THE FAHERS OF THE DESERT

CHRISTIANITY IN FREEDOM.

 

THE Emperor Constantine, as the instrument of God, delivered from outward oppression, and defended from heathen persecution, the faith which the Son of God brought down from heaven for the redemption and salvation of mankind, which He sealed with the miracles of His life and death, and which He ordained for the safe keeping and propagation of an institute whose holy constitution He had Himself in His divine wisdom arranged and established. But this faith did not take its place amongst other religions as merely of equal birth with them; it laid claim to the spiritual government of the whole world, as being the only one revealed by the Eternal Wisdom itself, and therefore possessed of the sole right to it.

Other religious systems—those of the Egyptians and of the Greeks, of the Indians and of the Persians, as well as of the Romans, and even that of the Israelites—belonged always to their own country, and their own people; they were separated from one another by mountains and rivers, bounded by diversity of language, and confined by the various modes of thinking of the nations that adhered to them. The deity which was worshipped on the southern coast of the sea was unknown on its northern coast; and there stood on the western slopes of a mountain temples and altars whose rites were strange or despised on the eastern ones. Nations took a kind of pride in this very thing, that their gods were the gods of their own land.

The likeness of God in which they were created was defaced in them, because they had fallen away from eternal truth, and the impress of grace had given place to that of nature. As all their powers of mind, of will, and of feeling, took root in this natural soil, they sank into a state the opposite to that of grace; they created their own gods, and created them such as in all times egotism without faith creates them, for self, for its own ends, for its own wants and inclinations.

These idols were images of the godless interior of man, and man served them under the delusion that they served him in return—that they granted him their power and their protection, and that they defended his own home, while to foreign peoples and lands they were hostile and threatening. Had he been obliged to share the gods of his own country with another people, he would have considered it prejudicial to his possessions, and destructive of his rights.

These trivial, narrow-minded divisions had developed into the extreme confusion of polytheism, and had reached their greatest excess when the Son of God became man in order to transform this pitiable dismemberment into blissful unity, and to make all peoples and nations of the earth now and for ever the children of one Father, and the worshippers of one God. The religion of Jesus lay claim to one attribute which for four thousand years had never yet been claimed; it was divinely infallible, it alone bestowed salvation, and therefore it was not to be restricted to any one time or nation. For to all men, and in every time, Christ spike, "I am the way, the truth, and the life; " the way that you must follow, the truth that you must receive, the life that you are to enjoy to all eternity. The first centuries showed what an echo these words found in the hearts of men; for during them was fulfilled the prophecy of Christ, "If I be lifted up from the earth, I will draw all things to myself". This attraction was so powerful and so universal, that instead of being extinguished and repressed by the lives and deaths of the martyrs of those three first centuries, it was enkindled and animated by them. At the end of those three centuries, Christianity had triumphed over heathenism.

But it did not follow that ea eh individual Christian had, in union with his divine Saviour, "overcome the world". The preference openly shown by Constantine for Christians, the outward privileges with which he favoured them, the great respect which he expressed on every occasion for bishops and priests, his care for the worthy celebration of the divine mysteries, the extraordinary generosity with which he raised the houses of God to the highest pitch of magnificence—all this contributed to induce many to join a religion which so powerful and so wise an emperor valued thus highly. For he always considered himself, and announced himself to be a Christian although he was not baptized, because the opinion was then prevalent, that baptism should only be administered on the deathbed for fear of the misfortune of losing the grace of baptism by sin.

Constantine spoke and acted as a Christian, though not always as a perfect one, and this was sufficient to cause many to follow his example. They had formerly worshipped the heathen emperors as gods, they had cursed and persecuted according to their every caprice and humour, and had acknowledged no higher rule of faith than their will. The immense revolution of ideas which now changed the inmost hearts of many, affected others only outwardly, and led them merely in form along the path trodden by Constantine. The example of those in power works in wide circles, but it is impressive and attractive only in proportion to the holiness of him who gives it. Therefore streams of men now poured into the Church of Christ, who remained ignorant of her nature, who moved only on the surface of life, and never reached the treasury of graces nor attained the object for which graces euable us to strive.

