point of view. A man may be a very sincere Catholic and a very poor statesman. And can anyone who sets himself to consider the question in the light of the facts and analogies of history, suppose that had James II. succeeded in his machinations against English liberty, the Catholic cause would have been eventually the gainer? In his day the anti-Catholic tradition was deeply rooted in the English mind. And the time had passed when the religion of a nation could be changed by the will of a Sovereign. A few more converts might have been made of the calibre of most of those who followed him into Catholic communion: men whose honour was less than doubtful, and women whose reputation was more than cracked. But in the long run the result would inevitably have been that instead of " a revolution in due course of law"-to use the Duke of Wellington's phrase-we should have had a Revolution uncontrolled by law, for our laws would have perished a Revolution of which a general proscription of Papists would undoubtedly have been a marked feature. And so the last state of the Catholic religion in this country would have been worse than the first. Doubtless, we should all have been Jacobites had we lived in those days. It is as Clough asks What do we see? Each man a space Of some few yards before his face. The broader and truer view of political struggles is, as a general rule, hidden from the generation engaged in them, and revealed only to posterity. But there is one notable exception to the rule. It is mere matter of fact that in "the princely line of the Roman Pontiffs" a larger and more prescient mind has ruled than can be traced in any secular dynasty; in any school of statesmen wise merely with the wisdom of this world. As Cardinal Newman has happily said :-" If ever there was a power on earth who had an eye for the times, who has confined himself to the practicable, and has been happy in his anticipations, whose words have been facts, and whose commands prophecies, such is he, in the history of ages, who sits from generation to generation in the chair of the Apostles, as the Vicar of Christ and the Doctor of His Church."* And so at the momentous period of our national history of which I am speaking, we find the illustrious Pontiff who then sustained the care of all the Churches-surely one of the greatest figures in the annals of the Papacy-we find Innocent XI. disapproving strongly of the policy of James II., and sustaining with all his influence the cause of William for the rescue of our perishing liberties. It is, of *“Idea of a University," p. 13. 66 + Perhaps I may be allowed to repeat here the following note appended to Part I. of this Essay :- Much exceedingly valuable information on this subject will be found in the seventh volume of Droysen's 'Geschichte der Prussische Politik.' It has long been known that Innocent saw with course, extremely improbable that Innocent was actuated by any special regard for our constitutional rights, or indeed, that he possessed much information about them. It was that " eye for the times," of which Cardinal Newman speaks, that guided himthat prophetical presage, too amply justified by the event, as to the ultimate issue of the system of monarchical absolutism which found its type in Louis XIV. His policy, as we know, was openly blamed then by many of his spiritual children, and secretly wondered at by many more. But now, surely, we may confess its wisdom: now, when England stands out as well nigh the only country in Europe in which the framework of society still rests upon the foundations-never overthrown in this nation-of Christianity and freedom, in which "civil and religious liberty" is not an empty phrase but a solid fact. Now, if ever [wrote Lord Macaulay in 1848, and his words come to us with no less weight at the present time], we ought to be able to appreciate the whole importance of the stand which was made by our forefathers against the House of Stuart. All around us the world is convulsed by the agonies of great nations. Governments, which lately seemed likely to stand during ages, have been on a sudden shaken and overthrown. The proudest capitals of Western Europe have streamed with civil blood. All evil passions, the thirst of gain and the thirst of vengeance, the antipathy of class to class, the antipathy of race to race, have broken loose from the control of divine and human laws. Fear and anxiety have clouded the faces and depressed the hearts of millions. Trade has been suspended, and industry paralyzed. The rich have become poor; and the poor have become poorer. Doctrines hostile to all sciences, to all arts, to all industry, to all domestic charities, doctrines which, if carried into effect, would in thirty years undo all that thirty centuries have done for mankind, and would make the fairest provinces of France and Germany as savage as Congo or Patagonia, have been avowed from the tribune and defended by the sword. Europe has been threatened with subjugation by barbarians compared with whom the barbarians who marched under Attila and Alboin were enlightened and humane. The truest friends of the people have with deep sorrow owned that interests more precious than any political privileges were in jeopardy, and that it might be necessary to sacrifice even liberty in order to save civilization. Meanwhile in our island the regular course of government has never been for a day interrupted. The few bad men who longed for license and plunder have not had the courage to confront for one moment the strength of a loyal nation, rallied in firm array round a parental throne. And if it be asked what has made us to differ from others, the answer is that we never lost what others are wildly and blindly seeking to regain. It is because we had a preserving revolution in the seventeenth century that we have not had a destroying revolution pleasure the downfall of James. But Professor Droysen's researches have thrown a flood of light upon the Pontiff's share in bringing about that event." in the nineteenth. It is because we had freedom in the midst of servitude that we have order in the midst of anarchy. For the authority of law, for the security of property, for the peace of our streets, for the happiness of our homes, our gratitude is due, under Him who raises and pulls down nations at his pleasure, to the Long Parliament, to the Convention, and to William of Orange.* W. S. LILLY. ART. II. THE CHRISTIAN EMPERORS AND THE PAGAN TEMPLES. 1. L'Art Païen sous les Empereurs Chrétiens. Par PAUL ALLARD. Paris: Didier et Cie. 1879. 2. Histoire de la Destruction du Paganisme en Occident. Par A. BEUGNOT. Deux tomes. Paris: Firmin-Didot. 1835. 