, Donatism from Africa, and Manichaeism from Sicily. He wrote
to Domitian, Bishop of Melitene and Metropolitan of
Lesser Armenia, who had vainly endeavored to convert the Persian king, Chosroes. He tried to console that able prelate by
suggesting that, in spite of his failure, he would gain a reward, for “the
Ethiopian comes out of the bath as black as he went in, yet the bathman gets his pay”.
It had been Gregory’s desire
before he became Pope to undertake in person the conversion of Britain. This
was in some degree facilitated by his friendly relations with the Franks and
the fact that Ethelbert, King of Kent, had married a Christian princess. But
Gregory’s elevation to the papal chair made it impossible to carry out his
original plan, and so he chose for the great task his friend, the prior of his
own monastery on the Caelian Hill, Augustine. The slave boys whom he had bought
in the market-place were not yet sufficiently trained to go back to England.
But a group of monks was ready to accompany Augustine in the spring of 596, and
together they left Rome by the Ostian Gate and
started for the island, which the Saxon invaders had reduced to a wilderness.
Arrived in Provence, the monks were terrified at the tales of Saxon ferocity
which were poured into their ears, and they made Augustine return to Rome in
order to procure their recall. Gregory, as might have been expected, sent
Augustine back with a letter of affectionate encouragement to the wavering
missionaries, and a batch of epistles directed to the royal and ecclesiastical
personages who might be expected to help the travelers on their way through
Gaul to Britain.
The beginning of the conversion of the English must be reckoned as one
of the great achievements of St. Gregory. And to the English people it should
be a source of perennial satisfaction that he was a real leader, teacher, and
shepherd of souls.
MUHAMMAD
Great as was the influence of St. Gregory, it was not so great as that of his younger contemporary Muhammad. In him the Judaized Christianity, which had dogged the footsteps of
St. Paul and had long appeared to be dormant and almost dead, became incarnate,
and has to this day remained the most potent enemy of the Gospel. Some of the
lesser doctrines of Islam are of Persian origin and some practices are derived
from old Arabian heathenism. But the system as a whole can be traced to the
Jews and to the Ebionite sects which combined a crude Judaism with the belief that Jesus is the Messiah.
Muhammad praises 'the Gospel'; but it is more than doubtful whether he ever
possessed or read a copy. And Muslims who are confronted with his expressions
of reverence for the Gospel usually say that since his time the Christians have
corrupted their own sacred books.
Muhammad, 'the praised one', was born about 570, and first appears in
history as a prosperous middle-aged tradesman of Mecca in Arabia. The country
was then mainly pagan, but Jewish sects, both orthodox and unorthodox, were to
be found there, and Christianity was not unknown. The pagans worshipped fetish
idols and went on pilgrimages to the shrine of Allah, the principal deity of
Mecca. The government of the pagans was as a rule of a tribal character.
Civilization was of a very rudimentary character, but writing in the Arabic
script had begun about the time of the prophet’s birth, and Mecca was an
important trading centre. With genuine enthusiasm Muhammad set himself the
threefold task of a reform which was theological, social, and moral. His hope
was to exterminate idolatry, to replace the tribal system by an orderly
government which would put an end to wars and assassinations, and to stop
infanticide and, apparently, certain forms of sexual promiscuity. He was
assisted by his wife Khadija, who was fifteen years
his senior, and to the last retained such an influence over him that one of his
younger wives said that she was jealous of no one but “the toothless old
woman”.
During the first three years of his missionary activity he made a few
converts, but the Meccans had no desire to be under
an inspired dictator; and as it was against their scruple to shed human blood
in Mecca, they resolved to starve him to death. With masterly skill Muhammad
secured the sympathy of the pagans and the Jews of Medina, and the Meccans learnt too late that he held in his hands the city
which could kill their commerce. His flight (hijra) to Medina was on the
Jewish Day of Atonement, September the 20th, 622.
Once at Medina he either converted or crushed the pagans. He failed to
convert the Jews, who were fully aware of his gross ignorance of the Jewish
'Law' which he pretended to honor. But as the Jewish tribes would not
co-operate in opposing him, he dealt with them separately, and the last tribe
he massacred to a man. He then sowed dissension among the Arab tribes with such
success that he was able to enter Mecca in triumph.
Shortly before this happened, he became fully convinced that his
religious mission should be extended to the world, and is said to have sent
letters to all the monarchs whose names he knew bidding them to embrace Islam,
the religion of 'Surrender'. These missions were effective in South Arabia, but
at Mutah, in the Byzantine Empire, they led to the
first conflict between the Christians and the Muslims, a conflict which soon
cost the Christian Empire a heavy price.