But the elder Christians who had become confessors through the hardships of the days that were past, and who had come out of the great tribulation, rejoiced and praised the wonderful works of God which He had done for them in the world, till lately so heathen and so hostile. Many thousands of them came forth from the mines of Numidia, from the quarries of Upper Egypt, from the mountains and forests of Asia Minor, from the deserts of Arabia, where they had lived in banishment or voluntary exile, to return to their homes and families, to their own hearths and the beloved sanctuaries of their religion.

After a separation of years, the father once more beheld his children, the husband his wife, the friend the companion of his youth, and the priest and bishop were reunited to their beloved flocks. Many of the confessors bore upon their bodies the marks of the sufferings which they had undergone on account of their constancy in the faith; they were one-eyed, or they had been lamed in the knee-joint with heated iron to make flight impossible for them, and so sent to work in the mines. Others had become gray and infirm through sickness, ill-usage, and unheard-of privations. But this caused them to take part all the more joyfully in the exultation of their brethren in the faith; for they could say with the Apostle St. Paul, "I am not ashamed; for I know whom I have believed."

They had experienced with him that "though our outward man is corrupted; yet the inward man is renewed day by day." They knew that the genuine Christian life is always outwardly Passion-week, and inwardly Easter, a daily death and resurrection; and that "the present tribulation, which is light and momentary, worketh for us above measure exceedingly, an eternal weight of glory." An earthly reflection of this glory was now shining upon the world: the truth had triumphed, the truth was worshipped, and men considered it a happiness and an honour to be counted amongst its worshippers. And because their joy was directed to heavenly things, it was pure, and free from rancour against their former persecutors, and from over-estimation of self in the present triumph. For it was not they who had wrought the triumph, but it was the fulfilment of the prophecy of the holy Psalmist, King David. "The kings of the earth stood up, and the princes met together, against the Lord and against His Christ. Let us break their bonds asunder, and let us cast away their yoke from us. He that dwelleth in heaven shall laugh at them: and the Lord shall deride them. Then shall He speak to them in His anger, and trouble them in His rage. And now, 0 ye kings, understand; receive instruction, you that judge the earth. Serve ye the Lord with fear, and rejoice unto Him with trembling. Embrace discipline, lest at any time the Lord be angry, and you perish from the just way". These few words contain a brief prophetic sketch of the fate of the Church in the first centuries. Then the Emperor Constantine began to "understand", and the war came to an end, which his predecessors had carried on against the everlasting God, to their own prejudice and infamy.

The historian Eusebius, Bishop of Cesarea, an eye-witness of those times, relates that the Christians sang with delight the hymns of David, in which, fourteen centuries before, he had prophesied the conversion of the world. "Sing to the Lord a new canticle: sing to the Lord all the earth. Declare His glory among the Gentiles: His wonders among all people." "The Lord hath reigned, let the earth rejoice." "The Lord hath made known His salvation: He hath revealed His justice in the sight of the Gentiles. He hath remembered His mercy and His truth toward the house of Israel. All the ends of the earth have seen the salvation of our God." For Christianity did not now enter the world as a stranger, unauthenticated and unannounced. A solemn succession of heralds had preceded her, and her first promulgation sounded in paradise when the Lord God himself awakened a distant hope in the hearts of the two most miserable of the human race as He spoke to the serpent, "I will put enmities between thee and the woman, and thy seed and her seed: she shall crush thy head, and thou shalt lie in wait for her heel." Thenceforth the hope of this Messias, this Deliverer, who was to tread the serpent under foot, spread through the whole race of the people of Israel like a vein of pure and shining gold in the hard and dark rock. Thenceforth the inspired prophets, whose clear sight penetrated beyond this world and rested on the divine promise, revived by their predictions the sparks of hope often too feebly glowing in a people who preferred sensual idolatry to faith in a Redeemer, and consoled the better part of the nation by the thought of the brighter times that were to come. "For they strengthened Jacob, and redeemed themselves by strong faith."