3. Bullettino di Archeologia Cristiana, 1867, 1868. Del Com. mendatore GIOV. B. DE Rossi. Roma. M. PAUL ALLARD has done great service to the Church by bringing out in sharp relief the benefits which the human race owes to the action of Christian principles. He did this very effectively in the case of slavery, and in his last work he has vindicated the Church from the charge of fanaticism with regard to the monuments of Pagan art. He thus contrasts favourably with Beugnot, whose work, full as it is of most valuable information, is disfigured by his evident inclination to credit any story which tells to the disadvantage of Christian prelates, and his sympathies with Paganism rather than with Christianity. The same spirit may be traced in our own Dean Milman, and of course in Gibbon. We could wish that M. Allard would undertake to re-write the "History of the Destruction of Paganism." He has the advantage of all the sources of information of which M. Beugnot has made such use, while he has also at hand the vast additional matter which the scientific labours of De Rossi have brought within the reach of all students of Christian Archæology. His work on Pagan Art shows how well he is able to apply these varied materials, and the admirable Christian spirit with which he writes wins our confidence and respect. In the present article we propose to deal with only a portion of the great subject of the Christian treatment of Pagan art. Far from attempting to epitomize the volumes of Beugnot, we * "History of England," vol. ii. p. 397. shall not follow the history even to the extent to which M. Allard goes, but confine ourselves to the treatment of the Pagan temples by the Christian emperors up to the time of the capture of Rome by the Goths. The greatest revolution that ever took place in the history of the world is the conversion of the Roman empire from heathenism to Christianity, and every phase of that revolution is full of the deepest interest. At the death of Augustus there was not so much as one Christian in the world; at the death of Constantine, 323 years later, more than half the then known world was Christian. And this revolution was effected by means which are even more worthy of attention than the fact itself. To use the eloquent words of the Comte de Champagny Where is there any mention of an insurrection, a league, or a riot among the Christians? Here was no one of the ordinary circumstances of a revolution. Those who were proscribed, concealed themselves, or fled; those who were arrested, suffered death without resistance. And this is repeated thousands of times, and each succeeding age saw it repeated more frequently. Every time that force resolved to destroy it found a greater number to be destroyed. Insomuch that, at last, this war, in which one party only inflicted death and never suffered it, while the other party only suffered and never inflicted it, ended in the triumph of the party which died over that which slew. The sword fell shivered against breasts which offered themselves to it. This And this event stands by itself in the history of the world. universal resignation, this courage, so heroically, so constantly passive; and still more this triumph, won only by dying, has no single parallel in history. No sect, no religion, has ever encountered the sword with the absolute passiveness which was the characteristic of the primitive Christians; or if there has been any one which ever practised it, that one has been crushed. Christianity alone, so far as I can learn, has ever submitted itself in this manner; Christianity alone, most unquestionably, has ever gained such a victory by so submitting itself.* But was the victory gained by this more than mortal patience used as nobly as it had been won? Did the Christians when they came into power use that power for the welfare of the human race, or did they take advantage of it to persecute those who had oppressed them so long and so cruelly? Looking at the broad facts of history, we may safely affirm that they did use it nobly, because the few exceptions that a close examination brings to light, disappear at the distance at which we must stand if we would take in the whole of the fourth and fifth centuries at a glance. The Fathers of the Christian Church knew how to combine a supreme hatred of idolatry with a tender compassion for the idolators themselves. Nay, they went further. They knew how *"Césars," iii. p 486. to gather out and preserve, for the benefit of future generations, all that was really good and worth preserving in Pagan literature, Pagan art, and even in Pagan social and religious practices. Our subject at present is the treatment of the heathen temples by the laws enacted by Christian emperors, under the influence of the Fathers of the Christian Church. The temples were the very seat and stronghold of heathen idolatry. Their altars and statues were the very instruments of that impious worship in which the Christians believed that the heathen offered sacrifice to devils and not to God. It would have been a very pardonable revenge if the Christians had utterly demolished every temple and altar and statue that bore the name of those false gods in whose honour they had been so cruelly persecuted. Such an act might have been justified by zeal for the spiritual welfare of the surviving Pagans, as well as justice to their own martyred brethren. When Henry VIII. wished to blot out the memory of the Pope from the minds of Englishmen he had no scruple in destroying almost all the MSS. in which his name was mentioned, however richly they were illuminated. When Cromwell wished to annihilate prelacy he had no scruple about smashing painted windows and rich carving in churches and cathedrals. Why should the Christians of the fourth century have had any tenderness towards the symbols of a still living and vicious idolatry? It seems so natural to conclude that they would be thoroughgoing Iconoclasts that few readers are disposed to question the assertion of Gibbon, that "The zeal of the emperors was excited to vindicate their own honour and that of the Deity; and the temples of the Roman world were subverted about sixty years after the conversion of Constantine."* I shall bring evidence to prove that this assertion is very far from being borne out by facts of history. The historian passes on to an eloquent plea for these buildings. He says:— Many of these temples were the most splendid and beautiful monuments of Grecian architecture, and the emperor himself was interested not to deface the splendour of his own cities, or to diminish the value of his own possessions. Those stately edifices might be suffered to remain as so many lasting trophies of the victory of Christ. In the decline of the arts they might be usefully converted into magazines, manufactories, or places of public assembly; and perhaps, when the walls of the temple had been sufficiently purified by holy rites, the worship of the true Deity might be allowed to expiate the ancient guilt of idolatry.† The course which Gibbon, and Milman,‡ following in his *Vol. v. p. 92. |