Muhammad died June the 7th, 632, calling God to witness that he had
delivered his message. No man was ever a more complete summary of the good and
evil energies of his own nation. He was no vulgar impostor. He began his career
as a reformer, and he was a genius from first to last. But his character
steadily degenerated from the time when he became the despot of Medina and
determined to acquire political power. His treatment of the Jews was
treacherous and cruel, and his lasciviousness led him to actions which he could
only excuse on the ground of special revelations. But he was a man born to
command and to organize, skilful in selecting subordinates, and able to retain
their confidence. And he impressed upon multitudes the belief that God is one
God and that all Muslims are really equal. It is this twofold belief that gives
Islam its present power.
The success of Islam was almost inconceivably rapid. When the prophet
died all Arabia had accepted it. By the middle of the century Syria and
Palestine, Egypt and Persia, had succumbed, and before its close North Africa,
the home of St. Cyprian and St. Augustine, echoed with the creed “There is no
God but God and Muhammad is the apostle of God”.
The doctrine of Islam, i.e. the religion of surrender to God, is contained in his book the Koran (Qur'an)
which is regarded as the absolutely infallible words of God, and in the Hadith, narrations, or traditions of the words and actions
of the prophet. Many of these traditions are comparatively late and some are
obviously derived from Christian sources.
God is one in a strictly Unitarian sense. The doctrine of the Trinity is
repudiated; but the Christian Trinity is supposed to consist of God, Jesus, and
Mary. Mary the mother of our Lord is confused with Miriam the sister of Moses.
The Holy Spirit is mentioned, but is identified with the angel Gabriel.
God has communicated with man not only by inspired writing but also by
warning messengers. At one time Muhammad believed in seven, of whom three were
Arabs, and the remaining four Noah, Lot, Abraham (sent to Nimrod!), and Moses.
Later he adopts the Aramaic word Nabi, prophet, for
such messengers, and includes among them Adam, David, and Elijah. Greater than
all former messengers was Jesus. In exalting Him,
Muhammad was able to exalt himself by representing Jesus as having prophesied
his coming. Jesus was born of a virgin, was sinless, the Word of God, the
Messiah, 'a spirit from God', worked miracles, and was taken up to heaven. It
is passionately denied that He is the Son of God, though the word which
Muhammad uses for 'Son' is quite distinct from the word used in Christian Arabic,
and signifies one physically begotten. His death upon the cross is also denied.
Following the opinion of the Docetic Ebionites, it is taught that another figure was
miraculously substituted for Jesus and crucified in His stead.
There will be a last judgment; heaven and hell await mankind. Heaven is
a place of sensual pleasure, and little or nothing in Muhammad's own
description of it indicates anything else. A nobler view was taught by some
later Muslim theologians, while some of the traditions develop the baser
features of Muhammad's paradise.
A Muslim may have only four wives, though the prophet himself was
permitted by special 'revelations' to marry more. The number of lawful
concubines has no limit. This degrading view of womanhood and Muhammad's gross
example have proved the running sore of Islam, and done far more evil than the
good effected in hot countries by the prohibition of pork and wine.
Circumcision is maintained, as it was by the Ebionites.
Great importance is attached to almsgiving, and every Muslim must pray
five times a day towards Mecca. Originally prayers were made towards Jerusalem,
the Sabbath was kept, and a fast day similar to the Jewish Day of Atonement.
But when the prophet definitely separated from the Jews, he directed that his
followers should pray towards Mecca and keep Friday as the day of meeting for
worship. In imitation of the Christian Lent, he appointed that the thirty days
of the month Ramadan should be kept as fast days. The Muslim may neither eat
nor drink between sunrise and sunset in that month, but after sunset he may
feast. The result is that the poor working classes suffer, while the rich can
rest by day and revel by night. To fight against non-Muslims when called upon
to do so by the proper authority is regarded as a peculiarly meritorious
action.
A pilgrimage to Mecca is incumbent upon all who have the means to
undertake it, and it is an institution which has a great effect in
consolidating the different Muslim races. The important Shiah sect has substituted pilgrimages to the shrines of saints for pilgrimages to
Mecca. And as early as AD 691 the Khalif Abd al-Malik built at Jerusalem the splendid mosque known as the Dome of the Rock, hoping
for political reasons that pilgrims would be satisfied with visiting it instead
of going to Mecca. He also intended that it should surpass in beauty the church
of the Resurrection over the grave of Christ, a church which the followers of
Muhammad, in their hatred of the Christian faith, nicknamed 'the Church of the
Dunghill'.
Western Christendom was gradually able to subdue the Germanic invaders
and lead them to Christ. But Eastern Christendom, distracted by controversies,
could not stem the great tide of Arab fanaticism and ferocity.
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