Then Isaias spoke, pointing out the coming of the Messias. "The Lord himself shall give you a sign; behold a virgin shall conceive, and bear a son, and His name shall be called Emmanuel, God with us." "Send forth, 0 Lord, the Lamb, the ruler of the earth." He said to the faint-hearted, "Take courage and fear not; behold, God himself will come and will save you." And he exultingly sang, "For a Child is born to us, and a Son is given to us, and the government is upon His shoulder, and His name shall be called Wonderful." Then he mourned over the "Despised, a man of sorrows, who hath borne our infirmities and carried our sorrows; He was wounded for our iniquities, He was bruised for our sins, He was offered because it was His own will." Again, He broke forth, in triumph, "Arise, be enlightened, 0 Jerusalem for behold darkness shall cover the earth, and a mist the people; but the Lord shall arise upon thee, and His glory shall be seen upon thee." The prophets all spoke in this manner, invariably pointing out the coming of the Messias, and even its minutest circumstances.

More than five hundred years before Isaias, David had said, "They have dug my hands and feet, they have numbered all my bones, they parted my garments amongst them, and upon my vesture they cast lots." And the nearer the fulfilment approached, the more precise was the prediction. Daniel, "the man of desires," calculates the coming of the Lord accurately, under the form of weeks. Aggeus cries, "Thus saith the Lord of hosts: Yet one little while and I will move the heaven and the earth, and the sea and the dry land. And I will move all nations: and the desired of all nations shall come . . . and I will give peace." And Zacharias asks, "What are these wounds in the midst of thy hands?" But Malachias, the last of these holy seers, exclaims, "Behold He cometh," and the voice of the prophets ceased with him.

The heathen heard with amazement of these things, of this marvellous connexion of the present with the past, of the destinies of man with the designs of God, of these prophecies, all of similar nature, which fell from so many different lips, in the course of thousands of years, and, unconfused by the storms which disturbed and ravaged nations and kingdoms, and undeviating in the midst of the deep immorality in which mankind was wearing itself away, announced a powerful Saviour, a Redeemer for the whole world. And many of the heathen embraced the faith in this Redeemer from deep conviction. What grace began, science carried on, in order to win souls in all ways for the spiritual kingdom.

Lactantius the African, the tutor of the Emperor Crispus, wrote several works in Ciceronian Latin, in which he enlightens the ignorance of the heathen, clears away misunderstandings, points out the road to the truth, and strengthens and encourages those who are already following it. He explains thus the final end of man, and the object of his existence. "The world was created that we might be born. We were born that we might know the Creator of the world and ourselves. We know Him that we may worship Him. We worship Him that we may receive immortality in reward for our sacrifice, because the worship of God requires from us the offering up of all our powers. We are endowed with immortality that we may, like the angels, serve for ever our sovereign Lord and Father, and form for God an everlasting kingdom." The Christian Cicero, as he was accustomed to be called, on account of his refined and winning eloquence, died about the year 330. At the same time Eusebius, Bishop of Cesarea, one of the most learned men of his time, or indeed of antiquity, wrote two works in the Greek language upon the "Preparation for the Gospel," and the "Proofs of the Gospel," which form together one whole, wherein are contained more full and convincing proofs of the divinity of the Christian religion than are to be found in any other book of Christian antiquity that has come down to us.

The dark sides of it are the errors against orthodoxy of the learned bishop. He was prevented from penetrating beyond the surface of things by a certain dryness of understanding which often accompanies learning, with its compilations and its comparisons, but which is opposed to the flight of the soul and the abstraction of the mind in an invisible world and its divine mysteries, of which the kingdom of grace and of redemption is the most sublime. This was the excuse of the assent given by this renowned writer to the erroneous and degrading idea of the Son of God which is branded with the name of Arius. The fundamental doctrine of Christianity, the mystery of the three Persons in God, was sealed to him. The man of knowledge should be in an especial manner a man of faith and of prayer, lest he should be deprived of the choicest fruits of his intellect.

Whichever way the spirit of paganism turned, it encountered adversaries instead of support. On the throne, the Emperor Constantine and his family; in the world, the most eminent, the most respected; in science, the most learned. The idols had fallen in spite of emperors, they would fall still more readily when no imperial hand was stretched out for their support. Christian ideas and opinions pervaded daily life: marriage was raised to the dignity of a sacrament, to a figure of the union between Christ and His Church, therefore sanctified and indissoluble. What a civilizing influence would this alone exercise over all the relations of life! For by this woman was placed by the side of man, on the same footing, and with equal privileges. She ceased to be a thing which could be bought, which could be forsaken and resumed. The benediction of the priest blessed the covenant which two redeemed souls made in order to form themselves and their children, the children of God, for the kingdom of heaven. The whole education of the children was transplanted into another soil and a different atmosphere when the mother ceased to be considered as a thing or as a slave. The child inherited its share of advantages in the reinstatement of woman in her lost rights. The child that had also been looked upon hitherto as a thing or a slave, the possession of it father, which he was at liberty to repudiate and to slay, was considered and treated as a creature of God, and became a member of an institution which Christianity alone has produced, namely, the family; and as such it had its rights, its claims, and its duties.

Slavery was too deeply interwoven into all the habits of ordinary life to be suddenly and universally uprooted. The slaves formed the majority of the population, and being without property or possessions, had neither the means, nor in many cases the power or the capability of procuring an independent livelihood. It often happened that when rich people were converted to Christianity they gave their slaves their liberty, and the necessary means of subsistence. But others either could not or would not do this. This gave occasion to the great bishops, the renowned teachers in the Church, to insist with fiery zeal upon a purely Christian relation between masters and slaves, upon the education and training of the latter, and even upon their emancipation. This zeal was so successful that a series of laws was enacted in favour of the slaves, those very slaves who, two years before, were trodden under foot by their heathen masters like very worms. The sunshine of the new era also brought forth into sight the holy blossoms of brotherly love.

Works of mercy had been at all times the favourite occupation of the Christians, but hitherto, on account of persecution, they had been hidden in the darkness of the dungeons and the catacombs, or confined to the privacy of their own houses. Christ, the Judge of the world, will one day reward or condemn souls, will lead them into the kingdom of heaven, or banish them into everlasting fire, according to the works of mercy they have accomplished or neglected, and by no other rule. How zealous therefore would the Christians be to prepare for the day of judgment now that the field for this holy activity was open to them, bearing in mind the promise, "Blessed are the merciful for they shall obtain mercy."

Refuges for pilgrims, and hospitals for the sick and plague-stricken, were established; orphans and foundlings, of which there were so many amongst the heathen, were cared for; and institutions for tending the infirm, the crippled, and the aged, took their rise. The bishops suggested these things, and the faithful carried them out. Immense sums, and even whole estates were given in this way to Christ in His poor. Holy people, both men and women, did not content themselves with sacrificing their goods and possessions, but they gave themselves up to the service of our Blessed Lord in His suffering members, and laboured humbly and devotedly in the hospitals. In smaller places where the laity did not possess the means, pious bishops turned their own houses into hospitals and refuges, or tenderly took the needy to live with them in order to perform services of love towards them, and thereby to participate in the blessing which God has pronounced upon such deeds.

St. Augustine, Bishop of Hippo, ate at the same table with the sick. The holy Pope Gregory the Great waited daily at table upon twelve poor men. The legend relates that a thirteenth was once found amongst them, and that St. Gregory recognised in him with surprised humility our Blessed Lord Himself. At that time the doctrine of the meritoriousness of good works had not been called in question by the assertion that good works should be done without any regard to merit, which is equal to saying without any love of God. For as the Son of God has expressly said that He will give "life everlasting" to the " blessed of His Father" who have fed Him in the hungry and covered Him in the naked, it follows that those who perform good works with a different intention from the hope of a reward in everlasting life, with which He wills they should be performed, do not believe in the Son of God, do not love Him, and consequently do not love God.

And in what does this reward consist? This He also answers with the promise, "I myself will be your exceeding great reward." And "He who has promised is faithful". No Christian doubted that these precepts and promises proceeded directly from the Heart of God, and therefore that they would conduct those who faithfully followed them back to the Heart of God. Hospitality was also lovingly exercised in honour of the Divine Stranger upon earth. To guard against its abuse, it was the custom that each wayfarer should exhibit a certificate from his bishop, so as to be able everywhere to prove himself to be a member of the Catholic Church. The richer churches showed sympathy to the poorer ones, and sent them assistance, a liberality which the Roman Church exercised to the greatest extent of all. In one word, wherever suffering, infirmity, or want showed itself, there was the hand of love ready with its helpful deeds; and this was the first use which Christianity made of its youthful freedom, beginning thus its dominion over the world.